London Life. Tales

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Re: London Life. Tales

Post: # 33328Unread post Bazil
23 Sep 2018, 18:16

London Life
London Life | 1929
________________________________________
Limbless People I Have Met
by Wallace Stort
Though the one-legged girl in general is, of course, not quite a curiosity in our streets, restaurants, theatres, etc., the pretty, attractive, smartly dressed girl so handicapped is by no means common. One encounters such girls at rare intervals; but when one does meet them, one always seems to get the same impression about them. I won't go so far as to say that in every case they take a kind of morbid pleasure in showing off their "incomplete charms" to quote a phrase that seems to have captured the imagination of one-legged lady readers of "London Life" — but it certainly seems so in some cases, while in others there is at least no evidence of any wish to hide the loss of a leg.
I have often observed — and I dare say other readers who are interested in this subject will bear me out — that a pretty one-legged girl will often be more daring in her dress than the ordinary normally formed girl, going in for the extremes of fashion skirts barely reaching the knee, filmy flesh coloured stockings, the frailest and most open of extremely high heeled slippers, etc. — all of which must necessarily attract very general attention to the wearer.
A sensation in a restaurant I remember the mild sensation that was caused in a well known West End restaurant a couple of years ago by the entrance of an extremely pretty girl and her boy one evening. The girl was most daringly dressed in a slim, formfitting very brief frock of some delicate, filmy stuff, below which was revealed, from just above the knee, only one slender, silken leg and a small, satin-slippered foot. Her small, closely shingled head was held up with a sort of pert, amused insonciance as she swung gracefully and easily on a pair of dainty, white enamelled crutches, and it was only too evident that she enjoyed the little sensation she caused. I was convinced that here was a situation in which the girl was completely aware of the subtle fascination she exercised, and found a funny, but normal pleasure in making the best of it.
Travelling one-legged girl
By the way, in this connection, I wonder if the very pretty, always attractively dressed little Jewess, about nineteen, whom I encountered quite half-a-dozen times during last summer, and always on a very late tube train, is a reader of "London Life"?
If she is, I hope she won't mind my introducing her into this article, and perhaps she might be induced to send a few lines about herself to the correspondence columns?
She uses only a single, slenderly built, black, polished crutch, on which she swings quite expertly, and her costumes have all been of the very smartest, close fitting, coat and skirt type, the coat short and tight, and the skirt short and tighter.
The skirt barely touches the kneecap of her only leg — a rather plump, but quite shapely limb, clad in a thin silk stocking of that rose-brown shade that has for some time been superseding flesh colour, a very low patent leather pump with a heel a little above the normal height clinging tightly to a small, fleshy foot.
She cannot but be conscious of the general attention she attracts, and I have a very shrewd idea that she rather enjoys the undisguised interest interest of her fellow-travellers. Perhaps, if she reads these lines she will tell us what are her feelings and opinions about the matter?
A strange experience
Reference to this attractive little Jewess reminds me of an odd little experience I had about three years ago, when a business matter took me one evening down Whitechapel way. Round an open door in a side street were gathered four or five Jewish girls and boys, talking and larking together.
All were dressed in that extremely smart fashion that is so characteristic of young Jews in London the girls in short, tight costumes, with plump shapely legs displayed in flesh— coloured silk stockings.
An organ was playing jazz tunes close by, and the party, breaking up into couples, danced to the music. One girl standing in the doorway, looked on laughing for a while, and then one of the boys, snatching at her arm, dragged her into the street and jigged away with her.
It was only then that I saw that the girl had only one leg and had, up to then, been standing leaning against the doorway, unsupported by crutches. She was laughing a good deal, but managed to keep up with her partner, hopping quite easily in time to the music.
I paused for a while to watch the unusual and fascinating performance, and when at last dancing was finished, the girl stood in the street with the others, quite easily balanced on her single leg.
Daintily poised on one leg like a bird
Very similar, in its way, was the case of the pretty young housewife I once saw brushing the doorstep of her little villa in one of the brand new suburbs that are springing up in the outskirts of London. She, too was very daintily poised on only a single shapely leg, very well displayed by her short skirt, and as she used her brush she hopped blithely about in a fascinating effortless manner.
I am usually rather sceptical of the stories one reads of tremendously high heels, supposedly worn by lady devotees of this fashion. I'm afraid I can't quite swallow these seven and eight inch heels one is told about, and certainly I have never come across them at any time in any country. But the highest heel I ever saw was on the slipper of a one-legged lady. That heel I imagine was at least five or six inches high, but I was surprised to learn that it was no more than four inches.
Dominated the drawing room
The lady in question I met some years ago at a studio party given by an artist friend of mine, and she was certainly one of the dominating figures in a room crowded with interesting personalities. She was a magnificent, Junoesque woman, somewhere about forty, still strikingly beautiful, with a swelling, voluptuous bust and curving figure that would be very demode to-day, but was, all the same, very striking and imposing.
She reclined on a couch throughout the evening, receiving her many friends like a queen of old. Her gown of form-fitting, clinging silk, though it was long and sweeping, was draped revealingly about her figure, and showed only too obviously that she had only one leg, and, in fact, made it plain that the other leg was completely absent from the hip, as the supple silk fell emptily on one side just by the hipjoint, without revealing any suggestion of a stump. From the draped skirt there emerged coquettishly a neat silken ankle and shapely foot, on which was the wonderful slipper with the high tapering heel and with four thin jewelled bars crossing the very high, swelling in-step — an the whole ensemble was most intriguing and fascinating.
Sought after by artists
I understood that the lady had been a favourite model of many famous artists until an accident had resulted in the complete loss of her leg. She never used crutches, by the way, and, in fact, never walked, but spent her time either on her couch or in her bath-chair, being carried from one to the other when necessary.
She referred to herself — with quite cheerful resignation, it should be added — as broken and cast aside; but I was sure she was quite appreciative of the attention she attracted, and she enjoyed the whole thing immensely.
I should imagine that the type of limbless girl one most rarely meets — outside a circus side-show or fair, of course — is the completely armless girl. In the article on limbless beauties referred to at the beginning of the present article, I dealt at some length with a case that came within my own experience, as I happened, as a boy, to be friendly with a family the youngest daughter of which was born without arms. I was privileged to be present at her wedding, and witnessed her signature written with her toes. But this is the only case of an armless girl living privately with which I have ever come into personal contact.
Armless girl's wedding
Early last year a pretty armless girl of nineteen was married in the North of England, and she was quite a well-known figure in the little town in which she lived. She even assisted her father in his small tobacconist's business, and attracted a lot of customers by the fact that she served the cigarettes, etc., very neatly with her foot
In America, too, there are at present several cases of armless school girls attending ordinary mixed schools and mingling quite freely with the ordinary normally formed scholars. But, in spite of these isolated examples, the fact remains that girls of this type are seldom, if ever casually encountered.
This is not altogether the case with girls who have lost both legs. I have run across quite a number of girls in bath or wheeled chairs, of whom I had he impression that they were quite legless, though I could not always be quite sure. In a few cases, however, the fact was only too obvious. Only a year ago I saw a pretty flapper carried past me as I sat in a stall at a matinee at the London Coliseum, and I also saw her carried out to a waiting saloon car after the performance. And it was abundantly evident, by the way her brief skirt fell in slack, empty folds from the hips, that she was entirely without legs. She chatted quite gaily with her mother who carried her — I took it it was her mother who carried her and was a very charming, happy-looking girl, despite her great handicap.
Happy though handicapped
Another laughing girl similarly handicapped I remember meeting nearly every day during a short holiday at Bournemouth a few years ago. Sitting in a wheeled chair which was propelled by a boy I supposed was her fiancee, as she wore an engagement ring, she appeared every morning on the front of the pier, to listen to the band. The bright-coloured rug that was tucked about her did not disguise the fact that she was legless, as nothing at all appeared below it, and, in fact, the rug very frequently revealed, by its close fit about the hips, and its empty slackness below, that the girl was without legs from the hips, and very probably had not even stumps.
The pair was always the object of general and sympathetic interest, but neither appeared in the least concerned, and seemed to be very gay and happy in each other's company. People who professed to know about her said she had been born without legs, but I never definitely learned whether this was actually so or not.
I have reserved for the last an experience which intrigued and mystified me at the time of its occurence and which, I fancy, will be equally puzzling to the readers. It may be thought that the whole episode is pure fiction, but I assure sceptical readers that it actually happened exactly as related.
A Kensington puzzle
While home on leave during the early years of the war I happened one evening to pass a broad, aristocratic Kensington street. In front of a large, porticoed mansion stood a luxurious saloon car. As I drew near, a man and a girl, both clad in evening dress, descended the stairs and approached the car. With a sudden thrill I saw that the girl swung along on a pair of neat crutches and below her long, enveloping silk wrap only a single shapely silk-clad leg was revealed. And then the astonishing thing happened.
Just as I reached the pair, a sudden gust of wind blew open the girl,s wrap, and I had a swift momentary glimpse of her figure. and the amazing thing was that the girl, except for her wrap, was clad only in flesh-coloured silk tights; For just that moment I saw, sharply outlined in the gathering dusk, the slim neat figure, the shapely leg and the rounded stump. Then the wrap was hastily gathered about the body and the couple hurried into the waiting car which glided smoothly on its way.
I went on my way intensely intrigued by what I had seen, and trying to find a satisfactory explanation of the girl's appearance in such an extraordinary a costume. Was she dressed for a fancy dress dance? I almost thought so. One can imagine the the consternation that would be aroused in an ordinary ballroom by the appearance of a pretty one-legged girl thus clad!
Was she an acrobat or stage artist setting out for the theatre — yet that was not an entirely satisfactory explanation. In the meantime I don't think she would have been staying at the highly elegant and rich Kensington mansion; and, in addition, I had not heard of any one-legged artist appearing on the stage at that or any other time. She may, of course, have been bound for a private party. If so, it must have been a very peculiar and bizarre affair, full of wonders, in that connection, I would like to know how the other costumes were looking.
However, I leave the fascinating subject. Interested readers my easily try to puzzle out the riddle of the beautiful one-legged girl by themselves.
________________________________________
London Life February 23, 1929 p. 23



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Re: London Life. Tales

Post: # 33329Unread post Bazil
23 Sep 2018, 18:18

London Life
London Life | 1929
________________________________________
The Strange Quest Of Anthony Drew
The Unfinished Venus
by Wallace Stort
First of all, let me introduce myself — Anthony Drew, tall, slim, passably good-looking, I hope, still on the sunny side of thirty, with sufficient money and leisure to have what is commonly known as a good time.
So much to the good. But I suppose the ordinary, normal individual, if he knew me sufficiently intimately, would call me queer, perhaps abnormal, I think I must have been born with a peculiar little kink that gives me my odd outlook on humanity — particularly feminine humanity; for I never remember a time when I was without it; and why exactly I should have it at all I have not the foggiest notion.
But I hear the reader saying, "Get on with the story!"
Well, I was strolling aimlessly along Piccadilly just after the lunch-hour on a perfect day in late July, and had just reached the palatial portals of that famous and exclusive restaurant, the Ritz and Carlton, when I saw the girl. She was just leaving the restaurant unescorted, and was obviously making for the powerful and luxurious Rolls-Royce saloon standing at the kerb.
It was not that she was exquisitely, adorably pretty, with a soft, blonde loveliness that was breath-taking, though she was all that; it was not her dainty slimness, nor the captivating fluttering on her filmy frock. It was none of these things, though they of course, had their own stunning effect, that drew me to a sudden halt there by the restaurant and held me spellbound like some callow youth seeing beauty for the first time in his life. It was something much more unusual, in fact, in that particular setting, definitely bizarre.
For the girl, obviously aristocratic, rich, exquisitely lovely, swung easily and with a clinging and undulating grace, on a single, slender crutch, daintily fashioned in white enamelled willow and silver. And below her brief, fluttering skirt, was just a single slim, shapely leg and a small, arched foot in flesh silk and glove fitting slipper, open almost to the toes, and with a tall, slender spike heel that must have been in the neighbourhood of four or five inches in height.
Actually I don't think I was aware at the time that I had halted there in that dumb, imbecile fashion. I know I must have gone white and my heart was pumping in my breast like some gigantic dynamo. And then I awoke to the astounding fact that the girl was addressing me, and that a dainty hand was resting softly on my sleeve.
"It's nice to see you again," the divinity was saying. "I haven't run across you for ages. Can I drop you anywhere?"
I drew a deep breath, snatched at my flying senses, and so won back to something like my normal control, though I was still shaken. For an imbecile second I very nearly spoiled everything by explaining to the girl that she had evidently mistaken me for somebody else. Then I saw what I thrice condemned fool I should be if I threw away this perfectly priceless opportunity of making the acquaintance of one who had apparently swung on her dainty crutch straight out of fairy land into my ken.
I managed to summon up a smile, and also sufficient wit to snatch off my hat, as I murmured something about my delight at meeting her again. The next moment I had helped the goddess into the luxurious interior of the car — though she herself proved most expertly agile — and found myself sitting at her side, my emotions equally compounded of bewilderment and lovesick excitement.
The car, under the skillful control of a neatly uniformed chauffeur, at once swung noiselessly away from the kerb and, gathering speed, slid rapidly down Piccadilly in the direction of the park. I turned to the girl and found her gazing at me with an odd little enigmatic smile on her lips. I started to speak, with the idea of offering a lame explanation of my presence, when she lifted a slim, dainty hand and nodded her head, still smiling her odd little smile.
"I know," she said calmly, "I can guess what you are going to say. You think I have mistaken you for somebody else. But — well, the truth is, I haven't. I'm perfectly aware that I have never met you before in my life."
"But" — I began, swallowing my amazement, and once again she smilingly interrupted me.
"It's really very simple", she said. "At least, I feel pretty sure it is, unless my diagnosis is completely astray. You see, you may not have been quite aware of how you acted outside the Ritz-Carlton; but what actually happened was that you, normally, I imagine, a cool-headed, experienced man about town, completely lost your head at the sight of me; so much that you stopped dead in front of me, and the blood drained completely from your face."
"I — I was absolutely bowled over by your beauty," I managed to stammer lamely.
"No", she countered, slowly shaking her head, while her queer smile deepened. "No, I don't think that quite explains everything. It might, had you been just a raw youth and I just a normal, beautiful girl. But you see, you are not a raw youth, and I — well, I am so obviously not exactly normal; the fact that I have only one leg is so very evident, isn't it? I'm afraid your explanation will not quite do."
I looked across at her, unable to hide my surprise or to keep the embarrassment out of my eyes. A queer little thrill of excitement was also pulsing through me. My lovely companion had lit a cigarette, having first of all pulled off the little tight hat she wore, and was lounging cosily on the deep luxurious cushions, puffing enjoyably, and regarding me amusedly through those beautiful, unfathomable eyes of hers.
"Shall I venture a possible explanation of our somewhat odd conduct?" she said slowly.
"Why, yes," I replied somewhat shamefacedly, and wondering what was coming.
"First of all," she went on, "I think we might as well know who each other is, don't you? I am Felice Carling."
"And my name", I replied, "is Anthony Drew."
"Good," she said smilingly. And now we have become properly acquainted, I can get on with my suggested explanation. Of course, I may be utterly wrong, but, taking everything into consideration, I don't really think I can be. Unflattering as it may appear to myself, you weren't bowled over by my beauty, as you so considerately suggested; though, of course had I been positively ugly, you would no doubt have passed on and never bothered about me — "
"I — I thought you were the loveliest thing," I injected warmly.
"That was perfectly sweet of you Mr. Drew. But, unless I am very much mistaken, my real, my thrilling attraction for you was — well, this — "
She raised her shapely single leg, lifting her dress slightly, straightening the limb out in front of her and arching the small, dainty foot. Then her hand suddenly closed over mine and her lovely face came periously close.
"Confess!" she whispered, "Am I not right? Weren't you really captivated by my one little leg and pity for the loss of the other? Isn't that the real explanation?"
Although from the moment she had addressed her first remarks to me I had more than half anticipated this very frank reading of the situation, yet the pulsing thrill I experienced was just as devastating as if I had been taken completely by surprise. The whole thing left me limp and shaken. It was not alone that she had surmised my secret, but that she should have been aware that such a kink existed at all!
As I regained control I became aware that my lovely partner had in some way, snuggled close to me, her little hand in mine, the sweet intoxicating perfume of her drifting over me like some magic spell. Unable to resist the sudden, overpowering temptation, I turned and, slipping my arms about her, I crushed her fiercely and passionately to me.
For a long time, it seemed, we remained in that close embrace, lip to lip. Then her hands slipped up to my breast and she gently disengaged herself, though only to lie back in my arms and look shyly up at me from behind lovely fluttering eyelids.
"So — I guessed correctly — Anthony?" she said, and now the little mocking smile had gone, and something very friendly and intimate had taken its place.
I nodded gaily. All my former embarrassment had gone.
"You did — Felice — delightful name," I agreed. Thought I have never openly confessed to such a thing before, you discovered my secret at one fell swoop. But what intrigues me is how you managed to stumble across so very an unusual and little known obsession? After all, I have stared at pretty one-legged girls before, and they, if they thought about it at all, only took me for some impertinent puppy, and I'm quite certain they never for a moment imagined that I was fascinated by the fact of their misfortune."
"Felice looked up at me quizzically for a moment and smiled roguishly.
"Well," she began, "I might very easily explain my somewhat esoteric knowledge of this peculiar kink by saying that a rather pretty one-legged girl, intelligent and with some knowledge of psychology, would be bound to discover, sooner or later, that while the great majority of men merely pitied her, certain other were strongly attracted. As a matter of fact, that is exactly what does happen; and in my own case I have proved the truth of it much more frequently than you might imagine.
"But that is not all the truth in my case, and somehow I feel I'd like to know all about me. You see — Tony — you you are different. Well, let me begin by asking you a question. You were born with — or, at any rate, very early acquired in some mysterious way — this peculiar preference for beautiful women deficient in one or more limbs. And, as you probably know, you are only one of many men so constituted. Has it therefore ever struck you that if certain men's feelings are like that, it is more than probable that certain women might be constituted with a corresponding peculiarity?"
I was genuinely startled, and showed it.
"To be quite candid," I said, "the possibility struck me never at all. But what exactly do you mean? In what way would these particular women be constituted?"
"Let me put it in another way," said Felice. "If the affection of certain men is for women in some way deficient, isn't it at least a very great possibility that certain women may wish to satisfy that preference?"
I hold her at arms length and gazed down at her in dumb astonishment, while she smiled up at me in gay unconcern.
"Felice! You mean — you mean-" I stammered at last and she suddenly laughed and, reaching up, swiftly kissed me on the lips. "Heavens! How melodramatic we have become all of a sudden," she cried. "What I mean is simply that I have my own kink, just as you have yours. I am one-legged from choice. I infinitely prefer to be as I am than to possess the prettiest pair of legs in the world. To me, one-leggedness is a continual thrill only surpassed by the greater thrill of meeting a boy who appreciates my one-legged condition at what I think is its true value and shows how fascinated he is by it. Do I sound very crazy, Tony? Do you think me quite mad? Or do you understand, just a little?"
"No darling," I whispered softly.
"You don't sound crazy — to me. I understand, and it's wonderful, wonderful. I never ever dared to dream that a girl like you could exist — a beautiful one-legged darling who not only completely understood the feelings of a man constituted as I am, but also delighted in her own charming incompleteness and infinitely preferred to be as she was. And here you are, the very girl herself! It's bewildering, dumbfounding — but utterly, thrillingly delightful. The perfect, the ideal woman, here in my arms."
"But Felice, darling," I said at length, as I lifted my head and regarded her fondly. "Tell me one thing. You said just a moment or so ago that you were one-legged from choice. Did you mean that you had actually had your leg amputated because you wanted to be one-legged?"
Felice laughed gaily, her lovely head, with its blonde shining helmet of close-cropped curls thrown back and lying against the crook of my arm.
"You'd get a mighty big thrill if I were to tell you that I had, wouldn't you my dear?" she retorted with a return to her old raillery. "But, as a matter of fact — and here's a nice little thrill for you — I never have to had to undergone an amputation. You see, I was born as you see me."
I certainly was thrilled. In some way I find it hard to explain; this quite unexpected little revelation seemed to add to Felice's charm. She had always been one-legged; there had never been a time when she was formed in the ordinary, conventional way. All this, I say, had somehow the power to thrill me and add to her fascination for me, and I suppose the fact was revealed in my face, for Felice laughed merrily again.
"That made a hit with you, didn't it, Tony?" she said. "Somehow, I rather felt it would. And perhaps it explains in some way why I feel as I do. Anyhow, I am glad I was born with only one leg, and I can't explain why, except that the feeling was given to me by the way of compensation. So now, darling, you know all about me and my oddity and queerness, and I'm ever so thrilled and excited to have you here with me, a kindred soul, looking at things as you do and understanding me as I understand you."
The raillery had all gone from her eyes and lips, leaving them tender and sweet. Her head dropped until it found a resting place on my shoulder. And there she lay, as if content just to be in my arms.
I held her close, sharing all the thrilled excitement, amazed at my strange fortune on stumbling, as it were, across her as I had done.
At the touch of my fingers I felt Felice thrill in my arms, and then her hand closed over mine, while her lips were crushed passionately to mine in a long, clinging kiss. In a eternity it seemed, she clung there, and then gently slid from my arms and, lying back in her own corner, gazed at me as if gradually waking from some drugged sleep. Then the smiles crept back to her lips and, sitting up, she corrected any little untidyness on her toilette with deftly feminine fingers.
"Well," she said, "we seem to have got on very well since we met such a very short time ago. I wonder where on earth we are?"
I had to laugh for I had been so captivated by my attractive companion that I hadn't given a thought to the car and its direction.
"Where are we bound for?" I asked.
"Oh; I merrily told Martin to drive on until further notice," she said. I think it's about time we turned back. Tony" — her hand fell softly on my arm — "What do you say. Come back to my place for tea? It will be jolly. Don't say you have any other appointment, or I'll break down and cry."
"That must be avoided at all costs," I said with a smile, squeezing her hand. "Personally I don't think twenty appointments would stand in the way of tea with you' especially if it is to be tea for two."
"Tea for two — certainly!"
"Then let's make all haste."
"Darling!"
She dimpled deliciously and, snatching a quick butterfly kiss, picked up the speaking-tube and gave the necessary orders to the chauffeur.
It was some little time later that the big car drew up in the courtyard of a luxurious suite of flats in a quiet and serene Kensington square. Conscious of the thrill it meant for me Felice allowed me to lift her from the car and to adjust her slender crutch beneath her right arm.
Then at my side, her disengaged arm resting confidently in mine, she swung along to the lift with that easy grace of hers, clinging flexible to the crutch, the provocative outline of her shortened limb rising and falling with fascinating regularity with each step she took.
I had a feeling that she used a single crutch, in preference to a pair, of set purpose. A pair of crutches can, of course be employed very deftly, and their pretty user can float along with all the light, airy grace imaginable; but their is something alluring about the clinging, languorous sway which the use of a single crutch gives to the body, and I was sure that Felice, versed as she was in all the devices for displaying the charms of her lovely one-legged figure, was very much alive to the fact.
However, we eventually found ourselves in the salon of the flat, having been admitted by a slim and very pretty maid, daintily short-skirted and high-heeled.
The room was, in keeping with the rest of the flat, very typical of its charming mistress, a beautiful artistic symphony in cream and gold, yet a luxurious and cosy nest for a pretty woman, with thick, heavily piled carpets, deep inviting couches, masses of gorgeously hued cushions, and a pervasive atmosphere of perfumed ease.
When the smiling maid had withdrawn, bearing her mistress's order for tea. Felice, standing before me, lightly resting on her crutch, put her little white hands on my shoulders.
"Welcome to my little home, Tony," she said with a tender little smile. It's — it's very, very good to have you here." And she suddenly put up her soft lips and kissed me.
"Now, just make yourself comfortable for a few minutes," she went on in her cheery way, "while I go and make myself presentable." And with an airy wave of her hand she turned and swung lightly away.
As I strolled about admiring the wonderful appointments of the beautiful room, and still thrilled with the thrilled excitement of the whole adventure, the maid returned, pretty and efficient, making no sound on the luxuriously thick carpet. She drew a squat, Moorish lacquer table up to a low, deep-seated and many-cushioned couch that faced the long windows occupying one whole wall of the room, and then began to make the cheerful noise of setting out tea equipage. At last tea, with all its dainty and pleasant edible accompaniments, was ready, and the maid returned as unobtrusively as she had come.
The door opened again, and I turned. Framed in the doorway stood Felice, smiling at me, one beautiful white arm upraised, the hand resting on the doorpost, the other hand resting lightly on her hip. I saw at once that she was without her crutch and was standing quite unsupported, daintily poised on her single perfect leg and foot. That was not the thing that held me there as one under a spell. From her white shoulders there floated a filmy, clinging silk wrap that formed a sort of background to a very daring one-piece costume of flesh coloured silk that fitted her perfectly and responded to every curve and movement of her body.
She seemed quite noticeably not so tall as when I had seen her some minutes before, but the reason became apparent, for she had exchanged her amazingly high heeled shoe for a flimsy little skin-tight slipper also of flesh-coloured silk, made quite without a heel, very like the kind of slipper worn by women acrobats on the stage. And so she stood lightly and daintily poised, her lovely shapely head held at a delightfully impudent angle — altogether a delicious and unforgettable picture.
Then, to my amazement, for I had never anticipated such a thing, she withdrew her hand from the supporting door-post and began to hop easily and effortlessly towards me.
But how utterly inadequate is that little word 'hop', to describe her fascination method of progress! I can never hope to convey any real idea of the marvellous ease and grace of the performance. In the case of the ordinary person, hopping is an exceedingly awkward, ill-balanced business. But there was nothing in the least awkward or uncertain about Felice's movements. It was rather a lissom, gliding toe-dance down the room, amazingly expert and sure-footed, the arms and hands held quite still in a beautiful, flowing gesture. It looked, in fact, as it was indeed in Felice's case, a quite natural and easy method of moving about.
She floated lightly to where I stood and then, halting in front of me, stood poised in a perfect balance on her single little foot. Astonished though I had been by her expertness in hopping, I was able to hide a slight feeling of concern in seeing her standing there completely unsupported.
"Felice!" I called. " Be careful — you might fall."
But she only broke into a delicious laughter.
"What a dear old silly it is," she said. "Have you forgotten that I was born one-legged have lived all my life on one leg? I am just as much at home on one leg as you are on two — perhaps more so. I could stand like this, just as I can move about, for hours without being in the least danger of falling. As a matter of fact, I never use a crutch in the house. I infinitely prefer to get about like this. Here— just try to catch me — "
She flung off her scanty wrap and in all the slim, sleek beauty of her form-fitting attire, was away like some dancing will-o-the-wisp, darting with amazing speed and certainty in between the couches, the cushioned pouffes and little tables with which the room was dotted, I after her with laughing excitement.
It was wonderful how she managed to elude me, dodging cleverly here and there, sometimes jumping obstacles with an ease an athlete would have envied.
And then, suddenly, as she rounded the long, cream and gold grand piano, she slipped on a highly polished bit of parquet flooring. I got to her the moment she fell and, dropping to the carpet beside her, raised her into a sitting posture in my arms. She smiled bravely up at me, but a little spasm of pain shot across her face.
"I'm not as clever as I said, I was, am I? I fell on the wrong side, and it's — it's rather sensitive. I'll be all right in a moment."
Thinking of her only as a hurt child, I laid my hand gently on the injured limb and smoothed it with caressing fingers, massaging it as skillfully as I was able, and Felice had her own reaction to the soothing, caressing pressure.
She sighted softly as she looked up at me.
"That's better," she murmured. "You didn't know you had such a healing touch, did you, Tony? The pain is all gone."
Then her eyelids fluttered deliciously.
"Tony, darling," she whispered, "you do find me attractive, don't you? Not distasteful in any way? I mean, you don't think of me merely as a cripple — you love me as I am, and you — you think my figure pretty and charming — yes?"
I gazed down at her as she lay confidingly in my arms, all the slim loveliness of her displayed by the moulding sheath of her silk attire from the beautiful, bare white shoulders and arms to the little silk-slippered foot.
My encircling arms drew her closer to me till her lips were just below my own.
"Felice, dearest," I murmured, intoxicated by the perfume of her lovely body, "how could I find anything so exquisite as you distasteful? You really could not have thought so for a single moment. You know I am already mad about you, that I worship every bit of you. You know that to me your enchanting one-leggedness is a new thrill every time I contemplate it or think about it. And you know only to well that I have been almost hypnotically conscious of your beauty from the first moment I met you. It is part and parcel of your physical loveliness, as beautiful and attractive as any other part of you."
Her bare, white arms crept up round my neck, and a soft little smile parted her lips.
"Yes, I know. But, woman like, I wanted to hear you say so. It is so sweet to hear it all from your lips.
Then her lips were crushed to mine and clung for a swooning eternity.
At last she slid away and then, as it were, coming to earth with a bang, she sat up in mock concern.
"Tea!", she cried. "My good man — tea! Here you are shamelessly philandering with a poor one-legged child who cannot help herself, while tea is getting cold!"
She made a laughing attempt to jump up, but I picked her up as if she were the child she has just claimed to be, and carried her lightly to the couch in front of which the tea had been served.
Fortunately the tea was still quite hot, and for the next delightful quarter of an hour I had the extreme joy of sitting close to Felice, watching the dainty charm with which she poured tea, thrilling at the touch of her little fingers as she handed me my cup, suddenly amused as well a stirred by the thought of the amazement of any friends of mine, could they have seen me at that moment taking tea with a beautiful one-legged girl whose garment was a one-piece suit of silk!
Then, the tea things having been removed, we lay back, Felice slipping contentedly into my arms, and just chatted and kissed at our ease, the world containing for the moment just our two selves.
"Felice," I said after a little spell of silence, "now that we have met in such wonderful circumstances, we are not going to lose sight of each other, are we? I mean — "
"Why, you dear, old silly!" cried Felice, sitting upright with such vehemence that I had to laugh. "Whatever put that idiotic notion into your head? As if I should let you go now I have found you! Please don't misunderstand me, Tony. I'm not trying to be sentimental, or silly, or anything stupid like that. But — well, we're going to be the greatest and most wonderful of pals. We'll have the gayest and brightest, old times, you and I. We'll astonish the town together, and I shall wear my most stunning frock, and women will be green with envy of my handsome and distinguished-looking escort. We will make the folk stare at the most exclusive restaurants and night clubs, and I'll show you off at 'Le Phenomene'. By the way, do you know the 'Le Phenomene' at all, Tony?"
"Never heard of it, sweetheart. What is it?"
"Ah! I think I keep it a little secret, then. All I shall tell you is that the most remarkable and odd characters in London forgather at 'Le Phenomene'. Your first visit will be a most amazing experience, I can tell you. And, Tony," she went on, gripping my arm excitedly," we shall dance together. Of course you dance?"
I looked at her in incredulous amazement.
"Yes — of course I dance," I replied slowly. "But — but you — "
A little flash of amused exasperation sped across her face.
"Tony, darling;" she exclaimed. "Why will you persist in talking as if you thought me a helpless cripple? I'm neither helpless nor a cripple. And I simply adore dancing — "
She jumped up suddenly, all gay excitement.
"Come along," she said, "I'll show you. In any case, you'll want a little practice in fitting your steps to mine."
Then she turned like an excited child and hopped swiftly to where an exquisite period grammophone occupied a corner. Within a few minutes the room resounded with one of the latest fox-trots, and she returned lightly to my side.
"Now," she said in a crisp busyness like manner, "it's all very simple. First of all, clasp your right arm firmly round my waist, holding me close. That's it. Now put my left arm round your neck, so; and you see I'm quite comfortably and firmly supported without being in the least danger of falling. Now you move simply forward as usual, in the time to the music, and the only way I differ from an ordinary partner is that I take every step with my one foot instead of with alternate feet. You see the idea? You'll find I dance quite normally — or at any rate appear to do so."
Astonishing as it may seem, Felice only spoke the simple truth. She moved and swayed with all the grace and flexibility of a practised dancer fitting in expertly with all my steps, and one might easily have forgotten that she was employing all the time only a single leg.
It is true, of course, that, in a way, I was carrying her round in the firm circle of my arm, and she also got additional support by resting the stump on the outer part of my left thigh, just above where the bend of the hip-joint came. But for all that she really danced, and danced with all the most charming and easy grace imaginable.
At last, after dancing through a number of changes of records, we came to rest by the couch again, and Felice, deliciously flushed and triumphant, rewarded me with an almost suffocating hug, crushing her flexible body to mine and pressing to me in her passionate exuberance. Then we sank into the deep comfortable embrace of the couch; and there, with my arms about her, we lounged in dreamy peace.
Our talk was not all of tender nothings; we laughed and joked like a couple of happy children, Felice holding her own in the exchange of banter, with an ease that did not surprise me. And, incidentally, I twitted her about her somewhat unconventional attire.
I asked, "Do you reveal all your wonderful charms to all your friends in this fascinating way?"
She laughed.
"You are a special case, Tony, darling. I — I wanted you to see me as I am, for two reasons. First, I must confess, to satisfy my own vanity in revealing my one-legged charms to a boy whom I felt would really appreciate them. And then, secondly, in a way, to test you — to dissipate a tiny little doubt that lurked within me that you might possibly not find me so attractive when you saw me so fully and frankly revealed — just a girl with only one leg. I felt I wanted to be quite sure of you. That — that was why I asked you those silly questions after I fell.
"And I passed the test with honours, didn't I, darling?" I said, holding her very close. "I shall never forget my feelings when I saw you standing framed in the doorway, supported only by your single slender beautiful leg. You were divine! The loveliest thing I had ever seen or ever wished to see. The ideal woman met at last after centuries of waiting -"
Suddenly — though perhaps it was not so sudden as it seemed at the time — I took fire. I crushed my lips to hers fiercely, savagely. And then, lifting my head, leaving Felice limp and almost swooning in my arms, I crashed down the floodgates of my pent-up emotions.
"Felice, dearest, belovedest," I breathed. "I can't hold out against your wizardry any longer. I love you — I'm mad about you— I don't want to be just your wonderful pal — I want to have you for my own, to watch over you and guard you from harm, my own beautiful darling! Felice, sweetheart, will you marry me? Listen! Here's a wonderful idea. Get dressed, darling, and we'll go out this very blessed evening and buy the engagement ring, and then we'll go off and celebrate the brilliant and deliriously happy occasion. What do you say, sweetheart?"
But Felice, sweet and unshaken, managed to slip flexibly from my arms, and from the other end of the couch gazed across at me through soft, wet-lashed eyes.
"Tony, darling," she said a little brokenly, "it was so dear and splendid of you to ask me that. Believe me, I am oh, so utterly proud and grateful and thrilled. And I — perhaps, I love you, too, Tony, though we've only known each other little more than a moment or so. But though it's hard to say it, I don't want you to become formally and irrevocably bound to me — just yet. Please, Tony." She put up a hand as I made a sudden move towards her. "I am not acting just from caprice. I have the best and most adequate reasons; and remember, I'm — I'm not saying no to you or sending you away. I — I simply couldn't send you away, darling. I am only asking you to wait. You remember I told you that one reason for my appearing as I did was in order to give you a better test. Well, Tony, other tests may come your way — it doesn't matter of what kind, sooner or later, and I want you to remain absolutely free to do exactly as you want to."
"But, Felice, darling, I know exactly what I want to do now."
"I know, dearest, and it's very sweet of you. But, please" she crept close to me, her arms about my neck — "please believe me when I tell you that I am acting from the very best and purest of motives, and that — that if I consulted only my own feelings at this very moment I should consent to your proposal with the utmost joy and thankfulness. But I must not — that's the simple truth."
"You — you are not already engaged — or married?" I asked forlornly.
"Silly boy — of course not. No — I'm free; and while you are waiting, remember I shall be waiting too. Then, if you still want me. I shall be yours."
She drew away and regarded me with a little, wistful smile that was very friendly, very intimate.
"Poor boy," she said softly, "he is taking it to heart, isn't he? Smile, darling. After all, I'm not banishing you from my side. We're going to have splendid times together. Everything in the world is not lost!"
I was able to summon up a smile after a while, and Felice clapped delightedly.
"That's better," she said. Then suddenly, she jumped up excitedly and stood daintily poised in front of me.
"Listen, darling," she said gaily. "I've just had a delightful idea. For the, I admit, very mysterious reasons I have referred to we can't have a formal and open engagement, and we shan't bother for the time being about an engagement ring. But, just to please you, you silly boy, we shall have a little private ceremony, just a little secret pact between our two selves. Now, just stay here and be patient for a few minutes."
And with that she snatched up her wrap and sped away like a dainty sprite on her lissom single leg. Within a very short time she was back, veiled, I noticed casually, in a filmy wrap and, sinking down on the couch by my site, began:
"Look!" she cried, and held up a beautiful jewelled circlet of gold, much larger than an ordinary bracelet, the gold itself nearly half an inch broad, but beaten flat to almost wafer-like thinness.
"This", she said, "will be the symbol of our bond of friendship, and the ceremony is now about to begin. Now, darling, please be very good and kneel there on the carpet in front of me."
I had to laugh in spite of myself and my feelings, and did as I was bid. With a little smiling bow, Felice handed to me the glittering circlet. It was no wonder I knelt there as in some sort of trance, until Felice, with a little gurgling laugh, shook me from my semi-stupor.
"Tony, darling," she murmured softly, "we are in the middle of a most important and dignified ceremonial, and you allow yourself to be — to be hypnotised by — by — "
"By the wonderful unfinished beauty of a one-legged enchantress," I filled in, "who really ought to give fair warning to a poor, weak man before starting to weave the spells. But I am at your service again, sweetheart. The circlet — ?"
"That, dear heart, is a very rare adornment — a stump circlet, one of several a very famous jeweller made for me. Now do you understand?"
I bent forward, striving to conceal the thrilled excitement that shook me. Then gently I slid the flat gold circlet over the smooth, velvety flesh of the uplifted stump. It fitted perfectly.
Then I lifted my head and I was once again on the couch beside her, she in my arms, our lips clinging.
* * *
So I met and so I made that odd little pact with lovely Felice Carling, my enchanting unfinished Venus, exquisite in her one-legged beauty.
Of her reasons for refusing to marry me, while heartwhole and, I felt, obviously in love in me, I could not then offer any explanation. But gradually these amazing reasons became clear to me. You will see in the succeeding episodes of my strange story how I came to the knowledge of the curious and poignant yet wholly admirable workings of her mind.
________________________________________
London Life August 31, 1929 pp. 31, 36, 37, 40
London Life August 31, 1940 pp. 10, 27-34, 39-40



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Re: London Life. Tales

Post: # 33330Unread post Bazil
23 Sep 2018, 18:20

London Life
London Life | 1929
________________________________________
The Strange Quest Of Anthony Drew
The Temple Of Strange Gods. A Thrilling Adventure Of "La Belle Monopede."
by Wallace Stort
It will be recalled that in the first episode of this series, Anthony Drew a well-to-do young man about town, met by chance in Piccadilly Felice Carling, a beautiful, alluring blonde with only one leg — born so, as Anthony later discovered and who took him off to tea at her Kensington flat, where, falling in love at first sight, Anthony proposed to her but, without being actually repulsed was asked to wait before becoming definitely engaged, for reasons which Felice refused to divulge. As a substitute, however, a smile pact of friendship was entered into, the symbol of which was a costly jewelled circlet which Anthony was permitted to place upon the shapely stump of Felice's right leg.
I was utterly miserable, and life had lost all its savour, for I had not seen Felice for three whole days. Some wretched private business, connected with her much too opulent and socially important family, had taken her into the depths of the country, and the beastly part of it was that I hadn't the remotest idea of the date of her return. When the telephone bell rang on the evening of the third day, I picked up the receiver listlessly, but was suddenly galvanised into throbbing, glorious life.
"Felice!" I cried, with a perfect shout of joy. "You're back!"
"Yes, Tony darling," came her soft limpid tones, surely the most delightful and musical in the world. I'm back once again. Do I gather that you missed me at all?"
"Missed you! Why, you most precious of all mortal things-"
But Felice stopped me with a sigh.
"All right, darling," she gurgled. Come round in your own sweet person and tell me about it. And incidentally you can take me out to dinner. Does that intrigue you?"
Intrigue most inadequately described my feelings, and I told Felice so warmly. Then I dashed away to get into my evening things. Within an incredible short time I was being admitted to the flat by Willis, the pretty maid, who received me with her usual friendly smile. Then, as I stood in the hall after handing Willis my outer things, a slim, silken figure appeared in the hallway of the saloon, and Felice, with that airy, dancing ease of hers, hopped swiftly across to me on her cute little soft-slippered foot. Quite oblivious of the maid she swung herself into my arms, kissing me in passionate delight.
"I've missed you Tony," she whispered between her kisses. "It's good to have you here again."
I murmured all kinds of great nothings that you, dear reader, need not be troubled with. Then Felice hopping effortlessly, preceded me into the beautiful saloon. I sank into the comfortable depths of a many cushioned couch, while Felice, skilfully poised on her agile single leg, busied herself with shaking cocktails and giving me amusing details of her doings while away in the country. I sat there in supreme content, happy just to feast my eyes on her exquisite beauty, following her enchantedly as she made fascinating little hopping excursions about the room for the various cocktail ingredients.
Her lovely body was most provocatively clod in the thinnest of pyjamas in rose pink printed chiffon, the little sleeveless coat, itself only the most diaphanous of veils, affording, every now and then, delicious glimpses of her delicate bust.
Another enticing feature of her attire was that while on the left side the pyjama leg was of normal length, very full and flowing, on the right side only a little wide and filmy trouserette appeared, just a few inches in length, from which there peeped in most fascinating manner the plump little bare stump.
I caught alluring glimpses of the gold, jewelled circlet which I had been graciously permitted to place upon it, and which Felice still allowed to remain on its unusual resting place.
Then, after pouring out the cocktails, she bent over me, a hand on the back of the couch on either side of my head, smiling intimately and affectionately into my uplifted eyes. The intoxicating perfume of her lovely self drifted sensuously over me, drugging my senses with its heavy sweetness, and my arms went up, closing caressingly round the yielding circle of her waist and drawing her to me.
Bending like a tall, swaying flower, she fell gently against me, and so slid down in my arms. For an ecstatic minute we lay there in a close embrace, lips clinging to lips, her soft, warm body scarcely veiled by the thin silk of her diaphanous pyjamas crushed to mine, all her vivid electric quality communicating itself to me in vibrant, pulsing waves. It was heaven to have her once again in my arms after so many hours of longing. At last she stirred in my arms.
"I really should be dressing, darling" she murmured. "But I simply don't want to tear myself away. Shall we just stay here as we are, and not bother to go out to dinner? Cook is out, but Willis can find us something to eat."
"Your most delightful suggestion is carried unanimously," I said, thrilling at the prospect. "Personally I don't care if I never eat again. You, darling, just as you are, are all I desire for the rest of my life."
"Silly boy!" laughed Felice, her lips against mine. "But it's sweet of you to be so accommodating. We'll have a nice quiet, altogether delightful evening, all on our very own."
And with a little sight of contentment she settled herself more comfortably in my arms, her head on my breast, but with her head upturned and her lips conveniently near my own. As for me, I was utterly content, thrilled to have her sweet, warm body so closely wrapped in my arms.
And so we might have remained blissfully for the evening, had not the sound of the doorbell, shrilling through the flat, thrown us, as it were, swiftly apart, our heads turned to see who the visitor might be. A moment or so later Willis appeared.
"Miss Barry," she announced. "May I show her in?"
"Oh! do, please, Willis," cried Felice gaily, and then the door widened and a delightfully pretty girl stood smiling in the doorway.
"Hello June!" cried Felice in welcome, and, as the newcomer hesitated slightly, she added, "Come in, darling, don't be shy."
And then, to my utter astonishment, the girl hopped nimbly across the carpet towards us, just exactly as Felice herself might have done, only one shapely, silken leg showing below the fluttering skirt of her very short, clinging frock.
"June," said Felice blithely, as the girl sank down in a big chair opposite us, "this is Tony, that very naughty boy I told you about, who gets off with defenceless one-legged girls in the street."
"Felice!" I exclaimed, flushing in spite of myself.
"It's true, isn't it, you silly boy?" she persisted teasingly. Then softening deliciously at my distress, "it's all right, darling, June understands perfectly. I'm not telling any silly tales out of school."
June nodded at me in smiling reassurance.
"Don't take any notice of Felice, Mr. Drew," she said a little mischievously. "She's really most frightfully thrilled at having met you, and hasn't got over it yet."
It was Felice's turn to make a demonstration, and she jumped up and pummelled her friend until June laughingly cried for mercy. Then Felice shook a cocktail for her as a peace offering. June apologised and explained her visit.
"Dreadfully sorry for butting in so unceremoniously, darling," she said, "but I just came here to ask if you were going to 'Le Phenomene' to-night. It's one of their special nights. The gang are going to be there, and a new girl dancer is appearing who, I'm told, is an absolute wonder. You could bring Tony. It will be a unique experience for him."
Felice looked across at me excitedly.
"The very thing!" she cried, "We shall dine out after all, dearest, and then go on to 'Le Phenomene', an odd thing is I never thought about to-night, and I've been intending to take you along at the very first opportunity. What do you say, Tony?"
"I should be thrilled", I said laughingly, echoing her own enthusiasm.
"You certainly will be", Felice replied with a laugh. "Probably much more than you expect." At that somewhat cryptic remark Felice and June exchanged amused glances and then turned enigmatic smiles upon myself.
All this time, by the way I had been doing my utmost to appear as casual and unexcited as possible in the presence of the charming and very intriguing newcomer, who was facing me and smiled with open and frank friendliness across at me.
June was certainly as pretty as her name, a dainty, sunny, lovely thing of about nineteen, both slim yet at the same time very attractively feminine. Her very adequate frock, made in the very simplest manner in filmy, delicate pattern cerise crepe de chine, which I noted, fallen quite a couple inches or so short of the knee, when she stood, and now as she lay very lazily in the depths of the big sofa, the thin, almost transparent frock barely reached halfway down her beautifully rounded thigh.
In June's case, in this way differing from Felice, it was the left leg that was absent and it was the shapely right leg that was so freely displayed. And I very soon formed the opinion that she differed from Felice in an other interesting way.
She had happened to seat here in such a way that the skirt of her frock had been gathered under her on the left side, with the result that, while on the right side the thin, delicate silk fully outlined the suave contours of the thigh practically from the hip downwards, it appeared to show on the left side merely the line hip and nothing at all below it.
Unless I was mistaken — and I thought I could not be — June possessed no stump at all, her left leg being completely absent from the hip.
However, the little point was definitely settled a moment or so later when Felice at last made a move to go and dress for dinner. As she stood in her wonderfully easy manner, June stood up just as thoughtlessly, — both, incidentally, as may be guessed, providing a unique thrill to me as they stood by each other perfectly poised each upon her dainty single leg.
"Did you leave your crutch in the hall, darling?" asked Felice of June. "Or, as usual, didn't you bring one?"
June laughingly shook her head.
"I didn't bring", one she confessed.
"You see, I ran round on the two seater, and as a crutch wasn't particularly needed, I just didn't bother about one. It's always a relief to be without the thing anyway."
"I think, June uses a crutch even less than I do," said Felice, turning to me with a laugh. "She discards it on every possible occasion and you find her hopping gaily about in the most unlikely places. I shouldn't be at all surprised to see her hopping unconsciously down the aisle at her wedding "With you as bridesmaid, Felice", put in June with demure shyness.
"Of course," cried Felice, enthusiastically. "What a sensation we should cause together!"
She slipped an arm about June's waist, and the two girls stood smilingly side by side.
"Don't you think we make charming and unique picture, Tony?" went on Felice gaily. We're just about of a size and we balance each other perfectly, as in June's case the left leg is absent, and in mine the right. The only tiny flaw, June, is that you really ought to have a nice plump, shapely stump and you haven't a trace of one — or should it be that I ought to be without one? Tony, you shall be Paris and award one of us the apple. What is your opinion — is a one-legged girl more attractive with a remnant of her missing member, or without one?"
I stood there thrilled and yet embarrassed. As I looked at June, standing there, daintily poised in a perfect balance on her single slim leg with no trace of another lower limb in any way apparent, I realised that she was a perfect example of complete one-leggedness, more completely one-legged even than Felice, and in her way, as beautiful and enchanting in her unfinished loveliness. Each girl fulfilled for me an ideal of beauty almost equally potent. Only Felice held for me the greater enchantment because of passionate love for her, because, of the two girls, she was the more delicately lovely.
Stammeringly at last I ventured to speak.
"Of course," I said, doing my best to appear unmoved, "this is just a little joke on your part, Felice, and — well, it isn't quite fair to ask me to judge so delicate and difficult a problem. All I can say is that you both are a thousand times more attractive one-legged than otherwise; June is perfect without a stump and you Felice, are perfect with one and finally, if I must make a distinction, I award the apple to you Felice, because — well, see, I — I love you."
Both Felice and June clasped their hands, and then Felice hopped across to me and, with white arms about my neck, kissed wo warmly.
"Clever boy!" she cried. "You can go to the top of the class." Then in a soft whisper against my mouth she added "It was most adorably sweet of you, darling and I love you too!"
She swung round, with my arm still about her, and smiled happily to June.
"This is obviously no place for me," laughed June. "And in any case, I had better be off. I shall see you both at 'Le Phenomene'. Till then, au revoir."
When June had gone, Felice turned to me again, and in silence we clung to each other. At last Felice drew away breathless and, with a shy smile, made an odd little request.
"Carry me to my dressing-room, darling," she said softly. It will be lovely to lie in your arms."
I took her soft, warm, silken body tenderly in my arms and carried her lightly through to her dressing room, where Odette, her own pretty personal maid, promptly appeared, and in whose care, after another clinging kiss I left her.
When at last she reappeared in the salon, I could only gaze at her in rapt appreciation. She swung in with that alluringly clinging sway of hers on a delicately slender single crutch, beautifully fashioned in some silvery material, stamped with an inlaid design. Her frock was a fragile dream in gossamer chiffon, clinging so closely upwards from the hips as to give a startling impression of non-existence and dropping in clinging, filmy, uneven folds to only just above the knee on the left. On the slim delicate foot was a fragile wisp of a slipper in silver kid, set with brilliants, and with a tall spike heel close on six inches in height.
Round the white shapely column of the throat was a single string of perfectly matched pearls, and the whole lovely ensemble was completed by an evening wrap of supple jade green crepe satin with a wonderful collar and very full cuffs to the elbow, of magnificent white fox fur.
"Well," Felice said smilingly, breaking the little pregnant silence at last. "Will I do, darling?"
She had put aside her crutch for the moment and was standing periously, yet perfectly, poised on her one little foot in its amazingly high-heeled slipper, like some ethereally lovely goddess lightly hovering just above the earth to which she had descended.
"Felice," I murmured, as I came slowly forward, "you are divine! I feel humble and completely unworthy as I look at you. It is I who should be asking whether I am worthy to be with you."
But Felice stopped my mouth with a cool palm, and then, reaching up, kissed me tenderly.
"You talk nonsense, darling," she said softly. "But it is very sweet, very dear nonsense, and I love you for it."
With a little breathless laugh she released me, and I picked up her crutch and gently adjusted it beneath her arm.
It was as I seated myself beside her in the waiting car that I was conscious of a sudden pulse of excitement beating in my breast. Our eventual objective was this mysterious 'Le Phenomene' of which I had heard so much and yet so little. What exactly was I to find there? In what lay its peculiar and bizarre attraction? For the moment I had to keep my soul in patience and wait.
We dined luxuriously at a small restaurant, both myself and Felice. I must confess, fully enjoying the sensation aroused as we made our way between the tables, all eyes on the fascinating one-legged beauty who swung along so gracefully at my side. And as we faced each other across the small square table during dinner I had eyes only for Felice, the loveliest thing in that beautiful room, thrilled all the time, in my strange, inexplicable way, by my vivid consciousness of the fact that my enchanting partner was not as other girls at other tables, but was most wonderfully, most fascinatingly one-legged!
And Felice herself helped to keep this fact in my mind, for almost as soon as we were seated I felt a soft caressing pressure on my ankle, and realised that it came from Felice's silken, unslippered foot. And there for the most part the small, dainty foot remained during dinner, smoothing my ankle in a caress that was almost a kiss, its magic all the more potent because I was so keenly aware that it was the only foot the darling possessed!
We left the restaurant at last and, re-entering the car, made our way westwards. Quite soon after leaving Piccadilly and taking various twists and turnings, we drew up on a corner of a quiet, distinguished looking square. The great house at which we alighted, with its magnificent pillared facade and great shadowed portico, looked like a big private mansion, not at all the type of place I had imagined.
A grave, powdered footman answered our ring, and another received us just inside the luxurious entrance hall. Both men bowed smilingly to Felice, obviously recognising her as a habitue. Then after being relieved of our outer things, we passed through the hall and, for a while, wandered aimlessly but interestedly about the great luxurious rooms.
So far, nothing particularly out of the ordinary had struck me and, in fact, my main reaction was a slight feeling of disappointment. The house approximated to a very well run and highly expensive hotel or club, with all the usual appartenances of such a place, ornate dancing-rooms, lounges, palmcourts, card-rooms, a swimming-bath, and the like. And most of the people I encountered, well groomed men and pretty women, were just the type one meets in such places, with apparently nothing out of the ordinary about them.
Then I got a sudden and unexpected thrill when, on passing through a lounge, a very-pretty one-legged girl, swinging daintily along on a pair of slim crutches, crossed the room in front of us, escorted by a handsome boy. Apparently there were at least other limbless lady members in addition to Felice and June, and my interest suddenly revived. A few moments later something about two slim, good looking boys in beautifully fitting evening clothes, intrigued me as they possed us in a wide corridor, and I mentioned the fact to Felice.
She laughed.
"It's merely that those boys happen to be girls," she explained, I don't think they ever wear female garments — certainly not here, at any rate. I told you you would meet some queer people, and you will. But we'd better get down to the cabaret. That's were we'll find the most interesting crowd at this time."
We came to a broad, magnificent double staircase, curving gracefully downwards, and this we descended. Below, the double cycle of the stairs converged in very lofty and beautifully fashioned swing doors; and passing through these, we found ourselves in what I realised was the cabaret that Felice had referred to. It was indeed a wonderful place, catching one's eye with its gorgeous display of colour and one's imagination with its strange, exotic atmosphere.
The whole scheme of decoration was carried out in Oriental style and colour, Chinese design predominating, the lighting, rich yet softly diffused, coming from myriads of fantastically designed Eastern hanging lamps. Round the delicately mosaiced halls were hung balconies of gorgeously lacquered trellis-work, the space beneath these balconies being divided round the whole of the wall space into series of deep, softly lit alcoves, each furnished with built in heavily cushioned couches in glowing tapestries, and a large intricately carved Oriental table.
Outside these alcoves the floor was dotted with beautifully designed tables and chairs, but in the centre of the floor a large space was reserved for dancing. The whole floor itself was of thick plate glass, ingeniously lit from below by manycoloured lights, this device adding to the exotic glow of colour suffusing the beautiful room. Running right across one end of the room was a fully equipped stage, the design of which was carried out in the prevailing Eastern style. At the moment, however, it was not being used, and the heavy brocade curtains were down.
Many of the alcoves were already occupied by merry parties, and a sprinkling of smart, well-dressed men and women were sitting drinking at the tables outside, the numbers being added to practically every moment by the constant arrival of members and their friends. On the dance floor dancing was in full swing to the rhythmic strains of music coming from a hidden band in one of the balconies above.
We made our way to a table, and Felice only waited to dispose off her crutch and to allow me to order cocktails, before we also swung to the dance floor and swayed to he rhythm of a well-played fox-trot. My earlier practice with Felice now stood me in good stead, and we danced splendidly together, Felice once more showing how much at home she was and how easy and natural were her movements on that wonderful single leg of hers.
After three dances in quick succession, however, she began to feel the strain, and we returned to our table to my secret gratification, I must confess — much as I was thrilled to be dancing with Felice in my arms — for I was still filled with a queer, unsatisfied excitement, feeling that the strange, inner mysteries of this exotic resort were yet to be revealed to me.
My eyes were very busy with the colourful scene around me, as I sipped my cocktail, and gradually I became awore of many things that slowly helped me to an understanding of the "raison d'ˆtre" of this place that called itself by the very appropriate name of 'Le Phenomene'.
A couple who had been dancing detached themselves from the crowd on the dance floor just near our table and passed slowly by us. And my eyes opened as they fell upon the pair. The girl was quite young and a very pretty blonde, but she seemed like some dream survival from another age. Her incredibly tiny waist displayed to the full by the formfitting frock she wore, could not have been more than ten or twelve inches round, and I had a feeling that, had she bent suddenly, she must inevitably have snapped in two. Then, as my eyes slowly fell downwards, I saw that she was practically only tottering along, resting on the very tips of her toes as the incredibly tall slender heels of her black satin slippers were, at the very least, seven or eight inches in height. The couple were, I soon discovered, only one of several pairs, all vying with each other in the extraordinary smallness of their waists and the height of their heels.
I turned to Felice, to find her watching me with genuine amusement.
"Some of the 'phenomena' that frequent the 'Phenomene'," she said with a laugh. "Do you begin to understand? Look, there is another very remarkable specimen."
I followed her gaze with a little gasp of surprise and pleasure, for the girl swinging past in her partner's arms was completely and wonderfully armless, the bare white, perfectly rounded-off ends of her beautiful shoulders being fully exposed by her daringly low-cut frock. There was something fascinating about this perfect armlessness, and I followed the girl with my eyes until she was lost in the maze of the dancers.
Then across my ken there suddenly swung June, who waved a laughing greeting to us as she went past with her dancing partner. As I watched her, I was able to realise, from the grace and swaying ease of her dancing, something of the enchanting picture Felice made when dancing with me.
It was certainly astonishing to see how effortlessly June fitted in her quick one-footed steps to those of her partner; and to me at any rate, not even the neatest and shapeliest pair of egs in the room could ever equal, in sheer fascination and witchery, the beauty and elegance of the single leg moving so nimbly beneath the short fluttering skirt of her filmy silk frock.
A word from Felice brought my attention back to her.
"Yet another interesting exhibit," she said. "Look-"
I followed the graceful indication of her cigarette in the long jade holder, and I saw coming towards us on the arm of her partner, a very pretty girl in some extraordinary kind of costume, the details of which I could not quite make out. Her actual frock was of the scantiest proportions, low in front, backless, and dropping only a few inches below her hips. But it appeared that it was supplemented by a tight-fitting garment of many colours.
It was only when the couple passed within a few feet of us that I realised that the frock that I have described was actually the girl's one and only garment, and that she was wonderfully and beautifully tattooed, every inch of her white, shapely body, from the base of her throat to the tips of her toes, being covered with a perfect gallery of intricate designs.
She had no sooner passed that another intriguing figure caught my eye. At first I thought the girl — a lovely brunette — was completely clad in a suit of black silk tights; but on a nearer view I saw that, with black silk trunks, she was wearing wonderful high kid boots with amazingly slender heels, smoothly fitting, without a crease or wrinkle, right up to the hips; and on her arms she wore long, perfectly fitting kid gloves that reached the shoulders. The effect was very striking and, to me, entirely novel.
I was by this time, as my be guessed, immensely interested and thrilled, and I searched the throng about me, eager for further sensations. I got many in quick succession. A beautiful junoesque woman went by in the scantiest raiment, literally loaded with costly jewels. Her hair was encircled with diamonds, long glittering pendants swung from her ears, valuable necklaces on graduated lengths were hung about her throat. Her arms and ankles, the latter as bare as the former, as she was stockingless, were encircled by scores of jewelled bangles, and not only was every finger heavily beringed, but also every toe, which her little golden sandals left frankly displayed. A final bizarre touch was added to her gorgeous appearance by the fact that a tiny nose-ring, set with small diamonds, glittered in one nostril.
A laughing quartet, two girls and two boys, passed to a table near us, and I should have taken only a casual interest in them, but for the fact that the boys were so boyish and the girls, though certainly very pretty, seemed rather affected and mincing.
Then I suddenly recalled the two 'boys' I had seen shortly after entering the club, and I understood. Of course, the girls were really boys, and the two boys with them actually girls! The make-up in each case was really wonderful, and almost perfect; but there was just something about them that betrayed them to anybody studying them carefully.
I turned to Felice once again.
"Yes, I begin to understand," I said. "This is certainly a temple of strange gods."
Felice nodded laughingly.
"A very good description, Tony," she said. "That's just what it is. I suppose every possible kink or complex is represented here at one time or another. Nearly every member is abnormal in some curious way. But it's all most intensely fascinating, don't you think?"
"Most," I agreed. And then, as my eyes strayed again to the moving throng, I had yet another thrill more potent than any so far experienced. A pretty blonde walking slowly past me, supported by the encircling arm of her boy, attracted my attention by the curious stiffness of her gait and, with a sudden leap of the pulses, I saw below her very brief, clinging skirt, two slender, gleaming, beautifully turned spindles of silver! These slim supports were obviously all she had by way of legs, and it affected one strangely to see just those two delicately fashioned shafts moving stiffly below the dainty frock instead of the usual shapely flesh-and-blood limbs.
I pointed out the girl to Felice, and she nodded interestedly.
"Yes," she said, "that's Sylvia Garnett. Her more flippant friends call her 'Silver Legs'. The legs are of silver, too, but she only wears them at places like this. Ordinarily she wears wooden ones, slender, very neatly made spindles lacquered in black."
"Queer," I said, "a pretty girl wearing wooden peg legs -"
"Oh, everyone to her taste, or kink, Tony, darling. Sylvia gets some sort of kick out of wearing wooden legs, though as she has only very short stumps just below her hips, she must find walking rather a strain. Personally I should not like to spoil the shape of my stump by wearing an artificial leg of any kind; but many people do not mind that, as they find a leg of that kind so useful. I'm afraid I'm not a normal person, Tony, I like to be one-legged, and I like my stump just as a stump, and not as something on which to fit an artificial leg."
"I'm glad you are as you are, Felice, dearest," I whispered, "and you express my own feelingS exactly. It would utterly spoil your personal, subtle charm to in any way to adopt camouflage."
I went on murmuring soft endearments, and then we lapsed into blissful silence, Felice nestling quite unashamedly within the circle of my arms. Then suddenly she laughed and looked up at me as if to say, "Just look at that," as a dainty little one-legged girl, swinging gracefully along at her boy's side on a single neat crutch, halted just by our table and, without the slightest show of embarrassment, pulled up her short, scanty frock and removed a dainty handkerchief, with which she dabbed her nose, and returned it to its intimate little hiding-place, and then continued serenely on her way.
"Now, wasn't that cute?" cried Felice delightedly. "I shall certainly adopt that little trick when I wear a stump-sock. That will be nice for you, won't it, Tony?, she added slyly.
"Ecstasy!" I murmured softly, hugging her more close to me. And then my attention was caught by a lightly bobbing figure as of a girl skipping gaily through the throng of smoothly moving dancers. It was only as she neared us that I saw, with a quickening of the pulse, that the girl, very pretty and graceful, was, in fact, hopping in just the easy, effortless way as did June and Felice. So that when she came more fully into view I was not at all surprised to see only a single silk-clad leg very fully displayed below her very short, tight frock.
She passed within a few yards of us, and at that moment Felice caught sight of her and, sitting up, fluttered a gay greeting to her with white uplifted fingers.
"Desiree"! she called, and the girl turning her head, smiled deliciously and waved back.
"Just a moment, darling," she called, "and I'll be with you." And she hopped blithely and lissomly to a table a short distance away, where a mixed company was seated.
"Now, there's a pretty sight," said Felice, as we watched the girl still standing poised on her single leg and talking animatedly with her friends. "There is a little bond between Desiree and myself for, you see, we were both born with only one leg. But Desiree is really much more remarkable than I am in that respect — in fact, she's one of the most remarkable girls in the world. Here she's coming across to us."
The girl had now left her friend's table and, hopping in the most natural and dainty way in the world, reached our table. She kissed Felice and was introduced to me, and then stood chatting for a little while before passing on. She proved a very pretty brunette, slim and graceful in a brief, very close-fitting sleeveless frock that was little more than a wisp of chiffon. One characteristic that struck me at once was the extreme slimness of her hips, which, extraordinarily enough, appeared even narrower than her quite slender waist.
And then another thing intrigued me at the same time as it baffled me. The thin, sleek skirt of her very short frock fitted practically skin-tight for quite six or seven inches below the hips, and then broke into short filmy flares. So close fitting was it, in fact, that there seemed actually only room in it for the surprisingly plump thigh of the shapely one leg.
When at last she left us, moving with a grace that had, I thought, something alluringly serpentine about it, I turned to Felice a little excitedly.
"Felice," I said, "you told me that Desiree was a remarkable girl — and I should say she certainly is. She seems to me to have just her one leg and — well, nothing more. And yet that can't really be, can it?"
But Felice nodded smilingly.
"It can be," she said, "for the simple reason that in Desiree's case it is so! She is, as a matter of fact, the only living example of such an anomaly, and a perfect and very beautiful example of it, too. You must have noticed the extreme slimness of her hips. That is so because actually her body, instead of merging in the usual pair of legs, or even into one leg and a stump, as in my case, tapers beautifully and smoothly into just the single, shapely, perfect leg you saw. Her wonderful one-legged body is a really beautiful thing, her leg having no bias either to right or to left, but is formed on perfectly symmetrical lines. Exactly the same is the case with her foot, which is beautifully proportioned, and the amazing thing is that the big toe is not to the side, as in the normal foot, but in the middle, with the other toes group about it, two on each side. You did not know that Nature could play such extraordinary pranks with people, did you?"
"I certainly did not!" I exclaimed, unable to escape a queer feeling of unreality at the astonishing things I had heard and witnessed since I had come to this amazing, bizarre place.
And as my eyes wandered back to the dancing throng, yet another thrill was added to the many I had experienced. For a pretty girl went by on her partner's arms, both apparently dancing blithely, and my eyes narrowed as I saw that only a filmy wisp of chiffon floated airily below the girl's hips that, and nothing more! For she was quite legless from the hips, and was simply being carried round by her dancing partner, her laughing face, as she looked up into his eyes, revealing how much she was enjoying the odd sensation.
Then, when my amazement was still upon me, June and her boy partner came up, June for once, I noticed, swinging easily on a neat, slender crutch, and joined us at our table.
"The cabaret is just about to begin," announced June, after I had ordered more drinks. "The funny thing is that the others haven't turned up yet. They'll miss the show — and I know they wanted particularly to see it."
I wondered who exactly "the others" were, but I didn't care to appear too curious. And, anyhow, at the moment the lights began, one by one, to go out, and soon the room was in darkness save for a very dim, roseate glow that filtered through from some hidden source. Then the opening blare from the orchestra cut through the buzz of conversation and the heavy curtains that veiled the stage swished softly aside.



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Re: London Life. Tales

Post: # 33331Unread post Bazil
23 Sep 2018, 18:21

One cabaret performance is ordinarily very like another, but this particular show certainly had its interesting and intriguing points of difference. "Turns" of the usual order included the inevitable "crooning" singer of jazz songs, a very "low" but very funny comedian, and a clever and exceedingly naughty French "diseuse" who, by the way, provided in her own person a little thrill for many devotees present by revealing a quite freakishly tiny waist and wearing slippers with incredibly high slender heels.
The first really bizarre note, however, was struck by the entry of a pretty laughing girl who, after bowing near the wings, shook off, with a little wriggle of her shoulders, the thin silk wrap that covered her, and advanced to the centre of the stage, a slim, shapely figure in primrose silk tights.
It was only after a tiny but quite perceptible interval, that I realised with a sudden thrill, that the girl was completely armless, the smooth, bare, beautifully rounded shoulders that emerged like a white flower from the low-cut, tight-fitting bodice, revealing no trace of upper limbs at all.
But the girl soon showed that the absence of arms was, in her case, little or no handicap, for kicking off her little slippers and using her slender, shapely toes left bare by her daintily 'mittened' tights, she went through an amazing clever routine that through delighted applause from an audience in many ways specially qualified to appreciate her expertness.
Seated on a chair, she sang to her own accompaniment on the ukulele, daintily strummed with her toes, and then played with the skill of a trained musician, a brilliant violin solo, holding the instrument in the approved fashion under her chin, and bowing and 'fingering' with perfect ease.
Then crossing to an easel, she stood perfectly poised on one foot while with the toes of the other she drew in charcoal astonishingly rapid and very clever caricatures of wellknown members of the audience, including a very charming one of Felice, featuring very prominently her one leg.
These feats she followed with a succession of fascinating tricks, in all of which she displayed the astonishing expertness of her dainty toes and the wonderful flexibility of her slim legs.
She was followed by a quite remarkable female impersonator — slim and very short-skirted — who, had he not at the end of his performance removed a blonde wig, I should have been firmly convinced was a girl. He possessed, for a man, an extremely small waist, a full, white fleshed bust, and very slender, shapely legs, and no girl could have worn with more charm the dainty amazingly high heeled little slippers that graced her small feet.
With the next turn I got another personal thrill, for it was given by a couple of clever girl contortionists and equilibrists, whose fascinating exhibition was made all the more interesting by the fact that each had only one leg. They made a most attractive and unusual couple in their sleek, skinfitting costumes of pure white silk tights and, as usual, neither seemed in the slightest way inconvenienced by the possession of only one leg, maintaining perfect equilibrium even during the most difficult and tortuous feats.
One or two turns of a quite normal type followed, and then came the 'piece de resistance' of the evening, which our programme announced as the "Ballet Fantasque — featuring the world's most wonderful dancer, 'La Mysterieuse.'"
A buzz of excited chatter eddied through the spacious, beautiful room just before the act, dying down to hushed expectation as the great heavy curtain swished softly aside. I leaned forward tensely, a queer pulsing excitement in my heart, some second sense warning me that I was about to witness something odd, fantastic, amazing.
From the orchestra came throbbing, rhythmic music, barbaric and bizarre. As yet the stage was veiled by a glittering, transparent curtain which hang there like a delicate bejewelled cloud. Then this slowly slid away, as it were, in a soft mist dissolving, revealing a strangely lovely interior gorgeously Oriental in inception, but carried out in the most fantastically futurist and jazz design, and lit by an ethereal, unearthly radiance that added to the whole exotically weird effect.
On the right, left and centre, close by the walls, were stationed twelve figures utterly immobile, looking as if they were part of the general decorative scheme, gorgeously apparelled in stiff, brocaded costumes of Chinese design, the full, embroidered skirts reaching to the floor.
In the centre of the stage, but to the rear, stood a heavy pedestal, intricately carved and brilliantly lacquered on scarlet and gold, and upon this squatted what appeared to be the slim, exquisitely attired figure of a lovely Chinese goddess, her bare, heavily jewelled arms held out in a stiff, right-angled gesture, the open palms of her hands facing the audience. So the goddess and the twelve attended figures remained, absolutely motionless, while the uncanny Eastern music throbbed and a strange, exotic perfume drifted stealthily about the room.
A sudden crash of cymbals, and there entered from the side another figure, clad like the immobile attendants, in gorgeous Chinese brocade, the stiff, heavy skirts sweeping the floor. An even more gorgeous colour scheme differentiated her from the motionless figures, and in another respect she differed from them, for a narrow mask of black silk crossed the grave beauty of the porcelain-white face at the line of the eyes.
"La Mysterieuse", I heard Felice whisper. "I wonder who she really is? I think I could guess."
Smoothly, effortlessly, like a figure running on well oiled wheels, the girl moved forward and, in tune with the rhythmic music, glided and swayed about the stage in what could only be described as sheer poetry of motion. It was toe-dancing, of course, the rapid movement of the feet being hidden by the enveloping skirts, but superlative toe-dancing executed with a skill that only dancers of genius could attain.
Then with slow, gradual movements, as if waiting for an age-old dream, the squatting figure of the goddess on the pedestal began to move and sway, her arms wreathing in fantastic patterns, and the twelve attendant figures came, as it were, to life and swayed and gyrated in unison, forming a wonderful, ever-changing kaleidoscopic background for the gliding figure of the masked dancer in front.
Gradually the dance slowed, until once again the figures were motionless. The masked dancer seemed suddenly caught by the spell that had overcome the others, and stood immobile in the centre of the stage. There came a sudden crash on the cymbals, and by some ingeniously contrived mechanical trick, the stiff, brocaded garment fell away from her completely, leaving her standing there, a slim, lovely figure clad only in shimmering tights of flesh silk.
The little involuntary gasp of amazement that escaped my lips was echoed in a soft hiss round the room — and it was not surprising. For the masked dancer stood there perfectly and gracefully poised on a single slender leg that was only too obviously the only lower limb she possessed. For a moment or so the silence held; then the delighted audience cheered and applause broke out like crashing thunder.
As for myself, I was only then realising to the full what an amazing clever thing that dance had been. The girl, while conveying the illusion that her beautiful and perfect performance was being accomplished on two feet in the normal manner, had actually been pirouetting on the toes of just her single foot all the time! The agility and control required must have been almost superhuman. And yet there she stood, perfectly at ease on that slimly beautiful leg of hers, bowing with smiling calm to the continued applause as if nothing particularly out of the ordinary had happened. At last the sound of appreciation died down, and then we had another, and, to me, utterly unexpected thrill. The masked dancer, hopping swiftly and gracefully to the side of the stage, swept an arm in a flowing gesture towards the twelve motionless figures, and there came another reverberating crash of cymbals.
As if by magic, the stiff robes fell away, leaving twelve slender, girlish forms revealed in all the shapely beauty of flesh-coloured silk tights. My heart missed a beat and I felt my pulses racing as I gazed. Every single girl of the whole twelve was one-legged.
The band crashed forth in a wild Bacchanale, the whole troupe, led by the lovely one-legged dancer, broke into a medley of the fastest and most amazing dancing I have ever seen, all the more marvellous because of the uncanny skill in poise and balance shown by every member of this unique combination of beautiful one-legged girls. For a moment or two the pace was held, and then, in a whirl of flashing limbs the troupe swept tempestuously out through the wings, leaving the stage empty save for the slim, Chinese goddess on her lacquered pedestal.
That was the opening dance of that amazing and certainly well-named 'Ballet Fantasque'. There followed a series of dances, each in its way more astonishing than its predecessor, and which — much as I should like to describe them in detail — I can only, in the space at my disposal, do little more than catalogue.
There was the wonderful "Danse Sans Jambes" (Dance Without Legs) 'danced' by the lovely girl who had posed as the Chinese goddess, and who, when she dropped to her hands from the pedestal, revealed herself as being entirely without legs, her slim body being neatly and perfectly rounded off at the line of the hips. She 'danced' with wonderful grace and agility on her hands, her slender legless body balanced on a lissom curve above her head.
There was the fascinating and thrilling 'Danse Des Moignon' in which the whole corps of dancers, clad in wonderful tights of glittering diamante, brought their shapely and flexible stumps into play in a number of ingenious ways. Then, separating, the dancers executed a musical drill with the precision of a troupe of Tiller Girls, and in the control and balance was little short of miraculous.
There were the two very effective and neatly executed dances, 'The Crutch Dance' and the 'Peg Leg Dance', each performed by a different quartet of dancers, the first quartet supported by single, slender, glittering rhinestone-covered crutches, and the second wearing slim, spindle-shaped 'peg legs' also covered with rhinestones. All kinds of ingenious effects were obtained, including step and acrobatic dancing. Finally, there were perhaps the most amazing of all — the various solo dances of 'La Mysterieuse' herself, including miraculous toe-work and most incredible feats of balance and concluding with the wonderful 'Adagio Monopedique', danced with a handsome, finely proportioned male partner, himself also with only one leg.
The dance was a marvellous performance in every respect, for not only did both dancers reach the peak of perfect balance and control, darting, gliding and pirouetting about the stage on their single legs with an ease that a practised twolegged dancer could hardly have equalled, but the girl proved an amazing contortionist, her lissom, flexible body being juggled with by her partner on every possible and apparently impossible way.
He swung her round his body in swirling circles at all kind of angles, swept her round the stage in wider and faster circles, gripping now her hands, now just the slender ankle. He caught and held her in various beautifully balanced poses, after she had hopped across the stage to him at astounding speed on the tips of her toes — once holding her, like a beautiful bird poised for flight, at the full length of his upraised right arm.
Finally as a closing and utterly breath-taking thrill, the girl, once again hopping with that incredible speed of hers across the stage, jumped as she reached her partner, and, lifting her leg, hooked her foot round his neck and, clinging only by that desperately precarious hold, was whirled round and round at ever increasing pace. Slowing down at last, she regained the upright once again, and the pair stood together, breathless but smiling and perfectly balanced, bowing to the tremendous applause that thundered through the room.
The great curtain swung down and swished back a half dozen times as the pair and the whole troupe were recalled again and again, until at last 'La Mysterieuse' stood alone on the stage, a lovely slim figure, delicately poised, and then at last she pulled off her mask and laughingly waved it to the applauding throng in the front.
"It is Sonia!" cried Felice excitedly. "I thought it could only be she." And from all parts of the room came the welcoming cry. "Sonia — Sonia — Sonia -"
"I'm afraid, I'm just as wise as before," I said to Felice as the curtains swung down for the last time and a great buzz of chatter filled the room. "Everybody seems to know the mysterious dancer now that she has removed her masked. Who is she?"
"What a shocking confession of ignorance!" laughed Felice, with a little unusual glance at June. "In private life she is Sonia Merrill, but she has been famous for years as the world's most beautiful and wonderful one-legged dancer — 'La Belle Monopede'. She's been away dancing in America for a year or so, and it's just like her to come back and play this little 'La Mysterieuse' trick to us."
But at this juncture June suddenly interrupted with a little shriek of joy.
"Oh, there you are," she cried. "They must have come with Sonia and taken there table just before her ballet." And she waved a slim, white arm towards one of the alcoves thot fringed the dance floor.
With Felice, I turn&d and looked in the direction of the alcove. And as I gazed I could feel an odd excitement awake in my veins. At the table set within the alcove were seated three girls and three men. One of the girls was partly hidden by her male partner, but the other two girls were on full view, except, of course, for the intervening table. They were both, I could see, daintily, exquisitely beautiful. But that was not all my widening, staring eyes saw.
The frocks of both girls were most daringly low cut, and it was only too amazingly obvious that both girls were entirely armless! There could be no mistake about it. In each case the firm, white flesh of the perfectly rounded-off shoulder ends was plainly visible. Each had lovely, perfect shoulders, but nothing at all in the way of arms.
And as if to settle the point, just as I was looking at them, the younger of them raised above the table a little shapely silk-stockinged foot and, with her beautiful slender tees left bare by the neatly mittened stocking, removed the cigarette she was smoking from her lips!
It was just then that this girl and her companions in the alcove caught sight of June's waving hand, and with laughing excitement the girl threw away the cigarette she held between her toes and, dropping her foot, jumped up and came hastening towards us. And now the excitement began once again to well up within me, for it was only too plain that the lovely armless girl was hopping in the easy way that Felice had accustomed me to; and as she came within full view I saw that only the right leg, slim and shapely in its smooth-fitting silk stocking, showed below the brief skirt of her thin, clinging chiffon frock. Young, exquisitely lovely, yet armless and one-legged! It was no wonder that I was moved to the very core — that I could not take my thrilled eyes from her, unconscious for the time being of everybody and everything else.
She reached our table and, sinking gracefully into a chair, greeted the two girls gaily and turned wonderful, long-lashed, smiling, very friendly eyes on myself.
"This is Tina, my dear," was Felice's introduction. "Tina Nicholas. You've heard of the famous Dr. Nicholas, the wonderful French plastic surgeon, of course. He is the husband of our wonderful Tina — in fact, he was responsible for Tina as you now see her."
I did not confess the fact to Felice, but I had not till then heard of the famous Dr. Nicholas, nor did I at that moment understand Felice's cryptic reference to his responsibility for Tina. It was only later that I learned the amazing truth — that the wonderful and amazing amputations of Tina's arms and left leg had been performed under extraordinary circumstances by the doctor himself.
However, Tina herself laughingly interrupted Felice's remarks about her.
"Felice, darling," she said still smiling, though I could sense the feeling behind the gay manner. "I'm really not Tina Nicholas any longer. You see, I've divorced my husband. Of course, he's insane. I didn't realise the dreadful part of him until after our marriage. So you see, I'm Tina Romney once again. And now you're all to come to our table for a final drink, and then we're going to Moira's, — you too."
She turned soft flattering eyes in my direction as she whispered the last two words to me, and I felt something velvety and warm slip into my hand as it lay there on my knee. With a sudden thrill I realised that it was Tina's little foot, with it's beautiful, slender bare toes, that rested within my hand.
I didn't knew who 'Noira' was or what 'Noira's' meant except that in all probability it referred to the lady's house; but, closing my fingers over the little foot, I looked into her eyes and nodded almost imperceptibly in a way that was almost a caress.
I have not the slightest excuse to offer for my behaviour at that moment. It was imbecile, weak, vaccillating, cruel anything you like. I admit to all that, and I realised it to the full later. But in some way — helped, of course, by her really exquisite blonde beauty and the, for me, tremendous attraction of her physical peculiarities, Tina had cast a spell over me at the very first sight of her. For the time being even Felice was forgotten, and I had eyes for nobody but this lovely fragment of a woman — for that was really all she was, bereft of everything but that one shapely single limb of hers.
Of course, she had realised the truth at once, and immediately turned the whole battery of her incomplete charms upon me. Tina was by no means a heartless 'vamp'. It would not be fair to convey that impression of her. But she was a woman, a lovely, passionate woman; and I, for one, are not in a position to blame her for sensing my intense admiration for her unique unfinished beauty, and taking immediate advantage of it.
However, with a final squeeze of her flexible toes, she dropped her foot and resumed her little heel-less slipper, and we all made our way to the table in the alcove. Here I found that Sonia — 'La Belle Monopede' — and Desiree had both joined the group. And then I was introduced to 'Moira', whom Tina had mentioned when inviting us to their table. She was the other lovely armless girl I had noticed, and I learned that she was Lady Noira Pomeroy, the handsome young man at her side being her husband, the Honourable Ronald Pomeroy.
It was only when I sat between Moira and Tina, while the whole company laughed at Moira's very vivacious and witty sallies, that I realised, with yet another intense, pulsing thrill, the full extent of her amazing incompleteness. She was as beautiful and perfectly armless as Tina, the bare, white shoulders showing no traces of removal.
Gay, vivacious, delightfully witty as well as strikingly beautiful, Noira was really and literally only a lovely trunk of a woman, the only thing she had in the way of limbs being those little rounded stumps at her hips.
Felice had told me that I should find thrills at 'Le Phenomene', but never in all my wildest dreams had I expected such a succession of them.
I looked a little eagerly round the table, my eyes passing from girl to girl, my mind mechanically busy with an odd calculation — Moira armless and legless, Tina armless and onelegged, Sonia one-legged, June one-legged, Desiree one-legged; a beautiful dark brunette with a cynical, petulant expression and who had been introduced to me simply as Dolores was as yet an unknown quantity. And then Felice.
With a sudden start I woke up and gazed round in astonishment. Felice — where was she? The full extent of my sudden infatuation for Tina will be realised when I tell you that I hadn't noticed whether Felice had followed us to the table or not.
"June", I queried across the big table, "where has Felice got to?"
But June, with a little wistful smile, shook her head.
"I don't know, Tony," she said. "She — she just went off. I — I didn't see her go."
"She was tired, perhaps", said Tina to me; then in a soft whisper, "Does it matter?" And her little bare toes gently smoothed my ankle, while a bare, lovely armless shoulder brushed my lips.
"Oh, Felice is all right," said Dolores a little viciously. "Don't you worry about her, Tony. You're not the only pebble on the beach where she's concerned. She has quite a gift for being picked up by infatuated young men who fall for her highly attractive and very well displayed charms!"
The girl lied horribly, cruelly, but I did not know that until much later. But for the moment I was shaken, and I wanted to believe her. I was mad about Tina, and it suited me, treacherous, weak coward that I was at the moment, to believe the worst of poor, loving, loyal Felice.
"Well, if that's how she feels about things," I said, "all right — let her go." And as Tina slid into my arms I dropped my lips to hers and we clung together in our first kiss.
The cocktails arrived and we all drank, I with a hectic gaiety that had something just a little false about it. Tina with an ease and grace that seemed miraculous, took the little thin-stemmed glass between her dainty, slender toes, and raised it.
"To ourselves, Tony," she whispered. I gazed at her stunned by her wonderful unfinished beauty. To me, the whole vision of her at that moment — the lovely armless shoulders, the shapely perfection of one and only limb was utterly intoxicating, utterly desirable. She looked into my eyes, sensing all I felt. Then, stretching out her leg, she placed the glass gently against my lips, and then emptied it.
At Lady Moira's bidding, the party now made their preparations for departure. Moira herself was attended to by her obviously adoring husband, who placed a silk wrap about her, and then carried the wonderful limbless body out in his arms.
Sonia, partnered by one of the young men, swung out on a dainty, slender single crutch, as did June, while Desiree, I noted, used a pair of very neatly constructed elbow crutches, which she managed very deftly and efficiently.
To my great surprise Dolores was picked up by her boy and went out in his arms, her thin, filmy frock hanging limply and emptily from the hips.
Tina standing poised in a perfect balance on her single leg, turned to me and, employing that fascinating little caress she had already accustomed me to, brushed my lips with a bare, armless shoulder. "Carry me to my car, Tony — darling!" she whispered.
And with heart beating and pulse racing, I took her lovely incomplete body in my arms and, holding her as tenderly as I would a child, I carried her from the room.
One fleeting, devastating moment of doubt and anxiety assailed me as I went with my dainty burden to the waiting car.
Felice — where was she? Why had she gone? On the face of things she had gone off in pique, unable to look on calmly while I revealed my sudden, mad infatuation for Tina. But knowing Felice as I did, that explanation did not seem to fit. Felice was bigger than that; no matter how she felt, how slighted, or deserted, she would have remained with that gay, debonair smile on her lips, and would have given no outward evidence of what she was feeling within. No, the real reason was still to reveal itself; and only Felice herself was to solve the problem in her own good time.
Meanwhile I tenderly deposited my lovely burden in the luxurious car and got beside her. And so I was driven off, with my exquisite armless and one-legged charmer at my side to whatever strange adventure awaited me. And of those I shall tell in my next episode of my eventful quest.
________________________________________
London Life December 21, 1929 pp. 21 — 28



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Re: London Life. Tales

Post: # 33574Unread post Bazil
29 Sep 2018, 13:34

London Life
London Life | 1930
________________________________________
The Confessions Of A One-Legged Bride
as told and recorded by Wallace Stort
Foreword by the author.
[I should like to impress very strongly upon my readers the fact that the following narrative is not fiction. Except in a few unimportant details — introduced to cover the identity of the people concerned — it is absolutely authentic, and represents the real emotions and reactions of an actual living young wife, gathered during many friendly conversations with her.
I may add that I have the full permission of both husband and wife to publish the narrative. Perhaps its publication may induce other one-legged lady readers, similarly circumstanced, to contribute their experiences to the pages of "London Life." — w. s.]
________________________________________
I.
I am 25 years of age, and have been married just six happy months. My friends tell me that I am pretty and chic; and I hope you won't think me too vain if I venture to agree with them. I am slim, and blonde, and have a passion for pretty clothes, am of a particularly gay and cheerful disposition — and I have only one leg.
"What a terrible misfortune for a pretty girl!" I hear many readers say. And yet there may be two ways of looking at the matter. It may seem a very startling confession to make, hut the fact is, I rather like being one-legged; certainly I do not nowadays look upon it as a misfortune. On the contrary, I come to look upon my one slim, shapely leg as one of my chief attractions.
But perhaps I had better make some attempt to explain my strange point of view. As a matter of fact, I haven't always felt about things as I do now — I agree that it would be rather unnatural if I had. My present outlook is really of comparatively recent growth, and the reason for my change of opinion will appear during the course of the present narrative.
When I lost my right leg, as the result of a crash on a motor-cycle at the age of 17, I wasn't the least bit pleased! In fact, at the time the thought of going through life on one leg depressed me terribly. But most people have the blessed faculty of adjusting themselves to circumstances; and I, being more cheerful and vivacious than most, very soon settled down to my new conditions quite philosophically. So much so that in a year or two I had not only grown quite accustomed to being one-legged and swinging about on crutches, but I had forgotten even to worry about the fact. Not that I had grown to "like" being one-legged yet — that came later.
My leg had been amputated at the thigh, leaving a short stump just about four inches in length from the hip. It was first of all intended that I should have an artificial leg as soon as I was pronounced quite fit. As a preliminary, I was supplied with a temporary or practice limb, made with a movable knee-joint.
I hated the thing from the very beginning, and the sight of the stiff, footless, peg-leg below my very neat and very short skirt brought tears into my eyes. The fact that I was very soon to have a nice, beautifully made artificial leg of the very latest pattern was no consolation. I think I was really more depressed then than I had been immediately after my amputation.
However, the problem was settled in another way altogether. It very soon became apparent that my flesh was too sensitive to bear the strain of wearing an artificial limb. Everything was done to help me — even a fresh amputation, which would have completely removed my stump, was suggested, much to my consternation — but all without result. At last the idea of fitting me with an artificial leg was given up altogether, and I returned quite happily to my crutches. At any rate, I had got rid of that awful temporary leg!
Well, my life was really very little different from that of any other girl of my age. I was very happy at home, where I was petted and spoiled to a shocking extent. I was taken everywhere, and did everything that was possible for me to do; and my one leg and my crutches became so much part of my life that I really never thought, and certainly never worried, about them.
One thing I am sure my being one-legged made me more careful of, and that was my appearance. I must confess to being a little vain in that way, and with just a single leg showing below my short skirt, and a pair of crutches beneath my arms, it seemed most essential to me that I should be as neat and chic as possible. I always dressed with the utmost care and smartness, being most fussy about the absolutely faultless appearance of my slim, shapely leg and daintily high-heeled slippered foot, and spending small fortunes on the neatest and slenderest of polished black crutches.
Shortly after my amputation, my only attitude towards my stump was, naturally enough, one of slight distaste. It was all that was left of a beautiful and shapely leg; it was scarred and puny and not at all attractive, and was not a thing of which I could feel particularly proud. But as time went on, owing mainly, so I was told, to its not being used, and so not sufficiently exercised, it put on flesh very quickly, until it became quite plump and round.
I remember the first time I noticed the change, while I was in my bath, and experiencing a tiny thrill as I realised that the stump had became an almost perfect oval, shapely and firm fleshed. Then gradually the puckered line of the scar thinned and faded until practically all that was left as a memento of the amputation was a sort of slightly irregular dimple in the white, firm flesh just near the inner tip of the stump.
I confess that from that time I began to take a more lively interest in it. Though it may seem a little odd to ordinary readers, I have no doubt that other one-legged lady readers will quite understand me when I say that gradually I came to regard my stump as something so familiar and natural as any other part of my body, something there was not the slightest need to be troubled or sensitive about, and having its own shapeliness and attractiveness.
I began to be fastidious about it, to take every care of it, keeping the flesh soft and white with skin foods, preserving its shapely contours in every way I could. I was, of course, as fastidious about the rest of my body, hut in some way my little four inches of leg seemed to call for special care.
So life went on quite smoothly. I was happy and contended, making the very best of things, proud in my own way of my slim, chic little one-legged figure swinging neatly along on its neat pair of crutches, secretly, keenly gratified by the great amount of attention I attracted.
There was just one little cloud on the horizon. I had many devoted girl friends, and their "boys" were always extremely nice to me. Quite often a boy friend would make a party of four with a girl friend and her "boy" and myself for an evening out, and he would be charming to me throughout the evening. Sometimes, even, a boy friend would take me out alone and give me a very pleasant time, but I hadn't a real "boy" of my very own — one who was really fond of me and who paid attentions only to myself.
That certainly did hurt a little though I forced myself not to think too much about it, and I didn't let it spoil my life.
And then, quite suddenly, something unexpected and to me, very extraordinary, happened, something that changed the whole course of my life and brought everything that was worth having into it.
One evening about eighteen months ago I was waiting for a homeward bus, and I couldn't help feeling that a bay waiting at the same corner wanted to speak to me. He was a perfect stranger to me, a good-looking boy of about my own age, very well groomed, as they say, obviously of good family and position. He would walk away a little distance and then come back and look at me as if he were going to speak, and then look away again as if embarrassed.
I thought he was perhaps mistaking me for somebody he knew; I felt he couldn't be trying to "get off" with me, as — well, my single leg and my crutches were very much in evidence, and experience told me that boys met casually in their way don't usually trouble one-legged girls, no matter how pretty and smartly dressed they may be.
However, the 'bus came along. I boarded it and so did the boy. His seat was a little in advance of mine, and I couldn't help noticing that every now and then he would half turn his head and send a quick sideways glance apparently towards myself. Eventually I got off just by the road in which I then lived, and I hurried along it as swiftly as my crutches would allow me.
But a quick glance round told me that the boy was following at a little distance. To my surprise, however, when I arrived at my home, he passed on the opposite side, and when I got inside I really didn't know what to think of the whole curious affair. I was half relieved, half disappointed, and wholly puzzled.
It must have been about twenty minutes later that I heard a little click of the letter box, and something made me go myself into the hall and take out the letter that had been pushed into the box. The envelope was unstamped and it was with a real thrill that I read the inscription.
"To the little lady of the crutches."
The note was obviously from the boy who had followed me. He had, as I afterwards learned, gone to a nearby stationer's, bought the paper and envelope and then written the note. He apologised for his "colossal impertinence," confessed that he would like very much to know me, but had not been able to summon up the courage to speak to me; hoped I was not offended at his daring to write; suggested a meeting in the West End and, as an earnest of good faith, enclosed his card.
Well, I had come misgivings, but, of course, in the end curiosity and a feeling of thrilled excitement got the better of me, and I turned up at the appointed rendezvous. I must confess that I had taken the greatest possible pains to look my most chic and attractive.
It was a delightful evening, just near the end of July, and I had chosen a very light, filmy summer two-piece suit, both frock and coat of the most delicate beige chiffon, and both barely reaching my knee. With this I wore dainty beige Milanese camiknicks, the frilled knickers of which were very short and very close-fitting, a long, "opera-length", perfectly fitting stocking of the sheerest and most gossamer beige silk — one of a pair that cost me 25 s. — a skin-fitting "stump sock" also of the sheerest silk specially made for me, as were all my "socks," and matching perfectly my stocking in colour, and a little beige satin Court slipper with a slender 3 in. heel, also especially made for me.
A tight little pull-on hat, from which peeped my blonde, shingled curls, completed my toilette, and for crutches I had chosen my latest pair — slender, and neatly made of black, polished "ebony", which are very comfortable in use once one gets used to them, and which I had learned to manipulate with expert deftness.
I think I looked very neat and dainty, and I know I attracted a good deal of attention as I swung easily along an my way to the rendezvous.
The boy was waiting there, and it was quite obvious that he had only half expected me to turn up, for he positively stiffened when he caught sight of me, and all the colour left his face. He was actually trembling when he spoke, and had the greatest difficulty in keeping up even a semblance of control. I must admit I was trembling a little myself, for though meeting a boy in this way may be quite an ordinary experience for many girls, for me it was a very unusual and exciting adventure.
However, eventually we were able to talk to each other more or less normally, and we moved off quite friendlily together towards the restaurant where we were to have dinner. Roy — to call him, for convenience sake, by a name which isn't his own — proved a most charming, nice mannered, very considerate, altogether attractive boy, and I still look back to that wonderful, delightful evening as something almost too good to be true, something plucked, as it were, out of a fairy story, in which I was the little Cinderella and Roy the handsome Prince Charming.
That was how I came to meet the boy who is now my very dear husband, and who is really responsible for my changed outlook on life, enabling me to find great happiness in, and actually to be quite proud of, a condition which most people would regard as a great and irreparable misfortune.
It was some little time before I actually discovered anything odd or out of the ordinary about my new and delightful friend. As we became more intimate I did, of course, wonder ly enough, one of slight distaste. It was all that was left of a beautiful and shapely leg; it was scarred and puny and nsometimes why such a boy had fallen so desperately in love with a girl whom ordinary folk could only look upon as a pretty cripple. But I told myself that that was the way things often happen in life, and that he was so much in love with me that he was able to ignore my loss of a leg.
However, it was, curiously enough, myself who was eventually responsible for the discovery of his actual and amazing point of view. I had been thinking a good deal about Roy and his relations with me, and for the first time I began to feel sensitive and a little troubled about my having only one leg. I began to feel embarrassed in his presence, and to wish that I was as other girls were with two pretty and attractive legs instead of my poor little single one. I was sure that Roy, though he was always so perfectly lovely to me, could not help feeling self-conscious about my leg, especially when out walking with him, I swung along on my crutches by his side.
I got quite miserable about it, though I said nothing to Roy, and the only thing I could think of doing was to be fitted once again with an artificial leg. I simply hated the idea, and I did got know whether, after the lapse of years, my stump would stand the strain any better than-it had done. But I thought if I could get used to a leg I should at least have the appearance of a normal girl, and Roy would have no need to feel sensitive when walking out with me.
Well, one evening, after some hesitation, I spoke to Roy and put my suggestion before him. I don't think I shall ever forget the extraordinary way in which my poor little suggestion was received. It isn't too much to say that Roy seemed actually horrorstricken. An artificial leg was the very last thing he wanted me to wear. I had been completely mistaken in my reading of his feelings; and now, as he began to stammer out his explanations, I began to understand dimly what were his real thoughts about me.
It would take too long and too much space to record the whole of our amazing discussion on the memorable evening. But what definitely emerged was the undaunted fact that Ray, so far from falling in love with me in spite of my having only one leg had done so — among other reasons, of course — actually because I was one-legged!
"I know, darling," he said, still stammering in his embarrassment, "it all sounds mad, and you won't understand me a little bit. I can't explain it myself. It's some queer kind of a kink with which I suppose I was born. But there it is. As long as I can remember, I have always been strongly attracted to pretty girls with only one leg, and you are the first I have been able to pluck up sufficient courage to get to know. Ordinary twolegged girls, no matter how pretty or chic they are, leave me absolutely cold; they have not the slightest interest for me, and I could never marry one. But there is, for me, a tremendous and thrilling fascination about a pretty one-legged girl, especially if she is dainty and chic, bright and cheerful, and is out to make the best of things -"
"And she mustn't wear an artificial leg," I put in, smiling a little mischievously in spite of my general bewilderment.
"Good heavens, no!" he said fervently. "That would spoil everything — at any rate for me. It may seem a queer idea, darling, but really it is quite logical under the circumstances. An artificial leg is meant to hide, as completely as possible, the loss of a natural leg, and to give the person wearing it a normal two-legged appearance. Well, don't you see, it is the charm and fascination of the one-legged appearance that thrills me. I don't want it camouflaged in any way!"
I saw the point of that particular argument easily enough when Roy put it that way; and besides, I was extremely relieved and pleased that I had not to face the ordeal of trying once again to wear an artificial leg. But all that did not prevent me, that night and for many days and nights afterwards, from feeling just a little troubled about Roy and his extraordinary way of looking at things.
I couldn't really think him mad. He was not only extremely sane in general, but very well read and with an amazing knowledge of deep and difficult subjects that I could never even attempt to understand. But he certainly had, as he had confessed, a "kink" and though that kink had drawn him to me, I was really disturbed about it — sufficiently so, in fact, as to contemplate the terrible possibility of having to give him up.
But I didn't give him up — I just couldn't! And in an incredible short time I was able to look back an that period of worry and doubt in sheer amazement. It is really extraordinary how one can adapt oneself, especially if one loves passionately and is loved. I, who had been so troubled about Roy's inexplicable views, now gradually came to realise that I was thrilled with delight at the knowledge that he found myself and my misfortune charming and fascinating. I realised, too, with, as it were, a little intake of breath, that had I not been as I was, he would never have looked my way, no matter how pretty and chic I was. In fact, I was now gloriously, deliriously happy in my love for Roy, and the queer, amazing truth wad that I owed it all to the fact that I had lost a limb!
It was from that time that I began to take a curious pleasure in indulging, in every way I could, Roy's little idiosyncrasy. I had always worn short skirts, but know all my frocks were all quite daringly brief, those for outdoors touching my knee, while my indoor frocks were all very much shorter, one or two being mere wisps of chiffon.
My stockings were all of the finest quality, gossamer things of sheer cobwebby silk, and my specially made single slippers were more fragile than ever, and perched on delicately slender heels of from 3 1/2 in. to 4 in. in height — the limit in height, by the way, to which, in my humble opinion, heels should go. Above that they make the slipper clumsy and give the foot an appearance that I can only describe as crippled. However, that it just my opinion.
I couldn't be too daring or too smart for Roy, who encouraged me in all my extravagances. In fact, if I had elected to wear my indoor frocks out of doors I am sure he would have applauded the idea with enthusiasm. He liked, too, to see my foot exposed in the most open and flimsiest of slippers, his favourite being a 4 in. heeled sandal. It was actually merely a heel-piece, a very thin and narrow sole, and a tiny toe-piece — a thin, jewelled strap over the instep keeping the fragile affair in position. And when, as I swung smoothly along on my slender crutches at his side, people turned and stared at my slim, one-legged figure, he was as pleased and proud of the sensation I caused as if I were the most fascinating beauty in the land.
He had all kinds of odd little fancies that I was quick to notice and to gratify. For instance, when we were together indoors he would frequently sit opposite me instead of with me, and the reason soon became obvious to me. It was simply that the sight of my one-legged figure always had power to thrill him, and by sitting opposite me he was actually conscious all the time of my shapely single-limbed figure so frankly displayed below a diaphanous frock.
As if unaware of his ardent scrutiny, I would, with apparent carelessness, kick off my little open slipper and softly caress his ankle with my silk-stockinged foot. He took an extraordinary pleasure in this kind of "foot-kiss", as he called it, and it became a habit of mine at home, in restaurants, theatres, picture theatres, and the like.
He liked, too, to fondle and kiss my unslippered foot. He always kissed my foot, too, whenever he put on or removed my slipper — a thing he delighted to do whenever the opportunity offered.
Naturally I could not be insensitive to all this homage, andit had its obvious effect on me. I grew to look for these caresses, to desire them, to feel the delicious thrill of them; and so, unconsciously almost, my one leg began to assume an importance in my eyes it had never possessed before. I had reached the first stage in my journey towards a completely changed point of view regarding it.
But my biggest surprise, and one that really did seem to me at first quite beyond my powers to explain, came when I made the strange discovery that Roy found not only my one leg fascinating, but also my poor little stump! It had never entered my head that anyone could have the slightest interest in such a thing. In fact in all my dealings with Roy — even when he was fondling or kissing my foot — I was extremely careful to keep my very short second limb discreetly veiled by my frock, and well out of sight.
Not that I was ashamed of as sensitive about it, as I have already explained; it had become very shapely and plump. I always kept it meticulously well cared for, and it was always clad in a specially made, perfectly fitting "sock" of the finest silk. And, despite all my precautions, I could not, of course, prevent the appearance of a very full outline of its rounded contours beneath the clinging silk of my frocks. But I felt that, even if Roy subconsciously realised its existence, it could have no possible interest for him.
I was completely mistaken, however. Roy had all the time been only too acutely aware of it, and keenly interested in it, and he revealed his little secret in a charming and yet quite characteristic manner.
One evening, as we sat together on our favourite couch, he produced, as he had a pleasant habit of doing, a little present for me. This time it was a very dainty silk garter, beautifully set with brilliants in an intricate design. Of course he claimed the privilege of putting it on my leg himself, and smilingly I drew up my frock to within a few inches of the hip, and held out my leg for his attentions.
I always wear "opera-length" stockings, and so the sheer, perfectly fitting silk of the stocking reached practically to my hip, where it was held taut by tiny suspenders attached to the narrow, skin tight silk belt which is all I wear in the way of corsets.
Roy, of course, made quite a ceremony of the putting on of the garter, kneeling before me and kissing first my unslippered foot, then my knee, about which he solemnly placed the dainty glittering garter. But after I had kissed him in reward he still retained his kneeling position before me, and smilingly produced from his pocket another garter, the twin of the one he had just slipped on to my knee.
"Wouldn't they let you have just the one, darling?" I asked laughingly. "There really ought to be places where one could get single garters for one-legged sweethearts, oughtn't there? But I can wear them alternately, as I do my stockings, and they'll last longer."
But, sitting back on his heels, Roy looked up at me with an odd little smile in his eyes.
"The garters are not to be worn alternately," he said slowly.
"Oh, I see," I said still laughing. "another of your funny little ideas. You'd better let me wear them both on my leg at the same time."
"No," he said, "not that exactly, I'd like you to wear them at the same time, certainly, but one on your leg and the other — well, on this — "
And, for the first time since I had known him, I felt the caress his fingers on my remnant of a limb, which was but thinly veiled by its silk "sock" and the gossamer chiffon of my frock.
For a moment I was held by the thrill of this unexpected touch. Then I realised what it was Roy had suggested.
"On my — my stump?" I exclaimed with a little breathless laugh.
"Yes, darling," he said, smiling. "Why not? Is that so very extraordinary? Of course, I know I'm not supposed to have noticed that you ever had such a thing; but you haven't been as successful in hiding it as you may have imagined; And I have been able to gather that it possesses distinct charms of its own — that it is attractively plump and shapely, as fascinating in its way as your slim, single leg; in fact, in the eyes of a queer beggar like myself beautiful! So there isn't the slightest reason to be so shy about it — and I assure you this garter would suit admirably."
Of course, he was absurd, but delightfully absurd, and I cannot describe the delicious thrill that throbbed through me at the knowledge that though he spoke lightly, he was very much in earnest. I felt too, in a way I can't explain, that my loss took on an added allure in my eyes because of its fascination for Roy. I hugged him suddenly to me, my eyes suspiciously misty, and pressed my lips to his in a long clinging kiss.
The sweet, delightful thing that Roy said and did are perhaps more the concern of just our two selves than of anyone else — even you, dear reader — so I shall not record them here. But at last he proceeded with the ceremony.
So it was that the little bit of my lost leg added to the other charms that Roy found so delightful, and must confess that I took a frank pleasure in his admiration of it, I even helped to foster that admiration. I was not now so concerned to hide its existence as I had been.
I had all my frocks made very tight fitting, and in many other ways did I, who not so very long ago would have thought the thing incredible, frankly drew attention to, and covet admiration for, that shapely stump of mine, which I no longer looked upon as a sign of my maiming, but as in itself a beautiful part of myself, with its own peculiar attraction and charm.
So I reached a further stage in my strange journey along he road whither Roy and his love were leading me.
II.
In the previous chapter I told you of several odd little fads that Roy revealed as our friendship deepened. Another rather curious little whimsy of his, which in a curious way developed into an almost invariable rule of our lives, was the outcome of a purely chance occurrence.
Most one-legged people will be aware that a young and active person so handicapped gets into a habit, now and then, of hopping about the house on one leg, instead of using a crutch, which may not always he at hand at the required moment. It is a fact that such a person does often develop a most uncanny sense of balance on the single leg, and hopping, after a while seems to become natural.
However, I had myself developed this habit to a certain extent long before I knew Roy. Usually in the house I used a single crutch; but a crutch like anything else, can be mislaid and often I didn't bother to locate it, but just hopped easily and gaily about without it. Of course one can't hop safely in a high-heeled slipper — the danger of tripping and perhaps injuring one's sensitive stump is too great. Accordingly, knowing my little propensity, I usually wore when alone, a little, close fitting, and entirely heelless slipper, in which I could hop to my heart's content without any danger of falling.
Now, the curious thing is that when I became intimate with Ray I never let him see me hopping in this way; I had no very definite reason for this, but I suppose that I felt that in his preference hopping might appear slightly undignified; and, besides, he always liked to see me in a high-heeled slipper.
But one evening when I happened to be alone in the house and not expecting Roy, the door-bell rang. I hopped blithely to the door, opened it — and there stood Roy in the porch. I had to laugh at my little predicament in spite of myself. There I stood, poised on my single leg, very frankly revealed in one of my briefest frocks, while Roy regarded me open-eyed, no crutch anywhere within either reach or sight.
Well, I simply had to tell him of my little habit, and suggested that he had better carry me to the drawing-room. But no! To my amazement, he absolutely refused to carry me. He wanted to see me hop! I felt oddly embarrassed — I can't quite explain why; but at last, with a little laugh, I turned and, followed by Roy, hopped nimbly through the hall and along to the drawing room.
So was initiated yet another little "stunt" which I performed, and still perform quite readily and happily for Roy's sake. He would not let me touch a crutch all that evening. Whenever I had occasion to move I had to hop, and all the time he followed my movements with fascinated eyes. He thought it amazingly clever of me, and wanted to know why on earth I had kept such a delightful little accomplishment so secret.
Of course, I was thrilled, as usual by his pleasure, and I must confess I was quite vain of my skill, and invented all kinds of opportunities for displaying it. I daresay, in the days that followed, I was quite as much responsible as Roy for my growing habit of hopping about the house when he was there. I "forgot my crutch with increasing frequency, until at last it became practically the rule that my crutch was put away out sight on the evenings Roy visited me, and my normal method of getting about was hopping.
Naturally I developed quite extraordinary skill, and I really think I can say, without exaggeration, that I was, and am today, as sure-footed on my single foot as any active two-legged person — in some ways even more so!
If I may anticipate a little while on this subject, it may be of interest to note that at the present time, now that I am married to Roy, no crutch is ever in evidence in the house. All my crutches are kept in a specially made case in the hall, and a pair is taken out when I leave the house and put back as soon as I re-enter the hall. My "hopping" heelless slippers are also kept in this case, and I change my high-heeled slipper for one as soon as I enter the house.
While in the house, doing my household duties, attending to Roy, etc., I invariably hop about on one leg and, apart altogether from Roy's pleasure, I actually prefer this method of getting about. It keeps me young, active and healthy, and I shall give it up only when I am forced to do so by illness or advancing years. I don't make the slightest difference when friends are being entertained — in fact, all our friends think my effortless hopping quite fascinating — and I have some very dainty heelless slippers in all kinds of delicate fabrics for wear with my evening gowns — when entertaining at home.
Very often, however, Roy likes me to wear a high heeled slipper on these occasions, but even then a crutch never puts in an appearance. I move about as little as possible — though standing, by the way, presents no difficulty, as I can stand perfectly balanced for any length of time an even a 4 in. heel; and when it is necessary for me to move from one room to another — well, Roy simply picks me up in his arms and carries me.
But to return to the point from which I digressed — in such a way as I have described did the intimacy between Roy and myself develop and deepen; we grew to understand each other more thoroughly as the months went by, and the more I knew of him and his delightfully odd little caprices, the stronger became my love for him. And at last the inevitable happened — we became engaged, and within a few months of that blissful event, married.
I could not, of course, even attempt to describe that wonderful ecstatic time. But I shall just lift the veil on one little honeymoon secret. I hope that what I have already revealed in these confessions will enable you to understand how exactly the strange little declaration on my part came about.
As I lay in Roy's arms on our bridal night, I turned to him and, thrilling with emotion and meaning every word I said, I whispered, "Roy, darling, now that I am your wife, I want you to know that I really and honestly feel that the accident through which I lost my leg was one of the luckiest things that ever happened to me. But for that accident, you would never have come into my life; and life would be unthinkable without you and your love. I want you to hear from my own lips that I am glad to be one-legged — honestly glad! I don't want ever to be otherwise. And I get a new thrill every time I realise that you want me to be one-legged and love me because I am one-legged. There, darling, I have wanted to say that for a long time now — and at last I have said it!"
I don't suppose I was quite as eloquent as all that — but in some such words I said what I really meant at the time and, in fact, still do mean. And as Roy kissed me passionately and murmured soft endearments against my lips I knew how thrilled he was by my frank little confession.
Well, for six wonderful, happy months I have been married to Roy, and I am still finding my greatest delight in indulging all his little fads and doing all I possibly can to keep him proud of his little one-legged wife. I think I am, if possible, more fastidious than ever about my appearance, always striving to be as dainty and chic as I can, both indoors and out.
Fortunately, Roy is quite comfortably placed, and is able to encourage all my extravagances, and takes as keen an interest in the fascinating intimacies of my attire as I do myself. He isn't very keen on the latest craze for long skirts, and so I have to compromise on that matter. All my day indoor frocks remain very short, none of them reaching as far as my knee; but several of my evening frocks have slightly dipping hems to the side, while a couple of frocks that reach my ankle are completely transparent in front to well above the knee.
Roy is just as interested in my slippers, of which I have an outrageously large number — my present stock currently comprising 25 all told, though I have possessed as many as 37! As, of course, I require only a single one in each case, my ordinary practice is to have my slippers made for me. I go to two makers — one English, just off Bond street, the other French, in the Regent street neighbourhood.
From the English maker I get my more severe, yet beautifully made, walking shoes, and from the French maker my dainty, fragile, high heeled slippers and sandals, and my "hopping" slippers. The English maker, by the way, charges me three and three and a half guineas, and the French maker from three to five guineas for a single slipper — so you see that being one-legged -and fastidious — is a somewhat expensive business!
Roy has to be consulted on every choice I make, and usually accompanies me when I go to be fitted; but as he has very original and artistic ideas about my footwear, he is usually of the greatest help. It will be interesting to readers to learn that the English maker I have just referred to has on his books the names of close on 300 one-legged lady clients, all of them more or less well-to-do!
As for my stockings, though I wear only one at the time I can, thank goodness, buy these in pairs; but even in this case I have to go to one special place, as in the first place I like opera-length stockings that reach practically to the hip, and secondly I have, of course, to have "stump socks" specially made and these I like to be of the same fine, sheer silk and of the same colour as the stocking I am wearing. So once again I have to pay much more for my stockings — and "socks" — than the ordinary girl.
I have, by the way, myself designed a "stump sock" that I think is rather a novelty. A "stump sock," as you will have gathered, is a sort of pocket specially made to fit the stump, and is usually made of soft wool, if worn alone, or of rather stout material if worn with an artificial leg. It can be held in position by suspenders, as in the case of a stocking, or by a thin, elastic runner let into the edge of the open mouth.
All my socks are dainty affairs of diaphanous silk, fitting my stump with skin-tight perfection, and the novelty effect I have introduced into some of my special socks consists of a dainty, frilled silk Garter made as part of the sock and taking the place, at the open top, of the ordinary elastic runner. These gartered socks are especial favourites of Roy.
There was one frequently expressed request of Roy with which for some time I felt oddly shy of complying. He was very keen of my wearing silk tights, and it wasn't that I objected — the idea,on the contrary, rather thrilled me. But I knew, of course, that I should have to have them specially made, and the thought of a one-legged girl like myself approaching some firm to be supplied with silk tights rather daunted me.
However, l yielded at last to Roy's pleadings, and went to a well known firm of theatrical costumiers. I need not have worried to the slightest. My order for three one-piece suits of silk tights — two in flesh colour and one in diaphanous black — was taken as a pure matter of course, and not a soul troubled about the fact that I was one-legged. In fact, the girl who attended to me told me, as she calmly took the measurements of my stump, that the firm supplied tights regularly to three other one-legged lady clients, and had made swimming suits with what she called "stump pockets," for a lady without legs.
And so I added silk tights to my other dainty lingerie, and they have become very favourite wear of mine . Quite often I have appeared in the evening clad only in my tights for Roy's especial benefit, and once I let myself be persuaded, during a rather wild party we gave, to contribute a "speciality" dance in tights — the "dance" consisting simply of my hopping gaily about in time to a fox-trot on the gramophone. Though the "audience" applauded uproariously, I don't know quite how the dance really affected the members, as it was the first time that most of our friends had seen my little silk-clad stump fully revealed.
But usually, of course, I wear my tights simply as undies beneath my frocks, and I find them most comfortable with those of my evening frocks that are form-fitting and almost skin-tight. A frock of that sort can only really be worn perfectly over silk tights and, of course, no corsets. In fact, with these particular frocks I always wear tights. I can most strongly recommend them, to any other readers, whether one-legged or not, who like their frocks to fit glove-tight.
I have very often been to theatres and restaurants, where my slim, frankly revealed one-legged figure, swinging daintily on slender crutches, has attracted general notice, and have wondered how many of the interested onlookers have guessed that my sole garments, other than my fragile, open, high heeled, sandal, consisted of a clinging gossamer, chiffon frock and silk tights .
Roy has not lost — I suppose he never will lose — the somewhat abnormal fascination that my little foot has for him — what I suppose that learned people would call "foot fetishism." It still remains one of his greatest delights to kiss and fondle it, and he still prefers, strangely enough, to hold it, rather than my hand, when we sit together.
It has become almost a matter of routine for me to kick off my slipper when he settles himself by me, and curling up my leg,slip my silken foot into his hand. And he still, as it were, purrs beneath the caress of my unslippered foot on his ankle when we are at the pictures or a theatre, or the like.
But this strange fetish of his goes much further than that. He insists on being, as it were, completely in charge of my foot, keeping the toes beautifully manicured and the foot itself expertly massaged. My toes are kept as fastidiously, and are just as perfect and slender as my fingers, the toe-nails fashionably pointed, rouged, and highly polished.
As a permanent adornment I wear round my ankle a thin, flat anklet of flexible gold, a present from Roy; and another of his out-of-the-ordinary gifts, and also a permanent adornment, is a tiny flat replica of my wedding ring, which I wear on the fourth toe of my foot.
As may be guessed from this, Roy likes to fondle my bare foot just as much as when it is clad in a silk stocking, and accordingly I very often appear in the evening, when we are by ourselves, only in filmy, boudoir pyjamas, and let him caress my bare foot to his heart's content.
Readers of Mr. Wallace Stort's stories of limbless beauties in "London Life" may recall the dainty pyjamas worn by Felice, the beautiful one-legged heroine of his latest story, "The Strange Quest of Anthony Drew." Those pyjamas, it will be remembered were specially made with only a brief "trouserette," of a few inches in length, on the right side, from which peeped Felice's pretty and shapely little bare stump.
Well, Mr. Stort will not mind me mentioning here the fact that he got the idea of Felice's pyjamas from myself, as my own pyjamas are all made in that way. As a matter of fact, what I do is simply to purchase my pyjamas in the ordinary way, and then, after cutting off the right leg, fashion a dainty little "trouserette" of only a few inches in length, which gives the glimpses that Roy finds so fascinating.
Roy is never happier than .when caring for me in some way, acting as my maid, dressing and undressing me, doing everything he can for me. And, of courser I share the full of all his emotions in all this thrilled by all his attentions, loving every bit of his tender care immensely proud of the incomplete beauty of my body about which he is so fastidious.
I have told you how, nowadays, I never use crutches in the house, but just move about on my single leg with as much ease as an ordinary person using two legs. But, of course, I use crutches when out of doors, and as much care has gone to their selection as to the other details of my toilette. Before I met Roy I was fastidious in this regard, and always had at least two pairs in use, as costly as I could afford, with neat, slender frames usually in black polished wood. These were of the armpit type, and to this I added, just before meeting Roy, a pair of very neat "elbow" crutches, also in black. To-day I have five pairs, presents from Roy. These last include a pair of the armpit type one of the Roy's first presents to me shortly after our first meeting — a really "posh" pair, very lightly and slender made, and terribly expensive, though in appearance not very different from my other pairs — and a beautifully made "elbow" pair, which Roy bought me to use at our wedding.
Personally, I prefer nowadays the "elbow" type, which not only entails ever so much less strain, but also, in my opinion, give one a greater and, if I may say so, a more distinguished appearance. Roy likes them for these reasons also, but I know that secretly he really likes me to use just a single crutch of the armpit type. He has confessed to the strange fascination there is for him in the slow, clinging swing the use of a single crutch gives to the body.
As a matter of fact a single crutch entails a really heavy strain on the armpit, and doctors and surgeons always very strongly deprecate its use.
A little while ago in this narrative you will remember I happened to make a brief reference to Mr. Wallace Stort and the stories of limbless beauties that he has been contributing to "London Life." Roy and I have often discussed these stories — which, of course, from their very subject matter, apart altogether from their merits and demerits as stories, possess tremendous interest for us. I remember particularly one evening as l lay in Roy's arms discussing with him the strange case of Lady Moira Pomeroy in the story "Dr. Nicholas."
Lady Moira, you will recall, underwent voluntary amputation of all her limbs, until by the end of the story she was just a lovely trunk of a woman, completely without arms or legs.
Woman-like, I laughingly asked Roy if he would have been so strongly attracted to myself supposing I had been, like Lady Moira, just a beautiful trunk, with completely armless shoulders and with only twin, rounded stumps at my hips.
I confess I was astonished at the emotion with shook Roy as he gathered me more closely into his arms; and it was a fantastic strange reply he made to me. My lovely one-legged body, he told me, was utterly adorable and fascinating as it was. Taking into consideration all the circumstances, my condition was ideal, and he would always find it desirable and entrancing; and he fully realised that any further loss of limbs would result in a condition of helplessness that would make life only much more difficult for me.
But all the same — and here came the amazing part of his reply — he had to confess that my condition was only one phase of the strange attraction limblessness in a beautiful girl had for him. Even the total absence of both arms and legs had its extraordinary and inexplicable charm.
He remembered once seeing on exhibition a beautiful German girl of about 19 entirely without limbs, just a shapely, perfectly formed trunk and nothing more. Her beautifully modelled shoulders revealed no trace of arms, and her body was smoothly rounded off at the hips without even the most rudimentary stumps being apparent. And so strong was the fascination she exercised for him that he fell in love with her at first sight, and it was a very long time before he was able to forget the memory of her from his mind.
He was quite certain that if, when he first became acquainted with me I had just been a beautiful armless and legless trunk instead of being merely one-legged, he would have found me just as alluringly attractive and fallen as madly in love with me!
So my foolish little question was answered, and I must confess that the reply, amazing and unexpected though it was, had its strange thrill for me. It was wonderful to know that Roy would still have found me fascinating even had I been quite limbless.
As for my own opinion on the matter — well, candidly, though naturally, my earnest desire is to remain as I am, the idea of losing other limbs does not now strike me with such repugnance as it would have done before I met Roy. I think I never could cheerfully submit to the loss of my arms — one must be terribly helpless if one is quite armless; and besides, how could I caress and fondle my darling Roy without arms with which to enfold him? But I fancy I might still manage to be my cheerful and gay self were I quite without legs.
I should, of course, be helpless to a very great extent, but there would he Roy to depend on for all the help I needed. He would be ecstatically happy attending to my slightest wants, carrying me about in his arms, dressing and undressing me fascinated all the time. And all that would be heaven to me and would compensate me in some measure at least for — my helplessness .
But, of course, all this is just sheer imaginative fantasy, which I fervently hope may never become reality. I record it merely to show how very far I have travelled since those early days just after losing a limb.
In this narrative, in addition to giving my experiences, I have tried to show how logical and credible, in the circumstances, has been my gradual arrival at my present position of quite honestly and candidly liking to be as l am. I hope I have succeeded if only in the smallest way. My dear husband has been my teacher in this respect, and I can never be too deeply thankful for the strange cause that really brought him, his love and his appreciation, into my life.
________________________________________
London Life July 26, 1930 pp. 16-17, 20-21, 24-25



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Re: London Life. Tales

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29 Sep 2018, 13:36

London Life
London Life | 1931
________________________________________
The Strange Quest Of Anthony Drew
"The Sign of the Black Butterfly"
by Wallace Stort
For the benefit of those readers who missed Episodes One and Two of this chronicle when they appeared in these columns it may be recalled in those episodes Anthony Drew, a handsome man about town, tells of his meeting and falling in love with Felice Carling, a very beautiful one-legged Society girl. For some mysterious reasons Felice agrees only to a sort of temporary engagement, the symbol of which is a jewelled circlet which Felice wears on her amputated limb. One night Felice takes Tony to a curious club, called 'La Phenomene', where he meets a number of beautiful girls of varying degrees of physical disability. Among them is Tina Nicholas, who had recently divorced her husband, Dr. Ren‚ Nicholas, a famous French plastic surgeon, about whose extraordinary surgical operations many sinister rumours are current. Tina herself is English, a young and very lovely girl, but she has lost both arms from the shoulders, and at the same time she also has only one leg — her right. In spite of himself and conscious of his weakness, Tony is completely captivated by the wonderful armless and one-legged girl and, for the moment, even Felice is forgotten. After leaving 'La Phenomene', Tina and Tony and a number of club members go on to a party at the house of one of the ladies. Tony suddenly discovers that Felice has mysteriously disappeared and is upset by the occurrence.
He now continues the story.
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Regrets

As I strolled aimlessly along Piccadilly on the afternoon of the day following my visit to that curious club, 'La Phenomene', I was in a thoroughly unenviable frame of mind, able to realise how completely inexcusable had been my conduct towards my darling Felice.
My conscience had, in fact, pricked me the very moment I had got away from the party last night, and now to my feelings of shame was added one of anxiety. What had happened to Felice? Why had she disappeared so suddenly and so completely, and where was she now? I had already called at her flat, only to be told by her maid that her mistress was out of town. It certainly looked as if that sudden bud of friendship that had so delightfully burgeoned for Felice and myself had been killed forever by the frost of my callous behaviour.
And yet, even as I thought in this wise, calling myself all sorts of spineless reptile, I knew that the devil of it was that as soon as Tina appeared before me again, just as soon would I fall a victim to her exotic attraction.
Put To The Test
The extraordinary thing was that I was put to the test at the very moment. For there suddenly came to my ears the soft contralto tones of a well remembered voice and, wheeling round, I found myself looking into the beautiful eyes of Tina as she smiled roguishly at me from the open saloon window of a big, luxurious Rolls-Royce.
It was lost. I knew it, as with leaping pulses, I hurried across to the car. Felice, my conscience, everything was forgotten in the magic light of those beckoning eyes!
"Why so sad and contemplative on such a glorious sunny day?" asked Tina, with demure mischief, as I reached the car. And to complete my subjugation, a little white foot, the long, subtle bare toes agleam with tiny jewelled rings, was lifted to the window with that miraculous ease of hers, and slipped softly into my hand.
I bent down, raising the little perfumed foot to my lips. Then, as Tina withdrew it, I smiled joyously, no doubt foolishly, into her eyes.
"If I was sad and contemplative," I said, "the mood has vanished. And you know who has charmed it away."
"What a pretty speech-maker the boy is!" laughed Tina, with a little hint of mockery, though I knew she was really delighted. "And to what important appointment were you making your gloomy way?" she went on.
I confessed to the utter aimlessness of my wanderings.
"Splendid!" exclaimed Tina. "Then the obvious thing to do is to offer your valuable services to a lonely lady. What do you think?"
I needed no second bidding, and a few moments later I was seated, in a kind of thrilled ecstasy, by Tina's side, while the car, under the skillful guidance of a smartly uniformed chauffeur, purred smartly down Piccadilly.
Tina's blonde loveliness was, if possible, more alluring than ever. The slim, wonderful body was gowned in a sheath of diaphanous black clinging lace. The rounded beauty of the white, rounded shoulders was really more revealed than veiled by the very brief lace sleeves, which outlined the smooth, perfect contours and then fell, each in a strong cascade, as it were, over the shoulder ends. Every flexible movement of the latter, as Tina shrugged them in that expressive way of hers, as she talked, was discernible and, as usual, most fascinating to watch.
On the dainty foot she now wore a little heelless sandal, a fragile jewelled affair that left bare the beautiful toes and most of the foot. The most carefully manicured fingers of the most fastidious beauty in the land could not be more delicately shapely than those wonderful toes of Tina's, long and tapering, each perfect little nail gleaming with scarlet enamel. That little foot had held an extraordinary fascination for me at my first meeting with Tina, and now my eyes would stray to it every now and then, as if drawn by something irresistible.
She was, as I well knew, as adept in using all the peculiar and fascinating charms she possessed when in the presence of a sympathetic male.

A Lovely Sorceress

So I sat there simply content to watch her as she chatted gaily of all sorts of things, thrilled by her nearness, conscious only of her strange enchantment.
Yes, undoubtedly the spell of this unique, unfinished Venus, the exquisite blonde with only a single limb, this lovely sorceress who bewitched and now held me once again in thrall, left Felice and the rest of the world utterly forgotten.
We chatted happily, and every now and then, as Tina emphasized some point or other, the little bare foot would slip from its sandal and the supple toes would drop lightly an my hand, just as another girl's fingers might do.
So engrossed was I with my enchanting companion, that it war; like awaking from a dream when at last the car slowed to a standstill and Tina looked out of the window with a laughing "Here we are!" Then she turned to me again.
"Would you like to have tea with a real live princess, Tony?" she asked. "Or have you other calls upon your no doubt valuable time?"
"I am at the moment hopelessly under your spell, Tina," I laughed, "and completely at your disposal. If having tea with princesses keeps me by your side, then I propose to drink tea until further orders."
"Silly boy!" said Tina, gaily, and then suddenly I felt her soft, warm lips on mine, and for a divine moment she lay in my arms. Then, as suddenly, she drew away with a little laugh, and it was only then that I became acutely conscious of the chauffeur who, with perfectly expressionless face, stood by the open door of the saloon. But Tina was quite cool and collected when she spoke to me again.
"This is the house of my friend, Princess Ottilie, a very beautiful Russian," she explained. Then a twinkle danced in her eyes. "I do not really know whether I ought to expose you to the temptation of falling in love with her," she went on. "You know, Tony, dear, you are just a little susceptible, aren't you, darling?"
I flushed in spite of myself. It was such a palpable hit. But Tina saved me the necessity of making halting excuses by continuing:
"But I'll risk it. And in any case you're bound to meet the Lady sooner or later."
She turned to the chauffeur. "Charles," she said, "please go ahead and let them know we are here. Mr. Drew will carry me in."
The chauffeur mounted the broad steps of the great house set in the corner of a quiet, exclusive street. As the door opened I gathered the beautiful body in my arms, a warm pulsing went through me as I did so. I carried her lightly from the car to the magnificent hall. Here, instead of the footman one expected, we were received by a dark, slim, extremely pretty maid who smilingly explained to Tina, in most fascinating broken English that Her Highness the Princess was motoring from the country and would be delayed, but had 'phoned instructions that Tina was to be given tea if she would be so very kind to await the Princess's return.
I must have heard all the pretty maid said, because later I recalled it all fully; but my brain must have acted more or less automatically. For actually I was not really listening to her. I was concerned by something about her much more astonishing than the words she uttered. For the girl, her slim graceful figure clad in a neat short skirted uniform of black silk, was, as she talked, perfectly poised on but a single shapely leg revealed by its well-fitting black silk stocking to just above the knee.
I confess that I stared open mouthed. That the girl was onelegged was unexpected enough in the circumstances; but more intriguing still was the fact that she stood there, in perfect unconcern without crutch or support of any kind, balanced quite securely on her single little foot in its soft high heeled slipper of black satin.
And my fascinated interest grew when, after Tina smilingly consented to the arrangements, the girl turned and led the way to one of the smaller drawing-room, hopping in front of us with an effortless, graceful ease, and with as much unconcern as if her method of progress was the most natural thing in the world. After ushering us into a room she smilingly withdrew, and I carried Tina to a couch.
"And now that Nadine has gone," said Tina, with a mischievous smiling glint in her eye, as she settled herself cozily amid the cushions, "perhaps I shall be able to claim a bit of your attention again."
"Nadine?" I questioned, stammering.
"The little one-legged maid," explained Tina.
"Tina," I protested, laughingly despite of my touch of embarrassment, "that's not fair. You know very well that I wasn't interested in the girl herself. But one hardly expects, when making a call, to find the door opened by a maid with only one leg — and without a crutch, too! I admit I was startled and, if you want, interested. Anybody would have been.
"All right, Tony darling," laughed Tina soothingly, and the little bare foot crept once again into my hand. I was only teasing you; and, of course, I quite understood your interest."
But what an intriguing idea," I said "A one-legged maid."
Oh, that's just one of Ottilie's little fads," explained Tina. "She's very keen on limbless beauty. In fact, if I cared to be indiscreet, I might let you understand how keen. But one mustn't tell tales out of school."
I was wondering what exactly to make of that last cryptic remark of Tina's, when the door opened and Nadine reappeared, hopping with that graceful unconcern of hers, and propelling in front of her a daintily equipped tea-wagon. Then to my utter amazement, she was followed by another maid, just as pretty in her way as Nadine, her slim figure similarly attired in neat black silk, and she, too, hopping expertly on but a single black, silk-clad leg.
Naturally, I could only sit and stare, probably a little stupidly, as the two girls placed a little low table by the couch on which Tina and I sat together, and deftly set out the tea things, balancing and moving on their pretty single legs with quite miraculous ease as they worked. Then, when they withdrew, I turned to find a little amused smile on Tina's lips.
"Another little surprise, Tony?" she said. "I didn't tell you. I know it's wicked of me, but it's so amusing to see the look of absolute astonishment that comes over your face at each new revelation."
"Well, I don't mind," I said airily, "especially when the revelations are so extraordinary — and pretty," I added maliciously. "Are there any more of them?"
"I think there are about five or six maids of various kinds, not including the kitchen staff, and all of them, with one special exception, are, you're be duly thrilled to hear, one-legged. All of them, too, are trained to move about without crutches — which they use only out of doors; — as Ottilie thinks, and I agree with her, that the girls look much more neat and trim without them. And now, Tony, dear, having explained all that, no doubt to your intense satisfaction, I think we might turn our attention to tea."
And then, before I could offer my services as a tea dispenser — which I fancied might be necessary in the circumstances — Tina herself proceeded to do what war required with a neatness and dexterity that added yet another delightful sensation to the afternoon.
Slipping off her sandal, she lifted her little bare foot to the low table and, setting out the cups, put sugar and milk in and poured out the tea, using her beautiful toes as expertly as the most nimble fingers. Then, with as much ease, she 'handed' me my cup.
A Repertoire Of Pretty Little Tricks
It was most fascinating, as I sat there sipping my tea, to watch her conveying her own cup to her lips without apparent effort, or daintily selecting a cake with her slim, supple toes.
The extraordinary thing was that after one had become accustomed to Tina's almost complete limblessness, one also got quite used to this amazing and continuous employment of her leg and foot. It remained unusual, of course, but the action in every case was so graceful and so effortless, that one came gradually to regard it as not so much a contortion as almost a natural movement. To me, at any rate, there was nothing in the least distasteful in this extremely skillful display; but on the contrary, something distinctly dainty and pleasing.
Tina herself was, of course, charmingly vain of her skill, just as she was quite openly proud of her strange, unfinished beauty; and I know that she was conscious all the time of my admiration, and fully enjoying going through her wonderful repertoire of pretty little tricks for my special benefit.
After tea she accepted a cigarette from my case but, characteristically, did not allow me to place it between her lips. She made her own selection with skillful toes, and after tapping the cigarette expertly on the table, placed it herself in her mouth.
Then we smoked for a little while in silence, Tina with her cigarette held daintily between her toes. As my eyes wandered — as I must confess they did perhaps too frequently — over the perfections of her beautiful, incomplete figure, I became aware of an intriguing little thing that strongly aroused my curiosity. The continuous raising of her limb in order to use her toes had by now resulted in the filmy skirt of her frock slipping and the end of the beautiful rounded stump was just visible. Imprinted on the white skin was what I first of all took to be a black irregularly shaped patch, and then suddenly I realised that the 'patch' was really a tiny, beautifully designed butterfly. Tina turned and regarded me with a little questioning smile.
The Sign Of The Black Butterfly
"It's the little butterfly, Tina" I explained. "I haven't seen it before, and I am curious."
"Oh, the butterfly!" she said. "I am not sure that you should have been allowed to see it," she went on demurely. "But now that you have, don't you think it sweet?"
"Perfectly charming!" I agreed. I suppose that is the very latest stump-wear. How is it put on — a sort of transfer of some kind?"
She laughed. "No, as it happens, it's a permanent adornment. You see it's tattooed."
"What a perfectly ripping idea. What put it into your head?"
"Well, as a matter of fact," Tina confessed, "the idea isn't mine at all. The little black butterfly is simply an emblem or sign worn by members of an exclusive little society of which I happen to be one. There's nothing very startling about it — just a little stunt to amuse ourselves. Its members — at any rate, its lady members — all are limbless in some way, and the general idea is to foster among them the spirit of independence and selfconfidence. For instance, we don't look upon ourselves as cripples, and would be insulted to be referred as such. Nor do we think ourselves in any way inferior to normally formed people. we realise that limblessness in a beautiful women has its fascinating side, and we do all we can to emphasize that aspect of the matter. And only women who are beautiful and fascinating, though lacking one or more limbs, and who are in complete accord with our aims, are allowed to become members and to wear the little black tattooed butterfly."
"I say," I put in with a laugh that had more than a hint of thrilled interest in it, "what about the men? Are they allowed into this holy of holies?"
"Oh, yes," replied Tina, smiling, "We allow certain members of the male s*ex to become honorary members. They must, of course, have what we call the 'limbless complex' — that is, be attracted by the charm of limbless beauty."
"Then in that case," I broke in again, "I am certainly eligible for honorary membership."
The amused glint was back in Tina's eyes.
"Well, my darling," she said, "you certainly have more than your share of that 'limbless complex' I mentioned. If you'd really like to be a 'Black Butterfly', I'll see what I can do."
I was, as may be guessed, most emphatic in the acceptance of that very attractive offer. And I would have gone more fully into the matter; only just at that moment something else suddenly flashed into my mind. "How about Felice?" I asked abruptly. "I mean Felice Carling. Why isn't she a 'Black Butterfly', as you call it. She, if anybody, is proud of her one-legged beauty and a firm believer in the fascination of the limbless female form divine."
Just for a second it seemed to me that Tina's eyelid fluttered in a sort of embarrassment. But the emotion, whatever it was, was gone almost as soon as it had appeared and was replaced by the old half amused, half-mocking gleam.
"And how do you know that Felice isn't a 'Butterfly'?" she asked slowly.
In spite of myself, I had to laugh at the little malicious suggestion behind that direct question.
"Well," I replied, mocking in turn, "you see, Felice is just as generous in the display of her charms as you are."
Tina nodded good-humoredly.
"Yes, that's right, Tony," she agreed. "No, Felice wouldn't join us — although she is so completely in agreement with the main aims of the society." She wouldn't say more.
"Do you know why, Tina?" I asked suddenly.
Again came that curious fluttering of the long-lashed lids, and again the little smile, this time without the hint of mockery.
"Well, Tony," she said, "it is not really for me to say. I don't know though I may suspect a lot. I fear her quarrel is with one particular member of the society, and that is as far as I can go."
The mention of Felice brought back all my concern about her,and no doubt, it showed in my face.
"Don't let us worry about Felice and her affairs, darling," she murmured. "Felice is perfectly all right and no doubt having a good time somewhere or another. Don't you find me just as attractive? Am I not even more charmingly incomplete than she is? Kiss me and forget about everything and everybody else."
Of course I was as wax in her hands. I forgot everything in the bliss of her clinging kisses and the intoxication of holding her in my arms.
So we sat amid the cushions until a discrete knocking on the door at last penetrated our consciousness and brought us back to earth. The door opened to the call of "Come in" and pretty onelegged Nadine ushered in a newcomer.
With a little thrill of pleasure I saw that it was Desiree, the pretty and dainty girl, one-legged in so wonderful and unique manner, to whom it will be remembered Felice introduced me at 'Le Phenomene'. She floated gracefully in on her slender black elbow crutches, and it was most fascinating to see how, as she walked, the beautifully formed single leg swung exactly centrally between the two crutches and not with a bias to left or right, as in the case of an ordinary one-legged girl.

Born With One Leg

Her frock of shimmering green crepe de chine was obviously designed to accentuate the perfect though unusual lines of her figure, for it fitted like a sheath to just above the knee, where it broke into a charming riot of filmy flares. The amazing and unique formation of her lovely body was thus quite frankly revealed — the perfectly formed trunk merging in one unbroken line from the abnormally slim hips into just that single leg, exactly as a mermaid's body is represented as merging into its tail.
After a smiling greeting to Tina and myself, she sank gracefully into a deep comfortable chair, depositing her crutches neatly on the carpet by its side.
"Desiree is the secretary of our little society," said Tina to me, when Nadine had departed. Then, turning to Desiree she explained, I've just been telling Tony about the 'Butterflies'. I suppose, like myself you've come to see Ottilie about tomorrow night's crush?"
It was some little time later that I understood what Tina meant by that reference to a 'crush'. Far the moment I could only listen interestedly, wondering vaguely to what the girls were referring.
Desiree, who had helped herself to a cigarette and who was puffing enjoyably shook her head.
"Not quite," she said. "As a matter of fact, I've just returned with Ottilie. She asked me to stay the week-end with her at her country place, and I ran down last night, or rather this morning, after the party we discussed all the arrangements for to-morrow's affair then. We were to return to-morrow afternoon only she suddenly remembered that she had arranged to see you about things this evening. And so here we are. Ottilie is now having a bath and making herself pretty after the journey."
She looked across at me, and a little impish twinkle danced in her beautiful eyes.
"I rather fancy, however," she went on, "that the news that a charming and very good looking young man was on the premises is at least partly responsible for her concern about her travelstained beauty."
Tina laughed at my pink, embarrassed face. "I've already warned Tony against Her Highness the Princess," she said to Desiree. "If it's true that she is making special preparations for vamping him, then he's as good as lost!"
The two girls laughed mischievously again, and I was glad when Desiree created a little diversion.
"Which reminds me," she said, "that I'm rather on the grubby side myself." With a light, easy spring, she jumped upright and stood poised in effortless grace on her single dainty foot in it's little high-heeled satin slipper. "what do you say to a swim, Tina, before Ottilie shows up? And you, Tony? We'll find a costume to fit you. What do you say?"
Tina was at once enthusiastic; and as for myself, I could hardly hide the thrill that pulsed through me as I eagerly agreed.
At once, without more ado, Desiree gaily picked up her crutches and, adjusting them neatly, swung across to the door. Tina smiled up into my eyes as I gathered her into my arms and carried her out of the room.

A Swimming Surprise

Desiree led the way across a wide sumptuously carpeted corridor to an electric lift which, when we were all inside, she manipulated herself. We shot smoothly down to the basement of the great house and leaving the lift, eventually found ourselves, to my surprise, in a long, beautifully appointed room, on the marble floor of which was sunk quite a good-sized swimming bath.
The bath was not set out exactly in the center of the floor, but rather to one side. Thus, while on one side of the bath only a margin sufficiently wide for walking was left, on the other side quite a large proportion of floor space remained. This portion, except for just the pathway round the bath, was richly carpeted in a colour resembling sand, and was set with quaint little tables and chairs, brightly cushioned couches, and big, gaily coloured beach sunshades; while along the wall were a number of daintily designed dressing cabinets. It was obvious that the swimming bath was a popular resort in the house, and the scene of gay social gatherings.
However, at the moment there was just our three selves. Desiree entered one of the cabinets and produced for my inspection quite an assortment of men's swimming costumes, from which I made my choice. Then in response to her ring, one of the pretty one-legged maids appeared, hopping daintily on her single foot, and while I dressed in one cabinet she attended to Tina and Desiree in another.
I suppose excitement and anticipation, made me hurry, for I was first at the bath side in a 'Varsity' costume that fitted me perfectly.
Then with a little gay laugh, Tina made her appearance, and I caught my breath at the sight of that marvellous body of hers so fully and frankly revealed by the swimming suit she wore.
It was a frail affair of cobwebby scarlet silk. The lovely, white, armless shoulders, so suave in their smooth rounded-off perfection, the slim, shapely leg and tiny foot, and the plump, perfect oval of the dainty stump, with its fascinating butterfly adornment, were all fully in evidence as she hopped with fairylike lightness over to me. And as she stood there before me, delicately poised on her little bare foot, smilingly and frankly inviting my admiration, I could only think of her as a lovely unfinished masterpiece of living sculpture by some world famous artist.
But if Tina's appearance was a breath-taking thrill, Desiree's was, in her own way, quite as devastating. As she joined us, hopping just as effortlessly as Tina, it really seemed as if she were not a living girl, but some marvellous illusion.
She wore a specially made costume of her favourite green silk. It was actually more like a skin-tight tunic than a normal swimming costume, as, of course, it did not possess the ordinary double opening for the legs at the hips, but only one. And seeing her in such a costume, one was able for the first time to appreciate fully the marvel of her uniquely shaped body.
One was struck once again by the extreme slimness of the hips, then the dress revealed with what faultless perfection the trunk became merged into the lower limb, which tapered from it as smoothly and inevitably as if the whole body were just one single shapely limb.
There was no hint of deformity, no mutilation of any kind. It was as symmetrical on its single-legged beauty as the most perfect two-legged body ever created. One tiny point brought this fact home in a curious way.
Desiree, being a one-legged girl, had joined the society of 'Black Butterflies'; but, as she possessed nothing in the way of a stump, the little emblem had perforce to be tattooed just about a couple of inches above the knee.
The final miracle about her was her little bare foot. In just as her body was formed like no other body, so was her foot like no other foot. It was small and very shapely, but the big toe, instead of being to the side as in a normal foot, was set exactly in the middle with the other toes grouped about it, two on each side. It was extraordinary in its way, yet it was the natural outcome of her abnormal bodily formation and, in the circumstances, was more fitting and beautiful than if it had been formed in the ordinary way.
Also, as I learned later from Desiree herself, this formation of her foot gave her a natural, easy balance, and she was as much at home on her small foot as are normal persons on two. In fact, had it not been for the sensation such a practice would have caused, she would very easily have dispensed with her crutches altogether, as she did for the most parts indoors.
Meanwhile Desiree herself was by no means unconscious of my thrilled scrutiny of her charms. In fact, she posed as steadily as if she were carved from white marble, an amused little smile curving her shapely lips.
However, at last we turned to the business in hand, and we were soon disporting ourselves in the water.
Tina, to my great surprise, was quite at home in the water and needed little assistance — though, of course, I was always at hand in care of need. She jumped in foot first, and then her method was to float on her back, which she did quite expertly, and when necessary to propel herself gently with her foot.
Desiree was a fine swimmer, diving with all the ease and grace of a professional, and employing every variety of stroke when swimming. Her expert use of her leg was extraordinary, and in a race of four lengths, to which she challenged me, I only just beat her, though I'm a fairly useful swimmer.
We had been enjoying ourselves in this way for some little time, when Nadine made her appearance.
"Her Highness," she announced, addressing the two girls in the water, "asks me to inform you that she is now at your service, mesdemoiselles. She is in her boudoir and will await you there."
"Right, Nadine," said Tina, "tell Her Highness we'll be with her in a moment."
I Meet The Princess
The maid withdrew, and after dressing we all proceeded to the main floor again and were eventually ushered into a small but dainty apartment, exquisitely appointed in delicate shades of pink and adrift with an exotic, sensuous perfume — obviously the boudoir of a wealthy and luxurious woman.
I was naturally a little excited at the prospect of meeting the Princess, to whose remarkable beauty so many intriguing references had been made. But the curious thing that I had, up to then, only thought of her as a charming and lovely woman whom I was shortly to meet. Certainly I had no premonition of the tremendous shock that was to hold me dumb when she entered the room.
Actually the first individual my eyes fell upon as we entered was the neatly attired maid who opened the door to my knock. She was a girl I had never seen before, a very pretty blonde, more attractive even than Nadine, and the curious thing about her was that, unlike the other maids, she was quite normally formed, with both her shapely silken legs well in evidence. And it was while I was idly wondering why the girl was an exception to the rule of the house, that I saw the Princess — and received my shock.
She was cozily ensconced amid glowing, colourful cushions at one end of a deep, luxurious couch; and certainly she was lovely, superbly lovely. I suppose she was over 30, but she looked dainty and fresh as a young girl. But it was not her beauty that stuck me dumb; though it was so immediately and strikingly apparent. The astounding, the utterly unexpected fact was that the beautiful Russian was just a mere fragment of a women — a lovely, living trunk, and absolutely nothing more!
A magnificently formed body she certainly had — white, peerless, satin-smooth shoulders, a beautifully rounded bust, a neat shapely waist curving into perfectly modelled hips — but that was all. Nothing at all in the way of either arms or legs protruded from the wonderful trunk — not even the merest suggestion of stumps marred the smooth, clean line of shoulders and hips. Both at shoulders and hips the body was as suavely rounded off as if limbs were things that had never been considered when she was so beautifully molded in her present form.
Her frock — or rather, her costume, for it could hardly be called a frock — was a black chiffon velvet, fitted her everywhere with unwrinkled, glove-like perfection. Cut extremely low back and front, it allowed the bust and shoulders to burst from it, as it were, like some wonderful white flower. One other fact was also evident — that the Princess was like Tina and Desiree, a 'Black Butterfly', for tattooed on the smooth satin skin of the right shoulder was the dainty little emblem of the society.
I could only hope that I was successful in hiding the agitation that shook me at the sudden and unexpected sight of this beautiful women smiling up at me from her cushions as calmly as if there was nothing at all unusual in her appearance.
I think I did manage to appear more or less at my ease, though I knew that Tina was regarding me with only half-concealed amusement from the chair into which I had placed her on entering the room. Then the introductions were made and the tension relieved — at any rate, to some extent.
"So you are Tony," said the Princess to me in liquid tones in which there was just a hint of an attractive foreign accent. "I have heard very nice things of you, Tony. Come, you shall sit by me and be charming to me, eh?"
She issued her invitation with that calm assurance that any pretty woman employs, secure in the knowledge of the potency of her charms. Apparently it did not occur to her that she was anything but alluringly attractive. In any case, thrilled as I was by the whole intriguing situation, I was perfectly willing to be agreeable. Consequently, encouraged by a little smiling nod from Tina, I crossed to the couch and sat down by the Princess.
Now this chronicle, as readers will have discovered, is not only the record of some strange adventures of mine, but also the candid confession of my weaknesses. I have, for instance, already frankly admitted my frailness of purpose in the matter of Felice and Tina. But, in justice to myself, I want to say at this juncture that though I was immensely interested in and intrigued by the Princess Ottilie, and, in fact, sensible of her strange, exotic allure, I was never in any real danger of allowing myself to become completely infatuated.
Something — I was not at that time able to fathom what — some elusive barrier kept me from once again making a complete cad of myself. Something faintly sinister, it seemed, even at that first meeting, yet nothing tangible, nothing that I could even guess at. But one thing was certain — if I may say such a thing without appearing a conceited ass, if I was not completely enslaved, Ottilie fully intended that I should be. In fact, from the first she made no secret of her own feelings, in spite of the fact that not only Tina and Desiree were present, but also Wanda, the maid, who stood a respectful distance apart but ready to anticipate the slightest wish of her mistress.
(It was, by the way, easy to understand why Wanda was a quite ordinary built girl. Her mistress was, of course, completely helpless, and had to rely upon her personal maid for assistance in everything she did. The absence of a leg would obviously have severely handicapped her in such circumstances.)
However, to return to the situation between the Princess and myself, it was a relief to realise that Tina at once summed it up correctly and was genuinely amused, rather than hurt, by any apparent defection.
As I sat down by Ottilie she moved herself slightly in some miraculous way. The field battery of her beautiful, large velvet, dark eyes was turned upon me, and at the same time the delicate perfume that emanated from her crept insidiously over my senses, weaving its own potent spell.
At last, with a little shrug of her shapely armless shoulders, she accepted the situation for the moment quite good humouredly. Then, after accepting a cigarette from watchful Wanda, who placed it in her mistress's mouth and lit it, she began to talk to Tina and Desiree about the 'affair' to which they had both referred earlier in the afternoon and about which at the time I had been more than a little curious.
I now discovered that it was a big party in connection with the 'Black Butterflies', and was to be held the following night at the Princess's houses. As they discussed the various arrangements, I was able to gather that the affair was to be on quite a lavish scale, including a cabaret, a masked fancy dress dance, and a variety of stunts of a novel and intriguing character.
As she talked, Ottilie managed her cigarette expertly, dropping the ash with a flick of the mobile lips onto a silver tray supported by a slender lacquer stand, rather taller than usual, that stood by the head of the couch.
As the discussion went on, I became naturally more and more interested in the forthcoming function, and was just deciding in my own mind that, even if Tina had to smuggle me in, I was going to be there, when the Princess quite unexpectedly came to my aid. The three ladies had been enumerating the various people who were to be present, and Ottilie suddenly turned to me.
"And what about you, Tony?" she asked. So ardent a worshiper at the shrine of limbless beauty as you are ought to be a member. There's a honorary membership open to gentlemen — would you like to be put up?"
"I most certainly should, Princess," I said eagerly.
"Then it shall be arranged. And in the meantime I think I, as president of the society, may be allowed to stretch a point and grant you permission to attend to-morrow night. What do you say, Tina?"
"Splendid, Ottilie," exclaimed Tina. "I was wondering what we were going to do about Tony, and I knew he was simply dying to come. But he'll have to have a butterfly, won't he?"
"We'll very soon manage that," replied Ottilie, briskly. "Tony will have to have his just a little in advance, that's all."
And turning to Wanda, she asked her to fetch a butterfly. The girl slipped softly away and was back within a minute or so with the butterfly emblem in black enamel picked nicely in gold, which apparently was applied to male members of the strange and out of the ordinary society. This, at Ottilie's request was handed to Tina, who had slipped off her little sandal to accept it. Then, with slim, expert toes Tina attached the butterfly by its pin to the left lapel of my coat.
"There," she said, smiling as she tapped my neck affectionately with the soft, bare toes, "you are now a 'Butterfly' and you must wear this badge to-morrow night and any other function in connection with the society you may attend."
I thanked them all very gratefully and, in fact, excitedly. I was almost thrilling with pleasurable anticipation of what the next night was to bring forth. Certainly I had not the slightest premonition of how near stark tragedy I was to come, and the evil passions that were to be unleashed at the fateful and always to be remembered gathering of the most bizarre of societies, the 'Black Butterflies'.
Of that gathering and its sinister consequences I hope to tell you in the fourth and final episode of this strange, eventful chronicle. Until then, adieu!
________________________________________
London Life, July 25, 1931, pp 24 — 28



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Re: London Life. Tales

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29 Sep 2018, 13:37

London Life
London Life | 1931
________________________________________
The Strange Quest Of Anthony Drew
Episode 4.
by Wallace Stort
In the three preceding episodes of this chronicle, Anthony ("Tony") Drew, a handsome, well built young man about town, told of his meeting and falling in love with Felice Carling, a very beautiful blonde Society girl who had lost a limb. For some mysterious reason Felice, though in love with Tony, agrees only to a temporary engagement. One night she brings him to an institution called 'Le Phenomene', where he meets a number of interesting people. Among them is Tina Nicholas, who had recently divorced her husband, Dr. Rene Nicholas, a famous French plastic surgeon, about whose operations many rumours are current.
Tina herself is English, young and lovely, and Tony is completely infatuated, and for the moment, even Felice is forgotten. Later that night he suddenly discovers that she has mysteriously disappeared, and he is heavily disturbed.
Next day Tony meets Tina again, and is taken by her to the house of a very beautiful Russian woman, Princess Ottilie. Here he learns of the existence of a curious society called 'The Black Butterflies', of which the Princess is the president and Tina an important officer. The members are all well-to-do ladies who have had the misfortune to miss a limb. The badge of the society is a tiny black butterfly which each member has had tattooed.
Tony is admitted to the honorary membership of the 'Butterflies', and is invited to a big party which is to be held in connection with the society at Princess Ottilie's house on the following night. Meanwhile the Princess has shown a very decided and frank interest in Tony, and obviously out to attract him. But he, though attracted, senses something strange about her.
He now continues his story.
* * *
The discussion about the following night's gathering of "Butterflies" went on, with myself as a most interested listener and then, quite unconsciously, I gave the Princess an opening for which apparently she had been looking ever since I had been introduced to her. I began to ask questions about the party, the time of arrival, etc. — particularly where exactly the masked fancy dress dance was to be held. Ottilie fastened on to that last question with the swiftness one used to seizing her opportunities the moment they offered.
"Of course," she exclaimed, turning gaily to me. "You haven't really seen over my house. Practically all you have seen so far is the swimming bath. I think I can say that the house also contains one of the finest private ballrooms in London. Come, I'll show it to you myself."
She turned smilingly to Tina and with calm, almost impudent assurance, continued:
"You won't mind if I run away with him for a few minutes, will you, darling? Please stay here with Desiree for the moment. Wanda will look after you both quite nicely."
The real intention behind this somewhat naive suggestion of the Princess's was, I am afraid, quite patent to everybody, and I felt a little embarrassed as I looked across at Tina. But she still seemed to regard my predicament as a good joke, and only flashed an amused smile at me as she cheerfully agreed to Ottilie's proposal.
I knew very well that Ottilie's suggestion about viewing the ballroom had been the merest subterfuge. She had simply made the suggestion in order to get me away from the others for a few minutes. And in her own perfectly frank way she made this quite obvious to me.
So sat down with Ottilie and then, without any preliminary at all, with a suddenness that took my breath away, her soft lips were pressed to mine in a long kiss.
But the women in her sensed something lacking, for after a while she drew away and, lying back, regarded me oddly.
"Do you know, Tony," she said slowly, "I really believe that you're just a little bit afraid of me."
I was startled; for, in a way, there was more than a suggestion of truth in her accusation. But I managed to laugh with a quite credible assumption of incredulity.
"What nonsense, Ottilie," I said. "Why on earth should I be afraid of you?"
She tossed her lovely head.
"Well, if not exactly afraid of me," she said, with a shrewd little smile, "at any rate afraid of yourself. You are saying to yourself, 'I'm not going too far. I'm not going to allow her to subjugate me.' Now, confess, isn't that exactly what you have been thinking?"
I laughed again, perhaps not quite so successfully, but without waiting for me to reply, Ottilie continued her harangue. She was utterly unconscious of anything unfeminine or egotistical in her conduct.
I understand that many Russian women are just as singleminded and direct in circumstances of this kind. If they care for a man, they say so without any beating about the bush. Certainly Ottilie was not in the least afraid of saying exactly what was in her mind.
"Why are you so afraid?" she went on rapidly. "You were most attracted as soon as your eyes fell upon me. I realised that at once. If I had not, I should not be here with you now. And now I find you — well, as I said — afraid!"
I hid my amazement at this extraordinary outburst as well as I could, and tried to reason with her.
"But Ottilie," I said, "though I admit all you say about my being thrilled, I think you forget that I owe some allegiance to — to Tina, for instance."
A mischievous little smile curved Ottilie's mobile lips.
"Or Felice Carling," she said quietly, and eyed me steadily.
I flashed the direct thrust.
"You — you know about Felice?" I stammered.
Ottilie nodded smilingly.
"Desiree told me all about Felice bringing you along to 'Le Phenomene', and also about the amusing little happiness there. Please don't think that Desiree was being malicious. She wasn't. She was merely retailing some interesting gossip, and incidentally she mentioned a good-looking boy named Tony Drew, who was not only a lover of maiden beauty, but also, apparently, a bit of a Lothario. You can't blame Desiree, Tony, dear. You know you did arrive with Felice and go away with Tina, now didn't you?"
I couldn't stammer an explanation or an excuse. I could only sit there hot with embarrassment. Ottilie had certainly scored, and scored heavily.
"It's all right, Tony," she murmured. "You see, I understand perfectly, and it is because I understand that I am just a little puzzled at your present attitude to myself. Listen. I shall try to explain what I mean. You happen to be one of that exceptional type of young man who find a curious, inexplicable fascination in the lack of a limb in a beautiful woman. You meet Felice Carling and are immediately strongly attracted. Perhaps — I don't know — you fall in love with her. Later you meet another beautiful girl, Tina Nicholas. You are even more strongly attracted by her, sufficiently so to force you to forget Felice and become infatuated with Tina."
"But Felice suddenly disappeared without warning and without explanation," I put in, with some wretched idea of excusing my utterly inexcusable conduct.
"Yes, I agree that Felice's disappearance may have had something to do with it," said Ottilie, "but the truth was that you found Tina quite irresistible; and I tell you why — at any rate, I give you my theory. It was simply because of her greater helplessness thrilled and fascinated you more powerfully. isn't that somewhere near the truth?"
"Well," I agreed slowly, "I hadn't thought about it in that way before; but perhaps there is something in what you say."
"Ah, you admit it!" cried Ottilie, triumphantly. "Then perhaps you begin to see what I am driving at?"
"Good heavens!" I said, as if the thought just struck me. "Do you know we must have been here hours? We've had time to explore fifty ballrooms. What on earth will Tina and Desiree think?"
"What does it matter what they think?" she said. "But I suppose we must get back." Then she became serious again for a moment. "Tony," she went on, "you do understand me better now, don't you?"
"Of course I do," I replied as fervently as I was able. For some odd reason I felt I must not offend her.
Then we returned to the boudoir, where we have left Tina and Desiree. It was 5 with a genuine sigh of relief that, some time later, I took Tina out to the waiting car and, having placed her carefully among the cushions, got in beside her.
The Princess had proposed our staying for dinner, but Tina had been quick enough to invent an appointment with somebody called Lotus, and Ottilie had reluctantly allowed us to go. Desiree had remained, and so we two were able at last to get away together.
"I thought it just as well to rescue you from Ottilie's clutches, my lad," said Tina, as we moved off. "I don't mind her vamping you for a few minutes, but not for whole evenings."
"She didn't get very far with her vamping as far as I was concerned," I protested, with a laugh.
"I wonder," said Tina, "You never can tell with Ottilie. She's clever and she's determined. And certainly you seemed to have had a real heart-to-heart talk. You were long enough away, at any rate."
"Oh, we had a talk all right," I agreed, "but mainly about Princess Ottilie."
I went on, I hoped, quite calmly, talking about Ottilie and her extraordinary case, and I must have been successful, for Tina's slight uneasiness vanished, and she was quite herself again. But all the time I knew that I had suddenly stumbled upon another odd fact. Somehow or other, when Ottilie had referred to the "famous French plastic surgeon," the fact had awakened no memories within my mind. But now, on referring to that gentleman myself, and in Tina's presence, I had suddenly recalled something I had heard on the night I had first been introduced to Tina.
Hadn't Tina not been married to and recently divorced from a "famous French plastic surgeon" — what was his name — a Dr. Rene Nicholas — wasn't that it? And weren't there some queer stories afloat about his out-of-the-way surgical operations?
However, after all, the whole thing was merely the concern of Ottilie and Tina. It had not, I considered, anything at all to do with me. So I thought at the time. It was only when, some time later, I encountered this extraordinary Dr. Nicholas, that I was to find with what devastating effect he was to meddle in my affairs. But I am afraid I am anticipating a little. Let me get back to Tina and myself as we rode together in the car.
Our talk drifted away from Ottilie and her affairs, and we chatted gaily about other and more interesting subjects — mainly ourselves.
"But, by the way, Tina," I said, at last, glancing out of the window of the speeding car, "where are we off to exactly? Are we just drifting, or have we something fixed up?"
"Well, first of all, dear heart," said Tina, "you are taking me out to dinner — if you don't mind?"
"Most certainly I don't mind. A most delightful idea. But" — I looked at her a little uncertainly — "where can we go?"
Tina flashed a little roguish smile at me.
"I thought of the Ritz-Carlton," she said lightly. "What do you say?"
I couldn't help showing a momentous surprise at her suggestion, but I made a quick recovery and smilingly agreed.
I confess I felt more than a touch of embarrassment as I pioneered my somewhat helpless burden through the crowded main dining-room to the table to which we were conducted.
But the meal came to an end at last; and then, as the smart, immaculately attired floor manager came up to enquire courteously if "everything had been to Madam's satisfaction," Tina, after thanking him, asked a question.
"I wonder if you would he so good as to find out for me if Miss Fane is in the hotel?" she said. "And, if so, whether she would see me for a moment or so?"
"Certainly, Madame." responded the man with a smiling bow. "As a matter of fact, Miss Fane has only just finished dinner in her own private suite, and I feel sure she will still be in the hotel. I shall have an inquiry put through at once, Madame." And he hurried away.
In some vague way, the name was familiar to me, and I said as much to Tina.
"Well, that's not surprising," laughed Tina. "Most people have heard of Lotus Fane."
"Oh, the film star!" I said, and also recalling Tina's reference to Lotus just before we left Ottilie's lounge. "I didn't know she was in England. Hasn't she been ill or something? I seem to remember hearing about a breakdown."
Tina nodded, but at the moment the information was brought that Miss Fane would be delighted to see Tina immediately, and so I had to shelve further questioning.
Eventually we arrived in the charming little ante-room of the star's suite, and here a pretty neatly attired maid received us.
"Oh, Josie," said Tina, "please tell Miss Fane that I have with me 'the boy friend', as you say in your country and ask her if I may bring him in."
There was no doubt as to the identity of the lovely girl who smiled a welcome up at us from the deep, comfortable couch on which she sat, as we were shown into the prettily appointed sitting room of the suite. I recognised her at once from her recent successful pictures. In fact, Lotus Fane was even more lovely in the flesh than ever she had seemed the on the screen. She was clad in a very revealing negligee of filmy chiffon, her beautiful white arms bare to the shoulder, and that famous 'slim young goddess' look, which is so noticeable a feature of her pictures, was just as delightfully evident now.
I said nothing. I desperately wanted to ask questions; but, of course, realised that it would he better to cross-examine Tina later than Lotus now.
We eventually took our leave. My last glimpse of Lotus was of her smiling demurely, yet in friendly fashion at me, while she daintily drew the diaphanous folds of her negligee over a puzzling element in an otherwise most interesting and thrilling visit.
As may be imagined we had hardly settled down in the car before I began probing the queer mystery of Lotus Fane.
"Isn't it an extraordinary thing about Lotus Fane?" I asked. "Why, in 'Crash', her last picture — you know, the one in which she did the parachute jump — she appeared in one part of the film in a bathing suit and it revealed a pair of limbs that any prize beauty would have been proud of."
"Yes, that's perfectly true," agreed Tina. But don't you remember what happened in connection with the production of 'Crash'?"
"Why, yes," I agreed slowly, "now you mention it, I do seem to have a vague recollection of hearing about some hitch in connection with the production — something about the thing having to he postponed because of the illness of the star — wasn't that it?"
"Yes", nodded Tina, "and the production was actually not resumed for over six month. But what really happened was known only to those working on the picture, and at Lotus's own request was kept a secret. The truth was that she insisted on doing that parachute jump herself — usually, of course, a 'ghost' is engaged to do stunts of that kind. You remember the thrill of that terrible fall in the picture. Well, it really happened exactly as photographed, though it was never intended to happen in the original story. The last-minute opening of the parachute saved Lotus's life, but her legs were so badly injured that both had eventually to be amputated.
"But, in spite of that, she did not lose her cheerfulness or her pluck, and she insisted on completing the picture when she was sufficiently well to do so. A new ending specially contrived to hide the loss, was devised and the picture was finished."
"What an extraordinary story." I commented when Tina concluded. "And even more extraordinary that nobody appears to have noticed anything wrong in the last part of the picture. It shows how skilfully the pictures are produced. And that's the end of poor Lotus Fane as a film star, I suppose?"
"In a way, yes, I suppose so, said Tina. "But I think she'll make at least one more appearance, and if she does it will certainly be a most interesting one for those privileged to see it. So far Lotus has managed to keep the secret of her misfortune. Even the hotel people think that she is still suffering only from the effect of her recent illness. But soon after her arrival in England, on holiday, she heard of our little society of 'Butterflies'. She got in touch with us and we were the first to learn the astonishing news of her condition. She was at once keen to become a 'Butterfly'.
"Well, Ottilie, who is always full of extraordinary ideas, had the inspiration that the 'Butterflies' should produce a film of their very own, with Lotus as the star. I think Lotus is highly intrigued with the idea, and we have great hopes that she will eventually content. If she does, that should be a picture worth seeing, my lad. What do you say?"
"I should think it would be!" I exclaimed enthusiastically. "And please note that I am booking a seat for the picture here and now. I wouldn't miss it for a fortune."
"But you might be asked to take a part in it, Tony," laughed Tina. "How do you fancy yourself as a film star?"
"Now, that is an idea!" I cried. "I have always had a sneaking notion that I could wipe the eye of Ronald Coleman or any of that crowd, if only I had the chance."
And then for the reminder of our journey home, we amused ourselves immensely by planning and casting this proposed amazing picture, which I suggested should be called 'Monopedia'.
(As a matter of interest, in passing, I may reveal that this film was later actually produced and shown privately to an enthusiastic audience of 'Butterflies' and their friends. It may not properly belong to this chronicle, but perhaps I may be allowed to tell you all about it at a future date.)
However, at last we arrived at Tina's flat, and there I left her after a tender and prolonged farewell and a promise to be there on time the following evening, when r was to dine quietly with her prior to going on to the big 'Butterfly' affair at Princess Ottilie's.
The following evening Tina and I duly arrived at the princess's house. Once inside, however, I forgot the crowd outside as soon as I was smilingly greeted by Nadine, the pretty maid who had attended us before. For this particular occasion she and her fellow-maid were clad in a most fetching uniform of diaphanous black silk tights worn with a short skin-tight, hip-length tunic of black velvet faced and piped with silver. That was but a opening thrill. Other thrills came in rapid succession as we made our way through the great crowd milling and eddying through the vast reception rooms, surely the most extraordinary and bizarre crowd that was ever gathered under one roof.
Everybody was masked — Tina and I had assumed ours before leaving the cloakrooms — and everybody was more or less in fancy dress. For the most part the men were more strictly in period than the ladies, running through the usual sort of cavaliers, Regency bucks, Chinamen, Mexican, bandits, gondoliers, Cossacks, Arabs, etc., with of course, a preponderance of pierrots in every possible variation of the traditional costume.
The ladies, however, had interpreted the fancy dress decree much more freely, and had subordinated even period costumes to the fullest advantage.
Ottilie, we learned on arrival, was in the great ballroom receiving the guests and towards that point Tina and I began to converge, making our way slowly and patiently through the jostling, laughing throng about us.
For my own fancy dress, by the way, I had chosen a quite conventional pierrot costume in black and white satin, with a voluminous ruffle at the throat. Tina's airy, but most dainty and exquisite costume would, I imagine, have been described as that of a Naiad, as she was clad throughout in most ethereal Nile green. The filmy wisp of frock was of ninon, floating about her more like a foaming mist than a frock, and worn over a single skin-tight garment like a bathing suite.
On her small foot was a fragile little sandal of flashing green diamante that left practically the whole foot and toes exposed, and with an extravagantly high slender heel that must have towered to over six inches.
The jewels round her slender throat, in her ears, gleaming on her toes and in her close blonde curls, were also of green, as was the little narrow silk mask she wore. And altogether she made as fascinating and alluring a picture as any in that vast throng.
I should explain that I was not now helping Tina as we made our way to the ballroom. She was actually "walking" by my side. This little feat was accomplished by means of a very simple yet ingenious contrivance of Tina's own invention. It consisted of an adjustable strap of black silk slung over my right shoulder and carrying, at about the height of the hip, a broad silken loop. By bearing on this, as she would a crutch, and with the additional support of my hand about her waist, she was able to "walk" at my side with an ease and grace that was astonishing.
So we made our way, pausing every now and then to greet Tina's multitude of friends, and eventually we reached the dais at one end of the ballroom, where Princess Ottilie sat in state, receiving her guests. She was daintily poised rather than seated on a magnificent ivory, high-backed chair, intricately carved and ornamented and rich, with the dais helped the impression that one was gazing at a queen enthroned.
On second thoughts, as I took in all the amazing details, I did not find the "enthroned queen" description entirely adequate. Rather was she like the beautiful image of some barbaric goddess stolen from an Oriental temple.
On her right, in a similar type of chair, sat Lotus Fane, the film star, looking distractingly lovely in a single tenuous sheath of priceless black lace.
Desiree, I also saw, was very appropriately and most realistically attired as a mermaid, complete with sinuous, iridescent tail. Her wonderful, uniquely formed body lent itself perfectly to such a character and no fabled mermaid could possibly have looked more naturally.
For some time after paying homage to the Princess as queen of the revels, I remained by Ottilie's side at her request, while Tina, accepting a chair on the dais, chatted with the grace of ladies there. I could see that Ottilie intended, if she could, to keep me in attendance to her; but I had no such desire, and only awaited a decent excuse to break away.
In the meantime, while we talked, I watched the thrilling and ever-changing kaleidoscope of the crowd as it wove its patterns before my interested and thrilled eyes.
Then at signal, the floor, or at any rate the center of it, began to clear quite magically, too, considering the thought that had seemed to fill it to overflowing just a moment before. The first strains from a dance band floated down from a gallery above and, seizing my chance, I slipped round to na and — as they say at the best shilling "hops" — "requested the honour."
Tina rose with that effortless grace of hers, and, once again slipping into the silken loop that hung from my shoulder, we swung out on the floor. I was, however, uncomfortably aware of the concentrated gaze of Ottilie as we moved away. Her great eyes seemed to burn their way through the eyeholes of her mask and I could almost feel the venom in them.
But I soon forgot the unpleasant sensation in the delight of the dance and in the curiously interesting nature of the scene about me.
We had been dancing some little time before I noted the man dressed as Mephistopheles. He was a tall man, for I first caught sight of the scarlet mask and the scarlet skull cap and long feather well above the heads of the rest of the crowd. The mask face was turned towards us and the gleaming eyes seemed so intent on us that at last I drew Tina's attention to the fact.
Then the dance finished, the crowd broke and the man himself, his fine figure clad throughout in scarlet tights, with a cloak of the same colour swinging from his shoulders, advanced towards us. I felt Tina stiffen slightly in my arms, but when the stranger reached us she was already herself again.
"Why, Ren‚," she said, "I did not know you were to be here."
"I did not know myself until a few hours ago," the man replied with a smile and with a decided but pleasant foreign accent. "I happened to arrive in London this afternoon, and I called for Ottilie. You see the result."
Tina laughed — perhaps only in my imagination that the laugh sounded a little forced — and then turned to me. "Monsieur Mephisto, here," she said lightly, "is my late husband Dr. Ren‚ Nicholas, the famous surgeon. We parted, but we remain good friends, eh, Ren‚?"
"Most certainly", replied the doctor, with apparent heartiness, "always the best of friends. But for the moment you must both pardon me. I have only just arrived, and have still to pay my respect to Ottilie. Tina, cherie, you must save a dance or two for me, yes?"
And, with that he sauntered easily away towards the distant dais. The band broke into a gay fox-trot, and Tina and I swung once again into the dance. Tina chatted brightly, but my thoughts were busy with the stranger, Dr. Ren‚ Nicholas, Tina's divorced husband, the eminent plastic surgeon.
I shivered slightly. Why, I know not. what had Dr. Nicholas to do with me? Nothing in the world. And yet for the moment I could not shake off a queer, inexplicable feeling of apprehension. The feeling passed. I smiled at my imbecility, and once again plunged into the joy of the dance.
After about the third dance Tina, naturally, tired as all her dancing was done on her one foot, and we sat out for the next few. We did not, however, return to the dais, but found a comfortable couch near that part of the room reserved for the many very entertaining cabaret "turns" which punctuated the general dancing throughout the evening.
I suppose all these cabaret items were given by "Butterflies" and, if so, there was no doubt that the society contained quite a good deal of very clever and ingenious vaudeville talent.
Tina and I had danced several dances interspersed between these various acts, and had been resting for a little while, when I saw above the crowd the now familiar long red feather and scarlet mask again approaching us. A second or two later the tall Mephistophelian figure of Dr. Nicholas was bowing to Tina and smilingly asking for a dance.
Tina agreed quite readily, and I handed over the doctor the silken sling, with the uses of which he appeared quite familiar. He adjusted it over his shoulder, and Tina threw me a gay little smile and swung off on his arms.
For a while I watched them as they danced, marvelling at the skilful and effortless way Tina fitted in her single-footed steps with his. Then, skirting the dancing throng, I made my way slowly round the room, looking for a possible partner and trying to recognise through their masks any of the few "Butterflies" I knew.
And suddenly, as I walked, I stopped dead and I knew I had gone white. The lovely, exquisite figure of a slim, masked Bacchante went floating by in the arms of her partner, and the beautiful eyes gleaming through the mask, had caught and held mine for just a pulsating second or so.
Swiftly I recovered myself; swiftly I turned and followed the pair with searching, eager eyes. The girl's divinely lovely body could scarcely have been shown to better advantage in any other costume than that she wore. Her garment was a beautifully prepared leopard skin reaching over the hips and with one thin strand across a white bare shoulder. The lovely arms, satin smooth shoulders, and one daintily slender limb — all made a perfect whole. The little flexible open sandal on the small bare foot, the glittering headdress of glittering grapes and vine leaves, and the mask revealing the upper part of her face were all she wore in addition.
There could be only one such in the world! It could only be Felice! I was sure of it, despite the disguising mask, and the fact, that not being a "Butterfly" — in fact, an avowed antagonist of the society — she had no right to be present at the reception.
The dance and its inevitable encores at last came to an end. I had kept the girl and her partner well in view, and now from a little distance, I saw the man escort her to a chair, bow and leave her. I sped across the room and stood before her.
"Felice!" I breathed, and again, "Felice!"
But the girl only raised her lovely head slowly and regarded me through the eye-holes of her mask with a smiling lack of recognition.
"Aren't you making some mistake?" she asked in soft, husky tones that were certainly unlike those I remembered so well, and yet might easily have been assumed to disguise the real voice.
I could only stand there dumbly, feeling I ought to retire, yet too stubborn to do so. And my perplexity was deepened by a significant little discovery I made as I gazed down at her.
On the smooth, white flesh was that, to me, now familiar emblem — the black butterfly! That staggered me, for I knew that Felice had never worn such a thing and was, for some reason that I had still to learn, bitterly opposed to everything the emblem stood for. Yet there it was; but I was still convinced it was Felice.
The last time I had seen Felice she was wearing the flat jewelled circlet which she had allowed me to place. Of course, one could not take for granted that she would always wear this charming and unusual token, but somehow the absence of it tonight struck another blow at my conviction.
Still I stood my ground. At any rate she was not annoyed at my persistence, for she smiled unconcernedly up at me.
"I think I understand," she said at last. You imagine I am Felice Carling."
"You know, you know, Felice!" I stammered.
"Very well," she replied calmly, "I know I'm rather like her. That's how you come to mistake me for her."
My hope sank like a stone. This was, of course, a very probable explanation. Yet I could not give up completely. I had to be absolutely sure before I retired beaten and crushed, and so I snatched at a straw.
"I'm really terribly sorry," I said, summoning up a smile by sheer force of will. "I was sure you were Felice Carling. You're certainly a double of hers. But you forgive me sufficiently to permit me to ask for a dance?"
"That's quite nice of you," she replied quite readily, "I'll be most happy to dance with you."
The band had already resumed it's rhythmic noises while we had been talking, and now the girl rose gracefully and settled herself quite confidingly in my arms. Despite her apparent calm, however, I could feel the beautiful body distinctly trembling in my embrace, and once again she had me guessing and hoping.
"Felice — you little devil!" I breathed excitedly as I laughed in her lovely eyes.
But I was met only by a questioning stare, and when I explained how, as I had imagined, I had found her out, my hopes were dashed once again by her amused laughter. She merely said: '"Dance, little gentleman, dance, and don't let your imagination run riot!"
After that I danced in exasperated and despairing silence. To tell the truth I was amazed at the tremendous effect this accidental meeting with a girl I imagined was Felice had upon me. I had never really forgotten Felice. Deep down in my breast I had been troubled about her, and in my solitary moments, deeply contemptuous of my conduct regarding her. But I had never had a chance of returning to her allegiance, for the simple reason that she had disappeared mysteriously and completely, and I was afraid for ever. With Felice gone out of my life, Tina, lovely, fascinating, had maintained her attraction. But now, when I thought that Felice had miraculously returned and was here actually in my arms, everything else, everyone else, faded in the glory of her irresistible appeal.
And it was simply agony not to be certain. If it was really Felice and she was playing with me, she was certainly entitled to do so. I deserved some punishment. If she was testing me — heavens, how I hoped she was! — she had every right to do that also. But I had to know the truth or lose my reason beneath the strain.
The dance came to an end, but feverishly I remained at her side. I was determined not to let her go. Fortunately, she was amusedly amenable and made no attempt to escape. But the dancing had tired her and she asked, in quite friendly fashion, to be allowed to miss the next one or two. I seized the opportunity with both hands.
During my tour of the house with Ottilie I remembered passing along a wide, magnificent cloister leading to one of the entrances of the hall room. Along each side of this there was a succession of little alcoves beautifully carried out in Renaissance architecture, and each forming a snug, inviting retreat. Now, I suggested a few minutes' quiet away from the noise and bustle of the ballroom; and, to my delight, my enchanting partner agreed.
She picked up the slender, jewelled crutch which rested against the back of her chair and, swinging lithely and gracefully at my side, accompanied me to the cloister.
As I might have expected, other couples had already discretely this sanctuary, and quite a number of the alcoves were occupied. However, we found an empty one and slipped into it, the girl sinking gracefully on to the comfortable depths of the big couch set within it.
After getting a laughing promise from her not to escape while I was away, I hurried off and soon returned with some refreshments I had managed to get hold of.
In a little while we just busied ourselves with the food and drink, chatting quite amiably as we did so. Then, while I was thinking out some method of returning to the attack, she suddenly helped me by re-opening the subject herself.
"Tell me," she said quietly, "why are you so terribly concerned about Felice?"
"Because — because I love her," I replied simply, but with all my heart in the words.
I thought I saw a flame glow suddenly in the beautiful eyes behind the mask. But I might have been mistaken. Perhaps it was just scorn, for she went on gently:
"And how long have you imagined you loved her? Since leaving Tina this evening, perhaps?"
I winced at the hard words.
"No," I retorted steadily, "ever since I first met her. I know that now. I admit all you would charge against me. I admit I was lured away by Tina's fascination. I admit that for the moment I thought I could do without Felice. She had gone away without a word, disappeared without a trace. I suppose I was piqued and I shrugged my shoulders and said, 'Who cares?' But I discovered the real truth to-night. You may not be Felice, but you have brought Felice back to me — in my heart."
The hearts are highly sentimental, I know; but I was in deadly earnest and tremendously moved, and I did not trouble to think whether they were "sloppy" or not.
My beautiful vis-a-vis remained perfectly still for some moments. Then, as if shaking herself free from some bond that had almost caught and held her, she sat up and allowed a little skeptical smile to curve her lips.
"And — the Princess?" she queried slowly. "Have you also managed to break away from her very potent lures to-night?"
I suppose the continued strain of the whole sequence of events since meeting my enigmatic companion had began to tell upon me. For suddenly I saw red, and I am afraid I went beyond the bounds of ordinary decorum.
"The Princess!" I exclaimed hotly. "Where did you get the idea that I had ever succumbed to her so-called potent lures? The women is nothing to me — less than nothing. I have admitted the fascination Tina had for me. I should be just as open if the Princess had never done more than intrigue me as a remarkable and unusual exhibit. To me, Princess Ottilie is just a vamp, a sinister woman, helpless — but very dangerous."
I stopped, suddenly conscious of my loss of control.
"I'm sorry," I finished lamely. "I shouldn't have let myself to be so viperish. Anyhow, you now know my real opinion of Princess Ottilie." Then I bent forward eagerly.
"Listen!" I said. "You say you know Felice very well. No doubt you know where to find her. When you see her next; tell her you met Tony here to-night and that he has at last found out the truth about himself; that nothing in the world matters but her; and that only she could find it in her heart to forgive him, not fifty Tina's nor five hundred Princess Ottilie's would ever lure him away from her dear side again. Will you tell her that?"
Suddenly the girl stood up. Her hand had gone to a breast I was sure was fluttering wildly, and the beautiful face below the mask seemed strangely set. Then she smiled deliciously, uncertainly.
"Yes," she breathed softly, "I shall be glad to tell Felice — just that."
Then, before I fully realised what she intended, she had picked up her crutch, deftly adjusted it beneath her arm, and swung off swiftly towards the ballroom.
For some moments I sat there surprised into inaction. Then, springing to my feet, I hurried after her. But she had gained the ballroom before I could reach it, and for the moment had successfully lost herself in the dancing throng. I looked round in growing dismay without locating her, and then my attention was diverted by something that I realised, even in my perturbed state, was very significant.
Through the door leading from the cloister through which I had just hurried after my late companion, came the tall figure of Dr. Nicholas and Princess Ottilie. With growing sense of uneasiness, I saw that first of all she was without a mask, and secondly that her face was literally distorted with rage. The doctor hurried her to the dais, and there after a whispered colloquy, two pages, who had been in attendance at the dais throughout the evening, lifted long silver trumpets to their lips and blew a high echoing fanfare.
The dancers stopped dead where they stood, the band ceased playing, and the general hubbub died down to an expectant hush.
"Ladies and gentlemen," announced the Princess in a clear voice that carried all over the room, "I am exceedingly sorry to be compelled to interrupt your pleasure for a moment, but it has been reported to me that an intruder has ventured into our privacy, no doubt with very questionable motives. I must therefore ask everybody to unmask while an attempt is made to locate the culprit."
A sudden buzz of excited chatter followed this announcement, while the general removal of masks was taking place everybody was looking eagerly round to see who could possibly be responsible for the Princess's dramatic edict.
As for myself, a strange chill had struck my heart. I was still, of course, more than half convinced that the girl I had sat with in the alcove was Felice, and if she were — well, despite that little butterfly, she must be the interloper for which they were looking.
By some unlucky chance Ottilie and Dr. Nicholas, as I reasoned, must have occupied an adjacent alcove while my beautiful companion and I talked; and Ottilie, like myself, had suspected who she really was. What actually Ottilie could do to the girl were found to be an intruder, I could not guess; but I could not shake off a most depressing premonition of disaster.
All this flashed through my mind in the few seconds following Ottilie's announcement. Then I made a swift decision. I did not unmask. Let the searchers suspect myself, if only for a few minutes. While attention was directed to myself, the girl might he able to get away unnoticed.
Then suddenly I saw her — and she was still wearing her mask! Though people round me were staring questioningly at me, a general movement was being made towards the girl, and I started pushing my way in her direction. But before I could reach her a startling thing happened. All the lights suddenly failed, and the whole place was plunged into darkness.
The excited clatter rose to frightened clamour. Women shrieked and men shouted. Then high above the general hubbub there came a cry — urgent, fear-stricken:
"Tony! Tony!"
It was Felice's voice! I could have picked it from a million others. So it had been she all the time, and she was obviously in danger.
In a sudden burst of anger I began fighting my way in the darkness towards the place where I had last seen her. But everybody was scrambling for the doors and had managed to wedge themselves into impenetrable blocks. And then, when the indescribable uproar was at its height, the lights came on again and the crowds blinked, laughed, and looked sheepish in the brilliant glare.
A voice that was not Ottilie's announced that everything was now all right and that dancing might be resumed. The band broke into a quick-step and the laughing crowds, their curiosity still unsatisfied, paired off and swung gaily round the floor again.
But I could only gaze around wildly, fearfully; then I began a systematic search of the room. At last I realised the truth. Felice, Ottilie and Dr. Nicholas had all vanished. The question was whither — and why?
I stood there for a few moments and feverishly thought out the situation. Just before the lights went out I remembered, Felice, still masked, had turned and had tried to get to a lofty pair of ornamental doors that let out of the ballroom at the end furthest from the big main doors. It was therefore most probable that it was through these doors that she had been hurried by her captors.
I made swiftly for the doors, and found myself alone in a big, luxurious hall or vestibule, from which, to left and right, rose a great double staircase. I darted up one sweep of this, and found myself facing a long, wide, heavily carpeted corridor, from which opened out, no doubt, various reception rooms, lounges and the like. Along this I trod warily, and then suddenly stopped dead.
I had come to what I shall describe as a "cross-roads"; in other words, a part where another wide corridor crossed that along which I had walked. And there on the carpet where two familiar objects. One was the dainty silk garter I had seen that night on Felice, and the other was the jewelled circlet I had given her what seemed ages ago.
As I picked them up, trembling with sudden excitement. I could guess what had happened. Felice had, after all, been wearing the circlet beneath and hidden by the garter, and as she was carried along the corridor the two had slipped off or she had slipped them off purposely. Her captor or captors had obviously not noticed their fall upon the thick carpet.
I slipped them into one of the two capacious pockets my costume possessed, and then stood considering silently which way I should now go. And to my ears there came from the right of the "cross-roads" the muffled sound of a voice. I crept down the corridor and softly tried the door from behind which came the voice. It was locked.
Anxiously wondering what to do now, I looked down the corridor, and at the end I saw a door with heavy glass panels, directly facing me. Led by some instinct rather than anything else, I crept to this. I opened it and found myself on a balcony overlooking the extensive grounds of the house. Peering to my left, I could just make out a tall pair of French windows, and I guessed that these were the windows of the room with the locked door.
I was out there in a moment and, to my intense joy, they opened softly at my touch. Inside the room the windows were curtained by heavy hangings. I stepped in soundlessly and, making a thin division in the hangings, peered into the room.
What I saw sent the angry blood to my head and only a natural desire to learn something about the whole extraordinary situation kept me for the moment from leaping in and dealing out summary justice.
On a couch, almost directly facing me, lay Felice — yes, there could be no doubt now that it was Felice, as she was unmasked — expertly and securely bound. She lay quite still, with closed eyes, and it was quite obvious she had been rendered unconscious, probably by some drug. Facing me in a chair by the couch sat Ottilie, and pacing up and down the room was Dr. Nicholas. He was still in costume but he had removed his mask.
"There's too much risk in this case, Ottilie," he was saying agitatedly. "Can't you see that? The girl will remember everything. You were too contentedly melodramatic as you always are, with your ordering everybody to unmask and then kidnapping the girl like this."
"I don't care," cried Ottilie, her face working with passion. I'm going to settle matters with this girl and her precious Tony, and you've got to help me. You heard what he said in the alcove. You heard his very charming description of myself! He did not know how truthfully he spoke when he said that I was 'helpless but dangerous'. They'll both find out how dangerous I can be. He shall have his Felice all right. He'll be welcome to her — or what is left of her!"
"Yes, that's all very well, Ottilie," replied Dr. Nicholas petulantly, "if we can bring it off without discovery."
Ottilie look up at him, her contempt plainly obvious in her eyes.
"You may be a world famous surgeon, Ren‚," she said, "but in an emergency you are pretty futile. Listen! A girl caught gatecrashing at private party, makes a desperate effort to escape her captors. The lights go out, and she manages to get away. But she is handicapped by the darkness and also by the fact that she has only one limb. She runs into a big speeding car and is terribly injured. She is brought back to this house where, fortunately, Dr. Ren‚ Nicholas, the great French surgeon, is on the spot. Her remaining leg had to be amputated at once, and it is feared that both her arms must also go. How does that strike you?"
Nicholas suddenly stopped his restless pacing and looked down at the Princess.
"What a nice, pleasant, cheerfully fiendish person you are, Ottilie," he said with a twisted grin. "But I must say the thing begins to look more possible. With a little more careful planning we may be able to pull it off. You can, I take it, rake up some witnesses to this little 'accident'?"
"Plenty, we'll make the whole thing absolutely watertight."
As may be imagined by this time I was in a state bordering on murderous frenzy. had heard enough to gather exactly what sort of devil Ottilie was and the nature of the dreadful revenge she planned against poor Felice and myself. I could listen to no more and, without warning, I leapt into the room.
Nicholas, who had his back to me, swung round as on a pivot, amazement and fear leaping to his eyes. Without hesitation he came at me, but I caught him neatly on the point of the jaw with a terrible swing, and he dropped like a log and lay still. Working with the rapidity of extreme anger, I slipped off the cords that bound Felice, and then in a most scientific manner trussed up the unconscious doctor.
Ottilie had screamed when she saw me, and was still screaming. I put my hand brutally across her mouth and shook her until she lapsed into a terrified silence. Then, standing in front of her, I addressed her:
"I know all about you and your little game," I said. "And if I did my duty I should hand you and your infernal companion over to the police. But I don't want to dirty my hands with you or to be mixed up in your unsavoury affairs unless I am forced to. So I give you and Nicholas just twenty-four hours to clear out of the country. If you are here at the end of that time I shall let the authorities in some of his ghastly secrets. That's all!"
She was still cowering and whimpering in her chair as I tenderly lifted Felice downstairs and out to my car.
Five or ten minutes later we reached Felice's flat, and tire, with the aid of her devoted maid, we eventually brought her round. She was deadly sick for a little while; and then, reviving, was able to smile wanly, yet with all her old affection, up at me.
"I'm sorry, Tony," she whispered as I took her in my arms and told her what had happened and what Ottilie and Dr. Nicholas had been planing to do. "It was all my fault. I shouldn't have gone. But you see I wanted to see you, to talk to you, if possible. and I thought the masked dance such an excellent opportunity."
"But Felice, darling," I protested gently, "why see me and talk to me like that when you could have done so at any time in the ordinary way?"
"Well, Tony," she said, "that's all part of the whole silly business. Yes, I admit it was silly now, though I have really been trying to act for the best. I'd better begin at the beginning. You know I did not want to become properly engaged to you, and I was a little mysterious about the reason for my action. Well, it was all very simple. I was afraid of — shall I say? — the workings of your particular 'kink' and I wanted to leave you absolutely free. I felt justified — though a little heartbroken — when you met Tina; for, as you remember, you at once, as they say, 'fell for' her very fascinating attractions. And I knew that by becoming friendly you would become associated with Princess Ottilie and the Society of Black Butterflies. I mean you would be continually open to temptations; and to a person of your peculiar temperament, if I may say such a thing, Tony, such temptations might prove too strong to resist.
So, you see, I just ran away and left you free to do exactly as you wished. That's the explanation of my disappearance on the night we went to 'Le Phenomene'. But I was miserable all the time, Tony, and I could not help wondering how you were getting on and what you were doing — particularly if you were completely succumbing to the fascination of Tina, Ottilie and the others, I specially feared Ottilie. I distrusted and disliked her on sight, and I was sure there was something sinister about her. I would have nothing to do with the Society of Butterflies she founded, because I had an instinctive feeling that there was something queer behind it, especially as Ottilie was so insanely obsessed with the hatred of beautiful women."
"But what about Tina," I interrupted. "Had she no suspicions about anything wrong?"
"Tina, I knew, had the same feeling as myself," said Felice. "But she rather enjoyed being a member of the 'Butterflies', and I think Ottilie interested her keenly as a study in odd, abnormal psychology. Besides, I imagine that she felt that any members who submitted themselves to the tender mercies of Ottilie and Dr. Nicholas did so quite voluntarily. I heard myself of some who did. Tina is much more easy-going than I am, but I am sure she would never have countenanced the truth had she been aware of it.
Well, as I said, I wanted desperately to know about you, without actually thrusting myself in person in your way, and the 'Butterflies' masked dance seemed a most wonderful opportunity. I got in quite easily — my butterfly, no doubt, helped tremendously"
"But you didn't actually go to the trouble of having one tattooed just for the occasion?"
"Of course not, you silly boy. This is not tattooed. It's only what is called a transfer. Look!"
And she rubbed the butterfly design with a dainty finger until it began to peel and come away in patches.
"And that, Felice, darling." I whispered, as I held her very close, is, I hope, the end of the black butterfly emblem as far as we are concerned. I feel an absolute brute and a cad to have caused you so much heartache. The only good that resulted from it all is that I have been lead back to you with the full realisation that you, and you only, matter in this world. All the others are only so many shadows, and will remain so all my life!"
* * * *
There is very little more to tell. Tina took my desertion like the brick she was, and had not a word of reproof to offer.
"I knew all the time," she said, "that our little friendship was only an interlude, and that Felice and you would find each other again. We shall remain the very best of friends, and you both have all my heartfelt wishes for your happiness."
Princess Ottilie and Dr. Nicholas acted upon my warning at once, for the great house was shut up and London knew them no more. Where they went, into what sinister and bizarre by-ways of life they ventured, I neither knew nor cared as long as they never again crossed the path of either Felice or myself.
And so eventually I had the supreme happiness of slipping on Felice's finger the token this time of a proper, formal engagement. But after I had performed that ceremony and kissed the little hand on which the newly presented jewels sparkled I could not resist a reminder of that first enchanting night on which I met her for the first time.
I took from my pocket and held up the jewelled, gold circlet, the finding of which in the corridor of Princess Ottilie's house had led me to Felice's rescue.
"After all, Felice, darling," I whispered, "this was the first symbol of our love for each other, and has now proved to be our lucky charm. I think on a night of such happiness as this I ought to give it back to you as symbol of love that is to be ours for ever."
Then, bending forward, Felice took my face between her two soft palms and kissed me lingeringly, clingingly.
I did not deserve it, nor any part of her love. But then, which of us poor, erring, stumbling males ever does? At any rate, my strange quest was over. I had found that which through everything I had really been seeking without knowing what it was I sought!
________________________________________
London Life November 28, 1931, pp. 59 — 64



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Re: London Life. Tales

Post: # 33860Unread post Bazil
07 Oct 2018, 17:01

London Life
London Life | 1932
________________________________________
The Strange Experiences Of A Lover
Edited by Wallace Stort
Shortly after I contributed to the columns of "London Life" in the "Confessions of a One-legged Bride" — which I hope many readers will remember — I received a communication from a French gentleman resident in London. He put himself in touch with me by means of an advertisement; and after I responded, he sent me a pretty voluminous MS. containing, in the form of rough notes set down in haphazard, unrelated fashion, the narrative of his own extraordinary experiences.
It had been his intention to knock the thing into shape one day and to offer it as an odd, psychopathic human document to some psychological publication. But he was never able to bring himself up to scratch, and now he unloaded the MS. on me with full permission to do exactly what I liked with it.
So here is the story put into, I hope, shape. Except for that and for some necessary pruning, the author was extremely frank in the original — it is substantially as I received it. The greater portion of it is, I an fully convinced, absolutely authentic. Some of it, I fear, is fiction, though probably founded on a substratum of fact. The opening incident is obviously, on the face of it, quite true; and it certainly reveals how, in one case at least, a kink was born.
My correspondent is, I understand — I have not met him personally — now nearing the forties, and has lived in England for the past six or seven years. W. S.
________________________________________
Chapter I
My name doesn't matter — let me call myself Marcel, that will serve. I propose to set down here such of my experiences as will illustrate what I am sure is one of the most inexplicable kinks that ever invaded the mind of man. Why should I find a beautiful girl more beautiful and attractive because she lacks one or more of her limbs? Why, in fact, should limbless girls be the only type to attract me, whereas normally formed girls, be they ever so lovely, leave me quite cold? I don't know the answer to this question; I'm not sure that anybody does.
I suppose it is generally believed that kinks of any kind are born in a man. But I'm not sure of that either. I don't think, for instance, that this particular kink of mine — which I have found, to my amazement, during the course of years to be shared by a much larger number of men than I should have thought possible, was born in me. It is possible that it may have been but, if it was, it didn't manifest itself for quite a considerable time. My own theory is that kinks are the result of some early and extraordinary experience; and my own case certainly helps to prove this theory. The only curious thing about me as a boy was that I was abnormally shy of the other s*ex. This may not be a very odd thing in an English man, but it certainly is in a French man. I was laughed at, because of this shyness, by all my boy friends who, as may be supposed, knew nearly all there was to know from very early age. I was not indifferent to feminine beauty — far from it, but I made no advances, and was painfully nervous whenever advances were made to me.
Then, when I was just about fifteen, came the fateful and fatal evening of my life. I had already become passionately fond of the theatre — or, at any rate that department of it which was known in Paris as "le music-hall". It was really forbidden ground for me, but I often managed to slip away from home and spend a deliriously happy evening at one or other of the many "concerts" (not concert halls, by the way, but rather variety shows or "cirques", or "varietes") that were in Paris in those days.
This particular evening all went well until the curtain went up for a turn given by three "aerialistes" — in England they would be called "trapeze artists." I can remember the scene distinctly to this day.
When the curtain went up, a man and a pretty girl, both clad in the regulation tights of pale pink silk were revealed, each fitting on a swinging, shining trapeze and leaning smilingly towards the audience, with a hand held out in greeting. Below on the stage, lounging in smiling nonchalance on a couch was the third member of the trio, a young girl — a long, filmy peignoir wrapped clingingly about her.
Something about her dainty blonde beauty, hit me with a blow that was almost physical. To me, she was dazzlingly lovely, the effect heightened by her wonderful shock of pale, spun-gold hair.
Like other shy people, I would always worship from afar, and I felt my heart turn over as I gazed at her. She seemed to me the most alluring thing that I had ever seen, and I could hardly take my eyes off her, even to watch the evolutions of the other two, who had now begun the act and were swinging and catching and somersaulting in breath taking style.
At last the trapeze came to rest with the acrobats seated on the bar and bowing to the plaudits of the audience. Then the girl on the couch stood up and, flinging off her wrap, advanced to the centre of the stage and stood there bowing right and left.
I think I can still hear the queer kind of sigh that buzzed round the theatre as the audience revealed in sudden shock of surprise. As for me I sat there as one hypnotised.
The girl, like her partner, was dressed in skin-fitting tights, a costume which made only too plain the astonishing fact that she had only one slimly beautiful leg, with which she hopped nimbly forward, and upon which she now stood, otherwise quite unsupported with an easy, perfect balance.
Now, here enters the extraordinary and inexplicable thing. It might have been expected that I should have been repelled by the sudden and completely unexpected revelation; but, for some obscure reason, I was not. The great majority of the audience,even while interested in the girl's act, must undoubtedly have pitied her profoundly, and the more so because she was so distractingly pretty; and many must have found the frank display of her one-leggedness distasteful. I can only account for my own attitude by the fact that just before the surprising revelation I had fallen desperately in love with the girl and thus, really in love for the first time in my life.
That is the crux of the whole matter. I was so desperately, so imbecilely in love — love at first sight and for the first time --that nothing in that moment could kill my passion. On the contrary, everything about the beloved, even the absence of a limb, became alluring.
However, in whatever way the phenomenon could be explained,there I was. As the girl climbed nimbly up to her trapeze and went slickly through her performance, I followed her with adoring eyes, utterly captivated by everything about her, completely convinced in one split second and for no reason that any person could adduce, that the beautiful, slender single leg was a hundred times more fascinating than a pair would have been, and gave an alluring piquancy to her act that made that of her partners seem indifferbly dull by comparison.
From that moment, whether its seeds had been simply lying dormant, or had only just been planted in my brain, the kink had taken complete possession of me, then and unalterable for the rest of my life. For good or ill, I had become a rabid worshiper at the shrine of limbless beauty!
Chapter II
A curious aspect of a coup de tonnerre — a thunderbolt of this kind is that a number of what I may call incidentals became just as important as the main object of attraction. What I mean, in this particular instance, is that there were other little things besides the fact that the girl was one-legged, which I found equally fascinating.
For instance, there was the to me, very attractive manner in which she hopped about the stage in between her tricks. Throughout the act she used no crutches; in fact crutches were not in evidence on the stage at all. Whenever she wanted to move she just hopped about as nimbly as a bird, moving in an easy, effortless manner that was obviously the result of years of use.
So fascinating did I find this method of getting about, that to this day I get an odd, very pronounced kick from seeing a onelegged girl moving about without crutches. Not that I dislike the use of crutches when necessary. Curiously though I think there is something attractive in the progress of a pretty one-legged girl swinging easily along the street on a pair of neat crutches. But indoors — no doubt as the result of my experience on that memorable night I prefer that the crutches be set aside — in fact put out of sight altogether — so that the girl should move about when necessary, completely without their aid.
There was another "incidental", however, that made even a deeper and more lasting impression on me. The amputation of the girl's leg — her right, by the way — had left her with only a short stump, not more than four or five inches in length from the hip. This, which, by the very nature of her costume of silk tights, was left fully displayed, was round, plump and shapely, as neat as such a thing could possibly be, the silk of the tights fitting it in perfect, unwrinkled smoothness. It was also very flexible and, at any rate, as far as I was concerned, drew constant attention to itself by its rapid movements, as its charming possessor went through her clever acrobatic routine or hopped gracefully about the stage.
In addition the girl was obviously not at all sensitive about her lost limb, as she had various little tricks which seemed frankly designed to bring it into prominence. One of her amusing stunts was to powder herself all over between tricks — a frequent practice at the time, by the way, with French soubrettes when doing their "undressing" acts on stage — and she would flick the big powder-puff over her bust and shoulders, then down her leg and finish up by rising her stump, smiling archly at the audience as she held it there as if for inspection — meanwhile of course, standing perfectly balanced on her one small foot — and then powder it with dainty, meticulous gestures.
At other times she would buffet her male partner playfully with her stump; and when the little towel on which the trio wiped their hands was thrown to her, she often caught it deftly on her lifted stump. Another little trick was probably unconscious. This was her habit, when standing watching the other two go through their performance, of dropping her hand to the upraised stump and smoothing the silk of it with gently moving fingers.
I mention all these things of set purpose because they all helped to draw my attention to the missing limb, and therefore to fix such a thing in my mind as an added and very alluring attraction. Why it should have its strange effect on me I am completely unable to explain, except in the way I have tried earlier to explain the whole abnormal episode.
I am perfectly well aware that to normal people a stump is just the pitiful remnant of an amputated limb. It is definitely not a thing to be admired. But to me, with my suddenly and inexplicably warped outlook, from that fateful evening onwards, a shortened limb such as this wonderful girl possessed was as beautiful and attractive as any other of a lovely woman's charms.
Going to the other extreme, I do not particularly like a onelegged girl to have no stump at all, as happens when amputation has taken place through the hip joint, or, as in one case I encountered, when a girl has been born with only one leg. Certainly I find such a girl attractive; after all, she is more perfectly one-legged than any other type. But I definitely prefer the girl who is, to me, the happy possessor of a shapely limb, round and plump, and just about four inches long from the hip. Amazing, isn't it? But true!
Well, all that is in the nature of a digression. To return for a short while longer to my little one-legged girl acrobat. Of course, inevitably, her turn came to an end. The trio ran off to the wings, my charmer hopping off as blithely as a bird. They returned in response to the continued applause; finally the curtain fell and they were seen no more.
I sat there in despair. The rest of the show had absolutely no interest for me, and at last I slunk out of the theatre, went home in a dream and — I don't remember now — but probably I lay awake all night, recalling in imagination those magic few minutes that had changed my life.
The next night found me in the theatre again, and again I sat rapturously through the act of these "aerialistes". I remember I had to miss one or two other nights, either through lack of funds or because my parents kept me at home. But I was there on the last night with a desperate plan all worked out. After that night the trio would vanish into the unknown, and I felt I should die if I could not have at least a word with my beloved before that happened.
Chapter III
When the curtain went down on their act I slipped out of the theatre and ran round the stage-door. My plan had the merit of ingenious simplicity. I carried an envelope with the name of the girl inscribed upon it, and my orders were, so I contended, to hand the message to her personally. The trick worked, and at last, with beating heart and shaking limbs, I was ushered into the wretched, cold, stone-flagged little dressing-room in which all three, the man included, dressed. (French theatrical people are not, or were not, fastidious about things.)
The man was busy removing his grease-paint; the other girl was half-way through he undressing. With an odd little thrill I noted standing in a corner a pair of slender, black crutches, obviously the property of my one-legged charmer.
She was still in her silk tights, and was perched on the edge of a table smoking a cigarette. I remember noting curiously how her short limb flattened and widened as she rested on the table. She grinned cheerfully as she took the envelope, and I can see now her look of blank amazement when she found nothing inside.
Still shaking in every limb, I stammered out my explanations. I wanted to go with her; I would da anything — work hard to become an acrobat, or act as valet or general factotum — anything.
The girl, after a moment of stupefaction, fairly shouted with laughter, in which the others joined. She thought the little trick with the envelope a masterpiece of cleverness. She patted me on the back and ran her finger through my curls — I was, if I may say so, a very good-looking boy. Reassured by this reception, I could only grin happily and gaze adoringly up into her eyes.
Being a woman, she had, of course, at once guessed what were my feelings towards her; and now, seated on the edge of the table, she drew me against her and, tilting my face, printed a hearty, and I daresay quit maternal, kiss on my lips.
The other girl looked on in great amusement at the little love scene, while the man, also laughing, made, I am afraid, some rather coarse remarks. I am sorry to have to report that my beloved roared with laughter at his gibes, but she did at least tell him to shut up. Then, holding me to her all the closer, she began to question me about myself. I was standing within the circle of her arm, thrilled with the contact of my back with her warm thigh, and acutely conscious of her little silk-clad stump immediately below my eyes, with its round, shapely plumpness more in evidence than ever, every now and then drawing my gaze to it by its restless, flexible movement.
I suppose I was unable to resist the temptations; perhaps, helped by the girls frank friendliness, I had become bold. At any rate, as I replied to her questions, I let my hand slip to the stump, and the contact sent a thrill right through me. The girl's eyebrows rose as she looked sideways at me, and an odd little smile played round her lips.
"Ah", he said quietly. "C'est ca? Bien, je comprends." And her fingers closed over mine, pressing them on the soft warm flesh.
The man chuckled sardonically and made a rapid comment, the full purpose of which I did not catch, but which I was sure was vulgar. The girl turned on him, unable however, to hide her own amusement altogether.
"Ta gueule!" she exclaimed. "Le p'tit a du goût pour mon moignon. C'est un bon critique, évidement." ("Hold your jaw. The young man has taken a fancy to my stump. It certainly shows his good taste.") And, hugging me closer she gave me another hearty kiss, still pressing my fingers on to the soft flesh of her stump.
Well, I was in the seventh heaven, of course, and I thought everything was sealed, signed and settled. I could not guess that my three new friends were treating the whole affair as a great joke, nor that though my one-legged charmer was evidently touched by my devotion and certainly understood the real basis of my infatuation, she was more amused than anything else by the arduous of a fifteen-year old boy.
She was quite diplomatic. She said she was desolated not to be able to take me with her, but I was to give her my name and leave an address to which she could write and as soon as it could be arranged, she would send for me. In the interval she would write to me and send me her photograph — "en maillot" ("in tights") "with my stump nicely displayed", she added with an amused little grin.
Then, quite pleasantly, she escorted me to the door, hopping easily at my side, a hand lightly resting on my shoulder; and then in the draughty, ill-lit passage, she dismissed me with a long, affectionate kiss. A quarter of an hour or so later, from a position I had taken up near the stage door, I saw her and the man go off laughing together, the girl swinging daintily and easily along on her neat crutches — and that was the last I ever saw of her! She certainly wrote me a brief note a week or so later, enclosing her photograph, but from that time there was silence.
So ended my first romance. I do not know what happened to the girl. She never appeared, to my knowledge, on the Paris stage again — and, heaven knows, I watched the "affiches" of every possible theatre with a sharper eye than any hawk's.
My own opinion now is that, as there were undoubtedly in all her audiences many men with this "limbless kink", one of them, probably wealthy, eventually married her and so she kept off the stage. One of my constant dreams for many years has been that I shall one day encounter her somewhere.
Of course I recovered in time. I suppose I was utterly broken hearted when I finally realised that the girl had been what I no doubt described as "playing with me." But it is also highly probable that I had already begun to seek other amorous adventures. And, as will be realised, these adventures were now directed to one special search. My lifelong search for limbless beauty had begun!
I was later to make the discovery again to my complete amazement that this kink of mine did not confine itself simply to the condition of one-leggedness. Actually it included limbless beauty in all its stages, even the most extreme; and this development I shall tell in its proper place later. But at the moment my search naturally took the shape of looking for possible duplicates of my faithless charmer, lovely one-legged darlings, who might console me for my loss.
If anybody had told me at the time that looking for needles in haystacks was a relatively simple task compared to the one I had undertaken, I should have laughed. But it would have been very near the truth.
I don't know, of course, but it may be supposed by normal people, unafflicted with this kink, that one-legged girls are encountered quite frequently in a big city. My own experience is that onelegged girls of any kind are seen in the streets, in the restaurants or in the theatres only very infrequently. Think how many times you have seen one enter the restaurant where you dine-— probably never! While a pretty, attractively dressed one-legged girl is an extreme rarity.
In fact, years can intervene, an in my case have actually intervened, between each encounter of a really attractive girl of this kind. But they do exist and they are encountered, particularly if one is constantly an the look-out; and during the twenty odd years in which I have prosecuted my search I dare say I have met with as much success as could reasonably be expected. In the paged that follow I propose to relate my many extraordinary experiences during this curious quest of mine, and so show the actual workings of the unique and obscure kink that is responsible for the abnormal outlook of so may peculiarly constituted mortals.
("Marcel" will continue his narrative in the next article in this stories — W. S.)
________________________________________
London Life December 31, 1932 pp. 22 — 25



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Re: London Life. Tales

Post: # 33861Unread post Bazil
07 Oct 2018, 17:03

London Life
London Life | 1933
________________________________________
The Strange Experiences Of A Lover
by Wallace Stort
In the first article of this series "Marcel", a Frenchman now living in London, related how he discovered in himself a freakish affection for limbless beauty, and went on to describe his first adventure. In this, the second article, he continues his narrative of succeeding experiences. — W. S.)
________________________________________
A Not Very Happy Encounter.
Towards the close of the preceding article I revealed how very infrequently one encounters one-legged girls, either in the streets, the theatres, or the restaurants. Even when one has had such an encounter, there then comes the difficulty of gaining an introduction.
It is popularly believed that Frenchmen rush in where Englishmen fear to tread, but even a Frenchmen can be circumspect; and, after all, a crippled girl is not in the same category as one who is quite normal. A crippled girl does not expect male admiration, and in most cases, as far as my own experience goes, she will be puzzled, and even frightened, by an unsolicited approach.
I should say that the majority of limbless girls are quite unaware of the existence of what has been called the "limbless kink," or, if manifestations of it come their way, they do not understand, or are frightened. But, on the other hand, I am also sure that a number — probably all of the pretty and attractively dressed — do know of the existence of this peculiarity; and while some do not like it and are therefore unresponsive, others definitely encourage it and even do all they can to present their limbless condition as attractively as possible. This is not a theory, by the way, but assured fact.
I may have given the impression by a remark made in the first article that I have usually been quite successful in getting in touch with limbless girls; but I hope not, but actually this is far from being the case. Though I have always made my approaches, I hope, as tactfully as possible, my most frequent experience has, quite naturally, been a complete rebuff.
Nothing would be served by recounting the history of such failures, and if I seem to be very successful in my quest it should be realised that the experiences described are all chosen because they were, or appeared to be, successful, and that such experiences were all punctuated by long periods of time, in some cases many years. Also, as will be seen, I was helped by luck rather than finesse.
I have told you how I had my first experience at the age of fifteen years. Well, I was actually nineteen before I became acquainted with another; and even then the friendship was not entirely satisfactory.
I had gone with my parents to Dinard, in Brittany, for the holidays, and we stayed in a pleasant hotel near the main place (L'Ecluse). I got my thrill the very first night, at dinner. We had only taken our seats a few minutes, when four people entered the dining-room — a middle aged man and woman and two girls — father, mother and two daughters, as we afterwards discovered. I remember my feeling of excitement when I saw that the younger daughter, a girl of about eighteen, walked with the aid of a pair of crutches.
She was a very pretty brunette. Her good look, however, was somewhat marred by her very sad expression, and she manipulated her neat crutches with an ease that told of practice. It was then about the period when the skirts where beginning to shorten, though they could not be called short as yet. They were probably about as long as. they are now worn in the streets, though very much fuller. But that left a girl's ankle intriguingly exposed and my thrill was complete when, as the party passed us on their way to their table, I saw, below the frock of the girl on crutches, only one neatly slippered foot.
As a matter of fact, the task of getting to know the girl was made perfectly simple for me. In common with most people in the hotel, my mother was very sorry for the pretty girl "so dreadfully crippled" and before the end of that evening she had already made friends with the parents and discussed in most sympathetic fashion their daughter's sad case. Very naturally, I gravitated to the two girls, as we became friendly almost at once.
I am afraid the normal sister was quite sure I was interested in her, but it soon became patent that it was the other girl who attracted me. To do her justice, however, the elder sister was very pleased that there was somebody to take an interest in her sister, particularly as her own fiance was expected in a day or two. I remember, too, that my attitude towards the one-legged girl was very charming.
Well, so far so good, hut actually the affair was not a very happy one. Yvette, as I shall call her, though that was not her name, was very pretty and attractive, and she became very friendly with me. But she had ever got over, and would never get over, the loss of a limb. The misfortune poisoned her life, and it was only now and then that she could be roused to anything like cheerfulness. It was true that she always dressed smartly and was obviously very fastidious about her personal appearance. She even went the length of using a special pair of very neatly made white crutches with her evening frocks. But all this had nothing to do with any desire to attract attention. She was much too sensitive about her loss even to think about such a thing. She never had the slightest idea that I was intrigued — and I never told her.
I very soon discovered, from the way in which her frock disposed itself on the right side that the missing limb was absent from very near the hip — a fact which heightened my interest.
One of Yvette's great griefs — and she had many — was that she could not join our party at bathing time. She had been a strong swimmer before her amputation, and she was now intensely envious of the jolly time we had in the water. I suggested that she should throw her scruples to the winds and come with us; but she was horrified. The thought of appearing on a crowded beach in a bathing costume that would display her misfortune to the crowded beach filled her with dismay.
But I was able to get her over her scruples by a very simple process. It was to change her dress in one of the beach tents we had rented for the season. I was to carry her to the water's edge, slip off her wrap, and carry her into the water. Even if people were curious, there would at least be no display of her deficiency. To my surprise, after some demur she agreed, Poor girl! It was only very rarely that the allowed herself to enjoy anything.
I was, of course, pleased at the prospect of carrying the pretty one-legged Yvette in my arms but nothing like so thrilled as I should have been in different circumstances. The girl's unremitting sadness, the obvious thing, almost of horror, with which she regarded her loss, took away practically all the pleasure I should normally have extracted from our friendship.
I have had, by the way, the same feeling at other times since that holiday. It may, or may not, be a curious thing, but I find that when a girl is unhappy, my attitude becomes the normal one of pity and I am not strongly attracted.
I should have liked Yvette to have ceased to trouble about her condition — in fact, to have forgotten it as far as that is possible — at any rate, to take it for granted, very much as she would have done with any other personal characteristic. I wanted her to be cheerful and gay and as much interested in life, pretty frocks, lively society, etc. as any normal girl. My ideal was for her to have actually come to be intrigued and fascinated by her own limblessness, to have realised that she was attractive, and to have been out to do everything she could to set off her limbless charm to the best advantage. Such a girl would, of course, have been very exceptional, and only to be met with once in a lifetime. But, to return to Yvette.
The next morning she was more cheerful than I had ever seen her as she swung off on her crutches with her sister and myself to the beach. She had not brought bathing things with her on holiday, but she had borrowed for the occasion a suit and a wrap from her sister, and they changed in one tent and I another. When they were ready, Yvette, holding her wrap closely about her, surrendered herself to my arms with a little smile and a blush that helped to reveal how really pretty she was, and I carried her carefully down to the sea.
I had never dared to make any advances to her. She was much too reserved and full of the misfortune to invite anything of the sort. Accordingly, though it was very pleasant to feel her soft self in my arms, I handled her very gently, carrying her more like a brother than a would-be lover. I could not help being acutely conscious of her single pretty leg, as it lay close to me. I felt practically certain that her missing leg was completely absent from the hip.
This, however, was not exactly the case. When, very hesitantly, she slipped off her wrap, she was revealed in a neat, closely fitting one-piece swimming suit of dark blue silk that moulded her very pretty figure to perfection.
Her sister was a very strong swimmer, who went in for scanty, business like swimming suits, and did not trouble about the elaborate skirted confections of the bathing belles of the time. Consequently, the suit Yvette had borrowed was more than revealing, displaying her white, shapely single leg practically from the hip. In the matter of the amputated limb, however, she had compromised by wearing on it a little well-fitting "chaussette de moignon", or sock, of black silk.
Of course, when Yvette removed her wrap I had to take everything in one comprehensive glance, for, I had to hurry her into the water away from prying eyes. Once in the sea she was comparatively happy, and she enjoyed that bathe and many others we had on subsequent days more than anything else during the holiday.
But I never got any nearer to her than that! There was I, constantly in the company of a pretty one-legged girl, taking her about, swimming with her, and all the rest and yet the irony of it was that I dared not to reveal the true reason for my interest! I knew that if ever I was idiot enough to tell her the truth, she would either be completely incredulous or consider me quite mad. We were very friendly, and she was very grateful for my friendship; no doubt, she thought me a particularly nice, thoughtful and kind boy.
During that friendship I learned that there was something more behind her distress than was apparent. The amputation had taken place only three years before, as the result of a very extensive blood poisoning, and there was a risk that the dread symptoms might reappear. Accordingly, Yvette lived in constant fear of losing her remaining limb. Poor girl, her fear was only too well founded!
After that holiday our two families kept in touch with each other, mainly by correspondence, however, as her people lived in the Provinces. Within eighteen month of meeting her, we learned that Yvette had undergone amputation of her other leg, close to the hip.
I understand that this was rather a precautionary rather than an absolutely necessary operation. It was proposed first of all to amputate the foot; but as other amputations, as had happened in the case of the first leg, might become advisable later, Yvette herself — very wisely, as it turned out — prayed the doctors to remove the whole leg. This was eventually done, and apparently it stopped the trouble, for Yvette remains today, quite legless, of course, but otherwise unmutilated.
She was later happily married to a well-to-do silk merchant, and when I saw her last was a plump, handsome matron, much happier than when she was a girl — though she will never be gay, I am afraid. She spends her time either on her couch or in her wheelchair; and, when I carried her one day, during my last visit, from her chair into the house, I wondered whether she recalled the days when I carried her, a pretty one-legged girl, down to the sea.
Well, my experience with Yvette was, in a way, typical of a number of other as the years passed. Of course they differed in various details. For instance, I never encountered another girl so terribly depressed over her loss as was Yvette.
Usually such girls take their condition for granted. Some are sensitive, and some are, naturally of a gay, happy-go-lucky temperament, and do not trouble much about their loss. But I nearly always found it extremely difficult to explain exactly why they attracted me.
Such was the general run of experiences, one very much like another, and I should be taking up space unnecessarily were I to describe them all. But one cannot pursue a quest of this kind continuously through the years without some outstanding and even bizarre encounter coming one's way. Some of these I think will be found to shed an interesting light on the working of this particular fancy of mine.
One such adventure which had its beginning some years after the Yvette episode was very much out of the usual run — in fact, was one of the most extraordinary I ever had.
When Persistence Won All The Way.
I was strolling up the Rue de la Paix towards the Opera one pleasant June afternoon, when I got the old thrill. Through a break in the crowd of strolling shoppers, I had spied, about twenty or thirty yards away, a neat little feminine figure swinging towards me on crutches. I pulled myself together as well as I was able, and sauntered on, in apparent nonchalance, my eyes, however, appraising the approaching girl.
My heart pumped in spite of myself, for she was undoubtedly
very much out of the ordinary! Small and attractively plump, though not too much so, very chic, with the neatness of extreme smartness. Below her short skirt — it was the period when skirts were at their shortest — moved just one shapely leg in a well fitting stocking of black silk, so thin and transparent as to seem only a gossamer film on the pink and white flesh that blushed through it. And on the small, arched foot was a neat little slipper with an extravagantly high, slender heel. Her little blonde head was tilted in a sort of impudent attitude, and she seemed to strut rather than swing forward on her neat, very slender, black crutches, which her little gloved hands manipulated with dainty expertness.
She would have been a notable figure in any fashionable crowd had she been normally formed. As it was, with just that one, daringly displayed, silk-clad leg, and on crutches, she was a minor sensation — and the girl knew it!
She was accompanied by a girl friend, as smartly dressed as herself, to whom she chatted gaily as they walked away.
As I drew abreast of the couple, I tried to look absolutely unconcerned. But I must have gone white — the blood is always likely to drain from my face at such moments — and I dare say that I looked unnaturally strained in spite of my efforts at control. At any rate, I passed on and then, after proceeding a few yards, I turned and slowly followed the two girls. As far as I could judge, the limbless girl had not noticed me at all, and I felt pretty certain that she had no knowledge of the fact that I was walking slowly in her wake.
The two girls sauntered on unhurriedly, pausing now and then to look in a shop window. Eventually they crossed the Place Vendome, and when they had reached "Le Petit Ritz," a famous little tea shop where it had become the fashionable thing to have English afternoon tea, I was not at all surprised to see them enter it.
With my heart pumping again, I hesitated for a little while, and then plucked up courage and boldly entered the teashop.
The two girls were seated facing each other across a small table near the broad windows, and apparently without a glance in their direction I passed through and took a table a little beyond theirs, but also near the windows.
They took absolutely no notice of me, and I was still convinced that the one-legged girl did not even know I existed. I had chosen my table with care, as from it I had a very clear side view of this girl. But, to my disappointment, I noted that her pretty single leg was entirely hidden below the table at which she sat.
I was internally anathematising this, of course, very natural position she had taken up, when it almost seemed as if she had become aware of my thoughts. Still chatting volubly with her friend, and sinking pretty white teeth into luscious little bits of pastry, and still, incredibly, not showing the slightest interest in myself, she turned casually in her chair, with the result that her leg slipped out from underneath the table and so remained fully displayed to my guarded gaze.
I noted again how shapely it was. I was also able to see why the silk stocking was so extremely diaphanous. Its silk was of the frailest, wide-meshed, fish-net quality, so transparent as to become the consistency of gossamer.
Her foot had already wriggled itself half out of the tiny, extremely smart slipper, the slender, stockinged heel showing well above it. I thought the height of the slipper's heel amazing — quite 6 inches at least, I was sure. (It was as a matter of fact, not more than 3 1/2 inches in height. What 6 or 7 inches would really look like in actual wear I cannot imagine — probably grotesque!)
I tried to appear quite uninterested as I watched the girl, but every flexible movement of her leg, together with the constant slipping of her foot in and out of the slipper, was noted by me and had its separate thrill for me. Still she gave no sign of any knowledge of my presence or my interest.
However, whether this was so or not, I sat there and stared, thrilled to the core, filled with an inescapable premonition that I was on the threshold of one of the unforgettable experiences of my life.
Within a few minutes the two girls began to make preparations for departure, paid their bills, and gathered together their handbags and other feminine impedimenta.
And then I was given another little exhibition that again might or might not, have meant anything. The one-legged girl's crutches had been placed carefully in a corner some little distance from the table, and, at a sign from her, one of the waitresses hurried across the room for them. But meanwhile the girl, without waiting the coming of her crutches stood up, steadying herself with dainty hand on the table.
Then the crutches arrived, the girl neatly adjusted then beneath her armpits and the two girls, without a single glance my way, made their way slowly out of the teashop, watched curiously by very many more eyes than mine. In spite of this apparent ignoring once again of my very existence, there was, for me, only one thing to do. I had see this adventure to its end, whatever that end might be. I waited for just a few minutes, after carefully noting that the girls had turned south as they left the shop — the direction they had been taking when I met them. Then I paid my bill and hurried out.
I located the two girls almost at once, and my heart sank. They were standing only a few yards away, on the edge of the pavement. Obviously they were waiting for a taxi. As I wondered what my next move was to be a taxi swung in to the pavement. There to my tremendous relief -— I could feel it welling up into my throat -— the other girl, after shaking hands with her friend, got in the taxi and was whirled away, leaving my fascinating cripple standing alone.
I hung back, waiting for her to move on. But she did not stir. She stood there, resting easily on her crutches gazing calmly into the rushing, roaring traffic. Was she, too, going to take a taxi? It looked perilously like it.
I pulled myself together as well as I could and, strolling over, took up a position about a yard away. She turned slowly and then, to my amazement, I saw that amused smile of hers I had noted in the teashop pass lightly and elusively across her lips and then disappear.
"And now, M'sieur", she said quietly, "what shall I do — call an agent (policeman)?"
"But, Mam'selle," I spluttered in utter confusion, "w-what have I done?"
She looked gravely at me; but thank goodness, her eyes were dancing.
"What have you done?" she echoed. "For over an hour you have followed me, spied on me, watched every mouthful I ate, noted everything I did!" The little mocking smile fluttered over her lips again. "Ciel, I felt I had committed a crime and that the Surete was on my track. C'est drole ca — 'What have you done'?" I was already reassured by her manner, in spite of her tone and the terms of her indictment. But I was frankly amazed at her knowledge of my movements.
"But Mam'selle," I protested, how do you mean — followed you, spied on you, and the rest?"
"What a simpleton it is!" she exclaimed in amused scorn. "You passed me right at the top of the street, close to the Boulevard des Capucines. You deliberately turned and followed me all the way down into Place Vendome. Then, when I turned into the Ritz for tea, you had the impertinence to walk in and take up a position near me, where you could watch every movement I made. And now I find you here at my side looking like — like -" she suddenly spluttered with laughter — "like a schoolboy caught with the jam!" I grinned shamefacedly, but I made a spirited attempt at retaliation.
"But what reason had you to suppose I was following you, Mam'selle?' I asked. "I may have been interested in your friend."
"Oh, in that case," she retorted with unruffled calm, "you will find her in a taxi somewhere in Paris. I wish you good hunting, M'sieur, Good-afternoon." And she turned as if to go.
I capitulated with undignified haste.
"Please, Mam'selle", I pleaded, "I apologise profoundly, and I confess. It was you I followed, and I am guilty of all the crimes, with which you charge me."
The dancing laughter was back in her eyes.
"Then what do I do?" She asked mockingly. "Call an agent as I suggested before, or ask you to call a taxi for me?"
A little pulse of excitement blew within me. I did not reply, but immediately held up my hand and stopped a passing taxi.
The vehicle drew into the kerb. The girl gave the driver an address and then, slipping her crutches from under her arms, she deposited them in the cab and, with only very perfunctory help from me, for I didn't quite know how to be of service, short of picking he up in my arms, she swung her self nimbly inside.
She seated herself and, still smiling her old enigmatic smile, she thanked me for my assistance and then sank back against the cushion, as if the episode were over and all I had to do was to close the door and allow the vehicle to proceed on its way. But I had learned something about her tactics in the last few minutes; and, besides; I noted that she had taken up her position at the further end of the seat, leaving plenty of room for a second occupant.
As coolly as I was able I sprang in, banging the door behind me and as I took my seat at her side, the taxi darted off into the traffic. In a few minutes there was silence in the taxi, and for those minutes I stared in front of me.
Though I tried not to show it, I was struggling for calmness and trying to control my breathing. The astonishing, unexpected and tremendously thrilling turn in the tide of events had winded me both physically and mentally. When at last I turned to my companion, I found her, to my relief, obviously struggling with an almost uncontrollable impulse to laugh.
"Of course," she said with mock gravity, "I really ought to stop the taxi and hand you over to the police."
"But, of course, you won't!" I retorted boldly.
At that she laughed outright, and the little comedy of pretence was over.
("Marcel" will conclude his adventure with Zelie and continue the narrative of his strange experiences in the next article in this series. W. S.)
________________________________________
London Life January 28, 1933 pp. 12 — 14



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Re: London Life. Tales

Post: # 33862Unread post Bazil
07 Oct 2018, 17:04

London Life
London Life | 1933
________________________________________
The Strange Story Of The Courtship A Monopede
by Wallace Stort
In the second instalment of this series "Marcel", a Frenchman now living in London, related the strange fascination he experienced when, one summer's afternoon in Paris, he saw a beautiful little blonde one-legged girl swinging daintily along the rue de la Paix on ebony crutches, along with another beautifully dressed girl. He followed the ladies into a tea-room, and watched the one-legged girl with admiration; but she ignored his obvious interest.
Eventually they left, and the two girls parted. Marcel followed the beautiful monopede, who called a taxi and, evidently amused by his following her, spoke to him and, after some amusing badinage, allowed him to escort her home.
Now read Zelie's, the beautiful monopede's story.
________________________________________
For a few minutes she sat there in silence, smiling in quite friendly fashion at me, letting her fine eyes roam, in frank appraisement, over my face and person. As for myself, my feeling of thrilled anticipation had grown with the promise of normal adventure. I realised that this girl was quite different from any of her kind I had met before, and that with such a girl anything might happen. I could feel myself on the tip-toe of excited curiosity. As I wondered what the next move might be, the girl herself broke into my thoughts.
"You don't quite know what to make of me, do you, mon ami?" she said, smilingly. "And you're simply bursting to ask all kinds of questions. For instance, you are wondering how an earth I knew you were following me."
I admitted that that, among other things, had certainly been puzzling me.
"Well, it's all very simple", she said. "I am, of course, quite used to people staring at me in the street. I don't mind it; in fact, to confess the truth I rather enjoy it. But there are stares and stares. And every now and then — not often, sometimes only once or twice a year — I am stared at in a way that is very different from the ordinary interest of pitying glances that are usually given. I know that particular kind of stare as soon as I see it. To confess again, I am nearly always on the look-out for it whenever I am walking in the streets. It always comes from a man. Sometimes the man stops for just a moment or so as he stares; very frequently he goes quite pale. But whatever he does, there it the same tense, excited quality about the stare in every case. Nearly always he follows me; sometimes he will try to get in touch with me in some way.
Now you, mon ami, did not stop dead when you met me. I imagine you saw me in plenty of time to enable you to make an effort to pull yourself together. But here was no mistaking the look on your face as you passed, and you had certainly gone pale. I had only to stop a little further up the road, ostensibly to look into a shop window, to discover that you had turned and were following. Then I was certain. And when you walked into the Petit Ritz I had a very hard job to keep myself from laughing."
"Well, all I can say," I exclaimed at the end of this very interesting explanation, "is that you were much cleverer than I, mam'selle. You never betrayed in the smallest way that you were aware of my interest in you."
She looked at me oddly, and that characteristic little smile of hers curled the corners of her lips.
"Not — not in any way?" she asked slowly, with a little upward inflection.
And with a sudden thrill, all the more devastating because of the complete unexpectedness of the thing, I saw the thin, filmy silk of her frock, just below the left side, lifted once again as it had been in the tea-shop, and the round shapely outline appeared plumply upon it. This time, however, it did not move in the flexible way it had done before, but was brought to rest against the rounded right thigh, very much as if girl was crossing her legs. And there it remained, fully and attractively outlined on the thinly veiling silk.
I looked at the girl, trying to keep my breathing even; but except for the mocking light that danced in her beautiful eyes, she was once again apparently unconscious of the provocation of her movements. And then suddenly she laughed softly and delightfully; and, sitting up, she slipped an arm confidingly through mine.
"Poor boy!" she said softly. "It's a shame to tease you. You don't quite understand me, but I understand you pretty well. You see, though I am still quite young, I have been one-legged a good many years; and, I am — well, let us say, not bad looking."
"Let us say delightfully pretty," I murmured, carried away by her nearness and her delightful change of manner.
"Let us say if you wish," she returned.
Turning me with the arm she had put through mine, so that I almost direct: faced her, she continued:
"You followed me for exactly that reason. You find me attractive because of my one little leg? You have what is called a kink. You are thrilled, and think it much more chic and charming than two legs could possibly be. Isn't that the truth, cherie? Confess!"
It was not only her indictment, though that was intriguing enough, that thrilled me to the core. As she put it, her voice sank to a caressing murmur, and her eyes, soft and friendly, looked into mine. What could I do but release my arm and slip it round the beautiful, lissom body?
"There doesn't seem to be a great deal for me to confess," I said. "You appear to know all about it. But it true enough. You'd be decidedly attractive in any case; but it is a fact that your missing limb makes you a thousand times more fascinating as far as I am concerned. The very thought of it thrills me now as I look at you. I don't know why it should be. I can't even begin to understand the amazing thing myself. You must think men like myself absolutely crazy."
She shrugged her pretty shoulders unconcernedly. "Perhaps I may have done so at one time," she said, "but now I do not trouble about it. Besides" — she smiled frankly up at me.— "I like it! That's funny, isn't it? But it is perfectly true. You see, after all, I am one-legged. I can't get away from that fact even if I wanted to. And — well, is it not very pleasant for a girl in my position, though usually an object of pity, that she is attractive to a man for the very thing that other people think a terrible misfortune? Particularly" — her smile became roguish as she shot a little glance from the corners of her eyes — "particularly when the man is as charming as a certain monsieur I could mention."
Her eyes sparkled adorably, I paw her: red lips, half open, smiling, inviting. When inevitably my lips met hers, she did not draw back, but slipped her arms up about my neck and held me close while her mouth clung to mine in a fierce, passionate kiss. At last we drew apart, smiling uncertainly at each other, her uplifted face glowing and tender. Then suddenly she broke into a soft laughter.
"Do you know," she said "we've actually got to the kissing stage without knowing each others names. My friends, by the way, call me Zelie."
"Almost as delightful as its charming owner," I commented, giving her a little squeeze. "I am called by the more ordinary name of Marcel."
"It's a very nice name — Marcel", she protested, and kissed me softly again. Then for a little while we sat together in a pleasant, companionable silence.
My own thoughts during that brief interval may be imagined. I almost wondered whether the whole events of that afternoon were not part of a dream. By some odd caprice of Fate, I had not only casually encountered a one-legged girl who must surely be one of the prettiest and most captivating of her kind, but had actually made her acquaintance. And further and more amazing still, she was the first girl to whom I had not to make halting explanations of the reasons for my interest. Apparently and astoundingly she knew all about my particular type, and instead of finding my interest odd and inexplicable, was actually fascinated and thrilled by it. The whole situation was extraordinary, and it was no wonder that the sick excitement was still pulsing through me.
I was still occupied with my thoughts when Zelie turned slowly and looked up smilingly up in my eyes. She was, as she had already proved, a quick and instinctive girl, and she may have sensed the trend of my thought. Arching the delicate instep of her foot as a dancer does, the beautiful limb looked very shapely in its daringly diaphanous stocking, the silk of which was so thin and frail that the delicately formed toes of her little unslippered foot could be distinctly seen through the open mesh.
"It's terribly nice to know you think my one little leg attractive Marcel," she murmured.
Then she slowly lowered her foot on my instep, and there returned to her lips the odd little enigmatic smile I had noticed in the tea-shop.
Then there were many question and answers, and when I had made it quite plain that I infinitely preferred her as she was, and that both her beautiful leg and shapely shortened limb were perfect in my eyes, she kissed me with sudden passion.
Meanwhile, of course, the taxi had long ago left the Place Vendome, and, threading its way southwards, through the whirling traffic, down the Rue Castignore, had turned into the Rue de Rivoli. Speeding westwards, it had eventually crossed the Place de la Concorde, and was now making its way along the Champs Elysees towards the Arc de Triomphe. Reaching there, it turned down the Avenue Victor Hugo, and then branched off to the left into a maze of pleasant side streets. At last it drew up at a charming block of "appartements". We had arrived.
By this time, Zelie had resumed her little high heeled slip per and had made herself tidy with deft touches of powder, lipstick, etc. I had to smile at the way in which the ceremonial of our arrival differed from that embarkation at the Place Vendome. Then, Zelie had swung herself easily into the taxi without seeking assistance from myself. Now, as soon as I had descended to the pavement, she surrendered herself frankly and charmingly to my arms, and I lifted her tenderly out, posing her carefully on her little foot. Then, reaching for her crutches, I adjusted them neatly beneath her arms, receiving a very intimate and ravishing smile as thanks for my pains. So we entered Zelie's apartment.
We were admitted to the flat by a pretty maid, trimly attired in black taffetas with a tiny frilled white apron, neat black silk stockings, and little buckled high-heeled shoes. The flat, small and compact war. charming, prettily furnished in the bright, dainty manner one would expect from Zelie.
Swinging gracefully on her crutches, and chattering happily, Zelie ushered me into a pleasant little lounge, and there bade me make myself comfortable.
"Here are cigarettes," she said affectionately, drawing up a little Moorish smoking-table. "There are drinks in the buffet. You can mix yourself something, and, while you are about it, mix me a nice long one with Vermouth, grenadine syrup, ice and soda. I'll be back in a moment.
Then she swung daintily out on her crutches, and left me to my own devices. I mixed Zelie's drink and my own, and, selecting a cigarette,I settled myself an the couch to wait, with what patience I. could muster, my charming hostess's return. I had, however, hardly time to wonder what Zelie was doing, for within a few minutes I heard a musical little call and, turning my head, I saw her framed in the doorway. She had removed her hat, revealing the fascinating way in which her blonde curls clung closely to her shapely little head, and had replaced her frock with a filmy, diaphanous negligee of delicate black lace, with an intimate scroll design in black and gold worked all over it.
Possessing all the sheer transparency of such lace, and held, as it was closely wrapped about her, it was a most daring and beautiful article of attire. For just a moment or so Zelie stood there smiling, in an alluring, coquettish pose. Then she swung towards me using, I was intrigued to notice, only a single crutch. This in a curious manner had changed the whole character of her walk. On a pair of crutches she had swung along in a crisp, effortless manner, very delightful — at any rate, for me to watch. Now she moved with a slow languorous swing, the body clinging to the crutch in a curiously intimate way and undulating flexibly at each forward movement.
The whole swaggering movement had a fascinating allure of its own, and I felt my pulses quicken as I watched her. She had also, I saw, changed her outdoor slipper for another one — a tiny, very open Court slipper in black and gold brocade, with a slender, even higher heel, that arched her shapely instep so steeply that little more than the tips of her toes rested on the carpet as she walked.
She reached the couch, by which I was standing to receive her, and allowed me to take her crutch and put it away while she settled herself comfortably among the cushions. When I had seated myself by her side, she drank thirstily of the iced drink I had prepared, and accepted a cigarette, which I lit for her. Then she sank back lazily in the cushions.
"Did you mind my using only a single crutch just now?" she asked, after a while, turning and looking at me. "Or would you have liked me to use both my crutches — or perhaps you would have preferred me not to use crutches at all?" That mocking little smile of hers curved her lips. "Really I should have asked you," she went on, "knowing how important these things can be."
I looked down at her narrowly, for here was another of these odd questions of hers that told of curious knowledge. But I replied calmly enough.
"What do you usually do in the house?" I asked.
"Oh, I never use a pair of crutches indoors, she replied. "You can't do much else when you have two crutches to manage. I either use a single crutch or just hop about without one at all."
I couldn't help, of course, showing my keen interest in that last admission.
"Oh, you hop about," I said quietly. "You don't find that difficult?"
Zelie shot me a swift glance.
I really believe the boy would like me to hop," she said with a laugh. "Wouldn't he?"
I laughed a little confusedly.
"Well, yes," I admitted, "though I must confess I was certainly fascinated by the way you used a single crutch."
"Nice boy," she said. "Knows how to say the right thing. But you shall see me hop. It's just as easy for me as using crutches. I've hopped about without them since I was a kiddie."
With that she kicked off her little slipper, incidentally revealing that she was still wearing her very filmy, wide meshed silk stocking; and springing up lightly, she gathered her clinging negligee closely about her and sped with effortless grace across the room, hopping daintily on the tips of her toes with all the delicate poise of a trained dancer.
Near the doorway she turned and stood facing me in a perfect balance, maintaining the pose without a quiver for a minute or so. Then she came speeding back at a pace that alarmed me. I had visions of her falling and hurting herself badly. But she was as sure-footed as if she were running on two feet, and never faltered in the slightest.
Her action was not at all the ungainly shuffle that a normal two-legged individual would adopt when trying to hop. It was obviously the result of long training — a very easy, graceful, gliding motion, without any awkward jerking of the body.
She reached the couch and, with a little smile of triumph, stood poised before me, one arm held out in a gesture like that of a performer on the stage who has just accomplished a difficult feat. I smiled at her and softly clapped my hands.
"Marvellous!" I said. "A perfect and most thrilling performance!"
"You really think so?" she asked eagerly and, far such a sophisticated individual as she was, with a charming naivete. "Which do you prefer then — my single crutch or my hopping?"
"Well, honestly, I don't know. I find both most fascinating, each in its own way."
"That's perfectly charming of you," she said delightedly. "I'll tell you what I'll do. So that you'll be perfectly happy, I'll compromise and sometimes use my crutch and sometimes hop. And, if you'd like me to, I'll sometimes use only a single crutch when I am out walking with you in the street. Will you like that?"
Of course it was all very silly in its way, as I quite realised, as I nodded laughingly at Zelie, and as I was sure she did also. But at the time it had its own odd thrill for me, as I quite frankly confessed her.
Then I told her that, from many things she had said, it seemed to me that her outlook, like my own, was not quite normal.
Zelie nodded slowly, gazing at me in that characteristic way of hers out of the corners of her eyes.
"There's something in what you say," she said, "but I don't altogether agree that I have a kink in the same way as you have one. Your kink is a completely inexplicable affair. It is one that the ordinary person cannot, and never could, understand. On the other hand, my point of view, strange though it may be, is, in its way, a normal one. It is not one that had arisen from an abnormal mental outlook, but one that has been forced on me by peculiar circumstances. Listen! I'll tell you all about myself, and that will perhaps explain what I mean."
So, lying completely in my arms, smoking her cigarette — and
having incidentally and characteristically captured my hand, Zelie told me her story.
(In a further instalment the romance of Zelie will be unfolded.)
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London Life February 25, 1933 pp. 20, 21, 33



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