My Uncle Oswald(22)

I could describe if I wished the curious feminine habits of at least fifty other nationalities, but I am not going to do so. Not here anyway, because I really must proceed with the main theme of this story, which is how I made money.

During my seventh month in Paris, a lucky incident took place that doubled my income. This is what happened. One afternoon, I had a Russian lady in my apartment who was some sort of a relation to the Tsar. She was a slim, whiteskinned little herring, rather cool and casual, almost offhand she was, and I had to stoke her up pretty vigorously before I succeeded in raising a good head of steam in her boilers. That sort of blasé attitude only makes me more determined than ever, and I can promise you that by the time I’d finished with her, she’d had a fair old roasting.

When it was over, I lay back on the couch sipping a glass of champagne as a cooler. The Russian was languidly dressing herself and wandering round my room looking at this and that.

“What are all these red pills in this bottle?” she asked me.

“They’re none of your business,” I said.

“When am I going to see you again?”

“Never,” I said. “I told you my rules.”

“You are being disagreeable,” she said, pouting. “Tell me what these pills are for or I also will become disagreeable. I will throw them all out the window.” She picked up the bottle that contained five hundred of my precious Blister Beetle pills just made that morning and she opened the window.

“Don’t,” I said.

“Then tell me.”

“They are tonic pills for men,” I said. “Pick-me-ups, that’s all.”

“Why not for women also?”

“They’re only for men.”

“I shall try one,” she said, unscrewing the bottle top and tipping out a pill. She popped it into her mouth and washed it down with champagne. Then she continued putting on her clothes.

She was fully dressed and was adjusting her hat in front of the looking-glass when suddenly she froze. She turned and faced me. I lay where I was, sipping my drink, but I was now watching her closely and with some trepidation.

She remained frozen for maybe thirty seconds, staring at me with a cold hard dangerous stare. Then all at once, she reached both hands up to her neckline and ripped her silk dress clean off her body. She tore off her underclothes. She flung her hat across the room. She crouched. She began to move forward. She came softly across the room toward me with the slow deliberate tread of a tigress stalking an antelope.

“What’s up?” I said. But by now I knew very well what was up. Nine minutes had gone by and the pill had hit her.

“Steady on,” I said.

She kept coming.

“Go away,” I said.

Still she kept coming.

Then she sprang, and all I could see in those first few moments was a blurred flurry of legs and arms and mouth and hands and fingers. She went quite mad. She was wild with lust. I hauled in my canvas and lay there trying to ride out the storm. That wasn’t good enough for her. She began to throw me around all over the place, snorting and grunting as she did so. I didn’t like it. I’d had my fill. This must stop, I decided. But I still had a terrific job pinning her down. In the end, I got her wrists locked behind her back and I carried her kicking and screaming into my bathroom and held her under the cold shower. She tried to bite me but I gave her an uppercut to the chin with my elbow. I held her under that freezing shower for at least twenty minutes while she went on yelling and swearing in Russian all the time.

“Had enough?” I said at last. She was half-drowned and pretty cold.

“I want you!” she spluttered.

“No,” I said. “I’m going to keep you here until you cool down.”

Finally she gave in. I let her go. Poor girl, she was shivering terribly and she looked a sight. I got a towel and gave her a good rub down. Then a glass of brandy.

“It was that red pill,” she said.

“I know it was.”

“I want some of them to take home.”

“Those are too strong for ladies,” I said. “I will make you some that are just right.”

“Now?”

“No. Come back tomorrow and they’ll be ready.” Because her dress was ruined, I wrapped her in my overcoat and drove her home in the De Dion. Actually, she had done me a good turn. She had demonstrated that my pill worked just as well on the female as it did on the male. Probably better. I immediately set about making some ladies’ pills. I made them half the strength of the men’s pills, and I turned out one hundred of them, anticipating a ready market. But the market was even more ready than I had anticipated. When the Russian woman came back the next afternoon, she demanded five hundred of them on the spot!