Mrs. Costello, from: The Tropic of Capricorn, by Henry Miller

It isn't often you get a cunt who'll admit such things - I mean a regular cunt and not a moron. There was Trix Miranda, for example, and her sister, Mrs. Costello. A fine pair of birds they were. Trix, who was going with my friend MacGregor, tried to pretend to her own sister, with whom she was living, that she had no sexual relations with MacGregor. And the sister was pretending to all and sundry that she was frigid, that she couldn't have any relations with a man even if she wanted to, because she was "built too small". And meanwhile my friend MacGregor was fucking them silly, both of them, and they both knew about each other but still they lied like that to each other. Why? I couldn't make it out. The Costello bitch was hysterical; whenever she felt that she wasn't getting a fair percentage of the lays that MacGregor was handing out she'd throw a pseudo-epileptic fit. That meant throwing towels over her, patting her wrists, opening her bosom, chafing her legs and finally hoisting her upstairs to bed where my friend MacGregor would look after her as soon as he had put the other one to sleep. Sometimes the two sisters would lie down together to take a nap of an afternoon; if MacGregor were around he would go upstairs and lie between them. And he explained it to me laughingly, the trick was for him to pretend to go to sleep. He would lie there breathing heavily, opening now one eye, now the other, to see which one was really dozing off. As soon as he was convinced that one of them was asleep he'd tackle the other. On such occasions he seemed to prefer the hysterical sister, Mrs. Costello, whose husband visited her about once every six months. The more risk he ran, the more thrill he got out of it, he said. If it were with the other sister, Trix, whom he was supposed to be courting, he had to pretend that it would be terrible if the other one were to catch them like that, and at the same time, he admitted to me, he was always hoping that the other one would wake up and catch them.

But the married sister, the one who was "built too small", as she used to say, was a wily bitch and besides she felt guilty toward her sister and if her sister had ever caught her in the act she'd probably have pretended that she was having a fit and didn't know what she was doing. Nothing on earth could make her admit that she was actually permitting herself the pleasure of being fucked by a man.

I knew her quite well because I was giving her lessons for a time, and I used to do my damnedest to make her admit that she had a normal cunt and that she'd enjoy a good fuck if she could get it now and then. I used to tell her wild stories, which were really thinly disguised accounts of her own doings, and yet she remained adamant. I had even gotten her to the point one day - and this beats everything - where she let me put my finger inside her. I thought sure it was settled. It's true she was dry and a bit tight, but I put that down to her hysteria. But imagine getting that far with a cunt and then having her say to your face, as she yanks her dress down violently - "you see, I told you I wasn't built right!" "I don't see anything of the kind," I said angrily. "What do you expect me to do - use a microscope on you?"

"I like that," she said, pretending to get on her high horse. "What a way of talking to me!"

"You know damned well you're lying," I continued. "Why do you lie like that? Don't you think it's human to have a cunt and to use it once in a while? Do you want it to dry up on you?"

"Such language!" she said, biting her under lip and reddening like a beet "I always thought you were a gentleman."

"Well, you're no lady," I retorted, "because even a lady admits to a fuck now and then, and besides ladies don't ask gentlemen to stick their fingers up inside them and see how small they're built."

"I never asked you to touch me," she said. "I wouldn't think of asking you to put your hand on me, on my private parts anyway."

"Maybe you thought I was going to swab your ear for you, is that it?"

"I thought of you like a doctor at that moment, that's all I can say," she said stiffly, trying to freeze me out.

"Listen," I said, taking a wild chance, "let's pretend that it was all a mistake, that nothing happened, nothing at all. I know you too well to think of insulting you like that. I wouldn't think of doing a thing like that to you - no, damned if I would. I was just wondering if maybe you weren't right in what you said, if maybe you aren't built rather small. You know, it all went so quick I couldn't tell what I felt... I don't think I even put my finger inside you. I must have just touched the outside - that's about all. Listen sit down here on the couch ... let's be friends again." I pulled her down beside me - she was melting visibly - and I put my arm around her waist, as though to console her more tenderly. "Has it always been like that?" I asked innocently, and I almost laughed the next moment, realizing what an idiotic question it was. She hung her head coyly, as though we were touching on an unmentionable tragedy. "Listen, maybe if you sat on my lap . . ." and I hoisted her gently on to my lap, at the same time delicately putting my hand under her dress and resting it lightly on her knee . . . "maybe if you sat a moment like this, you'd feel better... there, that's it, just snuggle back in my arms... are you feeling better?" She didn't answer, but she didn't resist either; she just lay back limply and closed her eyes. Gradually and very gently and smoothly I moved my hand up her leg, talking to her in a low, soothing voice all the time. When I got my fingers into her crotch and parted the little lips she was as moist as a dish-rag. I massaged it gently, opening it up more and more, and still handing out a telepathic line about women sometimes being mistaken about themselves and how sometimes they think they're very small when really they're quite normal, and the longer I kept it up the juicier she got and the more she opened up. I had four fingers inside her and there was room inside for more if I had had more to put in. She had an enormous cunt and it had been well reamed out, I could feel. I looked at her to see if she was still keeping her eyes shut. Her mouth was open and she was gasping but her eyes were tight shut, as though she were pretending to herself that it was all a dream. I could move her about roughly now - no danger of the slightest protest. And maliciously perhaps, I jostled her about unnecessarily, just to see if she would come to. She was as limp as a feather pillow and even when her head struck the arm of the sofa she showed no sign of irritation. It was as though she had anaesthetized herself for a gratuitous fuck. I pulled all her clothes off and threw them on the floor, and after I had given her a bit of a work-out on the sofa I slipped it out and laid her on the floor, on her clothes; and then I slipped it in again and she held it tight with that suction valve she used so skilfully, despite the outward appearance of coma.