Still trembling, Klara set aside the massager. Flushed and more than a little breathless, she took a moment. Once sufficiently composed she reached under her pillow for her journal. This was a world away from the ledger at the foot of the bed, in which were recorded even the most miniscule changes to her condition. This was where she detailed her daily experiences. Her own physical and emotional progress.
She’d never known her mother. Death in childbirth was still very much a real thing. So young; a life wasted. Her father kept her Boudoir exactly as it was on the day she passed; a locked museum that no-one but he was permitted to visit. It was Heidi who’d found her mother’s secret diary, clambering through the window in search of dressing up clothes. She who had returned triumphant, brandishing the modest nondescript folio. But it was Klara who had broken the seal, releasing the contents that had never been intended for young prying eyes.
For within, her mother, hitherto that saintly figure worshipped by her father, described in detail the activities she and Herr Sesemann had engaged in upon their marital bed, many of which Klara could scarcely believe possible, let alone envisage. Flicking through the pages, it was clear that she had performed similar, barely believable, unspeakable acts with a stream of suitors before her betrothal and indeed, continued to entertain a select group of society gentleman right up until her premature demise. It wasn’t just the menfolk though, her encounters with fellow debutantes and ladies who lunch, where equally enlightening. But more than just the acts themselves, her mother described feelings, emotions, urges, sensations … especially sensations, that were until then alien to Klara.
She’d kept the contents to herself, at least initially, embarrassed and wanting to spare her innocent young companion blushes. But as their womanhood bloomed, she eventually let Heidi in on the secret. The two teenagers had sat, propped up by fluffed pillows, running their fingers through the pages line by line, digesting every word like Ravens, trying to make sense of what was described therein. In turns both giggling at the sheer absurdity and gasping at the obscenity. Heidi, of course, had seen goats and chickens doing what nature intended but poor Klara, confined to her room in the middle of the city, had no such advantage. Her mother rutting like a farmyard animal was both shocking and incomprehensible in equal measure. But, beyond the sheer physical gymnastics, there was how she described her own internal somersaults. The sheer pleasure she experienced. Klara had been determined to discover this for herself.
Her bereft yet loving father had engaged a string of nurses and governesses over the years, all of whom she’d overheard referring to ‘that useless, ragdoll child’ at one time or another. So it was understandable for her to think that nothing worked. That she was just an inanimate, unfeeling puppet. But, after some experimentation, she’d found that the necessary wiring was intact. That she could feel pleasant sensations. And that, like her mother, could experience the rapture of sexual pleasure. She wasn’t sure, however, that this was quite what her stuffy Physician had anticipated when prescribing her massage therapy in an attempt to improve the function below her waist, but it worked.