Alexandra Guy

A Maiden's Diary

Part One

1

Naturally I cannot forget Victoria. Naturally-I am Victoria. Victoria Collins in full-or false full. Not my bosoms-they are quite, quite real; even today, practically in my dotage, they can and do swell (never mind medical opinion to the contrary-I have a first-hand knowledge of physicians; one of them diagnosed my fairly unique condition, to which one of my eminent contemporaries, lamentably a number of years my junior-Mr. George Bernard Shaw-could never have been susceptible; Mr. Shaw, vegetarian that he is, could not possibly entertain the intrusion of meat; but I am anticipating myself). I was saying that my bosoms can and do amplify at the very remotest thought of the male lancet-but more of that in due course, eh? My name, I tell you, I took out of the whole cloth. Nevertheless, that is actually the name I used -Victoria Collins-for a fair part of my life when I thought it necessary, as you will see. At no point was I ever more than a jock's throw from bliss (the kind reader must forgive a certain coarseness of expression he will find from time to time in my narrative, but it is only by such rough grain that the meat and drink of my life, Victorian though I am, can be conveyed). At the start of my life I was of the moneyed and aristocratic. Later, I was Victoria Collins. At the last, now, I am once again with my so-called peers. I am an old lady at this point, a dowager, if you wish, and a marchioness, but I warrant you that my ancient years will not stay the telling of a jot of that blood which had Victoria Collins a living part of that most Sodom of all countries-England. Not to mention Clarissa! Let me tell you how it was. To begin with I was born at a very considerable distance from London-some four hundred miles away, on the rugged, boulder-strewn coast of Cornwall, that bold promontory in southwest England that thrusts directly into the Atlantic. I cannot regard it as anything but symbolic that I first saw the curious light of this world on a peninsula whose shape, together with its great rocks whose position one can establish to one's anatomically pictorial satisfaction, captivates me with its resemblance to the male's generative equipment-his scepter and swinging spheres, so to speak, or, in the parlance of the gaming houses, his “pipe and balls.” And the fact that this peninsula “thrusts” into the ocean completes the symbolism. The setting was ideal for what was going to happen to me, a child born and raised in the latter half of Queen Victoria's reign. To protect the living descendants I will not precisely designate where on the Cornish coast my parents' country house was located-I will simply call it Quistern House. As for our town abode, which I will name Hagen House, that was in London, in Kensington. And, for the same reason, I have invented names for myself-prior to becoming Victoria Collins-and for all the other people in this account, both great and humble, except for public figures. My father and mother, then, will be referred to as Mathew and Louisa Quist-Hagen, who were the Marquis and Marchioness of a mythical Portferrans, myself as Clarissa, and my brother, older than I by about two years, as James. All other names of real people in this account will be altered similarly. At an early age both my brother and I showed those characteristics which were to endear us to our opposite sexes. In many ways James and I were remarkably alike. We both had straight, stygianly black hair, extraordinarily milky skin that suggested the translucence of the pearl, and piercingly green eyes. As it turned out, we were both also destined to be tall-James came to be easily six feet, and I reached the height of some five feet eight inches. This could have been anticipated-the Quist-Hagens and their many branches were a tall people. But what was not predicted was our precociousness, mental and physical. I can remember, long before I was ten and we played our slippery games with Angela Cleves, how I would wait with bated breath to see our governess, Berenice Fawnsworthy, help my brother undress.

It was not that James did not know how to undress himself, but that in the summertime he tended to become peculiarly lazy and helpless.

Nor did Miss Berenice discourage this attitude. On the contrary, she seemed to welcome it with her intense blue eyes. James himself wore the slightest suggestion of a smirk when the governess pulled off one of his riding boots and fell awkwardly back toward the oriel from whose convex windows one had a sweeping view of the tempestuous Atlantic. This development transfixed James-he stared at the woman who must have then been in her early forties and at the peak of her swarthy, blue-eyed, chestnut-haired handsomeness. Her many petticoats had heaped up high and her legs had flown into the widest possible splay, so that for long moments-which Miss Berenice may have been party to and may have extended-both my brother and I gazed with racing pulses on the female phenomenon thus revealed, a veritable lustrous tangle of chestnut-colored undergrowth. Aside from James, I know that I experienced something of a vertigo at the sight, and that suddenly I would have liked to lose myself in that forestry, wakening only to find myself kissing pink-brown lips… The fact is, however, that I did not, and that Miss Berenice, furiously flushing, heavily breathing, finally righted herself and continued to aid and abet my languid brother. The climax for me came-I cannot speak for Fawnsworthy, naturally-when our governess slipped off my brother's trousers. There it was, I shouted to myself-there it undoubtedly, wonderfully, magically was. Certainly modest in dimensions, it-the male's conquerable truncheon and yet, like the phoenix, capable of rebirth- throbbed directly at Miss Berenice in the arrogance of its pointedness. I paled. Miss Berenice's face grew lustrous, her blue eyes now sparkled with satanic fires. Nevertheless I doubt if anything would have occurred had my brother retained composure. As it was, James fell back on the bolster-we were in his bedroom- and, like a minuscule volcano, erupted. I cannot now properly describe the nature of the cry that the governess then gave vent to. It was a harsh and desiccate cry. It was the kind of cry that could only have originated in the depths of one's soul or psyche (whichever inexplicable function you are partial to). It was the sort of cry, too, that was both arid and bestial-a cry that, since the tenure of Fawnsworthy, I have heard many times, and often from my own lips in extremis of need. In any case it was at that point that Fawnsworthy burst into movement. She flew across the room to the bed and, with an unmistakably savage sound, fell upon my brother and-as I crumpled to the floor, my knees weak, my fingers searching my groin-milked my brother James until he was a twitching mass of protoplasm… When she wearily arose, bedraggled and with a stunned expression, she looked neither at my brother or myself. Miss Berenice Fawnsworthy, further, said not a word to either of us. She simply quit the room and, the next day, without explanation either to the Marquis or the Marchioness, quit Quistern House and vanished. We never heard a word from her thereafter. My parents were quite puzzled and asked James and me if we could vouchsafe an explanation. Neither of us would, of course. We were not about to divulge intimacies to a mother and father who had from the start stayed rather aloof and distant from us. However, there did occur an incident that served to bring Mathew and Louisa Quist-Hagen, the Marquis and Marchioness of Portferrans, respectively, rather more down to the level of my brother and myself.

2

The incident-or, more accurately, the experience-took place, I should say, in the midafternoon of a hot summer's day. James and I had been playing strenuously in the maze that had been built at some small remove from the east wing of Quistern House-itself a twenty-room structure and an exquisite example of Queen Anne style-when suddenly we became aware that we were both terribly fatigued. I think we became aware of that because of the quietude-except for the sound of the sea-that pervaded the grounds and which seemed to have its source in Quistern House itself. Even our two gardeners, who ordinarily would have been trimming our baroque hedgerows, were nowhere to be seen when James and I left the maze. Taken by misgivings, I turned to my brother. “You don't suppose there's anything wrong, do you?” He laughed merrily. I daresay whenever James laughed it was merry and carefree, without spite or mockery. I adored my brother and from time to time I still miss him terribly. Terribly. “No, Clarissa,” he said finally. “I really don't think there's a thing amiss.” It was then that we stepped inside Quistern House. James and I really did not wish to play any more on that day. We were surfeited-we had spent tie morning at the bottom of the slate cliff on the tiny beach collecting driftwood and occasionally splashing about in the shallows.

Inside Quistern House the quietude persisted. Our butler, Wittling, seemed to have vanished. Our housekeeper, Mrs. Many-john, gave no evidence of being on the premises. Nor was Mademoiselle Albertine Lassez, my mother's personal maid, to be seen on her usual schedule of bustling from pillar to post. Mrs. Lingelhoffe, the cook-we established by peering into the kitchen-had also gone. I frowned worriedly. James rescued me. First, he tickled my ear. I giggled. Then he whispered, “Have you no imagination, Clarissa?”

I was nettled. “I've an excellent sense of fancy, James.”

“Well, then,” he said patiently, “think of the whole staff given permission by My Lord Marquis to take forty winks in the mid-afternoon of an insufferably hot summer's day. Father's quite capable of unexpected behavior, you know.” “Is he, really?” I made no attempt to conceal my scorn. “You don't believe me, Clarissa?”

“Nay, sir.” “Then let's see what Mother and Father are up to at the moment.” “We daren't, James. What are you proposing?”

“I'm thinking of the upstairs library-it's next to their quarters. And two doors lead from their rooms to the library.”

“Oh,” I said-rather blankly, I fear. “Come along,” my brother said. We tiptoed by the upright empty suits of armor and then carefully made our way up the great marble stairway that never failed to impress me. We traveled to the second story by this route on the simple ground that the best concealment was to take refuge in the obvious. We reached the library safely. We encountered not a soul. My brother indicated that I challenge one door while he took another. The usual dumb sentinels of sartorial armor were arrayed in their stances to either side of the doors. James had instructed me that the entrance opened on short corridors that led to the bedrooms themselves. My pulse raced. I waved a trembling hand at James and he winked back. With the greatest circumspection I turned the knob to my adventure as I saw my brother essay his. There was indeed a corridor, somewhat dim, where I crept along-I assumed James was doing similarly. Then I heard curious noises. They sounded like snippets of song rendered by someone unduly intoxicated. There was also considerable groaning interspersed with arpeggios of giggle. The scene confronting me when I craned my neck around the corner of the corridor was absolutely first-rate. It was sheer theatre. There, in the vivid midafternoon light, the faint rumble of the surf rolling in through the open windows, stood my father, the Most Honorable Mathew Quist-Hagen, Marquis of Portferrans, attired in the finery to which such titles are heir. He was wearing-may the Deity pluck forth my tongue if I dissemble -he was wearing, aye, his coronet, a circlet of gold on which rested four leaves and as many large pearls-all enhancing his silver-blond hair. On his shoulders was a scarlet mantle with three-and-a-half doublings of ermine. My mother, the Most Honorable the Lady Louisa Quist-Hagen, Marchioness of Portferrans, was arrayed in wine-red velvet that curved generously over her deep bosom.

They were both sweating prodigiously. My father, the Marquis, sang drunkenly. My mother, the Marchioness, joined him with great fervor. Nor were they without further, supplementary action. Because the marvelous thing was that my father wore absolutely nothing below his waist. While my mother displayed a naked sweep below her hips, since she had contrived to hike her gown up beyond those harplike portions of her anatomy. Her ebon tresses hung practically to her buttocks. Good show? Oh, indeed. And there was more to come. For what I have neglected to mention was that my distinguished father had his hand in a small silver bucket containing butter, and that my incredibly handsome mother could be seen withdrawing her own hand from another small silver bucket laden with butter. And what, pray, were these principals engaged in committing?

I stood glassy-eyed, practically aroused to incandescence-no mean feat for one of my young years-as I observed my conceivers generously apply melting portions of butter to their respective pudenda and immediately surrounding areas. The more intoxicated they became-my father was pouring burgundy from an earthenware demijohn into crystal goblets from which he and my mother imbibed-the more liberally did they anoint each other with the butter, the Marquis shuddering and his muscles rippling as the Marchioness gently pulled at his lancet in order to extend the area of application. When it was the Marquis's turn again, he shaped the soft butter into a ball and then rolled it around the glossy black ringlets of my mother's Mount of Venus, pausing every now and again to impel his thumb into her swollen orifice. She would close her eyes, then, and her jaw would become slack, as she powerfully heaved her hips to the rhythm of her master's thumb. I drew long breaths. My head was pounding. I thought I might obtain surcease with my own digital crosier-but to no avail. No sooner than my watching passion would momentarily subside, than the scene observed would alter and the motions therein become more fervent-and once more my fever would rise and my hand address my moist circuits all this during an infernal summer heat, to which my parents seemed to be absolutely oblivious. They had yielded at last to the limitations of the butter and had betaken themselves to the monstrously capacious four-poster where they presently disported in utter abandon, my father's gold and empearled coronet long since having merrily bounded to a comer of the room against the wall, and his scarlet mantle carelessly dangling from one of the bedposts, the ermine in sad disarray. My mother's wine-red gown had been trampled to the floor, and her bounteous breasts, surmounted by blushing nipples, were to the summer air voluptuously unconfined. The lower territories of the Marquis and Marchioness were blissfully lubricious with butter and sweat, and at the moment my titled progenitors were lying on their sides, engaged in tantalizing each other. My father, smiling tipsily, tipped at the Marchioness with his pawky crevice reamer; his consort, not to be outdone, contrived to partially receive the reamer with a curious smacking sound made as though some repast were being relished. (My ears have never since encountered this phenomenon; unless my mother was a ventriloquist, which I must seriously doubt, the “smacking” sound could only have been fashioned by some muscular contortion at which she was adept.) In any case, this had my father chuckle and remark that he must bestow upon her a mark of his admiration, upon which my sire bent to the task, his silver-blond head bobbing, lingering there long after admiration had been expressed, so much so that my mother's fingers began snatching at the sheets, her jaw became idiotically slack, and the rest of her body began to twitch. I myself became wonderfully inflamed, not to mention the sense of triumph I entertained in seeing my mother's body so helplessly quivering. I should have admonished myself, then, to retire while I retained a modicum of control, but my tender years were greedy and I told myself I simply had to stay on to watch the master really saddle his mistress and spur her on. The words and action they exchanged prior to actual coupling were so vivid that I remember them to this day. “Mathew,” said my mother, her fingers still plucking at the sheets, “I pray you-” “Can't hear you, Louisa,” my father said, his whisk broom of a tongue continuing to ply her marshes.

“I said I pray you-” “Eh?” said my father, at last raising his head, his face flushed with his exertions and stained with those secretions which, while heavenly, are somewhat less than celestial.

“What is it, Louisa?” “I pray you that you desist,” she whispered, “in the extremities. I fear I will lose my pretty little mind.” “Never,” said he, gallantly. “Your pretty little mind is firmly fixed in all its crotchets and obsessions. It is weighted down.

It is, in short, anchored to whatever snags it has encountered,” he said in what I now look back upon as rhetoric in the Churchillian manner. “Nevertheless,” she said, “I am surfeited by your foraging in my tropics.” He smiled tenderly and pulled himself up to lie alongside her. He tweaked her nipples and ran his fingers through her sable hair. “My Lady Marchioness,” he said softly, “you remain unspeakably beautiful.” “My Lord Marquis, you remain unspeakably insatiable.” Here she reached down and lightly ran her fingers up and down the majestic column of his seed. My father at that point seemed taken by surprise-he had evidently been closer to his summit than he had realized. His jaw dropped and he paled and his whole body arched as if drawn by a master bowman, while his column catapulted forth his seed in thick spurts. My mother uttered an unearthly cry and fell upon him as if she had suddenly conceived a great thirst Nor was she content simply to quench her thirst-for, with thumb and index finger, she frantically proceeded to squeeze the base of the Marquis's column while the motions of her lips and throat indicated that she was siphoning him off to the last possible liquid ounce. My father made a feeble effort during her ministrations to caress her buttocks, but his arms soon fell back in exhaustion. Up to that point I had been reminded of Berenice Fawnsworthy and my brother, and I was dizzy with desire. But I became absolutely transfixed with throbbing concupiscence as I observed my mother sustaining her siphoning motions, but apparently there were limitations in that endeavor and she shortly altered her operations. My father lay flat on his back, his eyes shut as her haunches wove above his face. I rubbed myself gently, to sustain the tension of my own sensuality. My mother then applied the tip of her tongue to the Marquis's member, running her tongue from base to summit and back again. The Marquis of Portferrans opened his eyes. He observed her oscillating flanks and struck at their core with both hands. My mother, the Marchioness, made a sudden high-pitched sound, released my father's now mightily straining organ and twisted away from him, drawing up her legs simultaneously. He laughed as he then maneuvered himself to hover over her, his reannealed column quivering and rampant. The bedroom began to sway before my eyes. I ceased to crane my neck and I leaned back against the corridor wall. But I could still hear them quite clearly. One may well wonder as to what compelled me to withdraw my eyes from my conceivers. The answer is that I found quite intolerable the idea that, just as my mother and father were about to proceed as they were, I was thus begat. The idea was too monstrous for me to entertain with any equanimity. I wanted to run far away for my very life, to rebel against the picture of my life whose origin was that of lust acting mechanically. Perhaps all my subsequent bouts with men were mimicries I did of such mechanical origins to deny their very mimicry-as though I must discover elements in the act of begetting of a nonlustful nature. I do not know. I merely offer the idea-to the speculative reader. In any case, while I could not watch-the picture itself being overwhelming-I could nevertheless listen. True, I wished to quit the corridor entirely, but for the moment I seemed rooted, immobile, concupiscently fascinated by what my parents were saying… “Mathew-” “Yes, Louisa?” “Why do you hesitate?” “My Lady Marchioness-to tantalize you, of course.”

“My Lord Marquis, if you persist, I may snap at you with my strong white teeth.” He laughed richly. “You will have then incapacitated the major source of your ecstasies.” “I beseech you, then, do not torment me. There is a paradisiacal haven between my thighs, Mathew.” “Indeed? It seems somewhat prickly on the exterior, Louisa.” “Oh, sir, you dissemble. They are such soft spirals and so fine in texture that they could never deprive a victim of his sword. I may add to that, My Lord, that he who comes brandishing such an instrument as yours is never a victim. Well, perhaps half a victim, transitorily, for if you have transported me a dozen instances by interring your instrument in my substance, the likelihood is that you will finally be feeble, and your member hangdog-thus a victim. But let a number of hours pass, no later than the following day will you be in readiness to tap my sap once more-no longer a victim.” “Then you are ready with your own juices, madame.” “Quite. They bubble.” “Merrily?” “I think so.

But they also betray a kind of kitchen quality- they will make a solidly satisfying sauce for you. Come, sir, let me stand him at my table.” “Stand him?” “Well, My Lord, I will crook him if I sit him. And, though no bones be present, he'll be fractured.

Definitely, sir, we will not sit him. Besides, he is no animal on fours or twos-he is a sublimity. Lift me up with him, Mathew.”

“Petition me, Louisa.” “I beg you.” “Most inadequate.”

“How must I phrase it, sir-or what must I do to have you relent?”

“Ah…” “What does that signify, My Lord?” “You will shortly see, Louisa. You inquired as to what you must do to have me relent.” “Aye.” “Well, you will do this that has been described to me in London this past spring.” “Fie-are we to take London as our love standard?” “My Lady Marchioness, are we not in London eight months of the year?” “I must concede.” “Well, madame, what you must do at the start is to remember the creatures of the field-and emulate them in the manner of how they maintain their very balance in this world.” “Can I not emulate them as they have their balance in the next world?” “That would involve philosophical speculation and rigid religion, and I wish neither at this moment. Unless my libidinous-ness deceives me, I wish the balances of this world. Will you get upon your hands and knees, madame?” “Mathew-I will not.” “Are you adamant?” “Yes.”

“Do you not love me, Louisa?” “Where is love in this instance? It is all unbridled licentiousness.” “I cannot agree, Louisa. On your guard, then!” Here followed a grunt from the Marquis and a sigh from the Marchioness. There were further sounds of flesh slapping against flesh. My head was bowed as I leaned against the corridor wall. My breathing was shallow. I was manipulating my own tiny protuberance. I was shocked at what I thought my father was now doing to my mother. I daresay the reason for my shock may now presently be accounted for by the theories of a Dr. Sigmund Freud, that strange Viennese who has yet to be accorded his due.

Theoretically, I suppose I was shocked because I wanted to take my mother's place with my father-I couldn't stand the idea of my mother being the recipient from my father of what I was coming to think was a basic joy. The picture of my mother and father having intercourse was therefore overwhelmingly repellant. But now, the sound of flesh against flesh had stopped abruptly. My mother groaned. “Mathew,” she said. “Eh?” he grunted. “Why are you hovering again?

Please let me have him back.” “No, I will wave him before you.”

“You, sir, are a villain.” “A very model of villainy-see how I stroke my mustaches. At least I've not turned gray down there.

Come, Louisa, let me demonstrate how superior we are even in the beast's stance to the creatures of the field. Or shall I continue to wave him before you until he spits!” “That would be most wasteful, My Lord Marquis.” “Are you then game for all fours?”

“Gamey might be the better. Somehow, beneath my misgivings that the practice will be agony, there is a low, vulgar hissing of cilia, as if in anticipation of a cockfight of another order.” “Ha!” quoth my father. “I take that to mean, Mathew, you will not spare me this last indignity.” “I will spare your hams no quarter, and that will be no indignity. Come, madame, show me your fours.” “I fear I will blush to my roots.” “Blush where you like, Louisa, but do not stand in my way. You may kneel in my way, of course, providing that your haunches face me.” “In all the years of our marriage you have never asked this of me, Mathew.” “I have been naive, Louisa.” He laughed raucously. “We will now rectify the matter.

What a battle cry that would make. Let us now rectify those knaves who would disembowel all England. Let us rectify them in their very gut, at their very bottoms, aye -rectify!” “We are not at war, My Lord. Nor are you Prince Hal. But we are at the very slit of things.”

“Agreed, Louisa. Ah, what a curtsy of sumptuous lips you do. From black to pink and white. Rectify!” he shouted, and then it was that my mother let out a blood-curdling screech. “You need not move heaven and earth together,” she bawled. “As Archimedes might have said,” quoth my father, “give me a fulcrum and I'll screw the world.”

My mother sounded very hoarse. “I had never supposed that this stance could have made of the body one long quiver-” I fled down the corridor. I wanted to hear no more. My parents were indeed beasts of the field. I wanted no more of them. When I precipitately opened the corridor that debauched on the library, I turned and ran full tilt into one of the hollow armor men. It toppled over with a great crash and clatter. I stood there, transfixed. Why did not my brother James come and rescue me? I soon discovered why. In a matter of seconds my father, now draped in a handsome dressing gown, led James by the ear from the other door to the library. The Marquis of Portferrans was most distinguished in his silver-blond hair and high dudgeon. He betrayed no surprise whatever on catching sight of me. “Clarissa,” said he. “Yes, Father,” I said, and did a terribly brief curtsy. I would have galled it out with my sire on another occasion. I would have had a tome in my hand, my glasses perched on the tip of my nose, and muttering in Egyptian slant (we British have a panache for the exotic; one of our most well-known brigathers has confessed he goes into battle with a pocket Odyssey, in the original Greek, no less, which he sometimes relaxes with in the field during a lull). But the vision of my father and mother in copulo extremis and the debacle of the toppled suit of armor had been sufficient to demoralize me. All I could do now was to stand there guiltily and stupidly. James was in no less a pretty kettle, with the added disadvantage of having his earlobe, in the fingers of my irate father, twisted-any moment I expected it to become detached.

“Clarissa, I suspect you are a co-conspirator, although James has said nothing to incriminate you.” “That is very generous of my brother but I insist that his punishment will be mine as well. I will make a clean breast of it.” “I am not particularly interested in clean breasts, Clarissa,” said the Marquis a trifle dryly. “I find their owners more hygienic than humanistic. I think it my duty to speak freely when I say to you, Clarissa, young as you are, that a filthy little nipple never hurt a soul-with the exception, possibly, of the poor child suckling it; he, or she, in any case, if not shortly defunct, would become immune to many diseases.” The Marquis sighed and released James's ear. “The more I talk,” said my noble parent, “the less inclined I am to punishing you, but I must insist that the pair of you answer a direct question.” “Yes, My Lord,”

James said contritely. “At your pleasure, My Lord,” I said.

“Have either of you learned aught by watching your mother and myself?” “An essential,” said James promptly, “and that is that patience is the provocateur of passion at its most intense.”

“Well put, my son. I think I must pride myself on not having turned out to be the patriarchal stereotype so admired in this day and age.” My father turned to me. “And you, Clarissa?” “I think you tease too much, Father,” I blurted out. “And I promise myself I will gain revenge on every man I consort with.” “You will regret such a vow,” he admonished me softly, “each time you practice it. In time, however, you may forget it -I think your body, Clarissa, will be built for forgiveness, for it will have to bend toward most men. You will be a tall one, Clarissa.” “Yes, My Lord.” “Yes,” Quist-Hagen murmured the echo. He was, as was his fashion, already bored by the circumstance. “The staff ought to be up and about by now. Will you-” he addressed my brother -“be good enough to advise Wittling of the fallen armor up here and have him get someone to repair it?” “Of course, Father.” “In that case you are both dismissed. Be off with you. He smiled lovingly but distantly at both of us and returned to the bedroom-to Louisa. I suppose it was she, our mother, to whom the Marquis felt the closest. I cannot blame him-he loved her very much. But he need not have been so distant from James and myself.

This may have played a decisive role in our eventual preoccupation with sex-my obsession, if not James's. My mother, too, was as guilty as my father. She would graciously look in on us-as we had instructions with our tutors, before we went on excursions with our governesses, and she would read to us on occasion before we fell asleep. If either James or I fell ill of influenza, or the like, my mother deemed it wise to spend a little more time with us, varying her reading inclinations with games at cards… The general effect was that James and I grew closer and closer in our mutual regard. How close we were yet to see-we became aware of the closeness, really aware, early in the tenure of Angela, Angela Cleves, our last governess, when I was ten years of age and James, of course, was twelve. At the time we were at our London residence, Hagen House, in Kensington.

3

It was a cold, damp, foggy winter's night when I awoke from a bad dream a little after midnight in my bedroom. I had been out of sorts all day. I had shouted at our tutor, Mr. Oliver Harwell, for the simple reason that, as a prospective masculine predator, he seemed hopeless. I had snapped at Wittling, our aging butler, because he had not sent out one of our servants soon enough to catch the girl on the street calling for someone to buy her sweet lavender. I had been terribly out of sorts. There was an ancient sensuality foaming in my depths, something spiraling from the darks of my groin. I had attempted to masturbate before falling asleep, but it had been to no avail-it had not satisfied me… At any rate, waking, I flung aside the quilts and slipped into a bathrobe. As I look back on it now, how strange it is that someone so young should be pursued by a force so old. And at that point there was no adult I knew who would be willing to help me understand what was involved. Nobody at Hagen House comprehended the emotional and intellectual precocity either of my brother or myself, except Harwell, our tutor, who reported our mastery of the curriculum in the highest possible terms, but who lacked the judgment to convey the hothouse of our emotions to the Marquis or the Marchioness who were, after all, pretty much to the exclusion of all else, preoccupied by the London social whirl-the well-nigh endless series of balls, plays at the theatre, concerts at Covent Garden and, de rigueur, as I recall, attendance at Old Bailey, if possible, of the shocking trial of the dramatist, Oscar Wilde, whose alleged homosexuality was not considered a fit subject for converse in the presence of children. If Wilde and his putative peccadilloes had been mentioned in our presence, we would have been indifferent, for what we were fascinated by was our own libidinous explorations which required no wit, Irish or any other, to give them goad. Frankly, as I crossed to the window, I knew I was in the mood for the explorative.

The question was, who was to be its agent since the self-manipulative had at last turned out to be a crashing bore? Of course, my brother James came to mind, but at the moment, surely, he was rapt in slumber in his own bedroom at several removes from mine, and separated, further, by the room of our new-and last-governess, Miss Cleves.

Depressed, stirred by marvellously bestial longings implanted in the race coeval, doubtless, with the primeval slime, I scowled and furrowed my virginal brow. I scowled at the linnet hidden in the cage, songless and invisible because of the white cloth covering. I scowled at the faithful clock ticking on the mantel. I shrugged and turned my gaze to the scene outside beyond the garden and its rail. There was not much further that one could gaze-it was impossible to make out the other side of the street because of the fog. I could hardly make out the occasional hansom cab that clop-clopped by, the driver, perched on top to the rear, bundled practically to his mouth to protect himself from the bitterly chilling clime. I shivered in sympathy. Actually, I was warm enough-under my bathrobe I was attired in a thick woolen nightgown. The material scratched roughly against the pretences of my breasts, hardly more than slight rises on the topography of my chest. But the nipples… ah, the nipples apparently were ahead of their time-they were large and strongly denned and extraordinarily sensitive. As in a trance I lifted my hand and slipped it in to fondle the erectile tissues. The blood began to churn in my veins. I made some sounds deep in my throat and barely heard, then, a faint tapping at the door. When I became aware, I abruptly stood up, trembling. I crossed to the great oaken piece. “Yes?” I whispered. “James here,” a voice said. “Do hurry and open, Clarissa, or I shall catch my death.” I unbolted the door as rapidly as I could. It swung open easily and my brother slipped in, flailing his arms about his chest. “That damned draughty hallway,” he muttered, looking all the world-except for the lack of silver-blond hair-like a miniature edition of the Marquis, and I felt a heat spiraling from my groin. I shuddered. “Why are you shivering?” James said. “It was I who was out in the hallway.”

“Yes,” I said in low tones, “but mine is a different kind of shivering.” “Really, Clarissa?” He made as if to embrace me and I stepped aside, shaking my head. I reminded him of my sufferance of him here, and that there would not be anything drastically undertaken in my bedroom. “You are not supposed to be here, James,” I told him, “If it were found out, it would go hard on you. It would go hard on me as well…” I was fending off my brother not because I wished to or because I was fearful of discovery but because-while I wanted to explore the vibrant world of those energies seeming to have their core between my legs-I was somehow afraid that something monstrous might occur, that somehow I might be hurt.

“Nobody will find us out,” my green-eyed brother said petulantly.

Then he looked at me fondly and smiled, as if he quite understood my shyness. “Really, Clarissa, you need have no misgivings. I'm here only because something happened to me earlier today that interfered with my sleep, and I felt I simply had to tell it to the person closest me-my sister.” Here he smiled guilelessly and I was altogether taken in. At ten, sophisticated though I was, I was nevertheless ingenuous with respect to James, and my next words completely revealed my illusions.

“Well,” I said, “since we are brother and sister, there should be no harm in our snuggling under the covers. It's a terribly raw night and we would be very foolish to tempt fate by braving the draughts outside of bed.” Which was pure folderol, of course. I had already tempted fate. Actually, I had decided I wanted to be close to him, and that I would take the gamble of the possibility of being hurt. I need not have worried-at the last moment I disarmed him…

“That's very wise of you, Clarissa,” James said gravely. And, our mein terribly serious, we crept into bed, quite large enough for the two of us. After all, we were boy and girl! “What happened to you earlier today, James?” “What happened to me was Albertine,” he said after a pregnant pause, his voice weighty with significance. He put a light hand on my wrist. My pulse was a sheer runaway. “Oh?” I said. “In what way?” “Well, to begin with, Clarissa, I had to see Mother on some matter or another.” “Did you see her?” “No. Albertine was busy hanging some of Mother's things and told me Mother had gone to tea at the Duchess of Postings'. I told Albertine I was terribly disappointed-I didn't think the matter could wait.” “But it really wasn't that important, was it, James?” “No. I then simply wanted the opportunity of being with Albertine.” “Suddenly?”

“Yes. At twelve, Clarissa, one begins to see quite clearly how attractive some members of the opposite sex can be.” “But, James-” “Yes?” “Albertine's such a sweet little blonde.”

“Precisely. Very fitting, don't you think?” “Oh,” I said.

My brother's fingertips lightly played with my wrist. There was a wavering bubble in my throat, a certain sly tickle between my thighs.

I felt my nipples positively fluttering. “Well,” I finally added, “what did you tell her?” “I told her nothing, of course. I didn't have to. Albertine recognized that I was merely seizing on a pretext to be with her-” “And not with Mother.” “Exactly,” James said. I swallowed. There was something hard in my throat now.

Hard and tight. James brought my hand down to my thigh. “And then?” I asked. “Well, Albertine was at the closet, you know. I circled round to her until I could see the fine beads of moisture on her upper lip. You could tell she had begun to expect me.” “Oh, really, James-that sounds out of the whole cloth. Albertine must be all of thirty-five, and you're all of twelve. How could she have expected you?” He had drawn up my thick woolen nightgown. My own hand rested on my bare thigh, and his hand on mine. “I must explain, Clarissa.” “Do.” “There may be certain desperations the female experiences at thirty-five. Do you understand? Especially if the female has remained unmarried. She may feel driven. I'm not sure if you can follow this sort of thing at your tender age, Clarissa.”

“I may be tender but intellectually I am very advanced.”

“Enough to understand a thirty-five-year-old female?”

“James. At twelve, do you understand?” He tilted his black-haired elegant head and regarded me with the utmost seriousness.

“I think so,” he said. I burst into laughter. “Sssh!”

He frowned and put a finger to my lips. Impulsively, I kissed it.

In the dim light I saw my brother grin and then gaze at me with such a communication of oneness of spirit that I was warmed beyond measure. This was my brother, I thought with immense pride. He could do no ill. And with an impossibly diabolic innocence he shifted both our hands to his thigh. Which turned out to be his error. I made no demur. I merely gazed at him with an expression of pure surrender.

If impure, the surrender remained. “What did Albertine do, James?” “You mustn't think me vulgar, Clarissa.” Think him vulgar? I asked myself. On what account? The idea of vulgarity simply wasn't in my mind. On the contrary, I felt surpassingly comfortable.

It was with a sense of supreme security that I heard once again the clop-clop of a hansom-cab horse outside my window and gazed at the fog swirling against the panes of glass. Indeed, in no way did I think James vulgar even when, in the next instant, he guided my hand to grasp his quivering reed of generation. So overcome he apparently was, both with respect to my attitude of nonresistance and the sensation of my fingers fluting along his velvety potency, that he sighed gustily and lay his head back on the bolster. “Don't you think,” I said, “that I deserve to hear by now of your little blond Albertine?”

“Eh?” he said with an air of distraction. He was very gently squirming about beneath the covers as I kept a firm grip on the badge and brag of his masculinity. “Albertine.” “Ah, yes,” James said, nodding. “Albertine. You recall I observed I circled round to her.” “Yes.” I squeezed him encouragingly. His jaw dropped but he managed to continue. “Then she asked me what I wanted in a strange, choked sort of voice. Her blue eyes were like skylights. You do agree that Albertine's a lovely creature.” “Oh, quite. Did you tell her what you wanted?” “I wasn't sure myself, Clarissa-not there at the closet full of Mother's things, full of frills and flounces, furbelows and silken giddinesses-” I trailed a fingernail around the base of my brother's pulsing machine, and his whole body stiffened. “Clarissa,” he said. “Yes?” “I-” and he broke off. He tried to twist his body and slip his hand back to my thigh but somehow he couldn't manage it-the strength seemed to have left him, or it had become concentrated in one area alone. My own head was pounding but I remained in control. At the head of my brother's stiff shaft I discovered a slight moistness and thought I would devil him a bit further. I applied the oiliness to the length of his cock.

James's fingers clutched at the bedsheets. He breathed shallowly and I watched him like a bird of prey. I leaned over him as I bent his prick back against his groin and jiggled the spheres beneath. His eyes all but started from their sockets. I relented, then. I did want to hear the rest about Albertine. I let his purveyor of seed rest lightly in the palm of my hand and told him to go on with his tale of Mother's personal maid. He swallowed and composed himself as best he could. “You're quite certain you want me to continue?” he said.

“Yes,” I said firmly. “Well, Clarissa, how could I possibly tell Albertine what I wanted-there at Mother's closet? It seemed a sacrilege, somehow, there with Mother's things. Anyhow, I did mumble something, but it was unintelligible, and I stood there, shaking, really out of control-a most distressing sensation for a boy of twelve! Albertine came very close to me, she said she couldn't make a word out of what I had said. The scent she was using made me dizzy-I swear it, Clarissa!” “I don't doubt you, James.” “Thank you.

In any case, there I was, in a vertigo. The closet began to spin about me. I threw out my hands and found them at once entangled with Albertine. She made a soft cry and together we tumbled to the floor of Mother's closet. I think I went mad, then, to find myself so close to her blondness. I felt compelled-nay, obligated-to reach the heart of her and, after several ineffectual forays during which Albertine tossed and threshed, I managed it. It was a fantastic discovery, Clarissa!” “How do you mean?” “She's positively matted-the curls grow practically to her navel-she's marvellously wooly. Terribly dense, the whole locus, but even so it could not conceal her swollen outcroppings, so to speak. She cursed me in French as I learnt very quickly how to handle them. Then she tried to push me away, alarmed that we might be found in so compromising a position in an unlocked room. I refused to be pushed away. Albertine struck at me and with one hand I fended her off while with the other I kept my purchase to become the recipient of the increasing distillations produced by the powers of her sweetest orifices. We continued to wrestle although I was at a distinct disadvantage, and rapidly becoming more and more frustrated. “Not so Mademoiselle Lassez, no, not our Albertine Lassez…” My own head was awhirl when James paused. I gazed down at him. Even in the dimness, his was the most handsome countenance I had ever laid eyes on. There was something silkily sensual to his face, even as there is to mine-or was, I should say. And, curiously, gazing at him was something like gazing into a mirror, so much did we resemble one another. At any rate, I continued to curve my fingers around the sinew of his virility. Occasionally I tightened my grasp, occasionally I lightened it-all in a rhythm. I sensed that if I continued to apply myself in this manner, James could do me little harm, even if I wanted him to, which would always be a danger. My brother sighed gustily at my ministrations but, at my insistence, resumed his account. “As I said, I was becoming rapidly more frustrated. Albertine, on the other hand-as Harwell puts it to us about satellites in our physics lessons-was approaching her apogee while ostensibly she continued wrestling with me. Her breathing was labored and her skin was highly flushed. Even as she was contending with me, she gave me the sickliest kind of grin. I think I could cheerfully have put her out of this life had I not been so intent on gaining my own satisfactions. These, however, Albertine continued to deny me. Furious, I was about to withdraw my hand from the palpitations of her quintessential velvet and give her a rousing mauling with both my hands, slap her about, if necessary, to prepare her for a skewering-when, suddenly, she suspended combat, thrust at my dabbling digits with her hips, shivered convulsively, arched, twitched and fell away from me. Trembling, I vowed to myself I would take her then and there. I hoisted all her layers of petticoat, exposed her to the belly- thick blond mat and all-and was about, I swear, to lose my virginity and violate Albertine, when the voice of our housekeeper was then heard, and not from afar. Mrs. Manyjohn was calling for Mademoiselle Lassez and was obviously nearing my mother's room. It was then that I cursed in fluent English and rapidly disengaged. I told Albertine I would hide in the closet whilst she disposed of Mrs.

Manyjohn, which would then give me the opportunity of slipping out of Mother's quarters unobserved. I then exacted a promise from Albertine to rendezvous in the south wing, but she never appeared there. I therefore found it impossible to sleep, Clarissa-and I believe you understand why…” My brother's voice trailed off. His eyes closed. I kept fondling his still flexible instrument and then I whispered, “I should like to, James, but we really mustn't.” “I know,” he said. “I really couldn't, anyway, not so long as you continue to have him in your grasp-that quite disarms me.” “Only that?” “Well, I suppose one really shouldn't do it to one's sister, although, as our histories show us, the royal lines did do incest in various parts of the world. One thinks of the Egyptians, for example,” he finished sadly. “The Egyptians did various things,”

I said. I drew back the foreskin from the glans of James's pre-doughty reamer. My nipples felt as though they were sparkling. “Did they, Clarissa?” James's voice held a note of irony as he lay stretched out quite passively. “Such as what you're doing?” “Such as.” “I guess they showed it in their bas-reliefs-half an arse at a time.”

“Oh, James. Really.”

“Clarissa-” “Yes, James?” “You've learnt a great deal from those Egyptians. The head on your shoulders knows exactly what to do with the head on my prick.” I giggled. “Two heads are better than one,” I said. Then I pulled at one of them. The owner groaned. I ran a finger from head to root at first slowly, then swiftly, then slowly again. It became as hard and as elevated as a catapult. “You are going to launch something, Clarissa,” James said in a very low tone. “But this projectile will explode on the moment of launching.” “Mmm,” I said. “You are a mad Egyptian,” my brother said. Egyptian-Cornish-English-it did not matter. I was now beside myself. I flung back the bedcovers, chill or no chill. As far as I was concerned, my bedroom had become as torrid as the tropics. If there were certain consummations I could not accomplish with my brother, there were certainly alternatives. To that end I divested myself of my nightgown, and once again took hold of James's spice-shaker. James looked up at me and said with something like awe, “You will have an extraordinary body, Clarissa. It is already fantastically lissome and sweet, all milk-and-ivory. You are indeed beautiful, my sister.” It was then that I flung all caution to the winds, wherever they were. Well, perhaps not all caution. What I did do was to rub my feverish nipples-first one, then the other-along the base of James's vaulting pole. Said pole was throbbing. I saw it mark off time by the battering it took from its blood supply. So for the first of many times in my life I went berserk. It would happen again and again at the sight and feel of the male phallus, whatever its dimensions. My brother's at twelve was certainly no massive engine. It was no colossus commanding the female harbor. On the other hand, for the lad's age, it was a most respectable size. Now I took it in both of my hands. I squeezed it gently. James smiled. I squeezed it roughly.

James winced but smiled again. I slid the skin of the pulsant thing back and forth, back and forth as I groveled to my belly and rested my chin on my brother's thigh so I could watch the cock's responses close at hand as I manipulated it. I wanted very badly to take it into my mouth and lightly chew on it, so to speak, without any further processes of digestion taking place, but I thought I would lose my sanity if I did so. I therefore contented myself with the use of my hands. At which James seemed quite satisfied. He drew long shuddering breaths. I thought I would enhance the proceedings by bringing up the subject of our new governess-the last we were to have-Miss Cleves. “What do you think of her?” I asked as I pulled rhythmically at his shaft. “Angela Cleves who sleeps blissfully, we trust, in the adjacent room?” “Yes,” I said, pushing the flesh away from the tiny aperture at the tip of the creature's pointed head and noting that some white ooze had anointed it. Once again I utilized the lubricant but this time I much more vigorously massaged James's organ. His hips bucked. “It's impossible,” he said, “to give you an opinion about anything so long as you're intent on bringing me to the point of no return.” I murmured my apologies and diminished the frequency, whereupon James turned and said, “All Rome will fall before its due if you go too slow. Moderation, my dear Clarissa, moderation… All I so far appreciate about the Cleves woman is her flaming red hair.” He seemed to be disgusted and I asked him why.

“Well, the Cleves woman promises some interest-I like her emaciated type. Emaciated in the waist and belly and arms, but pouting up those prominent breasts. I suspect very full thighs from the amount of voluptuously curved leg she's shown. But, Clarissa, we don't really need another governess, we're a bit too old for it, I think. It's simply that the Marquis and Marchioness want to keep us children for the longest while possible-almost as if that will ensure them from getting any older. The subject's terribly depressing. But not Angela Cleves, I think. She seems all salt and pepper and I look forward to drinking from her well-she can take care of my thirst at any time!”

“How terribly generous of you, James,” I said dryly. “I do think I'll finish you off-now.” “Clarissa, please-let's prolong it a bit more.” “I'm too excited,” I said. “Really. Touch my nipples, James, and see.” He reached to them and took them between his fingers, one at a time. The nipples were hot and febrile. He clamped his mouth about one and sucked. I went mad. I pushed and pulled at his little cannon. He writhed, my nipple still in his mouth.

I dug a fingertip into the base of his organ on the underside. He let go my nipple. His head thrashed back and forth on the bolster. His eyes were shut. Then, as I stroked his apparatus wildly, teased it beyond endurance, rolled it, slapped it against his groin, wrenched at it, wiggled it, glided it along my belly, slid it along the as yet shallow cleavage of my immature teats, twisted it, nestled it under my armpits, flopped and fluttered it-his whole body tensed and made something of an arc. “Clarissa-” “Yes?” “I'm going to-ah, ah, ah…” And, all at once, my cupped hands were flooded with my brother's thick white stock. So inflamed I became by the sight of it that, believe me, I needed no further stimulus. I became a strung bow myself and quivered to an unbearable degree-or, better still, a brilliant bell struck to make the highest possible chimes that did more than ripple through me. I felt as if I were wrenched, torn, ripped and stormed. I gritted my teeth to keep myself from screaming, and the wild thought careened through me that, if I could react like this to something seen, what might I not do when experiencing the actual coupling in the flesh? So caught up both James and I were in our respective ecstasies, that we did not detect the opening and the closing of my bedroom door to which I had neglected to rethrow the bolt. We were not aware that a third party was present just inside the door until we heard that husky vibrato with which we were to become so familiar. “Good evening, children,” she began. It was Miss Angela Cleves, our new governess, in a quilted robe that effectively concealed her high breasts and scimitar hips. Her flaming red hair, of course, was quite lost in the gloom. “Or, should I say good morning?” James and I at this point were sitting bolt upright in the bed and realizing we had made complete asses of ourselves. I tried, nonetheless, to save the day-or, what was left of the night. With as haughty a mien as I could muster, I said, “Miss Cleves.” “Yes, Clarissa?” “I'm not in the habit, Miss Cleves, of having my privacy so grossly maligned as you have just done. I am afraid I shall have to ask you to go. You were assigned quarters, were you not?” Miss Cleves admired my gall and told me so. And she added, “Your precociousness is beyond question. We shall have to do something about that, Clarissa. But is there trouble with your brother? He seems inarticulate.” “I beg your pardon?”

James said stonily, looking straight ahead of him. “I said,” Miss Cleves repeated, “you seem inarticulate.” “I am not in the habit,” James said, falling in with my supposed stratagem, “of discussing my aptitudes with governesses, thank you. And I most definitely join my sister in asking you to go.” “Do you?” Miss Cleves inquired, and she burst into a merry laugh. “I do indeed, in my capacity as heir-apparent of this house.” He continued to gaze stonily ahead of him. “Then I'm sure,” Miss Cleves said, “the heir-apparent will not in the least mind if the Marquis is advised that the heir-apparent was entertained by his sister in her bedroom.”

James was silent. I was silent. Miss Cleves had just bound us hand and foot to the Quist-Hagen traditions of honor. You see, if in an interview with the Marquis the allegations of Angela Cleves were in opposition to the testimony of my brother and myself, Miss Cleves would be the loser-even though we would have lied. Because our word would be taken rather than Miss Cleves'. But, by our standards of honor, we were enjoined from fabrication and were under the obligation of telling only the truth. At last James spoke.

“The heir-apparent would mind if Miss Cleves so advised the Marquis.” In all justice to her, Angela Cleves gave not the slightest hint of triumph. “Thank you, James,” she said gravely.

“And I believe that none of us will regret this nocturnal chat, now that I am assured of your complete cooperation. James-” she turned to him-“if you are ready, I will be most happy to accompany you to your bedroom. It is quite late-I suggest that all of us could use some sleep.” His eyes downcast, grumbling under his breath, James slipped out of my bed and into his slippers. He preceded Miss Cleves to the door and opened it for her. Smiling, she glanced up and down the corridor and then beckoned to James to follow her. He did so and I shut the door. It goes without saying that, in a fury, I slammed the bolt home, admitting to myself at the same time that it was far too late for bolts to be of any value unless they came from the blue.

Miss Cleves, I thought, had the upper hand. The question was, how would she use it?

4