hempen rope, except that its rigidity would disarm such an arrangement. Again I thought of the equipment of certain dogs… My eyes widened, I held my lips away from Hugh and put him at arm's length. I peered down at his thighs. “Really?” I said. “I can't quite believe it.” “Skeptical creatures, virgins,” he said, grinning. “You might just as damned well know,” I said, “that I don't subscribe to that malaise.” He became mock-serious.
“Then you've exercised with a long series of men,” he said, resting his chin on the knuckles of his hand. I shook my head violently. I had to take him seriously-my wit failed me where my own body, and his, was concerned. “No,” I said miserably. “No. There was only one, really, and he was a long time ago…” I gazed down at my folded hands. “And I didn't love him,” I added, relying on a whisper. “You needn't feel guilty,” Hugh said. “I shan't tell a soul.” I stamped my foot. “I don't feel at all guilty,” I said, “and you can tell anybody you please-” “I've made you angry, Clarissa. I am sorry.” “I wish you wouldn't be, Hugh. I can express any feelings I like to you, but that won't affect my love.
I could hate you but never stop loving you. I might wish you dead but that would never affect my actions in seeing to it that you stayed alive forever…” “Eyes the color of emeralds,” he mused. “Hair the color of Charon's calling. The mantle of the skeleton pure milk…” He rested a hand on my arse, and my knees began to shake. His voice sank to just above a hush. “May I milk you, sweet Clarissa?
Clarissa of the black and green and white-” “Yes,” I said raspingly, “you may milk me. You may pull at me, knead me, roll me on the floor-you may hang me, if you-if that gives you pleasure…” I went on in that idiotic fashion until I ran out of all the violent verbs I could think of. Then, anticlimactically, I appended in something close to a whimper, “Please take me to your rooms tonight, Hugh… I will make excuses to my mother and father.” He trembled visibly. “No,” he said, paling. “As beautiful as you are, Clarissa-no. I can't-don't you understand?” “What's there to understand?” I said dully, wearily, hopelessly. “When you say that, Hugh, it's obvious you don't want me- not really. There's something repelling you-” “That's not true,” he said. The other guests, in their rounds, were smiling at us now as they passed, as if to say, “What a handsome couple-that enchanting black-haired beauty with that slim blond young man who might have just come out of Gainsborough.” Or Beardsley, possibly, I thought, except that the latter might imply decay, rot, putrescence-and I was appalled that I was thinking in such a fashion. Was there something I was sensing and could not give consciousness to? I didn't know, not at that point.
“I want you,” he said, adding, “more than anything I've ever wanted. I am not repelled an iota, Clarissa.” “Then why won't you take me to your quarters? Is there another woman there? Or another man?” I put in anxiously. Viscount Kinsteares was suddenly moved to raucous laughter. “I do have a man there,” he said finally. “My valet, Heeg- Aaron Heeg. You could not want a more puritanical creature…” “He would not approve of me, Hugh. I think I understand, but I must point out that there must be moral agreement between master and man before third parties, such as women, can appear comfortably on the scene.” His features clouded. “I'm afraid, Clarissa, you understand very little, but I assure you that's not your doing. It's mine.” As it turned out, I let Hugh Kinsteares put me off. After all, I did not want to take the chance of his not seeing me at all, which he implied might be the alternative to my insistence that he take me to his flat. I should not have let him put me off-his roots would not have grown so deep within me, nor would the final agony have been so catastrophic. We went everywhere together-everywhere, that is, where we were not likely to be noticed, and we met at rendezvous: which our respective parents would not be likely to have much knowledge of. They had no idea Hugh and I were seeing each other regularly or irregularly, and would never suspect, for example, that we would spend long hours at the British Museum with the Elgin Marbles-the fabulous statuary Lord Elgin had brought back with him from Greece. Or that, when spring came, we enjoyed-mainly because we were together-the fireworks at the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens; and, when the summer was almost upon us, punting on the Thames. The summer precipitated matters. I was scheduled, of course, to accompany my mother and father to our retreat in Cornwall.
Hugh and I were punting far upstream on the Thames when we talked the Cornwall matter over, and we let our boat drift idly to the shade of the riverbank. Hugh was very tense and somber. I tried to lighten his mood although I myself felt beclouded on what was otherwise an enchanting, sunny afternoon filled to the brim now with the caroling of birds and the ceaseless chatter of the insects. I took off my flowing hat, let my black hair cascade over my shoulders and unbuttoned the first few buttons of my shirtwaist, affording Hugh a fine view of the swell of my breasts. I knew he was affected because I saw his response-it was quicker and more thoroughgoing than ever before. I wanted to touch it through the fabric of his trousers, but I dared not do so. I could not restrain myself, however, from staring at it, nor could I check the sigh that escaped my lips. “Clarissa-”
“Yes, Hugh?” “Must you go about unfastened?” “It's terribly warm.” “By this point, Clarissa, I could have an orgasm simply by looking at you.” I felt a terrible oiliness churning within me and I knew that my pubes were slick with secretion. “I don't want you to have it that way, Hugh.” It occurred to me I wasn't doing a very good job of lightening his mood. “Oh, hell,” I added, smiling one-sidedly, “have it any damned way you like-it's not the end-all and the be-all. Just take the damned thing out of your trousers and play with it and then squirt it into the Thames- there isn't another punt on the horizon, so nobody could possibly notice.”
His somberness broke and gave way to laughter. “There's not another female,” he said, “in all of England who would speak to me the way you just have.” “And so you love me.” His laughter subsided. He looked at me gravely and said what he had never admitted before. “Yes,” he said. “I love you, Clarissa.” My eyes must have been shining from the hint of my tears. Nevertheless, I spoke prosaically enough. “Then there's nothing hideous to a summer separation-we can be married in the fall,” I said. “I realize that, Clarissa, but I don't want you going through an entire summer feeling sexually suppressed and therefore very possibly resentful-you might end the summer by hating me.” “I don't think that likely, Hugh, but we needn't take chances…” “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.” He gazed at me speculatively.
“Yes, Clarissa, I guess I do. A vivid memory can be of great help in retrospect.” He took a long breath. He gazed at me with the most beautiful yearning I have ever seen on a man's face- as if he must without a single error commit me to memory. But there was a strange element in his eye, a kind of abstractedness that made me feel misgivings. But I was at sea with respect to those misgivings-I had no reference point. What could my anxiety be about? I had absolutely no idea. But what I did feel was that I could wait for a summer to pass before occupying the same bed with Hugh, and I said so. He shook his head, demurring. “No,” he said, “it's too much to ask. I've delayed this long enough, Clarissa. I will take you home now and tonight you will come round to my rooms. Doubtless you can satisfy your parents about your prospective absence by a pretext-say, the London Symphony will be playing for the first time a composition by Elgar, which in fact it is, and that you absolutely must hear the performance.” “All right, Hugh.” “The real performance will take place at Number Sixteen Gimquarles Street-it is just off St Paul's.” “Yes, Hugh, I know.” “I will expect you at eight.”
“Yes.” Quite suddenly, then, Viscount Kinsteares was very jaunty. His merry air had something of the impishly bawdy to it. It was as if-in the light of what eventually occurred-he had cast all caution to the winds, that he had decided to yield to the Devil, after all. His jaunty air struck terror to my soul-and I had absolutely no inkling why.
8
“My man, Heeg,” said Hugh Kinsteares, “is gone for the evening-we shan't be interrupted, not at least until eleven of the clock, when Heeg returns… Is that satisfactory, Clarissa?” I was standing by the window, peering out at the mutedly gaslit city and at the bulk, not far off, of St. Paul's. “Indeed,” I said, curtsying. “We shall couple under the beneficent shadow of St.
Paul's.” He smiled, but not at all jauntily-that mood had vanished. Despite the smile, the man's face was melancholy. His concentration searched every part of the room, as if to anchor each attribute-even a grisly Hogarth engraving that Hugh had framed just above the fireplace. “My Lord,” I said, “you seem faintly dispirited.” “Do you think so, Clarissa? Then I must seek your apologies -we have here no occasion for dispiritedness. On the contrary, we celebrate our prenuptials. Is that not so?” “Aye, My Lord.” I crossed over to the man, my hips swaying, and put my arms about his neck as I leaned backward, my belly, however, continuing to be in contact with his, and our loins, roughly, on the same level. I was a tall girl, as I think I've remarked on before, and lacked only a few inches to equal Hugh's. “Oh, my God,” Hugh said, “you are incomparably seductive.” He roughly plucked at my decolletage and brought forth my teats whose nipples he then addressed himself to.
With one hand I stroked the curly blond hair at the back of his neck, and with the other the quite elongated
