So I thought. But time passed, and Harwell made not the slightest overture. I was becoming quite disgusted. Quistern House had a score of summer guests, with and without titles. Some of the men seemed quite prepossessing, and my mother, sweet lady, would bid me be forward. “It's very curious,” she said, “I've never known you to be shy.” I shrugged and held my tongue. My mother went on. “Several of the men have made quite proper inquiries about you, Clarissa. The Earl of Merlin-Chase, for example. And he has wondered why you have broken off conversations with him quite abruptly. Is there some pressing reason for your forwardness, Clarissa?” Yes, Harwell, Oliver Harwell, I said silently. “I can't imagine what it might be,” I told my mother earnestly.
“Really?” she said. She regarded me momentarily with a frigid eye. “I shall have to speak to your father about your social backwardness, Clarissa. After all, you are fifteen, and it's time we seriously contemplated your marital prospects.” “Yes, Mother.”
At which she regally swept from the room. But, unwittingly, she had given me an idea. Is there some pressing reason… The less-than-casual observer by this stage must of course have the question on his mind as to the true nature of my desire for Oliver Harwell. What made my need so sharp for him? I had become obsessed with him. More properly-as he examined me at length on the “dark” side of Shakespeare-I had become aware of my obsession with Oliver Harwell's size. He was, surely, the largest and most massive man I had ever encountered-but he was both majestic and gentle. His enormous hands could have choked the life out of me in a matter of moments. And when I pictured the dimensions of his genital equipment, I very nearly swooned… The probable size of them… Their filling power… They would-or, rather, a single element of them would-penetrate my velvety fossa beyond my wildest imaginings.
And I could play with them, depending of course on Harwell's sustaining power… I envisaged what must be, I thought, this Brobdingnagian center piece; and beneath it the great spheres of the spermatic function-they should be able to spurt practically endlessly… My face blushed furiously. I flung back the light bedcovers and explored myself-I was sleeping au naturel. I pincered one of my nipples and then descended directly to the pit that had an oily moistness. I parted the cleft and resolutely seized the minuscule phallus of the female-it was congested with the intensest of pleasure in a matter of moments; but I wasn't going to keep this up for hours-both Harwell and his pupil were due in the conservatory early the following morning. We were about to analyze the nature of the Revolutionary War the United States had initiated, with special reference to our-Britain's-bungling the matter. So, recognizing that I would need rest in view of the forthcoming sociological dissection, and in view, too, of a simple plan I had propounded to hook the so-far unassailable Oliver Harwell, I whipped up the cream at a furious pace between my thighs and crested in a warm viscid orgasm that I proceeded to smear on the inner surface of my thighs and on my black crotch hair. Part of the plan was not to take a bath until the following night, and to wear as little clothing as possible. I was ready…
The following morning was a glorious one in Cornwall.
There was a bracing sea breeze. I opened the mullioned windows of the conservatory and cooled, I hoped, my burning brow-I wanted to take Oliver Harwell completely by surprise. The sky was the serenest blue except, far out on the horizon at sea, for a hint of black cloud.
It was, possibly, a thundercloud, but I amateurly predicted that a storm would not ensue until well along in the evening. And I made a wager with myself that Mr. Harwell would be building a fire by that time. “Good morning, My Lady,” Oliver Harwell said, closing the conservatory door behind him. “Miss Quist-Hagen will do,” I said tartly. “I trust,” he said, “I am not overly tardy, Miss Quist-Hagen?” I glanced at the massive clock affixed to the wall.
“Not by a jot,” I said. He rubbed his massive hands together-I could imagine their chafing my breasts-and I nearly fainted there and then. “Excellent, excellent,” Harwell said jovially. “I think we ought to begin-” he was avoiding my eye and the fact that I had dressed as scantily as possible-“with a discussion of the economic aspects of the Revolutionary War. Have you read Malcolm Coyle on the matter?” “Yes, Mr. Harwell. There is little else to do in Cornwall in the summer. How does a virile fellow like you tolerate summers in Cornwall without a mistress or the like?” “I believe somewhere along the course of the years I've been teaching your brother and yourself I've mentioned I've been working on a tome of a book. It is an esthetic which I hope will be able to account, not only for our literature but for the world at large, for the Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky translations presently appearing.” “So your manuscript,” I said, “is the substitute for venery.” For the first time that morning, Harwell met my eye squarely. “If I may say so, Miss Quist-Hagen, I rather think you're being unnecessarily harsh…” I noticed my tutor beginning to sweat, if only because patches of sweat began to appear on my light costume. He was clenching and unclenching his great hands-I'd never seen Harwell do that at all.
Nor had I ever seen the man sweat before. And he rather nervously, I thought, kept running his fingers through his beard. I wondered what the beard would feel like next to my skin, and how I would direct Oliver Harwell once I had him at my mercy. Not in the least curiously, he was now sniffing the air like a bird dog. “It does seem a bit stuffy in here, doesn't it?” he said. “Extremely. That's why I opened the window. But the breeze doesn't seem to dispel certain strange odors. Tell me, Mr. Harwell, how frequently do you bathe?”
“I consider, Miss Quist-Hagen, that that question ventures on matters of privacy I refuse to discuss.” “Ah, what a shame that my morality differs from yours. I haven't taken a bath for some three days.” I crossed to where he was standing, my black hair falling over one eye and my hips outthrust. I grinned broadly and, in the most vulgar manner possible, I raised one of my arms. Harwell managed a sickly grin. “Smell,” I said. “My Lady, I wouldn't dream of-”
“Rubbish,” I said. “If nothing else, you might dream of my armpit's output.” “I assure you,” he said, his face now pale, “that my conscious mind would reject such an odious consequence.”
“You don't care for my armpit, Mr. Harwell?” The big man squirmed. Big men usually don't, but I did have Harwell at a disadvantage and, furthermore, I did stink. However it was a stink that should have been sexually provocative and, evidently, it had had no impact of that kind at all upon the tutor. There was an acute strain in his voice when he answered. “Miss Quist-Hagen, I was hired by your father, the Marquis, to instruct you in certain disciplines, and that is all I can manage, for various reasons you need not be privy to. And, if you persist in this kind of behavior, it would be folly of me not to advise your father.” “Oh, la!” said I.
“There's a Revolutionary War going on.” “Miss Quist-Hagen, restrain yourself, please. That war was fought in the eighteenth century. We are now, at this instant, dealing with the Americans, the economic motivations behind the Constitution and-” “Mr. Harwell,”
I said in suddenly hollow tones. “What is it, Miss Quist-Hagen?”
He was suddenly at my side. I was swaying. I knew what was the matter. I'd been hoist by my own petard-my own body odors had proved to be too much for me to take without accompanying sexual play. I fainted. When I awoke, there was brandy at my lips. “Please swallow some,” my tutor said firmly. I swallowed some. The flames in my vitals rose higher. I lifted my head-I saw I was at one end of the long sofa. Mr. Harwell had suddenly moved to its middle. Good, I thought. Very good. “I hope,” I said, “you haven't called a physician.” “There was nothing,” he said, “that I couldn't handle. I went all through medical school, you know, and then gave it all up at the last moment for teaching and writing.” He sat on the sofa with one leg crossed over the other at the ankle. His basket, insofar as a target locus was concerned, had not discernibly faded or amplified. I was within touching distance, if I used my foot. As it was, both my feet were upon the sofa. His open squarish face with its utterly gentle brown eyes, now full of compassion, stimulated me as few others have. I would soon be nestling, I thought, against a vast, hairy torso. So, little by little, I extended one of my shoeless feet as if my idea were leisurely to rest that foot on Harwell's thigh.