Читать книгу The English Governess - John Glassco - Страница 8

It was half an hour before Harriet descended to the library, where Richard had been awaiting her in all the throes of trepidation and uncertainty. On seeing her he became still more disturbed. She, quite at her ease, approached and tapped him lightly under the chin.

“Well,” she said, “what have you been doing since I left?”

He blushed and tried to reply, but an access of shyness strangled his voice. He was silent.

“Come, are you dumb?” No, miss ...”

“Well?”

“I – I did nothing at all.”

“Nothing at all! But that is unheard of. One must do something.”

The last words were accompanied by a gaze of such penetration that he shivered, his eyes involuntarily falling to the region of his genitals for assurance that there were no traces of his indulgence. Harriet’s shrewd gaze followed his.

“Come now,” she said, with a faint note of mockery in her clear, pleasant voice, “tell me what you have been doing. Begin at the beginning.”

She sat down, smoothing out her skirt, and taking his hands in hers she drew him close to her.

“I read – a little,” he said. “But...”

“But what?”

“I couldn’t read – very much ... Then I – I looked out of the window.”

“A praiseworthy occupation. And after that?”

He was deeply disturbed: the touch of the young woman’s soft hands, the contact of her knees distracted him without his knowing why.

“After that,” he mumbled, “I – I did nothing at all...”

“Perfect,” said Harriet. “You spend your time well. But you know all that is going to be changed from now on, don’t you? We shall begin our studies tomorrow, and you will work hard. Where is your room?”

He led her upstairs to it. It was only a few steps from her own. She cast a look of disapproval at the slight untidiness she saw there. “What is that jacket doing on the bed?” she said, pointing. “Hang it up at once.” He obeyed. As he opened his closet she saw his short nightgown hanging on the back of the door, and stepping forward she took it from its hook. “You will not need this any longer,” she announced. “From now on you will sleep without nightclothes.”

“Yes, miss,” he murmured.

“I shall come and see you here this evening, when you are in bed,” she said. “You say your prayers at bedtime?”

“No, miss ...”

“That is disgraceful. We will say them together in future, in my room.”

During the hours until dinner Harriet and Richard talked together in the library. Thus she learned, almost without his being aware of it, not only of the events of her pupil’s own life but the immediate history of his family; from a few naive remarks she also learned of Mr. Lovel’s addiction to pleasure and of the existence of his mistress.

The hour for dinner arrived. In her room the table was already set. Harriet seated herself with her back to the lamp, her face in shadow; opposite her the pale countenance of Richard was in the full light.

Bridget, the elderly cook-housekeeper, carried in the dishes and set them on the table with a sullen air; but she altered her manner at once on receiving a single glance from Harriet. This glance was so portentous that the old woman understood in that instant what her position in the household was henceforth to be, – and she grasped at the same time the fact that she had everything to gain by making herself Harriet’s subordinate. Her air at once became respectful, even obsequious.

The soup was served. Richard hungrily took a spoonful and was carrying it to his lips when Harriet leaned forward and stopped his hand. “What are you doing?”

“M – miss – I’m eating!” he stammered.

“And the Grace before meals? You never say Grace?”

“No, miss ... .”

“You will do so from now on. I shall say the words now, and you will remember them. Tomorrow you will say them yourself.”

His head lowered, he listened carefully while she spoke the benedicite. Only when she raised her own spoon did he venture to begin eating.

“You have often been in this room?” she said after a while.

“No, miss.”

“You will be from now on. When your work is insufficiently done in the daytime, you will make up the arrears here. And when you are to be punished, it will be in this room.”

A curious sensation of fear and fascination went through him as he heard these words and saw her beautiful grey eyes fixed on him; but which of these sentiments was uppermost he could not tell. Already he had felt his whole being profoundly disturbed by the personality of his governess, and now with this disturbance there was mixed a feeling of shuddering attraction towards her, a sense of fear at finding himself so absolutely subject to this young woman, and also something else, something indefinable but sweet, almost too sweet ... The meal was finished in silence.

Later, when he gained his room, it was with a feeling as if he had drunk some heady draught which made his head swim deliciously. A peculiar lassitude had invaded his whole body; as he undressed, the touch of his clothes slipping over his skin made him shiver, and as soon as he was between the cool sheets a feeling of profound languor made him relax his naked limbs with an exquisite sense of well-being. Instinctively he turned his face towards his pillow and curled himself into a ball, as if feeling the need of warmth and physical intimacy; then he closed his eyes, but without being able to fall asleep.

He had been in bed scarcely a quarter of an hour when, very softly, his door was half opened and then closed again; between these two operations Harriet had slipped into the room without making a sound. She carried a small lamp whose feeble light was further subdued by a heavy shade. On tiptoe she approached the bed and bent over.

The boy was lying on his back now, dozing, his eyes half-closed, lost in a reverie of the one subject that engrossed him; the arrival of Harriet Marwood in the house, and the new life he was entering; but now, thanks to his indulgence of the afternoon, the sensuality of his temperament was no longer aroused by such considerations, and the little penis lay soft and inert between his thighs ... All at once he felt the sheet and coverlet lifted from him; for an instant he felt himself bared to the hips, and then, just as swiftly, the covers were replaced.

He had not had time to utter a cry before he recognised his governess. He sat up in bed, shaken by a violent, indefinable fear; but Harriet’s hand was laid gently on his head.

“Do not be afraid, Richard,” she said softly. “I saw that you were not asleep, and I wished to make sure you were behaving yourself. You were, I see, – and all is as it should be. Lie down now, and go to sleep.”

He obeyed, stretching himself out, his hand crossed over his chest as if to contain the wild beating of his heart. It was then that he experienced his most intense emotion: Harriet leaned over his bed and kissed him, softly and lingeringly, on the mouth.

“When you have been a good boy during the day,” she said, “I will come to you in the evening, like this, to kiss you goodnight...”

He had a moment of daring. As the hand which had slipped beneath his chin was withdrawn, he raised his head suddenly and pressed his lips to it; then, red as a peony, he turned his head to the wall at his bedside.

“Goodnight, Richard,” she said.

And she disappeared.

At this moment Mr. Lovel was also in bed, lying beside his mistress in the rosy light of the bedroom in her flat where he now spent the greater part of his evenings; and he had just withdrawn from the warm embrace of her anal sheath after spending in it with extraordinary satisfaction. On this occasion Kate was wearing, for the caprice of her protector, the workingdress of the high-class Parisian prostitute of the time, a short transparent chemise over a narrow tightly laced corset, long black silk stockings tightly gartered at mid thigh and a pair of glacé kid boots with immoderately high heels: in this suggestive costume the whiteness and opulence of her superb body had appeared with such striking and voluptuous effect that she had to withstand two separate amorous assaults in succession before her protector’s passions were momentarily sated and she was able to revert to the question of Richard’s governess.

“Why,” said Mr. Lovel, “I suppose you would call her a handsome woman, Kate, but it’s a type that makes no impression on me. Miss Marwood is much too straitlaced, I find.”

“That’s just as well. But did she strike you as being likely to break your boy of that habit of his?”

“I don’t know. All I can say is that if anyone can do it, she is the one.” He laughed. “She looks like a regular martinet, a holy terror. I don’t envy the boy.”

“Ah well, it’s for his own good. He’ll thank us all for it some day.” And crooking one handsome leg in its tight black stocking she coquettishly laid the soft kid of her boot in his lap, counting on it making its effect on his sensuality in due time. “Do you think it will take long?”

“I’ve no idea, Kate. – That’s a very handsome boot you have on, my dear. Raise it up, will you?”

“There you are,” she said, raising her bare thigh. “You like my new boots then? I saw them in Dover Street yesterday and bought them with you in mind.”

Mr. Lovel bit the toe of her boot softly, then pressed the soft kid of the upper against his cheek. “Ah, you’re a dear girl, Kate. D’you know, I find I don’t see half as much of you as I’d like. I’ve gotten into needing you at the oddest times, my dear – in the middle of the night, first thing in the morning, and so on. Yes, that’s right, rub your other boot over my genitals ...” He kissed the smartly-shod foot before him with slowly mounting emotion.

“My poor Arthur,” said Kate. “I had no idea you wanted me so often. It seems that whenever you are here you are fucking my bum or my mouth, and I thought that was enough.” She reached for his testicles with a warm hand and began kneading them delicately. “Oh, it’s a terrible thing for a man to have an erection in his bed all by himself, it’s such a waste.”

“And with a mistress like you to remember and think of,” he said, gripping her leather-shod foot, “one’s almost obliged to masturbate as if one were a damned boy oneself. Listen, Kate, I tell you what: you must come and sleep at my house. Now that my poor wife has gone, there can be no complications. You’ll come, won’t you?”

“My darling Arthur,” cried Kate, beside herself with joy, “it’s what I have always longed for, didn’t you know? Oh, many and many’s the long night I’ve been tossing and turning in this lonely bed too, with my arse itching to have your prick in it, and my hands empty and craving to be holding your sweet balls, and my throat dry with wanting the taste of your seed.

“Yes, Arthur, let all that be over and done with, and let me share your bed and your pleasure every night as a man’s whore should.”

He took her head between his hands and made the rare gesture of kissing her on the lips. “You shall come tomorrow,” he said.

“Now who is the happiest woman in the world!” the good creature cried, jumping up. “For that, I must give you the finest frigging ever a man had! Come, sit down on the stool there now, and put your legs apart.”

Arthur rose and sat on the low stool with his legs widely spread, while Kate, drawing up a high chair, sat down facing him and then, raising her own legs and laying her heels on either side of his testicles, she took his half-awakened member between the sides of her boots and began rolling and rubbing it skilfully against the velvety leather of the uppers. Arthur’s eyes shone with pleasure as he followed the slow voluptuous movements of her feet.

“That’s a grand way to be frigged when you’re in the mood for boots, isn’t it?” she said archly.

Arthur looked from her flushed face to his member which was slowly swelling from the soft friction of the leather, and then to her own widerspread thighs which, with her chemise now well tucked up; displayed the charming slit of her sex opening and shutting with the rotation of her hips as she kept masturbating him in this ingenious manner.

“Dear Kate,” he said, “you can frig a man better with your feet than many a whore can do with her two hands, indeed you can.”

“Ah, I’m only too glad I can, since you like it so well. But now you’ve got me so hot I must frig myself too.” And parting the lips of her vulva she attacked her swollen clitoris with passionate fingers.

The sight completed the process of her lover’s erection; and as his member throbbed and pulsated between the churning, kneading feet he kept his eyes fixed, now on it and now on his mistress’ masturbation of herself, until he felt the pleasure of the crisis threading his loins imperiously and discharged his sperm freely into the air. Then, sinking back in happy exhaustion, he followed with critical appreciation the course which Kate was following in the achievement of her own orgasm before his eyes.