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.