Mr. lovel’s house in Christchurch was situated a little beyond the outskirts of the town, in the middle of the country and not far from the Stour, the pretty river which flows into the Avon a short distance further on. At her first glimpse of it, Harriet was enchanted; she noted its utter seclusion, the heavily wooded grounds, and the high brick wall that encircled the entire property. –What a place to bring a boy to! she thought, her breast swelling with exultation.
As soon as they arrived she summoned Molly the caretaker’s wife, and gave her instructions in her duties. The governess had already planned their life in detail: Molly was to do the housework in the early morning and prepare the breakfast, and neither she nor her husband were to set foot in the house at any other time of the day. The old couple occupied the small lodge at the entrance to the grounds, and thus had no further business in the house itself. A caterer in the town was engaged to bring the meals twice a day; Harriet would simply plan the menu and leave her instructions. In this way she and Richard would be always alone and undisturbed.
“And,” she said to herself, “this is where I shall really break him in. Oh, the fine floggings I can give him here! How I shall make him suffer and scream now that there is no one to overhear! And how thoroughly I shall corrupt him, how deeply I will make him love me before I am through!”
His room adjoined hers, and Harriet took care that the door between them should remain open at night.
One evening a few days after their arrival she said to him, “I hear you stirring in your bed a good deal, Richard. You toss and turn and fidget. Are you sure you are behaving yourself?”
As always, the question filled him with shame and confusion. “Oh yes, miss,” he lied.
Harriet smiled to herself. “But you are a long time getting to sleep, are you not?”
He mumbled an inaudible reply.
“This evening you will come and read to me in bed. That will leave you tired and able to fall asleep sooner.”
That night, after they had said prayers in her room, she put a novel of Mrs. Edgeworth’s into his hands. “I am going to bed now. You will remain here while I get ready, and then you will read to me.”
“Yes, miss.” He was obviously carried to the height of excitement by the prospect.
Harriet looked at him impassively, savouring the pleasure she took in his nervous disturbance. “Leave your book on the table for the present, while you help me undress. Come here and unlace my shoes.” She sat down on the edge of the bed, drew up her skirt and crossed her legs. Richard watched her in a kind of stupor.
“Well,” she said. “’What are you waiting for? Down on your knees, sir, and undo my shoes.”
He knelt and began to unfasten the laces from the highly arched foot which, encased in its high-heeled shoe of supple fawn leather, was swinging under his nose. He noted the slenderness of her ankle; he saw her leg also in its fine transparent silk stocking, the hem of a white petticoat, the lace of her drawers. His hands trembled as he untied the shoelaces; when he drew off the shoe itself his excitement was such that he let it fall on her other foot.
“Idiot!” said Harriet. She leaned forward and slapped his face swiftly. “Pay attention how you take off the other, if you please.”
The warm, intimate odour of her unshod feet put his senses in a fever. He rose from his knees, trembling slightly.
“You would make a poor lady’s maid,” smiled Harriet, standing up. “Go and sit down now, and wait till I am in bed.”
Calmly she began to undress, letting fall first her skirt, then her petticoat; she removed her bodice, and then, standing in corset and drawers, let down her beautiful hair, shaking it out to its full length so that it fell in a thick wavy mass covering her buttocks whose firm divided outline appeared through the fine linen of her drawers; then she separated her tresses and swiftly plaited them in two long braids. When this was done she removed her corset, drawers and stockings, and stood in front of Richard in her shift. His eyes did not leave her for an instant.
She stepped to the closet from which she took a long silk nightdress, and then deliberately let her shift, which was held only by two straps passing over her beautiful shoulders, fall to the carpet.
She had taken no precautions to shield herself from the boy’s gaze. But he, despite the desire he had to see her, had simply not dared keep his eyes on her until the very end. It was only when she turned back towards the bed, clad from neck to heels in the long ribboned gown and holding her shift in her hand, that he realised that for a few moments she had been entirely nude before him. At the thought, his face suddenly glowed a deep red, as if the display, far from having been accomplished by slow gradations, had been made all at once.
She laid the garment, still warm and impregnated with the odour of her magnificent young body, on the back of the armchair where he was sitting, and went into the bathroom.
No sooner had she left him than he turned round, seized the shift and plunged his face into it, breathing in with trembling nostrils the subtle and disturbing perfume which clung in the soft linen creases, intoxicating himself almost to madness, his penis swelling and stiffening deliciously between his thighs ... All at once he heard a step behind him.
Harriet had re-entered the room quietly. As he saw his governess beside him, erect and severe in her long nightdress, her penetrating gaze bent on him, his heart seemed to miss a beat. – She saw me! he thought: and, mixed with his fear of her anger, he was conscious of a peculiar and subtle pride.
“Richard, what were you doing?”
He did not reply. She took his head between her hands and forced him to look her in the face. “What were you doing?” she repeated. Then she fixed him with a gaze suddenly grown hard and menacing. “Yes,” she said, “I saw you! You sensual, wicked boy! Come here.”
“Miss ...” he mumbled. He was choking with a peculiar excitement; already he was as if drunk with the sense of his subjection to this female flesh.
Gently, with movements slow and deliberate as those of ritual, she picked up her shift, folded it to make a gag of it, and then bound it over his mouth and nose; the filminess of the material did not hinder his breathing, but every breath was as if it were taken from between her breasts or thighs. Then she drew him to the bed, and sitting down she clasped him between her knees, opened his trousers and drew out his half-erected member.
With an impression of ecstasy that was boundless, Richard abandoned himself to the touch of her hands. Never before had she done this, never before had he experienced such sensations!
For Harriet was indeed a past mistress of the art of titillating a boy’s sensitive genitals: it was an art which she had acquired through sheer love of doing so, and one which she had developed to such a height of refinement that when she wished she could make of it an exercise in cruelty of the most voluptuous kind, – and this was her object on the present occasion.
Richard, feeling his penis slowly hardening, breathed deep sighs of pleasure: the delicacy of these fingers was irresistible, their light and leisurely coaxing of the nerves was so exquisitely skilful that he was almost fainting with pleasure. Already, used to his own simple and forthright manipulations, he believed he was about to ejaculate. But he found he could not: the tantalising insufficiency of these caresses kept him on the verge of relief for several moments; with an effort he willed his orgasm, the sperm even seemed to collect at the base of his throbbing shaft, and then suddenly he felt the sharp pressure of strong fingers there, cutting off the pleasure, changing it to a sensation of constriction and discomfort. The hands remained locked and motionless.
“No, Richard,” he heard her murmuring. “No ...”
He remained braced between her knees, trembling with the tantalising pain in his loins, and then his member slowly relaxed, subsided and began to soften. “You see, Richard,” she said softly, “you are in my power. You will begin to realise this more and more from now on. You must not think I meant to indulge you in your wickedness. No, what I am doing is only another punishment... With this, and with the whip, I will teach you the habit of self-control. See now ...” And her fingers once again resumed their maddening caresses on the drooping bulb and neck of his responsive penis.
Twice more she brought him to the very point of orgasm. The boy, his body jerking and shuddering with the desperation of his desire to let his sperm gush forth, was in a veritable torment of unappeased craving.
But by now Harriet had had enough of this cruel and tantalising game. All at once she released him, and then, taking him in her arms passionately, pressed her lips to his in a long, shuddering kiss.
“Try to behave yourself now!” she said, pushing him away abruptly and slipping between the sheets of her bed. “Hold your book in your left hand, and put your right hand in mine. Just so, my dear. I wish you to have the constant impression of being in my power, of being in my hand ...”
He was burning with a fever of the senses, he had no more strength than a two-year-old child. He abandoned his hand to Harriet and began to read.
The reading lasted a long time. In order to turn the pages, he placed his book on the edge of the bed and used his left hand.
Harriet was falling asleep. From time to time Richard darted a swift glance at her, seeing her resting quietly, the two heavy braids of hair framing the noble head, the head beautiful as that of a goddess. An even breath raised her creamy half-uncovered breast, and he fought down a wild desire to put his lips to the prominent nipple, or at least to imprint a kiss on the soft hand which had caressed his genitals with such cunning and cruelty. Then the great grey eyes half opened and were turned on him.
“Close your book now,” she murmured. “Say goodnight to me and go to bed like a good boy. And think of what happened to you this evening, will you not? You will think of it?”
“Yes, miss,” he whispered.
He bent over her and respired her warm, perfumed breath as their mouths clung together in the evening kiss.