Alexandra Guy: A Maiden's diary

The question was, who was to be its agent since the self-manipulative had at last turned out to be a crashing bore? Of course, my brother James came to mind, but at the moment, surely, he was rapt in slumber in his own bedroom at several removes from mine, and separated, further, by the room of our new-and last-governess, Miss Cleves.

Depressed, stirred by marvellously bestial longings implanted in the race coeval, doubtless, with the primeval slime, I scowled and furrowed my virginal brow. I scowled at the linnet hidden in the cage, songless and invisible because of the white cloth covering. I scowled at the faithful clock ticking on the mantel. I shrugged and turned my gaze to the scene outside beyond the garden and its rail. There was not much further that one could gaze-it was impossible to make out the other side of the street because of the fog. I could hardly make out the occasional hansom cab that clop-clopped by, the driver, perched on top to the rear, bundled practically to his mouth to protect himself from the bitterly chilling clime. I shivered in sympathy. Actually, I was warm enough-under my bathrobe I was attired in a thick woolen nightgown. The material scratched roughly against the pretences of my breasts, hardly more than slight rises on the topography of my chest. But the nipples… ah, the nipples apparently were ahead of their time-they were large and strongly denned and extraordinarily sensitive. As in a trance I lifted my hand and slipped it in to fondle the erectile tissues. The blood began to churn in my veins. I made some sounds deep in my throat and barely heard, then, a faint tapping at the door. When I became aware, I abruptly stood up, trembling. I crossed to the great oaken piece. “Yes?” I whispered. “James here,” a voice said. “Do hurry and open, Clarissa, or I shall catch my death.” I unbolted the door as rapidly as I could. It swung open easily and my brother slipped in, flailing his arms about his chest. “That damned draughty hallway,” he muttered, looking all the world-except for the lack of silver-blond hair-like a miniature edition of the Marquis, and I felt a heat spiraling from my groin. I shuddered. “Why are you shivering?” James said. “It was I who was out in the hallway.”

“Yes,” I said in low tones, “but mine is a different kind of shivering.” “Really, Clarissa?” He made as if to embrace me and I stepped aside, shaking my head. I reminded him of my sufferance of him here, and that there would not be anything drastically undertaken in my bedroom. “You are not supposed to be here, James,” I told him, “If it were found out, it would go hard on you. It would go hard on me as well…” I was fending off my brother not because I wished to or because I was fearful of discovery but because-while I wanted to explore the vibrant world of those energies seeming to have their core between my legs-I was somehow afraid that something monstrous might occur, that somehow I might be hurt.

“Nobody will find us out,” my green-eyed brother said petulantly.

Then he looked at me fondly and smiled, as if he quite understood my shyness. “Really, Clarissa, you need have no misgivings. I'm here only because something happened to me earlier today that interfered with my sleep, and I felt I simply had to tell it to the person closest me-my sister.” Here he smiled guilelessly and I was altogether taken in. At ten, sophisticated though I was, I was nevertheless ingenuous with respect to James, and my next words completely revealed my illusions.

“Well,” I said, “since we are brother and sister, there should be no harm in our snuggling under the covers. It's a terribly raw night and we would be very foolish to tempt fate by braving the draughts outside of bed.” Which was pure folderol, of course. I had already tempted fate. Actually, I had decided I wanted to be close to him, and that I would take the gamble of the possibility of being hurt. I need not have worried-at the last moment I disarmed him…

“That's very wise of you, Clarissa,” James said gravely. And, our mein terribly serious, we crept into bed, quite large enough for the two of us. After all, we were boy and girl! “What happened to you earlier today, James?” “What happened to me was Albertine,” he said after a pregnant pause, his voice weighty with significance. He put a light hand on my wrist. My pulse was a sheer runaway. “Oh?” I said. “In what way?” “Well, to begin with, Clarissa, I had to see Mother on some matter or another.” “Did you see her?” “No. Albertine was busy hanging some of Mother's things and told me Mother had gone to tea at the Duchess of Postings'. I told Albertine I was terribly disappointed-I didn't think the matter could wait.” “But it really wasn't that important, was it, James?” “No. I then simply wanted the opportunity of being with Albertine.” “Suddenly?”

“Yes. At twelve, Clarissa, one begins to see quite clearly how attractive some members of the opposite sex can be.” “But, James-” “Yes?” “Albertine's such a sweet little blonde.”

“Precisely. Very fitting, don't you think?” “Oh,” I said.

My brother's fingertips lightly played with my wrist. There was a wavering bubble in my throat, a certain sly tickle between my thighs.

I felt my nipples positively fluttering. “Well,” I finally added, “what did you tell her?” “I told her nothing, of course. I didn't have to. Albertine recognized that I was merely seizing on a pretext to be with her-” “And not with Mother.” “Exactly,” James said. I swallowed. There was something hard in my throat now.

Hard and tight. James brought my hand down to my thigh. “And then?” I asked. “Well, Albertine was at the closet, you know. I circled round to her until I could see the fine beads of moisture on her upper lip. You could tell she had begun to expect me.” “Oh, really, James-that sounds out of the whole cloth. Albertine must be all of thirty-five, and you're all of twelve. How could she have expected you?” He had drawn up my thick woolen nightgown. My own hand rested on my bare thigh, and his hand on mine. “I must explain, Clarissa.” “Do.” “There may be certain desperations the female experiences at thirty-five. Do you understand? Especially if the female has remained unmarried. She may feel driven. I'm not sure if you can follow this sort of thing at your tender age, Clarissa.”

“I may be tender but intellectually I am very advanced.”

“Enough to understand a thirty-five-year-old female?”

“James. At twelve, do you understand?” He tilted his black-haired elegant head and regarded me with the utmost seriousness.

“I think so,” he said. I burst into laughter. “Sssh!”

He frowned and put a finger to my lips. Impulsively, I kissed it.

In the dim light I saw my brother grin and then gaze at me with such a communication of oneness of spirit that I was warmed beyond measure. This was my brother, I thought with immense pride. He could do no ill. And with an impossibly diabolic innocence he shifted both our hands to his thigh. Which turned out to be his error. I made no demur. I merely gazed at him with an expression of pure surrender.

If impure, the surrender remained. “What did Albertine do, James?” “You mustn't think me vulgar, Clarissa.” Think him vulgar? I asked myself. On what account? The idea of vulgarity simply wasn't in my mind. On the contrary, I felt surpassingly comfortable.

It was with a sense of supreme security that I heard once again the clop-clop of a hansom-cab horse outside my window and gazed at the fog swirling against the panes of glass. Indeed, in no way did I think James vulgar even when, in the next instant, he guided my hand to grasp his quivering reed of generation. So overcome he apparently was, both with respect to my attitude of nonresistance and the sensation of my fingers fluting along his velvety potency, that he sighed gustily and lay his head back on the bolster. “Don't you think,” I said, “that I deserve to hear by now of your little blond Albertine?”