My tutor was engaged in his customary activity, that of staring at the ceiling above him. It was impossible to tell whether he was thinking of anything in particular, if he was concentrated in some particular effort, or if he was amusing himself by reciting the alphabet backwards in his mind. He simply looked up.
He lowered his chin, and with it the rest of his face, and focused on me as I closed the door behind me.
In his eyes, there was no trace of annoyance for my tardiness, or recognition for the appearance of his pupil. The man simply acknowledged that the lesson was about to begin.
'Ah. Very well,' he said.
As I sat at the table, he handed me a trigonometry problem.
I instantly regretted coming down for the lesson. I couldn't concentrate on angles that day. I had just made an important discovery, which put me in the same position as the rest of the human race: I now knew about sex. What was more: I had felt it. That morning, under the guidance of Margot, I had discovered what an orgasm feels like.
This opened a world of possibilities, and I was determined to explore each one of them. I wanted to sample all the delicacies that my body was capable of grasping. I believe them to be innumerable, all different and strange. I began to sense that there were many ways to elicit the pleasure I had tasted that morning: I could seek it under the guidance of a man or a woman; I could already guess that the strokes of a tongue, or the touch of a finger, or the entry of a man's natural organ within a woman's body could all produce varying degrees of pleasure; I wondered whether there were other parts in my body that could give me such pleasure as Margot had created by touching me in the secret place hidden under my pubic fur.
It was also beginning to see that everyone around me already knew this and had already engaged in these activities. This filled me with such wonder: my own parents had done it; the servants; maybe my own brothers; even Mr Clement probably had engaged in these activities!
After a good half hour, my tutor looked at me and the blank page before me.
'Any problem, miss Eloise?'
I sighed.
'Yes, Mr Clement. I have been thinking really hard about… something else, today.'
He nodded.
'Anything academic?' he asked.
'Yes,' I said, sounding more dejected than I truly felt.
Mr Clement looked at me through his glasses.
'Well, then?' he asked.
'It's about biology,' I said. 'I don't think I know much about it, and I believe I should know a good deal more about it by now.'
I knew Mr Clement liked to teach the Classics. He seemed to come alive when we discussed the Aeolic component of Homer's language, or when he could recite by heart parts of Cicero's Catilinarian orations. Only now and then, did he give me some mathematical problem to solve. Natural sciences were at the bottom of his preferences, and he would generally recommend a volume but rarely quiz me over its content.
He began to polish his glasses.
'Yes? What is it that you are curious about, Miss Eloise?' he asked.
I duly blushed, and I protested that I wasn't sure he could answer this question.
'I'm sure it's nothing very complicated, or nothing we can't find an answer to,' Mr Clement said.
'You see, it's about how animals reproduce…' I began.
He clapped his hands:
'Ah. Nothing too difficult.'
'I have seen the animals in the field, how they copulate, and I have seen foals being born as a result…'
'Well, what else is there to know?' my tutor enquired.
'It's the organs that are used… Especially, how they're different in humans,' I said, feeling I could not quite easily make the point I had in mind.
Mr Clement didn't seem particularly embarrassed by the request, only a little annoyed, as this provided an unwelcome diversion from the schedule he had designed for our lesson.
'Very well,' he said, and disappeared through the shelves of books.
He reappeared presently with a large anatomical atlas.
'Here we are,' he said.
Mr Clement flipped the large, colourful pages. He quietly examined many passages, the skeletal system, the brain, the inner organs. Finally, he landed on a chart that showed a section of woman's womb.
'Miss Eloise, as you may already know, your body is designed to host a life. Here, in the uterus. This is like an upside-down bottle that, during pregnancy, houses the foetus, that is the baby. Nourishment is provided through…'
'Yes, yes,' I said, a little impatiently. 'I understand that part. However, Mr Clement, I am not too clear on what happens before. I don't understand how the baby gets in. Does a man play a part, doesn't he?'
He sighed and looked for a different page.
'Very well. Here you have it: a man's genital system. Is this what you wanted to know?'
I stared at the drawing on the page. The penis was peeled and quartered. Its insides were unfolded and displayed on the page. Also, the testicles were shown outside the pouch they normally reside in. Brief, these drawings, while useful to the medical practitioner at the autopsy table, didn't seem to capture what I had quickly glimpsed at the night before.
I told so to Mr Clement.
'Yes, scientific drawings can be a little confusing and hard to read at first…'
'And,' I pressed him, 'I can't quite picture how… this… can put a baby inside a woman,' I said, sounding rather stolid.
'The shaft is put inside the…' Mr Clement began to explain.
'But how?' I demanded. 'Wouldn't it be too soft? I've seen male genitalia on the statues in the park, and they don't seem fit for this operation.'
The tutor nodded. He could understand how the finer details of coitus were not so easily guessed at by looking at these drawings.
'You see,' he explained, 'the man's penis becomes engorged and hardened during copulation. It takes a rather different size and shape.'
'I also heard that the man and the woman scream during this process. Is it true?' I asked eagerly.
The tutor nodded with a detached, scientific air of someone debating a highly theoretical point.
'Yes, I believe that's true.'
'But why?' I asked, not letting him drop the subject.
'Nature, in its effort to encourage animals to reproduce, made this activity… pleasurable for its participants.'
I shook my head stubbornly, refusing to understand. I was staring at the page, which seemed too removed from what Mr Clement was explaining.
'I believe I need to know these things. Isn't it natural for a girl of eighteen to be informed in these mattered?'
I had tears to my eyes, and my tutor conceded that I had a right to know. He wanted to remove me from this state of dejection, but the more he spoke, the more he seemed to be making a mess of the whole thing.
'Would you show me?' I asked.
'Show you?' he echoed.
'Please.'
'Miss Eloise,' he said. 'I understand you have normal curiosities, but maybe it's better if we leave this to another day. Why don't we go back to this neat little problem on angles?'
I threw the paper aside.
Angles! Indeed.
'Please, Mr Clement. I need to understand.'
The man sighed:
'I suppose you are going to find out sooner or later…'
I clapped my hands, knowing he was relenting.
'Yes, please. Show me what happens to a man, how he can copulate.'
He was still a little unsure.
'We'll keep it very scientific. Then, we can read some of the Iliad, I promise.'
He rolled his eyes.
'Very well, Miss Eloise. How would you like to see it?'
I was dying to see up-close a man's genitals, and I really wanted to see this incredible transformation I had heard of.
'Let me help you,' I said.
Mr Clement stood up and came next to me. He unbuttoned his pants and dropped them. Then, he lost his underpants.
I stared at the small penis, and the two testicles, encircled by a crown of greying hair.
'It's very different from the drawing you showed me,' I said.
'I suppose.'
'May I?' I asked.
Mr Clement sighed.
I put two fingers onto it and caressed it, like you would caress an unfamiliar pet that might not be well trained and that might decide to bite your fingers.
'So,' I asked looking up at the tutor, 'how is it possible that it becomes hard in order to fertilise a woman?'
'Its body is similar to a sponge,' he explained, looking down at his organ with some mild curiosity. 'During moments of special psychological excitement, the sponge stores blood and doesn't allow it to flow out into the general stream. It's the pressure of the blood that…'
'But how can you create this psychological state?' I argued.
Mr Clement wrapped two fingers around the shaft of his penis and began moving them back and forth.
'The act of copulation does it,' he explained, 'but a man can simulate it, as well. Like I am doing now.'
I carefully watched the penis that was gaining some strength. I watched it grow in size. Finally, it stood proud, its head pointed at the ceiling.
I put a finger onto its surface and pushed to feel its hardness.
'So, Mr Clement,' I asked again, 'how is it possible that your organs know when to fertilise a woman?'
'The state of excitement combined with the mechanical movement of the coitus will result in the ejaculation of sperm,' he explained quite plainly.
I was in awe of what I was seeing. I reached out with a hand and wrapped my fingers around Mr Clement's penis.
'Let me try it,' I said.
He looked at me, pondering.
'Then, Homer, I promise,' I added.
'Very well. This shouldn't take too long now,' he replied.
I began to move my fingers back and forth. I could feel the warm body of the tutor's penis underneath my fingers. I could feel its hardness and how its surface would throb under the pressure of my fingers.
'Like this?' I asked. 'Am I doing it right?'
He nodded.
I noticed that his countenance had begun to change. His detached air had vanished. He kept his eyes closed, and his breathing had become more laboured.
'I won't be able to talk coherently now, Miss,' he explained. 'Please continue the movement until its natural conclusion.' Then he stopped talking.
I kept masturbating him. Now and then, I looked at my tutor and was pleased to see his small face all red, rapt in extasy.
'Mmmh…' he moaned now and then. 'Oohh…'
Encouraged by these sounds, I moved my hand faster, tightening my grip.
I noticed how his testicles bounced back and forth under my strokes. I also realised that some of the sensations that the maid had brought forth in the morning were now boiling anew within me, as if the sight of Mr Clement's penis and his excitement were applying an invisible pressure to the same organ that Margot had played with in my bedroom.
'If you please, Miss,' the tutor whispered. 'A little faster… Faster… Like so, very good.'
'Do you like it, Mr Clement?'
'Very much, Miss Eloise. Ohhh… I believe I am about to…'
Then, my tutor farted loudly.
I was taken aback by that noise, but I didn't have time to ponder over it because from the opening in his glans, the tutor ejaculated a jet of warm semen on my face.
'Ooh!' I exclaimed gaily. 'Mr Clement.'
Then, he ejaculated again. Once. Then twice.
Each time on my face.
I laughed heartily. I explored the sticky texture of the liquid with my fingers. I smelled it and was curious about its oily odour. I was tempted to give it a little lick, but I didn't know if this was proper.
Mr Clement, bend over and cleaned my face with a handkerchief.
'I hope the lesson was useful, Miss,' he said.
'Very much so, Mr Clement,' I said.
'Now, it may be a little late for trigonometry. What do you say if we leave it till tomorrow and employ the time we have left before lunch to read some Homer?' he suggested, doing up the buttons of his trousers and sitting down on the other side of the table.
He looked a little flushed. I smiled at him, but he looked me with the same distracted air he always employed during our lessons. I found it remarkable that people could open the curtain onto this extraordinary play that lived within them and then draw it ang do back to their daily activities.