Chapter 6
O ne evening in late September we again went down to bathe.
By now, we had bathed twenty-seven times.
After the second time, Jem had vouchsafed to me that he had been obliged to tell George and Milly and Mrs Fowkes where we had been, for they had been curious about our absence from the garden.
He had felt, quite rightly, that it was better to tell as much of the truth as he could.
So, he had told them I had taken a fancy to bathe in a pool in the brook because of the heat, but that I did not want it getting about in case Lady Catherine thought such behaviour indelicate in a clergyman.
He told them I had taken him along to keep watch and that he did not mind for he could sit at his ease in the shade and had besides enjoyed plunging his head into the pool.
He said Mrs Fowke had tutted rather and hoped I should not catch cold, but with their curiosity assuaged they never again questioned our brief absences.
Every time we reached the pool, I looked for the sticklebacks, and the ferns which grew in the cool place beneath the fallen tree, and for the sword of sunlight piercing the water.
Then, once we were in the water, we would lounge at the head of the pool, where, above us, hung always a velvety brown spider in her place in the centre of her web.
I do not much care for spiders usually, and had she lived anywhere in the rectory I should have instructed Milly to remove her forthwith.
But down by the pool, I liked to see her because she was a part of it all and belonged there.
I looked for her as one might look for a friend.
The first few times I had not stayed in the water long, and had hastened to dress afterwards.
Not because I truly believed any ladies would venture down the rough path to take fright at my nakedness, but more because the place felt too new and therefore I did not quite trust yet in its beauty nor its sanctity from prying eyes.
After our twenty-eighth bathe, the place felt as safe as my own bed chamber.
I pulled my shirt on over my head and that was sufficient for decency.
That familiar pleasant lassitude was coursing through my veins and I lay back in the ferns, caring for nothing but the gentle shift of the warm air on my limbs.
Jem lay down too, separated from me by a few green fronds.
Above us, sunlight shimmered through the treetops.
If I moved my head a fraction of an inch, a shaft of light all the colours of the rainbow seemed to shoot down to my eye.
If I moved my head back, it vanished. I thought, this is happiness .
I turned my head and Jem was watching me through the ferns.
“What?” I said, for there was a look in his eyes that made my belly clench.
“No one about,” he remarked.
It was the sort of comment I tried not to make, for it was very obvious, and therefore needless. However, I thought it a nice reassurance.
“No one,” I agreed. “We’re quite alone.”
“No one ever comes. Not ever.”
“True,” I said, happily, for it felt good to revel in the fact of our solitude.
“Remember…” He stopped.
“Remember what?”
He sighed, not in frustration, I did not think, but more as if he was making his mind up to something. “Something we used to do. A few times. Afore you went to school.”
“Bathing, you mean?” I furrowed my brow in bewilderment.
He shook his head. “Not that. Something else. Something I showed you. Remember? It were private. You liked to watch it.”
“Oh!” A prickle of excitement ran through my nerves. “You mean—” We were not speaking loudly, but I lowered my voice to a whisper, “—frigging?”
He had taught me the word, which he had learned from his brother. Apparently, all men did it. Sometimes, they did it together.
“Aye. That,” he said.
“Yes, I remember.” I could hardly catch my breath.
“Aye. Well. Want to watch me now? Like we used?”
We had done it perhaps half a dozen times in the past, but it had not crossed my mind that such things were still a possibility between us.
“Not if you—” he began.
“Yes,” I said, quickly. “I want to.”
He grinned, shut his eyes, and turned his head away. That was for me, to give me privacy, and I caught my breath against a sudden surge of tenderness, because he had remembered all this time that while I liked to watch him, I did not like him watching me.
Through the ferns, his right hand was sliding low, down to his privy parts, which he rubbed through the fabric of his shirt.
The cloth was damp and a blush of pink showed through.
His member grew hard and lengthened and he ran his fingers along it as it lay enshrouded.
That mere glimpse of his flesh through the weave of his shirt made my own privy parts tighten so fast my head seemed to spin.
He stood his member up from the base so the damp cloth was raised like a tent.
The tip of his member was blunt and wet and his shirt became quite transparent over it.
I put a hand to my own member, which was pulsing to attention.
The fern fronds bowed in a slight breeze and momentarily obstructed my view of him.
I shifted, craning my neck to see better.
The breeze slackened and I had to shift again.
My breathing was coarse in my ears. I told myself he did not know I was watching, and that I was seeing something I ought not to see. Of course, it was not true, but the thought that it could be true inflamed me. My member throbbed.
He lifted his right hand to his mouth, spat on it, and flicked his shirt up with his other hand, pulling it above his chest. His member rose red over his white belly, and I stuffed my free fist into my mouth to stifle the mewling sound I wished to make.
I must be silent. I must not give myself away.
He brought his wet hand down and took his member within it. He made a sound, barely a murmur above the music of the stream, but my balls were tightening and I should not last. I never did.
Part of me wanted to reach over and touch him, but in the past he had not permitted that and in any case, it would ruin the illusion that he did not know I was there.
Instead, I squeezed and pulled at my own member, until he gave a groan and gouts of white matter shot forth from his member onto his stomach and chest.
I turned on my side, angling my member towards the ground to keep my shirt clean.
Four pulls, five, and I was no longer myself.
I was a hot and sweaty hand and the fire of an erect cock.
I was the sunlight pulsing through the treetops, the current of the stream.
And then I was spending and knew nothing, except that Jem was with me somewhere and we were safe.
Afterwards, I opened my eyes and there was a small spatter of white on the ground before me, already sinking into moss.
I covered myself with my shirt and lay back, eyes closed, too drained to do anything but admire the patterns of red and black that seemed to shift and fade on the insides of my eyelids.
After a few moments, Jem said, “All right?”
“Yes.”
“Ah. Good.”
Presently, he arose and went to the brook to rinse himself off. I sat up, then we dressed, as usual, without comment, and made our way up out of our beloved wilderness to our other lives.
I went into the house, for it was a Thursday, and on Thursday evenings, I usually sat at my desk to study the lesson for Sunday and to go through my books of sermons to decide which I could best adapt.
My method, of which I was quite proud, was to select a suitable sermon and then to rewrite it, sentence by sentence, in alternative words.
In this way I could be sure of expressing no unfitting idea or sentiment by mistake, while still offering some novelty of approach to anyone in my flock who may already be familiar with the sermons in that particular book.
Today I took up a book at random, drifted to my easy chair and sat gazing out the open windows. Late summer gazed back at me, scented with honeysuckle and ringing with the chirrups of small birds.
A most extraordinary peace settled over me.
All was well. All had ever been well, and always would be.
The feeling was so remarkable that I tested it by recalling some embarrassments of the past; occasions when I had said the wrong thing, or been unable to say anything at all.
Amazingly, my tranquillity did not waver.
Indeed, at that moment, upsetting myself over such mistakes seemed ludicrous because it did not help me improve.
If anything, the more I upset myself, the more self-conscious I became, and the more self-conscious I became, the more mistakes I made.
So, I should never again berate myself for making mistakes.
I should do my best not to repeat them, but not make myself miserable for being imperfect.
It was Jem, of course, who had made me feel this way, and yet if anyone had seen us earlier down by the brook, they would say I should send him away and spend the rest of my life repenting.
Outside, the hollyhocks rustled, blooms tossed by the breeze.
I closed my eyes, nestled my head more comfortably against the wing of the chair and let my mind drift.
For some reason, I was taken back to the shadowy place beneath the dining table in my father’s house in Marshing.
I could see the dark lustre of the table’s legs, surrounded by the forest of slender chair-legs.