9.4: Sex: my efforts to emerge as an adult male
Anyway, I was given to understand that quite a few of my friends had experience of the occasional session of mutual masturbation - as indeed I myself had done a couple of years earlier. But the truth of the matter is that nowadays, I had turned my back upon such practices on the realisation that I wasn't quite tough enough to contend with all the shame that was involved in the public pillorying of such offenders. I could now foresee how the heterosexual path for development was fraught with far less booby-traps.
It is curious to notice however, that those of my contemporaries who were in reality developing towards a homosexual maturity in their sex lives, displayed a totally different calibre of behaviour at this juncture - with [M] as an example. In many ways he was typical of that syndrome. His sex drive appeared under- developed by the standard of the rest of us. At the same time his attitudes were a bit old-womanish, to a degree that an expert might even then have defined them as feminine. Whilst others who were notorious at this time for their vigorous pursuit of younger boys, went on to develop as full-blooded heterosexual family men.
I was experiencing a surge of interest in sexual matters, which was stimulated by my recent purchase of The Encyclopaedia of Sex Practice, and another book too, which was The Encyclopaedia of Sexual Anomalies and Perversions. When I had spotted these books in the window of a small shop near Piccadilly Circus, it had required a great effort to screw up my courage to the point of entering and stating what I was wanting to buy. I suspect that the old crone who stood behind the counter relished the opportunity to besmirch each customer with a demeanour of disgusted contempt. But I had emerged from her shop with my treasures in hand, and I discovered that I had a great deal of up-dated information to digest. In fact my interest in the psychological approach to any understanding of human behaviour can be dated to this period of intensive self-instruction.
And back at Eton of course, I discovered that my encyclopaedias were much in demand. I received many a request to lend them out to others, in various different tutors'. And the point wasn't lost on me how many of the applications came from members of Pop. James Spooner for example, who was due to assume office as the next President of Pop, displayed an obsession that equalled my own, to immerse himself in such literature. And I delighted in the popularity which I thus acquired in these exalted circles. Indeed, it might even be said that my own election into Pop owed much to my reputation as an authority upon these sexual matters.
But there was trouble afoot, for it was difficult at Eton to find adequate hiding places for forbidden literature. I had my Encyclopaedia of Sex Practice concealed upon a shelf within the locker where my boots and shoes were kept. But there was a new, and unpopular boy's maid called Emily who went prying into my locker, and thus exposed herself to the cultural shock of viewing coloured diagrams in cross-section, of the male penis ejaculating within the female vagina. She went into a tizzy, and took the book to Miss Abercrombie, the Dame, who was a puritanical Scotswoman, whose favour I had never managed to earn. I don't think she had ever forgiven me for doing well in my School Certificate, after she had confidently predicted that I must fail, because I had been flouting her superstitious creed by flaunting peacock feathers upon the wall of my room.
Well M'dame took it upon herself to take the book to M'tutor, whose reaction was far more salubrious. Having called me into his study, he probed into my motivations for such a purchase; the line I took was that I regarded such study to be a necessary step in the advancement of my sexual education. He accepted my plea at its face value, although he declined to return the volume to me - declaring that he could recommend me other works whose approach to the subject might be regarded as less lascivious. Not that I ever took him up on the question of what their titles might be. I was just enormously relieved, if the truth be told, that it was Sex Practice which had been unearthed for his inspection, rather than Anomalies and Perversions, which was currently being read by James Spooner.
While I was expanding upon my theoretical knowledge about sex by such reading, I was only toying with the possibilities for any practical experimentation which came my way. After all, I couldn't be expected to get up to very much at Sarah Crawley's tea parties at Rowlands, the sock shop in the Eton High Street. It wasn't even as if we were on our own. But her visits were very welcome, in that she was pretty and enhanced my general standing in the school when I was seen walking in her company.
Of more uncertain value were the attentions I was now receiving from a group of girls who came over to Eton quite regularly from Heathfield, which was a girls' school in the vicinity. There were four of them: namely Henrietta Montague-Douglas-Scott, who was a second cousin of mine - on the Vivian side; Joanna Smith, a handsome girl who was the sister of Julian, a friend of mine from our days at Ludgrove; Kate Smith, her cousin, who was less good-looking, but distinctly more attentive towards myself; and there was Mary Roach, who was lively, but a trifle rotund. It was an awkward situation because my natural inclination was to pay the greatest attention to Joanna. But she always gave the impression of feeling more at ease in the company of other girls - whereas Kate made it quite clear to all and sundry that she regarded me as being quite strictly `hers'. And it became a bit of a joke within a limited circle of mutual friends, that her regard for me was becoming increasingly amorous.
My discomfort was greatly heightened by the fact that Robin Douglas-Home was one of those who were acquainted with the situation. For Robin was a friendly enemy of Kate's, and they both delighted in their prowess in dropping caustic remarks about the other. But it didn't suit my own sense of budding identity, as the kind of male who would be expected to attract the most beautiful females, to hear that Robin was telling people how I was currently being escorted round Eton by "Miss Pudding-face 1950." But this didn't really prevent me from acquiring some kudos from the fact that I appeared to be fancied by more than one girl, and Rowlands was once again the established venue for these quasi-amorous encounters.
One of the stories which I learnt from Kate incidentally, was that Robin had been the secret culprit when, at Ludgrove, the entire school had been deprived of a particular holiday when no one owned up to having bored a hole in the lead pipe which fed the water supply to the cistern above a particular lavatory - so that the water gushed out over the boy sitting below when he went to pull the chain. Then heavy suspicion had fallen upon the young Duke of Kent, who was a mere new kid at the time - because he uncautiously admitted to taking a scraping from the lead pipe for his chemistry set. He had been given a swishing by Mr Barber - with royal permission no doubt - for that graver misdemeanour of neglecting to own up in time to save for the school its precious holiday. But I was now told that the real culprit had been Robin, who had made the hole with a leather-punch in a spirit of pure vandalism, but who had then kept his lips sealed throughout the entire business. It was always fun to glean such disgraceful stories about one's friends, even if only in retrospect.
There were many of us in our last year at Eton, who were thoroughly oversexed, and frustrated in the knowledge that there could be no release from it, except in terms of tossing off - or masturbation. Nearly all of us resorted to that release with some abandon. And there were just a few who were more daring in their endeavours to experience the real thing, in having sexual intercourse with a female; but it was a vain hope that we might ever set eyes upon one who was truly available.
I noted how a friend called Mark Milburn, from one of the tutors' just across the road, was supremely confident that one of the Italian maids who served in the boys' dining-room at Jaques's, was just longing for it. This was deduced from the idea that her pleasant face was always brimming with smiles. But even from his own account, the smiles hadn't remained there for very long when he crept up to the kitchen window one evening, and started making crude gesticulations with a finger into the hole of his clenched palm, while indicating with his head that she should come to join him outside. The truth of the matter is that Etonians of my generation were thoroughly unsophisticated with regard to the behaviour that they should expect from members of the opposite sex.
But I did feel a sneaking respect for another of my friends - Nick Clarke who was slightly younger than myself, but physically a great deal more mature - in that he informed me how he had already made love to a girl. It was in the South of France, he told me. He declared that there was far less resistance to these matters in Mediterranean climes. So the big ambition developed in my own mind that I had best put in an appearance where all the sexual action was supposed to be - down on the shores of the Mediterranean. And I envisaged the scene quite clearly, with a horde of hot-blooded people perpetually lusting for each others' sun-tanned bodies. Nor did I doubt that my own could become sufficiently sun-tanned for the required purpose, given a few days of adequate preparation for the event, during the journey south. And my idea was that I should travel down there in the company of my good friend Nick Crossley, with each of us riding his own motorbike.
Nick was just as hooked as myself on the notion that the South of France offered the best prospect for any young Englishman to lose his virginity. The French had always been more understanding than the British, when it came to an awareness of sensual needs. We might be the more concerned, culturally, about the niceties of moral or immoral conduct. But this sometimes established barriers between permissible behaviour and what the body requires. Or so ran the cliché explanations of our day.
At the beginning of the Summer holidays, and yet just before we were due to embark upon our great sexual exploit, we both had to participate in one final regatta, at Maidenhead, where Eton had entered a scratch VIII. (I think I'm right in saying that we won it, despite the lack of any real preparation for such an event.) But the week-end sticks in my mind predominantly for the inadequacy I felt in my heart when a bunch of us were endeavouring to chat up two girls who had approached us with a view to getting us to accompany them to some dance-hall that evening. They may have known that we came from Eton when they accosted us, since the crews were listed in full in the regatta programme which they were carrying. We were all rivalling one another to appear the most socially at ease. But it was really just a question of trying to outbid each other in the sheer daring of our flirtatious comments, while shying back from being put to the real test of sexual association. Despite all our promises to turn up at that dance-hall, in the event, we all found our reasons to drop out from the plan.
Then came the ordeal of motorbiking down to the South of France with Nick Crossley, after boasting to all our friends that we would no longer be virgins by the time that we returned. Much of the self-confidence in our anticipations for this holiday had wilted by the time we met up, at Dover. And there was an awareness how each was a potential witness to the other's potential inadequacy. I felt nervous that we might no longer be such good friends by the time we returned home.
Our first stop was Paris. Nick had asked his father, Lord Somerleyton, for advice on how we should approach the subject of suggesting to any of these French girls that they should permit us to make love to them. He had told Nick that he himself had enjoyed himself very well in Paris as a young man. He had been holidaying there with a group of school friends, and all they had to do, it seems, was to pull up the car and shout across to any girl they saw: "Are you fond of fucking?" And on being asked by his son if they never got rebuffed, he replied that they did, of course, but that there was also some very good fucking which came their way. Nick thought it might be a good idea if we tried out these tactics for ourselves. But I was more nervous about such an approach, feeling that there were some girls who might be greatly offended by such a query. In any case, we decided that there was no special hurry, as we had allotted ourselves a full fortnight for these travels.
Nick had promised to look up two Italian au pair girls who had recently been doing part-time work for Lady Somerleyton, but who were now staying with a Parisian family. He warned me however, that he was dubious if we'd make any sexual headway with these two, in that they were devoutly Roman Catholic in their approach to premarital acquaintance. And his words proved all too true. The girls were just slightly older than ourselves, and enjoyed flirting with us, but in an elder sisterly fashion, making it abundantly clear in the process that marital bonding must precede any manner of sensual contact. But they agreed to meet up with us again at Le Puget, near Saint-Raphael, where the family they were living with would be spending their holidays.
Meanwhile there was the question of a night's sleeping accommodation to be negotiated. And our finances for the journey were limited to what we ourselves had saved for these purposes. So we searched out what appeared to be an inexpensive hotel, in what we took to be a red light district of the city. The women standing in the street however, did nothing to arouse our sexual appetites; so once again we agreed that we should postpone the great event. But we did take a room with a double bed - all on the assumption that it would be cheaper than any other accommodation for two.
My insistence to the man at the reception desk, in faltering (embarrassed) French, that it was a double bed that we wanted merely convinced him that we were lovers. What worried me personally was that there appeared to be a hole in the wall, at one end of the room we were given, which convinced me that we were probably on view all night to a clientele of people whose expectations we sadly failed to satisfy.
On the journey south, we made a variety of stops. We spent one night in a straw barn, with rats jumping all over us. Nick was beginning to complain about the lack of creature comforts in our travels, but I insisted that we had to save our finances so as to be able to afford a big fling at the end - in the company of all those beautiful girls that we might find on the Côte d'Azur.
Nick's confidence in the prospects for our holiday was jolted still further when we lost each other for about an hour on the drive south. There had been no such intention on my side. It was merely that I had pulled in at the side of the road, just in front of a parked car, to wait for him to catch up with me - after a call of nature. His was the faster motorbike, so that when he came zooming past me while I was concealed from his view, he was still accelerating so as to catch me up. I had no means of signalling to him that I was now behind him, and he just disappeared over the horizon. When we finally met up, after he had taken the decision to retrace his steps for a while, the distrust on his face showed clearly that he was unconvinced by my protests of good faith: that I was still very happy at the prospects of travelling south with him so that we could shed our virginities in those amorous climes.
I am not sure where it may have been, where we spent our first night on the Côte d'Azur. But wherever it was, we were down near the waterfront, in a small hotel with a bar night-club in the vicinity. While it was still daylight, we had shyly wandered over to this bar, where a couple of most attractive young women were standing quite provocatively at the door. One of them even threw a coquettish smile in our direction. Then a lady who was dressed in a man's sailor suit came out and introduced herself as the proprietor of this place. She was speaking to us in English, and was most welcoming, telling us that if we came back after opening time, we could have a couple of free drinks on the house.
Nick couldn't keep his eyes off one of the girls. "She's a complete honey!" he whispered hoarsely. But I was beginning to feel nervous again: a feeling which augmented over the hours which separated us from their opening time. As I saw it, they were all far too welcoming. The idea occurred to me that we were going to be exploited in some fashion. I had doubts concerning what the true nature of this club might really be, and I had visions of us being sold off for the night to some of her homosexual clientele. And how would that sound if the story ever got back to our friends at Eton? "They went down to the South of France, in the hopes of finding some young girls they could fuck; but instead of that they got themselves buggered by a couple of old pansies!" No, the potential shame was too much for me. I persuaded Nick that we should refrain from taking up that offer of the free drinks until we were retracing our steps from Saint-Tropez, on the journey back home.
Despite all my efforts to economise, our funds were already shrinking, and I persuaded Nick that we could no longer afford the luxury of hotels, let alone night clubs; and instead of regaling ourselves with a modest meal or two, at roadside restaurants, I insisted that we must learn to survive upon crusts of French bread, with pâté or cheese. Nick wasn't at all happy at being deprived of so many of the comforts which he had always taken for granted in life: especially when the temperature dropped unexpectedly one night, and we found ourselves shivering in a small pagoda where a village band might usually play. We had no blanket of our own, so had borrowed a rug from a neighbouring house, which was covered with white hairs and smelt of menstruating bitches. But the mosquitoes were enjoying themselves, while displaying an evident preference for Nick's more succulent body to my own.
But we finally reached Le Puget sur Agens, and found the house where the Italian girls were living with the Le Bigot family. They were all tremendously hospitable towards us.
The following morning we set out for the beaches of Saint-Tropez, with the two Italian girls riding pillion behind us. They were really quite encouraging, with the prettiest of them just slightly massaging my shoulders as she gripped me from behind. And my own confidence was mounting as the day progressed, to a degree that, once again, I was eager to be seen by Nick as someone who had a winning way with girls.
We were lying on a beach just before the town really begins, upon land which has since been transformed into additional harbour space, and into the car-parking area. But there was a curious phenomenon about the sand in this area, as there was a concealed sand bank, just below the surface of the water, a little way out from the shore. Well the moment arrived when I was pursuing the Italian girl of my choice, racing behind her into the sea. And it was in a spirit of bravado that I plunged my body beneath the water, intending that I should thrust my head between her fleeing legs, and then rise to my feet with her perched upon my shoulders. But I had planned this manoeuvre without taking into account that sand bank. I plunged - only to find that she had skipped upwards to surmount the bank. And I was left with my head diving into the sand, like some underwater ostrich.
The pain was excruciating. I managed to extract myself from the water, and flopped myself down upon the beach. But after a few minutes lying still in this position, I found that I could barely move. I appeared to have ricked my neck very badly - if not something worse. And the longer I remained there, the worse I felt. So Nick finally summoned an ambulance, and I was driven off to the hospital at Saint-Raphael, which was run by nuns. X-ray photographs were taken, and the doctor pronounced that there was a very small fracture to one of the vertebrae in my neck. He had me placed in a bed, with a contraption that kept my head in suspension from the ceiling. Now I found myself in real agony because, whatever the true state of my neck vertebrae might be, I had certainly torn some of the muscular tissue in that area. I could only groan and wait for my torture to cease. Nor was my discomfort alleviated by the fact that the dear old nuns absented themselves for the occasional hour of prayer. And on one of these occasions, I was left with a bed-pan under me, and totally unable to attract anyone's attention to say that it had overflowed.
Some maternal streak in Nick's psychology now blossomed forth, and he forgave me for withdrawing all his creature comforts during the days prior to this. He absolved me for endeavouring to lose him on the journey south, he pardoned me for restraining him from the seduction of that delicious honey, and he withdrew his suspicion that I had sexually molested him. He was only concerned to relieve me from my torment and kept returning with little gifts from the local shops, that might bring me good cheer. The two Italian girls were also frequently at my side, endeavouring to make amends for any too prolonged absences from the nuns. And I did notice how their eyes were apt to linger while they were rectifying the position of a bed-pan, or removing my pyjamas to give me something cleaner to wear.
It was Nick who decided that my parents should be informed, and he got Daphne on the phone - telling her quite simply that Alexander had broken his neck. Apparently there was a bit of a panic back at home. The British consul came to see me in hospital, and arrangements were promptly made for me to be flown back to London on the first available plane - leaving Nick to take charge of the two motorbikes, and to escort them back to England by train.
They had sent me back to England with my neck in a plaster collar, and I was promptly dispatched to a Harley Street specialist, for him to pronounce upon the degree of my damage. Dr Hindley-Smith found it curious from the start, that I was able to move my neck very slightly within the cast, without appearing to cause myself any pain. So he decided that some fresh X-rays were required, and these revealed that there had been an error in the original diagnosis. It was all a question of torn muscle tissue, rather than any fractured vertebrae.
I was much relieved with this pronouncement of course, since it gave me almost instant freedom to do all that I might please - without the restrictions of any plaster collar. But Henry was most indignant, feeling that I had somehow faked the whole business, to extricate myself from a holiday which was turning out to be too difficult for me. And this idea included a resentment that I should have obliged him to buy me an air passage back to London, when it had been fully agreed from the start that I was to pay for the entire holiday from out of my own savings.
In the meantime, I had a few more weeks of the Summer holidays, in which to see if I could fare any better with the female sex. But I made a discouraging start when we all went over to Stowell Park, near Marlborough, where Serena's and Nell's father, Sir Philip Dunn, was giving a dance for his daughters. Philip had just recently acquired this house, so as to be near to Mary, his former wife; and rumour had it that the Campbell marriage was no longer quite so secure as it once had been. But that was a piece of gossip on the side. For us, it was merely something to appreciate that we now had someone in the neighbourhood who entertained so lavishly.
Both Christopher and myself were said to have behaved ourselves badly at this dance. Chris had the distinction of being discovered by Mary, in a cupboard with Nell, and in the act of disrobing her. It was said that Nell was much taken with him over this period, and had been observed to be practising her signature as Nell Thynne, on little scraps of paper. But her mother regarded this episode at the party as being evidence that Chris was just intent on taking advantage of the daughter she cherished so warmly. Henceforward Mary disapproved of him as a potential suitor, intimating that Nell could do far better for herself.
My own misdemeanour was that, in the absence of any prospect for sexual achievement, I resorted to drink; and it didn't take me very long to get tipsy. I didn't do anything to upset anyone, but I was unsteady on my feet and - according to Henry - I looked as if I was a damned sight too pleased with myself. And when we got back to Sturford, he spoke to me about it.
What had irritated him in particular, was the sight of me standing in front of a picture of Mary by Augustus John, and smirking conceitedly as if I considered myself to be a greater artist. He said he fully realised how the worst traits came to the surface in anyone when he had drunk too much, and that I probably saw more drunken people at Sturford than was good for me; but that I shouldn't take this as an excuse for any repetitions of such behaviour.
It was useless for me to try and convince him that he was misinterpreting my behaviour. My motive for smirking was just that I had noticed how my behaviour was under scrutiny from Henry. So I had become self-conscious about my expression, and had endeavoured to confuse him in his analysis by gazing with exaggerated interest at the portrait - while finding the whole situation quite naturally, to be mirthful at the same time. Henry was always over-confident about his ability to interpret correctly whatever his sons' motivations might be. And I registered it as just one more instance of how we were growing apart.
My summer social season was rounded off with two week-end parties, the first of which was to go and stay with Kate Smith, at her family home near Pangbourne; and her friends from Heathfield were also there. If the truth of the matter is to be told, I found the week-end to be a bit of a strain. It was Joanna that I fancied more than Kate, but the former gave no indication of being sexually interested in men, whereas the latter seemed determined that I should publicly reciprocate her regard.
The matter came to a head on the very first evening, when we were playing at Planchette. Amid giggles, one of her friends posed a question to the spirit concerning the name of the man that Kate would eventually marry. I began to feel nervous and, as soon as the upturned glass began moving in the direction of the letter A, my own finger gave firm pressure in the opposite direction. It turned out to be quite a fierce battle, with both Kate's finger, and my own, going white at the tip. But I won the battle, and a hopeless jumble of letters were finally contributed by the spirit inside the upturned glass. From this point in time, Kate's regard for me was definitely in decline.
I was more looking forward to the week-end near Lewes, when Christopher and myself were invited to go and stay with the Crawley family. Sarah, Camilla and Henrietta were childhood friends. And of course, I had been seeing quite a lot of Sarah over the last year, since she had started taking us out to tea at Eton. The situation was a healthy one moreover, in that Christopher and myself were concerned to woo different sisters. It was Sarah that I fancied, whereas Chris was happiest when paired with Henrietta.
It was during this week-end that, for the very first time in my life, I kissed a woman so that our tongues actually met. Or perhaps it is more correct to say that I got kissed. The Crawley girls had arranged a night- club atmosphere in the drawing-room, after dinner, and we were all dancing round the room cheek to cheek: myself with Sarah. Then our lips began to brush and, before I really knew what was happening, I became aware that the tip of her tongue was delicately intruding into my own mouth.
My reaction was a combination of surprise, nervousness and excitement. I had been brought up to sympathise with Henry's abhorrence for other people's saliva. (Spit, as he called it.) We were all quite fussy about declining to permit a fork from someone else's plate to be introduced into our mouths, no matter how tasty the proffered morsel might be. But I knew very well how adults were said to indulge in this `French kissing'. And here I was in the process of receiving such a kiss. After a little reflection, I felt delighted. Sexually speaking, there might be hope for me yet.
Holding your body close in rhythmic sway,
I play the innocent, uncertain of next steps;
lips open, but hesitant of a tongue's intrusion,
excuses poised, but finally willing to indulge.
Bulging our mouths together in sensual freedom,
gleefully probing the false frontiers of a stunted
growth in sexuality, I grope for experience,
peering in your eye's crystal for the size of desire.
Fired in zeal by a feeling that thrills are shared,
I'll dare soon to strut with a cocky gait,
waiting at bars for the interested gaze
that strays my way from under long lashes.
For now, if I'm approached by any girl,
I'll let my macho banners all unfurl.
This boost in confidence was given me at a good time, for the Knollys family were holding a dance to which we were all invited on the following evening. And I discovered that two of the most attractive young debutantes were concerned to make my acquaintance. These were Caroline Blackwood and Venetia Murray. Apparently they took a bet with one another as to which could get me to dance with them the first. I saw Caroline smiling at me, and she was indeed most beautiful; just my type in fact, with longish blond hair, and huge blue eyes. But I'd never been sufficiently forward to make amorous advances under such conditions. Then it was Venetia, of similar beauty, who approached me when I was collecting a drink, to ask if I might be the brother of Caroline Thynne - whom she declared that she had always greatly admired. And this led to a conversation, and then to a dance. So Venetia won her bet, as she informed me most flatteringly at the time.
My success with both Venetia and Caroline had been observed with a certain dismay by the Crawley girls, who regarded me as their private property. In fact it wasn't long before Sarah gathered her party together and took us home, declaring that this party was "too ghastly for words." I felt differently of course. But I realised that this was an occasion when I had best hold my tongue.
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