"Monsieur Laforest, this is the young Brout... I already mentioned to him the reason for your visit and our dear young man is really flattered by the position you are offering him. If you would like to talk for a while in private, I'm going to read my breviary in the corridor..."
The industrialist looked the boy up and down - he was wearing clothes that were neither humble nor elegant, but they were absolutely clean and tidy. His shoes, although not new, were flawlessly shining. He didn't seem nervous about the interview and, even though he had a respectful attitude, he also seemed to show some pride that didn't displease the industrialist at all.
"What did the father say your name is?"
"Brout, Monsieur, Hervé Brout."
"How old are you?"
"Nineteen, sir..." the boy answered, somewhat surprised for that question - as he had just graduated, the man should have guessed it....
"Therefore you were born..."
"In 1884, sir." the boy preceded him.
"Of course. Well, you see..." the man started to explain to him what he was expecting from him. He told him about the salary, not so high, but with meals, room and two complete changes of clothing each year, therefore quite good all in all. "... so, then, what do you think?"
"And... sorry, sir, what about a free day?"
"A free day? My son needs to be watched three hundred and sixty five days a year, as I cannot... to be exact, three hundred and sixty six days next year, as it is a leap year. No, no, no free day, you will be at full service!" the industrialist answered almost amazed for that unexpected request.
"Does your son attend a public school?"
"No, I send him to a private school. Why?"
"Therefore, while he is at school, I can presume to be free..." the young man said, more as a logical deduction than as a question.
"Well... yes... provided that you accompany him to the school and are there to pick him up at the end of the day, of course."
Hervé thought that, as he had neither family nor friends, after all he didn't care so much about having a vacation day, so these conditions could be good... and anyway it was worth trying it... He therefore accepted all of the man's conditions.
"When should I start my service, sir?" the boy asked.
"At once. I mean... First of all my coachman will see you to our tailor - I want you better dressed, as you will live with my son... He will then see you to my villa and then you can start. Your first payday, of course, is at the end of your first month of work. Today it is July 4th, therefore you will get paid on August 4th."
"Perfect, sir. Thank you."
"Keep him out of trouble, make sure that he behaves and he studies, I don't ask anything more of you. Ah, and tell the butler to give you the former governess's room - the new housekeeper... well, I will assign her another room on the first floor... Make sure, young man, to be ready in one hour - I will send my coachman to take you."
"All right, Monsieur Laforest... and thank you again." the young man said, saying farewell with a light bow and a smile.
The man answered just waving a hand. He liked the boy's respectful but not too servile farewell...
Hervé went upstairs to prepare his luggage - his clothes, a lot of books, his graduation diploma, and the small tortoise-shell box he received from his father for his tenth birthday, a little before he died. It was his only, true treasure...
He went downstairs carrying his cardboard suitcase, kept closed tightly by a strong rope, and went to say farewell and to thank the dean. Then he waited, with joyous anticipation, for the coachman to arrive - a new, great change was happening in his life and he was filled with curiosity and expectation.
He would have liked better to be a teacher in a school, but after all a tutor is a kind of teacher. It could be a kind of training - when the kid grew up and didn't need his services any more, he could start to look for a place as a teacher. He would be more mature and it would be easier, especially if he got good references.
Monsieur Laforest warned him that the kid was a difficult little thing, but this didn't worry him; the young Laforest was an orphan of his mother, and he knew very well what it meant being an orphan - they would understand each other. Orphaned by his mother and with a father absent, from what he could understand, therefore an orphan almost like him...
The coachman came. He put his suitcase into the carriage. They stopped at the tailor's.
The coachman gave the tailor a note, the man read it then, smiling to Hervé, told him, "Ah, so you are the young Monsieur's new tutor... well, well, well. A complete summer suit with two shirts. Monsieur writes here only that they have to suit your role... Would you like to see some fashion pictures? I have several magazines that have just arrived from Paris..." the man said, having him sit and putting a pile of magazines on the table in front of him.
Hervé started to thumb through them... then pointed to a model that he thought to be elegant, "This one." he said, self assuredly.
"Well, really... of course you cannot use what you are wearing now for your job; at least for now, I wouldn't say that fashion to be the most suitable... You would have to wear it also in social occasions when you escort the young Monsieur, do you see?"
"Ah. So, then, what do you advise to me?"
"Well... this one, or this one... or this."
"Oh my God! But they all are... sombre!"
"Yes, I agree, but..."
"Something more... bright, I don't know..."
"Brighter? Well... this model has a freer cut..."
"But it is so dark!"
"What about this cloth?" the tailor said taking a roll and showing it to the boy.
"Well... if something brighter isn't possible... that one could be all right... Do you think that Monsieur Laforest will have no objections?"
"No, I really don't think he would, as he always leaves the choice to me..." the man answered with some pride, then added, "Good, let's take your measurements, then."
The coachman was sitting in a corner of the shop and was looking at Hervé, now in his shirtsleeves, studying him without being too conspicuous - a new inhabitant of the villa, the youngest one of the personnel; he hoped he would not make passes, especially at the young cook as he already had his eye on her...
When the measurements were taken, Hervé wore his jacket again and with the coachman resumed the way to the villa.
"How is Monsieur Laforest?" the youth asked the man.
"The old master or the young master?" the man asked, turning his head barely back to look at him.
"The old master... or to better say, both of them."
"We don't see so much of the old master at the villa. He is a man of few words and it's enough to carry on one's own duty well, and there are no problems. The young master, besides with the governesses, is a good boy. He resembles his poor mother very much, God rest her soul."
"How did Madame pass away? How old was the kid?"
"Oh, the poor lady... Madame came from a noble family, don't you know... Napoleonic nobility, but anyway an aristocrat. She was really good-hearted, although she had a strong personality... She passed away when the child was just two years old, that is twelve years ago. It seemed like a common cold, but on the contrary..."
"Therefore the child has been looked after by a governess." Hervé commented.
"A governess... yes, or better to say no, they were at least six governesses. Only the first one and the last one held out for a longer time. But the first one married and so had to resign. The other ones... in one way or another, the young master made all them run away."
"Yes, I know, Monsieur Laforest told me. But why did the first one resign when she married? Did she have to move away?"
"No, it's just that our master doesn't want married people in his service - either singles or widows, at least the women."
"Are you married?"
"Not yet. The gardener is, but his family lives downtown - our master doesn't want snotty kids in his way..."
Hervé thought that the boy would have had a rather lonely life as he had, even though for different reasons. He instinctively felt sympathy for the "enfant terrible" he was about to meet and who had been entrusted to his care.
They reached the villa.
It stood on the boundaries of a wood that grew up to the top of the hill, and in front of the villa there were tilled fields. The wood covered one half of the hill as the other half was entirely planted with vineyards.
It was a building of the beginning of the 1800s in Empire style, wide, solemn, agreeable to sight, set as it was in that green nature.
A long wrought iron railing surrounded its front, leaving just the room for a long and narrow garden, then was replaced by two walls that bent behind it and went up to the hill, disappearing in the thick greenery. The railing was all painted in black and gold and the gate was wide open. The coach stopped in front of the central colonnade.
While Hervé was taking out his suitcase, the coachman climbed the stairs and called the butler. He gave him another note from their master then he made a gesture of greeting and went back to town.
The butler was a man in his fifties, not very tall, lean, wearing a black suit and only his white gloves revealed his role.
"I am Clément, the butler. So, then, you are the young Master's new tutor... Good, here the master wrote that you will use the former governess' quarters. You will be fine there... as long as you last. Follow me."
They went in - a wide entrance hall with an elegant double stairway, columns in a vaguely Egyptian style, a big chandelier at its centre and there were rows of doors both on the ground floor and on the first one behind an elegant balcony.
The man was explaining, "Only you, the maidservant and I sleep here in the villa, all the rest of the personnel sleep above the stables. The maidservant and I sleep here on the ground floor, behind the kitchens; you will sleep on the first floor, near the bedrooms of the masters. I will show you now your quarters, then the rest of the house. The Master wrote here that you should assume service at once..." he said waving the note received from the master. "Here you are, you will sleep here." he then added, opening a door on the first floor and moving aside to make him enter.
They were two small rooms in a row - the first one was a kind of sitting room with an armchair and a low table, an empty corner cupboard with glasses. The colours, the patterns and all the furnishing denoted long use by a woman. But the real surprise was the bedroom - it seemed a dolls' room, filled with flounces and laces on a pink tonality decorated with flowers - flowers printed on the wallpapers, flowers on the curtains, flowers on the bed cover. Hervé grimaced.
The butler noticed it and said, "If you would like to change something, you can, - one half at your expenses and the other half is on the house. But when you leave, everything remains to the house. In the storehouse there are several pieces of furniture, so you can change it if you like."
"Oh my God, yes..." moaned the young man looking around and thinking that not even his aunt would have appreciated such a feminine style. "There is not even a shelf for books..." he then added, almost bewildered.
"The governess didn't have much time to read, as she also had to care for the house. It will be different for you, as you will only have to take care of the young master..."
"Is there a bookshelf in the storehouse?"
"I presume there is one, but we will go and see later, in a minute. I will now show you the villa and introduce you at the rest of the personnel. Come."
After the tour was over and he had met all the house staff, Hervé asked, before being introduced to the boy, to have time to refresh himself and to put his belongings in order.
In his room he found warm water and a towel on the washstand. He looked around again and shuddered - he really didn't like at all the decoration of that room! He found it simply horrible! He had to change it, and as soon as possible... Half on him and half on the master - a good way to avoid wasteful, ill-thought-out changes at the house's expense. Above all, he had to change the wallpaper and the curtains...
He undressed remaining bare-chest, shaved, washed and dried himself, combed his hair, made a couple of grimaces at his image reflected in the washstand mirror, then put on a clean shirt, a bowtie and his light summer jacket. He checked in the washstand mirror to be sure he was in good order - yes, the reflected image was agreeable. Hervé wasn't narcissistic but, he had to admit it, he liked himself. And even though he wasn't aware of it, all the people who looked on him liked his aspect - a man in the flower of youth, with elegant and proportioned features, with bright and clear eyes, straight lips often folded in a light smile denoting his joy of living... He had an athletic body, neither too plump nor too thin... Quite many women and men found him not only agreeable but also attractive.
He went out to tell the butler he was ready to meet the young Laforest.
He was going downstairs when a blond kid came out from a door and started to climb the stairs at his side. Without any doubt he had to be the young Roland.
"Hi! You must be Roland..." Hervé merrily greeted him.
The kid raised his eyes and looked at him confused, "Hi..." he said hesitant, then added, measuring him from head to toe, "but who are you?"
"I'm Hervé..."
"Hervé?" the boy asked.
"I was just hired... I am to take care of you..."
"Ha, the new governess!" the boy said at once putting on an unfriendly attitude.
Hervé laughed, "Until one has proof of the contrary, I don't think I could be thought to be a woman. I'm a male from head to toe, like you are..."
The hint of a smile flashed briefly on the boy's eyes at that answer, but at once was replaced by a clearly hostile glance, "Governess or tutor, there is not such a difference."
"To me there is a big difference..."
"Did they already settle you in?" the boy asked and Hervé noticed he brusquely assumed a very formal air.
"Let's say they did, even though the room, with all those lace trimmings gives me the creeps. I want to refurbish it... would you help me?"
"What? Help you? You are hired to take care of me, not I of you."
"That's war, isn't it?" the young man commented with a smile - he liked the kid.
"I have to go and change my clothes, if you please, Monsieur."
"Yes, of course. Can I come with you to your room? As we will have to spend the bigger part of our time together, it would be good to start to know each other..."
"Yes, know your enemy..." Roland sharply said, going towards his room.
As the boy didn't answer with a "no", Hervé felt authorized to follow him.
When they were in the boy's room, Hervé sat at the desk, while Roland was starting to undress. Hervé looked around trying to understand what the hobbies, the pastimes of the kid were. Surely reading, and this pleased him, then...
When Roland was bare chested and wore only underpants, down to the knees, he went to the washstand and started to vigorously wash himself. Hervé finished his tour of the room with his eyes and looked at the boy. He saw him three-quarters from the back. What he saw was a nice body, no longer that of a child but not yet that of a man, without the ambiguity of shape of childhood but already maturing. His wide back was smooth, the skin soft and almost velvety, but his muscles were still beginning definition. Also his firm legs weren't those of a child any more. Under his armpits, two tufts of hair betrayed his degree of maturation. His dark nipples, his hollow belly, were pleasant to view.
Hervé's glance wasn't yet coloured by sexual desire, in fact the young man was still a virgin in spite of his nineteen years of age. But he was fully conscious of one thing - he found the male body at least as beautiful as the female one. He hadn't really seen many of either kind, except in the art reproductions in his books... besides the body of his father with whom he used to take a bath before his death.
One day, during the common bath, Hervé playfully brushed his father's member and the man gently pushed his son's hand away, telling him it was a little annoying to be touched there. But soon after, the child saw that his father's member was becoming longer, bigger, and rising up, so he asked to his father what was happening.
His father had him sit in front of him in the water and explained to him, "You see, Hervé, the penis has three uses. You already know one of them... What is it?"
"Peeing?" the child answered, rather self-assured.
"Rightly so. But it has two more uses that you will understand better when you are grown up - to feel pleasure and to sire children..."
"To sire children? With the penis? You made me using it?" Hervé asked amazed, pointing at his father's penis.
"Of course - you see, when it becomes hard like now, your dad can slip it inside a slit that mum has between her legs at the place of the penis and, kissing and caressing each other all over their bodies, and brushing it in that slit, both your mum and your dad will feel an increasing pleasure until from the penis spurts out something like a white liquid filled with invisible tiny seeds. If one of these seeds manages to reach the love nest of the mum and meets a tiny egg, so tiny to be invisible, the seed and the egg unite and it gives birth to a child who for nine months grows in mum's womb and finally comes out..."
"This is why mum had such a big belly before my little sister was born?"
"Yes, that's exactly so."
"And also for me you put a tiny seed in the love nest of mum?"
"Yes, of course."
"But you put your seed only two times?"
"No - putting one's seed in the woman one loves doesn't give birth to a child every time. But one puts it there as a gesture of love... and thus a child can be sired, but this is decided by the good Lord, not by the couple. Anyway, putting there the seed is a love gesture and also gives great pleasure, as love always does..."
"But why did your penis become hard now? Mum is not here with you."
"Sometimes it becomes hard by itself, sometimes just touching it, sometimes because I am close to mum." the father gently explained to him.
"But earlier you told me that it was annoying if I touched it, and then you told me that touching it gives pleasure..." the child pointed out with extreme logic.
"It does bother if one doesn't intend to make love."
"But you don't love me, dad?"
"Of course I love you, but love between parents and children is different, it is not expressed using one's penis."
The child nodded - the explanation was sufficient for him. But he looked in fascination at the still hard member of his father.
So in the end he said, "May I touch it just once? It is so different than before..."
His father seemed hesitant, but then said, "All right, but this will be the first and the last time, agreed? And just for a very short time..."
The child stretched out his hand, brushed it gently, than seized it and lightly squeezed it - it was warm, firm, shuddering...
He looked his father in the eyes and the man smiled and gently said, "That's enough, now, Hervé."
The child nodded and withdrew his hand, then asked, "Mine too will become like that?"
"Of course, but in a few years, little by little. All of your body is growing, therefore also your penis will grow and mature, until it will be able to produce the tiny seeds. When you are totally grown up, it will be time to start thinking to find you a spouse to whom you can give your love and therefore also your seed. Do you understand?"
"Yes, dad. So I too will sire my children and you will become a grandfather..." the little boy said nodding.
His father hugged him and said, "And I will be happy and proud of you."
The only naked man he ever saw and could touch had been his father. His father's body seemed to him really beautiful, be it when his member was soft or that time he saw it hard and erect. He would never forget that magic moment of special intimacy.
Afterwards, at least until he went to the boarding school, he never happened to see a naked man. Really not even at the boarding school, to say the truth, but when they went to take a shower after the sports activities, even though they had to shower keeping on their underpants, he could see the half-nakedness of his mates, and coming out of the showers with their underpants wet and adhering to their skin, he could notice the shape and size of his companions' attributes. They then had to wear a bathrobe and to change their underpants under it so that nobody could see their nudity - one of the overseers was always present to be sure that the rules were respected.
When he was fourteen, in the boarding school, he had his first sexual pseudo-experience. He often had hard-ons, but he simply waited for them to subside. He also experienced some wet dreams, but he didn't care as he already knew that his body was just maturing.
One evening one of his classmates whispered to him, "Do you know? If you are in your bed at night totally naked and take the sheet off of you, then with one hand you caress your body and with the other your thing, you will gradually feel like you're in heaven, and at the end a white milk comes out... So you don't soil your underpants or your nightgown or the sheet... you kill two birds with one stone."
"Yes, I know." he answered, recalling his father's explanations.
But he really didn't know anything about the fact of caressing oneself, alone - he always thought that it was something to be done in a couple...
So, that same night, he tried it - after the night overseer passed for the last time, he pulled away the sheet, undressed and started to caress himself... At first it was faintly agreeable, but then the pleasure increased, increased even more until, with a set of spasms, his hard penis trembled against his belly and unloaded with a set of really agreeable contractions and spurts. He remained still for some moments, breathing heavily, gradually relaxing and he thought that it should be really wonderful doing it mutually with the one you love. I love you so much that I want to take you to heaven... come... he was thinking.
After that night he did it often, and gradually came to know his body, to understand where and how to touch himself to increase the pleasure, how to do to lengthen or shorten the pleasure or to make it more intense.
He thought, "Well, I now know well two of the uses of the penis. I have just to experience the third one - to sire a baby... But I will get to that also, I just need to be totally grown up..."
When he was masturbating his brain was totally empty, agreeably white, no images accompanied his lonely night performances... at most, at times, he recalled the image of his father in the bath tub who was looking at him with his beautiful smile filled with love while he admired his adult, mature, manly body. It wasn't a sensual image, but just his model - one day I too will be as beautiful as he was, the adolescent was telling himself while was masturbating with growing skill.
Hervé was looking at Roland's body and thought that the boy was gradually taking shape and that he would become a handsome man. He suddenly felt the desire to stand up, to approach him and to touch that naked torso to feel its freshness and firmness. At this thought he felt something awaken between his legs, push under his clothes. He didn't at once connect that as a cause and effect - after all Hervé was still a naïve young man, in spite of his nineteen years of age.
Roland was still dressing. "Do you have to look after me even while I'm washing myself?" he asked, vexed.
"Look after you? What are you saying? I just like to be in company, that's all. And possibly also to talk a little with you..."
"I don't feel like talking." the boy curtly said and went to sit at the other side of his desk, opened the book that was on it and immersed himself in reading it.
Hervé looked at him amused - a hard nut to crack, that kid. The nice mane of blond hair, somewhat rebellious, fell on his forehead hiding his green-blue eyes. The young man bent a little to read the book title - "Robinson Crusoe", he read; he didn't know that book, he thought it wasn't French literature...
Suddenly the kid raised his eyes from the book and looked at him, "In a short while it will be supper time. You will eat in the kitchen with the personnel, as all the other governesses always did..."
Hervé smiled but didn't correct the boy - if he was amused to call him a governess, he could do as he pleased.
Roland went on, "I instead will have my supper in the dining room, of course."
"Very well. What will we do after the meal?" Hervé gently asked.
The boy knit his eyebrows, "After supper? After supper... I will come back here to read my book. You can do what you like." he answered almost peevishly.
"All right. But do you read all day long? Don't you practice some sports, don't you ride horses? Don't you have some other amusements?"
"Not after supper, anyway." Roland dryly answered and plunged himself again into his book. He then raised his eyes again and, with a challenging expression, said, "Why are you going on talking to me with such familiarity, while I'm correctly formal with you?"
"And why are you keeping on being so formal with me while I'm informal?" the young man retorted in his same tone, mimicking him, then added in a normal tone, "We are just five years apart..."
"But with a different social status, it seems." the kid sharply retorted, but saying so he blushed - evidently that wasn't a point he really cared about.
"But I am as stubborn as you are..." Hervé responded in a soothing tone, smiling to him in a friendly way.
Roland resumed his reading, without deigning to look at him or to speak, until the supper bell rang.
"You can go, now." the boy sharply said, standing up.
"Thank you for the leave, Your Serene Highness!" the young man answered with an amused expression, standing up in his turn and making him a caricature bow.
He went downstairs to the kitchens.
When they all were at table, the other staff plied him with questions - where are you from, how old are you, where does your family live, and so on. Hervé answered with gentleness and with a smile, but his head was elsewhere. It was upstairs, in the dining room - how could he manage to tame that kid? If he just managed to make him burst into laughter, half of his work would have been done - the main channel of real communication passes through good laughter.
Thus, he suddenly asked, "How is the young master?"
This sudden change of subject caught everybody unawares.
The butler said, "He is still a young boy, but he has character."
"He is not a bad boy... he behaves with all us, just with the governesses... he got up to all kind of pranks..." the elder cook said in an affable tone.
The younger cook giggled, "Yes, really all kind of pranks... Just think that he peed on Mademoiselle Juneaux, who practically raised him after the poor Madame Laforest's death..."
"Well, it's not so uncommon that small children wet themselves while on the knees of somebody..." Hervé said.
Everybody giggled and the young cook said, "To wet himself while he was on Mademoiselle knees was just a starting point. No, no, he really peed on her head, I mean. One evening, while Mademoiselle was reading in the sitting room, he silently glided onto the small table holding the porcelain cups that was behind her, without making any of them fall down, opened his trousers and sprinkled on her, on her hairdo, her neck, her back..." and saying this she laughed almost convulsively.
"Well... I'll be careful to never sit so that I have a table behind me..." Hervé murmured, amused also at the thought of that terrible prank.
"No way, he has grown up, now." the gardener said shaking his head.
"Yes, yes, grown up, certainly," declared Josette the housemaid with a malicious expression, "he his maturing, at least down there!" she added pointing to the groin.
"What do you know about that?" the coachman retorted.
"I know, I know, ah I so know! More than one morning I found his nightgown with an unmistakable stain right there in front, at the right spot! It's evident that the young master does..." she said and, stopping, she made a clear gesture waving her hand.
The young cook giggled.
Hervé gave her a withering glance, "Even if it is as you say, it is not up to you to make public the private life of the young master. You have to keep for yourself what you come to know because of your duties." he said in a hard dry tone.
The housemaid giggled, "Oh, but just here between us... I am not going to tell it out of here, am I?"
"That would be the last straw!" the butler said, "And anyway mister Hervé is right, this is gratuitous gossip that you would be better not to do."
"Uuuuh, such fuss! We just talked about the pee on Mademoiselle, didn't we?"
"But that was something already public, as Mademoiselle told it to us. The tutor is right. Even if it's true that he seeks his pleasure with his hand, this is something private that is not up to you to disclose." the coachman said.
"Even if it's true, you say? Of course it's true, the smell was unmistakable!"
"What do you know about its smell, as you aren't yet married?" the gardener asked her with a soft malice.
The housemaid, caught at fault, blushed.
Hervé then said, "Anyway, it could have been just a nocturnal ejaculation."
"Ejacu... what?" the cook asked, knitting her eyebrows.
"At times, and mainly to adolescent boys, the seed comes out spontaneously while sleeping. It is a normal phenomenon. It is also popularly called a wet dream." Hervé explained.
"Did they explain that to you at school, or..." Josette slyly asked.
"Of course, in the biology courses." the young man serenely answered.
"Oh my God, what a conversation! Can't we please change the subject?" the coachman said, looking with embarrassment at the young cook who was silent but was literally drinking in all these explanations.
"Anyway, you will have a lot of trouble with the young master. We will see how long you can endure it..." Sophie, the older cook, said.
"I will stand everything, I will, don't doubt it!"
"You seem very self confident," the butler said, "so much the better."
"It is not conceit, believe me. You see, I too became an orphan when a child, therefore I have very much in common with the young Roland. I think I can understand him. So he too will understand me. Moreover I am a man like him and I am just five years older than him - all very good trumps to play. And I will play all of them, you may be sure." Hervé said at mid-voice, almost as if he was speaking more to himself than to the others.
"Well, my best wishes!" Sophie said standing up then, addressing the younger cook, said, "Come, Danielle, and help me to clear up."
"I've to go and fetch the master." Alain the coachman said.
Also Hervé stood up and, after saying good night to everybody, went to his room - he just had an idea...