Mrs Grainger's Gift

Mrs Grainger's Gift - Epilogue

By Ritchie Moore

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This work is intended for ADULTS ONLY. It may contain depictions of sexual activity involving minors. If you are not of a legal age in your locality to view such material or if such material does not appeal to you, do not read further, and do not save this story.
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Mrs Grainger’s Gift

Some thoughts

4^th December 2017

The characters have their own stability, in that they come on stage with a form and psychology that already exists. During the course of the months that follow, we see how events shape them – some a very little, some quite a lot. The youngest, for instance, do change, or grow, in various ways. Rachael falls under the charm of Matthew, and her attraction grows till she allows him – manoeuvres him – into copulation. He is seduced by her, but by then he has grown into acceptance of the situation, acceptance of his sexuality. Catherine begins as a shy innocent girl who was shocked by the coarseness of the orphanage, but ends as a knowing sophisticate (or near enough) who can say What the fuck quite easily. Her lover began with a mild Damn, and ended similarly talking about sex in various positions with an adult vocabulary. They are both well-read, in different directions – she also is into music, which he doesn’t know about, while he knows something of history. They become educated in sexual matters as well as vocabulary, he particularly being instructed in technique by the women/girls/boys he has sex with (and it’s mostly initiated by them; he is willing to participate, but has to be persuaded), and he gets a good apprenticeship in erotic and pornographic literature. They both become informed about erotic art and films, and through all this they try to preserve their innocent reticence – but can’t help responding to the humiliations with blushing mortification, reluctant emission of vaginal moisture and erections, leading inevitably to pleasurable but oh so shaming climax, ejaculation and all.

Bryden is seen first as a doddering drunkard, but he isn’t really like that. He shows himself as a sensitive man who is pretty well read and enjoys music, who has had a love in his youth and so is sympathetic to the lovers, as well as to the other lovers who are homosexual like him. Mr Whiston is another who becomes more acceptable [I like to think] as we see more of him. At the dinner he is as bawdy as the rest but seems to speak the voice of moderation, and we see him on the ferry being very human to the young people. Mrs G however keeps her first cold face till near her end; she enjoys hurting people, for no other reason than that she can – like her pupil Abigail in that – but only relents once she is brought to confront her true self by the pleading of Jeremy, and that followed by knowledge of her approaching death.

Others are consistent in their character – Jeremy for instance is hypnotised into helping Lydia torment Catherine – which is a pivotal moment in the plot – but basically he is a decent boy who can’t accept what happened. Nicholas is a shy timid boy who has been brutalised by the school, and only comes out of his shell at the last. What happens to him after the book ends is probably a burgeoning of his talent and acquisition of real friends.

After the Finis, I hope I’ve shown some of the fallout from the events. Matthew and Catherine use their money (augmented, obviously, over time by investments and so forth, sale of the erotica library for a very sizeable sum, etc.) in the furtherance of good causes, rescuing Tim, the thirteen-year-old naked slave of the Malverns, as well as Ellen, and setting them up as kindly-treated servants to the other Ravens; and also settling the hash of Bradley, whose fall is engineered very easily. Begby has already gone to gaol.

There is no hint on the horizon of anything terrible to come; but we all know the market will crash in ’29, and Hitler will come to power. We can only hope the lovers and their household will survive all these upsets, they’ll come to a ripe old age, both of them, and look back on a life that tried to make good some of the hopes of humanity. Ironically, of course, as often happens, the loathsome characters could turn out surprisingly – for instance Andrew might prove himself as a brave hero of sorts during the coming war.

There are several influences on the story. I suppose the image of the rich woman tormenting a boy is from the Jane Marwood stories about Richard. I thought that that particular scenario was a bit limiting, so gave her an academy to be in control of – more girls to gawk of course. This was copied then when we came to his counterpart – they were supposed to have similar experiences, but I hoped to show a different perspective. Other stories have a difficulty with plausibility sometimes in that the put-upon victims can easily escape in one way or another [why not rebel, etc., what are the police doing, does the school board know], but JM’s Richard is caught trespassing and will be punished by police or the orphanage [whence Catherine’s problem], so he has to submit; while I made it quite serious because while Catherine will be thrashed and degraded, Matthew’s family are at real risk. That was the way things were in 1925 with the so-called upper classes. I chose that year as a safe mid-time between the wars, when things were looking up for a lot of folks, and when we get to France there’s those wonderful expatriates all over Paris. That conversation in the café tries to sound authentic – the ideas expressed by Hemingway are really his at the time, and his first novel, then called Fiesta, was unfinished – though I admit his presence there at that particular date is invented. As is that of the Rev. Summers, famous expert on witches and vampires and naughty plays, and also a closeted homosexual, it seems.

The conversations of various folks also try to be plausible, in that they reflect occurrences and books and music and films of the time, as well as ideas and opinions that were around, even [or especially] ones not looked on as pc/acceptable these days. The language, or style, also tries to be authentic in that it avoids terms now in use that only existed, or were current, after 1925. The hormones, for instance, that trigger adolescent emotions and sexuality, were unknown to most; the “come” that means ejaculate wasn’t spelled “cum” till a few decades ago [and even now it’s a rather offensive low Americanism to me that looks and is illiterate]; and “gay” back then meant joyful, and I wish it still did. The spectre of Aids, of course, was still all in the future.

Which reminds me that I had to be careful about keeping the idiom very British, with spellings (traveller, gaol, honour, centre) and vocabulary (lorry, sixpence [and other coinage], knickers). “Okay” had made it across the Atlantic but not completely; and “kid” was still a slang word not much used.

As to possible anomalies and difficulties in the plot: it may be remarked that for all the fucking that goes on no-one gets pregnant except the anecdotal girl at an old dinner. This is unlikely but not impossible. There is also the possibility of our hero catching a social disease; though the girls he has sex with are mostly above working class, and certainly no prostitutes.

Most of the books and literature quoted are real, and can be researched on the Internet. Some are inventions of the author, such as the little verses of Maurice and the epic fragment in the library, besides the translation of Under der Linden. I hope indeed that readers will find out more about all the things mentioned.

One more point: I have deliberately included events and conversations that have little or no erotic content, because that’s the way life is for most of us, i.e. it isn’t an unending series of non-stop ill-treatment and sexual shenanigans [thank goodness], as happens in a lot of this literature, and that aspect makes it fantastic. I try to be a bit more realistic., and hope this sandwiching the humiliations between moments of carefree normality gives more strength to those humiliations when they happen.

RM December 2017

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