The Taboo Breakers: Shock Troops of the Sexual Revolution (John Warren Wells on Sexual Behavior)

by Lawrence Block

  That summer she flew to London to spend a month with her father and his latest wife. Within a week of her arrival she had met David Shelton, and from the moment of their meeting the entire course of her life was irrevocably changed. The two could not get enough of each other. They were together every evening and most of every day. While each felt a powerful sexual attraction to the other, their relationship had continued for more than a month before they even kissed.

  “Then one day David said to me, ‘You know, I’ve rented a cottage in the Highlands and I’d awfully like to take you there.’ He had a very fast car at the time. We drove up there at top speed that afternoon and went immediately to bed and stayed in bed for a week. Then we drove back to London, flew to New York and got married.”

  • • •

  David Shelton’s father was an English industrialist, his mother an American heiress. The father died during David’s early childhood and his mother never remarried. David’s early years were marked by constant movement from England to the States and back again, with periodic intervals on the European continent.

  His earliest sexual experiences took place at the English public school where he spent a year—“not Eton or Harrow but not more that a cut below them, you know.” There the leading indoor sport was what the boys called “MM” for mutual masturbation. Like Carole’s experiences in the Swiss school, these public school experiments were more sexual than homosexual per se. David recalls that in certain instances boys would have strong crushes on one another, but in his own case and the greater majority of other cases, mutual masturbation implied no emotional relationship between the partners. “It didn’t even especially feel better than pulling it off yourself,” he recalls. “It was simply more social and friendly, do you know.”

  A year later, at fifteen, David became involved in a sexual relationship which endured intermittently for almost four years. His partner in this relationship was a beautiful, high-strung, nervous young girl a year his senior.

  She happened to be his sister.

  “We were very close all our lives,” he explained. “Most brothers and sisters either compete or ignore one another. We did not, we felt extremely close and had a real love for each other. Perhaps you’ve guessed as much already, but I might add that Carole distinctly resembles my sister Edith, and I’m not fool enough to deny that this must have attracted me to her at the start. It’s also no doubt true that our present relationship bears definite similarities to the sort of love Edith and I bore for each other.”

  David and his sister first became sexually involved when she entered his room without knocking and discovered him masturbating. Sexually unsophisticated at the time, she asked him what he was doing and, after he had offered a brief explanation, asked if she could watch while he brought the business to a conclusion.

  “She was older than I was but almost completely ignorant insofar as sex was concerned. For my part, I found her presence extraordinarily stimulating. She sat on the bed beside me and watched while I did myself. She was quite delighted with my sexual apparatus and squealed with delight when I ejaculated. She came to my room the following day and asked if I was going to do it again, and if she could watch. I said she could. Then she asked if she could touch me, if I thought I would enjoy that. I had an orgasm the instant her hand touched me.”

  Over the following weeks David and his sister gradually added to their sexual repertoire. She undressed and permitted him to examine her body and touch her breasts and genitals. She was the first nude girl he had ever seen and her flesh excited him tremendously. He delighted in placing his hands between her thighs and sucking her breasts while she masturbated him.

  “It was months before we actually got around to copulating. I managed to get hold of some lewd books which we read together, and this gave us an improved idea of some of the possible things we might try. It was a very lazy time and we had hours available every day. Usually Edith would come to my room and get in bed with me, and then we would do whatever we thought might be fun. I learned to bring her to orgasm, first with my fingers, then orally, and then by rubbing my organ against her clitoris. She for her part developed a tremendous enthusiasm for fellatio, and while it may sound rather bizarre to say this, to this day I cannot think of my sister without instantly picturing her crouched at my side in my bed, her long hair brushing my thighs and her mouth filled with my penis. We did everything we could imagine. I had her between her breasts, in the cleft of her buttocks, under her arms, everywhere. The only thing that kept us from coitus was the terrible fear that she would become pregnant, but ultimately I managed to buy some rubber things and we surrendered up our precious virginities to one an other.”

  This incestuous relationship continued for nearly four years. Whenever the two had the opportunity to be together, they were inseparable. When they were apart, each sought sexual gratification with others, but with limited success. David found himself incapable of enjoying relations with other girls. Several times he proved impotent, and once when he was capable of sustaining an erection he could not reach orgasm in coitus. Edith later confessed to much the same problem with the two or three men whom she had taken as lovers. They did not satisfy her and the episodes left her extremely nervous. Each resolved this problem by entering into homosexual relationships to ease the pain of separation, and each found homosexual relations extremely rewarding. “I particularly enjoyed having boys younger than myself, boys with little or no experience at that sort of thing. I enjoyed fellating them. Perhaps I identified with Edith. One would suspect that might be the case.”

  These homosexual experiences were discussed at great length by the sibling lovers each time they were reunited. “I found myself both excited and delighted by her stories, and mine had much the same effect on her. Both of us agreed that our own lovemaking was a great cut above anything we could find with anybody else. We worked out elaborate romantic fantasies for ourselves. We decided that when we came of age we would go to some part of the world where we were quite unknown so that we could live together openly as husband and wife. I honestly think we might have done this if we had had the chance. I’m sure it happens rather more often than people realize. Sibling incest isn’t all that rare, you know, and when a couple moves into a community as man and wife the neighbors aren’t going to suspect that they’re actually brother and sister. One could actually get away with it with no trouble at all.”

  Whether or not Edith and David would have married remains a moot point. After almost four years of sexual sharing, Edith broke her neck on a ski slope in Austria and died instantly.

  David, who was with her at the time, suffered a massive nervous breakdown which kept him institutionalized for the better part of two years. Shortly after his release from the mental hospital his mother died suddenly, leaving him sole heir to a substantial fortune. He was at loose ends, absolutely alone in the world, with no particular direction or goal.

  For the next several years he was exclusively homosexual. At first he fought this, but sexual relations with any woman turned out to be quite impossible. He equated all females with his sister and blocked himself off completely from the possibility of potency with them.

  With other males he had no such trouble. He was especially attracted to adolescent boys and enjoyed a variety of relationships with youths several years his junior. He was involved in several scandals with underage boys in Britain and the United States, all of which he managed to hush up. While he never became distinctly effeminate in speech or behavior and never dressed in female clothing, his orientation at this point was exclusively homosexual.

  This orientation changed somewhat in his late twenties when he became involved with a fast crowd on the Riviera who specialized in a constant change of partners and generally orgiastic behavior. One evening he shared the favors of a Parisian woman with her husband, who had formerly been a sex partner of David’s. “Anyone who functions homosexually learns to be thrilled by the forbidden,” he explains. “The idea of a ménage à
trois with a married couple had immediate appeal. The original idea was that Emile would alternate between us; first he would embrace his wife, then he and I would have a go at it. But I watched while he took her anally, and I found myself violently excited, and I immediately joined them on the bed and managed a coital connection with the woman. We both had her at once. It was unbelievably thrilling, more exciting than anything I’d done since Edith’s death. And plain homosexuality had always left a slightly bad taste in my mouth—no pun intended. This did not. Incidentally, the woman did not look at all like my sister, if you were wondering. She looked rather like a cow as it happened, not an attractive thing at all. It wasn’t her, it was the situation.”

  By the time he met Carole, David had settled down considerably. Although he had an international reputation for loose living, he had become more circumspect in his behavior. He had occasional affairs with woman, occasional homosexual contacts, and, on rare occasions, joined another man and a woman in troilism. Sex was not the be-all and end-all of his life, however, and he felt he was able to keep things in proper proportions.

  “Then I met Carole and fell in love. It was not a gradual thing for either of us. It was immediate. Love at first sight, if you will. From the moment I saw her no one else on earth existed for me.”

  • • •

  DAVID: I think our past histories ought to give you a fair idea of certain elements of our personalities. We both have a background of homosexuality. In my case, you might well say that the homosexual contacts I had while Edith was alive were troilistic—she was a sort of silent partner in those affairs, physically absent but emotionally present. Carole and I both have an element of kinkiness, a desire for forbidden fruit.

  CAROLE: We were perfect for each other from the first day we met. And utterly perfect in bed. Lord, now I’m the one who sounds pompous. It was a few years before we began to think about having sex with other persons. We discussed everything, you see. I knew all about Edith. You might think I resented her, but I didn’t, not at all. I felt as though she was someone I would have loved because of the love David had for her, and I identified with her and felt the tragedy of her death, even though it had happened long before I even knew David. He also told me about the times he had had sex with a married couple. He said that he’d never understood why two people who loved each other would want to share their affections with a third party like himself, but that he was beginning to understand now. From the beginning the idea had considerable appeal for me, but I didn’t think of it as something we might do.

  JWW: How did it become that?

  DAVID: In a way, I suppose it got an assist from an incident Carole referred to earlier. We’d been married three years and were vacationing in Antigua. A beautiful island, but there’s almost nothing to do there but swim and lie in the sun. No night life to speak of. We met another young couple, the sort of swingers you were talking about earlier, I suppose. Not quite our sort, but rather attractive people. We spent an inordinate amount of time with them. You know the way one becomes drawn to strangers in a strange land. They were the ones to suggest a change of mates, and I think each of us went along with it out of a suspicion that the other wanted to. It was a lark, not much more than that. We went to our separate cottages, Carole with him and I with his wife, and we spent the night together.

  JWW: And enjoyed it?

  CAROLE: Not really. It was enjoyable in retrospect but not at the time. By that I mean that when we talked about it later we got extremely aroused, but while we were with those other people it wasn’t very good at all. I had to force myself to go through with it, and I know David felt he hadn’t given a very good account of himself with the other girl.

  JWW: There was no feeling of jealousy on either side?

  DAVID: I should think it would be impossible for Carole or myself to feel jealous. We know each other too well.

  JWW: I see.

  CAROLE: It was later, when we discussed what had happened, that we begin to think in terms of a third party. We did feel the urge for a touch of variety, for something outside our regular marital experience, but we didn’t want to have affairs, certainly, nor did we want a repeat of that couple-switching experience. We thought that if we could have one person and sort of love him or her together, it might be extremely enjoyable.

  JWW: Did you prefer the idea of a male or female partner?

  DAVID: Our first contact was with another man, as it happened, but we didn’t really distinguish beforehand. We felt either a man or a girl would provide excitement. The only consideration was that it would be a person toward whom we were both attracted. Sex didn’t enter into it.

  CAROLE: The dynamic conversationalist means that the person’s sex didn’t enter into it.

  DAVID: Oh, I did phrase that stupidly, didn’t I? I’m sure Mr. Wells followed me, love.

  CAROLE: Our first partner was a young bachelor midway between the two of us in age. David had had a sexual experience with him sometime before we met and liked him very much. And I knew Louis was attracted to me. He always sought me out at parties and flirted with me, all quite innocent of course because he absolutely idolized David and thought the world of our marriage and wouldn’t have made a genuine pass at me for the world. But he did find me exciting, and we knew he wouldn’t be put off by the thought of David since the two of them had had that thing once before.

  We discussed it all at some length and decided he would be ideal. We invited him over to the house for dinner a trois. This was in Torremolinos, we had a villa there for two months that winter. David showed his usual free hand with the wine and we were all feeling good.

  After dinner we sat sipping brandy on the patio. David went up into the house and I sat beside Louis on the sofa. He was a beautiful young man, very slender, an almost girlish mouth. He made some attempt at conversation and I didn’t answer him, I just stared into his eyes rather soulfully, and he colored and couldn’t meet my gaze. Then I put my arms around him and kissed him on the lips.

  He responded, then stiffened. He was obviously excited and anxious at the same time. I told him not to worry, that David knew I was doing this, that David wanted us to make love. I said that David and I both liked him very much. He didn’t really understand but I told him not to talk but just to make love to me. We disrobed and made love on the couch. He was older than I but I felt years older, like a woman of the world with an adolescent boy for a lover. He came the instant he was inside of me and was all apologies. I told him not to be silly, that we had all night.

  Then David walked in. Louis reacted like a lover in a French bedroom farce, he did everything but dive under the couch. David put him at ease right away, though. “She’s divine, isn’t she, Louis?” he said. Then he put his hands on Louis and stroked him and said, “And I knew she would like you, Louis. I’ve never forgotten you.”

  DAVID: It was a delicious experience. He was a beautiful boy and very shy. We went to our bedroom. I undressed and we all got in bed together. We petted and stroked one another. I touched Louis with one hand and Carole with the other. We made him lie down on the bed and the two of us loved him as one. He became excited again almost at once and wanted to improve upon his initial performance with Carole, so I held her in my arms and kissed her breasts while he had coitus with her.

  CAROLE: It was the most powerful climax—

  DAVID: Louis moved into our guest room the next morning. He stayed with us until we left Torremolinos in March. It seemed as though every night we invented a new way for three people to make love. In a purely physical sense, the addition of a third partner greatly augments the number of possible variations on the old theme, you know.

  CAROLE: We did everything we could think of. Sometimes one would watch while the other two made love, but most of the time all three of us would participate at once.

  DAVID: We found we enjoyed that the most.

  CAROLE: Yes. Most often two of us would focus our attentions on the third. I’m sure every woman has fantasies abo
ut being loved by two men at the same time. I should think it would be abnormal not to. For example, long before we even thought about forming a threesome, I had fantasies along those lines. I loved to have coitus with David and I also loved to take his penis in my mouth and suck it—oh, I don’t suppose you can print that in those words, can you?

  DAVID: You can print anything nowadays, dear. Go on.

  CAROLE: Well, I would try to imagine what it would be like to suck David at the very moment that he was having coitus with me.

  DAVID: Unfortunately I only have one penis.

  CAROLE: Yes, isn’t that a pity? But with two lovers I was able to fulfill that fantasy by having one vaginally and the other orally—I’m sure you can print it that way. And other fantasies besides. I could tell you about some of them, but I think we might leave something to your readers’ imaginations, don’t you?

  • • •

  After l’affaire Louis had run its course, the Sheltons decided that they would like to make troilism a permanent part of their lives. It was some months before they selected. They were in London. David had gone shopping in Piccadilly and was walking through Soho when a prostitute solicited him.

  • • •

  DAVID: I was about to brush her off when I suddenly thought that Carole might enjoy her. She was a rather attractive girl and quite young, with a strong provincial accent. Yorkshire, I think. I told her I would give her some exorbitant sum, perhaps ten pounds, if she would come home with me and spend a few hours with me and my wife. The idea didn’t appeal to her but the ten quid did. I took her straight home in a flat and told Carole I had a surprise for her. She was delighted.

  CAROLE: But it wasn’t all that much fun after all.

  DAVID: It was a fiasco, actually. We had in mind the sort of thing we’d done with Louis, and it didn’t work out at all. The girl was just there for the money. We were extending ourselves in an attempt to excite her and that was clearly impossible. We sent her home and decided to limit ourselves to friends.