The Harrad Experiment

by Robert H. Rimmer

  This reading course and the level of discussion in the daily group meeting produces a rapid and fundamental change in everyone at Harrad. Thus, the story of what happened at “E” College as recorded by me, Stanley Cole, self-appointed Harrad historian and observer, seems to reveal to me that the Tenhausens are obviously succeeding in reconditioning most of the Harrad students. Anyway, one advantage of being a human guinea pig is you can always ask the question, Even if they succeed ... then what? Harrad students may end up wiser, and, superior citizens, but they will be the smallest minority in the world, and democracy somehow or other has a neat way of trampling over minorities who deviate.

  After the football game, which “E” finally won, 27 to 21, we brought the girls back to the Weatherly Inn, about a half mile from the campus, where Bill Brierly had rented a room for Sheila, Ruth, and Susan. We left them for two hours to get cleaned up for dinner at the frat house.

  Back in the frat house, Bill and Tom and a dozen other brothers swarmed into Bill’s room. Stripped to shorts and T shirts because the weather was god-awful hot for a November twelfth week-end, we drank endless cans of beer and discussed the game and women and sex.

  I learned that Bill had met Susan last summer. Susan had just finished her freshman year at “L” College. They had pursued their summer love at beaches, on her father’s Chris Craft, and in drive-in movies.

  “She’s as sexy as the devil, but she doesn’t put out,” Bill said morosely. “Some nights I could get her bra off ... some nights her panties. Never both at once. One night I said, ‘Listen, Sue, we’ve been French kissing, hugging, and touching for two hours. You’re whimpering and I’m bursting. How about doing it the way men and women are supposed to do it ... just for a change.’ She says, ‘Oh, Bill! I want to ... I want to! ... but, I can’t ... I can’t.’ ”

  “Why not?” one of the brothers asked.

  “She can’t until she’s engaged,” Bill said, laughing.

  “That’s the big hint, brother,” Tom said. “Why didn’t you pin her and get it over with?”

  “Hell, it wouldn’t be honest. A lot of guys in this house do that, but not me. I’ve got principles. I’m not using my pin to seduce virgins. If I ever got that hard up, I’d just go downtown. There’re plenty of girls working at the mill who’d just as soon screw as piss.”

  “All the college broads are the same,” one of the brothers said, philosophically sucking on his pipe. “They’ll neck like hell with you, let you play with their boobs. After you get to know them awhile they’ll even relieve you of your misery ... by hand, and they’ll let you return the favor ... but they are scared to death to go all the way ... and, brother, if they do ... kiss yourself good-bye ... you’re hooked! Remember Joe Tingsley. The poor slob is a runner down in Wall Street. He couldn’t finish his junior year. He knocked up that little doll he had up to house parties. Her old man got him a job as prat boy in his brokerage firm to help support his darling daughter. So that’s the sum total of it. If they let you go all the way, it’s like playing Russian Roulette. Not for me, buster. I’m playing it cool ... play it their way. Let them play with your pokey ... but be darn careful where they put it!”

  “You fellows don’t know what love is,” one of the older brothers, evidently a senior, said. “When you meet the right girl ... you’ll forget all about your little animal self. You’ll go around starry-eyed, and virginal!”

  “Sure, and when you meet this one and only, and you’re up here in the woods at this male monastery, writing her bloopy, soulful letters, the chances are that she’ll be out necking her ass off with some other guy.”

  “The gals have to get experience,” Bill Brierly said. “The more they know, the better they are. Speaking of experience, what’s the strategy for tonight? I got the key to Sam Tobey’s shack. It’s a hunting lodge, Stan,” he explained for my benefit.

  “There’re a couple of sacks and a fireplace with a bear-rug. We’ll toss for who gets the bearskin ... very conducive to romance. One thing is for damned sure, I don’t want to hang around here and spend the night arguing with Susan, and trying to persuade her that every other creep in this house without a date isn’t watching us ... which they will be. The Fertility Room, that’s the cellar, Stan ... will be jam packed. Down there you could be kissing your best girl while your dearest brother, who wasn’t making out, was feeling her rear end.”

  Tom shook his head. “I don’t know, Bill. Tobey’s place is going to be kind of awkward and confusing. Remember ... you got relatives mixed up in this. Ruth is our sister ... and Stan is Sheila’s brother. Are you going to throw our sister to a wolf like Stan?”

  “Are you a wolf, Stan?” Bill asked, grinning at me. “No ... you look more like a dirty dog.”

  “I don’t mind some hugging,” I said. “But if you are really protecting your sister’s virtue, I’ll be careful.”

  “Don’t worry about Ruth ... she knows the score. If your old man has got any dough, and/or your prospects look good, she’ll add you to her waiting list, and tease you just enough to keep you dangling and sighing for her. Ruth is using her four years at college to line up a sufficient selection of males so that the day after graduation she can get married in the chapel ... and, if possible, arrive in her marriage bed virgo intact.”

  “What about Sheila?” Tom asked me.

  Poor Sheila, I thought. You asked for this. “To tell you the truth, Sheila is really my stepsister. I haven’t seen too much of her in the past year. She’s been travelling in Europe with her father.”

  Tom brightened. “Everything being equal, I think perhaps we should run out to Sam Tobey’s shack after all. Maybe we can stay for breakfast.”

  At dinner, when I alerted Sheila to our new relationship she looked at me angrily. “You think that you’re a wise guy, don’t you,” she hissed. “You’ll be sorry ... tossing your roommate to the wolves. From now on when you feel like discussing Mediaeval History with me, I’ll refuse to listen.”

  “Okay,” I told her, “Beth Hillyer has a sympathetic ear.”

  “You dog,” Sheila scowled at me. “I hope you fall madly in love with Ruth Brierly and live with her in suburbia with ten pimply children while your matronly wife reads all the best sellers and eats chocolates until she weighs two hundred pounds, at which point she will finally achieve her life long ambition and be elected President of the Women’s Clubs of America, and drag you around with her to meet all of her chubby friends.”

  ... I stopped writing at this point, yesterday, because Sheila finally persuaded me to let her read my journal. She decided it would be more interesting if, in the future, we used our journals as a place to write back and forth to each other. This way we could say things to one another we might not actually want to discuss aloud. She got so enthusiastic about the idea that she wanted to suggest it to the Tenhausens. While I agreed, as a temporary idea, I think some problems may arise.

  “Even in a marriage,” I told her, “a person has to maintain some private area of his own. Once I know and you know that we are reading each other’s journal, neither of us will really say what we think. We will write what we think the other person wants to hear.”

  “I don’t agree,” Sheila said. “The most important thing in a marriage is that two people be very dose ... so dose that their intimate thoughts are revealed to each other.”

  Since you are now reading this, Sheila ... I say to you as your roommate, as your lover ... as your husband (if that should happen) I’m not too sure you’d like my most intimate thoughts if I revealed them to you. I’ll give you an example. In addition to thinking of going to bed with you, I also think of making love to Beth Hillyer. How do you like that? Bet you a dollar that thought makes you see red!

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF SHEILA GROVE

  November, the First Year

  I’m floating on a soft dreamy cloud, Stanley. I love you. I love you. Yesterday, you let me read all the wonderful, crazy things you’ve written in your journal, and I let you re
ad mine. When you got to the point where I hoped you would have a long, dull placid life with Ruth Brierly, you stopped writing about our week-end at “E” College.

  “Stanley,” I protested. “You haven’t finished it! Just when it was going to get interesting.”

  We were lying in your bed. Outside, the temperature had dropped more than forty degrees, and even Indian summer had given up the ghost. A slushy New England rain was splashing against our window.

  You kissed me and said, “I’ve got to get back to the cruel world, and study. I’ve got an exam in European Government tomorrow. Anyhow, since you have convinced me that we should in the future read each other’s journals ... there’s no sense in duplicating. You haven’t written a thing about yesterday. All you have done most of the day is sleep with an angelic smile on your face. When are you going to study?”

  “For your information,” I said, “when I knew that we were going to “E” College, I did all my work in advance. I’m really covered through Tuesday except for Vatsayana’s Kama Sutra, which we are supposed to have finished by Tuesday for Human Values. I’m in good shape.”

  “You can say that again,” you said dreamily. You snuggled against my breasts, sucking first one nipple then the other. I could see you were ready to start all over again, and I wasn’t going to need much more encouraging.

  “Not now,” I said practically. “You might wear it out ... and I wouldn’t want that to happen. What bothers me, if I finish the story in my journal it won’t be the same ... your reactions would be different from mine.”

  “See, I told you,” you said. “Like all females, you want your cake and eat it, too. Anyway, in the infamous history of our week-end at “E” College, I don’t think our reactions would be too dissimilar.”

  “You may be right,” I said. “I’d rather be me in bed with you than be Ruth or Susan ... but I can’t believe the boys in the fraternity are so bad. They are just frustrated and confused.”

  “I didn’t say they were so bad,” you said. “I just feel sorry for them. They’re not only frustrated now, they will be for years. Anyway, remember what I said. From now on, since you are determined that we read what each other writes, even if I disagree with you, I’ll write it down.”

  “You already have,” I said. “And it nearly made me chokel But now ... after this wonderful morning and afternoon, do you feel the same? ... or are you more selective?”

  So okay... Stanley Cole ... don’t answer ... but what could you do with Beth Hillyer that we haven’t done in the past six hours ... that’s what I’d like to know, by golly! Anyhow, here’s the rest of the story of “E” College seen through the eyes of the late, but not mourned, virgin ... Sheila Grove.

  As you know, after dinner at the frat house, we all went downstairs to the Fertility Room. I finally got you alone at the bar for a few minutes.

  “Don’t be a complete rat,” I begged you. “I’ve figured out Tom Brierly’s tactics. He’s trying to get me loaded ... and when I’m good and tipsy he thinks I’ll relax and enjoy ‘it’.”

  “What’s ‘it’,” you asked.

  “If ... is ... according to the best tradition in dating circles ... Four Finger Feelies. With his right hand and arm Tom keeps me in a suffering position. FFF logically proceeds to simultaneous P.O.”

  “What the heck is P.O.?” you asked.

  “I can see that you are not well acquainted with defensive action that is the female stock in trade. P.O. is Peripatetic Osculation usually attempted from head to toes.”

  “Not a bad idea,” you said.

  “Maybe ... but for me ... not with just anybody.”

  “Okay, where do I come in?” you asked.

  “Well,” I said, “I understand we’re going to some place called Tobey’s. It sounds to me like a S. D.... Seduction Den. My gosh, Stanley, you are nineteenth century. Anyway, I figured the only way to get out of a really serious clinch with Tom Brierly and do it gracefully is to pretend that he has succeeded beyond his wildest expectations.”

  “I don’t follow your torturous thinking,” you said hurriedly. “But you better get it off your chest fast, because Tom is arriving with a Mephistophelean smile on his manly face.”

  “Listen,” I told you hastily, “If I pretend I’m really whooshed ... believe me, I’ll only be pretending. I’ll just be hoping that the “E” College ethics dominates Tom’s morals, and he wouldn’t be interested in making love to an inebriated girl. If I guess wrong, then I’m counting on you to save me.”

  I know this plan seemed cock-eyed to you but I think you’ll agree that it should have made for harmonious relations and a more pleasant evening than if I pursued the untouchable virgin formula. By this time, I was back in Tom’s clutches, so I couldn’t discuss it further with you. Tom told me that Bill, Susan and Ruth were all raring to go to Tobey’s. Bill had run downtown for food to make breakfast, and in no time at all the car was loaded with liquor and we were on our way.

  You can say that a more logical approach to the evening was to freeze Tom in his tracks every time he made a pass at me ... or make it abundantly dear to him that I was a nice girl; but you must remember that most of my (adult?) life has been sans boys, and I was quite frankly curious to see in practice what I had only heard secondhand. I honestly agree with you that Harrad is changing our liv s, but at the moment even you are not entirely 54 sure where all of us are going ... and whether the results will be better than the tried and true way of female defensive countering male offensive until they end up in marriage and live unhappily ever after.

  So, if I acted like a prude, I was obviously going to put a damper on the whole evening so ... well, darn you anyway ... why explain my motives until you explain your bombshell daydream of enjoying Beth as well as me?

  We drove to Tobey’s, and I admit that even with you sitting in the front seat beside me while Tom drove, that maybe, after all, I was really playing with fire. Because while I was only playing a game, maybe you were playing for real.

  Oh, Stanley ... this morning and afternoon have been so nice. I never guessed that having you touch me and being so big inside me could be so warm ... hungry ... gentle ... tender. Are there any words in the world to describe how I feel?

  “I love you,” you said, and you told me you werea’t really interested in Ruth. But before I “passed out,” I did see you entwined with her on the bear-skin rug in front of Tobey’s fireplace. Well, I’m not jealous. After all, we don’t own each other, do we? Would you want to own me? I kind of agree with the Tenhausens that if our love survives Harrad and continues throughout our life, it will be because we have inextricably interwoven the threads of what really is the real you and me. Here and there, threads might unravel, or we might drop a stitch and have to go back and unravel it, but the total pattern would be constantly emerging and assuming a “Gestalt” that was the unity of us. Ye gods ... I’m becoming a philosopher. But any other way would be dull, stagnant, and boring. Wouldn’t it?

  Enough of Sheila pontificating.

  After driving through miles of woods and dirt roads full of pot holes that jounced you and Ruth even closer together, we arrived at Tobey’s, which turned out to be a log cabin on the edge of a moonlit lake that extended black and silver-rippled into the night. I was correct. This was a place where a maiden screaming for help would only get her own echo for reply. Inside were knotty pine walls, open ceilings, two bedrooms to the right and left of a huge fieldstone fireplace, and outside plumbing. Tobey is a former Chi Psi, or Deke, or something, who used the place in the summer for fishing (Ho! Ho!). He’d loaned the key to some brother or other from whom Bill had conveniently borrowed it. Bill and Tom had obviously been there before. (With whom?) Big dark mystery, but obviously dames ... chicks ... broads—such interesting names men have for us!

  We danced. That is you danced with Ruth to a hi-fi phonograph. Almost immediately Bill and Susan disappeared into one of the bedrooms. Slowly, inexorably, Tom Brierly plied your heroine with Tom Coll
ins’ first and martinis next (faster?). He didn’t grab or try to touch; just talked in soft endearing whispers until I began to wonder if I would “passout” in reality and not have to pretend at all. Such a conversation. Here’s a small extract:

  “You are really quite a fascinating girl, Sheila.”

  “Really quite ordinary,” I said.

  “No ... you have a unique charm. A savoir faire aloofness that is captivating.”

  “Oh?”

  “I find myself vibrating to you. Even your hands-off manner is a kind of invitation.”

  “Invitation to what?”

  “Call it reciprocal response. Beneath your cool exterior lies a full-grown, fiery woman. Do you ever let your hair down?”

  “You mean literally?”

  Tom grinned, and before I could stop him he had unpinned my up-do and my hair was on my shoulders.

  “You’re quite experienced in handling women’s hair,” I said.

  “Sheila, with your hair down you’re breath-taking! May I kiss you?”

  “I’m afraid to get too dose,” I said. “I’m a little dizzy. I’m afraid I’d see you double.” There was some truth in this.

  “You don’t have to look,” Tom said agreeably. “You’re supposed to close your eyes.”

  “And sigh passionately?”

  “Sheila, I’m a little crocked, too. It’s warm enough. What do you say for a little swim in the lake?”

  “It would be too cold for me. Besides, I have no bathing suit.”

  “It’s amazingly warm for this time of year. Come on. We can skinny zip.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Take off your shoes and stockings. We can walk in the water along the edge.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Sheila,” Tom said, passing his hand over his face. “I’m really crocked. Would you mind if I lay down in the bedroom for awhile?”

  “Of course not. Go ahead!”