The fourteen-year-old Eton student, Arthur Cardwell, was at the pool being given underwater breathing lessons when the English Tutor, Hunter Blackwell, appeared on the steps leading to the student changing rooms and gestured to him.

As soon as Arthur’s lessons were over he went looking for the tutor, finding him in an brick-fenced small garden area off the path from the changing rooms to the chemistry building.

“Have you forgotten that today was the day we were going punting together on the Thames, young man?” the tutor asked the boy. He ruffled Arthur’s golden-curls hair and looked down into his watering blue eyes. He did try to permit a hint of his desire to show through—he was on a long campaign to seduce the boy.

“I didn’t know you were serious, Tutor Blackwell,” Arthur said. “You’ve taken none of the other boys punting. But yes, I’d love to go. When do you have in mind for it?”

I’ve taken several boys punting, Blackwell thought, but the tutor spoke nothing of that. “I was thinking right now.”

“Perhaps I should go tell—”

“I’ve already made the arrangements,” Blackwell said. “Come, let’s walk down to the river.” They did so, Arthur settled in one of the boats. Blackwell climbed in and pushed off from the shore. With Arthur punting and Blackwell giving directions, the boat moved to one of the more deserted sections of the river, where there were coves off the river and willow trees with branches hanging low over the water.

“Settle yourself in the boat and I’ll read you some poetry,” Blackwell said. He opened his book and read for a while, occasionally looking at the small, perfectly formed, body of the fourteen-year-old student reclining at the stern of the boat.

“Floating along green-leafed tunnel on the river of life, world opprobrium casting off in rivulets in our wake...”

Hunter Blackwell stopped reading and cast an eye on young Arthur at the back of the scull, pulling on the oars now and guiding the boat into the eddy in the river beyond the dipping branches of a willow tree. Blackwell knew the cove very well. He had brought boys here before. It was a completely deserted section of the river, its banks lined by a deep stand of closely spaced trees and an overabundance of ferns and other lush plantings undergirding the broad oak branches and hanging Spanish moss.

A very romantic spot.

“I love to hear your voice reading this poetry, Tutor Blackwell,” Arthur whispered reverently as they entered their own private grotto.

Arthur’s shirt was off, as he’d solely taken on the job of paddling them down the small river, dark and lush under a canopy of trees, whose branches met across the top, creating very much a private, romantic tunnel effect. Blackwell had chosen the poetry just for this reason.

Blackwell was more pleased with Arthur than he had thought he would be. He was thin, yes, but his musculature was good. He was beautifully formed. Always the shy, thin, shortest one in the class. The one who would never raise his hand to answer a question, but the one who always would have the answer if challenged. Arthur’s wet shorts clung to his legs, and Blackwell longed to reach out and trace the length of the boy’s cock inside his shorts. This was when the tutor liked to pluck them—in the stage in which the boy is changing to a young man—to a young man capable of an erection from arousal but without a full understanding of what caused a sudden arousal—but innocent enough to be full of awe when shown how to satisfy the arousal.

The combination of the wine—Blackwell had told the boy it was quite all right to sip the wine and the boy had believed him, prepared to believe whatever Blackwell told him—and the atmosphere of the river, and Blackwell’s reading of the poetry, with each poem he read studiously becoming more and more explicit, had put the boy into the mood Blackwell wanted him in. Blackwell saw that Arthur was hard through his clinging shorts. Nearly as hard as Blackwell himself was.

The boy probably didn’t even fully know what being hard signified or have sufficient defensive mechanisms to mask his own arousal.

They had arrived in Blackwell’s special place along the river. He liked to think of it as his grotto of deflowering. How many fourteen-year-old boys had lost their virginity to him here, in the soft-swirling water between banks of ferns and the weeping willow tree? He had lost count himself.

“You read the lines to me now, Arthur. Here, give me those paddles and lay back in the stern and rest. Yes, stretch your legs. Go ahead you can run your legs along each side of the gunwales. That will be fine. But you’re soaked. Let’s take these shorts off and lay them over the bench at the bow to dry. Oh, no worry, it’s just you and me. No one will see us here. We’re in our own world. We’ll just let the rivulets of opprobrium drift away, shall we? Just as the poem said.”

The young student was weakened with wine and the effort to paddle them here—and the romantic mood of river and the soothing, rich voice of his tutor, who had been reading him suggestive and arousing poetry as they paddled away from the river bank at Eton school and into the world of the enchanting river.

And besides, he wanted this. He had been in love with Tutor Blackwell since the beginning of the term. He’d as much said so to Blackwell. And he was sure that the tutor had shown interest in him. Of course, he’d never done it with another man—or with a woman either, truth be known—he was far too young for that yet. But the poetry of the Romantic poets that the tutor had assigned to the class to read had opened a whole new world for him—as had the guided study of the pasts of the poets—guided by Tutor Blackwell.

Thus, although he was trembling—and scandalized, in a titillating way—when the tutor said Arthur’s wet shorts would give him a cold if they didn’t take them off and let them dry and then pulled them off the boy’s legs and laid them over the bench he’d been sitting on in the bow, Arthur raised no objection, gave no alarm.

“Read the next lines to me Arthur,” Blackwell said as he moved to the bench in the center of the boat, placing him between the legs Arthur now had stretched along the gunwales on either side of Blackwell’s torso. Arthur’s cock was standing nearly erect. He didn’t seem to be the least bit aware of what that signified—or what it did to Blackwell’s arousal.

Neither the man nor the boy mentioned the compromising position.

Arthur took the book from Blackwell and read, “Piercing rapier, boat’s bow and lover’s gift, slicing like a knife. Being all, giving all for discovery’s sake.”

As he finished the line, he let out a gasp. No longer able to pretend. “Tutor. I don’t ... I’ve never—”

“Shush, Arthur. It’s all right. It’s all as it should be. And it’s very private here. Just lay back now and close your eyes and take in the moment. Experience it all, fully, like the Romantic poets did. Do you know that all of the Romantic poets had close relationships with other men?—many with their tutors, like I am to you. I’m sure you’ve experimented with other boys in your house at the school, and you trust me, don’t you? Breathing lessons. Lay back, relax, and merge the sensations of what you feel with those invoked by the poetry.”

Blackwell had one hand cupping Arthur’s balls and the other wrapped around his cock and rhythmically, but tentatively, gently, squeezing and releasing.

Arthur, now laying full back, legs spread along the gunwales, hands dipped in the water on either side of the boat, eyes closed, body trembling all over. A deep moan, with a catch of breath at the end. “Tutor. We must stop. I’m not—”

“The Romantic poets didn’t deny any sensation that would give wings to their poetry. You’ve told me you want to be a poet. To be so, you must be totally free. Many of the Romantic poets had male lovers—it informed and enriched their understanding of poetry. You must experience it all. Listen to those words again, Arthur: ‘Piercing rapier, slicing like a knife’; ‘gift of the lover’; ‘giving all—experiencing all, being open to all—for discovery sake.’ Food for the muses, Arthur. You know what the poet was speaking of. You can feel it. Tell me you can feel it.”

“Yes, yes, I feel it,” Arthur whispered through another moan. “But, oh, ohhh, not—”

“Tell me what the poet was describing, Arthur.”

“I don’t—”

“Yes you do, Arthur. You do know. I’ve taught you to interpret poetry—to open it up, reveal it.”

And here Arthur gasped because Blackwell was pushing back his foreskin and lightly rubbing the young man’s glans with saliva-lubed fingers.

“The poet was talking of love, Arthur. Of making love—to another man.”

“But I don’t ... I’ve never...”

“You’re doing it now, Arthur. And it’s pleasant, isn’t it? You are open to it and you are doing it now. There’s no reason to resist it, as you already are doing it.”

Of course the boy wasn’t actually already “doing it,” but making him think so would ease transition into that phase.

The hand cupping Arthur’s balls had moved farther down and under. There were two fingers at the rim to his channel, and Arthur was shuddering and his hands had gone to the tutor’s shoulders, the tutor being hunched over his torso now. At first he weakly, indecisively was trying to push the shoulders away, but as Blackwell’s lubed fingers, prepared while Arthur was laying back, eyes closed, entered the channel far enough for Blackwell to find the prostate, the hands on Blackwell’s shoulder no longer were pushing; they were gripping hard with fingers pressed into skin and pulling Blackwell to him. Obligingly, Blackwell’s face dipped down, and he took one of the Arthur’s nipples in his mouth and rolled it between his teeth.