It all started with a dirty illustration that Nigel had shown him, entitled "Making Love" that at first shocked and confused him. Having grown up on a farm the act of coitus was familiar enough to him, maybe even pedestrian, but the people depicted in the little engraving were not engaged in that. Instead, a laughing woman straddled a man's face, her night gown pulled up over her breasts, exposing the cleft between her thighs that covered the man's mouth. His eyes peeped up at her, his expression obscured by her feminine flesh. "Is he kissing her…?" Nikola trailed off uncertainly, prompting Nigel to laugh obnoxiously. "Never seen that before, have we then? Some women do like a good licking before the main event. Some even prefer it to intercourse. Myself, I have to say that I rather prefer the opposite, but being willing to do this makes them a lot more willing." Nikola smiled awkwardly and nodded, as though he knew anything about women. The closest he'd come to intimate contact with a woman had been a few kisses with his childhood sweetheart back in Smiljan.
"You should really come with us to town one night. The girls would love you as handsome as you are, they'll probably give you one time for free." Nikola shook his head. Nigel as well as their mutual friends John and James often frequented the plentiful brothels in the city, but Nikola couldn't stand the idea of it. Having any kind of contact with a stranger was repulsive, much less that sort of contact. He let Nigel know he had to study and left. But once he was in the privacy of his little room at Oxford, he found his mind wandering away from the textbook in his hands to that prurient sketch. The woman was charmingly drawn, with her delighted features framed by long curls trailing over her small bosom. The image of Helen's blond curls flashed in his mind's eye, her teeth like little pearls when she smiled. What if she were looking down on him the way that girl in the drawing was, straddling her lover so wantonly? What if he were the one pressed beneath her most secret parts, overwhelmed by her femininity, only his excited eyes exposed? Nigel had mentioned licking. Did men really do such a thing? The place of love was located between two sewers, as it were, and he found himself simultaneously disgusted and aroused by the notion. What would it taste like? It was unimaginable, and for a man accustomed to being able to picture everything in lifelike detail, the idea was incredibly intriguing.
…
"Are you quite alright Nikola? You've been staring into space for twenty minutes now." Nikola startled at the sound of Helen's voice. "What? Oh, I was inventing…" he lied. Since viewing Nigel's illustration all he could think about was what such an experience would be like. His obsessive mind was high jacked by the continuously repeating image of sliding under Helen's voluminous skirt to find her legs on either side of him, then watching avidly as she squatted over his face, her bare-"There you go again. Really, it must be something truly groundbreaking if you can barely take your attention off it." Helen laughed delighted when he sputtered, "Really! I can't focus around you at all at the moment. Maybe we should try studying together later?"
…
He had always found Helen fetching, no more than fetching, riveting. Since the first time he saw her, in that red, red dress, her bosom high and proud, the glory of her hair like pure sunlight streaming over her shoulders, he was helpless before her. Every moment he wasn't gazing upon her gorgeous form, part of his brain was holding the image of it in his mind. Luckily he was able to think about several things simultaneously, otherwise he would have never been able to get anything done. She would have ruined him for science and inventing. Hell, she would have ruined him for basic mathematics. Now that he had unexpectedly contracted this sexual obsession, he was indeed ruined, at least for the time being. It was taking all his focus just to interact normally with her, but he couldn't help but stare at her when her back was turned, and he was beginning to worry that observers could tell something of what he was thinking.
…
"The man is undressing her with his eyes! It's so obvious! And it isn't as if our engagement is a secret. It's outrageous behavior, even from someone that weird." Nigel shook his head and scoffed disbelievingly as John ranted over Nikola's supposed ogling of his fiancé Helen. "He stares at everyone. It's probably just a foreigner thing. Wilhelm stares at everyone all the time too." John turned to James looking for sympathy, "It's not a foreigner thing! The way Wilhelm stares isn't the same at all, is it James?" James stroked his beard, "Well, certainly the two stares are not the same, but we all know that Tesla isn't a German really, so what does that prove? And besides, the man is terribly odd. I swear he was sleeping standing up with his eyes open the other day." John couldn't take any more. "I'll go talk to Helen, surely she will understand my concerns!"
…
Nikola had finally managed to divert his thoughts away from sheer perversity and back to the serious business of inventing, but unfortunately it was mostly along the lines of how to best get a good view up Helen's skirt without her knowing it. He thought first about a simple mirror, perhaps it might slide subtly out of the leg of his trousers to rest gently on his shoe, and with a surreptitious glance he might catch a glimpse of her underwear. But no, how would he see up there without any light source? Adding that would certainly make it too obvious and it would be too large besides. The need for a light source made him think of the flash of photography. Yes, photography was much more promising. It would not be terribly hard to implant a camera into a recess in the floor and entice Helen to stand over it, but surely she would notice a great flash of light under her skirts wouldn't she? That was a problem. But what if the pretense was that he was taking a photograph of her already, and he explained that this new method of photography simply required multiple flashes from every angle? Now that idea had some promise! With so many blinding flashes from every direction, she would hardly notice another one under her skirt, would she?
Nikola began visualizing the scene in detail, savoring it. Imagining her tight little calves, covered in sheer white stockings, followed by some little lacy hems of…whatever sort of underthings ladies wore…Hmm, he was really looking forward to knowing what exactly those items of clothing looked like. It was putting a bit of a damper on things, being unable to accurately picture what they looked like. The highest up a woman's skirt he had ever seen was that terrible time he jumped off the stairs in his father's church and landed right on one of the dear old ladies' train. It had ripped all the way up the back to her stockinged knees. His father had been so furious! The memory of the gentle slap his father gave him brought him to his senses. What was he thinking, planning on photographing his friend without her knowledge and consent? This obsession was really going too far.
…
-And thus upskirt photography was set back immeasurably!