Now, under the level fringe of dark hair, her eyes filled with dismay. Yet I had endured enough of her impudence and was resolved.
"You fear you will not be able to bear it, Noreen? Fortunately, the choice is not yours. You will be made to bear it all the same."
She could not take her eyes off the long, rippling bamboo. I was determined to subdue her quickly. She gave a gasp of fright as I measured the first stroke very low, across the light creases which divided Noreen's statuesque buttocks and thighs, a supremely sensitive area.
"Six strokes in succession across there, Noreen, to teach you manners!"
The first lash of the bamboo across that path made her fingers clench and thighs press hard together. A flat smack! of the cane across the same track brought a half-suppressed cry. With wicked but righteous accuracy, I landed two more on top of those. Noreen screamed as the last two whipped the swelling bamboo print of the others.
"And two more across there, Noreen. Just where the edge of the chair comes. Remember this when next you are tempted to be insolent."
Twice more I caught her there. Noreen's bottom-cheeks were writhing, as if she were seated bare on a red-hot saddle. What a tale of woe might be read in that hard young face now; Noreen's tears were brimming and coursing down. I touched the cane across the crowns of her buttocks, where she was so broad. "Eight strokes here, Noreen. Right where you sit." Wide-eyed and wild-mouthed, she made the rafters ring. I allowed her a pause after the second batch. Then I put my lips to her ear. "And now, Noreen, your thirty-six." At nineteen, Noreen is so strongly built I quite thought she would break the straps in her frenzy at learning this. But they held her. I continued to murmur to her-for my bark was to prove worse then my bite-explaining the leniency of such discipline. There were countries in the world, I told her, where such insolence by a slave girl to her master would be rewarded by one last night. There, too, she would be
on all fours, though strapped down astride the traditional bench, her thighs conveniently parted and rump-cheeks spread. The grave-faced vizier would watch the two burly, lion-clothed minions during the long night. The whips and the implements of the brazier would be eagerly employed upon Noreen's bottom there, no less than between her thighs. Monstrous devices would impale her both ways. Without remorse, dawn would bring the belly skewer to nineteen-year-old Noreen and the leather collar would be tightened inexorably. The final scene would reveal Noreen tumbled arse-upwards in a dark pit, the food for predators.
Such words do more good than all the canes in the world. With the thrashing at last finished, I undid the straps which held her ankles and legs.
If you imagine her lashing back at me with her feet kicking wildly, you are quite wrong. Noreen set her knees wide apart with frantic haste, thrust her hips back, and begged for love in the humblest and most pleading terms. She sobbed for it, if only as a temporary respite from correction. What could I do? Laying down the cane I knelt behind her and unbuttoned myself. Then my stiffness parted the way through her love-pouch from behind and into her warm, receptive depths. Gently at first, then harder, we rode together until the bomb of passion burst and I flooded her most copiously.
How she feared now that the caning might resume! Lowering her shoulders and straight dark hair, she raised her seat and begged for love another way. When I said that she deserved to be caned for suggesting such a thing, she pleaded all the harder, most vulgarly offering me her "arse" and promising "a good time" with it.
My finger soaped her tight portal of Sodom. "Too late to recant now, Noreen!" I said, smiling at her. "Will you still think it worth the excitement when I cane you for this afterwards? Now lie more tightly over the scroll."
I did not, of course, punish her as I threatened. Taking her breasts in my hands as the guide, I rode Noreen's arse in the grand manner, spending copiously inside it. When it was over, she knew that the caning might follow. I could scarcely believe her next request. I undid her and staggered to the chair, from which I have not had the strength to rise since being squeezed from Noreen's rear. Yet I gave my consent to her suggestion. As I pen these last lines, she kneels before me and takes in her mouth my stiffening… My darling Lizzie, I can write no further… Ah, Noreen, you delicious young whore! Your tongue-use it again like that! Ah!…
… A leather strap round your throat, Noreen, that I may guide you by its reins… Rise now, turn, and bend… Sit upon the love-lance… Deep in your behind. Noreen!… Move up and down gently… And thus, my sweet Lizzie… Harder, Noreen, you young bitch!
Believe me, Lizzie, your own adoring Charles.
LETTER 10
My darling Lizzie,
Catastrophe has come upon us! I write at the first opportunity, knowing not where I am, and having only a general notion of the day of the month.
You will scarcely believe what has occurred-the audacity and the impudence of the young whore who has brought such things about! When I wrote my last adoring letter to you, I was, you may well believe, in a state of nervous excitement after my night of fun with Noreen. I was still lightly distracted and, therefore, made a fair copy of the letter in which I corrected all those small errors one makes under such circumstances. The rough copy, with all its blots and scorings out, I discarded in the waste-paper basket. Why did I not burn it-I would surely have done so within the hour?
I went to post my letter to you. When I returned, the basket had been emptied by the servant, and the paper had gone. I thought no more of this. What could it matter? On the following day, Miss Martinet and I received a visitor-an inspector of constabulary! Noreen, in a wild passion of vengeance for being thrashed, had stolen the copy of my letter and smuggled it out to the local newspaper! The proprietor of the paper, an officious penny-a-liner oaf, had gone with it to the police station!
Here was a pretty pickle! The inspector was friendship itself, and most respectful to one of my standing in society.
"The pity of it is, sir," he said, supping the tea which Miss Martinet had poured, "that something cannot be done about such young whores as Noreen! They get above themselves and imagine it is their privilege to abuse their superiors! If I had my way, such sluts would be taken to the strictest prison and there birched raw twice a week. If they were never set at liberty to make mischief again, it would not greatly trouble me."
This gave me hopes that I should come off well.
"Unfortunately, sir," he went on, "now that this has come to the notice of the newspaper and the police, it cannot well be ignored. If there were any way to prevent it coming to court, it should be done. Alas, sir, it cannot now be done. Even without any generous consideration from yourself and Miss Martinet, I would strive to prevent it. But that is beyond my power now. Be sure we shall have our eyes upon the newspaper fellow and shall prosecute him at the first chance. But what good will that do you, sir?"
I opened my pocket-book, drew out several bank notes, and made his visit well worth his while. Next day came Colonel Whackford, the chief constable of the county. He was full of the same regrets.
"There must be a prosecution, Mr. Charles," he said, shaking his old grey head sadly, "but count upon me for one thing. It shall be delayed a day or two. Make the best of your chance. It would be a timely thing if you could manage to make yourself scarce the next two or three years. The young bitch who caused the trouble might also be transferred elsewhere."
The chairman of the local justices also paid us a call-going away with his pockets fuller. Wringing his hands, he swore that next day he would be obliged to sign a warrant for my arrest and another for Noreen's detention as a witness. He had tried to prevent this but the Lord Chancellor, his master, had been adamant. It was not that the Lord Chancellor too could not be bribed-being only a politician, after all-but rather that his price came too steep for us.