All other ideas were obliterated. Mademoiselle, Beatrice, and the girls appeared to be the phantom creatures of another universe, the events of the morning but glimpses of a delusive visionary existence. How long I hung there, I knew not.
At length the door opened. It seemed far off and did not concern me. I did not care to notice who entered. What did it matter whether it was Elise or anyone else? I felt no interest in anything. Presently I felt a hand upon that part of my frame which conclusively denied my girlhood. Mad and exasperating tomfoolery that pretence was! So essentially a woman's notion!
I opened my eyes.
"Gracious lawks!" the creature exclaimed. "I thought you were asleep, Master Julian. He! He! I beg pardon; Miss Julia, I mean. A fine miss, truly. He! He!"
I looked at her; surely I had seen her before. It was Mary. I groaned.
"Don't-don't touch me," I gasped.
"Likely-likely indeed; we, poor maids are not to have feelings-not touch you indeed! I'll touch you," rubbing me violently, "my fine young gentleman. Miss Elise is to have all the pleasure, is she? Not if I know it. What a fine bottom," pinching it. "My lawks! If it wasn't that Miss Elise," putting her hand through my legs, "might come in at any moment, I'd take you down and make you do your duty like a man. Yes, I would. I'd have him. I'd make him rear his head inside me, just as he's doing now. It ought to be cut off, it ought. What business have you with it, Miss?" giving it a series of vicious pulls. "Come, I'll jerk it off for you. My gracious, it really does one good to see a self-opinioned young rascal strung up stark naked. My! I'd make him work."
Then standing a yard or two away in front of me, she rapidly lifted her skirts, displaying her stalwart, well-shaped legs. She was a comely damsel enough, very coarse. She gathered up the garments so as to expose to full view a hairy region, and an enormous affair in the centre.
It horrified me. Much larger, much fiercer than that of Mademoiselle or Beatrice. What a monster, what an engine! Capable of sucking the very life out of one. I trembled.
"Come, how do you like it? It would make you work. Pity I can't get you between my legs. Ay!" dropping her skirts. "You don't speak; none of your airs. I'll cure you of those," and standing at my side, she smacked my bottom with her hard, red hand. "I'll warm you; ask my pardon at once, or"-smack, smack-"I'll make you kiss it the first chance I get, although that's a nasty, dirty trick. There, you've quite warmed my hand."
I could only groan.
"Beg my pardon, or I will make Miss Elise punish you. Wait till she'll tie you again. Now that I've seen your thing I'll have you on the bed under me in a trice."
"Oh, Mary."
"Mary, indeed! Beg my pardon. Nice to be under your governess' maid, isn't it? She'll lend you to me and Susan tonight, she will. Susan is my bed-fellow. Who's Susan? Why, the scullery maid. We'll have you between us- promise!"
The idea of being prostituted by these animals filled me with a sickly terror. All my beautiful dreams dashed to pieces.
And yet what was the difference between their lust and Mademoiselle's love, which I had so ardently desired? Elise came presently, looking vicious.
Mary got the steps and put them by me. Elise, without a word, gave me a few gratuitous lashes with her whip, unfastened my legs, made me mount the steps, unhook my hands, and descend.
I tottered and almost fell. Elise threatened to make Mary lie back on the bed with her dress up, and to rub my face well into her disgusting parts, much to that wrench's supreme delectation. She was covered with blushes, when Elise had finished speaking, and looked most repulsively love sick. Elise undid my swollen hands, and marched me into the next room where I found breakfast. Here she ordered me to lie down on the floor at her feet, confess the outrage I had put upon her the evening before, clasp her knees, and humbly and abjectly ask her pardon for the insult.
I lay down and she kicked me. It was repugnant to my very soul to confess that what I had done, or rather refused to do, was an outrage. It had been the price I had paid for my night with Mademoiselle.
"You insulted me, you wretch!"
"Indeed, indeed, Elise!"
"How dare you call me Elise?" (kick, kick). "Lie there. Don't dare to get up, you beast! Say Miss Elise!"
"Oh, Miss Elise, I had to-"
"Yes, you dog, although I favoured you so-under my petticoats, my word! — and in my hands; an ugly old bitch would have affected you more."
"Mademoiselle?"
"What is that to me-you set me at defiance. Mademoiselle gloried in the insult to me" (more kicks). "You wretch, you," and she became quite red with vexation. "It was an outrage. Confess."
I acknowledged it, although a great part of my life went with the acknowledgment. I clasped her knees and servilely begged her 101
pardon-implored it, prayed it. She smiled with satisfaction at the depths of humiliation to which she reduced me.
Taking me by the ear she led me into her bedroom and placed me across her bed, flat on my back, as Beatrice had done, my head again between her thighs as on the previous night. Then she worked me into a state of tremendous excitement, having previously, under threats of the severest penalties, made me promise on her account to "go off," as she called it. When I had grown enormously large she held me tightly with her legs and hurt me there fearfully. I thought she was tearing that sensitive part of me open. What she really did was to push the tight foreskin back, and she left it so. I danced about the room in anguish for this was the first time this had ever been done.
In that state I was bathed, then dressed as a girl with a tight corset of Beatrice's. Before she dressed me she replaced the skin with some difficulty. I was in such a state of nervous trepidation as to be scarcely able to eat.
When lesson time arrived she took me to the schoolroom and just outside the door she slyly slipped her hand under my skirts, got hold of that thing, and with a vicious vigorous tug, at which I nearly fainted, dragged back the skin and left it so. Then, opening the door, she pushed me in.
Mademoiselle and the girls were there. They immediately noticed my condition and laughed. Mademoiselle made me sit down. I could not sit still, but wriggled and fidgeted, and could not keep my hands quiet.
At last, Mademoiselle, tired of correcting me, gave me two bad marks and made Maud tie my hands behind and smack my face. I could not get the thing right. I was so bewildered I could not attend to lessons. My fidgeting continued until Maud was directed to hold me down across the ottoman and Agnes to birch me.
Still I was not cured.
Mademoiselle then enquired what was wrong. I could not tell her.
More birching till I could tell her. When I did so, she laughed delightedly and I had to lift up my skirts in front and stand whilst she gave leave to anyone who choose to take compassion on me to put me right.
No one moved. Could it have been expected of girls?
I had to go and ask each one in turn.
Maud gave me a blow for the insult.
Beatrice tickled my raw thing with her quill.
Agnes said she would not touch the horrid nasty affair.
Mademoiselle ultimately took pity on me.
That shameful part of me was, of course, prominently exposed to Mademoiselle and her smiling pupils.
I suppose the mad craving which I have heard exists in some men for being whipped by ladies is due to the possession in which it puts those ladies of the private structure of their bodies. It is an anticipation of the delight, resulting from a woman's conquest and control of their animal natures, gained by her in the act of copulation. But it always seemed to me to be founded upon a morbid appreciation of shame, and a morbid delectation in it.
Punishment by and before men would, of course, be a totally different matter.
The mystery of this fleeting evanescent feeling which I could not catch and analyse worried me.