I went and leant against the pretty bed. The room was thickly carpeted, the window curtained.
Gertrude came in and locked the door.
"I must see," she said, coming up to me, "how you are. I do not think it is good for you to remain any longer in the condition in which I put you in the train."
She seemed to have quite forgotten my declaration.
"Besides," she went on, "you were left in the sitting room, while Mademoiselle and I were changing our things. You must want to wash your hands and face-and-and-to do something else, too," with a delightfully quizzical look, which embarrassed me extremely. "And there is some hot water here; and this-" as she opened a drawer and shew me a long tube with a bulbous thing in its centre. I knew what it was and turned pale. "And yet you want to love your mamma, you indecent boy!" with a pat on my face. I caught her hand and kissed it.
"Well, you must first obey her," as she unbuttoned my trousers.
Her soft and nimble fingers quickly undid and drew them down.
"Naughty boy! Its mamma must really take its little trousers off. Take off your jacket and waistcoat first, Julian. Now your shoes. Now slip off the trousers-yes, right off."
She next unfastened my corset and drawers, and I stood before her in chemise and stockings.
She turned me backwards over the bed, with my chemise over my breast; from the tops of my stockings to it, I was exposed to her searching gaze, and she gloated upon what she saw.
"Poor fellow!" she said, presently. "How swollen, how red, how inflamed he is! I must set him right."
Her soft hand was soon upon me, and a little very exciting determination effected her purpose. I gave a sigh of intense relief.
"Now you must turn over," she ordered, leaving me and going to the wash-hand-stand where she poured out some hot water into the basin and tempered it with cold. "Mademoiselle has told me how you behaved to your cousin Maud. I feel it my duty to make you feel something of what you did to her."
"Oh, please, Mamma! Oh, please, please, Miss Stormont!"
"Now," she said, lifting her finger, "you must obey. Remember, I have a little whip. I am not at all sure that I am not under an obligation-a promise-to wale your bottom for you, you great, big, naughty child! I advise you not to recall it to my recollection. I shall not hurt you, Julian," she added, as she observed my look of consternation.
As she uttered the word "bottom," she blushed divinely.
I turned over. She put a chair by the bed beside me, and an end of the tube into the basin of water, which she set upon it.
"Oh, Mamma," I said, "please! I do not know how to tell you, but there is something I want to do, must do, first."
"You must tell me!"
"I can't! Oh! Ever since lunch-all the way in the train, I could not get out; and here I have had no opportunity."
It was such a terrible thing to have to tell a woman, and my thoughts reverted to Beatrice, and to that night in the bedroom. I was glad that now it was not quite as bad as then.
"I can guess," said Gertrude slyly and sweetly. "It wants to be held out, the big baby!" What a womanly girl she looked.
"Yes," I said blushing.
"Well! Say, please, Mamma, may I pee before you punish me?"
"Oh, Gertrude!"
"Gertrude! Sir, how dare you!"
"Oh, please, Mamma!"
"Well go on-"
"Oh! I was going to ask, don't make me say that-"
"I daresay-you must say it, if you want to, or you shall not do it. Now, choose!"
And before my beautiful Vivien, I had to say those words; hiding my face, doing all I could to conceal it. I seemed to give her wonderful pleasure, and I suppose I looked very artless and attractive, for she kissed me.
"Get the pot," she said, her eyes full of mischief. "Put it on the chair."
"Now, come," she said, taking hold of me and walking me over to the chair. She put her right arm round me from the back and held up my chemise.
"Now Baby, Baby, tiddley, tiddley-be quick!"
I laughed. "I can't," I exclaimed.
"Nonsense, Baby. Baby must."
"Oh, Mamma! You darling," I exclaimed.
"Baby be dear boy. Baby do what his mamma wants him to, and not keep her waiting."
This aspect of the affair settled the matter.
Baby did.
"Good boy!" said his mamma.
Then baby put the vessel under the valance and lay face downwards on the bed.
His mamma, charming girl that she was, stroked his bottom and explained his wickedness to him while she screwed in the tube. Then as baby groaned, she filled the bulb full, and with an arm and a hand on the small of baby's back, squeezed it, and I felt the warm water enter into my bowels.
"Baby not be naughty with his cousin any more," she said, her sweet womanliness overpowering me as releasing the pressure of her hand she let the tube fill again, "for his mamma does not like to have to punish him but when he is naughty she must," squeezing the now full bulb again.
"Oh! Oh! No more." I felt I should burst. "Oh, Mamma! Oh, Gertrude! Oh, my dear Mamma! Oh! Oh! Oh!"
"Yes. Baby must be thoroughly punished; his bottom must be made to suffer."
The idea of her being conscious of what I was undergoing; of her, Gertrude Stormont, the stranger who had entered the railway carriage at Colchester, the beautiful girl in the brown dress with the golden hair and her ladylike refinement, doing this to me, filled me with all manner of sensations, pleasant and unpleasant. I could not escape.
Again the bulb was pressed, and at last the gurgle in the basin told me the allotted portion was exhausted.
"There," she said, withdrawing the whole instrument, "I think I have punished you well."
"Take this dressing gown of mine; put it about you-there is a bathroom at the other side of the passage. Go and have a bath and then come back to me."
I went. I cannot describe the multitude of feelings with which I was overwhelmed.
I bathed, and did more; the bathroom possessed all the necessary accommodation of course-though really the sanitary arrangements of these private hotels are not all up to date, not all that could be desired.
Wrapping myself up, I returned up, I returned to Gertrude. Her hair was down; the snake of gold which had withheld the braid had been removed. She was combing its lovely, gorgeous, waving masses with a maidenly pride.
"Oh, my beautiful Mamma!" I exclaimed.
She had removed her dress also, and was in a pretty peignoir. My dressing gown was all I had on; the stockings and chemise I threw on the bed.
Without a word she got up and taking hold of the dressing gown, opened it, and threw it off my shoulders.
She made me walk about the room and at length said: "Now, Julian! What have you to say to me?"
"Oh, Gertrude! I mean Mamma, I–I-love you!"
"You, very naughty boy!" she answered with mock disapprobation but smiling and evidently well pleased as she moved towards a satin-covered couch on which there was a great square pillow and reclined upon it her golden hair like an aureole about her fair face. "Don't you know, don't you remember, I have already told you that it is very wicked to entertain such feelings for your mamma?"
There was a strange gleam in her eyes as she said this which immediately excited my wonder. I did not know what she was driving at and was considerably puzzled. As to my feelings, however, there was no opportunity for being puzzled. How attractive, how desirable she looked, as she lay there in a dishabille of the most alluring kind, one slender leg unveiled almost to the knee and the other far away from its sister at the other side of the sofa. When a young lady sits edgewise upon a table, she is said to be in want of a husband; when she lies on her back in the presence of a naked young man, careless about her clothing, her eyes aflame, and her legs well separated, it may safely be affirmed she wishes to welcome that young man to her arms. But then why baulk him with all this talk, this fiction of being his mamma? I suppose it excited her. No doubt the idea of being possessed by, of yielding to her son, gave a peculiar, a poignant zest to it, which the ordinary humdrum everyday copulation of a youth and maiden would have been without. And to this sense of double possession and power must, I think, be attributed the treatment most stepmothers accord their stepsons. It causes a peculiar especial flavour to the lust. A strong stimulant to the imagination, which no woman can say "No" to, and as they are too conventional, or want the courage to act as Parisina, they 206