She flew to Mademoiselle and kissed her hands. For a moment she permitted the kisses; and then, giving her a pat with the back of one of her hands upon her mouth, withdrew them both.
"Undress!" she ordered. "Julia, put the bench in the middle of the room and the bolster upon it."
I did what I was told to but trembled so much and gasped to such an extent that I had hardly strength to move it.
"Now, Julia!" as I fumbled.
Mademoiselle fixed her eyes on me and perceived my condition in consequence of which she gave me a stinging cut with the birch across my shoulders which bit fearfully, although over my dress. I gave a little shriek, but I had no longer any difficulty in executing her orders. I placed the bench in position, and the bolster upon it.
Lady Alfred was still fumbling with her buttons, furtively glancing at Mademoiselle every now and then, to see whether there was the slightest appearance or sign of a disposition to relent. I had been in the same predicament myself and was devoutly thankful I was not so now.
"Come, come!" cried Mademoiselle, tapping the ground impatiently with her foot. "I cannot stay here all day to punish your bottom, Alfred. Be quick, off with your coat and waistcoat! Now the trousers and drawers, too-yes, everything, to your shirt, you bold, good-for- nothing boy! You'd much sooner see a girl in your plight and have a prospect of examining her bottom, and of whipping it, than of having to expose your own and to be whipped. Be quick, or I shall make you kiss Julia's bottom!"
"Mademoiselle!" she exclaimed, standing erect and aghast.
"Yes, I will. Be quick!"
The trousers and drawers were soon pulled down.
I saw a pair of plump, round, white legs and pretty round ankles, and white exquisitely shaped feet.
"Now stand across the bench. Julia, strap his ankles together."
I obeyed.
"Julia, hand me some pins."
I did so.
Mademoiselle put down the birch. Taking the tail of the shirt, she pinned it up to Lady Alfred's shoulders, and then did the same in front.
I looked eagerly at the young, but fully developed, fresh girlish form before me with the soft silky down in front at the navel. I noticed and gloated over the large well-formed hips, and the soft, white, shrinking little bottom. How could Mademoiselle find it in her heart to punish such a tender beautiful little back?
There was no implement in front now. Lady Alfred was a girl, and a beautiful one. The reason she was so anxious I should be absent was because she knew I was a boy. This was all plain to me now. My contemplations and cogitations were brusquely cut short by Mademoiselle's ordering me to put a strap round her waist and the bench, and to fix her together underneath it.
Then she stroked her bottom and talked to her; passing her hand through between her legs, she tickled what she knew how to find, agitating Lady Alfred's frame convulsively.
How dare she pretend to be a boy? How dare she wear trousers? She (Mademoiselle) would whip her follies out of her, cure her of immodesty and indecency.
And Mademoiselle immediately suited the action to the word in her finished style: scientific, methodical, deliberate, and cruel.
She punished Lady Alfred's bottom most soundly until it bled. I was made to stand at the foot and could see all.
Lady Alfred took the castigation with surprising courage until Mademoiselle came to the last dozen, which as usual she inflicted lengthwise. The ends of the fresh birch curled about the insides of Lady Alfred's legs like vicious live things and all her fortitude vanished as if by magic.
She abandoned herself perforce to the agony; rolled and twisted, wrenched her wrists in the straps, and stiffened and relaxed her pretty, beautifully shaped legs.
Presently, unable to contain herself, she screamed again and again.
Mademoiselle appeared to be beside herself, her eyes positively flamed. Her transport terrified me. She seemed sensible of nothing but the writhing form beneath her. The last three cuts were delivered on the very centre of the very organ.
At the first she yielded, at the third and last she appeared to faint. Mademoiselle threw down the birch and sank into an armchair.
"Julia," she cried, "come here"; and she pointed between her widely and indecently outstretched legs. I flew to her and my head was soon lost in her drapery, and, clasped tightly by her limbs, was pressed against her navel.
The mouth was moist and the moustache was wet. I found the excited and enlarged organ with my tongue and tickled it. Soon the welcome spasm overtook her and with a sigh the humid expression of her feelings was shot into my mouth. She seemed greatly solaced, but kept me there, and a second time I repeated the task.
After a few minutes she arose. She was greatly relieved, but my paroxysm of passion was rendered more acute. And it was not by any means diminished by the sight before me.
There lay Lady Alfred Ridlington in a posture of the most abject humiliation, quietly sobbing now that she had come to herself, but her hands bound together underneath the bench, unable to use them to wipe her eyes, her legs separated by the rude bench which passed through the hallowed sanctuary they supported.
And there were her bottom and her rich thighs all well-waled, cut, and discoloured by the birch. In places the wales were latticed and they tended to the insides of her legs in an ominous fashion. On her bottom were spots of now congealed blood.
Lady Alfred turned her head from side to side upon the sofa. She had given her legs several jerks and had similarly signified her wish for the release of her hands. Her arms were concealed by the shirt sleeves as was also her back by that incongruous garment; but I saw enough of its graceful shape, white, elegant, and delicately curved, to make me long to see all. I thought of the picture in Maud's bedroom. I love the vue de dos of a woman.
What a strange whim on her part to wear trousers! to pretend to be a man! to have the pretence carried to the length of being punished like a boy! It was quite plain that it was this that gave the whole business its peculiar zest. What a mania!
Blase, all legitimate ordinary sensations used up, she was obliged, in quest of novel sensations, to have recourse to this distortion and perversion of ideas and of all the functions of her body. What sort of beings would she give birth to? In what way would this love madness affect her offspring? A study of the hereditary instincts imparted to it and of their ramifications and results, would be worthy of Ibsen.
"Well, Alfred," at length asked Mademoiselle, arranging her hair, which her exertions had slightly disarranged, "I think you have been properly punished this time. Will you acknowledge your fault?"
I knew that my petticoats in front were quite wet, and I dreaded lest Mademoiselle should notice the little mound something made there.
I think if the strap round her waist had not been so tight as to make it impossible, Lady Alfred would have moved up and down. I could perceive from her drooping eyelids and general appearance that she was in an extremely erotic condition.
"Shall I let Julia unfasten you?"
"Yes, please."
"No, not just yet. You had better lie there a little longer."
And Mademoiselle looked at her, then walked over to her and gave her bottom a few well-applied smacks with her firm, cold hand.
"Oh, oh, Mademoiselle!" cried Lady Alfred, violently jerking herself all over. "Oh, don't! I can't bear more punishment."
Mademoiselle immediately after the slaps let her hand slip through.
"How wet it is!" she observed, as she tickled it.
"Oh, oh!" exclaimed Lady Alfred in very different tones.
What a longing, what an intense yearning, the interjection conveyed!
Then Mademoiselle reseated herself in her chair.
"Now, Julia," she said; her severe tone made me turn white directly, and feel on the point of fainting. "Now, Julia, what am I to do to you for your impudence to Lady Alfred; how dare you make the remark you did? What induced you, was it Beatrice?"