Beatrice appeared to be absolutely insatiable. Her passions, her love, her lust, her appetites-what shall I name the fury that possessed her? — distanced even Lady Alfred Ridlington's.
I had wondered, too, in the old days, whether, when we were married, she would birch me as she did in them.
My speculations were very soon set at rest. Wherever we might happen to be, in public or in private, if I transgressed, Beatrice would inform me: "I shall birch you tonight, when we get in, Julian!"
How foolish it made me feel and look! I am sure the threat was understood more than once. I saw women glancing intelligently and sympathetically at the magnificent girl-woman, who was at once my wife and my governess.
CHAPTER 11
We had been a week or ten days in Paris when Maud arrived.
The sisters met with great glee and affection. Marriage evidently appeared to them to be emancipation, to open the door to fun and frolics without end, to justify all manner of escapades.
"How well, how beautiful you look, Beatrice!" exclaimed Maud, with genuine admiration. "What health you are in! Married life evidently agrees with you. And Julian," her eyes fell softly upon me, "he, too, is well; but I can see he is in pretty strict subjection."
"Yes," rejoined Beatrice, "I keep him well under, and it does him good. He knows what it is to have a wife who can use the birch. I keep him in much better order than Mademoiselle did."
"Is he very often punished?" asked Maud changing colour.
"Oh, yes! Are you not, Julian? I keep you in a very tender state. He particularly dislikes long drives because he has to sit so much."
"Is he so naughty?" asked Maud, seriously.
"A little difficult to manage, sometimes; and, by-the-bye, Maud, you and I have a score to settle."
"Oh, not now, Bee!"
"Oh, yes! I have not forgotten the Apollo and his disobedience. Go to my bedroom, Julian, and stay there until I come. We have nothing to do this afternoon, and we shall have time, before the table-d'hote, to amuse ourselves, and to take a walk too. You, Maud, will want to change your dress and it will be a capital opportunity for punishing you both, especially while the novelty of your arrival is upon you both." 401
I knew very well by this time what being sent to Beatrice's bedroom meant.
In these matters she always took the initiative.
If after a walk in the morning she had made a particularly good lunch and had found some wine to her taste, I was sure afterwards to be told to go to her bedroom.
The first time or so I was bewildered. I had done nothing to displease her and did not know why I should be sent into retirement in disgrace. I feared it was to be whipped. That, however, was not her object.
I heard her short skirts and her quick step rustling along the passage; she opened the door, shut, and locked it.
I was standing foolishly by the window, rather frightened and pale.
"Now, Julian," she said, in a strange excitement, her eyes flashing, her hair loose, her movements quick, as though she were under the influence of intense passion, "now, Julian, strip naked, you are to amuse me-to please-and to fuck me, twice, thrice, as often as I please. Be quick-off with all your clothes, Sir, every stitch of them, and come here!"
She seated herself in an armchair-her skirts above her knees, which had fallen widely apart.
"Get down there instantly, and kiss me, bite me, tickle me with your tongue, until I am contented."
I was soon enveloped, naked, in her garments, and when I had excited her to the highest pitch she sprang up, placed me down upon the sofa roughly, and threw herself upon me.
Putting a cushion under me, she soon forced me far into her burning flesh, and produced, by her delicious violence, the spasm of love.
I never knew at what moment I might be sent to her room. After breakfast, after dinner, after a drive or walk, if she chanced to see a scene, a picture, a book that excited her, off I was packed; but it was always at her whim and pleasure. There was, unfortunately, no reciprocity in the matter; the converse did not hold true, as I discovered to my cost.
One evening when we came in and Beatrice was changing her gown, I was under the influence of the glow of our walk and of her pretty figure, which I had especially noticed; and I felt particularly attracted towards her.
I had taken off her gown and boots-an office she always made me perform and as I gazed at her bare arms and neck in her petticoat bodice, still kneeling at her feet, I placed my hand on her leg under her garments, and, softly pressing it, looked up into her eyes.
"Beatrice," I said tenderly, "please, will you permit me now? Please, will you have me? Oh, I want you so much!"
"The idea!" she cried; and an angry flush at once mounted to her forehead. "The idea! What impudence! What next?"
And without another word she smacked my face until my head sang, and then pulled my ears.
"How dare you suggest such a thing to a lady? Don't you know you must wait until you are asked? If you don't know, you shall learn."
She got up and rang for Sophie.
When that damsel entered the room, Beatrice told her that I had attempted to assault her indecently and had adventured to make improper overtures to her.
Sophie looked very serious indeed and said I must be severely punished for my uncontrollable passion.
"What shall we do?" asked my lady. "If Milady pleases, I have a godemiche."
"A what?" asked Beatrice.
"A little instrument to put here behind," explained the soubrette, touching me as she held me.
"Capital! That will teach him! Do it now, Sophie, before me."
"I will go and get it," she answered.
"How do you like what is in store for you?" asked Beatrice, stately, handsome, and smiling at my predicament.
"Oh, how hard you are to me, Beatrice! How you will disgrace me before you, and by this maid, too!"
"Before you want to put things into me you should consider whether it would be agreeable."
"I did ask."
"Yes, it is not for you to ask. It is for me. A quoi bon etre femme? You are my toy; not I yours."
Sophie returned with a box, which she shew to Beatrice, who, taking it, lifted out a great phallus.
"It is charged," observed Sophie.
I danced about the room.
Sophie came after me. "Come, Sir; come, Milord, I must take down your trousers, you must be complaisant, you must be good-you must suffer! Such impudence to Milady! Oh! You will find how a lady punishes; how she can make you feel here-behind. You like to have this in your jesse-in your what you call bottom. No? Oh, yes, you will! It will do you good ever so. Anyhow, you must!"
Sophie took me by the shoulders to the bed and fastened the affair outside her dress round her waist below her corset, and her gravity and the instrument made between them cut such a ludicrous figure that Beatrice laughed until the tears coursed down her cheeks.
Sophie, with a grim smile, unfastened and took down my trousers and drawers and pushing me down on my face very roughly, inserted her godemiche, whilst Beatrice walked over to the other side of the bed and held me down by the shoulders.
Sophie then commenced a series of strong thrusts at me which hurt badly and which overwhelmed me with shame and confusion. I groaned and resisted but the lively French girl was too much for me; slipping her hand round me to the front she grasped what she declared to my lady was the source of all my trouble. I, at once, spasmodically moved up and down and her persistent steady pressure quickly accomplished her purpose.
She moved the mock penis to-and-fro as Mademoiselle had done the candle. At length, at a nod from Beatrice, she gave it a squeeze and I felt myself deluged internally with a warm flood, shot into me in jets.