"Do you like chocolates?" Dorothea asked.
"Yes, Mistress!"
The woman took the box and put in insolently under Mabel's nose, moving it back and forth, making her smell them.
"Look how fine they are! What a pity those are not chocolates for a slave!"
She put the box down and brutally slapped Mabel's face.
"Pay attention to your work, you bitch, you're hurting me!"
When the slave had finished her task, her mistress spat out on the tiled floor of the bathroom the half-chewed chocolate that was in her mouth.
"Here," she said, "I allow you to finish it, but pick it up without the help of your hands!"
Mabel knew quite well that if she refused she would be whipped furiously so she had to do as she had been told, picking up the chocolate sweet between her teeth like a dog. She did so with infinite precautions, for fear of tearing the taut material of her panties.
Then, standing behind her mistress's dressing-table she had to help her with her make-up. Then she helped her put her clothes on, doing nearly all the work, and taking great care with the precious silk garments.
When at last Dorothea was ready, she suddenly changed her mind.
"I'd forgotten I wanted to have a swim in the pool this morning. Take off my clothes, quick!"
Unable to refuse the order, the girl obeyed. She helped her mistress don a ravishing and bold swimming-suit, all white and opening at the side, fixed with satin ribbons.
A quarter of an hour later Mabel, held on a leash, was following her mistress in the park, carrying Dorothea's bath-wrap, parasol and bag.
In Lord Kelingson's park there was a large marble swimming-pool in the centre of a lawn, but Mabel had never swum in it. Miss von Berner had decided that this swimming-pool should be reserved for her exclusively.
The mistress went on the diving-board and dived gracefully into the azure water. What a temptation for poor Mabel! She just loved swimming and was excellent at it, and the weather was hot, yet she had to resign herself to standing motionless, corseted and wearing maid's apparel, while her governess was enjoying this morning-bath.
When her mistress got out of the water, she pushed away her slave who wanted to dry her in the bath-wrap.
"Not yet, I want to dry myself in the sun, but there's no chair, that's annoying, I can't sit in the grass with my fine bathing-suit on!"
She had a sudden inspiration. She turned to Mabel and said:
"By the way, a slave can very well serve as a deck-chair. Go on, lie down full length on your back!"
Mabel having obeyed, Dorothea first sat down on the girl's stomach, then stretched herself all along Mabel's body. Her wet body crushed that of the slave whose clothes were rapidly soaked. But the governess did not care at all for that. Voluptuously lying, with her eyes closed, she was smoking cigarettes and making herself as heavy as possible. Mabel, motionless, was stifling under the weight of her mistress's body, whose warm round buttocks were bruising her stomach, pressing, as they were, the bones of her stays against the skin. Dorothea had even let her hair fall on Mabel's face and her black perfumed hair was getting into Mabel's month and tickling her eyes and nostrils.
For a full hour the girl was thus transformed into a human seat for her mistress. Then, at last, Dorothea got up.
"I'll do without you to get dressed," she said, "you're too wet for that. Go to Bridget now and ask her to change your dress and underclothes. Then you will wait upon me at table!"
It was done according to Miss von Berner's orders. Mabel, freshly clothed and made up, served her mistress's lunch and stood behind her chair for the whole length of the meal. Only later did she take her own lunch and then came back to serve Dorothea. The latter tied her up on a chair and gave her a few things to sew. That work lasted two hours. Then Bridget came to untie the slave whom Dorothea wanted to see. "I'm going for a walk in the park," Dorothea declared, "you're going to follow me and serve me as a seat when I decide to have a rest, and generally be at my disposal when. I need you. But I see you haven't had your hands tied today. I'm going to remedy it so that you remember that you aren't a free woman."
She took out of a cupboard a pair of silver handcuffs and imprisoned the slave's wrists in them. The click of the cold metal and its contact against her skin were new sensational for Mabel who so far had always had her hands tied by cords.
In the paths of the park the girl walked slowly behind her mistress:. The latter only turned round two or three times. The rest of the time she walked proudly and silently and Mabel instinctively followed with her eyes the swinging to and fro of her mistress's buttocks under the thin dress she was wearing.
Suddenly, at the corner of a little hunting box, a small mouse scurried out of a cranny and ended up at Mabel's feet. The girl uttered a scream of fright. She had always had a fear and aversion for mice and rats.
The governess had turned round quickly and saw what had caused her pupil's fright.
"Who allowed you to scream?" she asked harshly.
"I'm sorry, Mistress, I was so afraid!"
A slap on her cheek interrupted her. "So, now you're afraid of mice? Do you think you're a lady to be so delicate? I'll teach you not to be afraid of such harmless creatures. Follow me to the castle!"
She quickened her step and Mabel followed, anxiously wondering what was to befall her.
In front of the facade of the castle, Miss von Berner called Bridget who appeared at once.
"Yes, ma'am?"
"My dear Bridget, just imagine; Mabel took the liberty of screaming at the sight of a harmless little mouse with had come near her legs. I'm going to punish you for her fright. There are mousetraps in the cellar, isn't that right?"
"Yen, ma'am."
"Go and take two of them and bring them here — the ones containing the largest mice. Also bring me one of Mabel's pairs of panties, but not a tight one. Or rather, take a pair of linen drawers, the ones with a wide bottom, which I intended one day to stuff with nettles for a punishment. And also bring a few cords!"
"All right, ma'am."
Mabel had become pale with apprehension. She was afraid to have guessed the horrible torture Dorothea had in store for her.
When Bridget came back with the requested objects the governess came up to her slave and, without untying her hands, she lifted up her skirts, unbuckled her strap, unbuttoned the silk panties Mabel was wearing, and took them of entirely. The naked buttocks of the girl covered themselves up with goose-pimples at the contact of the air. Dorothea then put on Mabel a wide pair of linen drawers, very strong and coarse, but whose legs were supplied with elastic bands which were drawn tight against the girl's thighs. Miss von Berner buttoned on the drawers but left an opening behind.
Mabel was beginning to tremble. She tried to soften up Dorothea with endearing glances but she knew it was useless.
Then the governess took Mabel at the foot of a tree the branches of which were pretty low. She made the slave lift up her manacled hands above her head and fixed them to a branch with a solid cord.
"Bridget, give me the mouse-traps!" Dorothea ordered.
Mabel's face became convulsed. "Mistress," she moaned, "no, not that, please!"
"Silence, slave! I do what I please and you have nothing to say!"
The sadistic young woman then drew apart the opening of the panties and put the month of the mouse-trap against it, letting the mice drop down the hole one after the other. The girl's howls pleased the who women enormously. Dorothea carefully buttoned up the opening of Mabel's panties so that no exit was left for the imprisoned mice — neither upwards, since the drawers were buttoned on to the corset, nor down, since the legs were drawn tight with elastics. Mabel so howled with fright that Dorothea had to slap her face to make her be silent.