Mabel could not understand, the full meaning of those words. What did the governess mean, with her talk of tight drawers and depilatum? The poor girl was not going to be left in ignorance very long, for already Dorothea was coming back with scissors and depilating tongs, as well as a small shearer. She sat down on a chair by the patient and then proceeded patiently and carefully to shear the hair between the girl's logs. Mabel felt outraged in her womanly dignity. Helpless, tied down on to the couch, there was nothing she could do and she was really at the mercy of the governess. Miss von Berner's agile fingers came and went on her intimate flesh, palpitating and tapping it as she pleased. First, she used the scissors then the depilating tongs to tear off hair — which was very painful — then the shearer finished off the work. It seemed to Mabel as if she was being mutilated or raped. The work lasted more than an hour. At last the governess stood up with a satisfied smile.
"Ah, this is really the sex of a slave as it should be! Every week you will be sheared so that you should never have a hair on your femininity."
She untied the bonds of the girl and obliged her to look at herself in the mirror. The sight of her flesh all bare, soft and velvety like a seashell made Mabel whine with despair. She was so prowl of her silky blond down! It seemed as if she had gone back to infancy and as if her dignity of woman had vanished for ever.
"And now, the make up!" shouted the governess, "I want you to be always made up with care, for I like having a pleasant face in front of my eyes. Sit down in front of the dressing-table and don't move, or else, the whip!"
Armed with crayons, salves and pomades, the beautiful Dorothea started making up her slave. She lengthened Mabel's eyebrows, dabbed some black on her eyelids, gave a glisten to the eyelashes, then she puffed rouge on her cheeks, lipstick on her lips and placed two artificial beauty-spots on her face, one at the corner of the eyelids and the other near the lips.
Mabel had lost her aspect of well-to-do girl, but had lost nothing of her beauty. Made up thus she looked like a delightful doll or a young girl thrown too early into the commerce of love.
"Come now, into your room!" the governess ordered, "we're going to clothe you!"
With her heart beating with apprehension the girl obeyed and walked to the next room. There, Dorothea opened the locked cupboards and Mabel saw that her articles of dressing seemed to be complete and that there were even some more clothes added to them which she had not seen before.
"Here," the governess explained, "is your underclothing. Bridget has spent one and a half day modifying it according to my instructions. That was very kind of her, to work for a bitch like you! So, kneel down before her and kiss her feet, and thank her to have worked so hard for you!"
The English girl hesitated a few seconds but the lash of the whip obliged her to do her humiliating duty. She went near the maid who was looking at her with a mocking smile and knelt down before her. Bridget had lifted up her dress a little and was pointing imperatively at her foot. Deeply blushing with shame, Mabel kissed the varnished shoe of the maid.
"Thank you," she murmured.
"Thank, you who?"
"Thank you, Bridget!"
"Not at all!" cried Miss von Berner. "You owe Bridget the greatest of respect and henceforth you are of a social rank much lower than her's. I demand that you should address her as "Your Ladyship" and that you should talk to her in the third person. Besides, she will have the right to order you about and to punish you as she pleases. And, to chastise you for having been insolent to her on the evening of your arrival, you will from now on become her maid. Tell her so politely and thank her!"
That was the hardest humiliation that the aristocratic English girl had ever suffered.
She bottled up her anger and said in a voice hardly audible:
"Thank you, I am your servant."
"Bridget," asked Dorothea, "don't you think Mabel has just made a mistake?"
"Yea, ma'am, she said 'you' tome."
"Well, punish her by slapping her face!"
The servant did not need a repetition of the order and slapped the pretty face of her former mistress with vim.
"And now, you shall tell Bridget exactly these words: 'I thank your Ladyship for having modified my underclothing. I submit to the orders of your Ladyship and I ask your Ladyship whether she condescends to take me as a maid."
Mabel, crimson with shame, repeated the sentence.
"I condescend," Bridget answered with haughtiness, "and henceforth I consider you as my slave."
"Stand up," Miss von Berner ordered, "we're going to dress you up."
The governess had just taken out of a cupboard a strange corset in black varnished leather with several steel buckles. She showed it to her victim.
'My girl, you'll have to get used to wearing corsets," she said. "A slave being educated must feel well maintained, in a way a prisoner of her own clothes. Bearing a corset will make you stand erect, it will give you bigger buttocks and will make your breasts jut out and remain firm. I'll have you wear more and more severe corsets, until you have a fifteen-inch waistline."
Mabel had become pale on hearing those words.
"Oh, Mistress, please, not that!" she begged.
"Do you want a whipping? Who authorized you to speak? Come up here and shut up!"
Trembling, the girl obeyed. Then Dorothea applied on her stomach the corset of discipline. The contact of the varnished leather on her bare flesh caused her a strange sensation. The corset was relatively short, covering only the stomach and abdomen. It was laced in the back all along and left the breasts entirely free, pushing them up which made their tips point up towards the sky. As for the rump, it was completely disengaged, for the stays stopped right at the small of the back. Mabel noticed that the instrument was supplied with about forty small buttons or knobs which formed a kind of belt around it. Besides, one inch above those buttons there was a small hook and another behind.
Dorothea was standing behind Mabel, and tugging with all her strength on the cords of the stays, tightening them to the utmost. The girl felt the leather sheath gradually close in upon her, pressing on her abdomen, crushing her stomach, making her gasp. "Mistress," she moaned, "Mistress, I beg you! The governess slapped her hard. "Not a word out of you! Will you ever behave?"
The tightening proceeded. Now poor Mabel had the impression of being crushed in a vice. Her rump, thrown back, jutted out violently and her abdomen was flattened by the varnished leather. The torture was intolerable and the girl started moaning. But Dorothea, far from being moved, only shrugged her shoulders.
"You'll get used to it," she said philosophically. "And now, the drawers!"
She rummaged in a cupboard and took out a pair of pink panties of silk and lace which was one of the best pieces of underclothing which the pretty English girl owned. The governess showed them to her.
"You see, your panties have been readjusted by Bridget — they are much narrower now."
"But, Mistress, my panties were already very tight…"
"First, of all, I don't want any remarks from you, and next, if I wanted them tighter I had a good reason for it, so you don't have anything to say. A girl being re-educated must have her behind kept extremely tight. She must feel the material hampering her movements. I have already told you, Mabel, that it is by concentrating on your behind that I shall make you lose all your personality. Not only will it have to be whipped often but it must feel as if it were imprisoned. Understand once and for all that not only your brain but also your sex and behind are under my absolute government. Every second of your slave's life I want you to feel that your flesh belongs to me and that I am imposing it a discipline and a law. Now, put on these panties, and beware you don't tear the silk!"