"Kiss me, Denise darling." Our lips clung passionately for a long time. She put her sharp little tongue inside my lips, and bit my lips with endearing little love-bites.
"Stand there!" she said, suddenly pulling away from me.
She replaced the birch and the cane and picked up the fragments of twigs from the floor. She burnt them in the fire. Then she unlocked the door.
"Phoebe will know, of course, when she puts you to bed," she said. "But no one else need know of our little secret. Come here!"
She was folding a big white handkerchief. I crossed the room to her timidly.
"You are not going to punish me anymore."
"I am going to see, darling, whether you will now put your high heels together and turn your dainty toes out when I tell you to. I am going to blindfold your eyes, stand you up on a chair with your face to the wall, just by the armchair in which I am sitting."
I blushed with great pleasure. My eyes danced and my mouth smiled. She fixed the scarf over my eyes and tied it at the back of my hair. Then she turned me round, clapped her hands delightedly, and kissed me ardently on the lips. She led me to the chair and guided my little satin slippers up onto it. She placed me in position. Then she sat down in her armchair at my side and resumed her book. I stood there for an hour blindfolded with my hands tied. Every now and then I felt her dainty little hand steal under my dress and touch my feet to make sure they had not moved. She would caress my ankles, and play with my slipper buckles and high heels. Miss. Priscilla had done her work well that night. The hour was an hour of bliss.
CHAPTER 6
It was Helen's policy to make my life as a girl delightful to me. The next few months were pleasurable although tempered by fits of regret and remorse. But the fits did not last long. I was surrounded with luxuries. I was spoilt. I had beautiful dresses, a horse to ride, Violet to run about with, dainty tyrannies to endure, a great deal of liberty, and even better, exciting punishments. Miss. Priscilla's mind was extraordinarily fertile in this area. Her design was to mix pain and pleasure in an inextricable confusion in my mind, so that I should never be able to think great pleasure possible without the accompaniment of pain. And once this belief was implanted in my mind I would always long to remain in subjection to my feminine tyrants.
I remember addressing a flippant impertinence to her at a garden party. She took me at once to the motorcar and drove home with me. I was dressed in a long trailing frock of misty dark grey crepe de chine, with a big grey satin hat to match that was trimmed with grey ostrich feathers and a bow of green ribbon. I was wearing black silk stockings and little high-heeled patent leather button boots, smart and quite new. Miss. Priscilla led me into the punishment room where a sewing machine stood. She strapped my feet in their smart boots into the treadles, pushed a long mirror in front of me, and said, "Now get to work, Miss. High Heels!" I began to work the machine.
"Quicker! Quicker!"
I obeyed. In the mirror, I could see my little feet in their fashionable dainty boots flashing up and down, undergoing punishment.
"Still quicker!"
My thighs bruised one another. My face got red, not merely with exertion but also the delirium of passion. My feet raced up and down, and a wanton smile shone in my eyes and on my lips. Miss. Priscilla made me go on working the sewing machine in my dainty gown and fashionable bright buttoned boots for the rest of the afternoon.
That first autumn Helen gave a ball at Beaumanoir. I was dressed for the occasion in a plain, exquisitely fitting, long white velvet gown that moulded my figure like a glove and fell in softly gleaming folds to my feet. A white satin sash about the waist broke the line. Diamonds and pearls flashed on my white neck and shoulders. The gems glittered about my white-gloved wrists, and sparkled amidst my curls. My stockings, of course, were of the finest gauze silk and glittered with gems, while the fronts of my white satin slippers blazed with diamonds, and were finished with the daintiest bows made of diamonds. When my feet peeped out from the hem of my dress, one saw two little sparkling shields of diamonds. When I showed myself to Helen before the dance she gave me a warning.
"There's a great many coming to the ball, Denise, and very likely the ballroom will get hot. People no doubt will go out into the garden or onto the terrace between the dances. But you must not. Remember that! On a night like this, thieves may be lurking about the house, and you are wearing thousands of pounds worth of jewels. Your lovely little flashing slippers alone are worth a fortune. You wouldn't like to be kidnapped and robbed, would you Denise?"
"No," I replied with a shiver. "No indeed!" But secretly I did want to be kidnapped. I secretly wished to be tormented by faceless captors. And so I disobeyed Helen. Halfway through the dance, I went out onto the terrace and smoked a surreptitious cigarette with Violet. As I returned through the glass door into the drawing room I saw Helen. Worse-she saw me. She beckoned me across the room to her. She seized me by the hand and turned me with my face to the wall at her side.
"Your heels together at once, Denise, and your hands behind you," she whispered in a savage voice, and to Violet she said, "You can go to bed at once."
Miss. Priscilla, in a dress of dark mauve satin with a chemisette of lace filling the bosom, joined Helen. They waited until the other guests had returned to the ballroom. Then Helen slid back the panel that led to the punishment room and pushed me in roughly. Priscilla followed and closed it.
"I am sorry," I faltered, "that I disobeyed you, Helen."
Helen was in a rage.
"Gag her," she said savagely to Miss. Priscilla. A lace scarf gagged my mouth in a flash. They pinioned my elbows to my side and bound my hands in front of me with leather laces. I was dreadfully frightened. Helen was so furious, she was pale with anger.
"Stand up! Press your legs and feet tightly together, Denise!"
I obeyed. The two women stooped and while Miss. Priscilla gathered my lovely velvet dress behind my legs, Helen with a strong carpet needle actually sewed it up from my haunches to my ankles, spoiling the gown and sewing my legs together in a tight sheath of gleaming white velvet that revealed their contours. Oh, there would be no more dancing for me tonight in my sparkling satin slippers!
Then while Miss. Priscilla supported me, Helen tied my ankles, which were exposed, tightly together with a leather strap and knotted it angrily.
A bright fire was blazing. They placed me a on a chair close to it and then Helen sat down on a stool at my side.
"Take care that Miss. Denise does not fall off the chair, Aunt," she said grimly.
Miss. Priscilla held me firmly by the shoulders. Oh, what were they going to do with me? I was helpless! Helen stooped, lifted my legs rigid and helpless in their gleaming velvet sheath, and held my strapped feet in their diamond-covered slippers close to the blaze of the fire.
"I'll teach these pretty high-heeled things to walk where I tell them," she cried, and she held my legs firmly while the heat of the flames tortured my feet. I writhed and struggled.
"Yes, twist about, Denise!" she said savagely. "A lot of good it will do you."
Perspiration burst out on my forehead. My slippers were scorching, and my toes curled and twitched inside the slippers. The diamond bows and sparkling fronts flashed and glittered. I was helpless. I could not even cry out. The flames almost touched the soles of my shoes. The pain was terrible. I was on the point of swooning when they took me from the fire and stretched me out on a sofa for the rest of the evening. I did not recover the full use of my feet for a week.
Soon afterward, a young and rising politician who had made his way without influence or friends came to our neighbourhood to make a speech. I went with Helen and Violet, and sat upon the platform. The speaker had a great reception and made a magnificent speech. The cheers and enthusiasm of the meeting tortured me. If he, without help, could rise so soon to such a position, what a splendid career I ought to have with all my advantages! I returned home sad and discontented. I followed Helen to her boudoir.