Later on, free to do as they liked, they built a discreet nest to shelter the incestuous mysteries of their mutual splendid lech. In a little villa, hidden amidst trees and flowers at Neuilly, the young lass improved her mind and trained her hand so that she became a perfect flagellating artist.
I was afterwards informed by an American girl who had been a governess in a fashionable Boston boarding school, that corporal punishment was quite common throughout the United States in governmental schools, and families. She insinuated that flagellating passions flourished also. That was all she said, drawing back when she found how ardently I pressed her to reply to my interrogatories concerning the use of the rod. She was quite shocked. Her words were soon afterward corroborated by a rich member of the demi-monde to whom a Yankee lover had recited, in picturesque bold language, glowing stories of the satisfaction he obtained by means of voluptuous flagellation in his free country, where the art of birching was taught by divine wenches.
I therefore resolved to explore this paradise of the rod and having inherited a fortune through the death of a generous uncle, I thought I would treat myself to a voyage through America and devote a royal sum of money to the indulgence of my passion.
In March, 1905, I embarked at Cherbourg on an Atlantic greyhound bound for New York, where I experienced such a unique and fairy-like pleasure that I intend to live my birching adventures over again, and so immortalise their memory in these pages.
CHAPTER III
The first few days after my arrival, I was greatly interested by the novel sight of the Yankee monstrous agglomeration of feverish, busy, go-ahead workers, and the only way I nourished my devouring hunger for flagellating joys was by listening to conversations wherein I was often startled to find allusions to corporal punishment.
In the columns devoted to current events in a leading New York daily, I read about a boy and a girl, caught in an indecent position under a doorway, playing at the game of “pa and ma.” The precocious couple was soon arrested and severely birched by a policeman's wife, officially entrusted with the duty of whipping sentenced to culprits. I regretted not being able to go and play at this forbidden game sheltered by some wide portal, so as to be given over to the municipal female flogger, who, I imagined, must be a first class flagellant.
Finding no immediate birching satisfaction, my lech began to jar my nerves seriously, and the image of the birching police virago trotted daily in my mind, until the idea struck me that it would not be amiss to introduce myself to her, so that she could whip me in return for a monetary gift.
I therefore charged one of my hotel commissionaires to obtain an interview for me with the flogging female of my dreams. He succeeded in making an appointment on my behalf in a neighbouring square. I was delighted at this result, hoping at last to begin my task of gaining practical experience of American whipping methods.
The day came, and at the appointed spot, I met a woman of low class extraction, but with a certain air of bold authority, eminently suited to her functions.
I told her what I wanted in plain words, but directly she grasped the meaning of my request, she stopped me.
“That's not my business,” she said. “I only birch women and children; my husband punishes the men. I know what you require. You'd better try a massage institute.”
She departed, obstinately refusing the five-dollar bill I tried to slip into her big fist to reward her for her loss of time. I was highly excited at having been in the company of this implacable birching dame, so independent in her talk and manner.
During the afternoon, strolling through the populous streets, I caught sight of a door-plate with the mention, “Massage Institute.”
“The very thing!” I exclaimed.
Delighted at being able to follow the advice of the magisterial flogging female so quickly, I ran up to the second floor, where the same kind of plate fixed on a door.
A page-boy showed me into a room where I saw a tall, buxom lady, far from ugly, but with little or no gentility in her bearing. She was dressed like a hospital nurse, with her sleeves rolled up to the elbow.
“Massage?” she said. “All right-two dollars! Undress!”
She pointed to a low sofa covered with a linen sheet.
I was soon stripped, looking about me as I pulled off my clothes. There were bottles, sponges, and horsehair gloves, but no signs of birchen twigs.
As soon as I was on my back on the couch, the obliging female got to work. She patted, rubbed and pinched me all over. It was really most excellent shampooing.
After a short interval, I ventured to ask her without mincing matters if she went in for flagellation.
“No!” was all she said, continuing her massage.
I kept questioning her, refusing to believe her statements.
“That's not my graft!” she added still kneading my limbs.
“But I've been told that I could get whipped at all massage establishments,” I insinuated.
“Yes,” she replied, “gentlemen do get birched by women who call themselves 'masseuses.' They've got no diplomas. It costs ten or twenty dollars for a few cuts from a rod. I work like a horse for two dollars, but I'm a real, certified masseuse.”
Her forefinger, shining with vaseline, pointed out a big parchment covered with seals and stamps. It was hanging on the wall in a fine gold frame.
“Not a stone's throw from here,” she added, “on the other side of the street, two blocks away, you'll see a sign which says 'Special Massage.' That's where you'll locate the artful creatures you need!” quite satisfied with the information, if not with the way in which it was conveyed, I waited impatiently for the painstaking masseuse to put an end to her rough rubbing, although its stimulation prepared my body for more efficacious action.
I soon found the establishment in question, and the scene presented to my gaze was quite different to anything I had as yet to see on this side of the Atlantic. In a comfortable parlour, sat an elderly lady, dressed in deep black, and wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, giving her an owl-like appearance. She was busy embroidering a pair of slippers. On a sofa-bench which ran along the whole of one side of the room, four young women lolled in lazy attitudes.
They were all very pretty. One was a haughty blonde with luxuriant yellow hair; next to her reclined an auburn darling with curly locks-an uncommon type, resembling a courtesan of ancient Venice; and this brace of beauties was flanked by a pair of saucy-eyed brunettes, doubtless of Irish descent, with fine fair skins. They were all dressed alike, in loose robes, that had flowing sleeves like Japanese kimonos, cut very low in front, and terminating in a V-shaped point, so that the girls' firm white breasts could be viewed almost in their entirety. The quartette's little white feet, innocent of stockings, were encased in small shoes, having high gilt heels.
As I entered, the old woman threw her work on one side, and advanced curtseying.
“You want a birching?” she asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Bully for you! You're the right man in the right place. How will you take it-easy, mild, or strong?”
“Rather strong, if you please.”
“Not afraid of surrendering to a whipping girl who is crazy on flogging a man? She's very hot on the job, rather cruel, and sometimes loses her head. In that case, she goes a bit too far for most gents. Don't say afterwards I didn't warn you!”