It seemed as if the flogging harridan would never stop. I plainly made out her hoarse, “Ugh!” as she made each successive slashing effort, putting her maximum of strength into all her stinging swishes. I trembled from head to foot, shuddering at the echo of every smarting cut, as if I had received it on my own backside.
I cannot tell how long this poignant scene lasted. I was maddened and bewildered, when I caught sight of the terrible flogging woman leaving the locked room. Her face was full of animation. Her eyes sparkled. She was followed by her wretched victim, who, crying bitterly, could scarce drag her faltering steps along.
There rose in me a mad wish to accost the flogging governess and beseech her to treat me with the same rigour, but before I had quite made up my mind, she was gone, and my excited feelings were more tumultuous than before, as I had found I had missed her.
Forgetting all about my cheques, I jumped into the first cab that passed, ordering the man to drive to the address of a masseuse who had used the word “severe” in her advertisement.
I was shown into a flat which did not in the least resemble that of entrancing Nelly Lamb. The parlour, furnished with sober good taste, appeared as if it was also used as an office. A roll-top desk, encumbered with heaps of books and papers, made me fancy for an instant that I had made a mistake in the address.
My doubts increased when I was confronted by a young and remarkably pretty woman who came into the room. She was very ladylike, dressed in a becoming, rich frock of pearl-grey silk, fitting admirably and closely to her fine figure. She looked like a wealthy, middle-class tradesman's wife. Nothing in her manner or appearance betokened the “severe masseuse.”
With rather more cermonious gravity than was necessary, she saluted me politely, and begging me to take a seat, asked me very solemnly what was the object of my visit?
“I hope I have made no mistake,” I said. “This is the dwelling of Miss Florence, 'severe masseuse,' is it not?”
“You are perfectly right, sir,” was her reply. “I am Miss Florence. Now I have given you that information, it's time to come to a show-down. I reckon you are an amateur of flagellation?”
“Your surmise is correct,” I rejoined.
“In that case, my dear sir,” she went on, “I may as well tell you at once that I don't go in for voluptuous birching, like many women who mix up coaxing caresses with whipping, thereby destroying the true character of corporal punishment. I don't try to give pleasure. My aim is not to provoke lascivious feeling by progressive artful fingering and vile kisses.
“I am a normal bircher-almost adminstrative, I must say-and the punishments I inflict are intended to create in a guilty person the impression of enforced chastisement from which there is no escape once he has elected to endure it. My chastisement is of two kinds: ordinary correction, consisting of sixty strokes of the rod, applied in two series of thirty cuts each, with a short interval between each series, so as to allow the culprit to collect his thoughts. My fee is ten dollars.
“The second kind is very severe indeed. It consists in the employment of a martinet with leather thongs. The blows are distributed all over the body, with the exception of the posteriors, where are reserved for active treatment, comprising one hundred blows of the birch in two series of fifty strokes each, and twenty cuts from a riding-whip-also divided into two series.
“My severe punishment costs twenty-five dollars and I assure you it is well worth the money. Such are my two chastisements. I do nothing else. I have an equal and regular way of whipping, peculiarly my own. My hand never trembles, nor does it change style of mechanical infliction for any reason whatever, so that you may be sure to get good and loyal measure. Should you wish to try ordinary punishment, you will be able to judge for yourself.”
“I shall be delighted!” I exclaimed.
“Oh, delighted?” she replied with a sceptical smile. “It's not a laughing matter. My rods are splendid and I have strong, untiring arms.”
Her last remark did not frighten me, but caused my yearnings to reach their uttermost limits, so I begged the young woman to operate on me at once.
“That will be ten dollars,” she said.
I handed over the bill, which she put in a drawer of her desk.
CHAPTER VII
I was indeed charmed by the intelligent, ladylike, and straightforward manners of this young woman, treating flagellation from an “administrative? And commercial standpoint. Nothing about her smacked of the professional birching lady I had hitherto met-the sort of swishing siren who generally tried to infuse a sensuous flavour into the birching bargain and ordeal. Miss Florence treated the whole thing coldly and financially, without betraying the least feeling, real or feigned.
It pleased me to add to my flagellating knowledge, and fix in the museum of my mind this specimen of a “normal” flogging woman. I was impatient to see and feel her at work.
After having closed the drawer, wherein she had slipped my bank-note, the birching queen struck a bell on the table twice. At this signal, a charming young girl, certainly not over eighteen, came into the room. She was simply, but coquettishly dressed in a simple dark frock with a white apron. On her shapely little head, she carried a tiny, pleated lace cap.
“Get this gentleman ready for ordinary punishment,” said Miss Florence to her youthful assistant.
“Yes, miss,” replied the winsome lass. “Follow me, sir, please,” she added, addressing herself to me.
She led me into a large room, quite square, and shut the door behind her. There was very little furniture. In the middle, a plain wooden form of thick unvarnished oak. Close to it, a small table; a couch in an angle against the wall; and in another corner, a large trough, where rods, of all the same length and size, were in soak. On a flower-stand, near the sofa, were several whalebone riding-whips, flanked by martinets with wooden handles to which were nailed ten or twelve leather thongs.
“This is what you must do, sir,” said the engaging damsel. “You must take off your jacket, let down your braces, if you have any, or if not, take off your belt and lie face down ward on that bench. I'll do the rest.”
I followed her instructions to the letter.
She took a wide strap, furnished with a buckle, and clasped it round my body in the middle of the back, fastening me securely to the hard wood. Then, with silken cords, she tied my wrists and ankles, binding them to the upper and lower ends of the form.
It was not without delight that I felt her pretty, little, cool, pink fingers rummaging round my waist, pulling my trousers and drawers down to my feet, afterwards throwing up the hinder tail of my shirt which she fixed to my shoulders wit pins she took from her bodice.
I blushed with shame as I thus exposed the most secret parts of my frame to this sweet girlie-so engaging and so young. She, however, betrayed no emotion of any kind; no rosy flush invaded the fresh bloom of her cheeks, and her innocent eyes glanced calmly at me, as if she was accomplishing some natural task or ordinary household duty.
Going to the trough, she took out two rods, shook the moisture from them, wiped them on a towel, and placed one on a chair at each side of the bench.
“Miss Florence will be with you in a minute,” she said, and then with a whirl of her slight skirts, she flew lightly out of the room, like a bird.
Her simplicity was delightful.
I was alone full five minutes, securely tied down on my bench, when the door was thrown open at last and the beautiful flogging female advanced to where I was. She had changed her dress, and now wore a tight-fitting black silk frock, very high in the neck, but sleeveless, showing the entire lengthe of her marble, muscular arm.”
“Sir,” she declared, “I am now about to deal you sixty strokes with a birch; thirty at once in one direction, and after a moment's rest, thirty more in the contrary direction. I hope you will endure your punishment courageously. It is quite useless to cry out or pray to me, as I am obliged to give you your full number of cuts without stopping for any reason whatsoever. Look out!” she added.