A man with a maid,vol.IV

Chapter 13

I bathed and shaved, took a leisurely nap so as to replenish my powers and give myself back that keen investiture which is the secret of a man’s ability to take the upper hand over scheming and charming devious females, then I hastened to the caterer’s to order a fitting repast for the reunion with my sweet Alice. While I performed this delightful errand which in itself, suggested so many untold joys, I recalled that Connie Blunt would be due back from Italy by the following Monday, and I remembered my determination to learn how she had lost her maidenhead, since she had been married for only a few short weeks to her husband before he had been carried off this mortal coil by a most untimely heart attack. I really felt sorry for the poor man who had not been able to enjoy to the fullest degree the tasty young charms of twenty-two-year-old golden-haired Connie, who was simply adorable and in some ways so ingenuous as to suggest a girl not yet out of teens. But judging by the way she had taken to Alice and to Fanny and formed a conspiratorial triumvirate against Lady Betty Bashe and her then snobbish and insolent daughter Molly, I had to assume that either she possessed an inherent degree of lascivious aptitudes or else I had simply been the fortunate man destined by Venus to find the touchstone to her most secret emotions.

But Connie-and her cunny! — would have to wait until I had celebrated my hymeneal celebration with sweet Alice. I thought to myself that for our honeymoon we might well retrace Connie’s own footsteps to that romantic country where Lord Byron composed so many of his great epics, for warm Italy with its romantic history of the Borgias and of Dante’s Beatrice is properly a land for lovers, a kind of universal gathering-place where all may meet under the blue sky and the golden sun and where a kiss and the flashing adoration of one’s eyes are Esperanto enough to make one’s self understood. I had been told on good authority that the men of Italy go as far as to pinch the bottoms of pretty girls whom they admire and desire even though the latter are complete strangers to them. Oh most charming custom this, which at once dispenses with the hypocritical and time-consuming pretenses of a formal courtship and lets the maid know at once that a man desires not so much to hold converse with her as to fit together prick and cunt in the most Elysian of harmonies!

My caterer promised that I should have what I had ordered promptly at seven, and he then prayed my indulgence, on the grounds that his two chief assistants had been called out of London by the unfortunate coincidence of illness in their families, to have the viands and the wine served by some substitutes whom he had been able to engage only for this week. I paid little attention to this protestation and I grandly waved my hand to indicate that I cared not how my repast for sweet Alice would be conveyed to me, only so long as it was, that it might nurture us both and heat our blood toward the commingling of our understandable yearnings for each other.

Of course I had no doubt that mischievous Alice, she who had first yielded up to me her maiden seal and all the hidden treasures thereunto pertaining, had consoled herself for my not being present with charming Fanny. In my Snuggery, I had initiated both girls into the sweet art of soixante-neuf, as well as playing the simulated role of the two-backed beast, and both had found rare pleasure in such exquisite girlish games. However, judging from the rapacity with which dear Fanny had wrigglingly maneuvered herself astride my lap this afternoon in her haste to reacquaint herself with the dimensions and the sensations which a prick afforded her tender and squirming cunt, I had no doubt that the naughty minx would, if put to the question, blushingly avow her preference to being fucked as over girlfucking or sweet gamahuching.

I was in full command of all my powers and I looked forward to a memorable evening. I thought to myself how fortunate I was that in this stuffy era, when all the drearily domesticated precepts of the Widow of Windsor had been virtually a part of every puling schoolboy’s training, Alice and I might come together in my quarters this night for the express purpose of celebrating our oncoming marriage by doing that which, surely our good Victorian code would have you believe, should never be done until both man and maid had obtained legal authorization in their wedlock.

Yes, Alice and I were going to partake of those fruits of the Garden of Eden reserved only in this age for the conventionally united, but I did not see that I should be any the less ardent because each of us was still free at the moment we came together. You may then well believe that I was in a state of virtual euphoria considering that soon I should have Fanny as my own personal maid should my dear wife-to-be not be at my side to attend to certain niceties and necessities which I should find essential to my well-being. And there waiting for me when I wished and perhaps whenever I wished, as well, would be Alice’s older sister and the latter’s saucy red-haired maid Kay, to say nothing of Miss Molly Bashe and her friend Julia Denton, with Connie Blunt held in abeyance not because she was the least fair and desirable of this sweet seraglio, but simply because however passionate and competent a man may be, he has just so much spunk he can dispense at any given time.

What happy prospects thus enthralled me with their future beckoning, I leave you, dear reader, to speculate over and to envy, Yet I do not inscribe all these chronicles of my amorous conduct solely to make you gnash your teeth and curse at me for being a lucky fool of love. I would rather have you consider this a sublimation until, by some happy means, you in your own life find it possible to emulate my good fortune with the fair sex and thus prove that you too know as well as I the way of a man with a maid.

I waited, I need not tell you, with some impatience until at last the bell pealed to tell me that my Alice was at my door, and I opened it and held out my arms to my beautiful sweetheart who would so shortly be my beloved wife. To my great delight, she wore a costume which almost exactly duplicated that which she had worn on that fatal afternoon when for the first time in my Snuggery she had been compelled to yield her maidenhead to me and to allow me liberties which many a husband, thanks to our stuffy notions about matters, does not even dare enjoy with his own wife throughout an entire lifetime. The large picture hat, the dainty well-fitting dress which displayed her neatly plump and delicious figure to its fullest advantage, the same lacy parasol, and, I was certain, the same tantalizingly delaying undergarments which prolonged the sweet joy of finally denuding that ivory flesh I so loved and yearned for now.

Now it is said by many a connoisseur that much time is lost in undressing a maid with so many articles of clothing as are prescribed by convention, and I have heard men long for a desert island where their inamorata should wear little more than Eve herself. But I hold that the pleasures of anticipation are sometimes equal to or many times may even surpass those of realization, and therefore the longer I found it took me to disrobe the fair charmer whom I intended to fuck and fondle to my prick’s content, the more enjoyable and exciting the act itself. The prelude to passion must not be gainsaid or circumvented from its full and spacious length, lest a man become too blase in his carnal pleasures. I know that this is one of the unhappy blights which happen to plague many a marriage, in that the husband, out of becoming habituated to the sight of his wife’s body, gradually grows bored when it has no more wonder to unveil for him. And I confess that to some extent I gave this nuance considerable attention myself whether, once wed to my dear Alice, I should not begin to take her for granted.

But I told myself no, and I can explain this with a good heart and clear conscience. The harem of which I have already spoken would keep me from satiating myself with Alice’s sweet charms, so that I might return to her ever now and again with renewed enjoyment and high hopes of magnificent fulfillment, to which my other amours, my other “slave-girls,” would rouse my imaginative propensities for the appreciation and delectation of pussy.

“Oh, Jack, Jack dearest, you don’t know how much I’ve missed you!” she cried as she flung her lovely arms around my neck. As I have already indicated, Alice was petite, some two inches shorter than her olive-skinned black-haired sister, Marion, but she was a most cuddlesome morsel with the voluptuous curves of buttocks and thighs and breasts, yet not to the point of being ungainly fat, which heaven forbid! I reminded myself at this moment, while my hands lovingly and lingeringly caressed Alice’s quivering buttocks through the many layers of clothes, that I should be very stern with her at the dinner table lest in the comfort of her marriage she add excess poundage to her delicious dimensions as they were now.

“Yes, Fanny told me that you did,” I could not help twitting my beloved Alice.

“Why, that naughty vixen! I shall have some words with her after I’ve loved you, Jack dear, and you may be certain that Fanny will rue it if she has betrayed any of our girlish secrets. For you know,” she went on gaily, “when girls are alone by themselves, they always discuss a man, and in this case it was you, and I’m afraid that I revealed how I felt about you to my maid, who ought to have better sense than to have told you so that I should be at your mercy.”

“As I recall, Alice,” I chuckled, “the first real time you were at my mercy was here in this very apartment, and Fanny had not yet made her debut. Now, let me have your hat and your cape and then do sit down upon the sofa while we await our supper which should be here at any moment from the caterer.”

Alice disposed herself upon the sofa and glanced round with sparkling eyes and gently heaving bosom, evidently happy to be back in familiar surroundings where she had so many memories. I saw no reason why we should not eat right here in the salon, because I knew that she was eager to be told and shown my lasting affection for her, and that action should naturally take place in the Snuggery.

In about ten minutes, the bell rang again and I answered it to find a young man and a gray-haired man at my door with the viands I had ordered from the caterer. The young man seemed somewhat effeminate, being about five feet seven inches in height, with pale, rather aristocratic features, and light brown hair cut very short. His eyes were a soft apologetic brown, and his mouth quivered a good deal, suggesting an immaturity and nervousness perhaps understandable because he was, as the caterer had indicated, a substitute for the actual assistant.

I had them clear the table on which I had some papers, and place it between our two chairs to use as kind of dining table. I had ordered a tasty roast grouse in a very thick wine and mushroom sauce, a special salad with a very rich dressing, as an aperitif a dozen blue-points. It has been said that the aphrodisiacal quality of seafood-or at least the legend that such nutrition increases one’s sexual powers-it is responsible for so many items of this kind appearing on our daily menus. But Alice had long ago evinced a passion for bluepoints, and so I had ordered them to humor her as a kind of token that while I might be stern and ruthless within the walls of the Snuggery, here in my own quarters as her domesticated husband-to-be, I was the very soul of thoughtfulness.

After the meal had been served and the champagne with it, the two assistants withdrew, but the older man remarked, “Will, you had best stay outside in the hall till the gentleman and’ the lady have finished their supper so that you can pack and bring back the dishes. I’ll come for you in about an hour, say.”

So the door closed behind them both, and I turned to Alice, rose from my seat, went over to hers and bent down to give her a long and passionate kiss on the mouth. She had drunk about three goblets of champagne, and while she was not yet tipsy, she was in vivacious spirits indeed, fairly bubbling over with energy and animation and rendering me altogether certain that I was making no error in wedding her.

At last we finished the luxurious meal, having savored the dessert, a pair of rich custard tarts covered with juicy raspberries, and Alice rose from her chair as I gallantly held it back for her and went over to her purse which she had left on the little couch near the door to my apartment. Suddenly she looked back at me with eyes very wide and alarmed, and exclaimed, “Oh, Jack, I had three pound-notes and they’re gone now!”

“That’s strange,” I remarked. “Did you come directly from your house to me?”

“Of course I did, darling. I took a hansom cab and I told the driver to go very fast because I had been away from my beloved sweetheart.”

Such a delightful explanation had earned the sweet vixen a tender kiss, and I approached to give it to her. She clung to me and arched her body to me, and I could tell from her parted and moist lips and her flushed cheeks and luminous eyes that she was in a mood to be thoroughly fucked. Since this was also in my plans, I enjoyed the leisurely delight of telling myself that we had all the evening and night before us and that there was absolutely no reason to make tawdry haste like a couple of ill-met lovers in some cheap hotel room who are driven by the demons of guilt in their infidelity to their respective mates.

You have discovered that the prospect of making love to Alice, while it still made my prick swollen with desire, did not quite have the same spicy effect as when, that first memorable afternoon in the Snuggery, I had known that I was going to subject her to humiliation and a little pain before I taught her the sweet felicity of surrender. As yet, however, I had no pretext to whip or smack my darling, and I found myself wishing that dear Fanny had attended us so that we both might upbraid her for some imaginary fault in service and so each be aroused by applying the rod or the hand to that voluptuous young bottom of hers.

“And you are certain that you had them when you started out?” I pursued.

She nodded emphatically. “Why, yes. When I paid the driver, I saw them still in my purse, and I came directly up the stairs to you, Jack. Whatever in the world could have happened to those three pounds?”

“You should make every effort, my dearest, to trace every movement that you made since leaving the house when, if I am to credence what you have told me, you had those notes and did not spend any money except the fee for the hansom cab.”

“But I can’t think of anything, Jack! Oh, my, I was to give those notes to Fanny tonight as part of her wages. Whatever shall I do?”

“Of course I will replace them for you.”

“Oh no, Jack, I couldn’t allow that!”

“But that is silly, darling,” I laughed, “because very shortly you’re going to my wife and I will be entirely responsible for the money that you carry in that pretty purse of yours. But look through it again, because perhaps you have misplaced it.”

She took my advice, but after a search of five minutes, having several times emptied her purse on the table, she tearfully confessed that the money was absolutely missing and that she hadn’t the slightest idea where she could have lost it.

Vaguely I remembered that the two caterer’s assistants had been near that little sofa in the process of serving us our supper. Now it was just possible that, while we were-staring at each other and so engrossed in our own conversation and thoughts, they might have seized the opportunity to pilfer the money from Alice’s purse since it opened noiselessly.

Of course I could not openly accuse either of them until I had some proof. But, remembering that the young man had been so nervous and obviously ill at ease in the performance of duties for which I had assumed he was fitted by experience, I resolved to test his honesty and learn whether he had any knowledge of the missing notes.

I had a kind of presentiment, and so I told Alice to remain where she was, and I went out into the hallway. There was the effeminate youth, leaning patiently against the wall, arms folded. He gave a kind of guilty start when he saw me emerge, and in a rather husky but weak voice asked, “Have you finished with the plates and the ice bucket, sir?”

“Very nearly,” I said gruffly. “But would you do me a favor? I find myself in need of some change and wonder if perhaps you have any money on you.”

“I’m not sure I have much change, sir,” was his answer.

“Oh, well, be a good fellow, and let me see what you have anyway,” I said with an encouraging smile.

He plunged a rather slim hand into the pocket of his trousers, and drew it partly out, glancing down at it; then in the same movement he seemed to have plunged his hand back down again as if to make a further search.

“Take out what you do have and let’s see,” I encouraged him. My suspicions began to deepen.

“I–I don’t have any change, really, sir. I’m sorry. Perhaps I could go down to the pharmacist’s shop and get you some, though,” he uneasily proffered.

“See here, my boy,” I became severe, “there’s no reason in the world why you can’t simply turn out your pockets and let me see what you do have. I may be able to make up what I need by doing some adding here and subtracting there. Be quick now, the young lady is waiting and she needs hansom fare!”

The youth turned a vivid red and gulped and then tried to speak, his brown eyes almost beseeching in their entreaty. This reaction alone confirmed my suspicion: this temporary aide to my caterer had neatly pocketed Alice’s three one-pound notes! I looked extremely grim as I approached and commanded, “Now that’s enough of this shillyshallying! Turn out your pockets, I tell you, or perhaps you would like me to go fetch a constable and have him turn them out for you!”

“Oh, please-don’t do that!” the youth gasped, and I saw his eyes blink and fill with tears. Very reluctantly he plunged his hand down into his trousers pocket again, and slowly drew it out and opened it. There were three one-pound notes!

“I think, my fine young gentleman,” I said between my teeth, “that you and I had best have a little chat. Give me the honor to enter my apartment, for we do not wish to cause a scene for the neighbors to eavesdrop upon. And don’t, I pray you, entertain the notion of trying to run for it. I was the second best half-miler in my form!”

Then to my amazement, the youth plunged his hands to his face and began to weep. I felt a kind of disgusted contempt for such a cowardy-custard who would not have the courage to face up to boldly if he really needed those three pounds so badly. I took him by the collar, and I hissed, “Quick, march now, fellow, or I’ll really put you in charge! I did not think that Mr. Willoughby would employ a common little thief!”

Opening the door to my apartment with my right hand, I shoved the youth in and closed and locked the door behind us. Alice had risen, her lovely eyes wide with curiosity and surprise, to see what all the hubbub was about.

“This fellow, Alice, had the temerity to hook your banknotes out of your purse,” I told her.

“Why, what a shocking thing to do! But why in the world would he do a thing like that?”

“Ask him, not me, my dear,” I chuckled. Having released the fellow, I clenched my fist and showed it to him: “Now, I dislike violence, but you had best make up your mind to tell me the truth or else it will go very hard with you. I certainly shall have to tell your employer, and it will mean your immediate dismissal. It remains for you, however, to determine whether I-have you booked as a thief at the local constabulary or whether I shall let you off with a sound thrashing. How old are you anyway?”

“Eight-eighteen, s-sir,” the boy quavered.

“But why in the world did you do such a wretched thing? If you had needed money, you might have thought of asking me because of embarrassed circumstances,” I told him. “I have a generous nature when I am properly approached, as my fiancee there can confirm.” At this sly innuendo, lovely brown-haired Alice turned red as the proverbial beet, and playfully shook her little fist at me.

“I–I didn’t mean to take it, but I couldn’t help it, sir,” the youth began to sob, disgusting me with his lack of manliness.

“You had best tell me the whole story so that I can be the judge of that,” was my cold reply. “Begin by giving me your name.”

“It-it-it’s W-W-Will.”

“Will what?” I relentlessly pursued.

“W-Will Ponsonby. And truly, I–I didn’t mean to, but I had to. My aunt-my aunt is terribly ill and needs medicine and she’s all alone,” the youth tearfully stammered.

“Do you know what I think, Will Ponsonby or whatever else your name may really be?” I growled. “I think, sir, that you are a liar and a common thief, and that I am going to send my fiancee down to the corner to fetch a constable directly! Once you are at the Bow Street lockup, you may change your tune.”

“Oh no! For heaven’s sake, don’t do that, it would kill my poor aunt, truly it would sir, sir! Oh please, you-you spoke of a b-beating a little while ago… I–I would rather take that a thousand times over than be turned over to the constable!”

“He really means it,” Alice said wonderingly.

“And I think I shall take him up on it at once,” I said impulsively. “Come along, Will Ponsonby. We shall get to the bottom of the truth of the matter!”

With this seizing him by the scruff of the neck, I pushed the fellow towards the Snuggery, gesturing with my free hand for Alice to follow, which she readily did.

Once inside, I ordered the youth to remove his black frock coat, which belonged to the establishment with which I had done business for some few years with never until this evening any difficulties. Reluctantly he did so, and stood before me in a high-collared shirt with long sleeves, and the black trousers of the establishment, which reached down to his ankles and over his polished black patent-leather shoes.

“Lift up your hands now,” I ordered, while I signed to Alice to let the pulley ropes down from the ceiling. As the youth hesitantly obeyed, I stood beside him, and, catching one of the ropes, made it fast around his left wrist, and then in a trice had the other equally pinioned. I gestured to Alice, and the pulley ropes were hoisted, stretching him to tip toe. His face was scarlet, and great tears welled in his limpid and very widened brown eyes as he stared hopelessly at Alice and me.

“Now then, young Will,” I addressed him, “you shall have a good dozen of the best with a birch, after which you may leave with your ill-gotten gains, but with the understanding that I intend to tell Mr. Willoughby, your employer, that I do not find you all trustworthy or reliable. It will mean your dismissal, but at least you will be spared the ignominy of a police arrest. Are you agreeable to that?”

The youth closed his eyes and nodded, and a choking gasp emerged from his trembling lips.

“If you please, Alice, there’s a dear girl,” I ordered, “unbutton Master Will’s shirt and roll it up as high as you can? And the undershirt as well. The bare back is the field of operation for a common thief.”

“Oh please, sir,” the youth suddenly and tearfully gasped out, “don’t strip me, I beg of you, don’t do that! I–I will take the birching bravely, I promise! Even give me double, sir, but please don’t strip me!”

“You are unduly modest now after your roguery,” I chided him. “And there is nothing of impropriety in being stripped to the waist for a flogging. Why, sir, if you had gone to Eton as I did, young sir, you would have been forced to bare a good deal more than what I propose to unveil. Proceed with it, Alice!”

Alice went behind the slim youth and began to tug out the shirttails, at which the fellow twisted and wriggled and even tried to kick, crying out and sobbing, “Oh no! I beg of you, Miss, don’t shame me so! Have pity on me!” till I was exasperated. I started towards the culprit and myself unbuttoned his shirt and then yanked up; the tails in front while Alice was doing the same behind. To my intense surprise, I perceived not an undershirt but a-pink camisole, with fastening shoulder straps, and what was more-a quite discernible bosom! Our Will Ponsonby was not a young boy, but a young girl!

“In heaven’s name, what is the meaning of this impersonation?” I demanded, angry both with myself and with the conniving wench.

“Oh please, sir, I–I’ll take the b-birching and say no more, only leave me my clothes, for God’s sake!” the girl said in a trembling low husky voice that now took on a disturbingly appealing nuance-now that I knew her to be a she instead of a he, to be sure! “The-the fact is, my aunt is very poor and I have been trying to find work as a typist and without luck, and Davis, that’s the grocer’s boy, told me that Mr. Willoughby down the street was in dire need of some waiters because two of his men had gone off to visit sick relations. So-so I dressed myself this way and I got the job. And when I saw the lady’s purse open-”

“Dear me,” Alice here intervened. “I really must have forgotten to close the clasp.”

“That’s true, M-Miss,” the girl sobbed. “When I saw the notes and I filched them… but truly, I–I meant to bring them back as soon as I find steady work, that’s the truth, sir!”

“Then what is your real name?” I sternly demanded.

“Wilhelmina Ponsonby,” was the answer.

I must confess that this discovery gave me quite a turn, from finding a Will transfigured into a Wilhelmina before my very eyes. My eyes fixed on the camisole and on the two pert, firm swellings which I know knew were titties and not the chest of a boy. Alice, behind the captive, facing me, winked and made a gesture. My pulses began to throb quickly. And why not indeed? Decidedly, this charming little thief who had added impersonation to her other follies was in need of a good lesson if she wished to earn her three pounds. I would not be brutal with her, but I was not yet convinced that she was telling the entire truth about the sick aunt.

“Very well, Wilhelmina,” I finally decided. “You may keep the three pounds and I will say nothing to Mr. Willoughby. But in return, you must be birched, and properly. That is to say, your breeches must be taken down and you must receive the withes on the bare bottom!”

“Oh no! Oh heavens! I would die of shame, sir-Oh for God’s sake, don’t do that to me!” the young woman wailed and tried to tug at her bound wrists.

“I am afraid you have no choice, Wilhelmina. It is that or having my fiancee fetch the constable at once,” I said inflexibly. And then I attacked the buttons of the breeches, and began to drag them down, while the slim captive struggled and screamed and pleaded with me not to shame her thus.

But a perverse kind of sensual excitement had taken hold of me-to which of course I could attribute my erotic state of knowing that my beloved Alice was at last alone with me and that we were so soon to be made one. In the waiter’s costume, this charming brown-haired girl looked so devilishly like a boy that was impatient to discover the essential difference. The hair was cut so closely, like that of a schoolboy who wishes to be thought anything but a scholar by his classmates, that there was a kind of disturbing mannishness to that charming face. But now that the breeches were down, I saw a pair of white cotton knickers, and I felt my cock throb and stiffen in response. Between ourselves, Alice and I knelt down and tugged the breeches off the struggling slim long legs of the wailing and sobbing captive. We unbuttoned the shirt and let it dangle loosely about her. She was now revealed in just the camisole and knickers, her slim long pale white legs almost entirely bare, since she wore half-socks of gray wool to about mid-calf and of course the black-patent leather shoes.

I found myself unfastening the shoulder straps of the camisole and letting it drop down to her ankles, whereupon Alice whisked the garment off, and our Will who was Wilhelmina shrieked aloud as she found herself naked from throat to the waistband of her knickers. They were very snug and tight-fitting, and their legs were down to about mid-thigh, slightly shorter than those of a pair of drawers. I could see now for myself how easy it had been to pass herself off as a youth, because her titties were small oranges, saucily high-perched, widely spaced, with the most adorable little pink buds set in narrow coral circles, the circles of love, as I always called them. Her belly was flat. and sleek and with an adorably tiny deep navel to mark it. The knickers shaped out one of the jounciest pair of compact, tightly spaced oval cheeked bottoms I have ever seen, and Alice’s eyes were glowing with a sadistic joy as they fixed on that exciting posterior. Wilhelmina’s thighs were long and shapely and on the slender side, her calves highset and sinuous. With the shirt loosely flapping and open down the front, and in only her knickers and the half-socks and shoes, together with that closely cropped hair of hers, I found this wench devilishly enticing.

“She really must have her knickers down, Jack dear, if you’re going to birch her,” Alice suggested.

“That’s quite true. But first I think the humiliation of a good smack bottom will be an ideal preparation for the birch,” I decided.

“Will you do it, or shall I, dear Jack?” Alice fairly panted in her excitement.

“Since it was your three pounds she took-which I of course will replace to you, my darling,” I gallantly replied, “to you shall fall the honor of initiating Will’s bottom in the pangs of retribution. This will be for the theft. Then we shall take up the matter of the impersonation and the flagrant deceptions she had practiced on us, by which time I have no doubt we shall learn more of her character than we now know. You may proceed, Alice.”