Augustus and Lady Maude

II. OMBRE

XIV. Augustus to Lady Maude

Chez Dr. Raspail, 8 July

My dearest Maude, I am the most tormented creature the world has ever known.

For the past two days I have lain under the ministrations of Dr.

Raspail and only now feel my nerves in a sufficient state of recovery to write these lines. Julie is gone. Sian is gone. I do not mean that they are dead. They have been spirited away before my very eyes.

I do not know what I shall do or how I shall survive in these next few days. I went to the usual rooms which I have rented in the house across the street, in order that I might observe what passed between the two girls. It was just at sunset and the lights soon came on in their uncurtained windows which showed me everything that passed.

Julie had returned home to find Sian waiting and they had retired together to the bedroom. Neither of them had yet undressed but stood looking at one another across the bed in their singlets and tight denim-pants. Yet they had not had time to do more than caress one another with their eyes when there came a knock at the street door. It was of a kind which permits no prevarication. Even before the girls could answer it the door was opened, for all the world as if one of the four intruders had a key to it. There were four of them, Maude, all well-built and dangerous-looking brutes, though they wore masks across their eyes as if it were carnival in Venice. I knew at once that some villainy was intended towards the one girl. Of course, I cared nothing about what might be done to Sian and, indeed, would have welcomed seeing her ravished first and then given the coup de grace. Yet I could not be indifferent to the peril in which Julie now stood. I went to the door of my room, intending to go down the stairs into the street and raise the alarm. To my astonishment, however, the door had been locked or otherwise secured by some person on the outside. It seemed that I was a prisoner, helpless to do more than watch the events which unfolded in the room opposite. I went to the window, of course, threw it open and shouted, “Help! Help! Ho, there! Murder!” and similar imprecations. The street remained dead. It seemed that all the other buildings were now empty, as if someone had arranged that it should be so. You might have sworn that the inhabitants, all of them Mr. Bowler's tenants I believe, had been well rewarded to spend the night drinking at his expense in a nearby tavern. One of the men chose Julie, threw her on the bed, tightened a strap round her wrists and fastened them to the metal rail. Perhaps it was only Sian whom they wished to deal with. At least, for the moment, they left Julie alone, squirming and mewling on the bed, a gag of some sort thrust in her mouth to subdue her shrillness. I would be a hypocrite, Maude, if I did not confess privately that I enjoyed seeing Sian get her desserts. The men were going to abduct her, of that there was little doubt. Sian was destined for sale to some harem-owner or connoisseur. It was not, of course, necessary for the men to do to her the things which they now inflicted. All the same, it would have been hard for them to resist the temptation. Anyone who has passed Mr. Bowler's premises and chanced to see this redheaded dollymop would have envied the men the fun they had with her. You have only to look at Sian, the short and straying plumes of her red hair over her forehead and on her collar, the sensual blue eyes, the slope of her cheekbones, the weak chin and the painted little mouth. If that does not reveal her character sufficiently, observe her dressed in white blouse and the tight fawn cotton of working-pants. She is not particularly tall and, though she must be twenty years old, her thighs are slim and the cheeks of her bottom trim and agile. When she is at her work, watch her bend to some task or other. How lewdly she does it, her legs astride a little, her rude little bottom rounded right out with its cheeks parted under the tight seat of her denim, for all the world as if she wished to display herself to the passing world like the most shameless and depraved young whore. Without more ado, three of the masked bravoes marched Sian into the other room where the man who was their leader sat in judgment on her. “Stand in front of me, Sian. Let me look at you. Are you truly such a warm-blooded young slut that no girl is safe in the same bed as you? In that case you must be taken somewhere where you can exercise your talents under supervision. Ah, I think you guess that you have had your last experience of being at liberty. Do you know what a price a girl of your trim figure and fair skin will fetch at auction-in the Arabian trade, where harem girls are bought and sold-” While he was talking to her, Sian's blue eyes with their darkened lashes growing wider in disbelief, one of the other men brought in a heavy step-ladder. “I do believe,” said the leader of the group, “you have one of the prettiest faces I have seen on a working-girl, Sian. I like the saucy way you keep your red hair short and curling over your collar. Turn round, Sian, and let me look at you from behind. A pair of round and firm young bottom-cheeks, Sian!

You're going to be whipped presently-those are the orders given us. It will help you to know that we have no power to spare you that punishment, even if we wished to. Go to the step-ladder and bend over it with your arms stretching down on the far side. The men will make you do it anyway, if you prefer to be forced.” The windows on both sides of the narrow lane were wide open in the warm midsummer night, so that I listened to him as if he spoke in the very room where I languished then. Two of the other men seized Sian and hauled the young redhead across to the heavy step-ladder. It was low enough for them to bend her forward tightly over its structure, so that the little platform at the top supported her young belly and her arms were drawn at full stretch down the far side. They pinioned her wrists to these supports and left her in this position. Sian was bending over the ladder much as one sees her when she stoops to some workaday chore. The short mop of her reddish hair fell in a disorder of lightly waved tresses. The beige denim of her working-jeans was tight on her slim thighs, hips and buttocks. How very trim and how very tightly rounded were the nubile cheeks of Sian's bottom! They undid the denim and pulled off her working-pants, while she mewed and squirmed vainly against the wooden steps of the ladder which held her. Sian's knickers were no more than the snug cotton briefs which one sees through the tight jeans-seat whenever Sian bends over to her shop-work. Being prudent though, they ran Sian's briefs under the tap, made a wad of them and packed her mouth with the dampened cotton to quell her shrillness. I could neither defend nor excuse the amusement they now had with her. And yet, Maude, words cannot describe the satisfaction I felt at seeing what they now did to her. She had designed an evening of pleasure with Julie at my expense-and now these fine fellows were going to make her pay the price! The first man stood behind Sian as she bent over the step-ladder, her wrists tied to prevent her straightening up, while the structure itself ensured that she could not twist or squirm out of range. He manualised her between the legs until, I swear, one could hear her slipperiness. You need have no pity for Sian. Even in her present predicament she lubricated as soon as a man's fingers stroked her! This hulking fellow unbuttoned himself with a contented sigh and eased a prodigious member between her slim legs from the rear. Sian needed no encouragement, despite the promise of the discipline which was later to be inflicted on her. To see the way she strained back with her hips, spread her thighs and rode up and down the shaft, you would have thought that the masked ruffian was Apollo and Casanova all in one. I promise you, Maude, that had you been able to see the way Sian bowed her mop of red hair, the manner in which she seemed almost to “do the splits” to accommodate her lover more deeply, you would see her for what she is.

He spared her nothing, nor did she ask him to. He took a jar of vaseline and spread it between the tightly rounded cheeks of Sian's bottom, as if it were the most natural caress in the world. I have no doubt that his employer had warned him of the dangers if Sian appeared on the slave-block with her white belly swollen up! For that reason, he adjusted the head of his ram to the tight dark bud between her rear cheeks and spent his passion deep in Sian's backside. I do assure you, my dear cousin, that I cared nothing for what harm or discomfort she might suffer from this. Indeed, my only fear was that Sian might escape harm and discomfort. When I thought of her lewdness with Julie, how she had been the seducer of the young nymph into the paths of Lesbos, I thought nothing too severe for her. During half an hour the wooden step-ladder creaked rhythmically under the thrusts of the ravisher, while Sian wriggled and writhed, moaned and shuddered, so that one scarcely knew whether she suffered torture or ecstasy!

At last the heavily built fellow who pressed upon her gave her a smack on the bare flank of her hip to prepare her for his spending.

Raking her thighs with his nails, he butted and jigged, pumping his copious flood into Sian's trim-cheeked young bottom. Do you suppose, Maude, that the young whore really believed he would spare her the whip because he had just enjoyed himself so much with her? It certainly seemed that Sian was under some such delusion. She still bent naked over the step-ladder, for the straps obliged her to. But now she turned her collar length of red tresses and looked back at the man with a doe-eyed expression of soft admiration at what he had done to her. The tendrils of the red hair brushed her brow, the blue eyes with their darkened lashes seemed wider still with desire, and the painted young mouth was parted lightly over the wad which filled it.

As if to excite him a little more, Sian moaned and whimpered, squirming against the wooden steps of the ladder and performing a lewdly enticing dance with her pert little bottom. I was glad-so very glad-to see that he was not deceived by this. Though he grinned at her, his amusement was of the vindictive kind. In his hand he held a length of whip-cord. It formed a loop as he held the two ends in his fist and so it dangled about two feet in length from his hand.

Sian was mewing urgently through her gag, no doubt reproaching her lover for so soon forgetting the intimate conjunction of her thighs with his manhood, her backside and his tool, which they had just enjoyed. The fellow paused, not out of reluctance but in order to tie several knots in the whip-cord so that she might feel the lashing with exceptional force where they hit her. It was the leader of the men, who had so far sat in his chair and watched Sian's adventure, who spoke to her next. “Bend right over the ladder, Sian! Tighter still! Your lover wants to whip you now. The tighter you bend and the better you behave, the sooner the thrashing will be over. I'm sure you're frightened, Sian. You're going to be hurt and, with a girl of your sort, the mere threat of that makes you squirm with fear. Very well, if you want a hard time, Sian, we are the men to give it you.”

Without further ado, he got up and went across to the step-ladder. He stood wide astride, forced Sian's head down between his legs and clamped his thighs on her neck. Then, as she bent so tightly over the ladder, he gripped her bare waist with his hands to hold her still for the flogger. The man with the whip-cord ran it under the tap so that it would hit harder by being wet. He teased the frantic young redhead by dangling the wet cord against her firm white buttocks-and even between them-making her heart swell with terror at the cold wet lash. When Sian tried to compress her bum-cheeks together, the other men who held her down were easily able to draw them apart. “You have such a pretty young bottom, Sian!” he said to her quietly. “No wonder the men who passed Mr. Bowler's window like to see you bending over to your work!” The man who had made love to her was less amiable now, hard and pitiless in his cruel desire.

The young bitch needs the whip!” he said savagely. “She shall learn obedience more easily with the cheeks of her arse well-skinned!”

He swung the whip-cord high and brought it down hard across the trim and tightly, rounded cheeks of Sian's bottom. Though they had gagged her, one knew that the strenuous sound trapped in her throat had the force of a scream. It would not, I suppose, be prudent to discuss my reactions to this scene with Dr. Raspail. And yet, Maude, I now began to learn a little about myself. I had thought beforehand that when the whipping began, I should be quite unmanned. I would be appalled at the cruelty, even to Sian, and would long for it to stop.

Perhaps it is a measure of the vindictiveness which I feel towards her that I experienced no such doubts! How urgently Sian tried to writhe her neat young hips and squirm her thighs! Fortunately the man who was holding her kept her hips straight so that Sian's backside faced her chastiser properly. The whip-cord smacked hard across her trim bare buttocks again, and then again. “You get a hundred strokes, Sian!” said the man who held her. “A loop of whipcord is only a little girl's punishment, so you must have plenty of it.” To judge from the shriek which Sian tried to emit at this promise, she did not consider it a little girl's punishment at all! With a sound of whip!… whip!… whip!… the man who thrashed her gave Sian twelve stinging cuts in quick succession round the tops of her thighs. Her knees bent under her and if she had not been supported by the ladder over which she lay, the young redhead would have collapsed on to the floor. “Give the young tart's backside a taste of the whip,” said the man who held her. “We must see Sian with one or two pretty trickles of red running down to the backs of her knees!” If the art of discipline is to have a girl like Sian trembling and mewing even before the whipping has properly begun, these two men were masters of the art. Though Sian twisted the mop of her red hair wildly, she was almost swooning with terror. The man whose sperm was still in her backside as evidence of his enjoyment of her now gave her the hundred strokes with the loop of whipcord. The one who held her rightly over the ladder spoke quietly to her, while Sian's screams were reduced to an urgent mewing by the wad in her mouth. “Such a fuss, Sian! Anyone might think it was the first time a girl of your kind had been whipped for her naughtiness!… You'll have your bare bottom thrashed often in the place you're going to, Sian… Sometimes as a punishment but quite often just for the enjoyment of the man who does it to you!… You must learn to give him a good time while he does it to you! Turn your face and look round at him while he whips you!… Lie over the sofa with your thighs open a little and the cheeks of your bottom parted to show him what he likes to see! You're a randy little bitch at most times, Sian. Anyone who passes the saddler's window can see that! You must learn to act like one under the lash!” The wet cord cracked like a ringmaster's whip across the tensing and twisting cheeks of Sian's bottom. She was now screaming into her wad with little respite, except when the man who held her was obliged to revive her with a smelling bottle to her nostrils. The young redhead's buttocks were a mass of loops and curlicues of the whip printed in raised and angry red. The man who held her pressed Sian's bottom-cheeks apart and encouraged his comrade. “Skin the little tart between her bum-cheeks! She needs a little whip to soften her insolence!” The other fellow needed no further encouragement to whip Sian intimately. You may be sure they taught this randy little shopgirl a lesson she was not likely to forget in a hurry. It was only during the most intense moments of the discipline that I realised the profoundly exciting effect this act of justice had upon me, Maude. It was such as is only proper in a physiological romance, not in a letter written by a gentleman to a young lady of rank. Yet it made any remorse for what was happening to Sian quite hypocritical and, indeed, absurd. They whipped and whipped her, until at last she lay limp and drooping over the step-ladder. Several red trickles ran down Sian's bottom-cheeks and the backs of her thighs. Though they unfastened her, it was only to gag her securely and strap her wrists behind her back as she stood at the centre of the room. One of the others brought in a large and stoutly made sack whose texture permitted air to penetrate. Sian's ankles were now pinioned as well. They lifted her, doubled her up, and deposited Sian arse-upwards in the sack. Then they tied its neck with stout cord and left her to mew and wriggle in vain. Next they brought Julie in from the other room. She still wore her white blouse and tight jeans-denim. Only then, Maude, was I fully aware of my ambivalent state of mind. I longed to possess Julie and yet I now saw the impossibility. A secret voice in my mind assured me that ever since I had seen her naked with Sian, I must have known that it was impossible. I guessed that Julie would be trussed up in a sack, as Sian already was. There would be a short journey to a private jetty, Julie gagged and her wrists strapped behind her to prevent any scandal. Two weeks in the locked cabin of a private yacht would bring her to an auction block, under the eyes of those who are connoisseurs of slave-girl beauty. When Julie and Sian were sold, the gates of their new master's Arabian palace would close upon them and would never open again. It almost seems to me, Maude, that I accepted the hopelessness of the case in order to enjoy what was done to Julie now. Can such things be? Perhaps it was a safety-valve within the mind's system which prevented me going stark mad with grief. I now began to see how greatly the men must be enjoying themselves with Julie and began to understand the matter from their point of view. The pert little blonde had put her hair up in its coquettish top-knot, just like a little girl going to a dancing class. Yet her rather sham young nose, the high but narrow arching of her brows and her darkened lashes made her such a sullen little miss! They made Julie bend forward, right over the step-ladder, her arms at full stretch down the far side and her wrists strapped to the supports. Another strap bound her ankles together to one of the wooden steps. On reflection I cannot truly blame the men for some of the things they did to her when I consider what a sight she presented. Julie wears her working-jeans tight and smooth as a skin, except where they form little sheaves of creases behind her knees and across the rear of her thighs. Without a blush she will present this tight-seated rear view to the public gaze when she stands with her back to the shop window. Under the smooth denim-seat she presents to the world an outline of what she wears underneath, next to her skin. The world sees that Julie's scandalous little panties are worse than no panties at all! They are worn like this to provoke rather than to conceal! You may be sure such garments tell one a good deal about her lascivious young nature and her wish to flaunt herself. So, my dear Maude, you will see that Julie herself was largely to blame for the effect which her appearance had on her captors as they made her bend forward tightly over the step-ladder.

“You dirty little bitch, Julie!” said one of them, smiling at the tight-cheeked seat of her jeans-denim and then turning to his companions, “Look at the tart's little backside! I think she's asking for it now, aren't you, Ju'?” Whether or not she was, Julie got it anyway! They undid her at the waist and removed both her working-denim and little briefs. There was some amusement about the skimpy panties that Julie wore and a suggestion was made that old Mr.

Justice Snook might like to add them to that extensive collection of knickers in his desk, all taken from girls chastised by the venerable gentleman. My own attention was now given to Julie herself, for she was naked from the waist down. With the flat belly and backward jut of the hips more proper in a girl of thirteen, Julie has pale thighs which seem scarcely thicker than a man's upper arm. There is a provoking little fatness or softness to her rear cheeks, which are still those of a much younger girl. “A sound thrashing with a reformatory cane is what you need, Ju',” said the leader of the men.

“Anyone who sees you walking through the streets or bending to your work must think that. Before you get it, there's something I must examine. Can you guess what it is, Julie? Ah, yes! I think you can!”

Easing his fingers between the rear of her slim and tensing cheeks he took Julie's soft and intimate puss-flesh in his fingers, running his thumb lightly over the pink folds of flesh while the girl flinched and shivered with extreme sensitivity. “Ah, someone has been playing with you this evening, haven't they, Ju'? Was it Sian? Or have you been making love to yourself on the sly?” Julie uttered a mewling and squalling resentment at this slur upon her maiden virtue. I conclude from everything I saw that Julie masturbates a good deal. Even the tight denim-pants rubbing between her legs all day must keep her constantly aroused. Small wonder that her hands are always touching herself in that area! Even when the man was merely fingering her to examine the state she was in, Julie could hardly control herself. She writhed her legs upon him and began to utter those hard and greedy little cries of a young female animal on heat.

At this he smiled again, drawing his hand from her. “We mustn't get you into bad habits, Julie! For the next fortnight, until you reach your destination, you must have your wrist-cuffs linked to a leather collar round your neck out of temptation's reach!” Julie gave another ill-natured squeal at this. But now the man was flexing in his hands a long and extremely supple bamboo cane. “You're asking to be flogged with the bamboo aren't you, Ju'? Bending over like that with those saucy little bottom-cheeks so lewdly parted!”

He touched the cane across her trim and well-spread buttocks, while Julie writhed hard against the wooden steps of the ladder. At first I thought she was squirming in panic. But then, Maude, I saw that she was squeezing herself hard and lasciviously between her slender thighs. The randy little bitch was trying to finish off what the man's fingers had begun! To think that I might have chosen such a girl as lady of the manor! The only place for Julie is as the slave of the most lecherous tyrant. Yet the scene I now witnessed was shrill and raw enough to tear my nerves this way and that so that I trembled fit to drop. The man touched the cane lightly across the tensing and rounding cheeks of Julie's bottom. He thrashed once and made her gasp with the searing smart. He aimed low across her fat little bottom-cheeks and brought the cane down with a report like a pistol-shot. Julie screamed and bucked frantically against the ladder and the restraints. “Now you get twelve low across your bottom, Julie, where it really hurts!” said the chastiser softly. The very air whooped with the thrash!… thrash!… thrash!… of the cane. Julie shrieked and writhed with good reason. Her pert little bottom bore some splendid raised weals of bamboo. Three of them had interlaced so cruelly that the first ruby droplet welled up and trickled down the back of her slender thigh. The other men congratulated the chastiser on this evidence of his skill. “Lay into the little bitch!” said one of them. “She's needed it for a long time! Teach her a lesson in manners!” You may be sure he did! At one moment her screams were so shrill that one of the other men held Julie's head and pressed his hand over her mouth. It must have been a rare sensual experience for this fellow to have his hand over her mouth-one finger between her lips-as the cane whipped and whipped across Julie's bottom-cheeks, raising thin blueberry weals and then thrashing these till wine-red trickled. As Julie tried to force her screams through the covering hand, her tongue constantly licked and wetted his fingers as if in some lewd caress. They took her punishment far beyond anything which a reformatory would permit. At length, her head drooped. The fine-spun golden-blond hair broke from its little top-knot into a spreading veil. Half swooning under the bottom-punishment of the bamboo, Julie drooled through the fingers of the man who held his hand over her mouth. Even this, I believe, was done deliberately by the little minx to seduce him, for he made her take it back again. Indeed, now that the caning was over, Julie lay bottom-upwards over the ladder in the most abandoned manner. Her pert little bottom cheeks were in a sorry state and she writhed piteously.

And yet, Maude, this writhing was sly and passionate self-love. As she lay strapped over the ladder Julie's slender thighs squeezed herself to climax, finishing what the man's fingers had begun. She did it quite shamelessly in front of them, ending with those short hard cries which have only one cause. They did not bother to pull Julie's pants up. Where she was going, she would not need them. Another sack was brought. A gag was slipped into her mouth. Her wrists were pinioned behind her and her ankles bound. Now it was Julie who was tumbled in, arse-upwards, and the neck of the sack tied securely with a leather thong. A few minutes later the lights in the rooms went out and the four men emerged into the street. The two brawniest carried a sack each on their backs. Passers-by noticed only wrigglings and muffled mewings from the sacks, as if the two ruffians were disposing of unwanted kittens. The sacks were lowered into the luggage boot of the closed van. The lid was closed on the mewlings and squirmings and the van drove off. When I recovered my wits I found the door of my lodging had been unlocked as mysteriously as it was first fastened. Only upon my arrival home did my nerves give way at last. I was alternately distraught over the loss of Julie and then intrigued at the thought of being the harem master of two such girls.

The older women of the palace should prune Sian's randiness a little.

And how I would love to have Julie bottom-upwards over such a step-ladder! Yet I dare not breathe these thoughts to Dr. Raspail…

Your loving but prostrate cousin Augustus Anonymous Augustus and Lady Maude XV. Lady Maude to Augustus Lago di Garda, 11 July My dearest Augustus, Your letter this morning, with its account of the magical “disappearance” of Julie and Sian in the two sacks, lightened my heart a good deal. Of course you must feel “put out,” as they say, that your little bitch Julie has been made off with in such a manner.

All the same, the thought that the young whore Sian's bottom-cheeks are to be regularly whipped and salted by a stern master must give you some consolation. The hope which I draw from your letter is in the sensible attitude you show towards what has happened to Julie. Now do not pretend with me, Gussie, for I know you too well! Once they had Julie's skimpy little panties down, did you not enjoy watching some of the things they did to her? Of course you are dismayed at losing her.

But since you had lost her anyway, I believe it excited you a good deal to see her tanned and enjoyed by the men. In all this philosophy of yours towards her, I see you about to emerge as the man of sense and reason. Do let us hope so. Mr. Bowler paid us a brief visit here the other day on his way back to England. You know he has hired a grouse moor for the shooting in August-land in Kinross belonging to the Dowager Lady Lockie. In order to have everything prepared for his guests on the Glorious Twelfth when the first birds are slaughtered, it was necessary for him to return. I shall expect good reports of you from him. In your new frame of mind, I am sure you will want to hear of an amusing little adventure which occurred as Mr. Bowler was passing through. It relates to our little nymph Marit, the Scandinavian girl-student, who seems lovelier every day. I do not deceive myself in this at all. Though she is only fifteen as yet, Marit will be a calm and perfect beauty in a few years more. Her lightly suntanned face has the smoothest, the most velvety peachlike softness you could imagine. I see such perfection of shape as well, rather the form of a shield or a heart. Her nose is so pretty and short, her mouth full and beautiful but with the most elegant lips. You never saw blue eyes so open and steady, nor such silken tresses of brown hair worn just over her collar. I have maintained my system of requiring Marit to bend through the hatch for inspection each morning and evening. Even if it were not strictly necessary in the interests of morality, how could one resist the chance to pull down Marit's silky knickers and survey her narrow adolescent thighs, her slim hips and the almost elfin trimness of her bottom-cheeks? Sometimes I prefer that Miss Jones should carry out the investigation and sometimes I reserve Marit's charms for my own fondling and stroking. During the few days of Mr. Bowler's presence at the Villa Lola, I saw no reason to alter this arrangement.

I had mentioned something of it to him but, of course, he acted like a man of honour and respectability. Such dealings with Marit, he assured me, were women's work. As a worthy landowner or magistrate in England, as a most successful man of commerce, he entirely approved such moral supervision of our Norwegian beauty but it would be unseemly for him to take part in it. Matters remained like this until the evening before his departure. It was after dinner, at about nine o'clock, with the last rippling light of day fading from the lake, when young Marit bent herself as usual through the hatchway and its partition was lowered upon her back. The weather was so balmy, the eucalyptus and thyme so fragrant, that I had decided to take a stroll along the garden path under the pergola which enjoys a view across the lake towards Malcesine. A million fireflies danced in the warm twilight of the Gardonese, while the cicadas rasped among the flowers and shrubs.

I had deputed Miss Jones to deal with Marit. You may be sure that our almond-eyed young wriggler was only too glad of the chance to fondle another girl's nest instead of being always busy with her own!

Having walked almost out of sight, I became aware of Mr. Bowler's voice for he was talking to Miss Jones, having intercepted her before she reached the house. I moved closer and heard him inform her that no inspection of Marit need be carried out that evening. As master of the Villa Lola, and as Miss Jones's employer, his decision was absolute.

Miss Jones went off to play with herself somewhere nearby, for she gets a perverse thrill from doing it where the lads of the town may spy upon her and yearn in vain to supplant her busy fingers with something of their own! I thought that, since Mr. Bowler had decided to spare Marit her examination for that night, I had best go back and release the girl from her vigil at the hatchway. I had just reached the two windows, looking into the rooms on either side of the hatch, when I saw that Mr. Bowler had got there first. The rooms are almost at the level of cellars. Yet as the ground slopes away towards the lake, there are windows on one side, set high in their walls but only at the level of one's knees if one stands in the garden. Because of this and the darkness, it never occurred to Mr. Bowler that anyone might be looking upon him just then. Unlike you, Gussie, I had no idea in advance of watching our friend secretly. Indeed, I was about to tap at the window to draw his attention when I saw Mr. Bowler walk up behind Marit and fondle the tight denim-seat on her trim buttocks with undisguised affection. Before you censure him, dear cousin, consider the situation in which Mr. Bowler found himself. He was to leave for England by express train the next morning and whatever he did now would never be rumoured against him. Marit herself would never be able to say who the man was standing behind her, for the hatch was locked across her back and there was no way in which she could see.

In other words, Mr. Bowler might do whatever he wished, secure in the knowledge that he would be safe from the law, from scandal and even from the possibility of accusation by the nymph herself. All that must have counted as a strong persuasive. Then consider the temptation which Marit herself presented, though it was an innocent one on her part. The tight pants of washed pale blue denim shaped those narrow and almost fragile-looking thighs delectably. The rightly rounded elfin cheeks of Marit's bottom were parted by her posture and the rear way between her thighs was easily accessible. To undo her at the waist and take her pants down would be the work of a moment. Mr.

Bowler smiled to himself. He went back and bolted the door on the inside to prevent interruptions. Very gently he undid her and pulled the denim pants down and off. With her slim-legged look and narrow hips, the briefest panties were enough to cover Marit's most important areas. Mr. Bowler pulled them down and made her step out of them. He tucked them in his pocket and I believe they are destined for that formidable collection kept by Joshua Snook, our worthy neighbour and a most venerable justice of the bench. If so, Marit's knickers may prove to be the most diminutive of many pairs in his desk. Perhaps they will suggest her shape and character to the old gentleman as the larger cotton briefs remind him of his whipping of the fuller-cheeked bottoms of Pauline Cox or Kim Roberts at nineteen or twenty. Now Mr. Bowler paused to inspect the charms before him. His hands examined the young nymph's slim bare legs, for Marit's thighs are hardly thicker than the upper arm of a well-built coal-heaver or labouring man. Mr. Bowler's hand smoothed reassuringly up and down her agile flanks, then fondled the resilient young cheeks of Marit's bottom. He seemed almost content with her, but not quite. A brief stroking between her legs caused him to “tut-tut” and shake his head at the evident lascivious-ness of which she had been found guilty. There was nothing for it now but the severest reprimand. Indeed, how could this worthy justice, this pillar of England's moral establishment do other than what he did? Mr. Bowler went to fetch the school spanking-strap. This device is cut from supple leather, being about two inches broad and eighteen inches long, divided into three flat tails at one end. Marit, of course, could see nothing of what he was doing, yet she must have guessed by the long pause that something of the sort lay in store for her. As she waited I shifted my position a little so that I looked through the next window which showed me her face and the upper part of her body through the hatchway. She is a beauty, Augustus! A real Venus in the making! I make no apology for descanting again on the calm loveliness of the smooth young face, the pretty little nose and that most delightful mouth with its fine young teeth. She twisted her head a little as Mr. Bowler felt her teasingly between her slender thighs and the brown tresses fell this way and that about her collar. Yet beauty at fifteen needs a regular spanking! So our friend-worthy gentleman that he is!-swung the heavy strap to and fro a little as he contemplated the bending nymph in all her nude desirability. Then he raised the tawse and smacked it down with passionate force upon the slim little cheeks of Mark's pretty bottom. Frantically the girl jammed one knee into the back of the other to contain the naked smart of leather across her bare buttocks.

A man of weaker character would have been deterred by the girl's wild cry at the scorching pain of the leather, or by the writhing of her slender legs. Not Mr. Bowler! He aimed the strap six times across her writhing thighs and hurt her so that now Marit screamed under the discipline. To spank her legs with the leather strap was not part of the punishment itself but merely the means used to make her keep still while the sentence was carried out. The strap now whacked and smacked across the demure young cheeks of the Norwegian girl's arse.

Marit squirmed and writhed over the shelf of the hatch like a pretty fish caught helplessly in a net. No blame, nor even the least reproach would ever attach to Mr. Bowler for what he did. For that reason he was exceptionally severe, his mouth tight and his eyes shining as he raised and thrashed the strap down with all his strength. Pretty Marit veiled as if her rump and belly were being impaled on a red-hot spit. One could see that her young bottom and thighs would appear superbly bruised the next day, in a manner almost unknown outside the English disciplinary system. With all his skill, born of experience as reformatory and penitentiary disciplinarian, Mr.

Bowler laid into the pretty little teaser! He paused presently and laid the strap down. It was time to examine his handiwork. His fingers tested the scarlet flush which covered Marit's buttocks and the upper part of her legs. How she thrust her hips out and eased her thighs apart a little for his fondling! See what a lascivious nature the little charmer has! She offered herself to his intimate fingering and seemed as if she would egg him on to do more. Here was the most interesting problem about her behaviour, Cussie. Marit had now been soundly smacked with the strap and was about to get some more.

Was she trying to divert Mr. Bowler to other things by offering the sweet little love-nest between her legs and even the tight little dimple of her arse for his consideration? Or had the tanning truly overcome all Marit's sense of shame and reserve, so that she was ready for anything which her chastiser wished to do to her? That question was not yet to be decided. Mr. Bowler stood back, smiled to himself, and raised the strap again. Though Marit's rear cheeks were already the colour of a pair of skinned tomatoes, he thrashed and thrashed and thrashed again with the wicked strap. How many bare-bottomed strokes would a strict teacher want to inflict upon Marit in the course of a classroom discipline? Would it be twenty, or forty, or fifty? I believe one must expect the number to be high because she is such a little charmer, so calmly beautiful, and yet so indifferent to her elders and betters. Whatever the number might be, I assure you that Mr. Bowler went far beyond it now! Not that I blame him, for one really wished to see Marit taught a lesson in obedience.

Beauty at fifteen, knowing herself to be beautiful, can often be a tiresome little creature and needs an experience of this sort to bring her to heel. I thought he would never have done with her! In the intervals of the tanning there was such gulping and sobbing from Marit, such brimming eyes and moues of self-pity. Then Mr. Bowler swung the strap again and her pretty mouth opened to its widest, most distended shape, Marit shrilled at the things which were being done to her. The strapping had caused her flushed rear cheeks to look somewhat swollen and indeed the outline of the strap appeared printed on them, sometimes across and sometimes slanting. But what was worse for the little charmer was when Mr. Bowler deliberately allowed the tails of the strap to curl between her slim legs, or in between the rounded little cheeks of Marit's adolescent bottom. I fear that he made her endure a few dozen of these intimate flickings before he was satisfied with the state of his girl-pupil. And then, Gussie, came the strangest part of all this. Mr. Bowler went out and came back with a collection of hat-boxes and other impedimenta from which he produced a complete outfit of new clothes for the girl. Nor would he permit her to be attended by a maid, for Mr. Bowler dressed her himself. While she bent through the hatch, he drew stockings up her legs and secured them with garters. Her crimson and swollen buttocks were now covered by French silk panties. Skirts and petticoat followed. Last of all the most charming little boots completed the picture. He summoned Miss Jones to finish off the toilette by adjusting the upper clothes.

By ten o'clock, Marit had overcome her tears and was dressed in the most coquettish little sailor-girl costume that ever a Princess of Wales aspired to. Yet all this was to a purpose. For now that she had been dressed so finely, Mr. Bowler proposed to take her visiting, and set off to pay a call upon the Signore, our most illustrious neighbour. It was a test of Marit's ladylike qualities and the determining of whether she was still a child at heart or already a woman. The difference, Gussie, is simple but significant. When a girl-child has been smacked with the strap as Marit had just been, she blemishes the best society by forlorn little whimperings and whining for several hours afterwards. If she is a young woman, she does her best to conceal the discomfort of her burning and strap-swollen bum-cheeks under an appearance of demure compliance with every command. So Marit was taken as a guest to the Signore's villa, where she acquitted herself as a young woman of fifteen. I understand that they were extremely exacting with her. Marit was required, as a matter of politeness, to sit bolt upright on a hard little chair with a coffee-cup in her hand and to answer with extreme politeness when spoken to by her elders. The Signore was quite bowled over by the little coquette-as who could fail to be? He asked a hundred questions about her, where she came from, who her family might be, whether she would be missed if some arrangement was made for the winter months to prevent her return to the cold northern climate. He required a recital of all the bad habits which she might have acquired upon her arrival at adolescence and all the disciplines she had received even as a very little girl. In short, his fascination with Marit was unqualified, though I hear that the girl herself went into a state of the most charming blushes at some of his inquiries and could not manage to utter a word in reply. In order that their private interrogation of her should not be overheard by the servants, they dismissed the two maids and required Marit herself to be their waitress. As she moved among them, skirts rustling and the silken stockinged legs whispering together, they continued to discuss her.

Perhaps it was the embarrassment of this, or the need to bathe her smarting bottom with cool water, or even a more mundane feminine consideration which then prompted Marit to withdraw to the tiled lavabo for a few minutes. Yet she had scarcely closed the bolt upon her solitude and begun to unhook her skirt when a door in the side-wall opened and the Signore with two of his bravoes entered.

You may be sure that her skirts and panties were soon removed without any effort on her own part and that she was in a moment lying on the marble table which ran along the wall. The Signore was not taken aback by the red strap-prints on her smarting buttocks, indeed they seemed only to inflame his own passion for her. He was a most solicitous adorer. His fine waxed moustache tickled her between her slim Nordic thighs while his lips browsed on the humid mossy folds of her young cunt. He gave her just a thrill-and something of a fright!-with his knob, not going too far in. Her slim thighs almost had to “do the splits” to accommodate him thus far. To have given Marit a baby so early in her life would have been inexcusable, yet it was necessary for her to feel the flood of passion inside her. The entrance between the young nymph's buttocks was so tight that only a very daredevil would have attempted it. Yet the Signore is a hero sans pareil! It required half an hour of his teasing pillow-talk, a little vaseline, smelling salts, and the most extreme yielding on the girl's part to accomplish this. He was a loving tyrant to her in this final act, for he guessed that there could be little pleasure for her.

At last he murmured gently, preparing her for the finale. “Keep your bottom quite still, mia bella! You shall have it now!” The brown tresses swept her collar as she turned her face in some alarm. There was no ecstasy for her on the first occasion, only a slight grimace of revulsion at the feeling of warm slipperiness squirting deep in her young bottom. I may tell you that young Marit's private diary, now in my possession, confirms all this. She was disgusted at the sensation and yet secretly flattered that it had been done to her by a man famous even in the schoolbooks of Scandinavia. You see, dear Gussie, the charming paradox of pleasure. Such a girl may admire or even love the man, while hating the submission she must make. Had it been other than the seed of a sublime poet which she carried in her young backside as she walked back to the Villa Lola with such cautious demure steps and her head modestly lowered, I daresay the entry in her private diary would have been greatly different. Mr. Bowler might tell you of a case which furnishes an instructive contrast When he returns, ask him to show you his photographs of Elke Mahne, a sixteen-year-old Austrian pupil. She is a girl of medium height with straight brown hair cut short at her collar, an insolently pouting mouth, a heart-shaped face with high cheekbones which form a setting for her sly hazel eyes. Elke had been lesbianised at her school in Vienna and taught other tricks by boys in the woods of Linz. You might see her lying on a beach in black woollen singlet and pants of tight faded denim, shouting and groaning in the arms of one young fellow after another. To the scandalised English families she turned the pert high-boned face with its bell-shape of light brown hair. She also showed the seat of her tight denim-pants which was softly filled.

At sixteen years old Elke Mahne's bottom-cheeks had a slight seductive fatness to them which had not yet turned to flabbiness. The Signore had her at his disposal but, you may be sure, a young slut like Elke has no taste for sublime verses. She was less innocent, more promiscuous and rebellious than Marit. Yet the perfect artist intercepted her and commanded his valet to prepare the scene, behind the bolted door of the tiled space. It was necessary to strap her wrists to a pipe as she lay on the ceramic floor. Her denim pants were removed and with his own hands the Signore took down Elke Mahne's knickers. He spread vaseline between the buttocks of his ill-natured Austrian girl and used her just as he used Marit. In the light of her inexcusable promiscuity, most English moralists would applaud the fact that she was made to provide for the Signore's pleasure without tasting any herself. Elke gasped and cursed, she whined and grizzled, as he stretched her round the rim of his stiffness and entered her backside. Because she was indifferent to the finer things and could not appreciate his poetic reputation, she did not behave with Marit's decorum. When he pumped his gruel into Elke Mahne's sixteen-year-old bottom, she made a sound of disgust in her throat and wailed that the squirting of the warm spawn in her young rear made her feel sick with revulsion. You see the paradox, my dear Gussie? Elke Mahne retched at the outpouring, loathing the man. Marit lies and receives it with reluctance-yet thrills at knowing that the man who does it to her is a marvel in nature! When one thinks of it, after all, the greatest passion in the world may end as the meagre and brief outpouring of a substance which, if it does not cause one to avert the eyes, at least has no sublime attractiveness. For all that, life must come to an end without its aid. Hence the importance of poetry and the sublime poet of the Signore's type. It is the poetic dimension which makes palatable the continuation of our species. All honour to Petrarch, then. Would we admire him more for having splattered the thighs of his fair idol with a substance inferior to a spoonful of gruel? And is not Marit right, after all? Must we not honour the Signore for the feelings which his words planted in her heart rather than for the squirting which he left in her trim little bottom?

So it seems to me. But the story is not quite at an end. Marit was to be at the disposal of the Signore last night and Mr. Bowler was then to leave us. It seems that he had already made certain arrangements for her. One day the world will know what they are. At present, her family is informed that Marit's education is to be extended by an excursion of a few months in the Near East! I think you guess my meaning, do you not? Shortly before Mr. Bowler left here, a carriage arrived at the door with a pair of the most strapping brutes as coachmen. I heard raised voices from Marit's room, the girl herself shrill above the others. Then there was silence. Down the stairs came the two strapping fellows with Mr. Bowler following. One of them had a sack over his shoulder, its contents mewling and wriggling with vain energy. I do believe you might have recognised the fellow who carried it! At the door, Mr. Bowler watched them put the sack in the boot of the vehicle and lock the lid. He did not, I think, realise that I was standing in the vestibule where I could see and hear him. “See that you deliver her quickly to Pasha Ahmed,” he said to one of the two coachmen. “Believe me, the reward he will give you may be enough to set up the pair of you for life. Leave the straps and the gag in place until you have her safely on the ship at Livorno. The diplomatic passports from the Signore will ensure that you have no difficulty with the Italian officials. Moreover, the captain of the customs post has been well paid to prevent trouble.”

With that he nodded and the carriage drove off. It will not altogether surprise you, dear cousin, to learn that I have seen nothing of Marit since that moment! I do not complain, of course, for I greatly enjoy imagining what lies in store for the young beauty at her destination! I eel quite certain that she will soon be made to acquaint herself in the most intimate manner with Julie and Sian. A little compulsion will work wonders in overcoming any false reticence.

Mr. Bowler meantime travels towards England. I look forward so much to hearing from him that your own health and moral equilibrium are quite restored. If you should feel the need of a mentor and guide in certain matters, dear Gussie, you may depend upon him. He is devoted to our family and its welfare-as he ought to be when you consider what has been done for him. A magistrate and soon to be a Member of Parliament! Yet he is a man of great good-nature and works for mere love. If then you should feel any more “strange inclinations” towards sluts and tarts of the shopgirl kind, I beg you will seek his advice. He will cure you of mooning romance for the young whores by methods more agreeable-and a sight cheaper-than those of Dr. Raspail! I may take a short trip to the Levant myself, ere long. If so, my love, you shall hear every detail from your adoring cousin, Maude Anonymous Augustus and Lady Maude XVI. Augustus to Lady Maude Wight, 12 July a.m. My Dearest, I have emerged triumphant from all the ordeals and trials of the past week or two. When Julie was abducted under my very gaze, I was half distracted for at least forty-eight hours and my nerves in a state which I hesitate to describe. Nothing would console me then. Yet now I see it was all for the best and am glad that Julie as well as Sian has been taken to a place where she may receive her reward! I see that you were right after all. The little bitch was merely leading me on to make a fool of myself. She would have left me disgraced as well as penniless. I regret only, my dear, that I did not heed your advice from the first. Perhaps it surprises you to see me write in this way. The careless impetuous boy, you say to yourself. How can he have undergone a change of heart so rapidly? The answer is simple, my dear Maude. I know that I never really loved Julie. It was an intense but passing infatuation, as you supposed. I know it the more certainly because now I have fallen truly in love for the first time in my life.

Who is she? Who is to be your very own cousin by marriage? Listen and congratulate me on my choice. She is no easy trollop but a girl who returns hard and disdainful looks to a man's adoration. I am sure she must be a pattern of virtue, to judge by her reactions. Her name is Maggie and she has the most adorable flaxen hair which she wears loose to her shoulders, like a little girl, although she must be twenty-two or twenty-three-years old. Under the fringe of her hair, there is a hard and resolute look to her blue eyes and the fair-skinned oval of her face. I know you will approve my choice when I tell you that she is one of the Bowler girls. I do not mean by that to say that she is a member of our friend's immediate family but rather that she is employed by him in his emporia, which must surely be a guarantee of her respectability. I can scarcely calculate how many happy hours I have spent watching Maggie at her toils as she lays out the polished saddles and horse furniture in an elegant display. For such a task she is naturally accoutred in the close denim fit of riding-jeans, which enables one to admire her somewhat stocky thighs and slightly broadened bum-cheeks. The soft lilt of her voice is a match for her coltish figure and though I grant you she appears a little more vulgarly attired than a fine lady might, this is only the result of Mag's occupation. I beg you, dear Maude. Write and tell me that you approve my choice. You shall see Maggie yourself as soon as you return to England. I know you will soon adore her as I do.

Though I have not yet had the chance of an intimate conversation with her to plead my case, I am in no doubt. My ardour will surely carry the day. Be sure that when I am successful, you shall be the first to hear of it. Your happiest of cousins, Augustus 120 Anonymous Augustus and Lady Maude XVII. Lady Maude to Mr. Bowler Lago di Garda, 14 July By Express My dear Friend, I write to you in great urgency and some distress, begging you to be of service to me in the crisis which threatens all our happiness. The subject of my concern is that unfortunate young man, my cousin. When his attachment to that little tart Julie was broken off, I quite hoped that Lord Augustus was cured of infatuations with grisettes of their kind. Alas! How I was mistaken! I have received from him this morning a letter which makes plain that the wretched little Julie has been replaced in his affections by a sturdy young wench, a blonde by the name of Maggie or “Mag.” I would not, even so, trespass on your time and charity if the matter ended there. No, my friend, this time it is true love and marriage is talked of. He must be stopped at all costs! His letter informs me, moreover, that Maggie is one of your own work-girls. It is for that reason that I now beg your assistance. The method of rescue to be employed must be left to your own excellent judgment and natural ingenuity. It would not do to dismiss the girl from her employment, for then she will fall straight into his hands. Means must be found to eradicate his infatuation and that will be more easily accomplished while she remains in your absolute power. I cannot tell you how much I regret imposing on you in this affair. I only hope that you will believe me when I assure you that whatever efforts are possible on behalf of our family shall not go unrewarded. What it is in my own power to do for you, I shall of course do. If it would amuse you to be visitor and trustee of the Greystones Reformatory for young women-offering many curious opportunities to a man of disciplinary zeal-I will speak to the board of guardians at once. My uncle, you know, holds supreme power there. If it would please you to be returned as Member of Parliament for the county, I can assure you of the Tory nomination at the next election, as a matter of family gratitude.

My uncle would consider it a privilege to present you at court and make you known to that royal duke who is so close a friend of his.

He has sufficient influence at the Horse Guards to ensure that, for the future, the Commissariat Department shall equip our mounted regiments with no saddles but those from your own emporia. All this and more shall be done for you, my dear friend, if I have the power of breath left in me. And yet I know you well enough to realise that you are not a man motivated by reward in such things. We have cause enough already to be grateful to you. Therefore it is to your affection and sense of duty that I appeal. If you can, help me to save my cousin from this insolent trollop who now makes her designs upon him. I put it to you plainly as that. Whatever assistance you may require shall be provided. If you need “evidence” of a crime in order to put Maggie in a prison cell, my steward will provide it. If you wish her committed to a reformatory, my uncle has the power. I leave the details to your own good sense, assuring you that for such assistance and for future tokens of our gratitude, you may rely upon those who truly love my imprudent cousin. So, my dear friend, I take my leave of you for the moment, confident that you are the man to save us all. Your true friend Maude, Lady Anonymous Augustus and Lady Maude XVIII. Mr. Bowler to Lady Maude Bowler Hall, 20 July My Lady, Mr.

Bowler with his humble duty to your ladyship presents his best respects and begs to inform you of how matters now stand with regard to Lord Augustus. Immediately upon receipt of your ladyship's letter, I began an investigation into the alarming circumstances of Lord Augustus's new infatuation. Alas, it was too true. All was as he proclaimed it in his letter to you. I can assure you that I felt as concerned for the young gentleman as your ladyship must have been.

Indeed, I was no less resolved than you to save such a noble youth from the fate which threatened him. At first I hoped that we were mistaken as to his earnestness over the slut Maggie, whom I have employed since she was sixteen. This freak of his lordship's which drives him to romantic infatuation with shopgirls and housemaids is a most distressing development. Yet even among such types, he could not have chose worse. Maggie is already twenty-two years old. There is a hardness in the pale oval of her face and blue eyes. Indeed her features-the nose and the chin-are a little crude in their prominence.

The fringe of her lank blond hair does little to soften this, nor does the straight curtain of it which she wears loose to her shoulders.

If you could see Maggie at her chores in the tight fit of working-jeans and singlet, you would find her an impudent bitch in the manner of her display. She is quite well-built but she lacks some length in her legs and this gives her a rather stocky appearance. I grant you there is a firmness and nicely muscled quality to her body-her breasts are well-moulded, her hips a little broad but not flabby, a suitably feminine weight and rondeur in the curves of Maggie's bottom-cheeks. Such then is the shopgirl Venus upon whom the young gentleman had pinned his hopes of bliss. I only wish your ladyship could have seen Maggie-the hardened young slut!-at work. It was a sight which drew your cousin's mute admiration day after day.

Maggie is one of several girls in my service, like Ange and Alison, Pat and Jacqueline, who are made to clean and arrange the premises. Like them on such occasions, you would never see Maggie dressed otherwise than in her pale blue pants of tight cotton and a working-blouse or singlet. Like Miss Jones, she may be admired through the plate-glass as she dusts and polishes. You may be sure, by the way, that Maggie eggs on those who pause to admire her by a mixture of vulgar provocation and hard-faced contempt. Imagine the effect upon poor Lord Augustus! He arrived just as the young blonde was on all fours, polishing the waxed floor where the saddles are set out for display. Our friend was brought to a halt by the sight of the broad and firm cheeks of Maggie's arse so fully displayed in the tight jeans-seat. For several minutes he admired the view longingly as she backed towards him while her cloth worked vigorously on the surface.

Not only the blond saddle-dresser's backside but even a suggestion of soft pussy-flesh between the rear of her thighs was shown by the snug fit of the cotton pants. In no time at all, your cousin was in love with the young whore! I assure your ladyship that I witnessed this for myself. When Maggie stood up and went to dust the window-glass, he stared at her in an agony of desire. How did she reward him? With the lank blond hair and fringe framing the pale oval of her face, she stared through him as if he did not exist! I was outraged on his behalf. You hardened little slut, Mag, I thought! You shall suffer for this! Does such a girl think herself too fine or too beautiful to yield to the inspection of a young gentleman? The crude firmness of her nose and chin, the coldness of her blue-eyed stare would soon give the lie to that. Ah, you think that perhaps Maggie is a virtuous girl, her sensibility too delicate to endure the rough gaze of a man? That is still more ridiculous. No, Mag enjoyed leading on her dupes by taunting them with a view of what she would then deny them. Having returned Augustus's admiration with a stare of such contempt, Maggie turned and knelt with her back to him.

She knew what she was doing, believe me, and was well aware of the effect it would have on the poor young gentleman. She sat on her heels for a moment and then-an old trick of hers-pretended that there was dust under one of the saddles on the floor. To look at this she lifted her hips from her heels and went down on her forearms until her head was lying on the floor. Imagine the view she offered to Augustus and to the world at large! With her head down and her rump high, the tight denim seat offered Maggie's spread-cheeked rear view to the young admirer. Her full broad buttocks were drawn hard apart and her pussy's softness moulded by the cloth between her legs. Maggie wears panties under the tight denim and the outline of them was as clear as if she had been without any other clothing. To see her then, you would have thought that the young blond shopgirl was bracing herself to fart in derision at Augustus with enough force to shatter the plate glass.

The effect on him was pitiful to see, for he seemed to stagger and tremble with desire. The only consolation was that the other gentlemen who passed by and saw Maggie in this lewd posture were visibly moved to more vindictive thoughts! Indeed, the lewd young bitch seemed to invite the worst they could do to her by offering herself to the world this way. I confess I had such thoughts myself. Even before receiving your ladyship's letter I was determined to have Maggie strapped bare-bottomed over a stable bench or a trestle and make her taste the keen cuts of leather across her sturdy rump.

For the time being I was too preoccupied by matters of business to give the young whore my attention. Indeed, a further week passed by.

In that time, the weather growing warmer, Maggie was put into a summer working-costume. She wore a sleeveless scarlet blouse, the tawny blond hair spread loose on her back. Her tight denim pants were now of yachting white and seemed to emphasise the stockiness of her thighs as well as giving a fatter look to the cheeks of Maggie's twenty-three-year-old bottom. How the poor young gentleman admired Mag at her work as she knelt and bent. It is hard to speak of such matters with the delicacy one might prefer. Had Lord Augustus merely wished to ease his stiffness with the hard-faced young bitch, I would have urged him on. Indeed I would have had Maggie held down and stripped for him to do so. He might have rogered her soundly between the legs and then an ample spending of seed up Maggie's arse would have avoided showing another of her tribe into the world. I am sure the Celtic lilt of Mag's voice would have broken into squeals and cries. Whether of excitement or anguish I cannot say! Then your ladyship's letter arrived and I was outraged by the wickedness of this common strumpet. Maggie had done no less than ensnare a young gentleman of good family. By provoking him and despising him at the same time, she had Lord Augustus almost at her mercy in the toils of infatuation. Knowing me as you do, your ladyship will believe that I had no wish beyond serving your interest and that of those who are near and dear to you. How should I cure the young lord of his romantic delusion? And how should I make Maggie taste such retribution as she would never forget? I thought for several hours and so devised a scheme to accomplish both these things simultaneously. It was only necessary for Lord Augustus to see the girl for what she is!

Did we not cure the young gentleman of his lamentable obsession with the little bitch Julie? Why, then, should we despair of effecting the same remedy with a bold young wench like Maggie? I had invited Lord Augustus to inspect the new plantation which I have laid out upon my estate. It extends along the higher ground of Snow Hill and consists of timber which grows quick and may be felled easy. An acquaintance in the War Office assures me that when there is next a European conflict, a fortune may be made out of wood for ammunition boxes. This will answer ideally and the first planting should be ready in good time for any future hostilities. On the morning in question, I left a message for his lordship at the house, informing him that my gamekeeper, Jewkes, had found evidence of poachers on the estate. In consequence, I had ridden out ahead to the plantation but had left instructions for a mount to be saddled up and waiting as soon as his lordship reached the mounting-block. I will now tell you what it was that Lord Augustus saw in the stable-yard yesterday morning. An hour or so earlier, those who had watched Maggie at her shopwork would have seen her summoned from it and led to a waiting vehicle which transported her to the estate on my orders. The young blonde was dressed as usual in the blouse and tight denim of her working costume. At first she thought the grooms were having a romp with her when they set her down in my stable-yard and seized her by the arms. Young Mag likes a rough and tumble with the boys and has even engaged in such sports with a young shopman before the eyes of the entire world. On this occasion, however, the grooms tussled with her until they had her standing between the shafts of a little garden carriage with her back to the driver's seat. The vehicle is little more than a toy. It occupies the driver alone and is designed to be pulled by a single two-legged filly. Imagine the fun which might be had if the rump between the shafts belonged to Jane Truman, or Tracey Hope. To accomplish this, two stout wooden bars have been riveted across the shafts, so that the girl standing with her back to the driver may be made to bend forward over the first bar-which supports her belly-while her wrists and leather collar are attached to rings set in the forward bar! Do you now begin to see what it was that I had in mind for our young blonde-our young pony-girl, as I might call her? My head groom is the most reliable fellow and he times these matters to perfection. The other two men naturally whispered into Maggie's ears the truth of the ordeal that she was about to suffer. Her lank fair hair flew as she twisted and squirmed in their arms. Those stocky young thighs writhed and her broad young hips surged. Fortunately they were easily able to twist her arms up behind her back, which forced her to bend forward to ease the racking ache.

Two stable-boys ran forward. The first of them slipped a broad harness strap round Maggie's waist-under her blouse and next to the bare skin. With this he fastened her very tightly on the rear bar across the shafts, obliging the stocky young blonde to bend over whether she wanted to or not. The second lad took each of her arms in turn and tightened the leather cuffs of the forward bar round her wrists. Mag was now in the posture which drew the attention of so many gentlemen to her as she laid out the polished saddles. Bending over with the curtains of lank flaxen hair hanging down, Maggie in her tightened jeans-denim presented the firm short length of her thighs and a pair of tautly rounded but fattened young buttocks. I must now confess my deceit, for which I trust your ladyship will forgive me. I had not gone ahead to the plantation but was watching the scene from a window overlooking the yard and opposite to that where Lord Augustus peeped. I could just see his outline behind the glass, a countenance so pale and anxious as he watched Maggie's predicament.

My accomplice in all this was Jewkes the gamekeeper. In his youth he was the hangman's apprentice and deputed for a year to flog naughty young ladies whom the magistrates had sentenced. He, it was, who was to be Maggie's driver. Though the firm features of her fair-skinned face are bold and a little crude, despite the softening of her blond fringe, it was evident that the young stable-lads were very stimulated by her. Even if she is twenty-three-years old and somewhat their elder, one could see that they wanted to do all manner of things inside Maggie's knickers. The grooms withdrew and left the two boys to prepare her. One of the lads drew the collar-length of Mag's blond hair into a pony-tail, so that her face could be seen, and fastened it like this with a black velvet bow. At the same time he whispered in her ear, grinning with pleasure at the randy promises of what would be done to her. The other lad undid her pants at the waist and drew them off with Maggie's knickers inside so that she was now bare from waist to heels as she bent over the two bars. Her underpants were no more than cotton briefs. The lad held up the young blonde's knickers in front of her face and teased her a little.

“A filly must have a proper bridle to complete her harness, Mag!”

You may imagine how she tried to twist her face away. But they wadded the cotton into her mouth, still warm from its contact with her hips and seat, her loins and cunt. It was secured by the leather bit between her teeth which was fastened firmly by laces tied at her nape.

Still it seemed that Maggie was getting off too lightly. One of the boys knelt behind her as she bent over the bars and eased open her robust pale thighs a little to smile upon the sight of the girl's warm and humid cunt-flesh. The other young spark pressed apart the firmly broadened pallor of Maggie's bottom-cheeks and grinned at what he saw between them. In all this they had a purpose. There is a certain pod which any young lady in the countryside dreads feeling in contact with her bare skin. She knows that the sharp little hairs of its seeds are impregnated with a maddening and virulent sting which will make her want to scratch and squirm without respite for several hours to come.

It is the plant known in the tropics as pica-pica but referred to in England by the more homely term of cow-itch! Brushed against a bare flank or bosom it creates a tormenting itch but applied to more intimate and sensitive areas of the female body its effects are unspeakable! At the sight of a well-filled pod in the hand of one boy, Maggie mewed violently through her wad and tried desperately to twist her hips aside. The boy grinned. “A good rub with this between your legs, Mag, to make you frisky!” Fortunately she had been very firmly strapped down and was unable to struggle much. The other boy held her round the legs to keep her steady. His partner coaxed the warm cunt-flesh back a little and then rubbed it gently with the virulent itch plant. Though Maggie strained and squirmed at once under the torture of the irritation, he took a second pod and rubbed her again between the legs. “And now some attention to your bottom, Maggie!” he said, teasing her to the point of desperation. There were two more pods. The first he rubbed thoroughly into the darker valley between Maggie's buttocks. As for the last, he poked its contents up her rear until it disappeared from sight and left her quite frantic. Nor was that all, for they were determined to turn the stocky young blonde into the most proper pony-girl. One of them produced a false ponytail of blond hair which was a match for Maggie's flaxen gold. At one end it was gathered into a thumb-sized leather butt. Ignoring any attempt at lubrication and the young woman's wadded shrillness, the lad inserted the leather butt firmly into Maggie's backside. The twist of hair was drawn tightly up between her rear cheeks, under the leather waist strap in the small of her back, and then rose in a graceful plume of a tail so that its ends swept to and fro across the top of her curved buttocks as she writhed. Now, my lady, picture the scene when Gamekeeper Jewkes entered the yard to drive his blond filly! Maggie was twisting her hips, squirming her thighs together, dancing and kicking as if she meant to overturn the equipage then and there. It is the kind of disobedience which no driver can permit from a filly, whether she be equine or human!

Jewkes flexed the long slim leather of the switch that he carried in his hands. “Bend right forward, Maggie, and keep perfectly still!” He did not know, of course, what the frolicsome lads had done to her. Personally, I was delighted to hear Mag given a command she could not possibly obey. “Keep your bottom still, you young slattern!” Maggie mewed desperately through the wad in her mouth but she could no more control her maddened squirming than she could fly. Her pale broadened hips twisted side to side and the blond ponytail rising from her bum-hole brushed to and fro across the bare spread of the young working-girl's backside. Jewkes's expression did not change. He walked across and stood just behind her, watching the writhings of the girl's stocky thighs and broadened hips. He took the plume of the false ponytail and tucked it under her waist-strap out of the way. Measuring the cold leather switch across her flinching buttocks, he gave the young blonde a long minute to imagine the agony of naked leather-discipline which she was about to feel across her bare rump. The stones of the yard sang to the smack of the whip across the pale sturdiness of Maggie's bottom-cheeks. A frenzied cry was just audible through the wad in her mouth and the short tail of her own blond hair swept to and fro across the back of her collar.

Jewkes thrashed her with the carefully measured strokes of a judicial whipping, impersonal and without pity for the hard-faced young blonde.

Maggie's firm and stocky young thighs squirmed together harder and faster, for all the world as if she sought relief by bringing herself to completion. “Keep your arse still, Maggie, you young bitch!” He found the most sensitive areas, high up on the backs of her thighs and low on the softer undercurve of Maggie's full buttocks. With great precision he raised six blueberry weals which interlaced cruelly. “I'll have obedience from you, Maggie, you young tart!” he said, almost laughing at her. “Keep that backside still!” He made the leather whip flash down again and again, so that it kissed Maggie's bottom-cheeks with streaks of agony. He even whipped her across the backs of her knees and then gave her a dozen stingers round her thighs. “Now your bottom, Maggie,” he said quietly, “Let's see how much more you can take before you decide to obey me and keep absolutely still!” What a contest it promised to be. I have no doubt that Jewkes must have seen Maggie at her work, bending lewdly in tight denim, or polishing on all fours with the jeans-seat taut and smooth over her sturdy young buttocks. I daresay most men who paused to admire such a view would have been implacable with her now. And so he was. He whipped and whipped with all the strength of his arm. At last Maggie's knees bent under her, though the straps held her over the bars. Her lank blond hair broke from its ponytail and fell about her face, as her head hung down. In tribute to the power of his discipline, the young window-dresser swooned arse-upwards over the bar. What a price many of her casual admirers would have paid for a keepsake portrait of her as she now appeared!

The gamekeeper withdrew and left the stable-lads to prepare her once more. Half a dozen of the boys came out. One of them held the little bottle to her nostrils. Each of the others, in turn, presented his unbuttoned stiffness either in the area of her thighs or her backside. The young blonde was unmuzzled and revived to the virulence of the pica-pica itch. In the most plaintive accents of her lilting young voice, Mag begged them for the soothing balm which was in their gift. She whimpered to have each little sausage-like prick in its turn either placed between her legs or bum-cheeks. With the threatened return of the gamekeeper, there was no time to penetrate properly. Instead three of them took turns. Each of them placed his hot young gristle between Maggie's bare legs and she worked the inner surfaces of her smooth pale thighs upon it, asking only for his squirted balm to soothe her itch. These vigorous lads soaked her in grand style, though they had a fine reward. Maggie was so frantic to be eased that she gave each boy a splendid time, giving each one more fun than they would even taste on their honeymoon nights. The remaining three lads supplied her elsewhere. This time each young sausage was laid between the cheeks of Maggie's bottom. How the young blonde squirmed and tensed her broadened bum-cheeks upon them. She was even more desperate for them to spend than the lads themselves. Maggie is a hard-faced young bitch and yet she can give a man some fun when she puts her mind to it. I watched her employ every trick in the armoury of the most perverse young whore to coax this second triple spending from the boys. In this she succeeded. By the time they left her, Mag's rear view was amply splattered, from the curves of her arse-cheeks down to the middle of her thighs. I had been so engaged by this amusing spectacle that I had quite forgotten Lord Augustus at his window. He stood there now, mouth agape and eyes wide in astonishment at what he had seen. If ever a man were turned to stone by the glance of the Gorgon, it was he. Before he could gather his wits, however, the gamekeeper-my own man Jewkes-reappeared.

You may be sure Jewkes smiled to himself when he saw the state in which Mag now presented herself. “I'm glad to find you feeling randy, Maggie,” he said taunting her. “Does the thought of being harnessed and driven excite you so much that you must even seduce the stable-boys? Such fine stripes across your bottom and legs as well! I daresay some men would be lenient with you, seeing that you must have been whipped already. I view the matter differently. To see such weals across your buttocks is bound to put some very cruel ideas in to my head…” And so he drove his filly between the shafts of the little carriage, sitting on the driver's perch behind her and watching the young blonde's stumbling and labouring over the bar. The short leather tail of the pony-lash was most convenient and he made her feel it more times than one could count. As the young woman's stocky thighs strained to pull forward the load behind her, her buttocks rounded and contorted in a thrusting and swaying rhythm which fascinated him.

Best of all was the last mile which lay up the steep path of Snow Hill itself. The young blonde's broadened hips and backside shone in a pale gloss of her own sweat. She gasped for breath and writhed over the bar with the most demented energy. Best of all, the steep incline exaggerated her movements. Her thighs squirmed together in an almost masturbating tightness, while her bare hips surged and swayed.

Maggie's bottom seemed to thrust back at the driver as if she wished to stick it right into his face with its cheeks pulled hard apart, and her pink cunt peeping back from between her thighs. It took her almost half an hour to draw the little carriage to the top. Jewkes's whip caught her repeatedly across her buttocks and round her flanks.

Soon the weals were adorned by telltale smudges as if red berries had been squashed here and there on Maggie's arse-cheeks. Each time she bent a knee forward, the parting of her legs showed her driver a delicious peep of cunt. Each thrust of her hips drew her buttocks apart and showed him Maggie's arsehole. The air rang with the smacks of the whip across her smooth bare buttocks. Maggie screamed in her frenzy and her tight little post-horn sounded some extremely vulgar carriage-notes. Indeed, she did things while strapped over the bar which quite disqualified her as a future lady of the manor! The state of Mag's thighs and backside by the time she stumbled to the top of Horsewhip Hill-as we must surely call it-would require some great painter of sunsets to depict. Though they had reached the destination, the driver was not quite satisfied with Maggie. He stopped the carriage and applied its brakes. Then, while the young shopgirl was still strapped arse-upwards over the bar, he whipped-and whipped-and whipped-the short lash across her bottom. Not until her knees bent and her head drooped as if in tribute to him was he satisfied at last with the state of Maggie's bare backside. You need have no fears for the consequences, my lady. We shall not, of course, permit Mag to return to her former way of life. Already her abduction is planned and we are examining her carefully to see if she might not make a gift for our friend in Arabia! It is far and away the most prudent means of ridding ourselves of the young tart. As for Lord Augustus, you may rest assured that the scenes which he witnessed have done nothing but good. He did not know that I had him “in my sights” all the time. However, I am pleased to tell your ladyship that this was so. Whatever his initial indignation or alarm at seeing Mag stripped and harnessed, this soon gave way to open-mouthed astonishment. Before long, mat astonishment turned to fascination!

With my own eyes, I saw him follow the carriage-outing at a discreet distance. Indeed, he carried a little spy-glass, which he trained eagerly upon Maggie at every propitious moment. It was afterwards rumoured among the servants-with what truth I cannot say-that a certain young lord paid a visit to Maggie in the room where she was later confined. The stable-lads swear it as being overheard by them.

Under threat of what he would have done to her, the young gentleman obliged Maggie to kneel before his chair. Her tawny fair hair was once again tied back in its short ponytail so that he might see her face.

Mag was obliged to unbutton him, suck the fine erection lovingly, and consume the ample squirtings of warm gruel which he poured over her tongue. Who can say? Yet one hopes it is true. A hard-faced young slut like Maggie needs such training in submission. Moreover, it shows hopeful signs of your cousin attaining the age of wisdom. The carriage-outing taught him a lesson for which the world of quality will thank us. In the event of a proposed mesalliance between a gentleman and a shopgirl, far the best answer is to let him see her with her knickers down being dealt with as befits her kind. However much he may lament what happened to Maggie-though one hopes he secretly enjoyed watching her get it!-he cannot take a wife who has been stripped and whipped by the gamekeeper, and who has squeezed stable-boys' pricks between her thighs and bum-cheeks! If, in this letter, I have used phrases which are coarse or offensive to your ladyship's dignity, I trust you will overlook the style of one untutored in finer language. I assure you my heart is at your ladyship's service and express my warmest thanks for that elevation to the bench of justices which Lord Rupert assures me is soon to be my part! I have the honour to be Your ladyship's obliged humble servant, H. Bowler Anonymous Augustus and Lady Maude XIX. Lady Maude to Mr. Bowler Villa Lola, 24 July My dear Friend, Words cannot express my gratitude and relief upon the receipt of your letter this morning. We, the family and loved ones of Lord A, are now doubly beholden to you for this second act of moral rescue. Do not imagine for one moment that our recognition of your generosity will be delayed until my own return to England. You know that in October a certain Royal Personage is to visit my uncle en route to the launching of HMS “Unsinkable.” If it please you, HRH shall spend the night previous to the event as your own guest at Bowler Hall. My uncle and I are one in thinking it high time that a man of your character and abilities should be made known to the most influential circles.

My delight in the downfall of Maggie the shopgirl is unbounded. I hope that what was done to her is known to all those gentlemen who admired her at her chores- and that the hardened young slut knows that they have heard the news. One hopes that they will pause in the future and confront her brazen young face with smiles of vindictive amusement, reminding her of the spectacle she offered on Horsewhip Hill! It will curb her insolence a little. As you say, she must soon be shipped off where she will do no more harm. However, a little amusement at her expense on behalf of the gentlemen she slighted would not come amiss. I cannot, of course, offer you such dramatic news of Gardone as that which you sent me from England. In a week or so I propose to close up the Villa Lola and take ship from Venice for Alexandria. I have had the most pressing invitation from our friend Pasha Ahmed who now leaves Cairo for his country “estate.” He is most grateful to have Julie and Sian in his possession, while his enthusiasm for the young nymph Marit is quite touching! The Signore and I had a little amusement with Miss Jones a few evenings ago. I shall take her-the randy little piece!-as my personal maid on my journey to the Levant. That being so, our neighbour naturally wished to have some fun with her in the days and nights which remain.

Her skin has the warm gold tan which reminds one so easily of the Hellenic or Egyptian that she will suit me admirably in Cairo. The slant of her almond eyes with the high arch of their brows, the long slope of her brow and nose will all add to her Eastern excitement.

Miss Jones is a born exhibitionist, a lewd little minx who delights to provoke the boys of the town by showing herself provokingly to them when the poor young fellows cannot find relief by getting their hands on her. You need only recall the sight she presented when, as one of your girls here, she displayed herself in the boutique behind the protection of the glass. The Signore assured me that the young bitch had taken to performing another remarkable antic. She would walk slyly through his gardens at night to a place where tall iron railings fence the grounds impenetrably from the surrounding olive groves. Miss Jones was as safe as a beautiful cat in her cage from the rough hands of the lads who spied upon her from outside. Then, said the Signore, the young teaser would stretch out almost naked on the grass and perform languorous self-caresses while the youth of Gardone watched helplessly and shuddered with longing from beyond the iron railings. By no means could they scale this formidable barrier and deal with her as she richly deserves. Miss Jones would lie facing them, secure behind the railings and beyond their reach. While the passionate Italian youths sighed and yearned, she would caress her own copper-toned nudity, almond eyes watching them with a mocking randiness. She showed them pussy and stroked the little creature's fur most lasciviously. She turned and heard them groan with frustrated desire at the round coppery cheeks of Miss Jones's bottom. Would it not serve her right to be taught a lesson by these amorous ragazzi whom she has tormented for so long? The Signore vowed that it would, and set about laying his plans. How I regret, my dear friend, that you were not here the other night to witness the ingenuity of our sublime poet. It was an hour or so after dinner when the little adventure began. That night, like every other during this summer, was warm and balmy by the lakeside, the air heavy with scent, thyme and eucalyptus in the gardens of the villas. The dark spears of the cypress trees against a flush of pale starlight, the moon rippling upon the lake, suggested a scene from pagan antiquity. We lay in wait to see what would happen. Miss Jones slipped out of the Villa Lola and into the gardens of the Signore himself. In the moonlight she seemed like a randy little temple dancer with her sharp young nose, slightly receding chin and the slope of her forehead. Yet she wears her dark brown curls in a short and upward-brushed crop to remind one of her back-street origins The young bitch was most provokingly dressed-or undressed!-in nothing but a breast-halter and tight silk knickers which encased her from waist to mid-thigh with their translucent veil. With her slim straight back, pert young breasts, slender branching thighs and perfectly rounded bottom-cheeks she deserved to be sacrificed to the lusts of the local boys. I need not remind you of the rear view of Miss Jones walking! With her legs which are not very long and her waist which is long in proportion, she bustles along in a tight and lascivious little swagger of her bum-cheeks. In a moment more she came to the place where the iron railings fence off the end of the Signore's private gardens from the olive groves beyond sloping down to the shore of the lake. Among the trees one dimly made out the movements of the young men. Just within the railings was a mossy patch, nature's couch upon which Miss Jones might extend herself. The lads pressed their loins against the iron bars, squirming and sighing, yet they could not reach her. Miss Jones lay tantalisingly just beyond the range of the longest arm thrust through the bars. So the pantomime began. With the slant of her almond eyes and the high pencilled brows over them, the young bitch undid herself, first shedding the breast-halter and then the tight silk-knickers. Like a randy little odalisque she lay down naked on the soft bed of moss, propped on her elbow as she faced the sighing boys with stony hostility. Slowly she began to caress her trim pale-gold thighs, drawing her fingers up presently to fondle the dark patch of hair at the base of her belly. Then the fingers eased their way between her thighs and Miss Jones began to stroke herself languorously along her feminine slit. It was remarkable how she did this without allowing the pleasure she must have felt to show in the catlike Turkomean mask of her face. Presently she turned over and rested her head on one arm while she used the other hand to continue playing with herself. Now she made her coppery bottom-cheeks into a pair of smooth round globes, deeply and suggestively separated, to tease the lads to madness. Can you imagine the effect on such unfortunate young men, my friend? I feel sure you have often observed men passing your premises while Miss Jones on all fours brushes up the carpet. If the sight of her tightly rounded rear cheeks in jeans-denim can have such an effect on them, imagine how these ragazzi must have felt on seeing her in her present lascivious state! These poor young fellows seemed doomed to groan and clutch their loins in vain. Just then, however, a shadow moved behind the bushes. Two figures, cloaked black and masked like something out of an opera-tragedy, darted from the foliage, even before the golden-skinned little odalisque was aware of their presence. One of them clipped a silver bangle round her ankle.

Though our randy Miss Jones tried to draw away, the second figure had already taken the light steel chain lying round the bangle, and clipped it to the railings. The youths in the olive grove stared in wild surmise at the opportunity which was now offered to them. It was true that they could not get through the railings and throw themselves upon this randy young piece-goodness knows what damage they might have done to her in their present state of enthusiasm! Yet now she was chained by the ankle to the railings and a most amusing tug-of-war seemed about to take place. The two mysterious figures vanished as quickly as they had come. Would it surprise you altogether, my friend to learn that I played Leporella to the Signore's Don Giovanni?

For all that, he must take credit for the devising of the little jape.

At once we, who had been the principal actors so far, were content to withdraw to the royal box-behind a eucalyptus tree-and give our applause to the drama. The light of challenge, as well as alarm, shone in the almond eyes of Miss Jones. She snatched at a tree-trunk to hold herself, while the ragazzi began hauling on the chain which was round her ankle. She must have been apprehensive at what they might devise once she was in range of their hands, yet there was still an enigmatic slyness in the slant of her eyes under the high arch of her pencilled brows. In such a contest as this, there could be only one outcome. The superior power and the frantic eagerness of the Italian youths soon succeeded in towing this sly young grisette of yours over the mossy space by means of the chain attached to her ankle. Presently she was within reach of twenty-four willing hands which were thrust through the bars of the railings and which pulled her close up against the iron rails. What would they do to her now? One by one this group of a dozen lusty fellows unbuttoned and Miss Jones was menaced by a positive artillery of hard and veined erections. Yet they could not get through the railings and, however they held her, it would be almost impossible to penetrate her at the front or the rear. At first they were content to gather round and touch her through the bars, stroking her slim pale gold thighs, fondling her trim young breasts, handling the satiny flesh of her coppery round bottom-cheeks. To make her as randy as possible, and therefore more inclined to obey their commands, they emptied olive oil into their palms and began to massage her thickly with it. One lad preferred her breasts and performed prodigies of erecting her nipples, tweaking them a little and making her gasp with excitement.

He oiled the sensuous hollows under her arms, her neck and shoulders.

Other ragazzi oiled her legs, several of them working on her at the same time. They did not need to open her thighs by strength for Miss Jones was only too eager to spread them herself, though she made a show of pretending that she only did so under duress. They took turns to masturbate her with their oiled fingers, for it was only to be expected that several of them wanted to do this to her. The randy young wriggler was soon writhing so hard on the verge of her first climax that they had to hold her down for fear she might roll away across the earth. Yet while they did so, there was yet another lad who gave his attention to oiling her bottom. It was not surprising that he should have chosen this aspect of Miss Jones's anatomy, for he was the same boy whom I had seen adoring her at her work several weeks earlier. His labour of love was undertaken with prolonged and amorous attention. He murmured to her all the time, trying to compliment her on the trim beauty of her copper-toned arse and hips.

He did not know the English word for prettiness, yet he knew that the French would have said “Jolie!” and so he complimented her in the nearest Anglo-Saxon term. “Jolly!” he gasped, “Jolly!…

Bottom-smack, now! Bottom-smack now, Jolly!” Suiting the action to the word, he reached right through the railings to give himself room and brought his hand down with a sharp smack on her sleekly oiled backside He spanked her quite hard and the smacks rang out across the lush warm gardens with their fragrance of southern blossoms. He made her gasp and writhe, while she still squirmed with excitement at what the other boys' fingers were doing between her legs. One had only to look at the expressions on the faces of these admirers to know that they were going to make this session last all night! Some of them were a little more furtive than others and could not quite bring themselves to thrust their manhood between the railings for her attention. They played a jig on their pipes in the shadows but could not resist allowing the melodious flow to fall in thick jets upon her belly and flanks, her breasts and thighs, until she was in a pretty state. Others were just able to extend between the bars so that she could hold the last two inches of the muzzle between her satiny gold thighs. She squeezed and rolled the stiff gristle on the inner surfaces of her thighs until, one after another, they poured out a lusty libation. Several of the rest found an answer by drawing her face to the bars, pinching her nose lightly to open her mouth and making Miss Jones suck them to exhaustion. I dare not even compute how many young spendings she must have swallowed down in the hours which followed! The admirer of young Miss Jones's posterior charms was indefatigable in his attentions to her. “Jolly!” he whispered to her, “Something up your bottom!” One knows very well what he would like to have put up her bottom! Alas, the thickness of the railings and the shape of the human anatomy made this impossible.

However, he had picked up a rather large china egg from the chicken coop and now dipped this in olive oil. I was watching the young minx then. Her dark almond eyes widened in surprise and her prim young mouth extended in a yell. That lad had been as good as his word. The china egg, with implacable pressure from his thumb, had vanished up her bottom and her anus had closed over it. The expression of alarm which broke the catlike mask of her beauty was not merely a reflection of the slight discomfort as she was stretched to accommodate the object. Miss Jones, like the rest of us, must have been frantic at the thought that she might not be able to expel the china egg without the aid of a physician. However, that was a matter which could be considered later when the night's fun was over and even the girl herself seemed to accept the danger philosophically enough for the moment. The young sprig who had done it to her was just able to extend his stiffness far enough between the railings to lay it between her bum-cheeks and oblige her to bring him off by squeezings and squirmings. I must say that I was relieved that they were unable to penetrate Miss Jones. So much passion was poured out before dawn lit the eastern sky above Malcesine and the cool lake that I cannot imagine she would have proved infertile. Who knows, in another year she might have been dandling a little jolly-girl upon her knee?

They bathed her with water from the water-trough in the olive grove and then began to oil her all over again. The adorer of her seat of beauty touched his lips to her coppery-smooth rear cheeks and urged the return of the china egg. He settled down to watch this prodigy and was greatly excited when, with some little difficulty, the randy wriggler restored it. “Jolly!” he gasped, “Bottom-smack!…

Bottom-smack now!” It was almost the whole extent of his English vocabulary and yet it seemed to cover most of the situations in which he was required to use the language. Yet I should not personally care to find myself in Italy with no greater fund of words than: “Bellissima!… Sculacciata… Sculacciata alfistante!” All the other young fellows seemed to find the idea greatly amusing, however.

The admirer made a little birch for Miss Jones by tying several apple switches at one end to form a handle. They held her kneeling over for him so that he could thrust his arm right through the railings and get some force into the strokes. As they fondled her arse and thighs, they echoed his broken English. “Jolly! Jolly!… Bottom-smack, now!… Bottom-smack now, Jolly!” One must remember that he had been really tantalised by her display behind the plate glass and that, by any standard, he was entitled to certain poetic revenge upon her for her taunting of him that afternoon. I would not, at any price, have intervened to save the randy little piece from that which she was now going to get. Though the Signore had had some fun with her himself, he was thoroughly enjoying the sight of what the ragazzi were now doing to her. The boy with the rod thrashed the birch down across the trim round cheeks of her pale gold bottom. There were frantic shrieks and squirmings, which only served to stiffen the young men and prolong the fun. She was soundly birched and then loved all over again, which occupied another hour or two. In their hot passion, they spared her nothing, either of pleasure or the rod. As the first light of dawn paled the thin cloud over Venice or Trieste, their voices still warned her teasingly to prepare for more tanning.

“Jolly!… Bottom-smack now, Jolly!” And then there rose the measured whip!… whip!… whip! of the birch across her backside, overlaid by the young bitch's wild shrillness.- It was the most exquisitely humorous display for those who know Miss Jones and her true disposition. I hope also that it has taught the young flirt a lesson. You need not feel in the least sorry for her, though she must have felt a little sore by the time that the boys withdrew and allowed her to unclip her ankle from the iron railing. That day we saw little of her, for she slept through the morning and into the afternoon. In the evening, however, she went out at twilight, before the wicked lads had made their way to the olive grove to watch her play with herself. She approached the fatal stretch of railing and stared at it with the impassive look of her almond eyes, the sharp young nose and the tall brow. Presently she undressed, even taking off her knickers and her breast-halter. To our surprise she tore these undergarments a little to make it seem that they had been wrenched from her in a struggle. Scattering the clothes about, she then lay down right against the railings. I need not tell you how my curiosity was whetted! She lay on her side with her back to the railings, placing several bangles and lengths of stout cord on the ground beside her. With her deft young fingers she tied her ankles firmly to one of the railings. She linked two bangles by another cord and closed one of the ornaments round her left wrist. The other bangle was still open. Yet she did not hesitate to place her right wrist in this and snap it shut by the pressure of her body. She had thus trussed herself up with her feet tied to the railings and her wrists securely linked together so that she could not free herself. Her only other adornment was a light slave-chain round her waist. Where it ran across the inward curve of sandy-gold skin, in the small of her back, she had an ornate name-disc. Yet this device, which hung suggestively just above the smooth and coppery swell of her bottom-cheeks, was picked out in a single word. JOLLY She settled down at once, her fingers playing between her legs, her arse curving at the railings, and squirmed with excitement as she awaited the arrival of her admirers. It will not surprise you, then, that I intend this little piece to be my servant on the journey to Ahmed Pasha! Indeed, I think I shall make him a present of her when the time comes. I leave in a few days and shall return here in the autumn before making my way back to England. Who knows what adventures I may have to relate to you, dear friend, when we are both safely back at our own firesides in Wight or Sulia? Your own adventures by then, of course, will be as colourful as mine. It is not the distance travelled but the skill in seeking out pleasure which makes for the best narration. For the moment, then, ave atque vale!

Let it soon turn to vale atque ave! Your sincere and grateful friend, Maude, Lady J- Anonymous Augustus and Lady Maude XX. Mr. Bowler to Lady Maude Sulia 28 July My Lady, Mr. Bowler once again presents his humble duty to your ladyship and takes this opportunity of wishing your ladyship a bon voyage to the Levant.

In hopes that this letter may reach your ladyship at Gardone before departure, or may perhaps be forwarded, Mr. Bowler seeks only to assure you that all is well with your family and estate at Coombe.

The lower ponds have been drained and cleaned, the iris beds are cut down, and Fox Woods have been shot over, in accordance with your ladyship's instructions. The magistrates had before them last week a hoity-toity miss of nineteen with wide brown eyes and such a coquettish bun of dark hair. What a painted little face it was. Last Saturday afternoon she was mounted over the block. I wish you could have seen her walk toward it in her tight pants, her slim and agile thighs moving easily, Kim Roberts's buttocks so tautly rounded, swinging and swaying widely with the energy of the walk and the tilt of her black tall-heeled shoes. We had her strapped over the block for the entire afternoon. Old Mr. Snook stripped her and Kim Roberts's knickers have now joined those of so many other past loves in the desk of his study! Setting mirth aside, we then thrashed her repeatedly with bamboo and pony-lash, making it the severest of judicial punishments which she will remember every day of her life. I myself caned the lithe bare cheeks of Kim Roberts's bottom with exceptional severity, obliging her to scream from start to finish.

Moral justice rules inflexibly here, as always. Kim's young backside is a dramatic landscape of bruises and empurpled weals. She is to be under moral discipline for two years. I have already obliged her to kneel before my chair and learn to perform the services which she owes to a gentleman of my standing. Thus your ladyship may rest assured that all is well and England remains in good hands. Maggie has been disposed of, to a certain gentleman of our acquaintance in a land where the possession of such a girl as a slave is a wholesome custom supported by law. I felt it advisable to give Maggie a hard time on the night before her departure, employing her from dusk until dawn.

Her journey was made with two trusted escorts in a closed carriage and a private steam-yacht. To prevent unseemly incidents, Maggie's wrists were strapped behind her, her ankles were pinioned, and the usual wad was fastened in her mouth to quieten her. She is now safely in the possession of her new master who has already made her submit to certain pleasures of his own devising. Her absence obliged me to seek another young slut for my premises. I have found a provoking, well-built girl, who goes by the name of Noreen. She is quite tall, strongly made and has a resentful air which I hope will lead her into trouble before long! Such words as trollop, whore, slut, and young tart, might almost have been devised deliberately to apply to Noreen.

She merits every one of them. I must now retire to the next room where our fifteen-year-old delinquent, Michele, will require my attention. Do be sure to remind the Signore of certain hard pruning which an Arab midwife might effect between Miss Aas's legs, thus removing all temptation to solitary vice. One cannot too strongly recommend such aids to morality and our own pleasure alike. With the compliments of your ladyship's obliged humble servant, H.

Bowler, J.P.

XXI. Lady Maude to Mr. Bowler

Cairo, 31 August My dear Friend, I write at once upon my return to Shepherds Hotel to record the munificent hospitality of our mutual acquaintance Ahmed Pasha. I promise you that we shall have no more trouble with Julie or Maggie, nor for that matter with Sian and Miss Jones-or even our young Marit!

The palace in which our friend holds his harem of more than a hundred girls is quite three days' journey from here and is visited only by his most discreet friends. It is a building which encloses the most sumptuous rooms, elegant courtyards, and gardens of the finest fragrance. Yet while it is luxurious as any palace, no fortress could be more secure. Best of all, the law of the land entitles him to be absolute master of all the girls within his walls. If Sian or Julie were to escape-though the thing is fortunately impossible-they would be regarded as common criminals and every soldier in the command of the provincial governor would be duty-bound to hunt them down. On their return, no limit would be imposed on his displeasure. He may even despatch pretty Miss Aas, swinging her from a beam with a rope round her neck while her bare feet flutter like trapped white birds.

Have we not found a perfect master for those degraded young sluts like Julie and Maggie who dared to prey upon my poor cousin's weakness? I have not the space here to tell you of all that passed. Yet I must write to assure you that I had the opportunity to see for myself that the girls whom we have presented to him are being well looked after. The slim-thighed Scandinavian nymph Marit is being trained to give him pleasure of every kind. No privacy of any sort is permitted her, for her secret places must be constantly at the disposal of Massoumeh, the Persian beauty who has her under training.

I still hold to my opinion that Marit with her calm young beauty and brown tresses will grow up to be a young woman of great loveliness.

Yet her life here cannot be what it might have become as a bride of some Norwegian bourgeois. Each morning the older women take her into the tiled and luxurious-bath-house. They pull Marit's knickers down to her knees and draw the hem of her singlet up, for they choose to give all their attention to these parts of her. She lies on the leather settee and one of the women holds her wrists firmly while another masturbates Miss Aas with skilful fingers in a love lesson which lasts for an hour or more. In such places a girl of fifteen must expect to be conditioned to the pleasures of such arousal and the release of orgasm repeated several times in a morning. They have done this with such care that Marit will often slink away to her own bed and spend the whole of the following afternoon playing with herself.

When I last saw her, they had taken her into the more perverse realms of a slave-girl's duties. She had been made to lie on her belly over the cushions. An elderly Arab crone had soaped her finger and inserted it to the knuckle between Marit's buttocks. By frequent references to the whip, they obliged Marit to exercise her backside on the intruding finger, tightening herself upon it rhythmically, milking it as she must soon use the guile of her young bottom to draw from the pasha the venom which would otherwise rob him of sleep. In a few weeks, the man's reality will replace a woman's finger! Sian and Julie are often separated, in order that the young redhead may partner our blond “pony-girl” Maggie as a servant for the Pasha Ahmed's banquets. It will not surprise you to learn that they both act as naked waitresses for the men who assemble in the fine dining hall with its Moorish keyhole arches and the incense rising from the brazier coals. Their sole adornments are tight black straps round waists and thighs, leather cuffs at wrists and ankles, as well as a leather collar. A man who wishes to fasten them in his favourite position has only to give the word. You may be sure that the broad young cheeks of Maggie's bottom collect an ample share of red smack-prints as she passes the chairs of the guests. Sian's trim young buttocks are often smudged by the ash of a fine cheroot. Last night I saw the tendrils of her red-haired mop in disarray and her blue eyes brimming. Alas, some devil had left an angry red streak on Sian's bottom with the glowing tip of his weed! A guest will often use Maggie or Sian as his mattress or pillow for the night. Sian will lie on her back, her legs splayed. A man has only to lie between them and he may pillow his head on the young redhead's belly, her sensitive little cunt always at his finger's touch. There is one elderly and worthy fellow who loves to sleep like this. At the same time, Maggie with her blond hair in a short pony-tail, must lie on her side with her back to him. She is quite naked, her seat must be at the level of his eyes and curved out to within a few inches of his race. With a rear view of her love-nest between her stocky young thighs, his lips are busy with the young blonde all night. His kisses browse on the broad sturdiness of Maggie's bottom-cheeks, between them, and upon the soft humid folds of her cunt. All this time he enjoys Sian's bare belly as his pillow!

Both Julie and Miss Jones are occupied in teaching younger girls the customs of the harem. They lie on the table before the pupils and have all those things done to them which little girls must learn for the pleasure of their master. A man as rich as Ahmed Pasha does not confine himself to Arabian beauties alone. Among his collection are two or three dozen English girls but, I fear, some have been brought here much against their will. One night, to entertain us after dinner, he clapped his hands and summoned a harem dancer. It was only when he mentioned that her name was Sarah that I guessed the truth about her. She was indeed an English girl of eighteen or nineteen and it was exquisite to see such a little madam in so amusing a predicament. Imagine us taking our coffee and sherbet in the fine ornate hall with its pillars and arches, the chessboard marble of its floor and the torches flaming in their iron brackets. There appeared this lithe young creature with a shock of short blond hair, her blue eyes as well as the rest of her features looking painted as a doll's!

She was dressed in pale-blue Turkish pantaloons and breast-halter with crimson dancing boots. The Turkish trousers were translucent, not only showing the brief knickers which Sarah wore underneath but also revealing the lithe energy of her movements, her trim thighs and her buttocks which were so taut and agile. Yet what struck one most about Sarah was her absurdly self-regarding resentment of her situation. Fortunately the vizier with the whip stood by and so we were not denied the pleasure of seeing her dance. He cracked the leather thong once and through the Turkish pants we saw the firm young cheeks of Sarah's pretty bottom tighten together with fear at the sound. The music of flute and tambourine came from the shadows of the arcading. We saw Sarah's arms twine above her as her feet glided across the marble and her hips began their sinuous and suggestive rhythm. I will be honest with you, my dear friend. Such a self-important little minx with her painted face and flouncing manners can be tortured to the limit by the cruel vizier before I will intercede for her. With the worst possible grace she writhed and twined in her dance, performing immediately in front of her master's chair. The sulky little charmer arched her lithe young belly out towards him and let her head hang back, legs splayed and arms writhing. Straightening up again, she began to turn with sly little wrigglings of her trim hips. With his own hands he undid her Turkish trousers and stripped down her panties. She danced with her bum to him. Slowly, at his command, the agile beauty bent over, until he had a splendid view of the trim and pretty cheek of Sarah's nubile bottom.

He made her squirm her young arse at him, for all the world like a girl riding a randy saddle. Then the vizier withdrew and gave a signal that the rest of us should follow. It was time for the pasha to be alone with his young dancing-girl. I confess that curiosity made me linger where one of the doors was open an inch. No suspicion attached to me for I do not suppose they thought an English lady capable of such deceit! I could not see everything, for the trim young blonde bent over in my direction and with her seat and thighs to the pasha. I could tell by the sudden grimaces of pleasure or hating that he found more than one avenue of delight open to him. As is the custom in this part of the world, when a girl exists for her master's pleasure and not for the breeding of children, it seemed that he enjoyed a ride between her legs-which had Sarah groaning and bending tighter to feel more of him- but discharged his seed on the hot infertile soil of her backside, which caused her to bite her lip desperately to check her exclamations of rebellion. I do not tell this story without purpose. Sarah was prepared to make trouble for him because he used her in a fashion which may be unorthodox in England but is common in Arabia. That night I found a message from her on my pillow. She urged me to inform the world of her unwilling captivity and to aid her escape. Knowing me as you do, dear friend, you are aware that I have an inflexible morality in social matters. I stop at nothing to uphold moral order. Yet, in the country where I was a guest, that moral order made this young wriggler the slave of Ahmed Pasha. To steal her from him, by the laws of the land, was no better than stealing his finest horse or his most costly silver plate. You will see at once that there was but one course which conscience allowed me to follow. I inquired of the vizier what punishment would be visited upon a girl guilty of such domestic treason. He smiled and spoke of bare-bottom whipping followed by the placing of a certain mark of ownership on the inward slopes of her bottom-cheeks. When Sarah stood upright, it would be concealed. When she was made to bend over, there would be no doubt to whom she belonged. Delighted to hear that they knew how to deal with her, I at once took the traitorous note to Ahmed Pasha. I confess, however, that my own delight was somewhat exceeded by that of the vizier himself. Can you not guess why? He it was who would have the enjoyable task of commanding the penalties and the thought of doing such things to the young blonde made him hardly able to keep his hands out of his trousers. As a supporter of justice and the need to punish delinquency however it may arise, I had hoped to be a spectator when Sarah was strapped down astride the bench on all fours. Alas, this was not to be. Such things are done very privately, in order to prevent scandal and tales being told. It is the custom for the vizier to be alone with the girl and to partake of certain preliminary enjoyments as his reward. I was permitted-as a student of such jurisprudence- to view the scene before the door was closed upon Sarah and her passionate disciplinarian. To see this lithe and agile girl of eighteen or nineteen strapped down on all fours astride the bench, was a story in itself. The shock of blond hair and the painted young face made such a self-pitying ensemble. She wore her breast-halter, but from the strap round her waist to the strap which pinioned her bare legs just above the knees, she was quite naked. From the back of her waist to the back of her knees, she was at the disposal of the sadistic vizier. I was not able to witness the sequel, not indeed to hold any conversation of the normal kind with Sarah. The gag was already in place and so there was wildness in her blue eyes with their mascara'd lashes. Yet there lay upon the floor a trailing whip which would have brought the most disobedient filly to correction after half a dozen strokes. And in the glow of the brazier coals two little marking discs were heating, each the size of a small coin. I returned Sarah's frenzy with a smile and advised her to learn obedience and gratitude to her master for the tribute of sperm he paid her, when he might have preferred many another harem-girl. With that I nodded to the vizier and urged him to chastise the little whore soundly. I observe respect for social morality-in whichever society I happen to be. In England we do not permit a man to keep slaves. In Arabia a man may be an outcast who drinks alcohol or eats pork. Ahmed Pasha, as our guest in England, would no more dream of dynamiting a pork butcher's shop or a distillery than I would rob him of a slave-girl in his own land. What would become of the world if each country tried to overthrow the laws of the rest? None would triumph. Chaos and anarchy must overwhelm us all, He did not deal with her as harshly as he might. He might hang Sarah for her crime, if he chose. It is his right. Enough of that. I dream now of autumn in the Villa Lola and our calm Italian lake. I shall rest a few weeks and then return to England. There is a delightful Italian tomboy of eighteen whom I wish to explore, rather short but firm-figured, dark in hair and complexion. You shall hear of her seductions and of every stroke of the cane given across the broad olive-skinned cheeks of Patrizia Luisi's bottom! Until I salute you from la Bella Italia, I am your true friend, M-J- Anonymous Augustus and Lady Maude XXII. Augustus to Lady Maude Wight, 4 September My beloved Cousin, As soon as it was rumoured to me that you had returned to Cairo from your little voyage in Arabia Deserta, I took up my pen to write and tell you of the new event which has quite transformed my life.

You were right about Julie. Of course you were. Even in the case of Maggie, my own reactions to certain spectacles in which she was involved assured me that she could not, at all, be the future partner of my life. And yet, my dear, you are mistaken in the most important truth of all. Though neither Julie nor Maggie was worthy of the honour I proposed, there are girls of their humble origins who are more than equal to it. The story of Cinderella and her prince is no mere fable to me. Could I ever find such a treasure? I have done so at last. Her name is Noreen and she is in our friend Bowler's employ. I daresay you will not at once acquiesce in my choice, dear Maude. Yet only give the matter a little time and I am quite sure that Noreen will find a place in your heart as she has done in my own.

With what expectancy I await your return, my dearest, in a few weeks more. Then you shall see for yourself and congratulate me upon the future bliss which lies within my grasp. Your loving cousin, Augustus Anonymous Augustus and Lady Maude XXIII. Lady Maude to Mr. Bowler Gardone, 11 September My dear Friend, However unethical it may be, I enclose a copy of the last letter which I received in Cairo from Lord Augustus. You will see at once why I have cancelled my plans for a warm Italian autumn by the lakes and am returning to England. I am determined that his moral education should be put in hand at once. He must learn the obligations and pleasures which are proper to a gentleman-and those which are not. I wish it were possible to make him see the truth. In his privileged position he may have whatever fun he likes with such young whores as Julie, Maggie, or his latest inamorata, it is the purpose for which such girls exist in our society. As a member of the governing class, he could have them consigned to reformatory or penitentiary, if their resistance proves obstinate, and there enjoy them under threat of the lash. No man of sense in church or state opposes the whipping of such creatures. Indeed, there is talk of a KGB for Mr. James Miles.

But to “spoon” with such wenches, as he does-to talk of them as his brides-to-be!-is beyond all endurance. Is he so hardened in vice and republicanism mat he cannot see the consequences of his wickedness? There is but one remedy, my dear friend. We must teach him how to enjoy pleasure as he should. Only let him enjoy the fun that may be had with such creatures when they have no option but to obey him. It will whet his appetite as this feeble cow-eyed adoration never could. From now on, his life of idle pleasure must cease. He shall attend the reformatory and penitentiary as a magistrate and gentleman should. There he shall see these sluts dealt with and enjoyed by the only method which they understand. Did our forefathers struggle to make our country great, merely in order that its fabric should be worm-eaten by the amorous freaks of a neurasthenic boy?

Enough of this neurasthenia into the bargain! A little education in the cruder and coarser attributes of such girls as these will work wonders. Let him see them spurred by the lash to every vulgarity of which their bodies are capable, it will prove a wholesome corrective to this talk of Plato and Petrarch. I must teach him to appreciate girls of his own class and to see these other wenches for what they are. I readily admit that they offer a man strong pleasures of a certain variety. But the thought of my cousin wedded to a strumpet dressed in virgin white quite revolts me. An end, then, to milk-sop romance and neurasthenia. My uncle tells me that Dr.

Raspail's last bill had to be read to be believed. It will not be paid, of course, for many a month and I do not doubt that he had overcharged in expectation of such a delay. Give me the cure of Lord Augustus's nerves, my friend. I will effect it in short order and at very little cost. We shall make a proper gentleman of him these next few months. There, I feel much better for saying my say. I have asked my father to put off my presentation at court until the spring in order to devote myself to my cousin's cure. I look forward with keen anticipation to the next few months, convinced that we shall have some exquisite moments of delight with the troupe of young sluts at our disposal. A bientot, my friend! My thoughts turn towards England and the pleasures of duty! Your true friend, Maude, Lady