Gynecocracy

CHAPTER 18

It will be remembered that Mademoiselle, before there had been established between her and myself any of that sweet and intimate knowledge which had since so worked upon and so changed my disposition, had as a punishment for my rudeness to Elise condemned me to servitude under that lively young woman for three days. Whether Mademoiselle regretted it now, I do not know. She had never shown me such true tenderness or manifested such feeling towards me as on that morning; her kisses still burned upon my lips, and I could recall the sweet pressure of her recent embrace. Notwithstanding this, she did not revoke the sentence. Almost as soon as I had had my last kiss, Elise returned. She carried me off naked to her room, away from the dear presence of my Hortense-my Mademoiselle. The three days under her had commenced, and, upon that morning, resistance was futile, expostulation I abstained from, under the sway of an indescribable medley of feelings.

The three days under her had commenced, and, upon their threshold, I saw a whip fastened to Elise's waist belt, a long thong, such as with a snap on the handle is occasionally used as a leading string for dogs. My curiosity as to what was to happen at once received a rude shock, and I dared not anticipate. She led me to her room.

To its ceiling there was attached a hook. She buckled two leather straps, broad and lined with thick felt, round my wrists. In each strap was a ring, through which she passed a cord. I had to mount a pair of steps which stood directly under the hook in the ceiling of this rather low room. She swung the cord over this hook.

I demurred about mounting the steps, being fearful of her object. She whipped me until I obeyed. Then, leaving the cord fixed over the hook and to each of my wrists, I had to raise my hands over my head, and to descend the steps until the end was tight. She then dragged the ladder away, and I swung by my wrists in mid-air, some three feet from the ground.

My cries of anguish, bitter as they were, remained unheeded. She put a leather belt, a foot or more in width, round my waist, and buckled it excessively tight, and then fastened two straps round my ankles of a similar kind to those round my wrists. To their rings she attached two cords, which were slipped through two staples fixed in the floor underneath me three or four feet apart. She then drew the ends of the cords together and knotted them. To this loop she tied a third cord, and putting it through another staple which formed a triangle with the two first mentioned, she caught the cord but a very short distance from the floor. Then, with all the purchase given by the expansion of the muscles of her knees and back, contracted by her having stooped down to take hold of the rope, she strained it as tightly as her force enabled her, and fixed it with a plug of wood which fitted the staple and allowed the cord to slide only one way.

My legs were dragged apart and my body pulled down in a way which racked me excruciatingly and felt like tearing my arms from their sockets. My weight only was enough to rack me cruelly, depending as I was from my wrists. The distension of my legs, and the constant downward pull, added fearfully to my torture. I implored Elise to loosen me. I assured her that my own weight occasioned me punishment sufficient. She took no heed whatever of my talk, not even bidding me hold my tongue.

My male organ was forced into undue prominence and isolated from the usual support and covering of my thighs by their separation. It was about on a level with Elise's face, and to my surprise it grew large.

When I was fixed, Elise addressed me: "I shall counteract," she said, looking at me viciously, her eyes full of a ferocious light, "the effect of Mademoiselle's treatment of you, and restore some manly vigour to this wretched thing" (thumping, twisting, and pulling what I have spoken of). "I shall elongate your figure and compress it too-that belt will give you a nice waist, you beast-and now," grasping her dog whip, "I shall give you something to think about."

I trembled. I had already felt that terrible whip, for it had taken a great deal of its persuasion to get me into that position. She stood a little distance off, eyeing me- and resting her left arm on her hip she swung the whip to its full length, and gave me a dozen whistling lashes with it. At each lash I emitted a piercing yell, plainly causing Elise to rejoice. She smiled at my torture as she slowly and deliberately continued the wanton cruelty, lifting her arm each time sufficiently to make the whip unfold itself to its full length.

Before she had finished I had become delirious. Mad with anguish, I bit my tongue, my lips; I yelled and shrieked. Could Mademoiselle know what I was enduring? Could she permit it? I felt it would be useless to appeal to her, and dared not mention her name out of fear of further exasperating her. Besides, Mademoiselle was, I knew, inexorable. I began to feel-as long as I could feel anything but pain-deep resentment, hatred of her for her infidelity, treachery, and callousness, tormenting me, as she seemed to be doing, in every possible way by kindness as well as by cruelty. How could she give me up to this fiend? At last I could think no more. The room whirled round me; whether I yelled or screamed I did not know.

The cessation of the punishment was like Heaven. Spent and exhausted, almost fainting, I was left still hanging in a weak dreamy state, Elise having desisted to go and dress Mademoiselle. I do not know whether I fainted or slept, but I remember the strange fact that the following lines rang in my head with a vividness that frightened me. I remember too that this terrifying exaltation of my memory and other mental faculties filled me with an unspeakable dread that ere long I should find myself, in consequence of what I was undergoing, a jabbering idiot. In my anguish indeed, I almost hoped so. I felt it would serve Mademoiselle and her brutal maid but right.

Lo! the Queen of pleasing pains,

Linking Loves in mutual chains,

Wreathes the myrtle bowers between

Cottages of living green;

And commands her virgins gay

Through the mazy groves to stray.

Full three nights in joyous vein

Might you see the choral train,

Hand in hand promiscuous rove

Through thy love-devoted grove;

Crowned with rosy breathing flowers

Under myrtle-woven bowers.

These verses of John Dryden hammered in my head until they nearly drove me frantic. I can scarcely repeat them even now without a feeling of sickness.

My experiences under Elise were of a far more cruel description, as will already have been gathered, than anything I had yet endured, although the birching Mademoiselle had given me had caused me exquisite suffering.

A minute description of all I underwent is out of the question, but Elise's cruelty affected my animal nature only. She could not temper her inflictions with the same sweet mercies as Mademoiselle, notwithstanding that, as the sequel will show, she went further in the attempt than Mademoiselle, but ineffectually. Mercy and kindness from Elise were matters of indifference to me so far as my passions or emotions were concerned. She was undoubtedly a charming woman; her figure was very good, and I remember how she impressed herself on me with her full round bosom as she stood in her simple dark grey dress the moment before she commenced lashing me. But she was coarser and more brutal. She did not possess the ravishing spirituality of Mademoiselle. As a woman she affected me merely from an animal point of view.

In the intellectual appreciation and intelligence of her mistress I had found, even while undergoing her severest punishments, solace and consolation. Mademoiselle directed herself more to working upon the mind and the spirit and used other measures judiciously and discreetly only as they served this purpose.

Elise was purely, ingeniously, and most wantonly cruel for the sake of cruelty itself, in which she appeared to take a fiendish pleasure. I do not believe Mademoiselle would ever have strapped me up in that manner. It was essentially a maid's notion. To elongate my figure indeed!

There was no coquetry, no attempt, no suggesting of dalliance or flirtation about Elise's method. No love; it was absolutely material. She directed herself entirely to the body, not to excite sensations, but with no apparent object beyond her own gratification. In consequence, I could not even feel the satisfaction arising from obedience to a mistress. Nothing appeared to ameliorate or sweeten my fate. I had no hope, except for the termination of these three days. I was absolutely in her hands, at her mercy completely, to wreak what vengeance upon me she pleased. Why had Mademoiselle handed me over to this abomination of desolation? I saw afterwards that she had an object she herself could never have accomplished or which her endeavours to accomplish would have hindered and spoilt the effect of her other influence over me. It was a wise and economical division of labour. The lesson had to be learnt and none was so gifted for inculcating it as Elise. The animal needed taming by brute force without the aid of spiritual agencies, and of that force Elise was the priestess.

It is quite plain that the incidents of my three days purgatory cannot be set out seriatim. If the history of thirty-six hours has occupied so much time and space, and even that has not been dealt with in every detail, how much space would an equally diffuse narrative of the events of seventy-two hours require? I should never have done. Moreover, I have to relate not only the story of those three days, but of subsequent years. I should be interminable!

If any one burns for more nimble details, let him obtain a verbal account from some victim who, like myself, was forced to the sacrifice as a sheep to the slaughter. There are verily and indeed many such; the case is not rare in England nor in Scotland, less rare in Ireland, and still less rare in Germany and Austria. And it is by no means new. It is mythological and classical; it was known at Pompeii, and practised also at Rome. Such matters are in this country veiled in the closest secrecy. Many a haughty dame, respectable and so to speak irreproachable, could vouch for the truth of the assertion; the walls and closets of many a palace could, if endowed with speech, tell the same tale. In olden days this mystery was not thought necessary. But the world was pagan then. This cult, this luxury, exists only amongst the most highly educated, the most intellectual and most refined; amongst the classes vulgarly described as the "Upper Ten Thousand." The middle classes and their children are ignorant of this discipline and excess of voluptuousness.

It was on a Friday morning in the beginning of May when Elise first "tackled me," as she called it. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and the nights of those days! How they are stamped and burnt in my recollection! What a martyrdom I underwent!

Elise was tall and handsome, her face the most perfectly oval that I have ever seen, her teeth were white, and her lips full and cherry-coloured; her nose was a little fat, her hair dark brown, her eyebrows were heavy, her limbs admirably moulded, but her figure, notwithstanding her height, gave one the impression of being rather thick set, owing perhaps to her neck being a little short. Her hands were strong, her shoulders broad, and her muscular strength perfectly astonishing. She was always dressed with severe simplicity and was thoroughly a lady's maid in her ways, possessing vigour instead of delicacy, and just appreciably bearing a rankness of person perceptible to the nostrils, which seems inseparable from vigorous growth and life; or, at any rate, inseparable from them in a servant. This added to my punishment, for being constantly brought into the closest possible contact with her, effectually destroyed all romance and sensual gratification which I might have had.

Her bust, however, was a magnificent one, her fully developed breasts were soft, full, large, round, and white! Whatever relief or pleasure I did manage to obtain was from these warm, sensitive, substantial cushions.

Her age was seven and twenty. She had been in the service of some Princesses in France before she had come to Mademoiselle, and her experience of life, of human nature and of physical nature was limitless. The Princesses must assuredly have gone the pace, and have been as dissolute, as sensual, as indifferent to the sufferings of others as the coldest, haughtiest, and most wanton Roman ladies of the Augustan age, some of whom, indeed, they claimed to number in their ancestry.

I began to come to myself.

My physical sufferings were intense. The pain at the sockets of my arms, at my wrists, and under my shoulders was fearful. My weight and the feet forced my hands into the manacles from which I hung suspended and I got a fearful cramp in them. The belt pinched me terribly, impeding my breathing.

The accumulation of my sufferings and the sense of helplessness soon made me hysterical. I durst not cry out again, even if I had sufficient power left in me to do so. I sobbed convulsively, tears running down my face. A violent pain gradually asserted itself up the back of my head, resulting in a sense of deadly sickness; a clammy cold sweat broke out all over me; I nearly suffocated.

In a dreamy, hazy way I was conscious that there was the bed where Elise had slept, there the wash-hand-stand at which she washed and where the slops still remained. The sunlight entered at the window-a door leading into another room stood ajar.

All other ideas were obliterated. Mademoiselle, Beatrice, and the girls appeared to be the phantom creatures of another universe, the events of the morning but glimpses of a delusive visionary existence. How long I hung there, I knew not.

At length the door opened. It seemed far off and did not concern me. I did not care to notice who entered. What did it matter whether it was Elise or anyone else? I felt no interest in anything. Presently I felt a hand upon that part of my frame which conclusively denied my girlhood. Mad and exasperating tomfoolery that pretence was! So essentially a woman's notion!

I opened my eyes.

"Gracious lawks!" the creature exclaimed. "I thought you were asleep, Master Julian. He! He! I beg pardon; Miss Julia, I mean. A fine miss, truly. He! He!"

I looked at her; surely I had seen her before. It was Mary. I groaned.

"Don't-don't touch me," I gasped.

"Likely-likely indeed; we, poor maids are not to have feelings-not touch you indeed! I'll touch you," rubbing me violently, "my fine young gentleman. Miss Elise is to have all the pleasure, is she? Not if I know it. What a fine bottom," pinching it. "My lawks! If it wasn't that Miss Elise," putting her hand through my legs, "might come in at any moment, I'd take you down and make you do your duty like a man. Yes, I would. I'd have him. I'd make him rear his head inside me, just as he's doing now. It ought to be cut off, it ought. What business have you with it, Miss?" giving it a series of vicious pulls. "Come, I'll jerk it off for you. My gracious, it really does one good to see a self-opinioned young rascal strung up stark naked. My! I'd make him work."

Then standing a yard or two away in front of me, she rapidly lifted her skirts, displaying her stalwart, well-shaped legs. She was a comely damsel enough, very coarse. She gathered up the garments so as to expose to full view a hairy region, and an enormous affair in the centre.

It horrified me. Much larger, much fiercer than that of Mademoiselle or Beatrice. What a monster, what an engine! Capable of sucking the very life out of one. I trembled.

"Come, how do you like it? It would make you work. Pity I can't get you between my legs. Ay!" dropping her skirts. "You don't speak; none of your airs. I'll cure you of those," and standing at my side, she smacked my bottom with her hard, red hand. "I'll warm you; ask my pardon at once, or"-smack, smack-"I'll make you kiss it the first chance I get, although that's a nasty, dirty trick. There, you've quite warmed my hand."

I could only groan.

"Beg my pardon, or I will make Miss Elise punish you. Wait till she'll tie you again. Now that I've seen your thing I'll have you on the bed under me in a trice."

"Oh, Mary."

"Mary, indeed! Beg my pardon. Nice to be under your governess' maid, isn't it? She'll lend you to me and Susan tonight, she will. Susan is my bed-fellow. Who's Susan? Why, the scullery maid. We'll have you between us- promise!"

The idea of being prostituted by these animals filled me with a sickly terror. All my beautiful dreams dashed to pieces.

And yet what was the difference between their lust and Mademoiselle's love, which I had so ardently desired? Elise came presently, looking vicious.

Mary got the steps and put them by me. Elise, without a word, gave me a few gratuitous lashes with her whip, unfastened my legs, made me mount the steps, unhook my hands, and descend.

I tottered and almost fell. Elise threatened to make Mary lie back on the bed with her dress up, and to rub my face well into her disgusting parts, much to that wrench's supreme delectation. She was covered with blushes, when Elise had finished speaking, and looked most repulsively love sick. Elise undid my swollen hands, and marched me into the next room where I found breakfast. Here she ordered me to lie down on the floor at her feet, confess the outrage I had put upon her the evening before, clasp her knees, and humbly and abjectly ask her pardon for the insult.

I lay down and she kicked me. It was repugnant to my very soul to confess that what I had done, or rather refused to do, was an outrage. It had been the price I had paid for my night with Mademoiselle.

"You insulted me, you wretch!"

"Indeed, indeed, Elise!"

"How dare you call me Elise?" (kick, kick). "Lie there. Don't dare to get up, you beast! Say Miss Elise!"

"Oh, Miss Elise, I had to-"

"Yes, you dog, although I favoured you so-under my petticoats, my word! — and in my hands; an ugly old bitch would have affected you more."

"Mademoiselle?"

"What is that to me-you set me at defiance. Mademoiselle gloried in the insult to me" (more kicks). "You wretch, you," and she became quite red with vexation. "It was an outrage. Confess."

I acknowledged it, although a great part of my life went with the acknowledgment. I clasped her knees and servilely begged her 101

pardon-implored it, prayed it. She smiled with satisfaction at the depths of humiliation to which she reduced me.

Taking me by the ear she led me into her bedroom and placed me across her bed, flat on my back, as Beatrice had done, my head again between her thighs as on the previous night. Then she worked me into a state of tremendous excitement, having previously, under threats of the severest penalties, made me promise on her account to "go off," as she called it. When I had grown enormously large she held me tightly with her legs and hurt me there fearfully. I thought she was tearing that sensitive part of me open. What she really did was to push the tight foreskin back, and she left it so. I danced about the room in anguish for this was the first time this had ever been done.

In that state I was bathed, then dressed as a girl with a tight corset of Beatrice's. Before she dressed me she replaced the skin with some difficulty. I was in such a state of nervous trepidation as to be scarcely able to eat.

When lesson time arrived she took me to the schoolroom and just outside the door she slyly slipped her hand under my skirts, got hold of that thing, and with a vicious vigorous tug, at which I nearly fainted, dragged back the skin and left it so. Then, opening the door, she pushed me in.

Mademoiselle and the girls were there. They immediately noticed my condition and laughed. Mademoiselle made me sit down. I could not sit still, but wriggled and fidgeted, and could not keep my hands quiet.

At last, Mademoiselle, tired of correcting me, gave me two bad marks and made Maud tie my hands behind and smack my face. I could not get the thing right. I was so bewildered I could not attend to lessons. My fidgeting continued until Maud was directed to hold me down across the ottoman and Agnes to birch me.

Still I was not cured.

Mademoiselle then enquired what was wrong. I could not tell her.

More birching till I could tell her. When I did so, she laughed delightedly and I had to lift up my skirts in front and stand whilst she gave leave to anyone who choose to take compassion on me to put me right.

No one moved. Could it have been expected of girls?

I had to go and ask each one in turn.

Maud gave me a blow for the insult.

Beatrice tickled my raw thing with her quill.

Agnes said she would not touch the horrid nasty affair.

Mademoiselle ultimately took pity on me.

That shameful part of me was, of course, prominently exposed to Mademoiselle and her smiling pupils.

I suppose the mad craving which I have heard exists in some men for being whipped by ladies is due to the possession in which it puts those ladies of the private structure of their bodies. It is an anticipation of the delight, resulting from a woman's conquest and control of their animal natures, gained by her in the act of copulation. But it always seemed to me to be founded upon a morbid appreciation of shame, and a morbid delectation in it.

Punishment by and before men would, of course, be a totally different matter.

The mystery of this fleeting evanescent feeling which I could not catch and analyse worried me.

When Mademoiselle spoke to me of being in that condition in the presence of ladies I had the hardihood to remark naively that it was natural I should be in that condition before them!

A peal of laughter greeted this observation.