Gynecocracy

VOLUME TWO
CHAPTER 1

When Heracles in consequence of the murder of Iphitus was ill of a serious disease, and received the oracle that he could not be released unless he served some one for wages for the space of three years, Hermes accordingly sold Heracles to Omphale… [By whom he became the father of several children!]

Yes; this I very well recollect, for, no doubt, as the Reader has observed, the adventures, or perhaps this adventure, of Hercules made a solemn impression upon me; and excited exceeding interest in my breast. I always thought Hercules exceedingly fortunate in his punishment, and you may observe the corroboration of the justice of my view in the apologetical, parenthetical, and, as it were, quite irrelevant statement that by her he became the father of several children. Happy man! We all know the torso of Omphale; I have never met with a full length representation. What a coquettish little head and piquant nose-what a resolute and yet voluptuous chin-what large eyes, in which lays a glorious light; eyes which, if she was put out or vexed, or found Hercules hurt her, while she administered those stripes for his clumsiness in the workroom, would swim and look like blue water lilies in a clear transparent lake. How withering the first reproachful glances, how rapid the transition from the melting mood to the fiery gaze, portending vengeance. How promptly Hercules would find his corset inconveniently tightened by the united efforts of all the Lydian hand maidens and he himself transported by the same means to the Queen's dressing room, where, no doubt, fastened down upon his back (he would otherwise have been altogether unmanageable), he paid the penalty of his misdemeanours to that charming woman, completely by divine appointment as well as by her own charms, his sovereign mistress.

It is remarkable how this story has been tabooed by an apparently universal (male) consensus of opinion. There are few, if any, 130

representations of this period of Hercules' life. Venuses beating Cupids abound; in the Salon a few years ago was a canvas depicting Psyche lashed by the fair goddess' orders; Circe, too, reposes in her chair naked, her foot upon the head of the armed and prostrate Ulysses. Where do you find Hercules beaten by Omphale, or even, excepting the statue in the Borghese Casino, in petticoats?

Omphale ruled like Mademoiselle by force and love, not like Beatrice by the last alone. I have come to the conclusion that women rule all men; why is the subject, the truth, ignored? It would be some help, some consolation to me, as I continue this narrative of my own subjugation to the petticoat, if it were not. I am conscious of the existence and encouraged by the knowledge of many fellow victims, but can obtain no openly expressed sympathy. A club of hen-pecked husbands, if started, would find but one member, myself, and I doubt whether even I would venture to send in an application to join unless-unless she compelled me to do so; and it is exceedingly likely she would.

"Several children." Happy man-yes, undoubtedly, Hercules must have been fastened down by force or held down by love and devotion, and Omphale, reversing what I suppose is the usual order of things, must have lain on the top of him, until he was exhausted. Exhausted as the individual mentioned by Brantome, who awoke his wife. The story is well known. She placed him underneath her upon the bed. She made him perform and discharge the primary obligation of matrimony once, twice, thrice, even a fourth time, and left him fainting there, "Hein! you will not wake me again, I dare say-I think I have given you a lesson!"

Mademoiselle Hortense de Chambonnard had now such a hold upon me that I dared not resist in the slightest anything whatsoever that she might take it into her pretty little head to do with me, and I feared greatly, and quaked and trembled exceedingly, as I wondered and marvelled what that would be. My fate, my destinies, my fortune, were now completely in her hands, and hopelessly at her mercy, as formerly my unfortunate body had been.

Formerly there was necessarily some limit, for she had no hold upon me. But now, by my own act, with Maud's assistance, I was at her mercy and my future, I felt, was in her hands.

Dire were the threats she used that evening when she had me brought down to her bedroom. I quailed before the storm and not understanding all that she threatened me with I took the earliest opportunity of consulting a dictionary.

I was to be taken up to London to be unsexed, to be circumcised, to be castrated. I did not wish to become a Jew or a gelding. When I read the meaning of the words I all but fainted. Mademoiselle depicted my act in the blackest colours. But when after rating and abusing me for a quarter of an hour, she began to say that I had done Maud an irreparable injury, I wept, for my heart pulsated, transiently, but really, for that dear girl. I was still under the influence of the ineffable delight which she had given me in her arms. I still felt as though her soft, warm, yielding form lay beneath mine. And while we had lain on the floor naked, strapped back to back, we had exchanged vows of perpetual devotion, an offensive and defensive alliance which was to terminate with but the life of one of us.

The upshot-the immediate result-of the matter was that Mademoiselle concluded that when she had had Maud well syringed she had done all she could do.

Things were to go on as before-if she had before beaten me with whips, she would now do so with scorpions.

It was arranged that in three days Mademoiselle and Elise would take me to London to be unsexed, circumcised, and castrated; that the meantime was to be spent by me in Mademoiselle's bedroom and the room opening off it where I was to sleep, so that I might be a close prisoner and never out of her sight; that I was to spend those three days naked, and upon bread and water, and was to be birched each morning-first by Maud, then by Beatrice, then by Agnes; then, on my 132

return, I was to be handed over to Lady Alfred Ridlington, who was invited to pay Mademoiselle a long visit.

The idea of being unsexed filled me with nervous terrors as I stood quaking and naked before my furious governess who looked simply lovely in her anger. I consoled myself by the reflection that I had at least escaped the remainder of my term under Elise and her diabolical cruelties also. And I think my quiescence somewhat mollified Mademoiselle. I was devoutly glad the secret was to be kept from my parents.

Nothing befell Elise. Mademoiselle no doubt found it impossible; the deprivation of my three day's subjection to her was, I suppose, considered penance sufficient.

As for Maud, for some time I could not learn her fate. I know it now.

Beatrice was told nothing.

I gazed at Mademoiselle and hope sprang in my bosom; now, now that I knew all, now that the cat was out of the bag, might I indulge it?

She too gazed at me voluptuously. My appearance was not lost upon her, as her movements as she lectured me shew.

"Come here," she said, at its conclusion, putting her legs apart as I advanced.

And for my part, as I have hinted, Mademoiselle's appearance was not lost upon me; it was ravishing, and gradually as I stood meekly before her, it obliterated my tender recollections and thoughts of Maud and the sensation of the embrace which still lingered so vividly that I could have almost believed it still endured.

"Come here," said Mademoiselle, moving voluptuously, in her low musical voice, her liquid eyes resting upon me with a slight sparkle of 133

amusement in them as she observed my confusion which was increasing minute by minute.

Mademoiselle's tone had however been so severe and her attitude so angry and indignant that I feared to give the slightest indication which might lead her to imagine I felt there was any relaxation of her strictness. She had spoken to me de haut en bas, sharply and uncompromisingly. Were I to ignore all this, pay no attention to it, brush it aside, go on as though nothing had happened, and as though I was conscious of no fault and she was scolding and purposed punishing me simply pour les convenances and not from sincere displeasure, I felt that I should do for myself.

I was reassured by her direction to approach her and by the movement which accompanied it. One which I intuitively knew presaged my having to make amends to a very sensitive part of her exquisite frame-a part which had evidently been tickled and much excited by the occurrence upstairs in Maud's bedroom.

Anything, any little thing of this kind I could do to please and propitiate Mademoiselle, I was only too eager to execute, congratulating myself that it was no worse. And fatigued as I was by the experiences of that day-sore from the frequent castigations of Elise, sore and my bottom and thighs waled by the merciless thrashing Mademoiselle had administered on the spot with her riding whip-still I felt my passions and emotions welling up within me as I watched my beautiful governess, and as a consciousness of my absolute nakedness before her and of the offence with which I was charged stole over me.

Elise had been sent for me to Maud's room. Poor Maud had been for some time suffering very much from the cramped position and the tightness with which we had been buckled together. What my physical sensations would have been had not the anguish I was suffering from the whip prevented my adverting to them I do not know. My wrists were strapped to Maud's wrists, my ankles to hers. We were back to back, and there was a heavy strap buckled tightly round our waists keeping us in close and exciting contact with each other.

We had been strapped together as Maud lay writhing on the floor, having just had her bottom waled, as I had had mine by Mademoiselle; and hers being more tender, no doubt the infliction had been proportionally more severe.

We made several attempts to rise, which were all unsuccessful, and resulted only in our rolling over each other.

Maud, I must say, was very generous. When her bitter tears ceased to flow and the acuteness of her pain passed away, she did not reproach me as I almost dreaded she would. I felt that it had been to some extent my fault. For although she had obliged me to place Mons. Priapus into her wet, warm, burning moustached mouth, yet when I encountered the obstacle, she had bidden me desist, although her eyes swam and were kindled by what I now knew to be desire and her cheeks burned with the rosiest, loveliest blushes. I had not desisted. I had not heeded her in the smallest degree. I had, on the contrary, thrown myself upon her with animal rage and fury, driving all before it, had torn open her delicate body and deluged her internally with the essence of myself. I felt aghast when I contemplated my deed. I felt it was kind and generous of her not to reproach me.

She was very anxious about the consequences.

"Beatrice had forbidden me to be a model for your Apollo," said I.

"What can Bee know?" answered Maud. "Even I do not know why all this fuss is made. Of course I know it was very dreadful your putting that terrible thing of yours into-into me-where-where you did." I could feel her flush as she said this. "And then it went into such a fit, such throbs, like a steam engine. I could feel it to my finger tips-to the tips of my ears. Oh, Julian, it was nice! And really, I believe, because it was so naughty. And then it shot out some delicious wet that was like balm to a sore place. Oh, to think of it! Oh, how nice! Still, was it dirty? I suppose that is why Mademoiselle had me syringed so quickly before it could poison my blood or anything. But I do not see why they should make such a fuss about it. Mademoiselle does many worse things herself, as she must know I am aware. If you had not torn me open, you bad boy, they would never have found out. It was the blood that betrayed us. But I do not feel at all sore. In fact-in fact-oh, Julian, do you know, I should really like you to do it again. I feel I want it. I wonder whether there will ever be a chance?"

I was amazed at Maud's ignorance, and amused too; pluming myself on my superior knowledge. She spoke slowly, a sentence at a time, and I did not interrupt her, for I wished to ascertain exactly what she knew and I learnt she knew nothing! I was bursting with anxiety to impart my knowledge but I held my tongue until she had quite finished. Then I said, "Don't you know, Maud, I should have been a model for a living Apollo."

"Whatever do you mean, Julian?"

"Why, that is how babies are made!"

"How babies are made!" she cried. "Nonsense! How do you know?"

"Mademoiselle told me."

"Told you! Did-did you do it to her?" Maud's tone suddenly changed towards me as she asked this question. Had I answered in the affirmative I was convinced she would have been so jealous, that for a time, at any rate, she would have had nothing to do with me. Fortunately, I was able to answer: "No."

All the years that have elapsed since the period I am speaking of, have failed to teach me the reason of this desire in each individual woman to exclusively possess all the men whom she favours. My petticoats, my being so long treated as a female, my experiences with Lord Alfred 136

Ridlington in the conservatory have given me a great insight into the mystery of female feelings, into the sensations of a woman when bestowing her choicest favours. And what I have yet to relate has deepened this insight. But although I can understand her coveting exclusive possession, I have never been able to regard it as reasonable.

"No," repeated Maud. "Then how can you know? Do you mean Mademoiselle told you in so many words? She can never have had the face to do that!"

I was on the point of saying like a fool that I had longed to do it to Mademoiselle and so found out, but I stopped in time.

"She gave me a psychological lesson and I discovered it incidentally," I said with as much nonchalance as possible.

"And what can Beatrice have meant about the Apollo? You and Bee were chums from the first. She must know."

I confess I felt very much puzzled myself as to what Beatrice knew and the real reason for the promise she had so pertinaciously extracted from me. I recollected also that I was bound on parole to Beatrice for five years and it struck me that if she discovered what had occurred between Maud and me it would be excessively awkward for me. She would, no doubt, regard it as a breach of allegiance to her for I knew that I had for a time given myself to Maud as completely as a man can give himself to anyone and yet I was not my own to give.

These reflections seriously increased my discomfort. It was bad enough to find myself absolutely in Mademoiselle's hands and I was far from pleased at the prospect of a score to settle with Beatrice as well. Strange to say I felt more disturbance on her account than on Mademoiselle's, and I explain the fact by Beatrice's possessing much more control over my spiritual being than Mademoiselle, the confines of whose sway were my animal existence.

A spark of the divine fire of love had fallen from Beatrice's eyes into my bosom and had there kindled a flame which permeated all the ramifications of my existence. One curious result was that I willingly submitted to corporal punishment from her as it appeared to bring my sensual organisation into subjection to my soul, which was hers, and consequently in some esoteric mode gave me the gratifying sense of being possessed by her, of being wrapt in her, of having the same springs of life, of drawing our existence from the same source; of having my mind, my feelings, and senses bounded by her own; of, in short, entire subordination to her.

Maud's limbs were beautiful, round, and plump, her skin was white and clear, and my happiness had been great. Why did I torment myself with the unseen and the mental, possessing so complete a sensual anodyne as I did. Maud was not complimented by my silence while my brain was occupied by these ideas, and giving me a jerk with her hand, repeated the question: what I thought Beatrice could know, as she had forbidden me to become a model?

"Oh, I suppose she did not wish you to see me naked! She did not wish you to study me anatomically."

"What nonsense! We have all seen your anatomy, your bottom, and-and-that thing you put into-me. Don't you remember how often we have birched your bottom, and besides yesterday, when Elise had drawn your skin back, and you had to ask us one by one to set you right-what more is there to conceal?"

"I had petticoats and things on then-being completely naked before you would give you a more exact idea of me which, I suppose, Beatrice wished to keep for herself."

"Greedy thing! Anyhow-oh, Julian, I have had such thorough possession of you-at that supreme moment not long ago, I seemed to be you; to know and control your vital centres, mental and physical.

You had no secrets then from me; the revelation you made of yourself was complete."

"Yes, Maud, dear; and it ought to be incarnated and reproduced."

"Oh, Julian, do you think I shall have-have a-a baby?"

"That abominable syringe may prevent it."

"Oh, what a crime. And yet imagine me with a baby and unmarried. You would have to marry me, Julian!"

Now I must frankly confess that I could not marry them all. I did not wish to marry Maud.

However, maiden like, she saved me from the embarrassment the necessity of a reply would have occasioned. When she uttered these words she pressed herself amorously against me; she did not stop there.

She was lying on her left side, I, of course, my back being against hers, was on my right. She moved her right arm, which was strapped to my left, backwards across me with pretty hesitation, and soon grasped her friend Mons. Priapus and played with him.

"If-if you-married-me-" she ejaculated, "how-how-I would make that fellow work."

And her body was suffused with a warm glow.

I slipped my left arm through, between her and the floor, and returned the compliment to her womanhood.

I do not believe that equality of the sexes will ever be established until the seat of a woman's womanhood is transferred from between her legs to her head. A man exists for something else than for procreation. But it is the beginning and the end of a woman.

"Love," says the poet, "is woman's whole existence." It is all that she seeks, whatever she may affect; and if you can tickle her clitoris, either with your fingers or by way of her imagination, she will obey you as exactly as a vessel with steerage obeys the helm.

It is all very fine, though, for me to boast, for I remember how I was made to obey, a few days later, when a female hand proved to be a very effectual rudder.

"Maud, dear, take care! If you excite me too much, whoever comes to fetch us will find out. I do not want any more whipping."

"No, poor boy; you have had your share. How Elise smacked you in the workroom! I told you," archly, "you would soon find out you were powerless in the presence of petticoats. A lady's whip and birch can bite, cannot they? Never mind, Julian, we shall have more fun yet. Oh-oh-oh. Naughty boy," she exclaimed, as I tickled her. "Oh-oh-oh-oh, do stop. I do not wish to be whipped again either, I can tell you."

"What a nuisance these straps are. They must be making you quite sore, Maud; they hurt me very much. I wonder whatever Mademoiselle will do."

"Oh," replied Maud, "she cannot do much; but she will, no doubt, make us both feel, and excruciatingly too."

"The mixture of pain and pleasure is odd. In fact, some pain is pleasure."

"Oh, Julian, I wish you would tell me how you felt when Mademoiselle first birched you. How dreadful it must have been for you, a big boy, to have had your trousers taken off before us girls and your bare bottom birched by your governess in her bedroom."

"The sting soon drove all ideas of the kind out of my mind. It is all pleasure and no pain," said I, anxious to turn the subject; for I knew that if Mademoiselle found I tattled, I should lose all chance of sugar-plums from her, "to be here fixed to a beautiful big girl"-putting my finger into her-"quite naked."

My old trick of analysing, into which I hereupon again fell, then kept me quiet.

It will be remembered, perhaps, with surprise, that I had not seen any female quite naked until Elise, having syringed Maud, very violently stripped her with Mademoiselle's superintending assistance, and laid her, as I had myself been laid across the bed, to be flogged. I had been in Mademoiselle's bed between her legs, I had also been between them underneath her petticoats. I had been made rudely acquainted with the maid's bottoms, but had only seen pieces of nakedness-breasts-legs-thighs-at one time. The statues in Mademoiselle's boudoir were my nearest approach to knowledge of the divine feminine form in a condition of absolute nudity. I now called to mind their exquisite shapes, their full bosoms, their admirably rounded backs, their thighs under which I longed to be crushed. When Maud had been stripped before me, my own sufferings from the cruel whip were much too severe to permit me to dwell upon the spectacle. But now I was back to back with her absolutely naked. It was the fact that she was a girl, that she was feminine and I male, which gave such piquancy. But she had possessed me while she had on her petticoats, and they certainly emphasized the difference of sex. I distinctly recollect that when she was undressed a vague sense of disappointment stole over me to find that after all she had a body and two legs like myself.

Wherein does the charm, the esoteric feminine magnetism, lie? In petticoats? Verily petticoats, drawers, corsets, long silk stockings, have a powerful and mysterious influence.

Maud, naked, did not possess the same power over me as Maud in her petticoats. When I lay extended in an absolutely nude state before Beatrice, it was the fact that she was clothed and I naked which I felt so keenly. Had she also been naked I should not have suffered so much 141

shame. There is no severer ordeal for a young man than to be naked in the presence of clothed damsels. Whence the subtle influence of clothes? If women abandon their garments in favour of a "rational" costume, they will at the same time lose much of their empire over men.

Macaulay, in his history of England, reflects that: "The poison which they (certain writers) administered was so strong, that it was in no long time rejected with nausea. None of them understood the dangerous act of associating images of unlawful pleasure with all that is endearing and ennobling. None of them was aware that a certain decorum is essential even to voluptuousness, that drapery may be more alluring than exposure, and that the imagination may be more powerfully moved by delicate hints which impel it to exert itself, than by gross descriptions which it takes in passively." Certainly, if woman be an image of unlawful pleasure, she, I reflected, thoroughly does understand the whole art and craft of associating her lovely self with endearing and ennobling petticoats, frilled, and tucked, and laced, with a glimpse half revealing the exquisite beauties stimulated imagination then depicts as concealed.

Had I lived in the times when Courts of Love were held, I should have proposed the question:-Whether a lover was happier who saw his mistress naked than he who saw her en grande tenue, and I should have required at the hands of every member of the tribunal a written and closely reasoned judgment.

For another aspect now presents itself of the question. If I was in possession of my mistress naked, I should wish to be clothed! Here my soliloquy was interrupted by Elise opening the door.

Elise! I dreaded to see her again.

Maud also had her own cogitations, for the moment before Elise's arrival she had remarked to me: "I do not think Mademoiselle will dare to say much to me when she hears that I know she shewed you the way.

She shewed him the way, she shewed him the way to woo," hummed Maud.

There was no time for reply. But it struck me that we might be a very happy family and the father and mother of a whole generation if things were only properly and sensibly managed. On the other hand even at that age I plainly, with a boy's acuteness, perceived that if Mademoiselle Hortense de Chambonnard found that she was becoming entangled and in danger of losing prestige, she would choose the most favourable opportunity for bursting the whole thing up. There was one thing I could plainly perceive my Haughty governess would never endure and that was restraint of any description. I believe my father himself was afraid of her.

Mademoiselle had all my letters and the only news she vouchsafed to me was that my parents were quite well and glad to hear that I had arrived safely and that they hoped I would be very good and obey Mademoiselle in all things.