Gynecocracy

CHAPTER 6

I fell asleep under Elise. We managed somehow to sleep and to breathe.

Mademoiselle awoke me by unfastening the bag, shaking Elise, and bidding her get up.

What a relief to be freed from the oppression and load of the feather bed and eiderdown under which we had sweated and fumed all night!

How my arms ached!

Mademoiselle unfastened them, covered me up, and bade me sleep.

The thought crossed my mind, that possibly I might be admitted to her bed. A moment's reflection convinced me of the more than groundlessness of this aspiration. Such a fastidious creature as Mademoiselle would not allow me to touch her after the night I had passed.

A feeling of horror and despair came over me when I reflected she would henceforth hate me-be disgusted with me.

And I looked at the woman who stood naked for a moment at the bedside, with whom I had been in such close contact all night, who had been impregnated with my very essence.

Elise wrapped something about her and left the room.

Mademoiselle covered me up. Freed from the restraints I had suffered so long, I slept soundly and happily.

I hardly knew Maud when, three hours later, she was brought into the room. I had a bath and some breakfast and my hands having been again tied behind me, I was sent naked into Mademoiselle's room.

Maud looked as though she had been crying. Her hair, instead of being rolled coquettishly upon her head, was done into two long plaits at the back. She wore a common print cotton frock which came only to her knees. Her stockings were of white, coarse, unbleached thread; her shoes heavy and clumsy. She looked thoroughly humiliated and punished.

Mademoiselle spoke as rudely and roughly to her as to the lowest servant. Her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows and her hands were red. In the middle of the floor was my old acquaintance the oak bench.

"You are to birch this young gentleman soundly. He has been misbehaving himself."

She answered falteringly, "Yes'm."

She had evidently already had a schooling.

I thought as I was being strapped down of the haughty, faultless, proud Maud. Could this be she? I knew she would not spare me for having seen her humiliated in that manner. My surmise was right. A green birch, which had been soaked in Mademoiselle's urine, was put into her hand, and she gave me three dozen sound strokes.

She was then dismissed.

Mademoiselle seated herself and, opening a book, pretended to read.

Church time came. Maud had to wash up the breakfast things and peel the potatoes for the day's use. I was locked up in the bedroom, to learn the Epistle, Gospel, and Collect for the day, Mademoiselle informing me that I should have no dinner unless I could say them perfectly.

That night when I was put to bed, my hands were strapped to my sides and a bunch of thistles was placed before and behind me, kept into position by a lady's towel between my legs. I could only lie upon one side or the other. Consequently, if I moved on to my face or on to my back I was unmercifully pinched.

The next morning Beatrice birched me with less severity than Maud had used.

Dear Beatrice, I fell in love with her again as soon as I saw her maidenly little figure. I hoped some day to belong to her.

On Tuesday I was flogged by Agnes. I think I felt my nakedness most before her. In fact I was quite ashamed. Beatrice looked at me with her calm gaze, unmoved, but glancing demurely as if she saw nothing extraordinary, nothing unusual in a naked body.

Agnes blushed, looked conscious, simpered, cast her eyes down, and was greatly confused. Her breath came and went so quickly that Mademoiselle told her she should herself be whipped there and then unless she behaved.

I should have liked to have seen those dainty legs uncovered, her skirts turned up, her drawers opened or taken off, and her prudish little bottom well cut.

I wished to possess Agnes. I wished to be possessed by Beatrice.

I need scarcely say that the whipping Agnes gave me did not deserve the name.

Then I was dressed in trousers, waistcoat, and jacket-placed over a silk vest, a cambric chemise, long stockings, girl's boots with high heels, long cloth drawers, a corset, and a camisole.

The effect of the change of dress was startling. Amongst all the girls I felt much happier dressed as a boy, and had a greater capacity for enjoyment; and no sooner had they seen me so attired, than they one and all gave themselves their little feminine airs and graces which they had abandoned more or less with me whilst I was in girl's clothes. Mademoiselle, however, destroyed this bit of conceit, which she quickly perceived.

"He only appears a boy-really he is a girl," she observed, with superciliousness. At this remark we all blushed and Agnes giggled. It was quite plain that Agnes and I would have to settle accounts. I anticipated the reckoning with satisfaction. I determined to exact the ultimate, the very bottom farthing. Agnes was such a cleanly made girl!

My feelings of elation, however, soon yielded place to humiliation when I looked at the dainty feminine company and remembered but too vividly what they had seen and what they had done. Then I felt overwhelmed with confusion.

And indeed so much changed was I and so sensible of it, that as I stepped off the hall door steps into the Brougham, I wondered whether I was actually the same Julian Robinson, who, but on the previous Wednesday, had for the first time, alighted in that porch and passed through those massive oak doors.