Gynecocracy

CHAPTER 3

The next morning I woke up miserable. Since my father's servant who had brought me here had departed, I had not seen a single male about the place. My sensation of utter loneliness at the full realization of this fact, which was vividly borne in upon me on awaking, made me completely wretched. What would become of me amidst a pack of women and girls, with no companion in an uncongenial feminine atmosphere against which I instinctively revolted?

I anticipated that I should be shorn of my manhood and made effeminate and good-for-nothing, that my strength and virility would be suppressed. I worked myself into a passion of rage and resentment against my parents for putting me to such a position, and resolved to write at once and expostulate in strong terms. I did not understand then that this was the very discipline they considered desirable. I arose with rebellion surging in my breast, and with a determination to give battle at the earliest opportunity and to assert myself.

All my surroundings felt strange and unnatural to the last degree as I indignantly dressed myself; and when Elise came to show me the way to the breakfast room, the climax was reached, and I told her roughly that I could find my way there myself. She looked angry, but merely said she was to show me the way and she whispered something to Mademoiselle when we got there.

Mademoiselle and the girls were dressed in charmingly simple dresses, and looked so fresh and beautiful that, for the time, I completely forgot my isolation and resolutions. An opportunity for battle soon arose. There were two letters for me, and Mademoiselle actually took them and opened and read them before my eyes, and would not let me look at them, or even tell me from whom they came. She merely remarked that they did not need any reply, and that I was neither to write nor receive any letters without her express permission. I protested, remonstrated, and expostulated; but it was useless. The girls looked on amused, but never uttered a word. I could, in my fury, have burst into 12

tears and torn the letters from her. Mademoiselle remained quite collected and exasperatingly calm, gazing at me with a peculiar light in her eyes. I think she was revelling in my helpless raving and storming. She severely observed that I certainly did not know how to behave, and that she would give me a lesson afterwards in the schoolroom (at which I noticed the girls looked at each other very significantly), and bade me sit down, eat my breakfast, and hold my tongue, or that she would send me out of the room. I saw there was nothing else for it, so, very crestfallen, I at last sat down.

The hour for assembling in the schoolroom was half-past ten, so Mademoiselle told me when I had finished and she added I might go.

"Let me have my letters," I cried passionately. "I will have them," I added, walking up to the head of the table where she sat with them open in her right hand.

"No," she answered very calmly, "you shall not have them. Leave the room."

A little after half-past ten, I sullenly made my way to the schoolroom. Mademoiselle had not arrived, but the girls were there.

"Oh, Julian!" said Beatrice, looking up from the Dante she was conning over. "You will catch it! How ever could you be so rude and violent?"

"Catch it!" I rejoined. "What do you mean? I have a perfect right to my own letters; and I call her conduct dishonourable."

"You won't talk like that in an hour or two, my boy," remarked Maud from her easel in the window.

"A little smart feminine discipline will certainly make a great change," chimed in Agnes, who was arranging some flowers.

"Nonsense," said I, wildly. "That she can't do!"

"Do!" they ejaculated in chorus. "What can't she do?"

"I suppose," added Maud, "he has never heard of a riding whip. Mademoiselle has a horridly cruel little whip. Ay! How it bites!" and she laughed.

"Or of the regime of the stay-lace, or of fifty other ways young ladies have for breaking in refractory boys," went on Agnes. "Never mind," in a tone of mock consolation, which maddened me, "he will soon be initiated."

"She whip me! At my age, and before you, girls! You must be mad to think she would dare to do such a thing. You are only laughing at me. I should fight. I am much stronger than she is."

"You will like petticoats, however," said Maud. "You will find you have to submit to them. And she is sure to punish you in front of us. You will not have many clothes left to conceal your hidden charms: and if you turn out to have as nice a figure in reality as you seem to have now, I shall get Mademoiselle to let you pose for me as a model for an Apollo."

"Julian," said Beatrice, "take my advice and submit quietly, dear boy. Your resistance will only make things worse."

"I believe you're gone on him already, Bee," laughed Agnes. "Mind, you'll have to go shares!" At which they all laughed.

I was horrified and disgusted. Could such things be? My first impulse was to fly, to rush to my own room, lock myself in, get together a few necessaries, and escape.

But, at that moment, Mademoiselle entered, very determined-looking. She spoke a few words to each of the girls about their work, and then sat down in her low chair, very elegantly and gracefully.

"Now, Master Julian," she said, "you have to realize that I am your governess and that you are my absolute slave. Don't interrupt! From you I shall expect and shall exact the most implicit obedience and the most abject submission. You will tremble hereafter at the mere rustle of a petticoat; by it you are to be governed. If you are sufficiently foolish to continue your insubordination and the ridiculous temper you displayed this morning, it will be the worse for you."

"Mademoiselle," I broke in, "I do not understand you; my father sent me here because I am too delicate for school."

"And too unruly for home. Too indecent!" (at which I blushed). "Too inquisitive! Too anxious to know what young ladies have under their petticoats." (I was dumbfounded, and furtively glanced at the girls who were eagerly listening.) "Yes! I know all about it. The petticoat will have its revenge now, and you will be under it in more senses than one for some time. Kneel down there at my feet." (I hesitated, especially seeing the girls highly amused.) "Kneel down at once," she repeated, settling herself in her chair, and assuming a more erect attitude, "and put your hands behind you."

This was not very bad after all, and I felt so abashed and ashamed, and had so little to say for myself, that I complied somehow. Then Mademoiselle rang a hand bell.

"Elise," she said, "strap this boy's elbows behind his back as tightly as you can."

Elise grasped me firmly by the upper part of the arm. I was surprised to feel her strength. The little resistance I made was soon overcome. I cannot describe the mixture of sensations I experienced with her standing over me, my head level with her waist, and at her pulling me about roughly as she delighted in executing Mademoiselle's order.

I noticed what Zola describes as "a powerful feminine perfume"-the odor de femina.

At last two straps were buckled tightly round my arms, just above the elbows. In each strap was a small metal ring. Elise passed a white cord three or four times through these rings, and then proceeded to pull them as closely together as possible. Oh, how she hurt! I thought she would have broken my arms. I cried out, I resisted as much as I could, but the improvised pulley was too much for me. I writhed in my endeavours to get free, but she stood over me and kept me down.

"Tighter," said Mademoiselle.

And at last, when my elbows nearly touched each other, Elise fastened the cords and stood up, looking very pretty with the flush upon her smiling comely face caused by her exertions.

"Now, Elise, make him kneel quite close to my knees. Put that belt round his waist, and fasten his ankles to it at the back, so that he cannot get up. Now, Master Julian," she went on when this had been done, "you are in a fit state for punishment and you shall have it. You were rude to me about those letters." Smack, smack, in my face, one on each cheek: one with the left, the other with the right hand. How those soft, lovely, dimpled hands stung! How my cheeks tingled! How I struggled in absolute helplessness to get free! "You object to a governess, to feminine domination, to petticoat-rule"-giving me two smacks at each enumeration. "I think I shall convert you. You see"- smack, smack-"you must endure it."

I would not have believed two dainty little hands could have caused such pain. Kneeling at Mademoiselle's pretty feet, in close proximity to her, and seeing her graceful figure each time she raised her arms to inflict me punishment, was I own, at first, some assuagement of my pain. But at last the smacking she gave my cheeks made my head swim and I became so silly and bewildered that I was almost unconscious by the time she put the backs of her hands alternately to my lips and made me kiss them and thank her.

"Oh, please undo my arms and let me get up." I longed to move about and to put my hands up to my face; but she refused.

Instead, she enquired of Elise whether I had not been rude to her.

"Yes, Mademoiselle, very rude. Master Julian spoke to me most rudely when I went to his bedroom to show him the way to the breakfast room."

"Very well, Elise. Out of school hours Master Julian is to be under you tomorrow and the two following days, and by that time I trust you will have made him respect you. And now, Julian, you shall be deprived of your trousers. Take a long leave of them. When you will see them again, I do not know; they teach you all sorts of resistance and naughtiness and make you assume airs of ridiculous superiority which you do not possess. We must make a girl of you. Elise, make him stand up and take them off."

"Oh, Mademoiselle! Oh, please do not before you and the girls. Oh, don't-"

Elise, however, speedily unfastened the straps which kept me kneeling, but kept my elbows still confined, and busied herself in unfastening my buttons. Maid like, she tore open all the front first, to my intense shame, and then fumbled round my waist with both hands at once, kneeling before me. I cannot describe what I felt at being close to a girl in this condition with her hands busy about me, the front of my principal garment opened and violated, and my person almost coming into actual contact with her swelling bosom as she proceeded with uncompromising promptitude and rapidity to unfasten my trousers, my governess and the three girls looking on with amusement. I myself felt like a fowl about to be roasted and was nearly stupefied with shame.

Presently the braces were unfastened and Elise at once pushed my trousers and drawers down to my heels, not hesitating to move her hands freely about my person, even putting her arm between my legs to effect her purpose. In the midst of my abasement, I noticed an incipient sensation of what I felt when I had lifted the nursery maid's garments. Truly the tables were turned on me, for now, before women and girls, my own legs, from the end of my shirt to my ankles, were bared and displayed, naked. Elise next, with little ceremony and much disconcerting violence, pulled off my shoes and socks; then tore off the drawers and trousers, rolled them up, and deposited them on a chair.

My cheeks burned and I felt horridly defenceless.

"Now, Julian, how do you feel? To enforce your subjection to the petticoat, the emblem of the female sex, and to show your domination by it, you shall stand in the corner with one over your head until half-past twelve, when lessons are over. Elise, fetch one of my red flannel petticoats out of the soiled linen basket in my room." Elise soon returned with the garment required. "Tie it together at the top-so! Now throw it over his head. There, now he is under the petticoat! Put him in the corner; and at half-past twelve, Julian, she will come and take you to my bedroom, where I shall birch your bottom for you as smartly as ever a boy's bottom was birched."

I winced at her threat and at her talking so freely of my bottom. There was not much to hide it from sight and they must have caught glimpses of it as Elise hustled me sharply into the corner. What could I do, my arms fixed immovably, my head wrapped up in a red petticoat of Mademoiselle's, and myself overcome by the pungent odour I was then quite unacquainted with, but with which I subsequently became only too familiar? I was also terrified to think of the birching in store for me.

Lessons went on just as if I had not been there. Beatrice made some blunders with her Dante and (would that I could have seen!) had to lie across an ottoman, have her petticoats turned up, and receive a dozen cuts with Mademoiselle's little whip, and then be deprived of her drawers for the day. I heard her muffled sobs and imagined the scene, the smallest peep of which my pinioned arms and the petticoat covering my head prevented my obtaining. I trembled at the sound of the punishment and already began to repent and make resolutions of obedience. Obedience, alas! I did not know then that the infliction of punishment, whether deserved or not, was an integral part of my handsome governess' discipline and system, and that I should be whipped merely for being a boy! A great deal of courage had left me with my trousers, and, smothered as I was, I longed for some covering for my bare legs. I wondered what on earth would happen to me during the three days I was to be under Elise.

At last, half-past twelve arrived. The girls went off and so also did Mademoiselle. In a few minutes Elise came for me. She whipped off the petticoat, and taking hold of my ears from behind, roughly and angrily hustled me off in front of her, giving me every now and then a dreadful thump behind, first with one knee, then with the other.

"Get along, Master Julian, you bold young rascal. What! You complain of my being rough to you-I will be as rough to you as your tongue was to me. Wait till tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, when I shall have you in my power! You will have some reason to complain of my hurting you then!"

In this ignominious manner, out of breath, my ears feeling as if they were being torn out, my arms aching as though they would break, and my head in a whirl with the slapping I had had, I was bundled into Mademoiselle's bedroom to have my bottom birched by her.