Gynecocracy

CHAPTER 3

"Julia," exclaimed Mademoiselle, as at last I entered her room in some hurry and confusion, "what on earth have you been doing all this time? Surely it cannot have taken so long to change your frock! There was no one with you, was there-Beatrice, or Maud, or Agnes?" she enquired with an uncertain and menacing air and a look which scanned me searchingly. "No?" she went on, relieved, and unbending her brows as she heard my denial. "Then what on earth can you have been doing? You knew I was waiting for you: the tea is cold long ago. I have a good mind to make you drink it as it is for a penance; but, I suppose, today you must be indulged; and so," going to the kettle, "I will make you some fresh tea. You must attribute this complaisance to the sympathy between our feminine natures. As a girl myself I can understand what you have been through."

I gave Mademoiselle a grateful look in recognition of her taking, in this good-natured way, my having kept her waiting so long, while the suggestion of a similarity between her eminently feminine nature and my own, caused a wave of feeling to pass over me not at all unpleasant in its effects, occasioning me a sweet sense of confusion and shame at the suggested positive allegation of my womanhood and the attendant irresistible conviction that beneath my lady's attire existed a veritable girl.

I felt ashamed of Mons. Priapus of whose existence I had become bewilderingly aware from the force of her words which excited very curious sensations, and I proceeded, impelled more by civility than by any other pronounced motive to make the best excuses I could.

"While I was changing my frock, Mademoiselle," I said, slowly watching her as I spoke, "various recollections rushed upon my mind which so absorbed me that I fear I dwelt longer upon them than I ought to have done; and, indeed, I was not aware how quickly the time was passing."

"Ah!" exclaimed Mademoiselle, with a little gesture of delight and a very intelligent glance. "I can easily understand and excuse you. No doubt you were dreaming of your first lover. Come, sit down here beside me"; and with a tone expressing much interest and sympathy, "tell me all about it, my dear."

Mademoiselle's manner was tender and delicately affectionate. It conveyed to me that she would consider my maiden bashfulness, if I could any longer consider myself a maid, or that, at least, she would not shock me by too rude an assertion of the change.

She treated me, indeed, as though I were a girl who had undergone some radical physical alteration, tacitly assuring me that she would make due allowances for its effects on my being.

Now this was very embarrassing to me. I had not become aware of any alteration in my anatomy, or, indeed, of any revolution in my ideas. What Lord Alfred Ridlington had done, had, in fact, been disappointing, or I was disappointed that he had not done more.

In what had taken place I had had no active part. I had been passive only, I had not received or actively acknowledged the receipt of anything. In fact I had felt acutely the want of the anatomical apparatus necessary to conceive. He had given me various sensations, resulting, as I knew, in nothing; for when he had so opportunely left me what he had given me was disposed of by me.

And he had done no more to me than what Mademoiselle had done on the first of June, than what Elise had done on the first dry day that I was under her; than what my mamma had done in her bedroom at the hotel when she had screwed that flexible tube into the ivory bulb which had been inserted into me during our journey up to town; but, of course, having all this done by a man to me in the character of a girl, had a queer, perplexing, and very exciting effect on my temperament. He had wooed me in the most approved fashion and had sought and obtained all that as a girl I had to give.

"I see," said Mademoiselle, "you should have had a honeymoon with your lover. You desire seclusion and quiet-an opportunity to compose yourself, to recover from the first shock of intimate acquaintance with a man!" (I shuddered and blushed.) "But come, Julia, there are no secrets between you and myself. Will you not confide in me? Has he-"

Naivete, a delicious simplicity, and artlessness always characterized me. I therefore answered candidly.

"Oh, Mademoiselle! I was not dreaming of Lord Alfred Ridlington, I was thinking of Beatrice."

"Of Beatrice!" ejaculated Mademoiselle. "Of Beatrice!" and I know her thoughts ran upon all sorts of things in connection with that damsel.

"Mon Dieu! What are you dreaming of Beatrice for? Look at those cushions, look at that ottoman. They tell a tale, I want to hear about that!"

I blushed again and looked at her. There was nothing for it but to give her a full narration and I summoned up my energies for the purpose.

I sat down beside my governess under the absolute conviction that I was a girl like herself and I abandoned myself to the feeling while I hugged my petticoats about me as friendly things, the exponents of the truth regarding my sex. I felt very naughty and very happy. The happiness was due to the charming influence of my governess upon me and to the close proximity into which I felt drawn to her.

"Sometime ago," I said, looking into Mademoiselle's eyes, "I always wanted to be a boy for you, and now it seems so delightful to be the same as you are-a girl like yourself!"

"Well," said Mademoiselle, after a few seconds' pause during which we both followed out our thoughts, "Well?" and she moved her legs 310

underneath her voluminous skirts in a peculiar manner. "Has that thing been cut off then?"

"No; only you assure me that I am a girl."

"Yes; certainly I do. It is punished by your being made to feel so." And she turned and looked into my eyes with an expression which searched the depths of my being and covered me with shame.

Mons. Priapus at once grew and all other feelings gave place to an ardent longing to be embraced and lost in that ample bosom, engulfed and annihilated by those firm round strong thighs.

"Oh, Mademoiselle!" I cried, my cheeks flushing.

Mademoiselle laughed.

"So you think, after all, you will want a girl to console you sometimes, Julian?"

"Julian!" I exclaimed.

"You see," she exclaimed, "you have the advantage or disadvantage of being both masculine and feminine, both Julian and Julia. You have a dual part to perform in life. You have to satisfy men and women. I wonder which you will consider the pleasanter task?"

And she again moved, tightening her skirts across her shapely limbs. "Sometimes you will want a lover, sometimes a mistress. That is why you were dreaming about Beatrice," with a slight pout. "But I," she continued, "am determined by developing your feminine proclivities, to tame and counteract your formerly too aggressive masculine characteristics. You will," and she spoke more sternly and looked severely upon me, "always be under the petticoat. Now do you like what the petticoat exposes you to as a consequence of wearing it?"

I sat silent for some minutes, gazing at Mademoiselle, wondering, thinking, perplexed; very conscious of my pre-eminently feminine tea gown, headdress and general bedizening of the slender ankles belonging to long legs encased in stockings undoubtedly a woman's, and of the little feet shod in shoes also indubitably made for the gentler sex. And yet under all Mademoiselle's remarks lay a quiet tacit assumption that I was masculine. Her assertion of my double sex was made with an air that convinced me of its insincerity.

A feeling of indignation and of intense repugnance to my situation and garb began to reassert itself and when I thought of Lord Alfred Ridlington I grew hot and trembled. I think I almost loathed myself and certainly endeavoured to recall a chapter in Genesis, purposing to examine it.

"What was the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah? Was I in any way related to it or connected with its doings? Had it anything to do with a man being dressed in a woman's clothes, with hermaphroditism?" I must confess I felt very uncomfortable and began to kick my petticoats impatiently.

Mademoiselle ate her bonbons, and sipped her tea, and looked from time to time curiously at me.

How did I like what wearing the petticoat exposed me to?

If I was really a girl, or partly a girl, or a girl behind, and a boy in front, I suppose it was all very well that I should wear a petticoat and be treated as a female.

"I do declare, Julia," said Mademoiselle, disturbing my reverie, her patience at length worn out, "I do declare that I do not know what has come over you. Instead of the excited condition, the rapture, the enthusiasm, the abandon of the bride, the recklessness of one whose dearest wishes have been crowned with complete satisfaction, I find you morose, listless, dreamy, pale one minute, rosy the next, silent, not a word will you speak, there you sit munching your toast, and now looking at me, now at your clothes, now at those statues, then at those cushions-what is the matter? Why are you so distrait? What do you want? Whom are you dreaming of? Perhaps," she continued maliciously, and again moving in a manner which plainly shew her to be under the influence of very pleasant feelings, "perhaps you will reply that as a woman I should know, that your attention, your thoughts, are all of them concentrated inwardly upon the material he has supplied you with to enable you to make and reproduce an exact image of himself. Is it so? I can excuse you, if my conjecture is correct, and, indeed, shall feel bound to apologise for attempting to disturb your cogitations. A maiden suddenly converted into a woman, suddenly confronted with the necessity of answering the requirements of love by producing a child, may well desire to be left alone in order to collect and direct her whole energies to the work."

This would have been all very well if what Lord Alfred had given me had not travelled the same road as what Elise and Mamma and Mademoiselle had given me. There was nothing to work upon. If there had been I should have received it before, not behind. I was quite sure no one could make a child behind; not even the Venus Callipyge herself.

But how in a single-minded manner to discuss my difficulties with Mademoiselle, who stated one thing and implied another, who was evidently insincere and probably laughing at me, was quite another question.

It was no use hoping to discuss it with Beatrice, for she was blind to all possibility of my being at all feminine. Of course Lord Alfred Ridlington would only think me insane if I hinted my doubts to him. And besides I was aghast with terror at the notion of suggesting to him the possibility of my imagining he had behaved to a male as he had behaved to me.

So that there was nothing for it but to apply to Mademoiselle, and, indeed, this was probably the reason she had me there with her. She wanted to possess both my confidence and myself; so that, in spite of myself, I might be her absolute slave, body and soul.

Another question was latent in my mind, and that was the extent to which Lord Alfred Ridlington was Mademoiselle's fellow-conspirator or tool. However, it was necessary to rouse myself, for Mademoiselle's patience was evidently wearing threadbare.

As I considered my own frame of mind and really morose disposition, I wondered at myself. The influences and experiences I was under, and had undergone, were indeed calculated to produce a condition very different from this taciturn, cross-grained mood.

Mademoiselle was as alluring, as delicious, as ever. My chagrin may have been caused by erotic exhaustion. I was sensible of a nervous or cerebral fatigue and needed repose.

"Come, come, Julia!" cried Mademoiselle, impatiently. "You have sulked long enough. Answer the question I asked you long ago. You are in petticoats. How do you like what they expose you to?"

"You mean being made love to and treated like a girl?"

"Yes," rejoined Mademoiselle with a too frank smile. It was a smile-I saw it plainly-of laughter, of amusement, of ridicule, not of sympathy or of tenderness. "Yes; of having your secret charms invaded by the rude hand and weapon of a man; of his making himself acquainted with your nakedness and acquainting you with his own emotions at the same time that he learns your own most secret feelings. Do you like being a girl?"

"No, I do not."

"And pray, why?"

"Because I feel I can be more."

"More?"

"Yes. I was the wrong side up. Lord Alfred Ridlington may have enjoyed possession of me but I never seemed to possess him; and I do not think I shall have a baby. I had to run away almost directly. My womb retained nothing; there is nothing to germinate. I did not possess him as I possessed you and Mamma. I do not believe," with a burst of ingenuous candour, "that I am a girl or even half a girl."

"What nonsense!" exclaimed Mademoiselle, a little testily. "What did he do?"

"Well, I was amusing myself with that superb copy of Mademoiselle de Maupin, when he came in and began to make love to me."

I blushed. Mademoiselle watched me closely.

"He took me in his arms, put me underneath him, removing my skirts, and pushed himself into my womb; and in a paroxysm of passion it happened, and it happened to me in front. I do not love him. Whatever my feelings at the moment I have ever since felt vexed, irritable, annoyed, and I do not want to see him again."

"You are a strangely inconsistent young woman-but I shall insist on your taking all the consequences of your garments. You will have to be Lord Alfred's mistress while he is here, so you had better not be refractory, or I shall make your beautiful back again acquainted with the birch-and in the meantime now to convince you of your sex I shall put something up behind."

"Oh, Mademoiselle!" I exclaimed. "Oh, pray, do not!" I stood up and clasped my hands, as I thought of the terrible suggestion. "Oh, pray, pray, do not! I will not be refractory, I will be as good a girl as possible."

"I cannot allow any nonsense of this sort," exclaimed Mademoiselle severely. "A little conviction will be good for your mind and will induce you to take more kindly to your lover and his embraces. I see you are not sufficiently broken in. I am glad I chose Lord Alfred Ridlington to discipline you instead of his wife whom I first promised you. You must have your feminine character indelibly impressed upon your mind-and upon your body. Come here."

"Oh! Whatever are you going to do to me, Mademoiselle? Oh, don't hurt me! I love my petticoats-I love being a girl-I will be as kind to Lord Alfred as ever he can desire."

"Come here, Miss, and let me tie your hands," said my inexorable governess, taking a long ribbon from a basket and placing it round my wrists, which she tied in front. Then, going to a candlestick on the mantelpiece, she took the candle thence. It had not been lighted.

"Now," she directed, "lie across that ottoman on your face and let me see this beautiful bottom of yours again."

She pressed her arm upon my back and as I reluctantly yielded to the position she indicated, I half turned round and with bated breath enquired what she was going to do with the candle.

"You are not going to burn, to singe me?"

"Oh, no!" with a smile. "I am going to convince you of the passage by putting this candle into it."

"I shan't allow you. I won't. You shan't," I shouted struggling vainly to free my hands, and half in tears.

Mademoiselle laughed. "I shall punish you all the longer for your obstinacy," she rejoined, forcing me down on my face.

I felt much surprised at the strength she possessed and exercised. 316

She held me down across the ottoman, one hand pressed on my shoulder while she ruthlessly turned up my tea gown and petticoats with the other. I kicked and struggled and consequently received a stinging slap as soon the skirts were sufficiently removed to expose me to it.

"There," she cried, as I tingled, "lie still or I will beat you until you do. I shall not permit this absurd nonsense, these crotchets. You shall just do as I bid you and be at the mercy of whomsoever I choose to subject you to without any questioning or reasoning on your part. I will have implicit obedience."

She opened my drawers at the back. The exposed behind completely upset my equanimity. She not only carefully exposed my bottom but the colder air upon my nakedness made me thrillingly sensible. Placing her elbow on the small of my back to keep me down, she separated my cheeks until she found what Lord Alfred had sought and pierced.

To my inexpressible consternation, I felt something, against the opening-a very persistent, very insinuating force, the thin edge of which all the voluntary and involuntary contraction of my muscles was unable to withstand. I sighed and groaned, but could not escape.

The instrument entered. Another push and I became conscious of an expansion. I was helpless to prevent the entrance into me of a larger mass which was pushed until I thought I was impaled on a stake and which seemed to penetrate my very nature.

"Now deny that you are a girl!" exclaimed my governess drawing the thing almost out again causing me excruciating sensations; and then, when it was almost entirely withdrawn, reinserting it.

"Oh, oh, oh, Mademoiselle!"

"You naughty girl!" moving the candle to-and-fro.

"Oh, I will never be so silly again!" I cried, abandoning myself, perforce, to the like to-and-fro movement. "Oh, oh!"

Mademoiselle continued.

I gasped.

"Oh, Mademoiselle! Will not that do? I am convinced I am a girl."

And I tore at the ribbon which bound my hands.

"No, I shall push the argument home. Was Lord Alfred like this?"

"Yes, but-not so big, not-so-strong!"

"Indeed!" exclaimed Mademoiselle, never relaxing her infliction.

And then she slid her hand round my waist, and over my clothes and caught me in front.

"A boy, too!" she declared.

"Oh, oh!" I ejaculated, at the fresh influx of feelings she now excited.

"Prove that to me!" she ordered.

I held my breath and my tongue, to overcome, to do otherwise.

The proof was soon given her and I felt absolutely exhausted.

But she continued to hold me.

"I shall behave better than he did. I shall not withdraw yet as you have given me so much trouble. Just a little more."

"Oh, Mademoiselle!" I cried, almost in tears, and clenching my teeth.

For quite five minutes she continued. Before she had finished I felt a very strange internal commotion. I buried my face in the cushion and submitted helplessly, hopelessly, quite reckless as to the consequences. It seemed an age, but at length it was over.

"A girl warranted not to have a baby!" remarked Mademoiselle as she at length moved away and allowed me to get up.

"It gives me diarrhoea," I foolishly observed as I got up in a very sheepish fashion. "No, nonsense, Julia!"

"Oh, I must leave the room, Mademoiselle!" I asserted. "Well, it is high time to dress and you may go, but mind you behave yourself tonight. I think I have smoothed things for you."

I returned to my dressing room to get ready for dinner and to prepare to meet my lover again; not without certain qualms, which Mademoiselle had taken effectual means to quell.

I felt that, willy-nilly, I must give myself up to him; and the consequence of her lesson was that I would not scruple further about the matter. Anything was preferable to being punished by her with that candle.