Gynecocracy

CHAPTER 5

If she would only wear petticoats, I thought, if she would be my mistress instead of my master, how much more I should enjoy it, or rather how much less difficult the yoke of iron would be to bear. My peculiar and constitutional susceptibility made it easy, perhaps pleasant, to me to endure all things from a woman.

This charm, this romance was dissipated to the winds, because Lady Alfred Ridlington would wear trousers, while I, the male, was made to wear women's clothing.

I was so fond of women that I did not always object to being in their garments, but I hated the domination of the masculine emblems, although covering a divine female form by whom the sway was exercised. Had Lady Alfred taken my trousers away and worn them herself while she compelled me to wear her drawers, the matter would have been different. And it would have been so, too, if she had really been Lord Alfred.

All the glamour of my being actually a girl had vanished at a blow. I almost wept as I thought I could no longer dream I was one-and one with a lover. Lord Alfred Ridlington no longer interested me for he was a fraud. He was his own wife. What a rude shattering shock to all my delicious dreams in the conservatory, to my anxiety to get a baby between us.

I felt overwhelmed with chagrin and despite, when I dwelt upon all the feminine airs and graces into enduing myself with which I had been cajoled by this imposture. And yet, after all, my tyrant was a woman. What a complexion, what a skin, what limbs she possessed! What knowledge of physical sensations, what physical ecstasy she could cause! How entrancing she would look in petticoats.

I wondered she had the hardihood, now that I knew the secret, to appear that morning without them. Mademoiselle knew it. Perhaps 332

Lady Alfred was not aware that Beatrice was in it too. Without nicely weighing the consequences it struck me how gloriously I could revenge myself by letting the secret out at breakfast before the girls if an opportunity should occur. She would be overwhelmed with shame and confusion. Unless she was a brazen harridan, she must have sufficient womanliness and modesty left to be abashed and horrified when she was discovered to be a lady so wanting in proper feeling as to dress herself in men's clothes.

I did not in my indignation consider, as it would have been much better for me if I had, that I was in her power and in Mademoiselle's, and that they could turn the tables on me cruelly, and that they certainly would, if I so exposed my tormentor.

The three girls looked fresh and brisk in the bright morning light in their dainty maidenly frocks. They did not compliment me upon my appearance, Agnes remarking that I looked "quite haggard, and had black circles about my eyes," and proceeding in her kittenish way to tease me.

Beatrice remarked that "most brides looked so after the first night," an observation which made my hands itch to smack her face. Maud gave me an intelligent glance in which there was some desire and some sympathy. She whisked her skirts about her lower half, and so managed them as to make the form of her exquisite limbs very apparent beneath them, but faithful to the haughty indifference that characterized her, she said nothing.

Mademoiselle was more languishing than usual and her air conveyed that she possessed some secret source of amusement.

Lady Alfred Ridlington entered the room last and astonished me with her perfect self-possession. I regarded her with contempt as a fraud just as I suppose Beatrice regarded me.

I now carefully observed Lady Ridlington's round thighs, breasts, and form, and wondered however I or anyone else could ever have been duped into the belief that she was what her clothes denoted. But suggestion of a fact often goes so far as to make one discredit the evidence of one's own senses in respect of it.

She spoke quite gaily, quite en preux cavalier, to Mademoiselle, who responded in a similar tone of gallantry.

I was much entertained at Lady Alfred's perfect acting, and debonnaire, careless manner. Even before my eyes, which she soon perceived fixed upon her, she did not quail in the least, but in her own glance there was a latent threat and a cold stare as much as to say, "I have not done with you yet."

I did not concern myself much at the time with this, for my attention was occupied afresh with the idea how delicious she would be in her own raiment.

I was brooding thus when she asked whether Mademoiselle did not ever find the need of a tutor with such very masterful young ladies.

Beatrice shrugged her shoulders impatiently at this while a curve of intense contempt settled upon her beautifully moulded lips. Maud and Agnes looked up astonished. Maud, with slight disgust and impatience, Agnes, with open-eyed and innocent wonder.

Mademoiselle's eyes sparkled and glittered with the various frolics and high jinks the proposal suggested and I saw the colour come to her face as she bit her lip to repress the spirit of mischief which seemed to well up. The same idea, however, must have struck her as well as myself.

Lady Alfred looked young enough to be Agnes' little brother. Whether she was in reality older than Mademoiselle, who was not yet twenty-four, had been puzzling me all breakfast time.

Dressed as she was, she looked a baby boy-a chubby, smiling, careless, good-natured, overgrown baby. She was perpetually laughing and smiling.

When a woman's age perplexes me, I invariably endeavour to make her laugh heartily. The colour of the gums about the teeth, the teeth themselves, and, above all, the manner in which the skin wrinkles, at once enable me to make a shrewd guess at her age. An old woman who looks young when her face is in repose, will, when she laughs, immediately disclose lines, whilst her skin will have a more or less parchmenty appearance, however scientifically she has used her cosmetics.

Now Lady Alfred Ridlington was perpetually laughing, and her skin was as fresh as a child's-yet about the eyes there was a look of old worldliness which betokened a knowledge of life; and noticing closely Mademoiselle's demeanour towards her I came to the conclusion that she had lived a fast life but was some eight or nine months younger than my governess.

At times her eyes shone with a fierce white flame such as I had noticed in Mademoiselle's eyes when her erotism was violently excited, such as all women possess in some degree under like circumstances-Mademoiselle in a greater degree than most, and Lady Alfred in excess even of her.

At such times all laughter and smiles would leave her countenance, her face would lose its roundness, the cheeks become drawn, the mouth firmly shut, the whole soul concentrated in the baleful fires of her eyes.

Mademoiselle moved her legs under the table, and I knew, at once, she had excited other emotions in her.

"Sometimes, I confess, I should like to have the assistance of a master, but he would need years to give weight to his authority," she presently said-

"And I," rejoined Lady Alfred with mock disappointment, "cannot pretend to them."

Now was my opportunity. I felt the danger of my folly but impelled by a boldness I cannot account for. I slowly lifted my eyes to Lady Alfred, and said very quietly: "Nor to the sex either, Lady Alfred."

Maud jumped almost off her chair. Agnes changed colour, and awaited events with quiet astonishment, incredulous at what I think she dreamt was a new form of joke.

Beatrice gave me an applauding look for my courage. And Mademoiselle plainly did not know whether to be vexed or amused.

Lady Alfred was furious. She jumped up. "How dare you, Sir! Miss, I mean!" she shouted in a transport.

"At any rate, you will feel my sex. Mademoiselle," she added, "you must let me break him in."

"You shall hear them their lessons, and whip them all round if you like, Alfred. But you, Julia, go to your room-or stay, go to mine at once."

"I think it disgraceful," remarked Beatrice, with real anger. "Suppose Uncle-"

At this Mademoiselle lost her temper-she glared at Beatrice and rang the bell. "Send Elise!" she ordered.

"Elise, take Miss Beatrice, strip her, and dress her in a shirt, boys' drawers, and trousers, and bring her to the schoolroom at half past ten. In the meantime, Alfred, you come with me. You other two," she added, looking at Maud and Agnes, "go to the schoolroom and set yourselves to work."

As I walked up in high dudgeon, I noticed the questioning and rather frightened look Lady Alfred gave Mademoiselle and her own quiet complacent air which indicated nothing to the unskilled, but which, I very well knew, meant danger all round.

I left Beatrice and Elise struggling and protesting together and before I had gained the door heard a succession of sharp sounds, followed by a sob or two, which told me Beatrice was having her face smacked, probably by Mademoiselle, while Elise held her hands. Foolish girl to resist.

My breath came and went more quickly than I cared to acknowledge to myself, but I was wise in my generation, and bent before the storm I had raised, and went at once to Mademoiselle's room.

The rustle of her garments was audible in the corridor before I expected it, and I shuddered at the sound. There was that horrid black oak bench before my eyes. How I hated it!

Mademoiselle came into the room with Lady Alfred Ridlington and took no notice of me, so fully occupied was she. She led her in reluctantly, white and flushed by turns, and protesting energetically, "No, no!" to something Mademoiselle was plainly bent upon.

I was very glad, as may be supposed, to take a back seat, and to fall into the background; and such was Mademoiselle's preoccupation that I doubted whether she was aware of my presence.

"You are a very naughty little boy, Alfred!" she was saying.

I opened my eyes at her tones of uncompromising severity and determination. I could scarcely contain myself. My head whirled. I thought I should burst my corset. I held my breath, transfixed with a strange ecstasy at Mademoiselle's fury.

"You are a very naughty little boy!" she reiterated, in tones which defied all contradiction of anything they might articulate. "A very naughty boy, Alfred! Tutor indeed! No doubt you would like to hear my pupils' lessons; no doubt you would like to have the punishing of young ladies; to turn them down on their faces, you young scoundrel, turn up their petticoats, see their pretty legs and drawers, uncover their soft warm bottoms, and flog them till they screamed and yelled for mercy. You would examine them; you would make them display their hidden charms, you indecent young rascal" (she jerked and shook her); "you would gloat over what you saw. Very well-"

"Oh, Mademoiselle! Indeed-indeed I-" And she seemed terrified.

Mademoiselle appeared, to my astonishment, thoroughly in earnest, and Lady Alfred thoroughly and really afraid.

"Very well," went on Mademoiselle, ignoring the interruption and not permitting her to say what she wanted, "you may thank your stars you have a governess who can manage you, and stamp out such improper ideas. You shall be deprived of your trousers-here-now-exposed before me and this young lady" (turning to me) "and have your own impudent bottom well and soundly birched, and I trust it will do you good."

Mademoiselle went to a chest of drawers, opened the second drawer, and took out a fresh green, well-budded birch, which she swished in the air under Lady Alfred's nose.

"You shall be birched astride of that bench," said she, pointing to it; "and if you have any hope of concealing anything, say good-bye to that hope at once."

"Oh, Mademoiselle, it is not fair! I won't be whipped, and before Julia-"

"Would you prefer it in the schoolroom, before them all?"

"Oh-I-no, certainly not! Oh, Mademoiselle, forgive me! It was a wicked idea-"

I could hardly believe my ears. Was this Lady Ridlington, after all? My perplexity almost demented me.

"Take down your trousers, Alfred, at once-take them off-strip to your shirt. Fair or unfair, you are to be birched."

She flew to Mademoiselle and kissed her hands. For a moment she permitted the kisses; and then, giving her a pat with the back of one of her hands upon her mouth, withdrew them both.

"Undress!" she ordered. "Julia, put the bench in the middle of the room and the bolster upon it."

I did what I was told to but trembled so much and gasped to such an extent that I had hardly strength to move it.

"Now, Julia!" as I fumbled.

Mademoiselle fixed her eyes on me and perceived my condition in consequence of which she gave me a stinging cut with the birch across my shoulders which bit fearfully, although over my dress. I gave a little shriek, but I had no longer any difficulty in executing her orders. I placed the bench in position, and the bolster upon it.

Lady Alfred was still fumbling with her buttons, furtively glancing at Mademoiselle every now and then, to see whether there was the slightest appearance or sign of a disposition to relent. I had been in the same predicament myself and was devoutly thankful I was not so now.

"Come, come!" cried Mademoiselle, tapping the ground impatiently with her foot. "I cannot stay here all day to punish your bottom, Alfred. Be quick, off with your coat and waistcoat! Now the trousers and drawers, too-yes, everything, to your shirt, you bold, good-for- nothing boy! You'd much sooner see a girl in your plight and have a prospect of examining her bottom, and of whipping it, than of having to expose your own and to be whipped. Be quick, or I shall make you kiss Julia's bottom!"

"Mademoiselle!" she exclaimed, standing erect and aghast.

"Yes, I will. Be quick!"

The trousers and drawers were soon pulled down.

I saw a pair of plump, round, white legs and pretty round ankles, and white exquisitely shaped feet.

"Now stand across the bench. Julia, strap his ankles together."

I obeyed.

"Julia, hand me some pins."

I did so.

Mademoiselle put down the birch. Taking the tail of the shirt, she pinned it up to Lady Alfred's shoulders, and then did the same in front.

I looked eagerly at the young, but fully developed, fresh girlish form before me with the soft silky down in front at the navel. I noticed and gloated over the large well-formed hips, and the soft, white, shrinking little bottom. How could Mademoiselle find it in her heart to punish such a tender beautiful little back?

There was no implement in front now. Lady Alfred was a girl, and a beautiful one. The reason she was so anxious I should be absent was because she knew I was a boy. This was all plain to me now. My contemplations and cogitations were brusquely cut short by Mademoiselle's ordering me to put a strap round her waist and the bench, and to fix her together underneath it.

Then she stroked her bottom and talked to her; passing her hand through between her legs, she tickled what she knew how to find, agitating Lady Alfred's frame convulsively.

How dare she pretend to be a boy? How dare she wear trousers? She (Mademoiselle) would whip her follies out of her, cure her of immodesty and indecency.

And Mademoiselle immediately suited the action to the word in her finished style: scientific, methodical, deliberate, and cruel.

She punished Lady Alfred's bottom most soundly until it bled. I was made to stand at the foot and could see all.

Lady Alfred took the castigation with surprising courage until Mademoiselle came to the last dozen, which as usual she inflicted lengthwise. The ends of the fresh birch curled about the insides of Lady Alfred's legs like vicious live things and all her fortitude vanished as if by magic.

She abandoned herself perforce to the agony; rolled and twisted, wrenched her wrists in the straps, and stiffened and relaxed her pretty, beautifully shaped legs.

Presently, unable to contain herself, she screamed again and again.

Mademoiselle appeared to be beside herself, her eyes positively flamed. Her transport terrified me. She seemed sensible of nothing but the writhing form beneath her. The last three cuts were delivered on the very centre of the very organ.

At the first she yielded, at the third and last she appeared to faint. Mademoiselle threw down the birch and sank into an armchair.

"Julia," she cried, "come here"; and she pointed between her widely and indecently outstretched legs. I flew to her and my head was soon lost in her drapery, and, clasped tightly by her limbs, was pressed against her navel.

The mouth was moist and the moustache was wet. I found the excited and enlarged organ with my tongue and tickled it. Soon the welcome spasm overtook her and with a sigh the humid expression of her feelings was shot into my mouth. She seemed greatly solaced, but kept me there, and a second time I repeated the task.

After a few minutes she arose. She was greatly relieved, but my paroxysm of passion was rendered more acute. And it was not by any means diminished by the sight before me.

There lay Lady Alfred Ridlington in a posture of the most abject humiliation, quietly sobbing now that she had come to herself, but her hands bound together underneath the bench, unable to use them to wipe her eyes, her legs separated by the rude bench which passed through the hallowed sanctuary they supported.

And there were her bottom and her rich thighs all well-waled, cut, and discoloured by the birch. In places the wales were latticed and they tended to the insides of her legs in an ominous fashion. On her bottom were spots of now congealed blood.

Lady Alfred turned her head from side to side upon the sofa. She had given her legs several jerks and had similarly signified her wish for the release of her hands. Her arms were concealed by the shirt sleeves as was also her back by that incongruous garment; but I saw enough of its graceful shape, white, elegant, and delicately curved, to make me long to see all. I thought of the picture in Maud's bedroom. I love the vue de dos of a woman.

What a strange whim on her part to wear trousers! to pretend to be a man! to have the pretence carried to the length of being punished like a boy! It was quite plain that it was this that gave the whole business its peculiar zest. What a mania!

Blase, all legitimate ordinary sensations used up, she was obliged, in quest of novel sensations, to have recourse to this distortion and perversion of ideas and of all the functions of her body. What sort of beings would she give birth to? In what way would this love madness affect her offspring? A study of the hereditary instincts imparted to it and of their ramifications and results, would be worthy of Ibsen.

"Well, Alfred," at length asked Mademoiselle, arranging her hair, which her exertions had slightly disarranged, "I think you have been properly punished this time. Will you acknowledge your fault?"

I knew that my petticoats in front were quite wet, and I dreaded lest Mademoiselle should notice the little mound something made there.

I think if the strap round her waist had not been so tight as to make it impossible, Lady Alfred would have moved up and down. I could perceive from her drooping eyelids and general appearance that she was in an extremely erotic condition.

"Shall I let Julia unfasten you?"

"Yes, please."

"No, not just yet. You had better lie there a little longer."

And Mademoiselle looked at her, then walked over to her and gave her bottom a few well-applied smacks with her firm, cold hand.

"Oh, oh, Mademoiselle!" cried Lady Alfred, violently jerking herself all over. "Oh, don't! I can't bear more punishment."

Mademoiselle immediately after the slaps let her hand slip through.

"How wet it is!" she observed, as she tickled it.

"Oh, oh!" exclaimed Lady Alfred in very different tones.

What a longing, what an intense yearning, the interjection conveyed!

Then Mademoiselle reseated herself in her chair.

"Now, Julia," she said; her severe tone made me turn white directly, and feel on the point of fainting. "Now, Julia, what am I to do to you for your impudence to Lady Alfred; how dare you make the remark you did? What induced you, was it Beatrice?"

"No, Mademoiselle! It was not-it was my-my petticoats."

"Your petticoats?"

"Yes, I am not a girl, and being treated just as if I was one, disgusted me, and made me so indignant, that I determined at the first opportunity to show up the hollow mockery."

"You had better let him come to Ridlington Court with me. I will teach him. Hollow mockery indeed! He is not half broken in."

"Julia, come here. Stand with your back in front of me-closer."

Mademoiselle put her left arm round my waist, and her right arm and hand underneath my skirts, between my legs through to the front. She caught the privy purse with her fingers and played with my testicles.

Of course in a few seconds I could scarcely contain myself.

"Will you acknowledge the power of the petticoat now?"

"Yes, yes-oh, yes! Oh, I did not mean-not seriously-any resistance! Oh, Mademoiselle, I will do anything you wish!"

She gave me a final and cruel squeeze of the globes, hurting me fearfully.

"Remember!" she said, sternly. "Now go," she bade me, trembling all over and half doubled up, "and unstrap Lady Alfred. It is your turn now, Miss."

"You won't flog me again?"

"Wait and see!" cried Mademoiselle, enjoying my discomfiture, and delighting in tantalising me.

I unstrapped Lady Alfred.

No sooner had she arisen than she tottered over to a chair.

"Take her some wine, Julia."

I obeyed.

"Make him strip, Mademoiselle, to his chemise," said Lady Alfred.

Again I felt all the colour fly from my face.

But Mademoiselle nodded, and with a sigh I undressed. The chemise covered me.

"I must have him, Mademoiselle."

"Very well."

Lady Alfred led me to the bench and fixed me down on my back. She drew down my arms and strapped my wrists together behind me and underneath it. Then she fixed my ankles in the same mode and drew up my chemise to my throat; displaying my nakedness in a shocking manner.

"What a splendid one it is!" she remarked to Mademoiselle. "What full testicles! We really must find a tight glove for it!" And she lifted her leg across me and inserted me into her hot, fiery organ. "There, now I have the devil in hell!" And she lay down upon me, her burning breath playing about my lips which were parched by her scorching mouth.

The strap round my waist, although not tight, prevented my moving and so also did my posture; but Lady Alfred was not hampered in this manner and she pounded me vigorously, sucking the life out of my affair which was closely bitten and held by her vulva over which she appeared to possess as much control as over her lips.

Her arms enveloped me, her tongue was in my mouth, her weight oppressed me, my implement was lost to sight, up to the hilt, in her plump body. She gazed amorously into my eyes.

"Now, Julian," she said, "as soon as you like!"

Mademoiselle could not refrain from twisting and moving in her chair, crossing and uncrossing her legs. Her presence filled me with shame.

In the glass behind I could see my own legs twisted down and fastened below the bench and Lady Alfred's bottom oppressing me.

Various reminiscences flashed through my mind. I recollected the boudoir-the flogging I had just witnessed.

I felt the seminal receptacles fill, and a preliminary thrill shot all over me; and then with a gasp came the convulsion.

I sank back; and Lady Alfred, delighted, sank upon me.

I recovered.

"Now, Julia, again!"

"Oh, I can't!"

"You must! Remember the petticoat! You must be tamed!"

The reference to the petticoat stimulated me.

I clenched my teeth. Lady Alfred aided me vigorously.

In a few moments, the prolongation of which appeared to give her intense satisfaction, a second spasm was produced.

Still Lady Alfred did not rise.

"Won't that do, Alice?" asked Mademoiselle, who I suppose found the temptation too much.

Alice! How I thrilled at the feminine name! "No, it won't!" she returned. "He must do it again or be birched until he does. If he comes to Ridlington Court with me I will keep him always naked and he shall live between my legs. Besides, I determined to exhaust his impudence. I have the origin of it in my possession now and I will teach him to taunt me with my sex! I will teach him who really rules. I will make him understand, and admit, and feel that man is but woman's slave, soul, passions, and all that he possesses."

"I really can't-I should like to-but I feel already exhausted-empty!"

"Have you another birch there, Mademoiselle?"

My being underneath her made it much harder work for me, but the reference to the birch made me show I would really try though it should be my death.

Alice, seeing this, put her hand underneath Mons. Priapus, underneath his bag, upon the thick muscle that runs between the legs. She squeezed and rubbed it vigorously.

"I shall put a stiff hairbrush under you, if you give me any trouble," she informed me rising on her elbow but still holding my diminished organ inside her.

"A very good idea," cried Mademoiselle. "Here is one!"

Those moist, curved, cherry-coloured lips, the little head, with its closely cropped hair, the laughing, sparkling eyes, the tones, and the touch, and the embrace, all affected me very deliciously.

Alice must have been an expert in metaphysics. The suggestion of the brush thrilled me through and through and caused a growth which quickly delighted her. But she knew that the imagination would affect me more than the reality, which, by setting up a counter irritation, might possibly have altogether defeated her wishes.

She declined the brush, as she looked steadily at me; and I was glad, for her clemency had its due effect.

She replaced her arms about me, and renewed the pressure of her dear form, though really the muscles of my generative organs ached.

Then she talked of the birch, and Mademoiselle wriggled in her chair whilst she flashed glances at me.

The whole time Alice continued a process of very forcible suction; and the impression I was under was that she was drawing my life into her own body and desired the last spark of it.

Finding her efforts not sufficiently stimulating to please her and the response to them too slow-for I must have shown distress in various ways-she smiled and stood up over me, not moving her legs or the lower part of her body, with which she still retained me.

"Now, Julian, I will be good to you," she said, tenderly.

And she proceeded to remove that horrid shirt and vest and stood over me in all the glorious nakedness of her radiant beauty-a perfect woman.

"I will give you fresh inspiration. Look!"

I did look at her swelling breasts, like snow; at their scarlet nipples, like two strawberries in its midst; at her arms, so exquisitely shaped; and whilst I gazed, she moved up and down upon me and smiled.

"You know all my beauty, Julian, and"-again throwing herself upon me-"you possess it."

She pushed away the chemise and her velvety breasts, soft like cushions filled with down, rested on my own breast, her legs, against mine, our moist flesh was mixed. I felt that, exhausted or not, I must perform the function and give her myself.

With many efforts, many contortions, many throes, I accomplished her desire, which had become mine, too; and then lay absolutely limp, lank, and done for, beneath her.

For some minutes we rested, I cannot say in each other's arms, for mine were fixed behind me, but in the closest possible proximity.

"Good boy," she said, as she kissed me. "It shall not be whipped this time."

"He has achieved an Herculean feat, I shall unstrap him myself," cried Mademoiselle. "And tied down as he was, it must have been specially 349

difficult. Drink this bumper, Julian, to your mistress' health. I must take care of your health, too. You had better sleep for a couple of hours.

Here is my own nightdress," said Mademoiselle, taking it out of its scented case. "Put it on" (she threw it over my head). "Jump into my bed. You won't try to persuade me to follow you into it just now, I am sure."

I was glad to get into bed. Both Alice and Mademoiselle kissed me, and before I could recollect anything more, I had fallen asleep.