Gynecocracy

CHAPTER 9

As I grew older, and as the year waxed and waned, as Lammas came, and we went to the Norfolk Broads for change, when we returned and the year died in winter, I loved Mademoiselle more and more.

It had taken a long time to awaken to more than a transient vibration any responsive chord on her part, but now at last a secret sympathy was established between us.

I loved her in her autumn boating costume made of flannel, which by its simple form set off and displayed her well-knit, robust figure to great advantage.

I loved her in her winter costumes, when she drove with fleet horses through the snow, galloping along the frost-bound roads in her sleigh. And how well she looked in her skating dresses, the contours of her graceful form outlined by the resistance of the air, by her passage through it, her skates increasing her height, her short skirts displaying her ankles, and the exercise itself compelling her to use her legs as if they were legs-a thing women are remarkably slow to do, considering the killing effect these limbs of theirs have.

And then the spring came-the spring, when one feels a new life welling up.

The fact of my being Lord Ladywood made her more exigent, and anything like insubordination or impudence she put down at once, usually by a good sound birching, and by compelling me afterwards to apologise for my disobedience by putting me under, and making me kiss the lower parts of her beautiful body.

Sometimes, in the passages, I would catch Agnes or Maud, and take liberties with them; and of course they birched and whipped me in the schoolroom just as often as I did them.

I loved to feel their pretty legs. Pretty frightened fawns! How they shuddered and reddened at a rude, invading hand upon their soft, naked flesh, and yet how they liked it! Maud especially. Agnes was not old enough to take more pleasure in this sort of frolic than any child ordinarily does in being tickled.

Of course I was kept in petticoats the whole time. The influence did not diminish by use. It was strange that it did not lost its force, and grow stale by custom.

One May afternoon, we read the "Golden Legend." When I reached these lines:

I have heard it said, that at Eastertide,

When buds are swelling on every side,

And the sap begins to move in the vine,

Then, in all cellars far and wide,

The oldest as well as the newest win

Begins to stir itself, and ferment

With a kind of revolt and discontent

At being so long in darkness pent,

And fain would burst from its sombre tun

To bask on the hill-side in the sun.

a panorama of my year of gynecocracy passed before my vision, and I recalled with soft, voluptuous delight my "psychological lesson"-my night with Mademoiselle.

I was sensible of my blood beginning to stir itself and ferment with a kind of revolt at not having yet been infused into my sweet governess' organisation.

I looked up as I read the lines, and I knew there was a tell-tale tremor in my voice. Mademoiselle glanced up too, and our eyes met.

After dinner, Agnes, Beatrice, and myself squabbled in the twilight, in the drawing room; and I believe Mademoiselle, who had been on the lookout all the evening for something to seize on as an excuse, was glad of it. With unusual promptitude she was down upon me at once.

I had so far forgotten myself as to slap Agnes' face. Agnes, and her kittenish, apish ways, were especially tantalising.

"Bring me the punishment book at once, Julia," as soon as she heard and saw the sharp little blow on Agnes' peachlike cheek. She spoke sternly. "I cannot permit this insubordination. You are well aware how I insist upon constant respect and abject submission to the petticoat, even if you are wronged by it."

I looked ashamed, but said nothing.

I knew when she sent me for the book, that I should lose my evening, and was much chagrined in consequence.

"As you have slapped Agnes' face, she shall birch your bottom at ten o'clock in the schoolroom. You will then be sent to my room, where I shall take certain measures with you, which will, perhaps, make you regret your want of respect. In the meantime," she said, tearing out a slip from the punishment book and folding it, "you are to take this to Elise."

I trembled as I took the paper, and walked out of the room.

I went to my room and rang the bell twice, which would give Elise to understand both that the signal was for her, and that she was required to inflict chastisement.

I was aware that the servants would be going to supper about this time, and that Elise would be very angry at being called away. I debated with myself whether it would be safe to wait even ten minutes. I, however, only succeeded in satisfying myself that Mademoiselle's 386

sharp ears would be waiting to hear the bell for Elise, and that any delay would involve me into fresh trouble.

So I rang and Elise came.

"Well, Miss Julia, what is it now?" she asked in a fury. "And I was just going to my supper. What have you been doing now?"

I grew white and held out my paper for an answer. Elise opened and read it.

"And so," said the lynx-eyed Elise, gazing gravely at me, "you are to be birched by Miss Agnes and then to spend the night with Mademoiselle as you did last year just at this time. What have you done?"

"Oh! They were squabbling, and I smacked that pert Agnes' face."

"And so she is to birch your bottom." Elise looked at me and smacked my face. "That's for bringing me away from my supper."

The smart made me lose my temper with the pretty maid.

"How dare you?" I cried. "That's not in the bill!"

"What do I care for that?" she retorted, and grasping me violently, she pulled me down across her lap, turned up my petticoats, and as she expressed it, warmed my bottom for me.

"That's not in the bill either," remarked Elise, as, satisfied at last, she allowed me to get up, half sobbing and wholly burning; "but it's a nice hors d'oeuvre to what Miss Agnes will do to you this evening."

Elise then took me to the schoolroom where she placed me in the stocks-two pieces of wood, heel to heel, and in a straight line at right angles to my person, and a lid with two apertures for the ankles was slid over my feet and locked. Then a cruel backboard was strapped on over an inordinately tightly laced corset, my hands or wrists were fixed behind to its tail, and its collar set so high that my head was thrown right back.

"There! That is how Mademoiselle wished you to be, but I remember last year," and Elise produced a red petticoat of my governess, which, having fastened at the waist band, she threw over my head. "There! So you shall remain until it is time to birch you."

I cannot express my sensations. Mons. Priapus was terribly distended by them; and my terror at being found in this state by my governess and cousins amounted almost to utter self-annihilation. But what could I do?

They arrived. Elise unfastened me. I was stiff. I had thought the time would never pass.

I was led to the scaffold, held down, and had my bottom vigorously birched by Agnes.

Afterwards, without much time for recovery, I was led to Mademoiselle's bedroom, and by her direction made just as on the former occasion, but without the preliminary ordeal, to get into her bed.

She soon came and enveloped me with her warm thighs, giving me such a squeezing that I can remember it until now, and making me kiss her behind as well as in front. At length we both fell asleep; I, of course, still between her lovely legs, in close contact with her person. What a curious sphinxlike affair women possess at the front lower end of their dear little bodies. What folds of flesh there are. How deliciously they unfold. What sweet moisture they exude. How they expand!

The morning had broken long before Elise came. Although still confined a very close prisoner between my governess' naked limbs in 388

close proximity to the wet fountain of her being, the disordered bedclothes enabled me to see the daylight in the closely curtained, dimly lighted room. I could imagine the fresh morning air outside, I saw pencils of sunlight, and I heard the song of the thrushes and the blackbirds, and the soft sounds of the breeze amid the trees.

How delicious and voluptuous these morning hours are!

Elise presently entered with chocolate and cakes, drew the curtains, let in the May morning and its fragrance, and again my dear governess made me breakfast naked with her.

Elise had been dismissed. There were no hours to dread today under her. She could not come betwixt the cup and the lip, and tear me from Mademoiselle, upon whose form in its gossamer night robe I gloated.

She played with me, and love sick, I responded.

"Oh, Mademoiselle!" I exclaimed, as her taper fingers excited me beyond myself. "Listen to my madness now. Incarnate, conceive; we these days must end. Let us have a little one of our own. It can never be what it would have been last year. My virgin freshness has gone, and sorrow has replaced it. But let me, at any rate, unite myself, before I am older, with this dear ruler of mine. Let us have a little one of our very own to remember these days by-to personify all my devotion, all my love of you!"

"Lord Ladywood!" she exclaimed, as I made good use of my fingers. "How dare you?"

"Love is bold by right of love," I replied.

"And how do you know I love you?"

"Oh, Mademoiselle! How can I know otherwise?"

"This is a very impudent fellow," she answered evasively, playing with him.

"Conquer his impudence," I rejoined.

She lay back and drew me on to her.

"My love, my love!" I exclaimed.

She resigned herself to my fury, and I possessed her-not Bacchus docens, but this time of her own goodness.

I felt myself Mademoiselle and Mademoiselle me.

She loved me; her arms twined about my shoulders. Her passion startled me. Her legs wound round my body. She pressed me further into her.

"With all my heart!" she declared. "You have won! I will yield all my heart! I will embrace, will conceive, will reproduce you-if I can!"

I lay on her bosom. I felt myself inside her and felt the workings of her mind and body upon mine.

I was entirely engulfed, in her beautiful body. She felt the throbbing of my member, and its agitations were all understood and appreciated by the corresponding organ of her own feminine constitution.

I proceeded to beget a child, worthy, I hoped, of her and of myself. There would be some immortality in the result. These days at Downlands and Mademoiselle's sweet influence on me would not be lost. They would live in a child. The spirit now summoned would find a home.

Throb! Throb! Throb!

"Oh, Julia! Oh, Lord Ladywood! Oh, my love, my love, my own love!"

And Mademoiselle yielded herself up to the soft ecstasy.

Oh, that May morning! What ecstasy was mine! What rapture! What satisfaction!