Maude Cameron And Her Guardian

Chapter Nine

As a further assurance to Alice’ s querulous aunt that her niece would be well cared for and even at a profit to herself, Charles Cameron had sent his cheque for a hundred pounds. So overcome with avarice and delight was the old woman that she had at once written back openly suggesting that perhaps Mr. Cameron would care to engage her niece as a permanent companion to his own ward, for, being decrepit and impoverished, she could not well hope to support the girl, who was of marriageable age and, she added, quite independent and saucy of manner, which was a handicap as regards placing her suitably in domestic employment. This answer not only amused the mature voluptuary but also created a new horizon of meditative planning for him; for if Alice Birchington were as attractive as Maude had told him and was, moreover, possessed of a spirited, defiant nature, he would have ample opportunity to amuse himself with chastising her and subjugating her just as he had done with the golden- haired young beauty who now shared not only her house but his bed also. Best of all, he would be able virtually to adopt Alice into his house, where she would be entirely dependent upon his good will for her creature comforts. The prospect mightily attracted him, and in the time that passed between Alice’ s eager acceptance of the invitation to spend the rest of the summer with him and Maude and the day of her arrival at the little railway station, he displayed to Maude a more benign conduct, especially as regards the moderate dosage of fustigation which he found it necessary to inflict on her delectable bare buttocks to rouse her to meet and encompass his carnal passions.

At the station that bright Saturday afternoon late in August, Charles Cameron’ s eyes widened with admiring appraisal as a slim elegant young lady stepped down from the railway car and walked with a determined, arrogant carriage towards him. She was everything Maude had said, and more. Alice Birchington was about five feet seven and a half inches in height, deceptively slender- for the fashions of this era sometimes dissembled and augmented the graceful contours of waist and bosom, and the full skill then in vogue could not always tell a male whether its wearer’ s limbs were plump or lean, long or short.

Nonetheless, his shrewd appraisal and past experience with the opposite sex enabled him to observe, with secretly delighted anticipation for the future, that Maude’ s school chum possessed elegantly long legs. and that her posterior, dissembled though it was in the modishly full, flouncy skirt which swept down to her ankles, where it revealed the fact that her black button- on shoes rose well beyond those slim joints, probably to mid- calf, it was evident to him that her backside was highset and vivaciously solid, though to be sure not at all so spacious as Maude’ s ripely appetizing hindquarters. Yet variety being the spice of life and for a voluptuary like Charles Cameron the most exciting adventure of all, he found no fault whatsoever with this first impression of Miss Alice Birchington’ s tasty charms, and promised himself the treat of unveiling them in their mouthwatering reality at the very first opportunity.

Her hair was jet black, with curls piled along the top of her forehead, and drawn in a kind of Gibson- Girl pompadour, though with an ample oval bun at the nape of her bewitchingly slim neck. This coiffure made her high- arching forehead the more imposing, and gave all her features a kind of arrogant impertinence- which was Charles Cameron’ s favorite prototype as regards his secret penchant, for such females had an inordinate amount of temperament which was bound to result in disobedience and mutinous obstinacy, and this in turn would summarily call for disciplining.

Her eyes were brown, very large, widely spaced on each side of the bridge of a patrician aquiline nose, whose thin, delicate wings flared and shrank with a hauteur quite out of place with a young lady whose financial circumstances were as straitened as he knew hers to be. Her mouth was small, haughty, supercilious with upper lip pronounced, and her cheekbones obliquely set, which gave her still more a mien of mercurial, spirited nature. The oval face brightened now as he acknowledge her remark: “ Yes, indeed, my name is Charles Cameron, I am Maude’ s guardian, and I see I have the privilege of greeting her dearest friend Miss Alice Birchington.”

Alice’ s face colored, and she fluttered her very long eyelashes in coy pleasure at this graceful introduction. “ How very nice of you it was to come to meet me, Mr. Cameron. And here is dear Maude! Oh, how good it is to see you again, my dear!”

Mentally, her guardian said to himself, This saucy minx gives herself unwonted, unbecoming airs. The birch is an infallible remedy for such pretentiousness! He watched amusedly while his golden- haired ward effusively welcomed her former London school chum, and he could not help thinking what a perfect little conspiratress Maude had become, for not only had she archly proposed his inviting Alice to the house where the girl would be entirely at his mercy, but also she had even gone so far- last night, indeed- to intimate that she would not be averse to watching Alice receive punishment which she was sure to earn for having such a saucy tongue and bold airs.

In due course, after the journey home, during which Alice loudly commented on the sylvan setting of her new temporary home, the brunette was installed in a room on the second floor, directly across the hallway from Mr. Cameron’ s very own private quarters. After lunch and a nap, the three went for a lengthy, pleasant drive in the countryside, during which Mr. Cameron had ample occasion to consider the very evident charms of his new prize and to take note of her behavior and her affectations manner of speech, by which she tried to hide her unfortunate lack of material opportunities.

After supper, which Maude graciously prepared and served, there was much conversation across the table between the two girls, and once again, as before, Alice took the lead in topical declamation, expatiating vividly on her unhappy life with her elderly aunt, who, while she had never physically mistreated the brunette, was strict and miserly and gave Alice little chance to be more than a household drudge But here, she proclaimed with a happy smile, she could at last enjoy the leisure and comfort of a vacationer without obligation, and she was ever so grateful to her dear friend for having thought well enough of her to have offered this escape from the cloistered existence she had been compelled to endure. Charles Cameron said little, but the intent appraisal which his gaze fixed on Alice ought, had the young lady been more perceptive, to have given her reason to pause in her giddy chatter.

Presently, after the dishes had been cleared away, they repaired to the library, it being much more cozy and with a little fireplace in which one could burn logs when cold weather came. Now, one of Charles Cameron’ s errands into town had been to order a very special kind of armchair, which, when one pressed certain little buttons concealed in the upholstered back, would unexpectedly spring out a metal clamp which would lock round the unsuspecting victim’ s waist to pinion her, while at the same time tilting her backwards so that she would be completely off balance and unable to defend herself. He had explained the night before the usages of this ingenious piece of furniture, and so when he blandly suggested to the slim brunette that she would find herself quite comfortable in it, Maude had to suppress a titter of malicious delight when Alice promptly seated herself.

First, however, he had shown his books to the visitor, but without explaining why one case had all its shelves under lock and key, and invited Alice to select something to read while they sat and took their ease. Typically, the brunette after some deliberation settled on Godey’ s Book of Fashions, and, crossing her legs one over the other, leaned back and attentively studied the illustrated pages, no doubt dreaming that she herself were arrayed in such elegant finery.

Charles Cameron and his ward, each having taken a book, took their places near the unsuspecting brunette, and after about half an hour, he exchanged a significant glance with Maude, which was their agreedon signal. Then, looking up, he said in a loud voice, “ Don’ t cross your legs, Alice.”

The brunette, startled by this stem admonition and the employment of a term which was most risquй in speech between man and young lady, uttered a gasp and stared at him as if she had not heard aright, then went back to her fashion book. She sat, with right leg crossed over left, and her skirt was thus rucked up almost to the dimpled, suave joint of her sculptured knee, showing off her black cotton stockings and confirming his belief that Miss Alice Birchington was deliciously possessed of long, supple legs that would reveal ideal feminine proportions. Her calves were sinuous, high- set, an extremely graceful, auguring the glories of her maidenly thighs above. And these, as well as all the rest of her appetizing young loveliness, he intended to see!

For a moment, she regarded him, then went back to her book. Charles Cameron smiled savoringly, and gave Maude an almost imperceptible nod. This first show of rebellion would furnish precisely the motive required for the initiation of haughty Miss Alice Birchington into the toils of corrective discipline.

Clearing his throat, he said, a little louder, “ Perhaps you didn’ t hear me, Alice. I said, don’ t cross your legs, it’ s quite immodest.”

“ Oh! You haven’ t any right to talk to me in such a cross way, Mr. Cameron,” Alice declared her large brown eyes very wide and angry now as she flouted him with a bold, defiant stare. ‘ I’ m your guest, not your ward the way Maude is. And I’ m not doing anything wrong, anyway.”

“ I see. Well, then, since you feel that way, let me give you another order, Alice. Suppose you stand up, take hold of the hems of your frock, and raise them as high as you can so that we can both admire your legs, which you are apparently very eager to display.”

Alice Birchington uttered a gasp of indignation at this sly rejoinder. “ I shall do no such thing, Mr. Cameron, and you are not a gentleman to make such a remark in a young lady’ s presence. If you don’ t mind, I shall retire to my room.”

“ I think first you will obey my order, Alice. Stand up, pull your skirts well up to your waist and let us see your legs as far as you can,” he repeated with a cynical little smile.

Alice Birchington stamped her foot with vexation, her creamy skin coloring hotly at the immodest request. “ You go too far, Mr. Cameron, and you owe me an apology. I am a decent girl and I would not think of doing what you wanted.”

Maude had slipped from her chair and gone slyly round behind Alice; now, at his nod, she pressed the necessary buttons, and all of a sudden Alice uttered a startled cry as she felt the metal clamp shoot out and clutch round her waist, tightening to pinion her in place. Also, the back of the chair seemed to recede, so that she found herself compelled to follow its lowering angle. “ Stop it! What is it? Oh, how dare you! Let me go, I say!” she cried in a rich contralto voice, eyes flashing with indignation.

“ I shall not let you go, Miss Birchington,” he retorted sarcastically, “ till you have been properly punished for your sauciness and your indifference to my order of decorum, which any well bred young lady would instantly have heeded. And now, Maude, if you will assist me, we shall remove her frock and begin to prepare her for that well- merited chastisement.”

“ I see it all now!” cried the enraged young brunette, struggling futilely to get out of the deceptive armchair, “ a false friend you are indeed, Maude Rivers! Was it your idea to entrap me and get me into this brute’ s clutches?”

“ Insults will avail you nothing except an aggravation of punishment, I fear, Miss Birchington,” Charles Cameron calmly interposed as he stepped to one side of the furiously struggling, defiant slim brunette and, avoiding her attempts to strike at him with her fists, seized one of her wrists, while Maude promptly held the other. This done, it was a simple matter to work her left arm out of her sleeve, whereupon the other was soon freed, and Alice’ s pretty frock was descended to her waist, exhibiting her fine firm panting bosom, tumultuously upheaving, confined by the modest and rather thick white cotton camisole.

A table had already been placed in the library, well in advance of this scene- which, as our readers may well suspect, had been artfully planned some little time ago. It was rectangular, rather wide and very sturdy, and each of its legs was outfitted with a sturdy little metal ring, for what purpose we shall soon see. A few felt- covered cords lay on the table; these were to be used as pinions for the victim, who, as we can well divine, was to be none other than Alice Birchington herself.

Now, stooping, Charles Cameron touched another button at the foot of the armchair, and metal gyves thrust out, unlocked; these he swiftly fixed round Alice’ s slim ankles, locking them into place, and then, releasing her of the waist- pinion and restoring the seat to its natural horizontal plane, he and Maude lifted the storming young brunette up by her elbows, despite her cries and threats. Her flushed face and dilated eyes and flaring nostrils all gave evidence of her anger at this betrayal, and she continued to upbraid Maude with contemptuous denunciation on the latter’ s tricking her to deliver herself up to a profligate who had absolutely no right to touch her.

To these angry, stormy insults, Maude and her guardian paid not the least heed, and the frantic brunette found herself undressed progressively of petticoats and stays and, clad only in her black cotton stockings- which reached only an inch or two above her knees and were secured by elastic garters over which the tops were neatly rolled- her high- button shoes, her camisole and her rather drab gray cotton drawers which descended to mid- thigh and had not the least embellishment of lace, was dragged over to the table and summarily bent down over one end. While Maude held her wrists- under her guardian’ s threat that if she let go, she would be obliged to take Alice’ s, place, a threat which made the golden- haired conspiratress summon all her young strength to the task- Charles Cameron knelt down and carefully corded one of Alice’ s slim ankles, fixing the other end to one of the little metal rings. A moment later, the other leg was fettered in the same manner, and now Alice found herself with her legs straddled a full yard and more, in the most vulnerable position a chaste young lady could find herself to be at the mercy of a man intent on castigating and deflowering her.

He then crossed over and bound each of her wrists in turn, fixing the ends of the cords to the rings set in the front legs, and thus poor Alice was stretched tightly along the table, with her bottom upreared and jutting out, distended by the exaggerated straddle of her slim long legs, in an attire that was not at all in keeping with the chaste propriety which she deemed should be tendered her.

At the other end of the library, a painted screen had been placed to conceal a bucket in which, steeping in brine, two birch rods had been placed in advance. Maude, at her guardian’ s sign, now left the library, while Charles Cameron, stroking his chin, stood back and admired the helpless, fuming young victim, whose position, distressing though it surely was for her, heightened in his appraising eyes the considerable beauty which she was thus compelled to exhibit willynilly.

Alone with him now, the svelte young brunette turned her face round to see him, her cheeks scarlet with shame at the indecent scantiness of attire to which she had been reduced and the helpless, grotesque posture of her most intimate anatomy which the fettering enforced. “ Please, Mr. Cameron,” she said hoarsely, “ untie me and let me put my clothes back on! You know you’ ve no right to treat me this dreadful way. I could go to the authorities and complain about you, and you would be sent to prison.”

“ You still don’ t seem to realize, my girl, that you are in no position to threaten or insult, only to receive a long overdue chastisement for your impudence and your defiance of my orders. No, Alice, I will not let you off. You shall be flogged, my girl, until you are contrite and humble enough to repent your sauciness. And now here comes Maude, to assist me in your chastisement.”

Maude had indeed returned, clad only in slippers and a tightly belted dressing gown, again at his prior orders. “ Are you going to whip her now, Uncle Charles?” she asked in the most casual way, which made poor Alice gasp and frantically jerk at her bound wrists and ankles, to no avail, her maneuvers only serving to accentuate the spectacular jut of her posterior and the splendid vitality and delicious sculptuary of her straddled thighs.

Pinioned as she was with her upper body flattened down and tractioned along the top of the table, her wrists corded at one end and her ankles fixed well apart on the other, Alice’ s camisole hiked up an inch or two, exposing the most thrilling glimpse of creamy white flesh imaginable between its hems and the waistband of her clinging drawers, which because of her coerced pose, clung to the cheeks of her behind like a veritable second skin. He feasted his eyes on his victim, prolonging the reality of final preparation so as to exacerbate his own excitement.

Alice’ s buttocks were sleek ovals, firm and temptingly salient, separated by a sinuous, tight crease which, owing to the distension of the globes in her present pose, was immodestly gaped. Her highset sinuous calves merged into long, deliciously svelte thighs, which, however, did not lack the elegant rondure as they in turn rose towards the jutting posterior. He espied nervous quiverings, as from tension, ripple along those yawning columns now, rising to find play in the beautifully proffered hillocks of her condemned bottom.

“ I think the moment has come to introduce Alice to the discipline of the rod,” he at last proclaimed.

A cry of stupefied horror broke from the victim, who again jerked with all her might and main at her cords, succeeding only in wriggling her appetizingly jutting bottom to and fro and intensifying the eagerness of her mature male executioner to give it a burning reason for such choreography. “ No! No!” she cried hoarsely, turning her flushed face back to appeal to him, “ you have no right, I’ ve done nothing! Maude, for God’ s sake, don’ t let him do this to me- you, who were my dearest friend, how could you lure me to this monster’ s den this heartless way?”

“ She is very saucy, Uncle Charles, I think a good dozen with the birch would be the best thing in the world for her,” Maude eagerly proposed, deaf to her friend’ s agitated appeal.

“ I am inclined to agree with you, my dear. By the way, are you wearing anything under that robe?”

“ No, Uncle Charles,” Maude blushingly murmured, at which Alice uttered a horrified gasp.

“ Then suppose you bring me one of the rods, and let me test it. It has been soaking for some hours, and should be swishy and supple enough for employment now,” he ordered.

Maude knew better than to argue or protest this whimsical decision on her guardian’ s part, so, eyes downcast and cheeks rosy with blushes, she hurried to the screen, went behind it, and returned with one of the rods, which she tendered to him. Then, stooping, she drew up the tails of the robe and bent well over, revealing to him the magnificent pinky- satiny plenitude of her voluptuous young bottom, whose contours were well known to him by now but did not lack erotic allure for him all the same.

Having stationed herself in front of Alice to the latter’ s left, Maude stoically submitted herself as he came forward, swishing the rod a few times in the air to get the feel of it, while poor Alice looked on with incredulous dilated eyes. Gently patting her naked backside with the broadest part of the rod, he at last drew back his arm and swept it majestically over the velvety surfaces. Maude uttered a squeal and wriggled furiously, but did not leave position as she gasped, “ Ohh, it’ s a very good rod, Uncle Charles! It cuts ever so keenly! Don’ t wear it out on me, Uncle Charles, use it on Alice!”

“ The more slender rod is, I think, better suited to her conformations, Maude,” he replied, glancing back at Alice’ s contorted face and inwardly delighted at the admixture of shame and fear and dreadful anxiety which he saw registered thereon.

“ But you aren’ t going to birch her over her drawers, are you, Uncle?” Maude artfully went on.

Uttering a wild cry of alarm at this supreme threat to her maiden modesty, Alice wailed, “ Ohh my Lord, no! Surely you don’ t mean to be naked in front of a man! Ohh, the drawers are no protection against such an awful rod, I am sure they’ re not! For God’ s sake, Mr. Cameron, don’ t strip me bare, it’ s shameful, it’ s indecent! I implore you in the name of mercy!”

“ Shall I take down her drawers, Uncle?” Maude continued, again ignoring her friend’ s heartfelt plea.

“ Ohh, you hateful girl,” Alice fairly sobbed out, “ I wish it was you instead of me!”

“ Pooh, Miss,” Maude mockingly retorted as she turned to confront her frantic chum, “ I’ ll have you know Mr. Cameron has often birched me on the bare skin, and I haven’ t made such a fuss over it as you are doing now before you’ re even touched. If I were he, Miss, I would take down your drawers and birch your impertinent bottom till you begged to go to bed with me!”

“ Ohhhhh!!!” Alice Birchington was speechless at this incredibly indecent declaration.

He nodded; Maude, with glee, hurried back of her pinioned friend, while poor Alice turned her face to watch with frantic eyes, and at once attacked the elastic waistband of the drawers, while poor Alice pressed herself frenziedly against the edge of the table to avert that final catastrophe. But Maude stealthily gave her a cruel little pinch on the tender inside of one of her thighs, and when the poor girl wailed out her anguish, Maude deftly tugged till the drawers began to recede from those oval hemispheres and the glorious glossy- white satin of the naked palpitating bottomcheeks hove into view. With another energetic tug, Maude dragged them down as far as they would go, for the straddle of Alice’ s legs prevented their complete removal. However, he now handed her a scissors, and Alice shrieked as Maude heartlessly snipped away and the drawers at last fell in tatters to the floor, leaving her naked from the lower thighs to the small of her back. In a desperate effort to shield her private parts from a man’ s eyes, Alice tried to clench her legs and to tighten the muscles of her velvety white backside so as to hide those treasures which no modest young lady ought ever to show to a man except in wedlock and in the confines of the conjugal bedroom.

But before the full realization of her helpless nakedness was borne in upon the svelte young brunette, Charles Cameron approached, his eyes blazing with avid delight, and his fingers roamed over Alice’ s bottom ovals, squeezing and pinching, stroking and smoothing, handling her naked backside with an audacity that fairly left her breathless, though she continued to groan and to make violent lunges and twists in futile attempts to break loose from the pinions that compelled her to accept these odious attentions from a man.

“ Ohh- ahh- ohh- my- G- God!” she ejaculated hoarsely, closing her eyes desperately tight and making the muscles in her beleaguered naked seat flex and ripple with the spasmodic tensions she was summoning to avert his access to her most secret oases of erotic delight, “ take your hands away- ohh- ohh- it’ s infamous! Ohh, I beseech you, sir, Have pity on me and do not shame me so!”

Stepping back, his chest heaving and his face flushed, he chuckled, “ A little less haughty now, my girl? It will not help you escape your just due. Maude, bring me that other rod. It is much more supple and thinner, and it will ferret out the tenderest spots in this impertinent minx’ s big naked backside!”

And with this, drawing back his right hand, he delivered a solid slap on the right bottom summit, followed by one on the other naked huddling nether globe, that fairly made poor Alice bound against her table of tethering, uttering strangled gasps of shame and discomfort, while the vivid scarlet imprint of his palm sprang up at once on the nacreous creamy mounds of her virginal bottom.

Maude came forward with the birch, which he grasped by its cloth handle. “ Now then, Alice,” he pronounced, “ you shall have a good dozen, and you shall count them as they come.” With this, slyly, he drew back the rod and swished it over the tops of Alice’ s naked hips. Taken by surprise at the stinging hot pain, the half naked brunette uttered a shrill cry of pain, threw back her head, her eyes fixing the ceiling, whereupon he applied a second whisking cut from left to right just over the upper summits, and managed to get in a third whistling cut straight over the broadest part of both cringing creamy bottomcheeks before the frantic culprit was able to cry out “ Ohhh- Three! Ohh, ohh, how it cuts, how it cuts me!”

“ It is not three, Alice, since you did not count the first two strokes. It is not even one and will not be one till you call it out,” he tauntingly declared as the birch swished viciously across the lower summits. Already the bright thin lines of the switches had left their feverishly hot kisses on Alice’ s naked white skin, and the muscles of her bottom twitched and clenched, writhed and surfed in piteous appeal against the searing caresses of the willow switches.

“ Ahhrrr! Ohh, ohh, one then- oh, not so hard, I implore you, Mr. Cameron!”

Swishh! The birch curled the tips of the long withes insinuatingly round the fronts of Alice’ s right thigh as the next stroke swished without warning over the upswelling base of her naked hindquarters. Alice’ s body jerked, her face turned, her eyes sparkling with great tears: “ Ohh- ahrr- aii- ohh, for God’ s sake, I’ m dying, I’ m dying!”

“ Nonsense, Alice. Girls don’ t die of a birching, as Maude herself can testify. On the contrary, you’ ve never seemed so alive as at this moment. But you are forgetting to count, are you not?”

And- Swishh- once again the slender rod danced venomously across poor Alice Birchington’ s naked bottom cheeks, this time straight over the summits, eliciting a shrill, tearful: “ Ohhouuu! Three!”

“ Hardly. Again you err in your count, my girl. You counted only one, and now you jump to three. Where, then, is two?” he taunted, as he sent the rod dashing over the tops of her naked, wriggling hips again.

“ Aiii! Ahhowwwwoooh! Two, two! Oh, for God’ s sake, you’ ll tear the skin off, ohh, ohh, how it does hurt!” Alice wailed, lunging and twisting her vividly striped bare bottom in the most indecent way, while Maude watched, her eyes glowing with cruel delight, for by this time the golden- haired ward had learned to relish these erotic games which gave her guardian such joy and herself, in ultimate turn, so much indescribable pleasure in surrender to them.

His ward stood well over to his right as she followed her school chum’ s ordeal, and now, to Alice’ s last plaintive appeal, maliciously interposed: “ What a cowardy- cat she is, Uncle Charles, to be sure! You have birched me a good deal harder than that, and the skin of my bottom wasn’ t at all cut. Besides, her bottom is much harder and stubborn than mine, and you could birch her all night long before you tore the skin!”

“ Ohhh!” wailed poor Alice at this latest perfidy, as she turned her tearstained face back towards her erstwhile chum, “ how can you stand there and watch me being tortured? I have never felt anything so dreadful in all my life! Ohh noo, oh, do please stop, Mr. Cameron-” this last, in a sobbingly submissive appeal, as he slowly laid the supple birch against her naked, wriggling, vividly streaked behind, exactly against the base, by way of forecasting to her where the next cut was going to fall. Alice contracted her bare bottomovals, catching her breath and straining at her bound wrists, while he kept the lovely brunette victim in suspense by continuing to press the birch over her quaking seat; then, swiftly drawing back his arm, he sent the switches dancing over the spot he had chosen, and Alice’ s hips swerved violently from side to side as if trying to shake off the burning sting of that swishing kiss: “ Aiiii! Ohh, three, three, for God’ s sake, you’ re killing me!”

“ I’ m ever so much braver, aren’ t I, Uncle Charles?” Maude giggled as her eyes fixed on her friend’ s colorfully streaked bare bottom, which, dashing about under the attentions of her guardian’ s rod of castigation, unwittingly disclosed glimpses of the blackfleeced core of her virginity, the most salacious vista a man could behold and shamelessly proffered thanks to her contortions and the immodest straddle of her writhing thighs. “ You must remember, Maude,” he jested as he studied the tempting, squirming naked posterior before him, “ that Alice had led a sheltered life and thus far been spared the consequences of her naughtiness. I daresay she is feeling less mutinous now, aren’ t you, Alice?” he added, as he slyly patted the girl’ s right upper thigh with the ends of the flexible bundle of switches, then sent a stinging, whistling cut round the lovely creamy column, the tips licking in and around towards her loins.

“ Ahrr- ohh, not there, please, ohh, f- four- ohh, how it cuts and bums me, oh, Mr. Cameron, have mercy on me,” Alice wailed as she made frantic attempts to clench her trembling thighs, along whose elegant columns the muscles flexed in constant spasmodic play. Maude went forward now and heartlessly took hold of the camisole and rolled it up high on Alice’ s beautifully sculptured ivory back under pretext that it might conceal a portion of the condemned area, though really it was to gloat over her chum’ s ordeal and secretly relish the fact that at last her guardian would have someone else to chastise when the mood seized him.

Now he patted the sensitive satiny inside of Alice’ s left thigh, while the harassed young brunette tearfully implored: “ Ohh, oh, not there, for God’ s sake, it hurts so, Mr. Cameron! Please, please, I apologize for being rude and disobedient, but for God’ s sake, spare me any more, I beg of you!”

He continued to pat the shuddering ivory expanse of tender, appetizing flesh, his gaze devouring the convulsive tremors that ran through Alice’ s naked thighs and bottom and reveling in the view of the dark curly moss that flourished between her straddled legs, at the very apex of those licentiously yawning thighs of hers. “ I am happy to see that you are beginning to learn humility, but it is a hard lesson and must be thoroughly learned, especially the first time. Get ready, Alice, you still have eight good cuts left you, and don’ t forget to count!” So saying, he swept the switches around the ivory column, the tips curling in round the delicate front, and Alice Birchington raised her head and shouted out, as her body jerked and twisted, “ Eeeeeeahrr! Ohh, five! Ohh, I can’ t stand it, I just can’ t stand any more, Mr. Cameron, won’ t you have mercy on me now? Oh, please, please! I’ m suffering so!”

“ What a noisy little coward she is, Uncle Charles,” Maude sadistically purred. “ I would birch her till the blood ran down her legs, for daring to disobey you and being so shameless in exposing herself there in the chair.”

“ Oh my Lord,” Alice sobbed, again turning her contorted, tearstained face back to intercede with her heartless executioners, “ how can you say such a cruel thing about me, Maude? I am a good girl, I swear I am, and I didn’ t mean to disobey!”

Of course Charles Cameron was overjoyed at the turn of events and the way his lovely golden- haired ward was entering into the spirit of the enjoyable little game he was playing with poor Alice, for those virginal treasures he had already conceived a furious lust. He deemed himself blessed by the gods of fortune in having acquired two such divergently attractive mistresses to gratify his secret carnal whims, and had to admit that “ preparing” a girl for the loss of her virginity under the whistling birch was infinitely more exciting than the normal course of seduction. In his eyes, the sight of Alice’ s now furiously marked backside and upper thighs, the welts and scratches of the twigs standing out in salacious relief against the flawless ivory sheen of her bare skin made her a thousand fold more palatable for those rites of Cythera which his virile nature yearned to perform.

Once again he laid the flexible birch straight over poor Alice’ s shrinking and trembling naked bottom, this time across the upper summits, and was rewarded by her tremulous sobs- a far cry from her earlier haughtier bravado!- as her slim long fingers clenched and clawed the air, her back hollowed, and her fettered ankles jerked at the cords which pinioned and so exaggeratedly straddled her magnificent loins and behind for his visual as well as castigatory attentions: “ Oooh- ahh- ohh, spare me, spare me, Mr. Cameron, I implore you! Do let me off, and I’ ll be very good, I swear I will,” she entreated.

“ I always keep my word, Alice,” was his reply as he went on patting her frantically huddling, striped bare bottom, “ and you will recall that I promised you a thorough chastisement. There are still seven cuts due that naughty backside of yours, so keep on counting, for any you don’ t count will, of course, be extras!” And with this, drawing back his arm slowly, he kept the frantic half- naked sufferer in suspense by withholding the rod to watch the fascinating interplay of her bottom and thigh muscles, till at last, when she was least expecting it, he delivered the swishing stroke.

“ Ahhowwooouuuu! Ohh, six, six! Oh I shall die, I know I shall,” Alice shrieked as her hips lurched and swerved in the most erratic way, this side and that, and again her face turned back to him, her large brown eyes drowned in tears that ran unchecked down her flushed cheeks. He could not help but acknowledge the fact that she was infinitely more provocative and desirable when dissolved in tears and abject suffering, and he determined to prolong her punishment as long as feasible, so as to extract every iota of carnal delight from the scene.

“ I promise you you won’ t die, Alice,” he chuckled as he took careful aim once more and patted her right buttock diagonally with the supple rod, so that the tips of the switches would whisk over the slope of her svelte velvety hip and on against the tender side. A sobbing groan exuded from the sufferer, who tried to shrink herself down along the table and at the same time contract the muscles of her bottomovals to diminish the menaced area. Keeping her in suspense again as he savored doing when punishing a girl, Mr. Cameron drew back the birch and watched Alice struggle and steel herself, till he saw the muscles of her colorfully striated nether hemispheres relax their muscular tension; then the rod dashed down to flagellate the jutting globe in a diagonal line, the twigs biting over tine hip and round into the brunette’ s naked side.

“ Owooeeeeee! Ohh, dear Mr. Cameron, have pity on me, oh, I’ m suffering so! Ohh, ohh, it’ s dreadful! Maude, I beseech you, if you ever were my friend, beg me off, please, oh, Maude, please do!” Alice wailed.

Instantly the birch descended again, this time with a dexterous twist of his wrist Mr. Cameron sending it to launch its burning kiss diagonally over the left buttock, from the top and outer edge of the girl’ s hip to the ambery fissure that was so immodestly distended because of the victim’ s enforced pose over the table.

“ Ahrrrrr! Ohh, have mercy- ohh, eight, eight!” Alice called out shrilly, again turning her tear- bathed face round to supplicate reprieve.

“ She didn’ t count seven, Uncle Charles,” Maude intervened, “ so that cut doesn’ t count either, does it?”

“ Ohh ohh, my Lord!” Alice wailed, while Maude’ s guardian sententiously pronounced judgment: “ You last left off at six, my girl, so neither of the last two count, and you still have a good half dozen of the best due your impertinent backside. Get ready!” With this, the rod, first lightly tapping the base of her distended naked rear, swished through the air and bounded against the dancing, wriggling naked seat, Alice fairly howling out “ Ahrrr- eeeeeeaiii- oh, seven, seven, oh be merciful now, I’ m going to faint, at pains me so, Mr. Cameron!” as her naked hips executed the most frenzied gyrations imaginable, the table shaking from the maddened ways the slim brunette tried to break free of her bonds at wrists and ankles.

Pausing a moment to constate his handiwork, Charles Cameron devoured the indecent abandon with which poor Alice swerved and wriggled, accentuating her most secret treasures in the most abandoned way, heedless of all modesty and decorum. Then he laid the swishy, thin, long rod carefully over the broadest curves of both huddling, inflamed and well- streaked bottomovals, and Alice broke down tearfully, praying for pardon and imploring him to accept her profound apologies for having angered him, avowing that she would be dutifully obedient and humble in all things henceforth if he would only spare her. His only reply to this heartrending petition was “ Don’ t forget to count, Alice,” as the rod was drawn back, poised, then slashed vigorously over the martyred hindquarters at exactly the region marked out, and Alice bellowed “ Ohhheeyahhh! Eight- ohh, I’ m going to die, I know I can’ t stand any more, oh do please spare me any more, dear kind Mr. Cameron!”

“ How indecently she capers about when she feels the birch on her big impudent backside, dear Uncle Charles,” the golden- haired accomplice giggled, gleefully standing near her guardian and, as he did, savoring her chum’ s plaintive distress, for Alice was again looking back over her shoulder, tears running down her cheeks and her nostrils flaring and shrinking in the most voluptuous way. Gone was all pretense and disdain, as invariably it is when the birch dominates the scene. “ And such a fuss over a few mild cuts!”

“ Ohh my God,” groaned poor Alice, “ Mild? I know I’ m bleeding everywhere, oh, how I suffer! Oh, Mr. Cameron, Mr. Cameron, have pity on me now, and I will never disobey you or be rude again, I swear it!”

“ There are four strokes left, Alice,” was his cool rejoinder, “ and I advise you to count them properly. Pay attention to the birch, Alice!” So saying, he insidiously lowered the slim rod to the floor, leaped it up well between the brunette’ s dancing bottomcheeks. The effect was magical. Alice’ s head flung back, her eyes huge and staring, her mouth gaped in a frenzied O as a piercing shriek resounded, and then her bottom arched, leaped from side to side, flattened, huddled, yawned the globes, then shudderingly contracted them. Instantly lowering the thin bundle of supple birch switches, he was able to get in two more upward flicking cuts before the overwhelmed victim found voice to shriek out, “ Eleven! Ohh not there, in mercy’ s own name, not there between my legs, dear Mr. Cameron, ohhh, please, you’ re murdering meeee!”

“ It can’ t be eleven when your last count was eight, Alice,” Charles Cameron responded as he pressed the birch’ s tips up against the tenderest spot of all, while Alice wildly wriggled her naked striped bottom this way and that and made the most heroic attempts to dislodge the perfidious switches from so intimate a nook. Lowering the rod, he sent it leaping up into the mossy grotto of her virginity, and again the half- naked victim arched and writhed over the table, shrieking out “ Nine then, ohhhhh, spare me, oh not there, oh if you have to go on birching me, please do it in the regular place, but for dear God’ s sake, not there between my legs, Mr. Cameron!”

This time, taking careful aim again, he flicked the switches up against the inner top of Alice’ s left thigh, and followed it with another that flicked stingingly into the groin at the right thigh, though each avoided the distended triangle of her maidengroove. Alice wept and sobbed hysterically, managing to call out only ten, and missing the second cut, so overwrought were her maidenly emotions by her furious suffering.

“ It is really only nine, Uncle Charles,” Maude interposed slyly, “ because she really called out ten just when you were ready to give her the eleventh cut.”

“ Well, at any rate, she shall have two more good strokes and I expect her to call them out as they come,” he remarked as he flattened the switches straight over Alice’ s lower summits, his eyes delectating over the convulsive spasms which shook her jutting wellstriped naked backside. The birch swished vigorously in the air and thudded over the area, and Alice howled out “ AAhrrrr! Ohh my God, eleven! Ohh, thank God it’ s almost over!”

The birch slowly came to rest against the base of her bottom, and Alice caught her breath and huddled herself against the table, head rolling from side to side.

Swishh- thuckk- the switches clung tenaciously to the furiously crimsoned flesh, and Alice screamed “ Ohh twelve, twelve, it’ s over, ohh, thank God, I’ m going to die, ohh, ohh, my bottom, my poor torn bottom!”

“ Nonsense,” he chuckled, lowering the rod and watching her struggles over the table, “ nowhere is the skin broken. Granted, it is warm and colored, but that shows your excellent sanguinity. Now then, Maude, untie Alice and prepare her, for I am sure she is ready to be deflowered now, are you not, Alice?”

And, by way of intimating to her that refusal would mean a resumption of the birching, he lightly and playfully flicked her naked right upper thigh with the tips of the rod. “ Ohhhhhh! Yes, yes, Mr. Cameron, anything in the world if you’ ll only stop whipping me!” she cried.

He nodded to Maude, who, with feigned compassion and cooing murmurs, bent over the weeping brunette and untied her wrists and ankles, aided her to rise, then made her turn round and bend herself backwards over the table so that she faced him; swiftly Maude retied the cords around the victim’ s wrists and ankles, presenting her straddled and defenseless to her guardian’ s will.

“ Now then, Maude,” he commanded, “ unbelt your robe, get up there on the table beside Alice on all fours, and present your bottom to me. I am not going to tie you, but if you leave position, I promise you a sovereign thrashing!”

Maude colored hotly, but realized the futility of argument, and meekly unbelted her robe, crawled up onto the table to the right beside her pinioned friend, and hoisted the robe well over her waist, sticking out her glossy pink bottom in the most tempting way.

“ Whip her well, Uncle Charles,” Alice eagerly cried, “ she deserves it! How she betrayed me!”

It delighted him to hear this mature beautiful brunette call him by that endearing, intimate term, ample evidence that the birching had amply prepared her for her maiden sacrifice. “ I shall indeed,” he promised, as he divested himself of his trousers and stood between Alice’ s quaking, yawning legs.

Alice uttered a gasp as she felt his manhood pressed against the most vulnerable temple of all, and stiffened, closing her eyes, but submissively made no attempt to clench her trembling thighs.

Raising the rod, which, though frayed, was still quite serviceable, Charles Cameron swished it over his ward’ s plump rounded jutting pink naked bottom straight across both summits, and the squeal of discomfort and the wriggling twist which Maude’ s hips evinced at this salutation whetted his lust inordinately as he pressed home his advantage between Alice’ s gaping thighs. A groan of pain testified to the peril in which he had just put Alice’ s hymeneal seal, but with another vigorous swish of the birch over Maude’ s lower bottomcheeks and a masterful forward thrust of his loins, he accomplished the longed- for deed, and Alice arched and squirmed with a cry of distress as she felt herself become a woman.

Then, while he had Alice, he switched Maude’ s wriggling backside, and few men in all Christendom can be said to have enjoyed such dual delights as were now afforded the astute voluptuary.

For the rest of the summer, Charles Cameron enjoyed his two beautiful and complaisant mistresses, sometimes whipping one and going to bed with the other, sometimes tying them both up together side by side or facing each other, sometimes making one kneel on a chair to be birched or smacked or caned while the other crouched humbly at his feet and proffered him the tribute of her ardent lips and tongue, so that in all ways he enjoyed the delights of Pan with Venus as few men are privileged to do. And it was late in September when he determined, thanks mainly to the eager and roguish suggestions of both his beautiful young loveslaves, that the opening of a private school for girls would provide him with countless new bottoms to flick and birch and spank, a project which we shall recount in Volume Two of this edition.