Miss High-heels

CHAPTER 4

The minutes passed with excruciating slowness. A little clock upon the mantel shelf struck the quarter, and afterward the hour.

"Miss. Priscilla," I said finally, my voice weak with submission.

"What is it?"

"Mayn't I be released now? My feet ache so, arched in these high heels."

"If you knew how pretty and smart you looked Denise, standing in your corner, you would never want to come out of it," she said calmly.

"But my corset hurts me, it's so tight, and the fetters gall my ankles. Oh, Miss. Priscilla, I am so unhappy," I cried piteously. Truthfully, I was not so much unhappy as bored.

Miss. Priscilla rose with a cry of annoyance. She came over to my corner, felt my hands, stooped and felt my legs.

"Your hands will do as they are," she said. "But your feet are hot, and the fetters tight. We can't have your pretty ankles swollen."

She took the little key from the mantel shelf and unlocked the fetters. What a relief it was! She unfastened the leather strap from about my knees, and let it drop on the ground.

"Sit down there."

She pointed to the sofa. I stumbled across the room and sat down; my legs were numb.

"Give me your feet," she commanded.

Miss. Priscilla knelt down in front of me and with her clever, skilful hands, she massaged my ankles, taking the stiffness out of my joints in a moment or two.

"There! Now the pretty things won't swell up," she said.

"Oh, thank you, Miss. Priscilla," I said gratefully. Tears welled in my eyes.

"Stand up, Denise!"

I obeyed. She unhooked my dress at the back, after undoing the second set of straps. Then feeling under my cache-corsets he loosened my corset laces. Oh, what a joy it was to draw in a deep breath, to be relieved of the constriction about my waist and of the painful binding about my hips.

Then, to my dismay, I felt my drawers slipping down, revealing my little leather pouch. In loosening my corset laces, Miss. Priscilla had, by mistake I thought, untied the strings of my pantalets. I felt a delicacy in mentioning the fact to her. I pressed my thighs together and held the pantalets up at my knees. It was very uncomfortable. But I should soon have my hands untied, I hoped, and I could then slip upstairs and rearrange myself. Suddenly however I felt a violent tug.

"Draw in your breath, Denise, and expel it! That is right," and Miss. Priscilla drew in my corsets tighter than ever, and tied the laces.

"Oh, it's worse than before," I moaned. Yet the familiar confinement was somehow reassuring.

"Hold your tongue," she answered in her calm, cold voice, "or I'll lace you up in stay laces from your neck to the tips of your satin slippers." What a terribly delicious threat! She hooked up my dress, readjusted my sash about my waist, and suddenly thrust her hand inside my skirt.

"Where are the frills of your drawers?" As she said this mockingly, she took a firm hold of my cock encased in its precious leather singlet.

"Open your legs, Denise." As she yelled this at me, she pulled my drawers down to my ankles. Clearly, it was not a mistake that she had untied the strings of my pantalets. She had meant to do it.

Miss. Priscilla backed away from me, and sat down upon the sofa, sedately smoothing her silk skirt over her knees. Then she drew on her long glace kid shining gloves with deliberate languor. Her eyes never left my compromised and humiliated body exposed before her.

"Come to me, Denise," she said calmly.

I shuffled forward shamefacedly, my pantalets clogging my ankles and lace frills frothing about my satin slippers in the most untidy fashion. When I reached Miss. Priscilla's side, she seized me with sudden effort, and flung me across her knees face down.

"Oh, Miss. Priscilla," I cried startled out of my wits. "What are you going to do to me?" Without answering me, she took up my skirt with its long train and turning it back, heaped the rich satin folds about my back. My thighs and my buttocks were completely exposed.

I protested, my cheeks fiery with shame.

"I am going to slap your striped bottom," said Miss. Priscilla, as calmly as if she were in the habit of doing it every day. "I am going to teach you not to complain."

"But, Miss. Priscilla, you yourself admitted that the steel fetters were too cruel."

"I didn't admit that your corset was too tight, or that your pretty heels were too high."

She began to pinch the white flesh of my buttocks between her kid-gloved fingers.

"Oh, Miss. Priscilla, remember that I am eighteen," I protested weakly.

"You must first remember it yourself dear, and not behave as if you were six."

She raised her gloved hand and brought it down with a resounding slap upon my quivering, naked bottom. I could not endure it. The kid glove stung my tender flesh, but the childlike character of the chastisement stung my soul. I lashed out with my legs, trying to kick my feet free from the delicate fetters of my batiste drawers. But the frills clung about my toes, and caught on the high heels and diamond buckles of my shoes.

Despite the rawness of my flesh, which had so recently been ravaged under Helen's vicious hand, the fresh pain of Miss. Priscilla's gloved hand coming down upon my naked bruised skin sent ripples of secret delight coursing through my blood.

"Oh, you nasty thing! You like this, don't you?" Miss. Priscilla cried.

She continued to laugh ruthlessly as she plunged her hands between my helpless thighs. Without compunction, she took my cock in her hands and gave it a healthy squeeze, which caused my prick to engorge almost instantly. And then she proceeded to do something even more audacious: She released the little straps of my leather "glove" and clasped my naked sex in her agile hands. The sensation of the cool, buttery leather glove against my most tender flesh caused me to moan out loud.

"Oh yes," she hissed in my ear, as she leaned closer to me. "You have the best of both worlds, don't you?"

As I lay helplessly across her lap, I realized that she was right.

"You have the perfected beauty of a woman, and the ability to completely satisfy a woman's desire. Oh yes," she cooed, her hand stroking me all the while, "you are lucky to have such a pretty little cock, aren't you."

I could not answer her, so great was my pleasure. I do not think that she wanted me to answer either. I felt that she was talking as much to herself as she was to me. The only sound that came from my lips were low moans of shameful pleasure. I was in hideous raptures under the dominating presence of Miss. Priscilla. Without meaning to respond so lasciviously, my hips began to grind against the soft silk of her dress, and the soft creamy leather of her gloved hand. It was beyond my control; I could not help responding to the delights she offered.

"Oh yes," she moaned hoarsely, and it was then that I realized that this bizarre tableau of reversal was affording her as much pleasure as it was giving me! It was a great revelation to learn that my subjugation and humiliation caused a reciprocal pleasure in Miss. Priscilla's loins.

"Yes, yes, my pretty little Denise," she whispered softly, "you are a disgusting, naughty girl. Oh, yes, yes. That's right. You like being a naughty girl, don't you."

She went on speaking in a distracted, low voice as she tortured my cock with her lovely hands. Soon, I had reached a proper frenzy and feared that I would shoot my spunk all over Miss. Priscilla's evening gown.

"Oh, Miss. Priscilla," I moaned. "I am going to… to… I am going to ruin my dress. Oh! Oh!"

As I writhed on her lap, moving closer and closer to the edge of a shattering climax, Miss. Priscilla brought her free hand down with a hard slap, her leather-gloved hand meeting with the soft flesh of my buttocks in a resounding clap. The mixture of stinging pain and the hot, delicious strokes of pleasure that she continued to give my prick

confused me. I was falling into utter madness under the hypnotic, wild caresses of the woman. I cried out, making unintelligible sounds of ecstasy.

"Don't climax, Denise!" I heard Miss. Priscilla shout. Her voice seemed far away, and her command seemed impossible to obey. I felt as if I was already falling into the blissful realm of orgasmic pleasure.

"Whatever you do, don't allow yourself to fall into that pleasure," sighed Miss. Priscilla. It sounded as if she were in the midst of falling herself, judging by her low moaning sounds, and the slight gyrations of her hips against mine.

Before I knew it, I realized that Miss. Priscilla had asked too much of me, and I was reaching a point of indescribable panic and pleasure. After all the delicious tortures I had endured, my mistress was requesting the impossible. An excruciating moment passed, and then without attempting to hold back any more, I allowed my seed to shoot wildly. The release of the hot load was as if I had fallen into a savage abyss of black joy.

I heard Miss. Priscilla draw in her breath very sharply, and I felt her body quiver and rattle beneath my own. She cried out, making a sharp high sound that I had never heard her make, and then she released her tight grip on my sex and fell back against the chair.

I remained inert for what seemed like an eternity, nearly swooning into a deep sleep. I took this brief respite to revel in the lingering feelings of great delight that Miss. Priscilla afforded me. But of course, this pleasure was short-lived.

Her kid-gloved hand rose pitilessly and came down heavily upon my naked and helpless flesh. I moaned, I plunged, I writhed upon Miss. Priscilla's knees. I kicked, I strained at the ribbons that bound my hands.

Miss. Priscilla laughed mincingly, as she looked down at my extended form.

"Really, Denise, your skin is delightfully soft and tender. They must have taken a great deal of trouble with your body at the girls' school. I don't blame you for kicking your legs about in this wanton fashion, but I must take precautions so that you shan't spoil your beautiful satin slippers."

She raised me up and placed me sitting on the sofa, smiling at me with huge irony.

Then she knelt on one knee in front of me, and flung my dress up above my knees, acting as though nothing had happened in the last ten minutes.

"Stretch your dainty legs out to me, Denise, I will muffle and tie them up in your drawers."

I blushed, hiding my legs away under the sofa.

Miss. Priscilla rose calmly to her feet and said, "I must whip those soft pretty legs with a riding whip for your obvious misconduct."

"Oh no," I cried in a panic stretching out weakened genitalia toward her.

"Too late dear," said Miss. Priscilla. She fetched a terrible little thin riding switch of whalebone with a jewelled handle from a table beside her.

"But my silk stockings are so thin and fine," I moaned. "Oh, Miss. Priscilla, the switch will hurt my legs dreadfully. I am so sorry to have misbehaved," I lied.

"I will only give you two cuts across the calves dear. They will help you to remember in the future that so long as you are wearing the delicate thin stockings and clothes of a fashionable young lady, you had better behave as one. Out with your feet!"

My face twitched with fear mingled with a deep, warm pleasure. I extended my trembling legs.

"Join the ankles and arch your insteps gracefully!"

I obeyed and with two quick strokes Miss. Priscilla brought the crop down upon my legs, extorting shrieks from me. The whalebone curved round my legs and bit into my calves, torturing me terribly.

"Now, put your satin slippers up onto my knee," she said kneeling in front of me.

I silently obeyed and she wrapped my cock back into the delicate leather pouch. She pulled the batiste drawers round my slippers tightly, making a pad of the lace frills to protect my diamond buckles, and then with a satin ribbon, she tied my feet up in a parcel.

She resumed her seat and pulled me over her knees again face down. She raised her gloved hand and without warning began smacking me again with all her might. I shivered and prayed for mercy, but it was in vain. Tears filled my eyes. For while she smacked me she lectured me, and every word seemed chosen to inflame me and trouble my passions.

"What an undignified position for a young lady dressed in the extreme of fashion. To lie across my lap, her white shoulders rising from an exquisite decollete frock, her gloved arms bound behind her, her satin skirt turned back, her smartly shod feet muffled up in her drawers." She continued to smack me harder and harder still. "What a disgrace. If you only knew how ridiculous and pretty you looked with your high satin-covered heels sticking out from the lace frills of your elegant drawers."

Tears ran down my face. I sobbed like a child.

She finished at last, stood me up, drew up my pantalets, and fastened the strings about my waist, loosening my corset and dress to enable her to do it. Oh, how ashamed I was. How I blushed to feel her hands moving seductively across my breasts.

She laced me up tightly again, corset and frock, buckled my ankles together with a leather strap and passed through a steel buckle. Then steadying me, she forced me to hop in a most humiliating manner back to my corner once more.

It was nine o'clock when I was first placed in the corner. The clock struck ten as Miss. Priscilla put me back there, lifting up my chin, drawing back my shoulders, adjusting my feet, turning out my toes as much as my ankle strap allowed her to do.

"Now will you stand quietly dear?" she asked.

"Yes, Miss. Priscilla," I said humbly. So much had happened in an hour!

"That's right, Denise. You can't imagine how delicious you look standing there tied up in your smart clothes. Think how you have been punished. Consider your indiscretions."

I wriggled my knees.

"Ah, you are thinking of the dainty slippered feet," she said mocking my desire.

That was her policy. She would punish me into abject subjection and then make me love and crave that punishment by associating it in my mind with the voluptuous images that provoked my passions. She was succeeding. I obeyed her, and responded in the way she wished me to.

I imagined my dainty high-heeled slippers shining and sparkling below my satin dress, heel to heel as I stood in the corner. The minutes eked by. I was delighted by the feel of the height of my heels. I wanted to catch a glimpse of my buckled toes and realized that I must not move them, since I was undergoing punishment at Miss. Priscilla's hands. The clock struck eleven to my great surprise. I had been standing in the corner for two hours. At last, the door opened, and Helen, Lady Hartley, and Violet Hind came into the room. I heard music and the sound of voices in the ballroom. Oh, I longed to be free.

"How has Denise behaved Auntie?" asked Helen with a jolly tone in her voice.

"She was troublesome at first. So I gave her a sound slapping across my knee."

I blushed with secret shame.

Violet cried "Splendid," and clapped her pretty hands.

Miss. Priscilla resumed. "But for the last hour she has been standing very prettily in her corner, not uttering a word."

Helen came over to me.

"Have you been thinking of what I told you darling?"

"Yes, Helen," I replied blushing more than ever.

Oh, how determined those two women were under all their loving terms and dainty endearments to corrupt and make me a slave to their sinister way.

"Then I will set you free as a reward." She did so, unbuckling the leather straps. "Now go to the ballroom and dance. Enjoy yourself," she said.

I was delighted.

"But mind darling that you only dance with girls," she said with a warning nod, explaining to Lady Hartley: "That is part of Denise's punishment."

I was delighted to have an excuse not to dance with men, even as humiliating an excuse as this was. I went into the ballroom which led out on the other side of the big drawing room. It was a beautiful room with a lovely parquet floor. There were a good many people whom Helen had brought up from the village; luckily more girls than men, so that I had a still better excuse. I was able to say that as I was staying in the house, it was my duty to see that the visitors had partners. I danced with Violet, and Miss. Hartley, and other girls-and I loved it. I had been beautifully taught and I knew that I danced very well. Violet, too, was a good dancer. Oh, to swing round in a waltz with her to the sound of languorous music, our little slippers flashing in and out, weaving and interweaving, yet never touching, it was delicious. At midnight we all went into the dining room for supper. The party was as merry as could be. Oh, how sorry I was when the guests began to go. Miss. Priscilla took me aside, presenting me with a new pair of long white gloves.

"You must have these put on, Denise. You have soiled the ones you are wearing." She smoothed the clean pair over my arms, and buttoned them.

"Have you also soiled your slippers?"

"No, Miss. Priscilla. The ballroom floor is as clean as a new tablecloth."

"Let me see!" she said. I swept my frock aside and showed her my feet.

"Yes, you need not change them," she said.

In the excitement, I had forgotten all about my punishment. I saw Helen saying good-bye to a crowd of guests at the drawing room door, and I wondered whether she had not forgotten it too. I thought that if I could slip up to my room, I might escape altogether. I tried, but Helen saw me trying to disappear, and cried out pleasantly, "You mustn't go yet, Denise dear."

She continued saying good-bye to her girlfriends as I stood by her side. I felt a cold thrill of erotic trepidation as I considered what sort of new torment Helen had concocted for me. The fearful anticipation was nearly as painful as the canings I had received earlier. I shuddered with delight remembering the warm pain that shot through me as I had been caned and spanked. In considering my evening thus far, I began to grow excited anew. I felt the familiar pull at my leather pouch as my cock began to engorge with hope.

All the guests went at last. Helen took me firmly by the hand. "Come with me," she said. Only Lady Hartley, Miss. Priscilla, and Lady Hartley's daughter were left in the drawing room. Helen touched a spring in the wall and a panel slid aside, showing another room of which I had not guessed the existence. The house had been greatly altered during the years of my absence.

"This, Denise," said Helen with a cold smile of anticipation, "is the punishment room."

Lady Hartley followed Helen, Miss. Priscilla, and myself into the punishment room. It was a small room, furnished prettily with a bright fire glowing on the hearth. Helen closed the panel as soon as we had entered and at once it appeared that the room had no door to it. It was decorated in mahogany and white satin. On the floor was a thick carpet that made walking luxurious. The walls were all thickly padded with white satin and the light was only admitted through a skylight over which, at this moment, heavy curtains of white velvet were drawn.

This room was a room for punishment. At a first glance no one would have guessed that. At a second, one would have noticed some sinister particulars. Across the ceiling a grooved gilt wheel ran on a strong rail and from the groove of the wheel, a thick strong gold rope descended. The wheel was worked by a small lever in the wall, and at this moment was in a corner of the ceiling with the rope tied to a hook. On the ottomans and chairs, I noticed steel rings and bars, and one long flat sofa was furnished at the end with a pair of sticks. There were cases with glass doors fixed against the walls; glancing into one, I saw a stand of bamboo canes, into another a stand of birches daintily tied with blue and pink satin ribbons, and into a third, handcuffs and fetters and irons of all kinds in polished steel. I was afraid. But what most terrified me was a mahogany chair raised an inch or two from the ground on a solid frame. It was luxuriously padded and cushioned in white satin. Yet for some reason it appalled me.

"Sit down, dear," said Helen pushing me toward the awful chair. I advanced timidly and mounted the frame. I sat down in the wicked chair. Helen fixed a strong leather strap round my waist, buckling it tightly behind the chair. Other straps were attached, and these she fastened over my shoulders, drawing them tightly under each arm. My body and bust were thus securely imprisoned. The chair was furnished with short arms thickly padded in white satin, and an inch or two beyond the extremities of the arms, two strange square boxes of glass were supported on steep pedestals fixed into the frame of the chair. On the sides of these boxes, facing the arms of the chair, were holes thickly padded with white satin for the wrists, the upper part of the glass sliding upward in grooves to admit the hands. The other sides and the bottom of the boxes were covered with looking glass. The top surfaces of the boxes like the sides facing the chair were of glass. Helen lifted up the sliding portions of the glass.

"Lay your arms flat upon the arms of the chair, Denise darling, so that your hands are in the glass boxes," she said in her most honeyed accents. "The palms of your gloved hands uppermost dear."

I obeyed her in dreadful alarm. Lady Hartley looked on in delighted curiosity, while Miss. Priscilla strapped down my elbows and forearms with leather straps to the arms of the chair. My hands were quite inside the glass boxes. Helen then slid down the upper pieces of glass, and made them fast by locking a steel bar along the tops. My wrists were now hermetically imprisoned in the glass pillories.

In front of me, at the end of the frame, supported also upon steel pedestals, was a bigger box of the same make as the boxes for the hands. Only in this bigger box there were holes for the ankles a little apart from each other and raised so that, with my feet in the boxes, they would be in a straight line with my knees as I sat in the chair.

"Raise your legs dear, and insert your pretty feet," said Helen. She flung back my skirt, exposing my silk-stockinged legs, my garters, and even the frills that decorated my knees. Timidly I raised my legs and inserted my feet into the box, letting my legs rest in the grooves made for them, while Helen held up the upper slide of glass. As soon as my legs were in position she slid down and secured the glass, tightly fitting me into this strange pair of glass stocks.

My legs fitted very tightly into the holes just where the calves began to swell, so that my ankles as well as my feet were enclosed in the glass boxes. Then Helen, by means of a little silver knob on the outside of each box, drew out the mirrors that formed the bottoms of the boxes, and disclosed shallow cavities underneath. At once, from these cavities a brown dust whirled out and flew about the boxes as if driven by a wind. The brown dust settled on my shining white gloves, my smart glistening slippers, my gleaming stockings of silk. I could move my fingers. I could also work my toes and insteps up and down, though I could not twist my feet from side to side. I worked both hands and feet to shake the dust off in vain, and then I felt two or three sharp pricks on my insteps and other pricks on the palms of my hands at the small opening of the gloves. I shook my hands and feet more violently and then I began to feel the pricks all over my ankles and feet wherever my stockings were open-worked, and all over my hands too. Meanwhile the little clouds of brown dust spun about the boxes.

A suspicion of the truth dawned upon me. I was seized with a dreadful irritation wherever the dust touched my flesh. I could not lean forward, for I was strapped firmly back in my chair. But I fixed my eyes upon my twisting fingers, my twitching feet, and I discovered the truth.

"Oh, Oh!" I cried. "Helen, the specks of brown dust are fleas! My stockings are full of fleas! Oh! They're torturing me. It's horrible."

And in a frenzy I worked my feet; I twisted and clenched my fingers. It was all in vain. My ankles, my insteps, my hands were at the mercy of these obscene insects and they were devouring me.

Lady Hartley was in raptures.

"What a delightful punishment for a pretty, disobedient girl!" she cried. "To tie her into a chair in her lovely evening frock and then to give her satin-slippered feet and slender little ankles in their exquisite stockings to fleas to devour and bite! I think you are wonderfully clever, Helen."

Helen smiled in acknowledgment of the praise.

"It is, at all events, an appropriate punishment," she answered modestly. "Denise is being punished for her vanity in making a coquettish display of her little feet. To hand them over in their finery to fleas seemed to me the best way of teaching her humility." She looked at me pointedly.

They stood and watched me with vicious joy as I writhed and twisted in my bonds. The fleas were driving me mad. They got inside my stockings, down under my slippers, round my ankles and bit me terribly. They were ravenous. The fleas were inside my gloves, between my fingers, everywhere. My feet and hands twisted in their glass prisons. The mirrors reflected back to me the irony of my flashing buckles, my dainty bows and heels, and the tightly fitting elegant long gloves.

"Oh, oh! It is excruciating," I cried. "Oh, Helen, you are cruel! I am being eaten up. The irritation is driving me out of my senses." I burst into tears, I tugged at my legs and arms to break the glass and free myself. I felt the blood rush to my face. I was growing delirious.

"It's a disgusting punishment," I moaned. "Please, please, stop it. Please!"

Helen simply laughed at me and stood among the other women, just watching me.

"Is it indeed, Denise? I don't allow young ladies to use such language about my punishment which I feel it my duty to inflict upon them. If the fleas are disgusting to your delicate sensibilities, what I wonder will you say to this?"

Into the tops of the glass boxes little silver boxes were let in, one over each gloved hand, one over each satin-slippered foot. Helen touched a spring in each of these boxes and the bottom, which in each case was inside the glass box, fell down upon a hinge. And to my inexpressible loathing, from each box, there dropped a horrible fat, big, slimy worm. There were four of them. One dropped on to the kid-gloved palm of each hand, one on to the pearl-embroidered toe of each of my slippers. I uttered a piercing scream of horror. I suppose that it was very feminine of me, but I couldn't help it. The sight of those loathsome fat worms on my pretty gloves and shoes filled me with nausea. I shuddered. I felt that I was going to be sick.

"Oh, take them off! Take them off," I screamed. I shook my hands and feet in a panic. Then the worms began to crawl! Oh, it was revolting. They crawled over my toes leaving a disgusting brown trail of phlegm on the dazzling sheen of my white satin shoes. They mounted onto the buckles and bows. They were crawling toward my open-worked stockings. Oh I could feel them on my flesh. Perhaps they were poisonous too, I thought in my panic. They were crawling about my fingers as well. I touched one with the tips of my fingers as I closed one hand spasmodically and the soft feel of it as it moved and wriggled caused me to shriek again.

"Oh, Helen! Please set me free!" I moaned. "It's a horrible punishment."

The tears poured down my face. My slipper buckles flashed and flashed in a thousand many coloured rays as I arched and bent my feet to shake them off.

"That's a wonderful punishment," said Lady Hartley. "It appeals to the imagination as well as to the body. Ugh! The slime on the dainty slippers and the shining tight white kid gloves! How ashamed of herself Denise ought to be!"

I interrupted her with a scream. One of the worms had crawled inside my left glove and I felt it wriggling on the flesh of my palm. It was unendurable. Then I felt something wet and soft crawling over my insteps. The worms were on my stockings, feeding on the silk and lace. My screams redoubled. The chair shook with my frantic struggles. All the while, too, the fleas were biting and torturing me!

Helen watched me complacently. She was delighted with the success of her bizarre experiment. She listened to my sobs and screams; she watched my tear-stained face, revelling in my abasement and suffering. Then, with her hypocritical kindness, she said, "The lesson, darling, you have to learn is this: If you were wearing high boots and thick stockings you would not mind the worms. Therefore the more daintily you are dressed, the more careful you must be to be obedient and modest." And then she and her friends laughed heartily, at my expense.

I interrupted her sermon with another scream. One of the worms had crawled through the open-worked pattern and was inside my stocking clinging to my flesh. It was the last straw. I went into a fit of hysterics. I screamed, and laughed, and sobbed all at once. My face flushed red and I convulsed. I was going mad. Even Lady Hartley was terrified by my appearance.

"She has been sufficiently punished, Helen," she said, nervously.

Helen took a little tube with an India rubber ball at the end. She pressed the tube through a tiny hole in the glass. Squeezing the ball at the end of the tube, she discharged a strong insecticide powder into the boxes one after the other, which at once killed the fleas and worms. Phoebe immediately stripped my stockings off my legs. Helen released me from the stocks, and my gloves, shoes, and stockings were taken off and left in the glass boxes to be destroyed. I was still sobbing bitterly, shaken with convulsions and shivering fits and tormented by the irritation of the flea bites.

Lady Hartley said good-night and took her daughter away, while Phoebe brought a basin of warm water in which some herbs had been soaked. She bathed my inflamed and swollen hands, ankles, and feet.

"There's no reason for you to go into hysterics, Miss. Denise," she said with a rough kindness as she knelt at my feet, bathing me. "This infusion will soon cool your legs and remove the irritation, and tomorrow morning there won't be a mark on your pretty white skin."

By this time, Helen herself was a little alarmed. She brought me a large glass of champagne saying, "I did not realize how completely soft and girlish you had become, dear."

"But you meant me to become soft and girlish," I said between my sobs. "You and Miss. Priscilla sent me to a girls' school for two years and you knew what would happen to me."

"Oh yes, darling," said Helen patting my bare shoulders affectionately. "Of course, we meant to punish you by permanently giving you the figure, the pretty breasts, and the lovely face of a girl. It pleased us to dress you in exquisite clothes suitable to your looks. But we did not dream that the system would be as delightfully successful as it has

been in changing your haughty spirit into a timid and shrinking disposition. However we know now, and I promise you that we will not punish you with the glass boxes again; unless you should make it absolutely necessary."

"Thank you, Helen," I said gratefully. Even at the time I felt a strange and significant change in me. I was not angry and resentful because she had punished me and thrown me into hysterics. I seemed to recognize that I wanted her to do what she pleased with me.

The irritation was soothed by the healing infusion of herbs with which Phoebe bathed me; I recovered from my hysterics and my sobs ceased. Phoebe dried my legs, and put on to them a fresh pair of silk stockings and satin slippers and I stood up.

"I am very tired," I said. "I will go to bed."

"Before you go to bed, Denise," said Miss. Priscilla calmly, "you will have to have a long conversation with me in my boudoir." I knew what she wanted.

"Oh, please, not tonight! I am exhausted."

Miss. Priscilla was implacable.

"Tomorrow you are to be dressed as a young gentlemen again. It is necessary that our conversation should take place while you are still wearing your girls' clothes."

I was worn out by the punishments and experiences of the day.

"Then I will wear girls' clothes for one more day." I said. I was deliriously happy.

Helen laughed. "Really, dear, it is not for you to make bargains with us. If you wear girls' clothes tomorrow to please yourself, you will wear them as long as I choose to please me."

"Oh, Helen!" I cried excitedly. I did not know what to do. The long "conversation" I was to have with Miss. Priscilla frightened me. I was too tired. I was not fit for it. I should do anything that she wanted me to do. On the other hand if I were to agree that it should take place tomorrow, Helen might keep me dressed as a girl for another year. And I was to be a man. I had a future. But in front of my eyes there rose the vision of my reflection I had seen in the mirror. I remembered my pretty face, my curls, my white throat, my beautifully gowned figure, and my gloved hands. I thought of my feet in their little buckled satin high-heeled slippers. Oh I should not mind if Helen did keep me dressed as a girl for a year. I said, "Very well Helen! I consent. Miss. Priscilla shall talk to me tomorrow and you shall keep me as a girl until you are willing to let me become a man again."

I blushed as Helen rippled over with delight.

"Darling, we'll make you happy," she cried and she kissed me. "Even tonight you shall begin to realize the privileges and liberty of a beautiful young lady. You shall have a naughty book to read in bed and can smoke a cigarette before you turn out the light."

Phoebe took me upstairs, undressed and bathed me, put on a lace-embroidered nightgown of batiste threaded with pink satin ribbons and tucked me in bed. On a little table by the bed she placed a glass of lemonade and some biscuits, a box of cigarettes and some matches and my novel.

"Take care you don't set the house on fire, Miss. Denise," she said, "and turn out the light before you go to sleep."

She left me in my luxurious bed to myself. What a delicious change it was from the hard mattresses and strict discipline of the girls' school! I smoked my cigarette and read my novel. Oh it wasn't such bad fun being a young lady after all.