Gynecocracy

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.