Gynecocracy

Bracing myself up, I resolved, whatever she did, not to allow anything to happen. The resolution was rash, but I set my teeth. Three dozen like that! It was only a question of muscular restraint. And to be tied up all night. Anything would be better than that, tired as I was. So I set my teeth firmly. I was in for it. The whip was awful, cruel beyond expression.

Elise immediately stood across me. I sighed and trembled, but fixed my thoughts on the pattern of the carpet, not allowing them to wander upon her. She soon recalled them. She inserted her left hand underneath me and caught hold of me, putting her right hand behind me. She worked the right one over all the lumbar muscles, both vigorously and relentlessly, for quite five minutes. I resolved not to give way. I refused to let an idea of what she was doing cross my mind, and remained absolutely passive. When she found this the case, she tried all the harder, and began to suggest thoughts about being under a maid's legs (pressing me with them), and her having what she had in her hands, about my nakedness, about Mademoiselle. Everything she could think of to excite my feelings, but I hardened myself and turned myself to stone. I would not be overcome. I reflected on the pain of the whip, and on what I should gain by victory. I resolved to be a stone, and succeeded. Elise tired herself uselessly. It hurt me dreadfully, and the strain occasioned by my determination to contain myself, and hers to overcome and defeat me, made me sore and aching. At last she stood from over me.

"Let me look," she exclaimed.

I also gave a glance. Surely there could be no mark to defeat all my efforts.

"I declare there is nothing!"

I looked at her triumphantly.

She made another minute examination. The blue satin would at once have shown the slightest stain.

"Ah! Ah! Elise," said Mademoiselle, to Elise's chagrin.

"Now on your back," said the discomfited Elise, who would have had the whipping of me, and did not like to be done out of it.

So I laid down on my back.

"Put your legs as wide apart as they will go."

Then she briskly stood over me, so arranging her petticoats on this occasion, that I was right under her bottom, with nothing between it and my face, but here and there her drawers, and these she rubbed away, until she felt her naked flesh against me. This was much harder to bear. She caught me in front with both hands, rolled the testicles, slipped her hands down and endeavoured to excite each nerve in turn. She evidently knew all about it. As I could not now hear anything she said, she could not excite my imagination and so find a traitor within the citadel by her words. But this advantage was counterbalanced and more, by my actual contact with her flesh, and with her mouth with a moustache, which was in a state of great excitement, very wet, and constantly rubbing and pressing against my mouth and all over my face. No words could have so completely conveyed the idea as the actual reality did. I was overwhelmed by that sense of the female sex which exacts immediate sexual acknowledgment from anything in the least degree worthy of being named masculine. An exaction made more irresistible by the use of her hands, and by the knowledge of what she and Mademoiselle could see. To all this I shut my mind. I had no carpet to contemplate. I closed my eyes, and I refused to remember where I was. I simply passively endured. I shut my teeth and lips firmly, notwithstanding her reiterated attempts upon them. My will stood me in good stead. I conquered. But instead of loving, I hated Elise. I hated Mademoiselle. I loathed women. And when she got off me it was all I could do to prevent myself from saying so.

"You stubborn boy," indignantly said Elise, who had really tried her hardest; "I will give it you tomorrow."

Mademoiselle laughed, and, bidding me kneel at her feet, told me I must exercise as great control throughout the night under a worse penalty. Meanwhile Elise continued to dart angry glances at me.

"I will conquer him yet," angrily said Elise, "even if I have to have him myself!"

"Well, not tonight at any rate," said Mademoiselle, amused. "Get into my bed and warm it for me, Julian. I dislike a cold bed above all things. I will come in a moment when Elise has undressed me."

So I jumped into bed. How delicious, soft, and delightful it was to stretch oneself out and await Mademoiselle's coming. What ecstasy!

No sooner, however, had I put my head upon the pillow, than Elise flew at me.

"You monster! You wretch! How dare you put your head on Mademoiselle's pillow? Get down into the bed at once" (striking my head several blows with her open hand), "right down! My goodness, what can you be thinking of?"

CHAPTER 16

Mademoiselle's Bed