Gynecocracy

My cries of anguish, bitter as they were, remained unheeded. She put a leather belt, a foot or more in width, round my waist, and buckled it excessively tight, and then fastened two straps round my ankles of a similar kind to those round my wrists. To their rings she attached two cords, which were slipped through two staples fixed in the floor underneath me three or four feet apart. She then drew the ends of the cords together and knotted them. To this loop she tied a third cord, and putting it through another staple which formed a triangle with the two first mentioned, she caught the cord but a very short distance from the floor. Then, with all the purchase given by the expansion of the muscles of her knees and back, contracted by her having stooped down to take hold of the rope, she strained it as tightly as her force enabled her, and fixed it with a plug of wood which fitted the staple and allowed the cord to slide only one way.

My legs were dragged apart and my body pulled down in a way which racked me excruciatingly and felt like tearing my arms from their sockets. My weight only was enough to rack me cruelly, depending as I was from my wrists. The distension of my legs, and the constant downward pull, added fearfully to my torture. I implored Elise to loosen me. I assured her that my own weight occasioned me punishment sufficient. She took no heed whatever of my talk, not even bidding me hold my tongue.

My male organ was forced into undue prominence and isolated from the usual support and covering of my thighs by their separation. It was about on a level with Elise's face, and to my surprise it grew large.

When I was fixed, Elise addressed me: "I shall counteract," she said, looking at me viciously, her eyes full of a ferocious light, "the effect of Mademoiselle's treatment of you, and restore some manly vigour to this wretched thing" (thumping, twisting, and pulling what I have spoken of). "I shall elongate your figure and compress it too-that belt will give you a nice waist, you beast-and now," grasping her dog whip, "I shall give you something to think about."

I trembled. I had already felt that terrible whip, for it had taken a great deal of its persuasion to get me into that position. She stood a little distance off, eyeing me- and resting her left arm on her hip she swung the whip to its full length, and gave me a dozen whistling lashes with it. At each lash I emitted a piercing yell, plainly causing Elise to rejoice. She smiled at my torture as she slowly and deliberately continued the wanton cruelty, lifting her arm each time sufficiently to make the whip unfold itself to its full length.

Before she had finished I had become delirious. Mad with anguish, I bit my tongue, my lips; I yelled and shrieked. Could Mademoiselle know what I was enduring? Could she permit it? I felt it would be useless to appeal to her, and dared not mention her name out of fear of further exasperating her. Besides, Mademoiselle was, I knew, inexorable. I began to feel-as long as I could feel anything but pain-deep resentment, hatred of her for her infidelity, treachery, and callousness, tormenting me, as she seemed to be doing, in every possible way by kindness as well as by cruelty. How could she give me up to this fiend? At last I could think no more. The room whirled round me; whether I yelled or screamed I did not know.

The cessation of the punishment was like Heaven. Spent and exhausted, almost fainting, I was left still hanging in a weak dreamy state, Elise having desisted to go and dress Mademoiselle. I do not know whether I fainted or slept, but I remember the strange fact that the following lines rang in my head with a vividness that frightened me. I remember too that this terrifying exaltation of my memory and other mental faculties filled me with an unspeakable dread that ere long I should find myself, in consequence of what I was undergoing, a jabbering idiot. In my anguish indeed, I almost hoped so. I felt it would serve Mademoiselle and her brutal maid but right.

Lo! the Queen of pleasing pains,

Linking Loves in mutual chains,

Wreathes the myrtle bowers between

Cottages of living green;

And commands her virgins gay

Through the mazy groves to stray.

Full three nights in joyous vein

Might you see the choral train,

Hand in hand promiscuous rove

Through thy love-devoted grove;

Crowned with rosy breathing flowers

Under myrtle-woven bowers.

These verses of John Dryden hammered in my head until they nearly drove me frantic. I can scarcely repeat them even now without a feeling of sickness.

My experiences under Elise were of a far more cruel description, as will already have been gathered, than anything I had yet endured, although the birching Mademoiselle had given me had caused me exquisite suffering.