Gynecocracy

"You must put the straps across his shoulders, Beatrice. And Maud and Agnes-one at each side-can hold up his skirts. I should order him five dozen, but as he has that little bulldog on in front, we will say three. He'll bite, I expect."

I was strapped down, my petticoats held up, my buttocks exposed.

Beatrice turned back her sleeve displaying and freeing her supple wrist.

He did bite already, of course.

She walked over to me with determination and glee. I knew I should catch it and I did.

To begin with her strokes were delivered very slowly and with great force; and then, instead of spreading them about she continued to administer them as much as possible in the same spot aiming each stroke carefully.

I panted and called out-ended, in fact, by bursting into a paroxysm of sobbing. Of course my contortions and cries were no more heeded by Beatrice and Mademoiselle than if Beatrice had been lashing a feather bolster; neither did Maud nor Agnes seem to pity me.

I had whipped Beatrice, it was her turn now. My goodness! If she whipped me like this when I was married to her!

"There, Miss Julia," said Beatrice, with satisfaction as she concluded and drew the birch through her left hand quite affectionately and gratefully.

The bulldog did bite again, as I writhed on the couch, and it entirely deprived me of the power or wish to express the sensations provoked by my nakedness and castigation before the girls.

"Well, Julia," asked Beatrice afterwards when she met me in the gallery, "did I warm your bottom for you? Does it still smart?"

"Oh, Beatrice!" and I grew red as I looked at her.

"Thank me for the punishment. You deserved it."

"Yes. Thank you for flogging me."

"And you deserve another for daring to flog me?"

"Oh, no! I was obliged to."

"I have nothing to do with that. Do you deserve another for daring to whip me, or do you not?" — stamping her foot.

I grew pale. She had given me a birching I should not forget for a week or ten days and was intending to give me another. I looked at her splendid form.

"Yah!"

"What on earth possesses you, Julia?"

"That damned thing!"

Beatrice shouted with laughter.

"Oh," I soberly remarked, "it is all very well to laugh! It hurts confoundedly, I can tell you."

"So it ought! Will you please answer my question, Julia?"

"Yes, Beatrice, I do; but don't give it me yet."

"Good boy! As a reward you shall have it in a very pleasant way. Your head between my legs, your face upwards, while I hold your legs across my shoulders. You know-you remember-don't you?"

"Yes, under your petticoats?" asked I, slyly, for which I was given a slap.

"Oh! Oh! I can say no more," I was obliged to yell out; for the next moment this cursed contrivance bit me again. "I may have no feelings at all," cried I, clasping my hands to the middle of my lap. "I would sooner wear that diabolical bandage. Who is to whip me, Bee?"

"Oh, Agnes shall do that!" said Beatrice, scarcely concealing her merriment.

"Be it so. I hope you'll take this ring off."

Agnes' whippings were not very dreadful.

"We shall see," replied Bee, going away.

The ring I have since discovered is an American invention intended for the prevention of involuntary excitement during sleep. The teeth instantly wake the sleeper and-well, they at least deprive the act of its involuntary character.

A pleasant state of things! Was I to be permitted no sensations whatever? Again a fresh invention for teaching me a habit of restraint, of continence, by a method which itself violently excited just the contrary.

What my feelings were in the drawing room that night when Beatrice received her remedy for the use of that ill-favoured word and for her unwise defence of it I must leave to be told in another chapter.

CHAPTER 21

Lord And/or Lady Alfred ridlington

That same afternoon in her boudoir when my transports had become more vehement than Mademoiselle liked she had first threatened and then expressed her intention of handing me over to Lady Alfred Ridlington to tame, and Mademoiselle's laws were like those of the Medes and Persians which alter not.

There had been no question that afternoon of my sex, no allegation then of my hermaphroditism. I was then acknowledged to be a boy and in fact the whole point of placing me in Lady Alfred Ridlington's hand was that I was such. Since then however, my sex appeared to have been evaporated under the potent spell of Mademoiselle's subtle magic, of her rigorous treatment, and of the lady's garments in which I was constantly kept. Certainly the petticoats and the drawers had had a very powerful effect upon my constitution. I really hoped Lady Alfred Ridlington would prove to be that Alfred who had taken me in to dinner and afterwards to the conservatory where he had behaved so gallantly and had so delightfully shocked me-a modest damsel-with his fierce masculine nature.

Besides, of what use could I, a girl, be to his wife; or indeed, she to me?