bruised flesh. After that she made me take off the black belt, and bringing a pot of ointment from the dressing room, spread some over my posteriors, covering the greased flesh with a piece of soft cambric.
“As you're a lover of flagellation,” she said, “you ought always to have a pot of this nice cream handy. It heals the skin admirably, quickly effacing all marks of the rod or whip. It's called Cowper's Cucumber Pomade, and is sold in all drugstores.”
While I was putting on my clothes in the dressing-closet, she brought me a glass of very good port. It ran through my veins like liquid fire, bracing me up after the strong succession of shocks I had experienced.
Dinner-hour was now nigh, so I was not long driving to a first-class restaurant, where I invigorated myself completely.
My whole body burnt still with thousands of flames, while delightful reaction threw me into a state of voluptuous beatitude, the well-earned reward of passionate sensualists who dash headlong into the furnace of rods, martinets and whips. This reaction is not sought for nor expected. It is only the happy result of punishment. The votary of the rod, without thinking of the consequences, seeks only at starting to quench the mad thirsting desire that eats up his soul; that imperious craving to feel on his martyred flesh those cutting caresses which bruise and wound.
CHAPTER IX
The passion leading a man to long to be flagellated is a need quite as tyrannical for those engrossed by it as for others who cannot subsist without alcohol, opium or morphine. I was led to note the effect of this besetting idea on myself, for, although still feeling quite sore all over as a result of the terrible castigation to which I has allowed myself to be subjected, my imagination began to stray toward fictive regions where I pictured adventures in which rod or whip played important parts. My flesh cried out again for the beneficent bite of the birch.
A printseller, trading under the rose in most spicy specimens of artistic photography, showed me some very suggestive groupe which contributed to excite my salacity still further.
With astonishing fidelity to nature, these representations of living models showed various scenes of flagellation, where charming, young women abandoned themselves with voluptuous frenzy to the delight of whipping masculine backsides of all conditions and ages.
One series was devoted to the punishment of a youthful pupil by a strict governess. This long suite of postures was reproduced with cinematographic exactness. A boy could be seen undressing; lying down tied to a bench. The birching game began. The authoritative, stern look of the school mistress and the struggles of her pupil writhing under the hail of blows had been dexterously caught by the operator, so that by looking at these photographs it was easy to feel the inward emotion that only such a truthful image can arouse. The punishment could be followed in all its phases; even the progressive effect of the rod on the lad's fleshy buttocks growing darker and darker as they became covered with scratches and weals.
Another most characteristic picture was that of a naked man, rolling on the ground at his mistress's feet. He was howling, covering with both hands his aching bottom, which the cruel nymph had just caused to bleed. She stood over him erect and triumphant, having thrown down the stump of the rod she had just used. She gazed at her victim with a lifelike, expressive glance of mocking scorn. The dealer assured me that this was the portrait of a renowned Boston birching beauty.
I purchased a copy, and several others as well. One that pleased me greatly portrayed a lad about to receive a flogging. He was ingeniously bound to an ordinary chair. It was overturned, its back on the floor. Kneeling on the back rail, the young fellow bends over the edge of the seat, in such a way that his shoulders reach to the extremity of the front legs. A long strap holds him fast in this posture which causes his backside to jut out high up, while his teacher birches him with all the strength she can muster.
These photographs had played sad havoc with my sense of eroticism, still more heightened by a most naughty conversation I had with I came home, with Miss Rosey, the female bookkeeper and cashier of my boarding-house.
I had remarked her the first day I arrived and felt irresistibly drawn toward her. She was a most lovely young woman, twenty-four years of age, with chestnut hair and eyes of a sapphire-like blue. Her entire bearing was full of graceful gentility, added to a light touch of off-handed independence which suited her very well.
I sought an opportunity for becoming intimately acquainted with her. She furnished me herself with the means of being more than friendly, since, to my great delight, she stood revealed as loving passionately to flog.
While I was looking at my photographs, Miss Rosey entered my room. Despite my instinctive movement to hide them from her, her keen furtive glance sufficed to fully acquaint her with the true meaning of the salacious scenes depicted. She made no sign, however, as she began to stow some linen away in a cupboard generally kept locked, and that I had requested the proprietors of the house not to empty on my account, as I had plenty of space for my belongings without that receptacle being handed over to me.
I profited by Miss Rosey's presence to ask her how poor little Anna, the chambermaid who had been birched, had got on after her recent chastisement.
“Oh, first-rate!” the bewitching bookkeeper replied. “Her bottom being cut up did her good. She's more alert and active now. The rod is a grand remedy for sassy or heavy dull girls of her sort. If I was mistress here, I'd whip her often!”
“So, Miss Rosey,” I said, “you stand for corporal punishment?”
“You bet! It's the most elegant thing on this old earth!”
“Have you often been whipped?” I asked.
“Nary! But I've given many a licking!”
“How-when?”
“I used to be housekeeper to a bachelor who loved to be flogged. You may guess I didn't make any fuss about birching him when he asked me.”
“Most interesting! Tell me how you set about it?”
“It's a funny story,” she replied. “I don't mind spinning the yarn, because I kinder fancy you're up against the same tough flogging proposition, too!”
The sharp young darling darted a sharp eye toward the photograph that I had turned face downward on the table, at the moment of her entrance.
“My chap,” she went on, “used to flog himself every morning in front of a mirror, when he got out of bed. He was bound to do it, otherwise he was all abroad and as nervous as a kitten the whole day. But from time to time- once or twice a week-he felt inclined for a stronger shock. That I had to give him. You may be sure he got all he wanted!”
“This is the most delightful news for me, Miss Rosey!” I exclaimed. “How did you manage to turn on this powerful current?”
“I cut some rods in the garden, from an old, silvery birch-tree. Age had made the branches very tough. Then I tied my master on his bed; his wrists strapped to the head-rails and his ankles to the foot. Gee! It was a dance! Real elegant! I knew what was good for his complaint, and no matter how he raved and stormed, I whipped away as long as there was a twig intact on my rod, or a white bit of skin on his-ahem! Afterward, he would lie down on the carpet, and when he had taken my boots and stockings off, kiss my feet for hours, covering them with knowing, fiery caresses. That was how he showed his gratitude.”
“How delicious, Miss Rosey! said I. “No martyrdom could be too great if followed by the favour of kissing your ravishing wee tootsies. Did this succession of violent emotions agree with him?”
“Why, certainly! He swore this treatment made him younger and stronger, being much better than any prolonged and tedious course of electric baths, and so on.”
“What were your feelings while your obedient bachelor groaned under the fiery scourging of your heavenly birch?”
“My sensations were exquisite, maddening; carrying me off to a fairyland of unspeakable enjoyment.”
“You must miss these pleasures greatly, Miss Rosey!” I remarked after a short pause.
“I try not to think about such things,” she answered. “There are days, I must say, when I felt so excited and
