lips to a divine mysterious cleft I had never seen before.
I should have liked to prolong this exquisite kiss of the pink grotto of her sex, shaded with slight silky down, and have licked her all over indefinitely. It was all so novel for me! Lizzie liked it too. But I felt myself violently tugged at from behind. A hand pulled my long curly hair. I tumbled over on my back, and saw Mrs. Smythe standing erect over me.
She was trembling with rage, and as I sprang up to my feet, gave me two stout slaps in the face, nearly knocking my little head off. I saw a shower of sparks. She then turned to Lizzie and dealt her a similar brace of smacks; afterward driving us both brutally before her into the house.
Without another word, I was at once bundled into an empty room. The door was locked, and I was left for an hour to reflect upon my dreadful plight. I may was well confess at once that I felt no remorse. On the contrary, I was delighted at my discovery. I could think of nothing but the image of the radiant slit, so miraculously revealed. The veil of my youthful cecity concerning sexual differences was lifted at last. Mentally, I compared feminine and masculine bodies and I was pleased to mark that God must be a lusty lover and a delicate artist to have formed the secret cranny of the fair sex like the calyx of a flower. I made a vow to devote myself fanatically to the worship of the mystic blossom and adore it fervently as long as I lived.
My daydreams were disturbed by the entrance of the housemaid who took me straight to the bath- room.
As I entered, I saw the worn stump of a rod on the ground, amid a quantity of broken twigs, from which I concluded that before I had been fetched Lizzie had passed a rough half-hour.
I pitied the poor girl who ws innocent after all, but Mrs. Smythe's harsh tones cut my musings short.
“Young man,” she said, “I can find no words to qualify the act you have committed. Your crime is so monstrous that I ought really to send you packing back home to Paris at once. I do not wish, however, to grieve your kind parents. They have delegated to me all their rights over you while you reside under my roof, comprising permission to punish you as I may think fit when you deserve to be corrected. I have therefore decided that your wrong-doing shall be expiated by corporal punishment as proportionally severe as your great fault deserves. You will thus learn that an Englishman respects all women, and more than any, an innocent young girl. I warn you that I shall flog your naughty bottom mercilessly. I also tell you at once that it will be best for you to submit with due humility to your deserved punishment. Should you resist my authority, I shall take forcible measures to restrain you. Here I have everything necessary for subduing a young scamp such as you are!”
I uttered not a word in reply, feeling quite dazed, not knowing whether I ought to be overjoyed at tasting at last the caress of the magic rod, or be alarmed at the rigour of the chastisement the young mother threatened in such despotic terms.
My impassibility seemed to increase her ill-temper.
“Undress!” she commanded, clutching my arm, and shaking me furiously.
Suiting the action to the word, she helped me to obey by tearing off my garments.
I was soon in my shirt, blushing to have to stand thus, half-nude, in the presence of this beautiful woman, who looked quite young. My shame, however, was not devoid of lascivious pleasure.
She pushed me toward a heavy armchair and made me lean over its seat. They she fastened me securely to this piece of furniture, in the proper position for enduring my torture. I could not take my eyes off my lovely hostess, whose irritation increased the beauty of her features. Giving fresh life to her good looks, causing her to appear bold and fearless. Every time her silk skirt touched my naked flesh or her soft hand skimmed over my skin, a delicious thrill ran through my frame.
From the pail, she chose a long rod, and after having shook the superfluous moisture from it, she wiped it on a towel, and made it whiz through the air, as if to try its elasticity.
“You'll now see,” she said, coming close to me, “what happens to a boy of your age who takes indecent liberties with a young lady!”
The rod began its wild saraband on my buttocks. I throbbed and bounded beneath the ruthless onslaught, unable to prevent myself from groaning with real pain.
My lamentations evidently excited the rage of my severe flogging hostess, and she kept on hitting me with still greater force. I trembled in every limb, making desperate efforts to get loose. But I was tightly tied, entirely at the mercy of cruel young materfamilias who continued to birch me with a firm hand, unheeding my cries and prayers for forgiveness.
When her birch had been worn away to a stump, she desisted-but not till then. The violence of her beating had caused every twig of the bundle to be broken. My fright increased, because I saw her return to the fatal bucket, and I greatly feared that she was about to take another rod and continue my martyrdom. But she only dipped her practised hand in the cold water for a few seconds; her fingers being numbed by the tension of her grip, and her palm slight scratched by the thorny ends of the branches forming the handle.
When she finally undid the ropes that held me captive, I ached all over and was quite exhausted. There was blood on my thighs, and the tail of my shirt stuck to my raw bottom.
The young widow did not deal me a second dose, and a few days afterward, when the traces of her severe treatment had disappeared, all that remained of this adventure was a most entrancing remembrance. I fell under the imperious obsession of a curious feeling which impelled me to long for the sting of the rod grasped by the firm hand of the lovely widowed Mrs. Smythe.
My yearning remained unsatisfied, and I said goodbye to Lizzie's mother with deep regret. Up to the moment of my departure, I had hoped that something would happen to curb me again under her bewitching blows.
At home again in Paris, the memory of the torture undergone at Richmond remained in my brain like some faraway disturbing dream.
For many years, I lived with the seed of flagellating passionate lasciviousness germinating in my inmost soul. In the society of capricious and refined queens of Parisian fashion, I tried fruitlessly to find a woman who understood my haunting ideas. But the lust of the rod being practised in secret, prevents confidential discussion. I read all the exciting works of Sacher-Masoch, and my young, ardent imagination grew more and more inflamed by the perusal of his novels and tales which filled my mind with enticing pictures where I saw myself in the power of beautiful, hot blooded, ferocious females.
Soon, however, reality granted me delights surpassing my most extravagant fancies.
CHAPTER II
As soon as I was manly enough to freely frequent any female I fancied, my love of flagellation, so far only a dream, blossomed into tangibility.
In the lounge of one of the principal Parisian variety halls, I became acquainted with a fine-looking, haughty brunette who at first sight made a deep impression on me.
A born Parisienne, having first seen the light in the outlying district of La Chapelle, she had started life as an apprentice to a manufacturing jeweller, before trying to sell her charms to the highest bidder. Despite her humble beginning, she was one of those heroines Sacher-Masoch loved to depict. It is not indispensible that a woman should come into the world in a sumptuous castle of the so-called blue Danube to posses an ardent and imperious disposition.
This splendid dark woman bearing the prosaic name of Julie, might have been a twin sister to some cruel Wanda, or terrible Sarolta dear to my favorite novelist. Julie's obscure birth and early workshop career did not prevent her carrying herself like a true patrician dame and even in her most tender, yielding moments, her manner was brutally despotic. She was selfish while enjoying carnal conjonction, and full of pride. I was quite stirred by her overbearing moods.
I should never have dared to have approached her on the subject of flogging, if I had not accidentally discovered that she was a fervent expert in this salacious science. Entering her bedroom one day unannounced, I caught her with a long, flexible birch in her hand, and she deftly hid the whipping implement as she saw me. The revelation came upon me like a clap of thunder, and mastering my emotion as best I could, I asked her huskily how it was she had a rod in her possession.
“Does that surprise you, my dear boy?” she replied. “I love to whip men!”
