arrested and severely birched by a policeman's wife, officially entrusted with the duty of whipping sentenced to culprits. I regretted not being able to go and play at this forbidden game sheltered by some wide portal, so as to be given over to the municipal female flogger, who, I imagined, must be a first class flagellant.
Finding no immediate birching satisfaction, my lech began to jar my nerves seriously, and the image of the birching police virago trotted daily in my mind, until the idea struck me that it would not be amiss to introduce myself to her, so that she could whip me in return for a monetary gift.
I therefore charged one of my hotel commissionaires to obtain an interview for me with the flogging female of my dreams. He succeeded in making an appointment on my behalf in a neighbouring square. I was delighted at this result, hoping at last to begin my task of gaining practical experience of American whipping methods.
The day came, and at the appointed spot, I met a woman of low class extraction, but with a certain air of bold authority, eminently suited to her functions.
I told her what I wanted in plain words, but directly she grasped the meaning of my request, she stopped me.
“That's not my business,” she said. “I only birch women and children; my husband punishes the men. I know what you require. You'd better try a massage institute.”
She departed, obstinately refusing the five-dollar bill I tried to slip into her big fist to reward her for her loss of time. I was highly excited at having been in the company of this implacable birching dame, so independent in her talk and manner.
During the afternoon, strolling through the populous streets, I caught sight of a door-plate with the mention, “Massage Institute.”
“The very thing!” I exclaimed.
Delighted at being able to follow the advice of the magisterial flogging female so quickly, I ran up to the second floor, where the same kind of plate fixed on a door.
A page-boy showed me into a room where I saw a tall, buxom lady, far from ugly, but with little or no gentility in her bearing. She was dressed like a hospital nurse, with her sleeves rolled up to the elbow.
“Massage?” she said. “All right-two dollars! Undress!”
She pointed to a low sofa covered with a linen sheet.
I was soon stripped, looking about me as I pulled off my clothes. There were bottles, sponges, and horsehair gloves, but no signs of birchen twigs.
As soon as I was on my back on the couch, the obliging female got to work. She patted, rubbed and pinched me all over. It was really most excellent shampooing.
After a short interval, I ventured to ask her without mincing matters if she went in for flagellation.
“No!” was all she said, continuing her massage.
I kept questioning her, refusing to believe her statements.
“That's not my graft!” she added still kneading my limbs.
“But I've been told that I could get whipped at all massage establishments,” I insinuated.
“Yes,” she replied, “gentlemen do get birched by women who call themselves 'masseuses.' They've got no diplomas. It costs ten or twenty dollars for a few cuts from a rod. I work like a horse for two dollars, but I'm a real, certified masseuse.”
Her forefinger, shining with vaseline, pointed out a big parchment covered with seals and stamps. It was hanging on the wall in a fine gold frame.
“Not a stone's throw from here,” she added, “on the other side of the street, two blocks away, you'll see a sign which says 'Special Massage.' That's where you'll locate the artful creatures you need!” quite satisfied with the information, if not with the way in which it was conveyed, I waited impatiently for the painstaking masseuse to put an end to her rough rubbing, although its stimulation prepared my body for more efficacious action.
I soon found the establishment in question, and the scene presented to my gaze was quite different to anything I had as yet to see on this side of the Atlantic. In a comfortable parlour, sat an elderly lady, dressed in deep black, and wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, giving her an owl-like appearance. She was busy embroidering a pair of slippers. On a sofa-bench which ran along the whole of one side of the room, four young women lolled in lazy attitudes.
They were all very pretty. One was a haughty blonde with luxuriant yellow hair; next to her reclined an auburn darling with curly locks-an uncommon type, resembling a courtesan of ancient Venice; and this brace of beauties was flanked by a pair of saucy-eyed brunettes, doubtless of Irish descent, with fine fair skins. They were all dressed alike, in loose robes, that had flowing sleeves like Japanese kimonos, cut very low in front, and terminating in a V-shaped point, so that the girls' firm white breasts could be viewed almost in their entirety. The quartette's little white feet, innocent of stockings, were encased in small shoes, having high gilt heels.
As I entered, the old woman threw her work on one side, and advanced curtseying.
“You want a birching?” she asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Bully for you! You're the right man in the right place. How will you take it-easy, mild, or strong?”
“Rather strong, if you please.”
“Not afraid of surrendering to a whipping girl who is crazy on flogging a man? She's very hot on the job, rather cruel, and sometimes loses her head. In that case, she goes a bit too far for most gents. Don't say afterwards I didn't warn you!”
“I'm not frightened! She won't kill me!” I exclaimed. “That's just the treatment I prefer!”
“I reckon you'll get about your bellyful,” was the matron's dry rejoinder. “Miss Cora will spank you pretty, and there'll be nary laugh about it!”
At these words, the lass with the golden locks rose majestically, tossed her head in the air, arched her loins, and looked at me scornfully.
“It's ten dollars,” continued the old procuress eagerly, and in a fiffey she seized the bank-note I handed her.
“Pass on-in front of me! Hurry up!” said my tall imperious queen, and she pushed me rather brutally toward a short passage leading to a small room.
I found myself in a real arsenal of flagellation implements. A large enamelled zinc tub contained quantities of birch-rods in all sizes and lengths, soaking in water. On a table were loose twigs ready to be selected and tied in bundles. On the walls hung various kinds of martinets with thongs of leather and cord. I also remarked a collection of whips. A shelf was stocked with riding-whips of whalebone and twisted catgut; all slender, elegant, and flexible. A servant-girl in a white apron was making rods, and the floor was littered with the green leaves she had stripped from the branches.
“I've tumbled into a wholesale flagellating firm,” said I to myself, as I glanced round at the enormous number of instruments of torture. “Bottoms are cut up here, I should say, by dozens-nay, by the gross!”
My thoughts were interrupted by my fair-haired, conquering Cora speaking to the hired girl.
“Choose two good rods, Molly! The longest and strongest you've got! I don't know what's the matter with me to-day! I'm quite unnerved and fretful. I'm just dying to hear a man howl!”
“If you feel that way, Miss Cora,” said Molly, “I guess you'd better take a stinging little riding-whip. That'll make him yell louder still!”
“Yes, I'll not forget the whip,” responded Cora warmly, “but I want two rods as well, so as to tan his hide before I weal it till it bursts!”
This bloodthirsty little speech was uttered in sharp, biting accents, followed by a tigress-like flashing side- look at your humble servant, causing a voluptuous shiver to run through the whole of his body.
While the servant carefully wiped two long, supple, stout rods, Miss Cora selected a whip, after trying several on her open pink palm. She chose one of elastic black whalebone, as straight and tapering as the steel top of a lightning-conductor.
“Look alive! Get along!” she said to me, as, grasping her rods and whip, she drove me before her, out of the room.
CHAPTER IV
