“Why didn't you?” I countered weakly.
From this time on Mamma Agnes maintained a stony indifference toward me, speaking only when unavoidable, and then with caustic brevity.
One Saturday evening about a month later, as I was returning to the house after having spent the afternoon with a girl friend, a young man passed me in the street. His glance, as it appraisingly flitted over my face and body, conveyed the message I had learned to recognize and in a brief moment of passing I was able to observe that in addition to a handsome appearance, he was more than commonly well-dressed. The immaculate linen and modish cut of his clothes, together with an expensive topcoat, suggested money, of which at that moment I had none, and I had seen in a store that very day a pair of high-heeled slippers of irresistible appeal.
I slowed my steps and paused before a shop window. I was not mistaken in my anticipations, for he was quickly at my side, murmuring seductive blandishments in my ear.
Up to a certain point my knowledge of what transpired subsequently is quite clear, but beyond that only incoherent and fragmentary recollection remains.
There was a long ride in a cab which took us into a distant section of the city unfamiliar to me, a luxurious residence into which we were received by a uniformed domestic who bowed servilely to each curt order from the young man who accompanied me. I had made a conquest this time which far outshone any previous adventure. All this stands out vividly in my memory, together with the beautiful and costly furnishings of the rooms to which I was conducted, the rich, red wine I drank from a sparkling crystal goblet and which sent the blood coursing through my veins, filling me with a delicious languor as I sat naked on my companion's knees while his hands and lips caressed my body, lips which tugged and sucked at the little nipples of my breasts causing them to puff up excitedly and send delicious radiations vibrating through me, soft, well-kept hands with delicate fingers whose exquisite titillations between my yielding legs evoked other delicious ecstasies.
Another goblet of ruby-red wine, two, maybe three, and the recollection begins to dim, with only an occasional flash reacting upon my memory; a bed, wonderfully soft and warm and yielding, silken covers which caressed my naked body like the touch of feathers, oblivion, and then a return to semiconsciousness and an indifferent realization of the fact that I was being fucked, another period of darkness and again the awareness of a warm, throbbing cock stirring inside my body.
And so on, throughout what seemed interminable hours, I alternated between moments of lucidity and long periods of oblivion. Whether it was one fuck which lasted all night, or a dozen repeated at intervals I do not know. I had never been drunk before, and it was more like some incoherent dream than a reality.
When I awoke I could not at first remember the circumstances which accounted for my presence in such unfamiliar surroundings. I sat up among the disordered coverings and looked about. I was alone. My clothes were draped over a settee where I had placed them on disrobing the previous night. I was entirely naked and had a splitting headache, the explanation of which was apparent in the form of empty bottles and wine-stained goblets on a small tabouret near the bed.
As my glance roved about the room it encountered a clock sustained in the uplifted arms of a porcelain shepherdess, and I saw with a start that it was past the hour of eleven. I had never been absent from home all night before.
In this moment there was a rap at the door and hardly had I time to snatch a sheet up over my bubbles than it opened and a servant, the same one who had admitted us the previous evening, entered, bearing a tray with a pot of tea, some buttered toast and marmalade.
“The marster's horders, Miss, to serve you breakfast, and get a cab for you when you're ready.”
With the sheet still clutched over my breasts I watched him as he drew up a small table which, pivoting on an iron base, swung directly over my lap as I sat there in bed. After placing the tray on the table he indicated a silver bell.
“You may ring that, Miss, after you're dressed, when you're ready to go.”
I sipped the tea and nibbled at the toast after he had gone, immersed in uneasy meditations which the situation naturally inspired. When I had eaten as much as I could with an appetite impaired by a throbbing headache, I slipped out of bed and began to dress.
When I picked up my stocking I felt some lumpy article inside of it. With the thought that a garter had gotten inside I ran my hand down within the silken sheath but instead of a garter I retrieved a crumpled five pound note. I smoothed it out and gazed at it incredulously. I had never possessed that much money at one time in my entire life. And yet, when I picked up the second stocking there was another note of the same denomination in that one also.
Ten pounds! A veritable fortune.
I forgot both my headache and the uneasiness as to what the consequences of my all-night absence might be. I hurried through my dressing, tarried but a moment in the beautiful bathroom, and rang the bell.
The domestic appeared immediately and led me downstairs and out to the street where a cab, already summoned, was waiting. In answer to the driver's query, I mentioned a corner a few blocks from where I lived, and when we reached this destination I got out and walked the rest of the way.
Mamma Agnes listened to my unconvincing story of having spent the night in the home of a girl friend in frigid silence, except for an observation to the effect that she only hoped the girl hadn't given me a dose of clapp or perhaps gotten me in a family way.
I was not discreet enough to hide the harvest of this adventure and my sudden acquisition of riches, flaunted in the form of resplendent new dresses, silk hose, modish slippers, a new hat and other articles of adornment, in the face of envious and resentful females of the neighborhood, brought a reprisal.
Upon information gratuitously submitted by a committee of righteous ladies I was taken into custody as a delinquent minor, and as a result of the investigation which transpired, I was first subjected to a physical examination of a most embarrassing nature, and then committed to a reformatory for wayward girls, destined to remain there until I became of age.
CHAPTER THREE
Three drab and dreary years I passed in this institution, submerged in an atmosphere of repression and humiliation which was fairly soul suffocating.
My complete lack of adaptability to the manual work assigned to new arrivals made me the special target of persecution by the female warders. My delicate physique and small hands and tiny, pointed fingers, so patently incapable of performing scullery work, laundering, and floor scrubbing with any degree of efficiency seemed to kindle their resentment.
Quick enough to show fight at first to these manifest injustices, I soon learned that, right or wrong, I was always on the losing end and that the slightest indication of insubordination brought punishment of a heartbreaking nature to say nothing of the loss of certain prerogatives and so called privileges which were greatly prized in this barren place and which were accorded only to those who accepted their fate with the proper show of humility and servility.
The first two or three months were a perfect nightmare of horror. Let me make myself clear, the sufferings were more mental than physical, for there was little or no actual physical brutality. Corporal punishment, though authorized for incorrigibles, was rarely resorted to. I do not think there were more than half a dozen whippings inflicted on girls during the entire period I was in the institution. These whippings though, when they were administered, were something not to be forgotten.
In addition to the humiliation of being forced to lie face down across a massive table with her panties removed, the blows inflicted on the victim's naked bottom were of such severity as to cause her to shriek with anguish. Five or six or seven times during my incarceration my face blanched at the sound of those shrill cries, intermingled with the dull slap, slap, slap of heavy leather against naked flesh.
However, time reconciles us to any misfortune and we become hardened to the inevitable.
As this institution admitted only minors, many of whom were girls not over fifteen, educational facilities were provided and there were four hours of classes daily, except Saturdays and Sundays. I discovered that in study there was a surcease from the deadly monotony. I had never been very studious; in fact, during the year proceeding my
