It was Mr. Raleigh. He chatted a bit pleasantly, then asked me if Selena and Rosa had been good girls and done their work. I told him yes, and then he asked to bring Rosa to the phone. Uneasily, I went to get her and then waited nervously. I heard her say, glancing at me wide-eyed, “Yes, sir, if you say so-oh, yes, of course I will, sir. You'll be home day after tomorrow, in the morning? Shall I have breakfast ready for you, Mr. Raleigh? All right, sir… goodbye.”
She hung up and turned to me, eyes avoiding mine carefully.
“What is it, Rosa?” I asked curiously, feeling a premonition of something wrong.
“Mis' Lucille,'' she blurted, getting red in the face and still avoiding my gaze, “the Master, he tell me… I… I… got to spank you tonight before you go to bed. An' tomorrow night, S-Selena, she have to do it.”
“Oh, no. Oh, Rosa, no,” I cried frantically, turning redder than she in my stupefaction. “Surely he didn't say that? But… but… didn't he ask you how… how… I was today and you know I didn't do anything wrong.”
“He… asked me, all right. But then when I tell him, he say to me, Rosa, Miss Lucille, she needs to be kept obedient, and I won't be home to do it tonight or tomorrow night. So tonight you give her a spanking and have Selena give her one tomorrow night. That's what he say, Mis' Lucille, don't be mad… I–I'm awful sorry, honest… You know I don't want to do such a thing but Mr. Raleigh, he say if I or Selena don't obey him, he gives us both a good hard whipping with the birch when he gets home. Please, Mis' Lucille, don't hold it against me. I only have to carry out his orders, you know that.”
I burst into tears. This seemed the final blow of humiliation. I couldn't bear the thought of having this beautiful young woman shame me and so carry out an order by proxy… and… and then Selena, who wasn't much older than I was… Oh, it was terrible for Mr. Raleigh to think of a horrid, shameful thing like that. “Oh, Rosa, Rosa, please, please, let… let me call him up if you know where he is… I–I'd rather take a worse spanking and get it from him,” I sobbed.
She shook her head, “No ma'am, he told me you might say that, an' he say for me to tell you that if you don't let me 'n Selena spank you, he going to look at you when he comes home Friday morning and if he see your b- bottom isn't spanked, he going to whip us both awful hard and give you the hardest spanking he ever gave you, Mis' Lucille. That's what he say!”
“Oh, Lord, oh, it's awful,” I groaned, wringing my hands in anguish.
“I know, Mis' Lucille, I'm awfully sorry, an' I sure don't want to do it to you, but I don't dare disobey Mr. Raleigh, no more than you do. You know that,” she said compassionately. “Besides, he told me Selena was to watch an' see I gave you a good spanking tonight, an' tomorrow night. I have to watch her spank you, to make sure… what he say… your bottom gets what it needs… Oh, Mis' Lucille, please forgive me. That's just what the master said.”
I was in an agony of fearful humiliation and distress. If only he'd have put off my punishment — though I hadn't done anything wrong, I knew — and given me double when he did it himself, it wouldn't have been so hard to bear. But to do this… And then I remembered how he had made me “prepare” Rosa. And this was no doubt his cruel, mocking way of showing me that in his home I was no more immune from punishment than Rosa and Selena. Never had I so felt the degradation of my position with him as now. I knew too with sinking heart that to try to resist or evade the spankings would mean that I would be severely whipped and heaven knows how often or what other forms of “discipline' Mr. Raleigh would devise. I had to submit myself humbly, as if it were directly to him himself, but the worst part was having one of the girls watch this while I was being spanked by the other. I groaned, “Oh, R-Rosa, please, I… if I let you… tonight… please, don't have Selena there to see. C-can't you do it yourself the-the way he wants? I promise I'll never tell him she wasn't there. Surely you can do that much for me. I'll die of shame if anybody sees while you-you do it to me.”
She shook her head slowly, looking down sorrowfully at the floor. “Oh, no, I can't do that, Mis' Lucille. I'd sure want to, I know how you feel, sure enough I do, Mis' Lucille, but he tells me just what to do and he said Selena she got to watch tonight and me tomorrow when Selena does it. Mis' Lucille, please don't take it so hard. You know it isn't me wanting to do this to you, don't you?”
“Y-yes I know, Rosa,” I sobbed, trying to control my tears. “I mean…” I couldn't go on, my throat choked up so.
“Just before you go to bed, Mis' Lucille, you supposed to-to take off all your clothes.”
“Oh, Lord-oh, Rosa, please, no, no, he didn't say that, surely,” I cried in despair.
But she shook her head again impassively, and replied dolefully, “That's just what Mr. Raleigh say, Mis' Lucille. I'm bound to tell the truth. All your clothes and then get over my lap after you give me the hairbrush. When I finished spanking, then you have to… to… thank me for doing it for Mr. Raleigh. That's just what he say again, Mis' Lucille. And then put on your nightie and go to sleep.”
I burst into tears and buried my face in my hands, weeping hopelessly while she shook her head compassionately and left the room. I ran up to my room and threw myself on the bed and cried like a child for a long time, despondent, forsaken in my shame and loneliness. I had no parents anymore, no friends who would help me, no money or any way to get it and escape Mr. Raleigh. No, no, I was his slave now, and he was showing me by this supremely humiliating order, passed on to someone else, a servant in his home, that he meant to do whatever he liked with me.
But slowly I resigned myself to my ordeal, though the thought of it made me groan and blush violently: to have to strip naked before those two lovely girls and put myself across one of their laps while the other watched to make sure my-my bottom was… well… spanked. Oh, Lord, what agonizing shame for a girl. But-but I had to accept my fate. I had to… and-and the sooner it was over with, the better, so far as my shame and humiliation were concerned. I lay there trembling and blushing, reliving in my mind all the things Mr. Raleigh had done to me since that first terrible evening when he had made me strip naked in front of my parents and appraised me and then bought me as his slave girl. Time dragged slowly. I was dying of anxiety. Once or twice I got up with the idea of going to Rosa and asking her to do it now and get it over with, but my pride and shame prevented it. It was not till quarter past ten that there was a knock on my door. I had been sitting in the armchair, with a book, whose pages I mechanically turned but without seeing. I dropped the book with a gasp and stammered, “C-come in.” The door opened, and Rosa entered, looking very embarrassed, and behind her was Selena, both in their black silk dresses, white aprons, and dainty little lace caps which Mr. Raleigh made them wear in their service.
“It-it's time, Mis' Lucille,” Rosa said, not unkindly, clearing her throat nervously. Tears came to my eyes and I clenched my hands in an agony of nervous mortification, but I determined not to cry or make a spectacle of myself. Yes, the best way was to face it quickly and have it over with, then I could be left to myself and cry in my despair at the awful way Mr. Raleigh treated me. I said nothing, but began slowly to undress, putting my dress and slip on a straightback chair near the bed. I took off my stockings and elastic garters, then my shoes, and I stood in my brassiere and step-ins, miserable with embarrassment. The two lovely colored girls stood looking down, Selena behind Rosa, trying to be as self-effacing and impersonal as possible. And I was grateful for this consideration. I could not put this awful moment off any longer and so, with a stifled little sob, I took off my brassiere and then hesitantly slipped down my step-ins and, stepping out of them quickly with a gasp that made my whole body shudder, picked them up and put them with my brassiere on the chair over my dress and slip.
Rosa had gone over to the armchair and seated herself smoothing her skirt and keeping her eyes away from me. I realized now that I had to bring her the hairbrush. Selena stood beside the chair, glancing covertly at me, and I felt my face and throat and forehead burn with shame as I walked to the dresser and got the hairbrush and slowly came back with it. Trying not to look at Rosa, I handed it to her, and then, biting my lips and closing my eyes, I laid myself down across her ample lap.
“Mis' Lucille,” Rosa murmured softly, “Selena, she supposed to hold your hands so you won't get off or try to stop me.”
I uttered a choking cry of dismay and nervous despair.
“Oh no, no, no, Rosa… Pl-please, don't. No, I promise I won't do that, don't make me do it, Rosa, please don't, this is just awful without-without doing that,” I groaned.
“I–I sorry, Mis' Lucille, but the Master tell me that what you have to do. He say he going to ask me if you did exactly what I told you,” Rosa replied.
I burst into a stifled sob, as I raised my arms and felt Selena grasp my hands quickly without a word. I cannot describe the atrocious despair and humiliation I felt now, draped over this beautiful girl's lap, waiting for her to spank my bare bottom with my own hairbrush while the other pretty servant was holding my hands and no doubt watching me to make sure, as Mr. Raleigh had commanded, that Rosa spanked me properly.
