Mabel

The English girl hesitated a few seconds but the lash of the whip obliged her to do her humiliating duty. She went near the maid who was looking at her with a mocking smile and knelt down before her. Bridget had lifted up her dress a little and was pointing imperatively at her foot. Deeply blushing with shame, Mabel kissed the varnished shoe of the maid.

'Thank you,' she murmured.

'Thank, you who?'

'Thank you, Bridget!'

'Not at all!' cried Miss von Berner. 'You owe Bridget the greatest of respect and henceforth you are of a social rank much lower than her's. I demand that you should address her as 'Your Ladyship' and that you should talk to her in the third person. Besides, she will have the right to order you about and to punish you as she pleases. And, to chastise you for having been insolent to her on the evening of your arrival, you will from now on become her maid. Tell her so politely and thank her!'

That was the hardest humiliation that the aristocratic English girl had ever suffered.

She bottled up her anger and said in a voice hardly audible:

'Thank you, I am your servant.'

'Bridget,' asked Dorothea, 'don't you think Mabel has just made a mistake?'

'Yea, ma'am, she said 'you' tome.'

'Well, punish her by slapping her face!'

The servant did not need a repetition of the order and slapped the pretty face of her former mistress with vim.

'And now, you shall tell Bridget exactly these words: 'I thank your Ladyship for having modified my underclothing. I submit to the orders of your Ladyship and I ask your Ladyship whether she condescends to take me as a maid.'

Mabel, crimson with shame, repeated the sentence.

'I condescend,' Bridget answered with haughtiness, 'and henceforth I consider you as my slave.'

'Stand up,' Miss von Berner ordered, 'we're going to dress you up.'

The governess had just taken out of a cupboard a strange corset in black varnished leather with several steel buckles. She showed it to her victim.

'My girl, you'll have to get used to wearing corsets,' she said. 'A slave being educated must feel well maintained, in a way a prisoner of her own clothes. Bearing a corset will make you stand erect, it will give you bigger buttocks and will make your breasts jut out and remain firm. I'll have you wear more and more severe corsets, until you have a fifteen-inch waistline.'

Mabel had become pale on hearing those words.

'Oh, Mistress, please, not that!' she begged.

'Do you want a whipping? Who authorized you to speak? Come up here and shut up!'

Trembling, the girl obeyed. Then Dorothea applied on her stomach the corset of discipline. The contact of the varnished leather on her bare flesh caused her a strange sensation. The corset was relatively short, covering only the stomach and abdomen. It was laced in the back all along and left the breasts entirely free, pushing them up which made their tips point up towards the sky. As for the rump, it was completely disengaged, for the stays stopped right at the small of the back. Mabel noticed that the instrument was supplied with about forty small buttons or knobs which formed a kind of belt around it. Besides, one inch above those buttons there was a small hook and another behind.

Dorothea was standing behind Mabel, and tugging with all her strength on the cords of the stays, tightening them to the utmost. The girl felt the leather sheath gradually close in upon her, pressing on her abdomen, crushing her stomach, making her gasp. 'Mistress,' she moaned, 'Mistress, I beg you! The governess slapped her hard. 'Not a word out of you! Will you ever behave?'

The tightening proceeded. Now poor Mabel had the impression of being crushed in a vice. Her rump, thrown back, jutted out violently and her abdomen was flattened by the varnished leather. The torture was intolerable and the girl started moaning. But Dorothea, far from being moved, only shrugged her shoulders.

'You'll get used to it,' she said philosophically. 'And now, the drawers!'

She rummaged in a cupboard and took out a pair of pink panties of silk and lace which was one of the best pieces of underclothing which the pretty English girl owned. The governess showed them to her.

'You see, your panties have been readjusted by Bridget — they are much narrower now.'

'But, Mistress, my panties were already very tight…'

'First, of all, I don't want any remarks from you, and next, if I wanted them tighter I had a good reason for it, so you don't have anything to say. A girl being re-educated must have her behind kept extremely tight. She must feel the material hampering her movements. I have already told you, Mabel, that it is by concentrating on your behind that I shall make you lose all your personality. Not only will it have to be whipped often but it must feel as if it were imprisoned. Understand once and for all that not only your brain but also your sex and behind are under my absolute government. Every second of your slave's life I want you to feel that your flesh belongs to me and that I am imposing it a discipline and a law. Now, put on these panties, and beware you don't tear the silk!'

Red with shame, Mabel took the tiny and did her best to put them on. They were too tight and she was very ranch afraid to tear it by slipping them up her thighs. It became much more of a problem when it came to the behind: her buttocks could not tighten themselves sufficiently to allow an adequate passage to the silken prison. But at last, helped by two or three lashes of the horsewhip, she managed. Her rumps were so tight and the material sticking so much against them that it felt like a second skin. Her sex was bruised by the silk pulling and stretching over it, and the panties penetrated into the cleavage of her buttocks as deeply as possible and she experienced a burning sensation.

Then Mabel understood the use of the forty white buttons that adorned her corset, for Bridget had sewn forty corresponding buttonholes all around the waist of the drawers. One after the other they were tied and then the panties were hermetically help up in position without any possibility of movement and drawn upwards still more although that seemed impossible.

The poor English girl felt extremely uncomfortable. She did not dare make any brisk move for fear of tearing the material which moulded her. Encompassed by her panties and stays she walked with dainty steps and feared the moment when she would have to sit down.

Yet she was not yet at the end of her torments.

'That's not all,' Miss von Berner said, 'you aren't sufficiently imprisoned between your legs. We're going to strap you.'

She took out of a cupboard a wide tape of varnished leather with a hook at each end. It was put upon her like a hygienic towel, with one end fixed to the stays in front and the other behind, by hooks. It was applied with extreme tightness, crushing her sex and driving into the cleavage of her buttocks. Mabel felt awfully strapped and harnessed.

Dorothea threw her a pair of fine black silk stockings.

'Sit down and put these on!' she ordered.

To sit down, there was the rub! With infinite precautions the girl bent gradually down, feeling her stays pressing hard against her stomach and the strap between her legs hurting her. The panties did not tear but Bridget and the governess burst out laughing at the spectacle of the slave's efforts not to tear them.

When Mabel had put on the stockings, they were fixed by garters of red satin with ornaments in the shape of little knots, which were tied tightly round her thighs.

Dorothea now produced a pair of strange-looking shoes: high boots of varnished, leather with laces and heels about four inches high.

'You'll have to get used to high heels that will oblige you to hold yourself straight,' the governess said. 'I'll make your wear some five inches high. Now you're going to wear these high boots which will discipline your calves.'

It was true. The varnished boots imprisoned Mabel's legs very closely. Besides, they were at leant one size too small and hurt the delicate feet of the poor English girl.

Dorothea obliged her to walk round the room ten times. She was so tightened on all her body by the different garments that she walked stiffly like a robot. She was egged on by whip lashes and now and then she let out a sob of despair.