bosom as she stood in her simple dark grey dress the moment before she commenced lashing me. But she was coarser and more brutal. She did not possess the ravishing spirituality of Mademoiselle. As a woman she affected me merely from an animal point of view.
In the intellectual appreciation and intelligence of her mistress I had found, even while undergoing her severest punishments, solace and consolation. Mademoiselle directed herself more to working upon the mind and the spirit and used other measures judiciously and discreetly only as they served this purpose.
Elise was purely, ingeniously, and most wantonly cruel for the sake of cruelty itself, in which she appeared to take a fiendish pleasure. I do not believe Mademoiselle would ever have strapped me up in that manner. It was essentially a maid's notion. To elongate my figure indeed!
There was no coquetry, no attempt, no suggesting of dalliance or flirtation about Elise's method. No love; it was absolutely material. She directed herself entirely to the body, not to excite sensations, but with no apparent object beyond her own gratification. In consequence, I could not even feel the satisfaction arising from obedience to a mistress. Nothing appeared to ameliorate or sweeten my fate. I had no hope, except for the termination of these three days. I was absolutely in her hands, at her mercy completely, to wreak what vengeance upon me she pleased. Why had Mademoiselle handed me over to this abomination of desolation? I saw afterwards that she had an object she herself could never have accomplished or which her endeavours to accomplish would have hindered and spoilt the effect of her other influence over me. It was a wise and economical division of labour. The lesson had to be learnt and none was so gifted for inculcating it as Elise. The animal needed taming by brute force without the aid of spiritual agencies, and of that force Elise was the priestess.
It is quite plain that the incidents of my three days purgatory cannot be set out seriatim. If the history of thirty-six hours has occupied so much time and space, and even that has not been dealt with in every detail, how much space would an equally diffuse narrative of the events of seventy-two hours require? I should never have done. Moreover, I have to relate not only the story of those three days, but of subsequent years. I should be interminable!
If any one burns for more nimble details, let him obtain a verbal account from some victim who, like myself, was forced to the sacrifice as a sheep to the slaughter. There are verily and indeed many such; the case is not rare in England nor in Scotland, less rare in Ireland, and still less rare in Germany and Austria. And it is by no means new. It is mythological and classical; it was known at Pompeii, and practised also at Rome. Such matters are in this country veiled in the closest secrecy. Many a haughty dame, respectable and so to speak irreproachable, could vouch for the truth of the assertion; the walls and closets of many a palace could, if endowed with speech, tell the same tale. In olden days this mystery was not thought necessary. But the world was pagan then. This cult, this luxury, exists only amongst the most highly educated, the most intellectual and most refined; amongst the classes vulgarly described as the 'Upper Ten Thousand.' The middle classes and their children are ignorant of this discipline and excess of voluptuousness.
It was on a Friday morning in the beginning of May when Elise first 'tackled me,' as she called it. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and the nights of those days! How they are stamped and burnt in my recollection! What a martyrdom I underwent!
Elise was tall and handsome, her face the most perfectly oval that I have ever seen, her teeth were white, and her lips full and cherry-coloured; her nose was a little fat, her hair dark brown, her eyebrows were heavy, her limbs admirably moulded, but her figure, notwithstanding her height, gave one the impression of being rather thick set, owing perhaps to her neck being a little short. Her hands were strong, her shoulders broad, and her muscular strength perfectly astonishing. She was always dressed with severe simplicity and was thoroughly a lady's maid in her ways, possessing vigour instead of delicacy, and just appreciably bearing a rankness of person perceptible to the nostrils, which seems inseparable from vigorous growth and life; or, at any rate, inseparable from them in a servant. This added to my punishment, for being constantly brought into the closest possible contact with her, effectually destroyed all romance and sensual gratification which I might have had.
Her bust, however, was a magnificent one, her fully developed breasts were soft, full, large, round, and white! Whatever relief or pleasure I did manage to obtain was from these warm, sensitive, substantial cushions.
Her age was seven and twenty. She had been in the service of some Princesses in France before she had come to Mademoiselle, and her experience of life, of human nature and of physical nature was limitless. The Princesses must assuredly have gone the pace, and have been as dissolute, as sensual, as indifferent to the sufferings of others as the coldest, haughtiest, and most wanton Roman ladies of the Augustan age, some of whom, indeed, they claimed to number in their ancestry.
I began to come to myself.
My physical sufferings were intense. The pain at the sockets of my arms, at my wrists, and under my shoulders was fearful. My weight and the feet forced my hands into the manacles from which I hung suspended and I got a fearful cramp in them. The belt pinched me terribly, impeding my breathing.
The accumulation of my sufferings and the sense of helplessness soon made me hysterical. I durst not cry out again, even if I had sufficient power left in me to do so. I sobbed convulsively, tears running down my face. A violent pain gradually asserted itself up the back of my head, resulting in a sense of deadly sickness; a clammy cold sweat broke out all over me; I nearly suffocated.
In a dreamy, hazy way I was conscious that there was the bed where Elise had slept, there the wash-hand- stand at which she washed and where the slops still remained. The sunlight entered at the window-a door leading into another room stood ajar.
All other ideas were obliterated. Mademoiselle, Beatrice, and the girls appeared to be the phantom creatures of another universe, the events of the morning but glimpses of a delusive visionary existence. How long I hung there, I knew not.
At length the door opened. It seemed far off and did not concern me. I did not care to notice who entered. What did it matter whether it was Elise or anyone else? I felt no interest in anything. Presently I felt a hand upon that part of my frame which conclusively denied my girlhood. Mad and exasperating tomfoolery that pretence was! So essentially a woman's notion!
I opened my eyes.
'Gracious lawks!' the creature exclaimed. 'I thought you were asleep, Master Julian. He! He! I beg pardon; Miss Julia, I mean. A fine miss, truly. He! He!'
I looked at her; surely I had seen her before. It was Mary. I groaned.
'Don't-don't touch me,' I gasped.
'Likely-likely indeed; we, poor maids are not to have feelings-not touch you indeed! I'll touch you,' rubbing me violently, 'my fine young gentleman. Miss Elise is to have all the pleasure, is she? Not if I know it. What a fine bottom,' pinching it. 'My lawks! If it wasn't that Miss Elise,' putting her hand through my legs, 'might come in at any moment, I'd take you down and make you do your duty like a man. Yes, I would. I'd have him. I'd make him rear his head inside me, just as he's doing now. It ought to be cut off, it ought. What business have you with it, Miss?' giving it a series of vicious pulls. 'Come, I'll jerk it off for you. My gracious, it really does one good to see a self-opinioned young rascal strung up stark naked. My! I'd make him work.'
Then standing a yard or two away in front of me, she rapidly lifted her skirts, displaying her stalwart, well- shaped legs. She was a comely damsel enough, very coarse. She gathered up the garments so as to expose to full view a hairy region, and an enormous affair in the centre.
It horrified me. Much larger, much fiercer than that of Mademoiselle or Beatrice. What a monster, what an engine! Capable of sucking the very life out of one. I trembled.
'Come, how do you like it? It would make you work. Pity I can't get you between my legs. Ay!' dropping her skirts. 'You don't speak; none of your airs. I'll cure you of those,' and standing at my side, she smacked my bottom with her hard, red hand. 'I'll warm you; ask my pardon at once, or'-smack, smack-'I'll make you kiss it the first chance I get, although that's a nasty, dirty trick. There, you've quite warmed my hand.'
I could only groan.
'Beg my pardon, or I will make Miss Elise punish you. Wait till she'll tie you again. Now that I've seen your thing I'll have you on the bed under me in a trice.'
'Oh, Mary.'
'Mary, indeed! Beg my pardon. Nice to be under your governess' maid, isn't it? She'll lend you to me and Susan tonight, she will. Susan is my bed-fellow. Who's Susan? Why, the scullery maid. We'll have you between us-
