I blushed, and realized that I loved her and wanted to possess her.
'You may if you like,' I said after staring at her hungrily for a long while.
'There's no time now. Someday when we are alone I will.'
'But, Violet, you said you loved me,' I remarked with a smile. She frowned in perplexity.
'I do Denise. Yet, do you know what I would really love? I would love to see you dressed just as you are now in that beautiful evening frock tied to a chair in Mrs. Pettigrew's dark room with those buckled satin slippers and slender ankles in the fetters, while the laundry girls feed you on bread and water.'
My face grew scarlet.
'Oh, Violet, that would be dreadful,' I cried, and yet the picture her words evoked fascinated me strangely! I felt my cock grow more lewdly inside its leather singlet, which I was again wearing. Oh, how I wanted Violet to torture me with her fetters. Oh, how I wanted her to torture me with her tongue.
Unfortunately, Phoebe came in for me then. Violet and I kissed one another good-night, and then Phoebe carried me up the stairs. Miss. Priscilla's boudoir was furnished in the Empire style with an elegance out of keeping with her puritanical appearance. A small fire was burning cheerfully, but to keep the room from growing too hot, the window was open, letting in the summer night.
'Untie Miss. Denise's ankles,' said Miss. Priscilla at once.
I was placed standing in a blaze of light on a square of white kid between two great mirrors, so that I could see myself back and front. Miss. Priscilla drew up a chair and sat facing me, but a little to one side so as not to obscure from me my reflection in the mirrors. Phoebe went out of the room.
I was excited and a little frightened too. I looked at Miss. Priscilla timidly. She crossed one leg over the other, showing me her ugly flat shoes and lisle-thread stockings.
'Lift your dress, Denise! A hand on each side of your skirt! Lift it prettily above the ankles. That's right. Press your high heels tightly together and turn out your toes! That will do. Now watch your pretty reflection in the mirror, while I talk to you and, above all, never lose sight of the truth in the glass in front of you.'
I blushed rosily and smiled, 'Very well, Miss. Priscilla.' I trained my eyes on my mysterious image.
'Now listen to me, Denise,' she went on, 'some day you will be allowed to lay aside your dainty frocks, but I think it's a great pity. Helen and I are determined, however, that we will not have a repetition of your outrageous conceited conduct. We will not tolerate your untidy ways or your disrespect.'
'I am cured of that Miss. Priscilla,' I said humbly, watching my feminine lips answer.
'Perhaps,' she replied calmly, 'but we mean to make certain of the cure. We want you to willingly submit to the rule and authority of women.'
'Forever?' I asked in dismay, but my dismay was coloured with a passionate warming in my heart. I wanted to be under their authority forever.
'Always.'
I hesitated.
'Miss. Priscilla!'
'Yes.'
'It seems natural to me that I should be kept in subjection,' I said timidly, 'so long as I am wearing girls' corsets and long gloves, earrings, and pearl necklaces, while I am wearing decollete dresses, girls' frilled lingerie and pretty petticoats, girls' silk stockings, and satin slippers with high heels. I don't resent discipline at a lady's hands while I am dressed this way.'
'That's better. You are improving, Denise.'
'But when I go back to trousers, it would be so undignified to be under a woman's authority, especially a young woman like Helen.'
'You can easily escape the indignity by remaining in your lovely costumes.'
'I know,' I said weakly. 'But I must be a man. I must have a career.'
Miss. Priscilla laughed, and her cruel snickers made me realize my own ridiculousness.
'Meanwhile, Denise, even in your satin slippers, you are not as obedient as you profess your willingness to be. You are looking straight at me instead of at your own reflection in the looking glass.'
My eyes sought my image in the mirror.
'I am very sorry. I forgot,.' I said humbly.
'That is no excuse, Denise,' said Miss. Priscilla placidly. 'Gather in your pretty frock, until it is stretched quite tight over your behind, and bend double.'
She rose. Red with shame, I obeyed her.
'I can't whip you with a cane, Denise, for a cane would tear your fragile dress. But this will be quite as effective.'
She took up a very thick short stick of rubber covered with white satin. It was like a policeman's truncheon, except that it was flexible.
'Bend well down. Your skirt tighter. Gather it in with your kid-gloved hands, dear.'
Oh, how ashamed I was to be punished in this humiliating childish way in my lovely clothes, yet I felt that familiar thrill of sensuous pleasure.
Miss. Priscilla ran her hand languorously over my stretched bottom as I stood bent at the waist.
'We will punish the right globe first,' she said. 'One, two, three, four,' and at each word the elastic stick danced upon my bottom stinging me dreadfully.
'Oh, Oh! Miss. Priscilla. It hurts worse than the cane. Oh!'
'Keep still! Five, six.'
She held her dress aside with her left hand. I saw her common flat shoes and cheap stockings. How extraordinary and bizarre it seemed that an elderly skinny woman dressed so humbly should be whipping the posterior of a beautiful, luxuriously dressed girl who was holding up her pretty frock with to receive the punishment. She flogged me methodically. I think I could hear her moaning almost imperceptibly. The pain was intense. My eyes filled with tears; the tears rolled down my cheeks.
'You are moving your satin slippers, Denise,' she said. She stooped and yanked my heels and ankles together with her hands. 'Watch your diamond buckles! Each time they flash, I shall add three more strokes.'
'Oh, Miss. Priscilla,' I wailed. 'Please tie my ankles together then. I can't help moving, the pain is so dreadful.'
'I shall not tie your ankles, Denise. You would love that, wouldn't you?' she said. 'You must stand quite still of your own free will while you are being punished. Now for the left globe. One, two.' I screamed.
'Three, four-yes, this is the weapon, Denise, to bring fashionable young ladies in dainty frocks to their senses.' Smack, smack, my bottom danced and writhed. 'This will teach you obedience, pretty Miss. Satin Slippers.'
Smack, smack. She fairly cooked my flesh, up and down and now across, smack, smack fell the heavy elastic stick on the thin delicate skirt. 'High-heeled young ladies,' bang, bang, 'are improved by a good whipping on their haughty impudent flesh.' Her voice had become hoarse and deep.
'Now perhaps you will watch your shoe buckles, will you?'
'Oh, Miss. Priscilla, I will, I will,' I cried.
'Good!' She laid the truncheon aside. 'Now stand up, Denise.'
She contemplated my tear-stained face and my quivering bosom with pleasure.
'Now loosen your frock, but take care that it doesn't fall over your ankles.'
'Yes, Miss. Priscilla,' I jerked out between my sobs.
'And mind that you don't move your pretty buckled satin slippers.'
She dried my eyes with her handkerchief and resumed her seat.
'We will go on where we left off. If you wish, you are to be made a willing slave under woman's authority. The one method certain to make you that is to make you love your subjection. It is obvious that you already have the disposition of a slave. It is quite clear that you love to be punished in your pretty frocks even though the punishment costs you pain and tears. But to make that love the overwhelming influence of your life, it is necessary that you should be made to associate supreme pleasure with a picture of yourself. You must love the image of yourself dressed in women's gloves, girls' corsets and frocks, silk stockings, girls' high-heeled dainty slippers, and then, of course, the delightful sensation of exquisite lace-frilled lingerie. Therefore, answer me this question: Have you ever loved a woman?'
'No, Miss. Priscilla,' I lied.
