She nodded her head with satisfaction.
'Have you ever enjoyed a woman?'
I was scarlet with confusion. I felt that to answer the truth would somehow give her a hold on me that would be dangerous.
'You must not ask me such questions,' I said.
Miss. Priscilla rose, never losing her temper.
'Bend down again, Denise! This time you will raise the dainty skirt altogether and I am going to whip you over your thin pantalets.'
'Oh, Miss. Priscilla, I will answer.'
'After I have whipped you, Denise.'
Miss. Priscilla was implacable. My tears were hardly dry, my skin still burned terribly, yet I was made to bend down and suffer the punishment again, even more acutely this time. I bent down. She lifted my skirt and turned it back over my shoulders, leaving my girlish bottom exposed in my batiste drawers.
'Now lift up the dress in front until the frills at your knees are exposed.'
I obeyed her. She took up the elastic truncheon and stood behind me.
'Keep quite still, dear! Can you see your high heels reflected in the mirror behind you?'
'Yes, Miss. Priscilla.'
'Fix your eyes on your glistening slender satin slippers and I'll tan you thoroughly and well.'
Smack, smack, smack, the thick rubber stick danced and jumped upon my batiste drawers. I screamed as it bruised my tender flesh. The pain she was giving me was intolerable and deliciously cruel.
'The feet still, Denise, or I will punish them too. There's nothing half so good for the dainty derrieres of satin- slippered young ladies as the stick. Oh these girlish globes can dance, my dear, as much as you like, so long as the girl's buckled shoes are quiet.' She breathed as she brought the truncheon down again and again.
She flogged me until I yelled with pain, and the tears streamed down my face in floods. My white bosom strained and heaved. At last she stopped and carefully readjusted my dress. 'Stand up now, Denise! Hold your skirt as before. That's right,' she said as she dried my eyes. 'Answer me now, Denise. Have you ever enjoyed a woman?'
I answered through my sobs, 'Never!'
Miss. Priscilla's thin lips smiled with contemptuous satisfaction.
'I thought that anyone so feminine as you would hardly be acceptable. But I wanted to be sure. Had you known a woman dear, you would have been more difficult for Helen and me to deal with. We should not
have been able to mould you, or to indelibly write your subjection upon your character as upon a blank page.'
Miss. Priscilla settled herself in her chair with a look of satisfaction. I felt singularly helpless. I understood that every answer I made handed me over more and more as a slave. Yet if I did not answer I would be cruelly punished until I did.
'I pass to another subject, Denise. When you have admired women, what is it in them that you have admired? When you think of women, what about them do you think? What about women attracts you so?'
I was startled; I would not answer her.
'If you don't answer immediately, Denise, I shall lock a bright pair of steel handcuffs over your delicate white gloves.'
My heart gave a jump. I blushed rosily-with pleasure. I saw the little white-gloved hands, which so daintily held up my lovely frock. To have them handcuffed by Miss. Priscilla! A divine longing filled me. I looked at my little buckled slippers of satin. Oh, to be handcuffed while wearing those fairylike ballroom shoes. The strangest sensations overcame me.
'If you handcuffed me,' I said timidly and not replying to her question, 'I should not be able to keep on holding up my dress.'
'I will prove to you that you are wrong, Denise.' She took up a shining pair of handcuffs; thin broad bands of steel linked close together. She was actually going to handcuff me. Oh, the expectation was delicious!
'Let your skirt fall. Now your hands together, palm to palm in front of you.'
My hands met at once in position. I could not help but admire the tight unwrinkled gloves of spotless leather.
Miss. Priscilla took my hands and roughly fitted me with the handcuffs. What a stimulating picture met my feverish eyes in the mirror! An elderly sharp-faced woman, in a black robe, looking just as I should imagine a prison Mistress would, chaining the exquisitely gloved hands of her pretty young prisoner. Click, click, the handcuffs snapped to. I was helpless. She then took a long chain with a spring hook at each end. She snapped one end onto a ring on my left handcuff. Then lifting my skirt all around so that my ankles were visible, she drew the chain tightly around behind me, under the up-swell of my thighs, and fixed the other spring hook to the right handcuff. The chain thus did three things: It held down my handcuffed hands, bound my thighs, and kept my dress up. I smiled at my reflection in the glass. I felt and looked so deliciously helpless. Miss. Priscilla sat down again, calmly watching me.
'Now, Denise, perhaps you will tell me what you admire in women.'
'Their feet and ankles,' I replied shamefacedly.
A gleam of triumph shone in Miss. Priscilla's eyes.
'In what way, Denise?'
I hung my head. I had told so much; however, I went on, 'I like the smart patent leather boots with leather legs and high Louis Quinze heels. And elegant patent leather shoes laced with satin ribbons tied in big bows on the insteps. And little buckled high-heeled satin slippers.'
Miss. Priscilla nodded with satisfaction. 'Shod then, just as we keep you shod.'
'Yes, Miss. Priscilla.'
'I thought so, I have watched you Denise. You are a fetichiste du pied.'
So that is what the phrase meant! How well she knew me! I was dreadfully ashamed.
'But that is not enough, Denise. Don't twitch your pretty fingers. Let your chained hands rest quietly against your lovely frock. I have not finished with you yet. The mere sight of a lady's pretty feet in her dainty boots attracts your eyes, fascinates you, but it does not trouble your passions, as they were troubled last night when you stood in the corner.'
'Yes,' I said in a whisper. 'But, oh Miss. Priscilla, don't ask me any more questions; I am so horribly ashamed.'
'I must ask them,' she returned implacably. 'You must remember that you are a girlish young gentleman of enormous wealth, enormous power, and responsibilities for which you are quite unfitted, and that Helen and I are responsible for you. If you ever obtained your liberty, you would abuse your power. We are bound therefore to keep you in bondage and for that purpose I must know every detail of your character. Since ladies' boots on ladies' feet by themselves do not arouse and delight you, what does? Tell me at once.'
'Miss. Priscilla, I can't,' I cried in despair.
She rose calmly. 'Lift up your head!'
I obeyed. Her hands were clothed in the long black kid gloves that seemed to be the uniform of the house. She took the point of my chin in the fingers of her left hand and held it firmly. With her right palm, she deliberately smacked my cheek with all her strength.
'So, you won't answer, won't you? You disobedient, impertinent girl!'
'Oh, oh, oh! Your leather stings my face dreadfully, Miss. Priscilla.'
I struggled in vain to wrench my chin free from her fingers.
'It is meant to sting your pretty silly face.'
Slap, slap, slap, slap. 'Now we will make the other as red as this one is.'
She began to slap my left cheek in the same way. My hands were chained down to my legs. I could not resist. I burst into tears from the pain which I was suffering.
'Oh, Miss. Priscilla, you are too cruel!'
'Why don't you answer the questions then? What a pity that I have to smack this pretty face and spoil its delicate complexion! Your satin slippers are moving, dear. I shall have to turn my attention to your dainty white feet in a moment.' She slapped me a few more times and then said, 'There that will do! You are as red as a dairymaid,
