'Oh Helen,' I moaned 'you can't show me off dressed like this. You promised that I should be dressed as a girl.'
'You certainly aren't dressed as a young lady, Dennis,' she said with a laugh. 'Young ladies don't show the frills of their pantaloons as a rule, nor so much pretty stocking. Nor do they wear flaunting scarlet heels as high as yours. Only improper women and young effeminate gentlemen wear five and a half inch heels on their dainty shoes.'
'But the codpiece in front-that's horrible.'
'You will wear that, dear, as the symbol of your subjection to my sex, the sign that the sex of women is imposed over your sex.'
Handcuffed and fettered in this dress I was carried downstairs in Phoebe's arms into the drawing room, and presented to my neighbors assembled for dinner. I could have died of shame. Congratulations were showered upon Helen.
'What an improvement!' cited Mrs. Dawson, the vicar's wife. 'He is very like Denise.'
'Yes, I wish Denise could have stayed,' said Helen, 'for us to compare them. She has gone home to her aunt this afternoon, where I am afraid she is not very happy.'
The ladies crowded round me, the men guffawed contemptuously.
'I think the fetters and handcuffs complete the dress so prettily,' said Lady Hartley.
'The shoes are very smart,' Lady Hartley continued. 'High-heeled girls' shoes are such a good thing for wilful and disobedient young gentlemen.'
'He has certainly never looked so pretty,' said Guy Repton with a snigger. 'I am sure he ought to be very grateful to his young stepsister for the dainty care with which she has dressed and moulded his figure.'
Thus they talked of me as though I were nothing more than a statue. I stood red with shame. During dinner I was made to stand up at the centre of the table before them all with my heels together, and was only allowed to eat when they were having dessert. After dinner I shuffled in my fetters into the drawing room. Helen placed me in a chair with my feet on a satin footstool, gave me some embroidery to work at with my gloved fingers, and told me to be silent.
At ten o'clock she took the work away. 'You mustn't spoil your pretty eyes, dear,' she said. 'And you mustn't read a novel for you would soil those dainty white kid gloves with the cover, and you mustn't dance for your scarlet heels are too high. You had better come with me. Violet, will you come too?'
Helen slid back the panel of the punishment room, and made me lie face downward on a white satin ottoman. She placed a white satin cushion under my bosom to lift it up.
'Hold up your head, Evelyn High Heels. That's right.' She took a little patent leather strap and bound my white-gloved hands tightly behind me. Then she carefully turned up the lace frills and strapped my legs together above the knees. With a third biting little patent leather strap, she fixed my ankles together. Finally with a fourth strap, she tied my feet back to my hands in the most painful fashion.
'Violet will you see that Miss. High Heels keeps her pretty face up and does not move.'
Violet took a book and sat down in a comfortable chair beside the ottoman. She would not even deign to speak with me when I was dressed as Dennis.
I was so strained in my miserable position that I could not keep still, and holding my head back and face high in the air wracked my neck. Yet, if I stirred Violet pinched my calves mercilessly, and if I lowered my face to rest my neck, she boxed my ears until my head sang.
'I thought you loved me, Violet,' I said.
'I loved a very pretty girlfriend called Denise,' she replied coldly.
'How do you like being a man, Miss. High Heels? Keep your bright little slippers still! It is not entire joy being a man after all is it? It would have been, had you remained a girl.'
Helen and Miss. Priscilla came back in an hour, sent Violet to bed, and took down my knickers.
'We are going to start you off on your new career as a high-heeled young gentleman with a good birching,' said Helen.
Helen birched me in this ridiculous costume until I thought my head would burst. They removed my knickers and laid me again on my face on the ottoman. They doubled back my legs and tied my right foot up to my right gloved elbow, my left foot to the left elbow, my hands, of course, being still strapped behind me. Then they dragged my thighs apart and secured them in this position. Helen took a new birch. In her exquisite rustling frock of pink satin, her little satin slippers peeping restlessly out beneath the skirt, her face flushed and radiant with enjoyment, she looked wonderfully pretty. She stood beside me with her back to my head. Holding my left foot in her left hand, she flogged me between the thighs, attacking the soft white flesh viciously.
I screamed for mercy.
'You had better be thoroughly birched tonight, darling,' she said, 'The recollection will save my pretty Miss. High Heels many a birching in the future.'
The twigs split and slashed me between my thighs, curling up onto my stomach underneath and torturing the most tender parts of my body.
Then she set me free.
'Put on your knickers, Dennis,' Helen said with disdain.
Writhing with pain, I took off my slippers for I could not have gotten the tight knickers over my high heels. I drew on my pantaloons and knickers, and Miss. Priscilla fixed them up and buttoned and buckled the cod-piece at my poor, welted thighs. Then she removed my coat, stays, and chemise, stripping me naked from the waist upward. There were some panels of looking glass in the walls. How strange I looked in the reflection. The buckled slippers the silk stockings, the frills, the pretty black velvet knickers with the jewelled buttons-and rising out of them the white bosom and shoulders of a girl!
They forced me on the ottoman at the end to which a pair of stocks was fixed. They put me on my face, fixing my ankles in the stocks and my hands down to the legs of the ottoman.
'It is your turn now, Aunt,' Helen said to Miss. Priscilla.
I was sobbing as if my heart would break.
My thighs were on fire.
'Oh, please, no more,' I wept piteously.
Helen took a seat in front of me and slapped my tear-stained face with playful fingers.
'We are going to dress you in a scarlet corsage dear, which will go extremely well with your smart black velvet knickers. It will be a skin-tight decollete corsage, and Aunt Priscilla's birch will do all the dressmaking. I am not sure that it ought not to be a high-necked corsage. We will see. Go on, Auntie.'
Miss. Priscilla took a new birch, long and supple and horrible. She swished it up and down and then she began cutting my back from left to right, and afterward from right to left, carefully avoiding the skin of my shoulders, which an evening bodice would have exposed.
I struggle and yelled and sobbed.
'Oh, it's dreadful! It's intolerable! Oh, take all my fortune! Turn me out as a beggar! Only don't torture me!' I was feeling none of the pleasure with this pain, for I was not dressed in my lovely women's clothing.
Helen laughed and lifted up her lovely little pink satin slipper to my mouth.
'Kiss my foot, dear!'
I obeyed. The feel of her warm dainty instep under my lips almost made me forget the pain and terrible loss I was suffering.
'There, that will do,' said Miss. Priscilla. She released my hands and bound them behind me. I had no power of resistance. I was twitching and writhing and torn with sobs, but they had no pity for me. They turned me over on my back and then Miss. Priscilla birched my stomach. The agony of that punishment was the worst of all. When she released me, I was trembling from head to foot, my teeth were chattering, I was going to swoon.
'No nonsense, Miss. High Heels,' said Helen sternly.
'Stand up prettily in your bright-buckled slippers and pretty velvet knickers.'
She gave me some champagne and brandy. Then she took a little riding whip.
'Oh, no more!' I screamed in horror.
'We shall teach you obedience, darling. There is a good one and here's another. Oh, we'll cook you well. All your wealth. All your jewels. All your pretty clothes and high-heeled shoes won't save you.'
