Returning to my boarding-house, an untoward circumstance extricated me from my dilemma. Miss Rosey, full of joy, met me as soon as I went in, telling me she could grant me a few hours in her company that very evening. She had a ticket for the play, and permission to go out.
Having already seen the piece, she did not care to profit by her free admission to the playhouse, and besides, felt sure she would get much more fun out of a little flagellation.
So she decided to sacrifice scenic delights, preferring to meet me in some quiet retreat where, from nine o'clock until midnight, we could revel in the pleasures of our secret birching passion.
I was enchanted at the news, fitting in so well with my desires. We arranged an appointment at the door of the theatre, and I was off at once to discover the nest where we could take refuge to perform the rites of our religion. In a large town, such cosy nooks for lovers would surely abound, I thought.
There were yet three hours for me to pass before the hour of meeting. I made out that I had lots of time for my quest. As soon as I began my investigations, I found it was not so easy after all. Some inconvenience or the other prevented me from making a definite selection. Time went by like lightning, and my peregrinations were fruitless. The hour of the tryst drew nigh. I was on the verge of despair.
It was half-past seven when my luck changed at last. I was offered a little self-contained flat. There were three rooms, sumptuously furnished. I took it without haggling, for I only just had time to rush off and rejoin my sweet companion.
She wsa punctual at the spot agreed upon; neatly dressed; and as happy as a baby at the idea of our risky escapade.
“Have you brought some good rods?” was her first question.
“Great Caesar, no! I've quite forgotten them! It is really stupid of me! How was it I had not dreamt of the birches, although the teazing twigs continually haunted my thoughts? It's the first thing I ought to have thought of! Now, it's too late. Where on earth could we buy birch-rods at nine o'clock in the evening?
All the shops were shut. Florists, horticulturists, fruiterers-had put their shutters up an hour or more ago. The only tradesmen open were chemists, whose coloured lamps I could see from where I stood.
I was downcast, and felt very silly. Miss Rosey began to pout.
“We might find a riding-whip perhaps?” I suggested.
“There's not the slightest chance of that,” she rejoined. “Saddlers close at seven. Let's go look round a drug-store. We may light upon some implement or the other.”
At a couple of chemists, we found nothing to suit our purpose. Miss Rosey, not wishing to trouble the apothecaries for nothing, made me purchase some boxes of lozenges and chewing gum. Passing in front of a third druggist's emporium, Miss Rosey clapped her hands.
“The very thing!” she exclaimed, showing me in the window a packet of gutta-percha probes, having some vague resemblance to riding-whips.
I made haste to buy four, and Miss Rosey, her good humour returning, insisted on carrying them herself.
“At last!” she said. “I've found good implements and I'll teach you, sir, to forget to bring a birch. Your bottom will pay for your negligence.”
“My bottom,” I replied, “quivers with delight at the idea of expiating my wrong-doing at the hands of the most adorable lady-cashier in the States!”
“Laugh away,” she rejoined, “while you can. By and by, your bum will certainly quiver, but it won't be with delight. Of that you may be sure!”
In the cosy apartment, brilliantly illuminated by the electric lights, Miss Rosey jumped for joy, like a schoolgirl out for a holiday.
When, however, she tried the probes we had bought, by striking them on her hand, she doubted their efficacity.
“These things don't seem much good,” she said ruefully. “Let's look through the furniture. We might tumble on to a rod or a whip.”
She opened all the cupboards, searched in every drawer-there was nothing.
“It's dreadful,” she said. “Hasn't anybody ever been whipped in this place? Never mind, sir, get undressed quickly. We'll try the effect of rubber probes on your wicked skin.”
In the bedroom, garnished with rugs, curtains and hangings, a large, low bed was ready, offering us a comfortable exercise-ground.
“Get on that counterpane, and bare your big bum,” she said. “Now come to think of it-how am I to tie you down? You've thought of nothing! No rods; no ropes or straps to bind the victim! How am I to whip you? You deserve double punishment and I've got no reliable instrument with which I can apply it!”
Naked to my shirt, I was lying on my stomach, on the rich coverlet of the comfortable couch. She arranged my linen so as to expose my rump advantageously for punishment, and taking one of the probes, started beating me boldly. The india-rubber piping made a great noise, but I could support, without the least discomfort, the soft sonorous blows that the charming young woman dealt me, fatiguing herself greatly with little or no result.
Losing patience at my indifference, she took all the four probes in her little hand, and pulling up her sleeve put forth all her strength, flogging me as hard as she could.
The effect of her punishment was not a wit more terrible. On the contrary, the four probes made the blows duller and heavier. United, they certainly hurt much less.
As I saw the impotent efforts of my pretty girl, trying her utmost to make my penance perfect, I could not refrain from roaring with laughter.
“Ah, you grin, do you?” she exclaimed, as throwing the probes to the other end of the room, she fell upon me like a fury, driving her sharp finger-nails into my flesh; biting and pinching my buttocks. I was thrilled with intense joy, from the warmth of her mouth and the electric touch of her hands. I made no resistance, intoxicated by her celestial contact.
In her mad efforts, she rolled to the ground. It was my turn to rush to her assistance. Picking her up like a child, I carried her to the bed, gently laying her in the place I had just occupied.
“Let me be!” she said. “You are a monster to have got me into this excited state. I'm sick! I guess I'm going to have a nervous attack.”
I undid her shirtwaist. Two lovely white, plump gloves appeared to my dazzled eyes. I lost my head, and dared to cover the twin glories of her breast with gluttonous kisses.
“Leave me alone!” she said, struggling in my embrace. “What you've done to me is awful! You worked me up to the highest pitch of naughtiness! I felt quite lewd! And then you left me in the lurch without satisfying my craving for the birch. I order you to come here on Thursday. Then I'll bring some rods. We'll see whether you'll laugh under my lashing!”
She jumped off the bed, again in a pet. Her rage was comic. It was like a child's sullen fury.
“My word!” she shouted, stamping her little feet; “can't I find something I here to cut up your horrid old bum with?”
Again, she opened every cupboard, fumbling in all the drawers, but with the same ill-luck.
“Ah! A good idea strikes me!” she exclaimed, suddenly. “Take a napkin, roll it up tight-as tightly as you can. Then wet it to make it harder, and I'll see if I can't tame you!”
I plaited and twisted one of the fine linen towels until it assumed the form of a thin, ling, white snake. It looked a useful sort of assaulting article, and Miss Rosey seemed satisfied. She dipped this strange improvised scourge in the water jug, and after she had wrung it out, it looked strong and serviceable.
“Take your places for the quadrille! commanded Miss Rosey, quite delighted.
I stretched myself once more on the bed. She began to flog me with great and renewed energy. The spotless snake fell noisily on my bare hinder cheeks, at first causing me to shiver, for the towel was cold and damp. Miss Rosey, seeing me shudder, thought she hurt me very much, and was greatly pleased. She kept on striking me as hard as she could, with much graceful flourishing of her pretty arm.
The twisted towel got harder as it dried. It now stung a little. My flesh took on a rosy hue. Encouraged by this result, she grew more active, dealing me some rare stripes, skillfully applied. I was deliciously enthralled by the beating which inflamed the flesh of my rump and excited my senses of voluptuousness. I could willingly have submitted to more violent discipline.
Suddenly, the towel unrolled itself like a flag, and my young lady, deeply vexed, cast it far from her.
“It was going on so nicely-and now it's all stopped again. No, you've no heart nor conscience to play me such a trick! I had formed such hopes of enjoyment, as I thought of birching you! Oh, I do wish I'd gone to the theatre!”
“Dear Miss Rosey,” said I, trying to soothe her, “why trouble, when you'll get your own back on Thursday-”
“The deuce take Thursday!” she interrupted. “It was this evening that I wanted to flay you alive! I wonder if you know how to kiss a woman's feet, with new and unexpected caresses? Take my shoes off, quickly!”
With a great rustling whirl of silk and lace, she threw herself on the bed. Pulling her skirts up very high, she exposed to my enraptured gaze, her shapely legs, encased in black, transparent silk hose, and her little feet tightly clasped by pretty, patent-leather baby shoes.
I could not control my joy at the prospect of kissing her dainty, tiny tootsies, and after having unlaced her shoes with trembling fingers, I thrust my daring hands far into her silk petticoats, amid filmy lace, while the heady musk scent emanating from her underneath mysteries mounted to my brain and made me dizzy. I had been forced to be so audacious since I had to undo her broad garters which she wore above the knee. Gently, I pulled at her long stockings, as light as cobwebs, and soon I feasted my enchanted eyes on her naked rosy limbs and lovely pink feet.
I had never seen such magnificent, divine pedal extremities. They were chiselled like marvellous artistic statuary; perfect and delicate in line, colour and shape. Standing away from its companions, the big toe was cocked up saucily like an impudent retrousse nose, and the whole row of wee pink coral digits were tapered like fingers, with microscopical nails, rounded in the form of some pearly seashell.
My eager mouth devoured them. It was a divine tit-bit of delicious, fresh-flavoured fruit, such as must have grown in the garden of Eden.
“Again! Again! Keep on! You do it so nicely!” sighed my adorable creature, in a dying murmur of deep delight.
My greedy lips and tongue rendered due homage to this priceless pair of feet, licking, sucking and tonguing-first one and then the other; and lastly, both at once, until I had to hark back again, not knowing in which marvellous little nook I ought to stop and concentrate all the delight I tried to impart and the vast, sensuous, mad pleasure I kept on experiencing.
Her heels were finely moulded. The skin of her feet was soft and tender; smooth as satin and of a rosy shade. Here and there, the tint was deeper. At the root of the toes, on the ball of the foot, were amber splashes of colour, akin to the hue of old carved ivory. The instep, high and proudly arched, was crossed by an almost imperceptible bluish vein, meandering-a capricious arabesque-on the white surface; but the supreme wonders were her miniature, tiny toes, worthy of adoration, looking like a row of newborn Christ-like babes slumbering in cradles of lily-white silk.
My eyes and mouth were insatiable. I groaned with excess of lust. No man could have been more happy.