Clad in a simple blue frock of fine material and cut, a slight blonde girl of some nineteen years followed Francis Freeman from a side room into the sitting room of Rose Bolton, the following Saturday afternoon.
The woman who rose to meet her with obvious anxiety was a ripened edition of this youthful beauty-but the massed hair was of a darker gold, tinged with a ruddy hue. She, too, was somewhat pale and nervous-but she strove to hide her shakiness as she held out her arms to the girl.
“Nothing to be frightened over, Louise,” she said-and her daughter ran across the room into her embrace.
“Ohh! Mother!” exclaimed Louise, “this gentleman- Mr. Freeman-says we have transgressed the law in letting Mrs. Bolton's account run up so high. We may be disgraced even-unless we follow his advice and directions.”
“He is in charge of her affairs now-and he will protect us against possible disclosures to father-and fix it for us to obtain lenient terms, provided we do whatever he has in mind for us. We have gotten into a dreadful mess, he says and probably only he can extricate us.”
“I know something about it, dear,” soothed Doris very gently. “Mr. Freeman is right, it seems. Our only hope is in submission to his suggestions-even though we suffer in our finer instincts and fail to understand the real necessity of all he will…”
“That blue gown.” she had said, just prior to his brief interview with Louise, “that gown was one of the last items charged to the girl. A hundred and sixty dollars!”
His eyes flashed under the impulse of a sudden and daring thought. “And what about the tan silk dress her mother is wearing?” he asked Rose.
“That was made here, too-and of course never paid for,” replied Rose regretfully. “It wouldn't surprise me, if apart from their hats and shoes and stockings, every single stitch on them came from my atelier.”
in the girl's lovely little face was an expression of wondering apprehension tinged with an certain relief-for was not this man going to save them from their difficulties if they followed his instructions fully.
“I think it looks well, too!” she acknowledged. “I'm so light of hair and my coloring is faint, so that this shade seems to set me off beautifully!”
He nodded approval. “And the workmanship is so very stylish.” he remarked. “May I see the lines-how it hangs — and how it is made? I have some thought that perhaps a blonde niece of mine would be pleased to have one just like it.”
“Ohh! mother,” she said protestingly. “You don't have to smooth me all over like that. Mr. Freeman can see quite well how the dress hangs-without your rubbing and pulling me everywhere. Why-I feel quite…”
“I feel just as if I were being massaged,” she concluded. “And you make me-project so-when you do that… every single curve I've got-my bosom and my… my… seat-”
“Since your curves seem to be ideal,” remarked the man, “you hardly need to worry over that. Is the gown well made in all other respects? Underneath as well as on the outside?”
“Mother!” half shrieked Louise. “You're uncovering me! You seem to forget that I haven't an underskirt on — just my… my undies!”
Doris had maintained a certain semblance of maternal composure but she squirmed strangely on her chair as, yielding to his tacit request to be shown the underside of the skirt, she so clumsily contrived to display to him a considerable extent of her daughter's lovely legs as well.
“Our daughters wear very little underneath their dress these days-even in winter,” she joked to Francis.
“Could that dress be, by any chance,” he said slowly, “a production of this establishment?”
Mother and daughter flushed and exchanged a quick glance. They were silent. He turned to Rose-sitting in the background.
“Yes, that is one of the articles charged, sir,” she said in a low voice.
“Then we'll regain this property at once,” he remarked sternly. “It is beyond all reason that this young lady should be so wonderfully clad at your expense. I am sorry. Miss Louise, but you will have to surrender that gown at once!”
“Ohh! But Mr. Freeman!” stammered Louise… as she clutched at her bosom as if threatened by a violent attack on her attire. “I-please… I have so little on underneath-as mother says. And I have nothing to wear home… if I must part with this!”
“You admit the injustice of your being so expensively clad when it is Mrs. Bolton's pocket which pays the bill?” he inquired coldly.
“Yes… y-yes!” she faltered. “But I'll work-I'll do anything-I can to pay…except tell father. I'll even go to my cousin Jack Belt and try to borrow the money!”
“You will not go to Jack,” quavered Doris agitatedly. “How can you think of approaching a man whom I forbade the house-because he thrust his head in at the bathroom door at a time when he knew you were there completely undressed. And he showed himself to you, too, under the pretence that he did not know you were looking-You most certainly cannot see him again!”
“Mother-ohh! How can y-you give such… intimate details about… m-me-before others?”
“Did this man, your cousin, see you entirely naked. Louise?” inquired Freeman interestedly.
“He… he did, yes-the horrid thing!” mourned the girl, flushing scarlet. “I was all undressed and stepping into the tub-and I heard a sound, so I turned around and… there he was-just gaping at m-me! I covered my… my bare-and screamed and mother came running!”
“I don't know,” observed Francis softly, “that he was so much to blame for wishing to see you unclad. You must be very lovely in that state-and no man could be blamed for contriving to…”
“Ohh! O-o-o-h!” gasped the confused and abashed girl looking at him with shamed eyes of the clearest, blue. “You could not defend this youth-he's twenty… if you knew more of his behaviour.” interposed Doris, coming to the rescue of her dismayed daughter.
“He actually had the temerity to display to this child his-male appendages… and in an excited state-an hour or so after this episode in the bathroom. It was then I ordered him from the house, though I had overlooked his previous fault on his plea that he did not know that Louise was in her bath.”
“But this lovely Louise is not exactly a child… at the age of nineteen,” said Francis mildly.
“And,” he continued, “Jack may have felt that turn about is fair play-and that since he had seen his lovely cousin in every detail, she was entitled to the same privilege with him.
“Ohhh… privilege;” exclaimed Doris. “How can you call it that?”
“In any event.” he said, “we seem to be straying from the business of the moment-which is the immediate delivery of this unpaid for gown to Mrs. Bolton-who will act as my agent in receiving it!”
“Louise! The dress if you please!” he added, looking at her uncompromisingly.
Louise gave a low cry of dismay and her mother sighed heavily as she moved uneasily in her chair.
“It's my prettiest street frock,” mourned the distracted girl, “and I don't know how-I can get home… without it. I have nothing else!”
“That will be attended to,” he promised.
“Then I'll just go into the next room-and take it off,” said Louise gloomily. “I could cry over it-I love it so very much…”
“Here and now-I said!” repeated Francis.
“But… good heavens-to take it off…. you're asking an indecency of me!” quavered Louise.
“Unfortunately for you-you are not here to have your feelings considered. You have incurred punishment… and you will receive it!” he told her firmly.
“Ohhh… mother!” wailed Louise imploringly.
“I fear, my darling… that you will have to obey him,” faltered Doris. “You see, he-Mr. Freeman-is in the position to enforce his orders.”
“But… but I have only-one other thing on-besides the dress,” stammered the girl. “How can I undress like that-before a man? Ohh… if you would only go outside sir, and let me turn the dress over to Mrs. Bolton — please, sir!”
“My patience is at an end,” be announced. “You have ten seconds, Louise, to be outside of that garment.”
He held his watch up before the vividly blushing girl, who merely sighed and trembled and wrung her hands… and then looked desperately at her mother for help.
“You will be sorry for this rebellion, Louise!” he said quietly, as he returned the watch to his pocket.
“Ohh… please he gentle-with her-a maiden!” wailed Doris distractedly. “I… I-if you have any decency for me after what has passed…”
“After what has passed between us. I suppose you want to say,” he said placidly. “Apropos of that-it might be as well to give your daughter some idea of how firmly I can act in case of need. Possibly she may be led to see the real uselessness of resistance-if you offer yourself as a sacrifice for her? Yes… I consent for the moment, to spend on you the indignation she has aroused!”
With great, woebegone, shamed eyes, the beautiful Doris looked at him imploringly as he motioned curtly towards the couch.
“You need no telling as to the penitent's attitude and garb,” he said. “Twice already you have raised your skirt and bared your bottom to me, so let there be no delay!”
The woman moaned as she took two dragging steps toward the sofa. Then she halted.
“Ohh! If only Louise could go out…” she whispered. “Couldn't Rose just… take her away?”
The startled Louise looked on in bewilderment-and entire innocence of what this all portended… “I… I would be willing,” came the perturbed voice of Rose Bolton, “to take Miss Louise away for a little while… so that-”
“Would you indeed?” he grated. “And would you be willing to refrain from interfering with my arrangements and would you be willing to take your place there by Doris's side? I think it might be as well for Louise's lesson to be redoubled-it might impress her more sharply. So — hurry up and get over there this instant!”
The indiscreet interrupter wailed softly. She crossed the room and sinking to a kneeling position beside Mrs. Tasker she bowed her head in shame. The petrified girl. Louise, feeling herself to be in a perfect nightmare, looked at both these well bred women lifting their skirts high up over the twin mounds of their naked bottoms.
“Ohh… o-o-o-h mother!” gasped Louise. “And Mrs. Bolton… have you both gone crazy?”
“Very lovely, aren't they, Louise?” Francis said softly and gloatingly. “See how charming the bottom of your mother… even though she appears slender when fully clad… shows up beside the ample backside of Rose.”
“I have had to forbid them the luxury of drawers for the past few days. They are handier to get at when thus clad… or rather-unclad. Come over here-and pet them a little. They are about to suffer-and for your own fault… come-”
The mother groaned softly in shame as she listened to her daughter's confused outcry-but she nevertheless continued steadfastly to project her nude and devoted bottom toward whatever fate it might be doomed to suffer. But the way in which her twin mounds shrank and quivered as she knelt there showed her apprehension of the punishment to come.
“You see, Louise, I was compelled yesterday to administer spankings to both of these lovely ladies before they would agree to my requests. I think I told you to come here… and pet them both. Do you hear me?”
“Ohh! God in heaven!” gasped the shamed and still quite incredulous virgin.
He raised his right hand and delivered a ringing slap on the soft cheek of Doris's behind. She jumped and cried out and her daughter's cry responded to hers.
“You see… to avoid jealousy,” he explained, and then smacked the splendid bottom of Rose also… drawing a sigh which was part groan from her lips. He raised his hand ominously over the blushing rear of Mrs. Tasker.
Crack came his palm on the snowy and yielding flesh. A louder cry resounded this time in response.
“Not… not s-so h-hard-ohh-p-please!” begged the woman. “It's sorer than yesterday and I can feel only the smarting pain.”
“You mean instead of what you finally felt yesterday?” he said. “Which made you feel a white bodied, rosy assed and frantic bacchante-ready for any indulgence I demanded of you. If Rose was designed to be kept under the control of a man, I am certain you were intended to be kept under his castigation.”
“Keep your legs together,” he directed with assumed severity. “You are exposing yourself revoltingly to both Louise and myself. Take pattern by Doris… who clenches her thighs tightly together-even when she is smitten.”
“To be sure, she is probably conscious all the time of a certain transformation in front, and wished to conceal it from her daughter.”
“Ohh God…” wailed Louise, uncomprehending his cynical comments, but shaken to the core as she saw him raise his hand once more over her mother's bare bottom. “Don't beat her any more-I can't stand it!”
“Then you know how to stop it,” he remarked. “You have only to obey my instructions.”
“What… ohh! W-what m-must I do?” she whispered.
“You must show a kindly spirit-by caressing and petting the lovely bottoms of both your mother and Mrs. Bolton,” he said. “Ease the smart of their burning backsides if you can, with the caresses of your soft hands.”
“In the valleys too,” he directed in a whisper. “It's useless unless you are thorough, Louise.”
“Please-ohh God… please don't make her… d-do t-this,” quavered the shamed Doris. “A young girl… and in-my own child-it's terrible!”
“She shouldn't mind-since you're both women,” he said mildly. “If one of you were her cousin Jack, for example, she might well be more perturbed. Satisfy yourself, Louise, that they are both of your own sex.”
The girl swayed on her feet eyeing him with drooping shame. “You are being more and more disgusting… every minute!” she faltered indignantly.
“No… ohh, no! Can't you see how much she is suffering already?” cried Louise desperately.
“Run your fingers in between each pair of thighs!” he ordered imperiously. “Clear down, mind you. Pet their little slits-you hear me, girl? I don't know what keeps me from lining you up beside them-with your skirt up and your little pink bottom in full view!”
“Stop… stop! Ohh… I will do it!” cried the girl feverishly, as her mother moaned and twisted under the harsh blows.
“Mother-please forgive me… for doing this!” cried Louise. “I have to touch you-there… to save you from being spanked brutally!”
“I think you are being recalcitrant, Doris,” he said. “It teems as if you are unwilling to permit Louise to perform the soothing gesture which I had asked her to do. You are only making it more embarrassing for all of us. Will you lie there and part your legs nicely and let us see her pet you a trifle?”
Doris groaned and wailed… and now her fine thighs drew somewhat apart.
“Now then, Louise…” he said, as he withdrew his hand from between her legs.
“What an unspeakable thing to make me do!” said the girl thickly. “Mother, mother darling… forgive me- you know how I am compelled…”
Anil Doris gaspingly resisted again-wholly unwilling that her daughter should discover the transformation that the man's caprice had wrought on the front view of her charmingly denuded sex.
“You may get up ladies!” he announced politely.
Doris and Rose slowly scrambled to their feet, their skirts dropping around them.
“Louise.” he observed softly. “Now that you have seen how thoroughly I punish and humiliate those who are foolish enough to oppose me, perhaps you will not hesitate any more in removing that blue gown and handing it to Mrs. Bolton immediately.”
Taking the skirt by the hem, she lifted it up the slim lines of her pretty legs, uncovering an expanse of silken stockings-and also the snowy thighs above them. She slid it over her rounded hips, past the swell of her fine buttocks, and then clear of her girlish breasts. Over her head with one single gesture-and she stood before them in blushing confusion and dismay.
And now, as flaring crimson and clasping the discarded garment desperately to her instead of yielding it to Mrs. Bolton, Louise stood there in just her undies and stockings and shoes, it became evident that she had sound reasons for her dread of even partially disrobing before male eyes-of any age at all.
“You think, Doris,” he enquired at length, “that this thin gown and this diaphanous undergarment is sufficient for protection for this tender body in our winter weather?”
“She… she wears a heavy fur coat,” Doris defended herself hastily and tremulously. “Besides, girls do pretty much as they like nowadays… in both dress and… other matters!”
“But the beauty of her skin might suffer,” he criticised. It would be a crime to allow such lovely thighs to become roughened by the winter weather. Come here, Louise, and let me feel your thighs.”
“Give the gown to Mrs. Bolton, Louise!” he commanded the girl.
Mechanically she moved as if to comply — and then, seeing how all her body was revealed through the fragility of her undergarment in its most intimate details, she gave a little cry and drew the dress about her once more.
“I fear, Doris,” he said placidly, “that you have not trained Louise to instant obedience. You and I will have a reckoning on that point later. Meanwhile, I think that you had better set her a good example by removing and returning to Rose the gown which you have on-which also has not been paid for as yet.”
The beautiful Mrs. Tasker paled… but she complied at once with his order. With her marvelous bronze gold hair topped by a daintily coquettish hat — with a short chemise of creamy silk barely concealing hips and crotch and leaving the lower curves of her lovely buttocks on display-with her handsome legs clad in gauzy silk stockings to half way up her thighs-Doris presented the loveliest of pictures.
She was so glorious in her disarray and her shame that, even though he had enjoyed her lovely body to the full the previous day, Francis vibrated ardently to the sight.
“Follow your mother's example, Louise,” he directed. “Give Mrs. Bolton your gown — which is of course her property and not yours.”
And as the scantily clad girl still hesitated, he sighed mockingly at her-and turned back to Doris Tasker in simulated regret.
“I had hoped to spare you, Doris!” he said. “But really! Louise is so obstinate that I must take extreme measures with you in my attempt to appeal to her better nature. Come here-Doris… lie over my left thigh and lift your chemise in the rear up to the small of your back.”
The bright color flooded anew over the face of the poor Doris Tasker as she gave this renewed evidence of the lascivious and utter domination which the man held over her and Mrs. Bolton.
His left arm went about her body. He had planted his left foot on a low stool. She gasped-and with good reason, for his broad palm supporting her body did so by invading the soft, hairless mound of her sex… while upon her naked hip was pressed the exciting and throbbing shaft of his concealed virility.
Wide eyed and shuddering, Louise witnessed this weak and disgraceful display of her mother's abject yielding to this new shame. She saw Francis raise his right hand in the air for the first smack upon the doomed behind. Her mother's body anticipated the blow… and twisted away in a gesture of fright. Her parted legs writhed across his thigh, disclosing all her secret charms.
“Stop… stop!” quavered the trembling girl hoarsely, as she eyed her mother's pink and moistly opening slit with a mixture of horror and delight.
“I will do what you say-I will take off anything… I will let you see-do-whatever you say! But… don't… please don't spank my mother again! Mrs. Bolton- here is the dress…”