“Call me George, ma pigeonсe,” he murmured and his fingers played with her pretty, soft hands, his head nearing her golden head.
“This is too much! Marie, I command you to leave this dubious gentleman. He is going to aid me in escaping this detestable place!” exclaimed Marcia, her eyes burning with annoyance and chagrin, for never in her pampered life had she been treated with such cool effrontery.
“DO you want to escape from me, ma belle Marie?” murmured the masked stranger gently and his right hand cupped the soft, exquisite chin of the golden-haired young beauty, turning her blushing face toward his.
“N-no, Georges -…“ she faltered and her voice was thrilling in its nuances of submission and coquetry.
“Marie! You hussy! Leave him, it’s your mistress who commands you!” stormed Marcia.
“Will you prove you do not want to escape with a tender kiss, my sweet Marie?” murmured the masked stranger, as if Marcia had not spoken.
And, closing her lovely eyes, proffering her soft mouth, parting her red, sweet lips in a gentle moue of compliance, her hands holding his, quivering under the gentle, amorous pressure of his enfolding left arm, the golden-haired Marie offered her lips to his. He fused his mouth on hers and held her in his embrace, with a long and thrilling kiss. The girl sighed amorously.
Marcia could bear it no longer. The spectacle of her maid completely forgetting her allegiance and giving herself up to the first corner so wantonly, the terror of her own plight, the anger at being disdained as if she had.no beauty whatsoever, was maddening to her vaunted self-esteem.
And, advancing to the divan, she seized Marie by the wrists and dragged the girl from the amorous embrace And when Marie was on her feet, her face crimson with delicious confusion, Marcia, summoning all her anger into a single blow, slapped Marie full across the mouth, setting her teeth in a rictus of hatred and revulsion.
“Oh, mam’selle!” cried the startled girl.
But, as she writhed to escape Marcia’s reprisal, the masked stranger rose and, with a single step, was on the combatants. He seized Marcia by the hair and dragged her head back till she cried out in pain and relinquished her grasp on Marie’s Wrists.
Then, imprisoning her wrists behind her back and keeping them rigorously maintained in his left hand~ he drew from the pocket of his tuxedo a long, thin, but sturdy cord.
“Marie,” he said masterfully, “you are going to prove your affection for me; if you do, I shall help you escape. But your mistress stays here. Will you aid me?”
Marcia struggled like a snake, squirming, trying to kick, turning her head in an agonized attempt to bite the stranger, to set herself free from the contaminating touch of a man. “Oooh! You beast! Let me go! Marie, if you help him, I’ll have you sent to prison! Do you hear, you little bitch?”
Tossing the cord to Marie, who caught it mechanically, standing, her eyes wide at the turn of events, the stranger calmly raised his right hand and cuffed Marcia… once… twice thrice… across the mouth! “That is for Marie,” he said calmly. “And now, my little one, let us tie up your mistress. Ah, I see an excellent place!”
Dragging Marcia, despite her struggles, her attempts to plant her pump-shod feet and recalcitrance, the stranger brought her to the wall beside the divan.
There, set into the woodwork, were two metal rings, placed wide apart.
He forced her with her back to the wall. Marie advanced, holding the rope.
Marcia’s eyes were wild. “I warn you, Marie! Don’t you dare! Let me go, you fool! My father will have you killed for this!”
Forcing her arms apart, thrusting her hands into the rings, standing against her, leaning on her so that she could not escape, the stranger planted his palms against her wrists and his strength, wiry and sinewy, prevented her from escaping. Her head flung from side to side, her body surged against him in desperate, sinuous attempts to regain her freedom.
Marie approached at the left and, making a slipknot of one end of the rope, encircled Marcia’s left wrist to the ring; then, curling the rope around her mistress’s neck, resumed its continuation to the right side, where she fastened the rest of the rope in a rigorous knot that imprisoned the beautiful debutante’s delicate right wrist to the ring.
Then and only then, did the stranger step quickly to one side and contemplate the handiwork of the lovely maid.
Marcia stood, a magnificent, svelte figure of feminine beauty, molded in the rich, lustrous black fabric which caressed her provocative hips, her long, firm thighs, sculpturally set into sensual relief the turrets of her breasts, heaving with shock and indignation.
Arms spread far apart, she was delineated in all the accentuated and enticing lines and curves of her pampered body; the running noose around her ivory neck prevented her from flinging her raven head about in futile efforts to escape; for each motion of her neck but tightened the cord and so constricted her delicate throat with menacing strangulation.
When she could control her trembling, almost hysterical nerves, she exclaimed, “I’ll kill you for this, Marie! And you, you beast, my father will have you thrown into prison for the rest of your life!”
“Still talkative, Marie,” observed the masked stranger, turning to the lovely blond, who made an entrancing portrait of feminine loveliness in her chemise, stockings and dainty sandals. “Well, she shan’t disturb our becoming good friends, shall she?”
“N-no… Georges…
“Let me have the handkerchief I see at your bodice, my lovely Marie!”
Marie flushed exquisitely; her dainty fingers plucked the silk from the valley of her bosom, where she had placed it at the opening of her gossamer brassiere and she handed it to the masked man, her lips forming a coquettish moue of pudicity that was delicious to behold.
Without a word, the man took the arrogant, aquiline nose between thumb and left forefinger and as Marcia opened her lips to cry out, he buried the scented kerchief in her lovely mouth; then, swiftly, he took his own handkerchief from the lapel pocket of his tuxedo coat and applied it over Marcia’s red mouth, knotting it tight at the back of her neck.
Thus she was speechless and fettered, powerless, compelled to watch the spectacle of her maid’s yielding to the first “caller” of this indisputable bordello!
And her widened eyes, gleaming with furious humiliation and offended dignity, must behold the ultimate offense to her beauty: the stranger’s preference for her own despised young maid Marie!
Oh, it was maddening; her fingers clenched and unclenched, she stamped her feet-that, at least, she could do-but, disregarding her completely, the masked stranger returned to the divan, one arm fondly encircling Marie’s adorably bare white shoulders.
Marcia’s eyes turned to regard the strange couple, widened, humid with apprehension and wrath.
The masked man sat very close to the exquisite young maid and now his right hand stole forth gently and rested on the hem of her chemise, which caressed the edges of her silken-embraced, dimpled, rounded knees.
“Oh… monsieur… you must not…“ she murmured, turning.her face to him and giving him a demure, shy glance between quivering golden lashes.
“You are very lovely, Marie,” murmured the man, his left arm holding her tight against him; her soft fingers entreated his pilfering right hand to move from the attainment of her knees, but, insistent, he lingered his fingers on the white chemise hem, their tips gently palpating, stroking, to sense the flesh of her thighs beneath the silk and the mesh.
A lovely blush flamed her milky cheeks.
“Please, Georges… I… I… don’t… want you to…“ she murmured.
And, as she turned her face up toward his, he bent and applied his mouth against hers in an amorous kiss. And Marcia, trembling with fury and revulsion at being compelled to watch this degrading scene, saw Marie’s soft, slender fingers move over the masked stranger’s right hand, which reposed so provocatively on one enchantingly rounded and silken-kissed soft knee.
The young girl seemed at first hesitant; but as the kiss continued, prolonged its ecstatic moment, she yielded; it was plain that her body undulated toward the male, that her mouth fused more passionately with his, that her fingers fluttered in. delight against his pilgrimaging hand. And he, moved by Marie’s sweet submission, let his left hand rise to her golden head, furling his fingers gently, languidly, in her lustrous chignon.
The harlot, thought Marcia, white with anger and shame and she tossed her head to one side, only to be reminded of the fetter by the immediate response of the noose, which tightened around her ivory throat.
At last Mr. George-for it is simpler to call him that as Lil did-withdrew his lips from the trembling, soft, moist mouth of the quivering young girl, whose blue eyes gazed into his with a humid and languorous expression… the prelude of desire.
“You are very sweet, Marie,” he murmured, stroking her hair, now caressing her fingers playfully, circling her delicate white wrists with right thumb and forefinger, “and you are not afraid of me, are you, ma toute belle et exquise, mon amoureuse divine?”
“Oh, non, non… Georges… pas du tout vous tes si gentil… si doux,” murmured the blond beauty, sighing as she felt her shoulders circled so masterfully by his left arm, which brushed the bare flesh with amorous entreaty.
Provocative she was in this intimate dishabille and most stirring to the senses, because she was submissive, yielding and candid in her acceptance of desire-all the attributes that Marcia could not and would not possess.
Now gently placing his hands upon her milky forearms and, bending his head, he kissed her fleetingly in that most amorously bewitching niche which is the dimpled, thrilling feminine shoulder hollow.
Marie quivered, her eyes closed and slowly, her golden head fell back, tautening her delicious naked throat, in which the pulse throbbed with a cadence that was sensual in its rhythmic affirmation… and his lips, rising from that sweet niche of girlish flesh, paid homage to the purity of her throat, kissing the pulse exquisitely and she sighed languorously, half swooning under the savoring intoxication of his calculating, artistic caresses.
Marcia, for all her loathing, was compelled to wonder, she had read that lustful men sought out brothels surreptitiously to give vent to their most bestial desires-but this amorous badinage was gentle, refined, the communion of an esthete and his beloved. It was strange. Who was this man who called himself Mr. George? And how was it, yes, how could it be, that Marie, the gentle and modest Marie, gave herself so willingly to a stranger’s caresses?