Innocence Examined

by Emily Tilton

  But in the four days that followed that strange revelation, nothing else to give Caroline hope appeared. On Tuesday, Vance, growing increasingly suspicious as the day of the ceremony drew near, appointed Mary to keep watch on Caroline’s baths, and that put an end to any honest conversation among them. Sympathetic smiles were all Caroline received from then until Saturday morning, the start of the day appointed for her ordeal upon the stage.

  Sir Gerald and Mr. Vance came to get her from her cell. They bound her hands and led her upstairs, so that they could show her that the stage and the turntable had been duly constructed. She had breakfast by herself, still dressed only in the belt, her hands still bound so that it was terribly difficult to eat and drink. Then she had to make water for both Mr. Vance and Sir Gerald, blushing hotly as she felt her guardian’s eyes fixed upon the virgin cunny he promised himself the pleasure of deflowering that very night.

  James was nowhere to be seen. Had he departed? Surely not.

  “Now,” said Mr. Vance, “we have decided that you will greet the guests as they come in, so that they can see what a delectable young woman will serve their lusts tonight.”

  They led Caroline into the foyer, where some sort of post, or column, had been set up. To her horror, she saw that it must be an old-fashioned whipping post. She tried to shy away, saying, “No, please,” but they bound her to it by a chain at the post’s top that they affixed to the leather thong around her wrists.

  “Shall we whip her now?” asked Sir Gerald.

  “No, Gerrie,” said Mr. Vance. “That would be too cruel, I think. She has a long day ahead of her.”

  There Caroline stood for the next hours, as preparations for the grand entertainment went on around her, though she had no way to tell the time. Once, she had to call out for Mr. Vance to come let her make water, but he did not come and Caroline finally had to release the agony of her bladder with a sob, out around the terrible belt and onto the marble of the foyer floor, where it puddled around the post. When Mr. Vance walked by later and noticed, he said, “Very pretty, Caroline. We shall whip you for that in just a little while, when the whole party has assembled,” and kept walking.

  Finally, from the apparent subsiding of the preparations, it seemed that the household now awaited only the arrival of the boat from the mainland, carrying Dr. Brown and his party of natural men. The island’s little harbor lay out of sight from the door of the grand house, beyond a low hill over which Caroline knew the men who came to enjoy her would make their way.

  Anne and Charlotte and Mary, all dressed in formal gowns, came to stand next to her. When Charlotte saw the puddle, she said in a voice that seemed to Caroline new and strange, “Oh, the beast. He has done that to me many a time.” Charlotte’s tone seemed almost flippant, and now she gave a little giggle, as if being made to pee on the floor were not a terrible thing, or at least not from every point of view. Caroline wondered if something about their conversation on Sunday had changed Charlotte’s feelings about the way she spoke of—perhaps even the way she thought of—how Mr. Vance treated her.

  The footmen, along with the butler Martin, had gone outside to await the guests. Anne whispered to Caroline, “They saw the boat coming, an hour since.”

  “Where is James?” Caroline whispered back desperately, not caring whether Mary heard, for would they not whip Caroline anyway?

  “They have made him stay in his chamber above. I think they will let him out to play his part in your ceremony, once Dr. Brown is here to supervise.”

  Just at that moment, Caroline heard footfalls on the grand staircase behind her, and she turned, awkwardly because of her hands bound to the post above, to see that James had come down the stairs, dressed for dinner, just as the others. He rushed to her and kissed her.

  Mary said, “You must stop that!”

  Anne said, “Hush, girl.”

  Then, suddenly, Caroline heard Sir Gerald give a great shout of laughter. She turned in James’ arms, but she could see nothing out the big open door of the house but the backs of the footmen. James was unfastening her from the whipping post, she realized.

  He murmured, “I am going to free you now, and whatever happens, we will leave—in the rowboat, if we have to.”

  “No!” she said. “Don’t do that—not yet.”

  Clearly mystified, he stopped. The laughter seemed to have taken him by surprise as well.

  Then Caroline saw them, through the backs of the footmen. They were coming, and… they were wearing gowns. All Caroline could see of them were their identical grey worsted, starchily petticoated gowns, and she could see more of those gowns than she could count, coming down the hill and filling all the gaps between the legs and torsos of the footmen, in the bright April sunshine.

  “What in the world?” James said.

  Anne darted forward to get a better look. Then she turned and, with an enormous, puzzled smile on her face, she said, “They are girls. Dr. Brown has brought…” here it appeared that Anne tried quickly to count them, “…twenty girls.”

  “What?” Caroline asked. “And no men?”

  Anne shook her head. Now Charlotte went to join her.

  “James,” Caroline asked, “what does it mean?”

  He shook his head. “I guess—and it is no more than a guess—Dr. Brown has brought them as a kind of gift to Sir Gerald and Mr. Vance, to exchange for you.”

  They had to wait for several minutes, before Sir Gerald led in Dr. Brown and Mr. Vance. After them came in the butler and the footmen. Each man had two girls with him, one on each of his arms. The girls looked to be between the ages of eighteen and twenty, and all looked as pretty as a picture, even in grey worsted. To Caroline’s astonishment, as soon as they entered the foyer they began to take off their gowns, corsets, and petticoats, revealing bodily charms to rival those of any bevy of nymphs in a mythological painting. Caroline felt rather like she had been wrapped in a dream, or a pagan sacred vision.

  Sir Gerald, Mr. Vance, and Dr. Brown strode up to where James stood next to Caroline’s whipping post, still holding her protectively. Dr. Brown looked around, caught sight of Anne, Charlotte, and Mary standing off to the side in animated conversation, and said, “You girls had better get your clothes off. The plans have changed. You’ll have some new friends now, and you shall teach them how to serve men’s natural rights. Go ahead now, everything off. Then the footmen will take all of you into the receiving hall and put you over the side of the stage together, with your backsides to the room.”

  Caroline looked up at James. He was regarding Dr. Brown with narrowed eyes.

  “Fairleigh,” said Dr. Brown, “so very good to see you. Here is how matters stand. Back in London, I told these gentlemen that I wanted to spread my theory one way, when in fact I truly want to spread it quite a different way. The men I have brought on my special train are not, as you can see, men after all, but girls. Orphan girls, to be precise, all tested by me and proven to be just such girls as Anne, Charlotte, Mary, and Caroline are: that is, girls made by nature to recognize the natural rights of men, and to take their greatest pleasure from the experience of those rights being exercised upon them with the most rigor possible.

  “I knew that Mr. Vance, you see, would be difficult to convince of the truths contained in the sixth section of my essay. A major demonstration was necessary, and you, Fairleigh, and you, Miss Hollins, fell into my way at just the right time. I positioned you to fall in love, and you did. Then I had to send you all away, so that I could gather my orphan girls, for I knew that only with such a bevy of beauties in the offing would Mr. Vance renounce his policy of refusing you girls the babies that are your own natural right, and fully adopt my doctrine of polynymphy. What do you have to say to that, Mr. Vance, now that you see that while your dear Charlotte grows great with child, you will have these charming orphan girls with whom to disport yourself polynymphically?”

  Mr. Vance shook his head and laughed, seemingly in spite of himself. “Consider me conquered, Brown
. But now there is the matter of Miss Caroline to which to attend, is there not? Certainly the mere presence of so many pretty cunts and bottoms in the receiving hall does not take away Sir Gerald’s right to deflower her, and to share her?”

  “Not as such,” admitted Dr. Brown. “But I believe that when you reflect upon your own feelings about Miss Dalrymple, and consider how you would ask Fairleigh to uphold your right to her affection even as you offer him a casual ride in her cunt, in the new light which I hope to have shed upon it by giving you at last a reason to procreate with her, you will see the matter differently.”

  “I think I see what you are on about, Brown,” interjected Sir Gerald. “Fairleigh’s and Caroline’s love for one another makes another kind of natural, right? Is that what you mean?”

  “Precisely, Sir Gerald,” said Dr. Brown. “If she were not in love with him, nor he with her, this sort of ceremony—the sort I held out before you merely as the lure to allow Caroline and James to pursue their love while I prepared to change Vance’s mind—though perhaps rather extreme, would have been most certainly within the bounds of natural masculine rights.” He turned to Caroline. “Miss Hollins, I suspect that you were actually rather looking forward to this evening. Am I correct in that suspicion?”

  Caroline nodded, blushing, unable to speak in the rush of her emotions.

  “Well, then,” continued Dr. Brown, “at some future date, we will have to bring it about, and the inspiration of your submissive nature will spread throughout Great Britain, just as I held out as my first plan. But for now I believe that since there are cunts and arses enough in the next room for you gentlemen, for me, and for all your servants, the next declaration belongs to Fairleigh. James, what is your will for this girl who now belongs to you?”

  Caroline could hardly look at James now, but before she had to turn her eyes away with yet another blush, she saw a smile—accompanied by a little blush of his own—break out on his face.

  “I think,” he said, “I should like to whip her, and then take her to my chamber, and there unlock her chastity belt and make a woman of her.”

  “Whip me?” Caroline cried.

  “Of course,” said Dr. Brown. “And do not pretend that it does not prepossess you in his favor that he wishes to whip you to demonstrate just how thoroughly he claims you.”

  Epilogue

  James made a woman of Caroline long into the first night of April, 1863. He had not whipped her hard with the cat, but he had certainly whipped her hard enough that she felt claimed, and she understood just how much the whipping did prepossess her in James’ favor.

  As he whipped her, while the sounds of debauchery from the grand salon grew more and more frantic, he talked quietly to her.

  “Caroline, you must resolve to be a good girl for me,” he said, and lashed her quivering bottom-cheeks.

  “Yes, James,” she cried.

  “You will soon have my cock inside you.” He lashed her upon the back.

  “Yes, please, sir!”

  “And I will fuck you ever so hard!” His breath came harsh from his chest, and Caroline wondered whether his cock were very stiff. She longed for him to unlock the terrible belt and plunge himself at last into her burning cunny.

  But he gave her one final lash, and then he loosed her hands from the post. As she fell to the side, nearly swooning, James picked her up and without hesitating for an instant, carried her up the grand staircase to his bedroom. Her punished bottom, thighs, and back told her that she belonged to the man who had known to whip her that way, and she did not think there could be a feeling more heavenly than that one.

  James laid her on the bed, and Caroline thought he would unlock the belt and finally take her with his cock, but instead he stood next to the bed and undressed, laying his clothes upon the chair in the corner, and then at last turning to her, entirely naked. His hard cock stood out at her, as if commanding her obedience, and James said, “Come here and kneel in front of me, Caroline. It is time for you to pledge your service.”

  Caroline felt her breathing become harsh as her cunny, still locked inside the chastity belt, seemed to flood with the wetness of her submissive arousal. For a moment she had felt like a pampered idol, swept off her feet, carried upstairs, and laid gently in a lovely bed. Now she felt that James had made her what she truly must be: the girl who would serve his natural rights. Trembling and feeling that she could hardly stand, she clambered off the bed and onto her hands and knees. She crawled to her wonderful master, never taking her eyes from his beautiful cock.

  She said, without James prompting her, “This lordly phallus is my master, and I pledge to serve it.”

  James spoke softly. “Take it in your mouth then, my darling.”

  Caroline did, and then at last she felt his hands the way she had longed to feel them, around the back of her head, forcing himself deeper. It was so difficult, and yet she knew that he did it because he was sure that in Caroline Hollins he had a girl who yearned to let him exercise those natural rights that would give both of them such pleasure.

  James groaned, and Caroline struggled to make her mouth pleasing to him. For long moments, in silence except for the panting of his breath and the wet sounds of the way he used her, Caroline’s master pumped his cock in and out between her lips. Caroline’s whole world was only James’ curly golden hair, around his manly parts, and the soft purse that she weighed gently upon her palm to give him all the pleasure she could.

  Then at last he said, withdrawing his cock, “My darling, my very good girl, get up and lay yourself over the edge of the bed, at its foot.”

  When Caroline had obeyed, looking back over her shoulder she saw that James held the key to her chastity belt. Caroline gave a little cry of joy.

  “Turn your face to the bed, Caroline,” James said. “I am going to uncover that which it is my right to see.”

  “You will take it off for good now?” she whispered into the bedclothes.

  “Perhaps not for good,” James said, “but certainly for a long while.”

  “You would put it back on me?” Caroline said indignantly, unable to stop herself turning her cheek onto the coverlet to look back at him where he stood behind her, caressing her punished bottom.

  “I would,” James replied steadily. “Your cunny belongs to me now, and I shall not tolerate you playing with it without permission.”

  “May I have permission?” she begged.

  “Most of the time,” James said, smiling. “Not tonight, and not tomorrow.”

  She felt him insert the key, then she heard the lock click, and he was taking the terrible belt off and dropping it on the floor. He forced her thighs apart with his hands, so roughly that it made Caroline’s wetness come anew just at the thought that James would now take what he wanted; what he had wanted for so long now.

  Then James stood right behind her and rubbed the head of his cock up and down the little furrow where her cunny pouted to welcome him, though it had never welcomed a man before. He put his hands firmly upon her hips and then, arrogantly and without warning, he thrust very hard. There was a flash of pain that made Caroline cry out, and then there was a burning that made her whimper.

  “Oh, Caroline,” he said, as he fucked her, “oh, my darling, your cunny feels so lovely.”

  “Thank you, sir,” she whispered, adoring the feeling of having the man she loved inside her like that. It would not have been thus with Sir Gerald, she knew. She felt that she would have liked it, but it would not have been thus. The man to whom you truly belonged—he was the one who should be first to do this to you.

  Beneath them, the bed creaked as James rode her harder and harder. She did not spend, because the pain was still there from when he had first entered. Her master’s cock, going in and out, felt more like a sort of discipline than like the pleasure she knew she would feel in being fucked someday very soon. Nevertheless, by the time James gave a little shout and shot his seed inside her, she had begun to enjoy fucking very thoroughly.r />
  Afterwards, he raised her up and led her around the side of the bed so that they could climb under the covers.

  “I wonder how it is going downstairs,” Caroline whispered. “Were those orphan girls virgins, too, do you think?”

  “I doubt it,” James said. “I am sure Dr. Brown examined them all because they were found to have already been ruined, as the conventional world puts it. They will have a much better life here than they would in London.”

  “What did Dr. Brown mean about spreading his theory?” Caroline asked, kissing James’ chin because she could not help it.

  “I think he meant that Vance believed the intention was to use you to demonstrate the pleasures to be had for both men and women in the exercise of these natural erotic rights, but in fact his intention was to spread his theory by making a great many men grow very fond of a great many girls here on Carruthers Isle.”

  “Are you very fond of me?” Caroline asked. She was beginning to feel very sleepy.

  “Oh, Caroline,” James said. “So very fond. But I think we should probably find somewhere else to live, since I do not agree very well with Mr. Vance about certain important matters.”

  “What?” she whispered.

  “Well, I should like to have a conventional life, as well as this strange, abandoned one that Vance and Sir Gerald and Anne and Charlotte have chosen. Brown tells me that he plans to bring any of the girls who are to become mothers on this island, who may wish it, to a more traditional environment as well. Perhaps you and I could help look after them, in time. Would you like that?”

  “Oh, yes,” Caroline said. “As long as someday…”

  James laughed. “The stage?”

  Caroline nodded sleepily. “The stage, and all the men. And my bottom—after you have had my bottom, of course. You will have my bottom soon?”