by Emily Tilton
Leticia had cried out at the final confirmation of the terrible news. She had not, then, been able to keep from looking at Celia, who had tears in her eyes but who seemed to take the disclosure of the flogging to come with more stoic-ness. Leticia found herself fascinated in spite of her anger: had Celia been whipped before, she wondered? Had she been flogged for touching herself, as Leticia would now be? Would Leticia be allowed to watch them punish Celia’s bare bottom? Would Celia watch them whip her mistress’ young hind-cheeks? To Leticia’s dismay, the awful clenching happened between her thighs at the thought, and an unwelcome, aching pleasure spread heat there that made her face burn and confused her mind so terribly she thought she might cry out in distress.
My wayward impulses. Surely what took place in her mind and her body now must be precisely that sort of ungovernable, ruinous urge her mother had deplored, and for which it seemed Leticia must now suffer the dreadful consequences with her drawers down and her skirts raised like the girl in the story.
She turned her eyes away from Celia, toward the bed, and made her way there on shaky knees, for what else could she do. She sat toward the head, and Celia settled again at the foot. Dr. Brown and Sir Henry moved to take a stand before them, the physician in the center and Sir Henry a little behind him, on Leticia’s side. With his hands clasped at his midriff—Leticia could not bear to look higher up the man’s body than that—the doctor began to speak, rocking slightly backward and forward in a way he probably intended to be reassuringly casual.
His words, however, removed any impression that his discourse would lie in the realm of anything ordinary, at least as Miss Leticia Stewart had hitherto experienced the world.
“I’m told that you girls got up to some mischief last night, as society views such matters,” the doctor began, “and that this mischief occurred in the wake of Miss Stewart learning through a, ahem, let us just call it a misdelivered journal, certain things about affairs society usually terms matrimonial.”
To this point Leticia thought she might be able to bear to listen to the doctor’s speech. His circumlocutions seemed calculated to spare her maiden delicacy. She did not like to be grouped with Celia as girls, but she supposed she had no right to complain, if no further freedom were taken. Physicians stood, really, only a small step above tradesmen, after all, and could not be expected to maintain the niceties.
Unfortunately, it seemed that Dr. Brown had no intention of maintaining his delicate manner of speaking any longer, for he went on, “That is to say, Miss Stewart, you read of a young woman touching her vulva in pursuit of what society calls self-abuse, and we technically term masturbation.”
Leticia heard a small noise, a tiny whimper, come from her throat at this information. How could a word she had never heard make her feel so faint?
“Then,” said the doctor, “you later, here in this bed, followed the example of the story, and yourself masturbated, using your fingers to stimulate your vagina and clitoris, in order to give yourself pleasure. Is that correct?”
Despite the shameful nature of what the doctor said, Leticia found herself taken aback by the frank and seemingly genial way the physician spoke. She managed to look up into his florid face and found him frowning, but not in a wrathful way—rather the Scot seemed concerned to get the facts straight, in order to take the most efficacious measures in response.
But now Leticia must either renew her falsehood or confess that she had lied. What could she do? The doctor’s and Sir Henry’s seeming reasonableness, as opposed to Mama’s anger, persuaded her that the worst course would be to confess, as that would undoubtedly earn her extra wrath from Mrs. Stewart. If she admitted the lie, her mother would act in the utter conviction that Leticia had told a falsehood, even if the gentlemen could forgive it. To maintain the fiction would at least put Celia’s story in doubt. Surely the word of a young lady would triumph over that of a country girl chambermaid, however true Celia’s account might be?
“Only because Celia said I should do it,” she said simply, trying to sound reasonable and to look the doctor directly in his blue eyes.
“It’s not true!” Celia said miserably. “I… I… found—”
“Silence!” Leticia said, trying as hard as she could to sound like Mama. “Silence, girl!” She looked at the doctor and then at Sir Henry for confirmation of her authority to rule over her servant in the proper manner.
Then, to Leticia’s horror, though, Sir Henry shook his head and gave her a sad smile. “That won’t do, Leticia. Celia’s story must also be heard. Go ahead, Celia, and tell us what happened.”
Leticia’s cheeks burned, and she looked down at Dr. Brown’s black leather boots, as Celia began to speak in a frightened voice.
“Well, after you rang for me, Sir Henry…”
Leticia gasped. Sir Henry had rung for Celia last night? Why? How had he…?
“Listen quietly, please, Miss Stewart,” the doctor admonished her. “In such cases I find it of great importance that the facts come out, however shameful society may think them in its ignorance.”
That made Leticia’s scowl in puzzlement as she looked down at her hands folded in the lap of her dressing gown. What could he mean about society being ignorant? Mama always told her that society knew best.
Celia continued, sounding a little bolder, now, the deceitful minx.
“I came to Miss Leticia, just as you asked, and… well, she was… I mean… doing that… that as you were you just talking about, with her hand, you know.”
Leticia looked up briefly to see the doctor nod. “She was masturbating. How did you know that was what Miss Stewart was doing?”
The confidence evaporated from Celia’s voice, now; that made Leticia feel a little better.
“I…” she whispered. “I do it myself, sometimes. My friend Nell… well, she taught me, for after my uncle whipped us, since it makes a girl feel better and helps her get to sleep. So I saw the bedclothes moving, and I heard miss crying out a little, and I knew that I sound that way sometimes, if I’m alone and I don’t have to be quiet when I play with my cunny.” Then her words came out in a rush. “And I told miss that it’s alright, and I just wanted to help her feel nice, but she was doing it before I got there, and Sir Henry knows because he heard it and that was why he rang for me.”
Chapter Six
With the greatest satisfaction Sir Henry watched a crimson blush engulf Leticia’s usually milky face, and spread all the way down her neck.
“I did,” he said, confirming the little maid’s tale. “I heard Leticia making noises I thought rather untoward. I must say I suspected what she had actually got up to, and because I knew her mama would greatly disapprove of such wickedness, as Mrs. Stewart would term it, I felt the need to intervene.”
Leticia gave a little sob at that, her eyes still turned resolutely downward.
“Quite right. Quite right,” Dr. Brown agreed. “Whether we take such an estimable matron’s view of the matter or a more enlightened one, the moment a girl decides to have fun with her drawers down is not one to be taken lightly by a man who, like you, holds yourself responsible for her education in this area as in others.”
Sir Henry studied his girl’s reaction to this excellent formulation of the doctor’s. Did Leticia’s chin rise just a bit at the physician’s confirmation of the baronet’s authority in this matter?
“I think,” Dr. Brown continued, “we will have to inquire further about Miss Deaver’s experience upon the farm. Country girls in general tend to know a good deal more about the erotic realm than their so-called betters—as we have indeed already found in this case. Celia, you say your uncle whipped you and your friend?”
Celia nodded mutely, looking up at the doctor with an expression somewhere between shame at the revelation and wonder at the Scot’s frank interest in it. “Was he your uncle by blood?”
Celia shook her head. “No, he took us in because we were both orphans, just after we both turned eighteen, first Nell and then me.”
“And did he whip you upon your bare bottoms?”
Sir Henry fixed his eyes on Leticia, then, for she had given a little sob and closed her eyes very tightly. Her hands had made tiny fists in the lap of her lovely green silk dressing gown.
Bright tears came into Celia’s eyes as she nodded to confirm the shameful truth. “Yes, sir. For not minding him and the like.”
“How often were you whipped?”
Celia chewed her lower lip for a moment as she considered. “Once or twice a week, I’d say? Uncle said we both had to learn obedience, so that he could find husbands for us, even though he told Nell that he would marry her.”
“Ah,” Dr. Brown said at this news, looking significantly at Sir Henry. The baronet realized that the physician must have encountered similar situations many times in his work of ensuring the happiness of natural men and the girls they fucked and disciplined. Sir Henry would never have expected that country folk, with their lives of drudgery, could get up to just as much lubricious business as men of his own sort—but it seemed Dr. Brown knew otherwise.
“Did this uncle do anything else to you girls? Why did he say he would marry Nell, do you think?”
At that Celia went bright red, and Leticia turned to look at her maid, her lips parted in a half-formed expression of amazement. Sir Henry thought he could read his charmer’s mind: she had begun to realize that the filthy things in the naughty magazine had happened to the girl who laid her fire and brought her breakfast. Instead of having to read about them, and having that shameful secret revealed by the discovery of the gentlemen’s journal in her drawer, Leticia could have simply asked her maid the right questions.
The baronet wondered if he saw also in Leticia’s face a resentment of that very fact—a feeling that Celia had held these matters back from the mistress who had until the previous day treated the country girl with such kindness and munificence. An erotic thrill went from his heart to his cock at that: the doctor and he could use that resentment to very good effect, he thought.
Celia bit her lip, chewed, nodded with furrowed brow.
“What did he do?” the doctor asked gently. “What made him promise to marry your friend?”
“He… well, I don’t know as I should say the word here, Doctor.” The maid looked over at Leticia, clearly feeling she must not profane her mistress’ chamber with coarse country language. To Sir Henry’s delight, though, Leticia’s face assumed an expression of anger—she thought Celia meant to shame her mistress for the aristocratic girl’s innocence.
Dr. Brown affected not to notice this byplay between miss and maid, but the baronet, looking at the man’s intelligent blue eyes, felt certain not a single glance or twitch of these girls’ noses escaped the learned physician.
“That’s alright, Celia. One of the things we’ll begin to do with you girls today is teach you both the proper doctor’s terms for these things and the words that you must not say unless the man responsible for your education instructs you to do so. Since you, Celia, don’t yet know the proper words, we shall proceed in a sort of reverse order: I feel sure that your friend told you of what your uncle did to her in what we may as well call country words. Go ahead and say them now.”
Before Celia could recommence her highly interesting tale, though, the doctor turned to Leticia.
“Miss Stewart, you are to understand that although your mama might well find the words you shall now hear objectionable, Sir Henry and I believe that when a girl has begun to make the sort of explorations you have, self-stimulating and playing in the nude with another girl, she has demonstrated a readiness for further education at the hands of the man responsible for her. Your mother has wisely left the next phase of your marital training in our hands, and you are to obey us as you would her. Do I make myself clear?”
At the words marital training, Leticia had emitted a positive gasp, and glanced directly up at Sir Henry for just an instant. His cock had given a leap beyond any he thought he had ever experienced, so great indeed that he had found he had to clear his throat: his girl might not know what she knew, but somewhere in her mind lay the precise predilection Sir Henry most wished her to have. For Miss Leticia Stewart, marital training must come at the hands of one particular, highly fortunate man—Sir Henry Vexin, bart.
Leticia whispered, “Yes, Doctor.”
“Very well,” the physician responded. “Pray continue, Celia, using whatever words you know. What did your uncle do to your friend Nell?”
The maid swallowed hard and her voice dropped to a whisper. “He… he fucked her. In her… her cunny, and…”
Sir Henry felt his eyebrows rise. “And?” the doctor prompted.
“In her… bottom, too.”
A tiny sound came from Leticia: her cheeks blazed red, and her eyes had closed very tightly.
“I see,” said Dr. Brown. “Did he enjoy Nell’s mouth as well?”
Celia swallowed hard at this unexpected question. Her lips parted, but she seemed uncertain of her answer. Leticia for her part seemed to shift a little as she sat upon the bed. Sir Henry felt sure all this randy talk had lit a fire between his charmer’s thighs. The sending of the wicked journal, he reflected yet again, had proven a capital idea: how could a doubt exist of Leticia’s own randiness and her need for precisely what he could provide? And Celia’s flushed cheeks, as well as her openly lascivious treatment of her mistress the previous night, demonstrated her suitability as well.
The thought made the baronet bold. “Go ahead,” he encouraged Celia. “It will be much better for you girls if you tell us the truth, rather than forcing us to discover it in less pleasant ways.”
That made Leticia open her eyes in horror, looking up into his face. Sir Henry gazed steadily back, and his girl’s face crumpled. He could tell that the dilemma of trying to maintain the lie—now in the face of the knowledge that he had heard her lewdly touching herself even before the entrance of Celia—had begun to take a toll on what self-possession remained to her.
“Well,” Dr. Brown said, giving Sir Henry a mildly reproachful look, “I would certainly rather not have to resort to such methods. You young ladies do have a punishment coming, as you well know, to teach you the necessity of subjecting yourself to natural masculine authority. Sir Henry will cane your bare bottoms very soon, and then we will take the other measures upon which he and I decide. But let us make this discussion as frank as we can without issuing threats of more correction. It is important to your future marital happiness that you learn to speak of these things with the frankness that will allow your husbands to instruct you in your matrimonial duties. Now, Celia—was your friend’s mouth made to take the penis? Did your uncle ejaculate there, from time to time, after enjoying her vagina, in order not to cause an unwelcome pregnancy? Or did he resort only to her anus—her bottom-hole, as you might call it, or her arse-hole—for that purpose?”
The girls’ faces displayed the most charming mixture of incomprehension, alarm, and helpless arousal.
“The… the what, sir?” Celia stammered. “The pe… Do you mean his prick, sir?” The blood rushed once again to her face, as she said the lewd word.
Sir Henry claimed the privilege of answering. “That’s right, Celia. A man’s prick, or his cock, is what a doctor calls his penis. I’m sure you have seen the penises of animals, haven’t you?”
Celia nodded, eyes wide.
“Did you ever see your uncle’s?”
She shook her head. “Nell said that he said… well, that she had to have it wherever he wanted to put it, so that he could shoot his seed there, but I don’t know if he ever did put it her mouth, if you know what I mean, though she told me he said he would, when he… when he wanted to…”
The breathing of both young women had grown extremely audible in the quiet of Leticia’s bedchamber. The mistress had closed her eyes again, and the fists of her hands opened and closed spastically, as if she were in the grip of some overwhelming sensation.
“So you are stil
l intact, Celia?” the doctor asked gently. “No man has penetrated your vagina with his erect penis?”
“Do you mean did my uncle fuck me?” Celia asked, her brow furrowing as she worked to understand.
“Or did any other man,” Sir Henry confirmed.
She shook her head, looking from the baronet to the physician and back.
“We’ll verify that when we examine her,” Dr. Brown said, “as well as confirming that Miss Stewart’s hymen is also intact, for her husband to rupture when he chooses.” Seeing mystified looks on the girls’ faces, he explained, “People call the hymen the maidenhead: it is a membrane in your vaginas that the man who has sexual coitus with you for the first time will rupture when he enters you with his penis. People say, then, that he has deflowered you, or that he has taken your virginity.”
The doctor looked at Sir Henry, then, and gave a tiny wink: the baronet knew one of the moments for which he had waited so long had come.
“After you are examined and punished today, girls, I am going to deflower you right here in this bed. Dr. Brown and I agree that your sexual training should begin right away, in view of what you did last night. I intend to marry you, Leticia, and Celia will be your ladies’ maid. According to Dr. Brown’s scientific ideas, with which I heartily concur, that means that I have the right to fuck you when I wish, and we will commence this very morning.”
Leticia’s breath came in little gasps, now. “But Mama…” she said, and her voice faded away as she realized that Mrs. Stewart meant to give her entirely into Sir Henry’s clutches, and would not hesitate to make Celia part of the bargain.
Celia for her part frowned deeply, but her right hand, upon her apron, appeared to be pressing downward between her thighs in a plainly unconscious attempt to ease the amorous ache Sir Henry must have aroused there.