The Modesty Cure

by Emily Tilton

  Chapter Four

  Amanda had known how difficult it would be to abide in the parlor and listen to the unwelcome protestations of love made to her by Mr. Charlton. She had never imagined, however, how terribly coarse he would make his speech even as he announced his intention to become the happiest man on earth through the bestowal of her hand upon him.

  Her parents had simply abandoned her to him at his peremptory request—a request made so churlishly that it more resembled a command—that he be allowed to speak to Miss Eaker privately. Amanda’s mother had given her a look that tore the young woman’s heart: with her maternal gaze she besought Amanda’s pardon while warning her that Mr. Charlton’s attentions could not and must not be avoided. All the things to which Mrs. Eaker had alluded in the brief, terrible conversation that followed Amanda’s return to the house that morning must befall Amanda, body and soul. She must give her husband his conjugal rights.

  But not for a fortnight, her mother said. “You shall have fourteen days to prepare yourself, Amanda. Remember that you will live near us, and that you will have fine things.”

  “But is he not a bad man, if he wishes to… to make me… serve him so?”

  Her mother’s eyes had told Amanda that Mrs. Eaker did indeed think Mr. Charlton a very bad man, but with her voice she said, “No, child. Husbands… have their conjugal rights. Heaven made women to serve them, as wives, in their houses… and in their beds…”

  Mrs. Eaker’s voice trailed off, as she seemed to fumble for some way to justify what she had told her daughter of the way she must consent to have her clothing removed, of how she must allow Mr. Charlton to put a thing it seemed he had inside her private places and indeed anywhere else he chose.

  “But not for fourteen days,” she repeated then, so weakly that Amanda wondered for a moment whether her mother hoped her daughter might avail herself of some private means of escape.

  Mrs. Eaker had said that, about the fortnight, Amanda thought as she watched her parents leave the parlor, but the angel… Amanda blushed a little to think of him, of Mr. James Coventry, that way, but how could she do otherwise? She supposed that if his promises proved vain, she might in the end consider him a devil instead, but her hope clung to him now, and she must think him a heavenly messenger of deliverance.

  The angel James Coventry had told her that she must expect Mr. Charlton to attempt to take liberties with her today. If he did, she must not worry that Mr. Coventry would abandon her because she had submitted to those shameful liberties. She would, Mr. Coventry feared, have no choice. He himself must make preparations in order to take her away to Westmoreland, but he would return for her in the night, and she must watch for a carriage.

  As soon as the parlor door had closed behind her mother, Mr. Charlton, his beady eyes shining with a strange light that seemed to Amanda hungry, and made her heart race with its promise of shame to come, said, “Come here and sit upon my knee, Miss Eaker.”

  He sat upon the Eakers’ best settee, and patted his right knee. Amanda’s eyes widened. Surely he could not expect to begin that way? But that beginning led on the instant to conduct so much worse that she almost wished she had obeyed him, and sat upon his green breech-covered knee. She might thereby at least have attempted to discover whether he might be satisfied with a simple acquiescence in that sort of sitting. While for a girl to sit upon a man’s knee constituted an accepted part of courtship in many places these days, it still always provoked a blush in the onlooker and an even deeper one in the girl made to assume the position. Perhaps, Amanda thought wildly, if she had consented to it, Mr. Charlton might not have gone on in the terrible way he then did.

  “Amanda,” the red-faced man said, making her gasp in surprise to be addressed by her Christian name and, even more, in such a brusque way. “I know you’ve been told you are to be my little wife. I know your mamma has let you know some of the things I’ll do to you upon our wedding night and then afterward on our little honeymoon and when you’ve come to live with me as a wife does with her husband. I’d like to hear you say that you will happily accept my offer of marriage, but that doesn’t signify much, as we both know you must consent or your parents will be turned out of their house. So because you won’t sit upon my knee, you’ll raise your skirts to show me your sweet little cunny, and then you’ll kneel and suck my prick until the seed spurts into your belly.”

  Amanda’s jaw hung slack, and her breath came in frightened pants. She half-turned to the parlor door, took a step in that direction, before the odious sound of Mr. Charlton’s voice came again to her ears.

  “Don’t want to give me my rights, girl? Don’t want to do your duty?” he said in a sharp, angry tone. “Well, I’ll take care of that quick enough!”

  She turned to see that he had risen from the settee, and that he had in his right hand a stout, black leather strap about two feet in length.

  “You just lay yourself over the settee, miss, and I’ll give you your first lesson in a wife’s obedience. When I tell you to show me your little cunt, from now on, you’ll do it, and the same with sucking my prick, because you’ll remember that your husband knows how to discipline a young bride. I did it with my Louisa, and I’ll do it with you. If you want to sit comfortably at your own table, girl, you’ll give me my conjugal rights like a good ‘un.”

  Amanda froze solid as a block of ice at these words, and at the advancing tread of Mr. Charlton’s feet in their muddy riding boots. He stood only a foot from her, his angry red face seeming to scorch her own with the heat of her blush at the terrible things he said.

  “What will it be, girl?” he asked, with scorn in his voice now that Amanda assumed must represent mockery of her pretensions of having any choice in the matter. “Will you get over the settee and have your whipping like a good girl, or will I have to put you there and hold you down while I give it to you?”

  She didn’t think she could ever have obeyed him, so it was almost a mercy when he took firm hold of her upper arm and drew her past him and toward the dear little settee with the embroidered cushion of which Mrs. Eaker was so fond. Amanda’s mind occupied itself with a dilemma that even in her panic she knew meant nothing of importance: should she scream, in some hope that her parents might put a stop to this, at least for today?

  But as the man who claimed a wish to be her loving bridegroom pushed her to her knees and roughly forced her face down into the settee’s embroidery of pink and red flowers, she knew that her parents would not come, could not come to her aid. If Amanda cried out, they would merely have to listen to their daughter’s first thrashing by her bridegroom.

  She felt Mr. Charlton’s hands lifting her skirts, and could not help crying out at the terribly undignified sensation of the air moving inside her drawers. Amanda, shaped as she was by her education in Mrs. Bates’ schoolroom and at her mother’s knee knew well that a young lady, even the daughter of a working farmer like Miss Amanda Eaker, never allowed her skirts to be raised that way.

  “Oho!” exclaimed Mr. Charlton. “What pretty drawers you have, Miss Amanda Eaker, with a fine lace border, such as a lady of quality might wear!”

  Amanda had thought her face could not get hotter, but now she felt herself blush to the roots of her hair. It seemed inconceivable that any man—let alone a man like Mr. Charlton—should lay eyes on her pretty drawers, a present from her aunt who had gone to Paris the previous spring, but now he had not just seen them, but…

  “We must have them down, though, must we not?” Mr. Charlton said, and then Amanda felt him undo the ribbon that cinched the waist.

  “Oh, please,” she cried. “Please don’t, Mr. Charlton. I’ll…”

  “Don’t talk nonsense, girl,” the man said gruffly. “You shan’t escape your whipping now.”

  She felt the strap in his right hand brush along her flank as he drew down her drawers, and the two impressions together forced a little sob from her throat. She made a wild resolution not to make another sound, in hope of sparing her parent
s the shame and anguish of hearing the way her bridegroom used their sweet young daughter.

  “I can look at your cunt perfectly well this way, though, I suppose,” came his mocking voice, thin and reedy but entirely capable of striking fear and shame into Amanda’s heart. “Spread these knees a bit, and I’ll have a look between your thighs, and your bum-cheeks too.”

  Her resolution flew away, and she sobbed again as he enforced his crude desire, pulling her knees apart as far as the loose drawers that now lay about her knees would allow.

  “That’s a sweet little puss,” said Mr. Charlton. “Neater and smaller than my Louisa’s, too, and tighter for my fucking, I’m sure. What pretty blond curls you have, Amanda Eaker. Let’s see how whorish a nature you have, now.”

  Having no idea what he could mean, Amanda twisted her head around to try to see what Mr. Charlton would do.

  “Put that pretty face in the cushion, girl,” he said angrily. “I’m having some of my conjugal rights, now, and you must keep your face respectfully lowered. Soon enough I’ll fuck you this way, dog-fashion as we men call it, in your cunt and then your bottom, and you will learn to bite your pillow, as my Louisa did, to endure my pleasures. A sound whipping today will be a fine preparation.”

  Then, without warning, he touched her where she knew she must not even touch herself: where only a wedded husband may touch. Amanda shuddered, trembled, and then to her horror realized that Mr. Charlton’s hand felt pleasant, though in a strange and terrible way.

  “Oh, no,” she whispered. The heat was in her face again, but it was also down there, and she felt wetness, too.

  “You are a little whore, Amanda Eaker,” Mr. Charlton said in a voice that sounded much more satisfied than any he had used previously. “When it’s time to put my cock in this virgin cunny, I’ll slip the head right into your sweet slit, before I ride hard and take your maidenhead. You’ll get it like this, bent over with your face down, dog-fashion, so I can play with this little bottom while I fuck.”

  Amanda moaned, her senses and her thoughts all in a whirl, so confused she thought she might never be able to reason again. How could her body seem to cry out for what the odious Mr. Charlton did to it? What he said he would do, soon, though Amanda scarcely understood what he meant by his sharp-sounding coarseness, pricks and cocks and fucking.

  When he spoke of her bottom, his touch left her cunny, and with both his hands he spread her open there. “A prim little arsehole, too,” he said. “An even tighter ride for a husband who knows what he’s about.”

  Amanda sobbed again, as her bottom tried to clench, to close against him. Mr. Charlton held it open, though, and she gave a little cry as he put his forefinger upon the tiny flower and pushed gently.

  “I’ll break you in slowly, here, little filly, if you’re a good girl,” he said. “A perfect anus like this one needs tenderness before it’s ready for fucking.”

  The hands left her; the cheeks of her bottom closed. Amanda bit her lower lip as she looked at the pink embroidered flowers. She would try not to cry out.

  “Put those knees together, girl,” Mr. Charlton said, his voice angry once again. “You must have your whipping now, and you must not get the wrong idea about your cunt. I’ll bring out your whorishness as I like and when I like, but when the time for discipline has come, there will never be any pleasure for you. How could you learn your lesson otherwise?”

  Chapter Five

  Dr. Reginald Brown read Mr. Coventry’s note with interest.

  My dear Dr. Brown,

  I must write in haste, and come to the point immediately. I hope you will not scruple to receive me and a Miss Amanda Eaker at your college. Miss Eaker will otherwise either be subject to a monstrous marriage with a man forty years her senior or be forced to flee her home and, I fear, ultimately to come upon the town. As there is no alternative, I shall not wait for your reply but shall instead remove Miss Eaker with me, to your house, this very night. If you turn us away, I must, I suppose, then journey further with her and hope to keep her in town until I can put my pecuniary affairs in enough order so as to permit my marrying her and attempting to train her in the ways of a natural union myself, though the risks of my position make me less than sanguine that I shall be able to keep Miss Eaker for long, and I fear she may in despair fall prey to the blandishments of the procuress and the panderer. I do venture to hope that you will be as good as your word, however, and enroll Miss Eaker as a submissive maiden and myself as a cocksman under your roof. Though I imagine that according to your philosophy it will not much signify, my own remaining scruples at carrying off Miss Eaker are put to rest by the way her odious suitor has already taken terrible liberties with her person, viz. to whip her, to fondle her private places, and to deprive the poor girl of the virginity of her mouth, if I may use such a phrase.

  I must away to hire the carriage, but I am, sir, in hope that this entreaty will not fall upon deaf ears, coming as it does from

  Your obedient servant and, heaven willing, cocksman,

  James Coventry

  Dr. Brown rang for Andrews, the good and faithful servant who served at once as his butler and as the chief porter of the College of Advanced Study.

  “Andrews,” the doctor said when the man, at fifty-two just a few years older than Brown himself, appeared, “we shall have an arrival before dawn.”

  “A girl alone, sir?”

  “No, a girl and a cocksman, Mr. Coventry. The girl may have the cell at the end of the third floor corridor. The cocksman may rest in the meadow room tonight and tomorrow. We shall move him into the dormitory tomorrow evening, though of course he will spend the night in his young lady’s cell. He will room in with Mr. Stallings, with whom I believe he is already acquainted.”

  “Very good, sir,” Andrews said, and vanished to make the necessary preparations.

  Dr. Brown took a crisp new piece of paper from his drawer, and began to write.

  Mr. James Coventry, cocksman, and Miss Amanda Eaker, young lady

  He checked in a little leather-bound book that sat at the edge of his desk.

  Case 35

  April, 1875

  Cocksman presents as a natural man in the middle stages of freeing himself from the shackles of his conventionally moralistic education. Has reported coitus with a girl in a conventional fashion, leading (as often with such young men) to thoughts of the sexual mastery more appropriate to his character.

  Young lady is apparently escaping an ill-sorted marriage, though it appears the would-be bridegroom has somewhat initiated her, and the girl may be rather farther along than most virgins, at enrollment.

  Initial plan of treatment: 1) thorough medical examination of young lady, with cocksman present to discuss course of study; 2) period of study and adjustment; 3) defloration of young lady by cocksman; 4) advanced sexual training with multiple cocksmen and observation of other couples having coitus.

  Dr. Brown filed the paper away, smiling broadly. What a splendid addition Mr. Coventry and his young lady would be to the college! And the girl to arrive already with so many questions about what her monstrous suitor had demanded of her!

  He rose from his desk and began his evening rounds.

  Three couples were in residence at the College of Advanced Study, and a further two young women were undergoing training for natural men who had commissioned Dr. Brown and his staff to prepare the girls for keeping when they had completed their studies with the doctor. Of the couples, Mr. Shaw and Miss Reynolds had advanced the furthest in their treatment: they would soon leave Westmoreland for America, where other disciples of Dr. Brown had established communities in which men might exercise their natural rights in ways still impossible in England.

  Not every cocksman who studied at Dr. Brown’s college elected to take his girl so far away; the wealthier among them could afford to conceal from censorious eyes their natural enjoyment of young women trained for their pleasure, or indeed simply to bear the brickbats hurled by those of hypocritical, u
pstanding morality. Such prosperous men as Dr. Brown supposed James Coventry would soon become, if the doctor had heard the truth of it, could run a household along natural lines, the wife or mistress for example frequently naked in the drawing room in front of the servants, and merely be called eccentric.

  The doctor went first to Miss Reynolds’ cell, a cozy one on the third floor, to which she had graduated after Mr. Shaw deflowered her. He opened the door without knocking and stepped into the room to find Mr. Shaw enthusiastically enjoying his girl’s bottom atop the large bed. Stella Reynolds was on all fours, entirely naked, and she cried out with every thrust of Joseph Shaw’s stiff penis into her still-tight anus.

  Dr. Brown could see the anal coitus clearly because Mr. Shaw had taken the spread-legged crouching position the doctor recommended for this mode of natural enjoyment. Miss Reynolds’ lovely pink labia, shaved of their curls of course just as Miss Eaker’s soon would be, were fully visible to Dr. Brown’s assessing eye just below the place where her natural man drove his erection in over and over. He also observed, and noted in his rounds book, that Miss Reynolds bore the distinctive marks of the birch rod upon her buttocks.

  “I’m very sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Shaw,” the doctor said. “I won’t be a moment, though.” He moved around the bed so that he could speak to the lovers face to face.

  Miss Reynolds gave a little shriek of shame at the sound of the doctor’s voice and the sight of his presence at her anal session. Dr. Brown noted that, too: he would consult with Mr. Shaw to find ways, as he and Miss Reynolds continued their natural union, to lessen and even someday eliminate her shame. Perhaps public coitus in their new American home might suit: Miss Stella Reynolds displayed naked in the town square, then enjoyed by her husband over a bench, in the view of passersby. On the American frontier, it seemed one could create a community where such things might occur, and thus the possibilities for ridding the world of erotic hypocrisy seemed to Dr. Brown virtually limitless.