Notebooks of the Young Wife

by Tara Black

  She looked thoroughly mutinous, but there was a trembling lip and I eased her down beside me on the bed. ‘I’ve got some herbal oil here in my bag, the perfect thing to soothe some fresh stripes. So why don’t you just come over this way, that’s it. Just get good and comfy.’

  I settled Molly over my knee and pulled the shift right up out of the way. For the second time in only a few hours I had a body across my lap, bottom bared. Difference was, this one wasn’t for spanking and was lusher, broader-hipped than the earlier example. I set to work and before long she was moving in response to my hand, with little noises in her throat.

  ‘Come right up on the bed,’ I murmured, and rearranged the compliant girl into a sixty-nine position where her genitals were mere inches from my face. She made to push her face into my crotch but I told her later. I wanted no distraction from my close encounter with a fresh cunt, all whorls and dimples of slick, engorged flesh. I delayed as long as I could but it seemed all too soon that I was wrestling with jerking hips as the climax broke. Then she took charge, turning herself round to face me, head busy between raised, spread thighs. She seemed to sense I was too far gone for much teasing and homed straight in to the clitoris in a way that sent me spinning off into space.

  Afterwards we lay twined, and as I was hovering on the edge of sleep I thought of Chicago and the internet poster. Mrs Jencks had assured us we were the first viewers of the collection, but at the time there was something about her manner that didn’t ring true. Something that had stayed with me to surface in one of those strange twilight states. I turned over and muttered into Molly’s ear, ‘Visitors, gorgeous. Had any visitors lately?’

  ‘Mm-mm.’ She snuggled into me and I tried again.

  ‘Anyone come to the house in the past month?’

  ‘Visitors. Not since the Master got ill.’ The voice was thick with sleep and I was about to give up when she mumbled, ‘I’m wrong. A lady in the library. From some college. Didn’t see her myself. Mm-hm...’

  The news should have put me into a state of alert, but instead I too slipped quietly away to that land east of Eden. Perhaps I’d been used up by the long, intense day and deep down knew it would keep till the next one.

  As it was I woke in a rush to see the time had passed nine o’clock, I was alone in the bed and there were a few sheets of paper that had been left beside me on the table. I scooped them up and scanned their contents: there was no heading but the last line contained the familiar words uxor studiosa scripsit under the date of July 1728. If my memory was to be relied upon, that was a mere month later than what I’d seen already, and oblivious to the fact I was making a late start even later, I began to read. This time there was no heading, and the pages had been printed, presumably in recent times, by a modern device.

  The Day I record here is one of Work, for we are enter’d into strenuous Rehearsals, the End of which is a Display propos’d for the Great Anniversary of the 15th Day of August. The Scheme of my eminent Husband is that, as the Culmination of a set of Scenes, I shall be Bench’d, Whipp’d and Plugg’d, and in said condition, receive the Lordly Member into my Mouth. Some are saying the Event will be on a Par with the taking of the Sacrament, but I keep myself apart from such Matters of Controversy.

  This Afternoon is set aside to accomplish two things. Since no Organ, let alone that of the Master, has yet entered through my Lips, I am in sore need of Tuition in the Art. My Abigail, while being no Expert – or so she insists modestly – has agreed to teach me what she knows. In addition to that Deficiency, I lack first-hand Experience of the Taws with which I am to be Lash’d, but wish to approach this Matter by Degrees. Thus it is that I shall lay them across Nabby’s Backside a few times at the start – with her full consent, I must make clear – so that we may take note of the Condition and Progress of the Marks while I undergo my Primary Instruction.

  The first of the Footmen to do Duty for us is let in to my Chamber bearing the Instrument of Correction for our Scrutiny. I am equipped with a Rule and determine its Length to be a little more than two feet, and its Breadth a total of one and three-quarter inches. It is made of Leather a full quarter-inch in Thickness, and for half its Length is cut into the three Tongues that give the Name to it. One Face has been polished to a high Degree, which we reason is the one designed to strike the Skin. We have finished our Study so my dear Maid raises her Shift and kneels at a Stool, bending to present her white Posterior for my Action.

  ‘Hard now, Mistress,’ she begs, ‘or we sha’not learn what we should,’ and I take her at her Word, standing forward so that when I swing the Taws whips around the Globes to Bite the far side. Two Lashes as we have agreed produce two Squeals, then I move to deliver a Brace backhanded to the Left to make two more. Nabby leaps up and rubs with her pretty Mouth open, but when she stops there is but a little Red to show for it. I am disappointed, but it is no Matter, for we have the main Business to attend to.

  The Young Man is now divested of his Livery and stands waiting in an open Shirt and Breeches. Before even he is unbutton’d it is plain he has enjoy’d the View; thus it is no surprise when Nabby draws out a Polony as firm and long as it were come fresh from the Continent. However, once the Mouth is put to work it is not to munch but rather to suck as though she were holding one of the new-made Lollypops between her Lips. In a while it is my Turn, and Nabby shows me to take the Organ in on to my Tongue and then close around it. I do so and at once Retch as the Head touches the Roof of the Mouth. ‘Easy as she goes, Mistress,’ says my ever-helpful Abigail, counselling me to take a little of the Shaft at a time. Thus I get on better and am soon, by Variation, licking at the Head as I am instructed. There is suddenly a Drop at the End that is not, I think, of my Spittle and Nabby takes it back, declaring the Finish to be near.

  The Aid is enlisted of the Footman to take the Member in his own Hand, for we are desirous of its Discharge into a shallow Dish. He pumps rapidly perhaps a dozen times, then the Juice squirts. The Deed is done and the Equipment has shrunk to the size of a Slug, which Nabby wipes and returns to its Place in the Clothing. Once the Lad is dismissed, she takes a little of the Pool with the tip of her Tongue and asserts that it is a Fine Sample. I follow her Example and although I am not best pleased with the salt Taste – which fact I keep to myself – I join her in licking the Plate clean as though we are two Cats at the one Bowl of Milk.

  It is when my Maid rises to put it aside that I see a Sight to make me clap my hands with Glee. For the Area that showed before so little mark’d is now aglow! We move to a Mirror so she too may see what has excited her Mistress: each Buttock bears the Print of the Taws emboss’d in pink on the marble-white Surround. The Flesh is hard, so that one may trace the rais’d Outlines with a Finger, and I cannot resist to kneel and press my Face to the Heat. Though the very Picture of a Slapp’d Bottom it is sore only to a Degree, avows Nabby, which bodes well for my Experience in the Month to come.

  We are all a-flutter when the second Man arrives, so straightway he is treated to a full Examination of the rosy Object, after which the Cock springs eagerly from his Trews. I take a firm Grip of the Stem close to the Ballocks and concentrate my Efforts on the Head. Soon he declares the Moment is upon him leaving me to sit agape – and no little aghast – while the Spending coats my Lips. Crying to me ‘don’t move!’ Nabby shoos him, still buttoning, out of the Door, then she is at me with her Tongue. Sans Impediment, the Male Seed is dispersed among the Saliva of our Mouths and when she raises my Smock to gain access to the Nether Lips I am easy prey to her Love-Making. In Truth, dear Reader, there is little in it to shock, for my Abigail is become of late no Stranger at Night to the Bed we disport ourselves upon.

  I gulped down some essential, if stewed, coffee that had been left in the small dining room as fast as I could, but it was still almost ten when I hurried through the library. In the study Tamsin was sitting at the screen of her laptop surrounded by books.

  ‘Busy
night, guv?’ she asked without looking up.

  ‘It had its moments. As it seems did yours.’ I stared pointedly at the cushion that separated the mini-skirted behind from the wooden top of the stool, and was rewarded by a blush. ‘A memento?’ I suggested.

  ‘Sort of, except it’s not going to last.’

  ‘You’ll just have to book in for weekends, Tams.’

  ‘Too right.’ She grinned, at ease again, and waved at the pile of leather-bound volumes on the counter. ‘They all meet the criteria of girl on girl and absence from the Nemesis collection. Will I deliver them on the way back?’

  ‘If you don’t mind the detour. Just make up a list for, er, Matilda, will you? And there is one thing. She told me that we were the only ones in here since the death, but I heard that’s not exactly true.’

  ‘And you want me to do a little probing.’ Tamsin made a face. ‘I’m just going to ask, right? No tricky stuff. Now I’ll just print out these titles and then I’ll get to it.’

  When the PA had gone I settled down with the early record of literary acquisitions, whose first entry was for January 15th 1700. The family had been already five years in residence, so it was perhaps the new century that prompted the keeping of a log. That was all it appeared to be on a cursory glance: essentially a bibliography by date of purchase that ran through to a final entry of 1787. Since the shelves were similarly arranged it was easy to check that the first three titles were indeed present, as were another three selected at random from the first decade. Then it occurred to me to look at the records for the year of 1728, when, from the scanty evidence I possessed, my uxor juvenis was busy putting pen to paper.

  The start of it noted the arrival of a copy of the pseudo-medical treatise Gonosologium Novuum in an edition from 1725, and further down I spotted the rare Rod of Venery, hot from the press in that very year. Then at the foot of the page there was a line of writing dated September 19th and enclosed in square brackets. The ink had faded more than the entries above and I shone the desk lamp directly on it to make out the following lines.

  J copied for me a fortnight since Scene No. 4 from the purpos’d Commentaria Perversa, which is set fair to be a Work of the most debauch’d Kind! The same was deliver’d to MR of Covent Garden, who this Day returned it with a Note that he is ‘greatly interested’ in her Endeavours.

  The penultimate word clinched it: J had to stand for Joanna, the young wife. Not only was she writing, there was a larger creation on the agenda than the brief pieces I had seen and it looked as though a London publisher had been contacted. Indeed the MR was readily expanded into the contemporary Martin Roberts, who had printed two of the early items in the collection. It was the first time I had come across the putative title, and I decided that while perversus could be a simple adjective, it would be preferable to read it as a past participle, carrying the implication that the Notebooks were not merely ‘perverse’ but had been ‘perverted’. Aside from these points of translation, one thing was immediately clear: whatever stage the project had actually reached, and in whatever form it survived, we had to unearth it.

  At that point Tamsin returned to say that the housekeeper had changed her story. The visitor Molly recalled was confirmed as having come on a particular errand. She was offering a high price for one of two identical copies of an item from 1810, and Matilda had obtained the blessing of the by then terminally weak earl.

  ‘I’m not very happy about this, but the book checks out. I can’t help feeling the story could well change again.’

  ‘Who was the lady, do you know?’

  ‘Yeah, a Dr Torman and she’d come from Queen Mary’s College. Anyway, that’s it guv, I’d better shoot.’ She got up and moved over to the door.

  ‘Okay. I’ll be one, two more days max. Can you hold the fort till then?’

  ‘Sure thing. See ya.’

  I could look into the academic connection when I was back in town. For the present I was more concerned to locate what there was of the Commentaria and there was an obvious first source to tap for help.

  I went through the Great Hall and out to the back, where I’d been inveigled after the trying encounter with the block. The pantry was much as I’d seen it before, except that this time the glass panes in the door afforded a different view. Cook was in residence, as then, but sans punishment strop, and wrestling, or rather trying to wrestle, the boy into position across her ample lap. I breezed in with a cry of: ‘Oh, here’s the young man I’m looking for, and in trouble again!’

  ‘Nothing but trouble, this one, ever since the Master took him in.’ She gave up the struggle to subdue the unwilling boy and shook her head at me. ‘See that,’ she said, pointing at the smashed pieces of what had been a large earthenware pot. ‘He comes up behind me with a shout and it slips right out of my fingers. Pure devilment, it was.’

  ‘Well, I think you’re quite right, Mrs, er...’

  ‘Beaton, and I’ve been told you’re Dr Greene.’

  ‘Indeed I am.’ It was a novel experience to exchange formalities with a woman whose brawny arms had been only the day before lashing my bare arse for all she was worth. But I’m not usually one to harbour a grudge. ‘And I’m with you on this, Mrs Beaton, that it is definitely a spanking offence. How, I ask myself, can the lad not agree?’ For the first time I looked him in the face; he had seen what was coming and the lips were pursed in wry resignation.

  ‘Well, Dr Greene, what boy does not try to escape a hiding? Now if you were to see fit to lending me your support—’

  ‘Then we shall have him under control in a jiffy.’ By that time Cook had hold of one arm, I took the other and he was down. Then I moved round and took his head in a scissor-grip between my legs while she dragged the trousers down clear of dimpled cheeks. I thought I’d seen all there was to see of over-the-knee events, but what followed was a scorcher. The broad hand was powered by muscles to do it justice, and the arm rose and fell at a pace that had the boy screeching from the outset. As in the popular disciplinary recipe, it was short, very sharp, and the shock of it could be gauged from the decidedly flaccid penis glimpsed when the recipient grabbed for his trousers on release.

  However, by the time I took my leave, hustled him up the stairs and applied a cold sponge to the inflamed parts, he was flaunting a specimen I was soon able to work up into fine spurting condition.

  With the act completed and clothing restored, I put my own needy crotch determinedly out of mind and bade the boy sit. I had questions to ask, and after a little petulant squirming to play up the soreness of his bottom, he seemed happy enough to leave aside the spanked urchin persona and tell me what he knew.

  Tales

  The story I got wasn’t much, but it did contain one crucial lead. While I was aware that Monty had spent his time in the manner of a rakehell from an earlier age, it was news to me that he had been diagnosed with an incurable illness in the autumn of the previous year. Soon after, he decided to live out the remainder due him by putting in order some of the papers to which he’d paid little heed before. He could no longer live the life himself, so he would take what vicarious pleasure was to be had from the recorded exploits of his predecessors. For some two or thee months, before the final stages confined him to his bed, the old man employed a secretary to turn certain items into text documents that could be stored and later printed. The boy’s job was to help scour the stack of box files for anything of greater interest than routine letters and accounts.

  It was by his assessment a boring one until the day that the invalid chanced upon a piece by uxor studiosa, whom a scribbled note in the margin allowed him to identify as his earliest namesake’s young wife. Or so I understood. The tale was told in rapid-fire spurts that put me in mind of his prowess with an organ other than the mouth. Later, I told myself, and tried to clarify what the boy was saying.

  ‘So that was what you left for me to read.’ He nodded assent. ‘And we
re there more, or was that just a one-off?’

  ‘One-off, yeah. Written out nice. But then he found the books. All full of writing like a spider.’

  ‘Books? You mean notebooks, like a diary?’ Again he agreed. ‘And did the secretary transcribe any of it?’

  ‘Some. You can see for yourself. There’s a thing in the desk.’ That was it. I marched him downstairs through the library and hovered while he opened first one drawer then another. Eventually, going back to the first, he pulled out a CD in a plastic case. He fidgeted and I drummed my fingers as we waited for the laptop to boot up and then to load the contents of the disc. At last, there it was onscreen: The Ardingley End Project. Scrolling down the table of contents brought us to the entry Everett, Joanna (1727-9) which unpacked into a list of three items. The first I’d read in one of the BL’s own titles and the next was still lying by my bed; only the third, of a mere two pages in length, was new.

  ‘Well, no matter,’ I said brightly. ‘Once we’ve got our hands on the original notebooks there’ll be loads of stuff to pore over.’ I looked at him and he looked back at me in silence as a horrid suspicion began to form in my mind. ‘You don’t know where they are, do you, boy?’ He shook his head dumbly and fidgeted some more.

  ‘They were always out. On the desk, right there.’ He jabbed a finger at the space beside my computer. ‘Then she was gone. Two months ago. I couldn’t find them. Anywhere.’

  ‘But what about the Master? He must have known where they were kept.’ He shook his head again.

  ‘Did know. In his bed, past caring. That’s why she stopped.’ My frustration must have been evident and the poor lad seemed to take it to heart. So much so that when maid Laura appeared to say there was lunch, he declined and insisted vigorously that he would search both rooms from floor to ceiling.

  On invitation I opted to join the small group at the kitchen table where I was soon seated in front of a big round of cheddar, homemade pickles, spring onions and freshly baked bread. Introductions were made to the striking Ama, a mechanic and driver who looked after the collection of classic cars, and little kitchen maid Jill, who came in with a huge jug of what proved to be porter sent from a small local brewery. Cook, of course, presided at head of table and once her tankard had been filled the ale was passed round.