The Reluctant Stripper

by Lady Alice McCloud

  London, the Foreign and Colonial Offices, March 27th 2010

  The cylinder in Thrift’s rectum felt more curious than unpleasant, not so much as if she was being sodomised, but as if she had suffered an indignity she herself had inflicted on more than one maid and had a broomstick stuck up her bottom to improve her posture. It also felt unexpectedly heavy, pushing down on the inside of her anal ring so that despite her enema she found it impossible to shake the urge to run to the convenient facilities. That made her glad to be in her black rubber containment pants, while after being effectively nude for over two hours it was an immense relief to be dressed once more. She had even made a special effort, selecting a magnificent day dress of deep blue silk to match her auburn hair, with matching accessories and underwear, including an ankle length Cantlemere and Lucas corset in the very latest style. Not that anybody was likely to see her underwear, which added to her sense of relief. Whatever she might find herself obliged to do in the course of her duty it could be guaranteed that within the buildings of the Foreign and Colonial Office itself her body was sacrosanct and her status as a Lady of Quality would be respected.

  Sure enough, her line man, Mr Warburton, was waiting on the steps and offered his arm as she reached him. Thrift took it gratefully, allowing him to support her as she rose with the tiny, precise steps that her corset permitted. They spoke quietly and of professional matters, Thrift complimenting Mr Warburton on his promotion to Senior Administrator with the South East-Asia Department and he in turn remarking on her achievements in both his own region and the North American colonies. As they reached the entrance hall Thrift turned a glance to the gigantic map that occupied one entire wall. It was a Bartholomew’s projection of the entire globe, with the continents picked out within strips of polished brass. Some half of the total landmass was done in pink marble: the continents of North America, Australasia and Antarctica in their entirety, also the Indian sub-continent, all but a tiny fraction of the continent of Africa, parts of Asia and a proportion of Europe. This represented the extent of the British Empire. Great Britain itself was tiny in comparison, smaller indeed than the irregular shape of deep blue that depicted France, and as always Thrift felt a swell of pride mingled with not a little astonishment that such a small country should have come to dominate the world.

  Mr Warburton took no notice of his surroundings but continued to talk as he escorted Thrift up the grand staircase. Having had each cheek of her bottom punctured over half-a-dozen times while being inoculated with what Dr Molloy had referred to as the French spectrum of antibiotics, she was not surprised to be guided along the first floor corridor and through a dark oak door marked with the single word – European. No sooner had the one door closed behind them than Mr Warburton stopped outside a second, this time to her considerable surprise. A brand new plaque of shiny brass informed her that the office belonged to Sir Blenheim Finch, a departmental director and therefore a man scarcely less elevated than her own father.

  A deep voice responded to Mr Warburton’s knock and they were admitted to a large, square room, comfortably furnished and looking out over Whitehall itself. Sir Blenheim Finch sat behind a keyhole desk of polished mahogany, a large man with a bluff, friendly countenance. Thrift recognised him from her childhood, although only as one of the many men who had attended dinners and other functions at the house. She gave a curtsey as appropriate from one member of the Quality to another while Mr Warburton began to make introductions.

  ‘May I present Miss Thrift Moncrieff? Miss Moncrieff...’

  ‘Don’t worry. Known her for years,’ Sir Blenheim interrupted. ‘Kincardine’s little girl, aren’t you? My but you’ve grown, and I hear you’ve been making a name for yourself in the service? Now then...’

  He had picked up a file as he spoke, his plump features creasing as he inspected the contents. Thrift waited until he chose to continue.

  ‘I see that you were trained at Weathercote, where you placed second, and have been with South-East Asia for five years, saving a brief detachment to our North American colonies. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘No call for the sir, I think, not when I’ve seen you in nappies.’

  Thrift felt herself start to colour.

  ‘Hainan Tao, Louisiana, Siam, Japan... all very commendable,’ Sir Blenheim went on. ‘You’ve never been with European?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you’ve been abroad more often than not, I see. You’re also said to have an excellent memory and, if I may speak frankly, to be more than a little wanton?’

  Thrift’s blush deepened but she nodded, knowing full well that every detail of her disgrace at Diplomatic School and subsequent events would be down in the file, probably in more detail than even she could remember. Unusually, Sir Blenheim didn’t seem shocked, but smiled and shook his head as he read, then spoke once more.

  ‘Yes, you’ll do very nicely. Very well, Warburton, if you’d be so kind as to place Miss Moncrieff on detachment. You may go.’

  Mr Warburton bowed and departed. Sir Blenheim waited until the door had closed before he spoke again.

  ‘Sound chap, Warburton, one of the best, but this is strictly hush hush. Does the name Godfrey Quigley mean anything to you?’

  ‘Sir Godfrey Quigley?’ Thrift queried. ‘I believed him to be Director of European, but...’

  ‘He was,’ Sir Blenheim broke in. ‘My old number one, only the wretched fellow has gone and defected to the French. Yes, you may well look astonished. So was I, believe you me. I mean to say, he always did have rather decadent tastes, but really! So there it is, and he knows a damned sight too much for comfort. Fortunately we know he’ll be after a comfortable retirement, so he won’t spill the beans immediately. He’ll bargain. Unfortunately, they know that and they know we know that, if you follow, and so they’ll expect us to attempt to deal with the blighter. That’s where you come in.’

  Thrift had realised where the conversation was leading and merely nodded.

  ‘The French Bureau will be on the QV,’ he continued as he extracted a sheaf of notes from her file, ‘so they’ll be watching our regulars and we haven’t a rat in a kennel full of terriers chance of getting anyone else in by the usual channels. That’s why we’ve cooked up a little scheme to get you to Paris incognito. Everything you’ll need is here in these papers, for which I believe you have been fitted with a suitable receptacle?’

  Thrift’s blush deepened to purple. He gave a soft chuckle.

  ‘Quite. Everything is there, so for the time being all you need to know is how we’re going to get you into France. Naturally you’ll have to be in disguise, so we’ve arranged for you to be taken into the employment of a wine merchant, Mr Fitzroper, or rather, of his wife, Mrs Paradise Fitzroper, as her maid.’

  ‘Her maid?’ Thrift echoed, aghast. ‘Naturally Mr and Mrs Fitzroper are aware of the situation and will treat me with due deference?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ he responded with genuine sympathy. ‘Secrecy is essential, and as far as they know you are simply their new maid, hired from their usual agency. You must of course act as if this were the case at all times up until you reach Épernay, where he is travelling in order to purchase Champagne. Once there you must detach yourself from the Fitzropers by whatever means seems best, perhaps by seeing that you get dismissed. Mrs Fitzroper is a woman of, shall we say, exacting standards, known for hiring and firing her maids at the drop of a hat, or merely because she happens to be in an ill temper, which she generally is apparently.’

  Thrift swallowed hard, filled with chagrin at the thought of acting as maid to a woman of the Professional classes and what that was all too likely to entail, especially if she had to misbehave in order to get dismissed. At length she managed to find her voice.

  ‘I presume I am to travel from Épernay to Paris. Will I be able to contact anybody?’

 
‘A drop has been arranged,’ he assured her, ‘in the Champs de Mars, but I would rather you didn’t use it unless it proves absolutely essential. Everything is in your papers, including how to track down Quigley and to exploit his weakness.’

  ‘Which is?’ Thrift queried.

  ‘Tarts,’ Sir Blenheim responded.

  Thrift felt the warmth in her cheeks grow once more as the full implications of what he had said sank in, to leave her speechless with indignation. He took no notice, either of her scarlet cheeks or her open mouth, still shuffling through her papers as he repeated himself.

  ‘Tarts, and preferably buxom tarts, while not even the French would put a Bureau man in the actual room while a chap’s performing, or at least I hope to God they wouldn’t. So that’s your task. Get to Paris, seduce the fellow, and when old Galloping Godfrey lets his guard down, which he will...’

  He broke off, spreading his hands. Thrift lifted her chin, struggling to fight down both her overwhelming humiliation and the knot of fear in her stomach.

  ‘I shall do my best, Sir Blenheim, for King and for the Empire.’

  ‘I’m sure you will, my dear,’ he responded. ‘Oh, and while I would dearly love to see old Godfrey again, I appreciate that getting him back to England might not be practical, if you follow my drift.’

  London, the Bayswater Professional Enclave, March 28th 2010

  Thrift stood at Lancaster Gate, feeling distinctly uncomfortable, and only partially because of her rectule, which was now heavier than before since she had been obliged to fill it with her papers and other essentials in the convenient facilities of the Department. Yet she would happily have attempted to accommodate one twice the size in return to not being dressed as a maid. It had been bad enough at home, and dishing out a vigorous spanking to the maid who had helped her get changed had done little to help, or to stop the girl giggling. Then there had been the look on her father’s face when she came into the drawing room. As Sir Blenheim Finch’s superior he knew what was going on, but he had still had to look twice before he recognised his own daughter, and given her appearance as reflected in her bedroom mirror, Thrift was hardly surprised.

  Being outdoors was far worse. Nobody was paying her the slightest attention, but that only made it worse, because if her uniform made her to all intents and purposes invisible it also left her feeling oddly exposed. She was in a dress of plain, black bombazine, covering her from neck to ankles and complemented with gloves, spats and a veiled bonnet to ensure that not so much as a square inch of her skin was on open display to the vulgar gaze. That was all very well, but with only loose, split-seam combinations and a single petticoat beneath a corset that barely came down over her hips she felt as if every slightest puff of wind was going to lift her heavy skirts, part her drawers and treat the riders and strollers of Hyde Park to a show of her bottom and quim, bare. It was all thoroughly undignified, although the corset at least was of good quality, made specially to order and reinforced with Sheffield steel to give her bosom and waist a line that, while no longer the height of fashion, was still elegant. Her hair had also been done, in a simple bun she could manage without assistance. She had been photographed and given a passport in the name of Mary Jones.

  Plucking up her courage, she stepped through the gate and out of the park into the Bayswater Professional Enclave, where the Fitzropers lived at Forty-Nine Wessex Square. It was not an area she was familiar with, and she would have felt more at home attending the most formal of Japanese tea ceremonies or even in a New Orleans hotel. Nevertheless, there was no denying the variety of sights on offer: citymen in their bowler hats and pinstripes, merchants in suits entirely respectable save for being of coloured cloth, even engineers in stovepipe hats and elaborate waistcoats. The women were more colourful still, excepting only those whose simple cut dresses of plain black, blue or grey cloth betrayed them as menials, her fellow maids included. Even not in uniform they would have been easily recognised, simply by the deference and lack of confidence in their manner, which Thrift attempted to imitate.

  Wessex Square was easy to find, the house itself no less so. Black painted railings fenced off an area to either side of steps leading up to a Grecian portico and a bright red door with the number painted to one side. Thrift composed herself, ascended the steps and rang the bell. The door came open almost immediately, revealing a tall man in a black suit set off by a yellow waistcoat. He had an impressive nose, now tilted upwards as he regarded her with an austere expression. Thrift curtsied.

  ‘Mr Fitzroper, I presume? I’m Mary Jones, the new lady’s maid.’

  His expression shifted from austere to disdainful.

  ‘The servant’s entrance is in the basement.’

  Blushing and curtseying, Thrift retreated. The door closed once more and she was left to find her way through a gate in the railings and down into the area, where a second door opened into a gloomy space beneath the steps. Again she knocked, but this time it took some while before the door was opened, again by the same tall man. Realising her mistake, Thrift bobbed another curtsey, less full this time.

  ‘Come in, you stupid girl,’ the man said. ‘Don’t you know better than to call at the front door of a respectable house?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Thrift answered, too flustered to pick her words carefully. ‘I... I forgot myself.’

  ‘So it seems,’ he answered, his tone now one of open astonishment, ‘and also in matters of correct address.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ Thrift corrected herself hastily.

  She had entered the main room of the basement, a large servants’ parlour painted a dull cream colour and equipped with plain but solid furniture. There were three people present in addition to the man she had now realised had to be the butler; a large, red-faced woman, presumably a cook or housekeeper, possibly both, and two girls of much her own age but in even cheaper clothes, evidently kitchen maids or tweenies. She curtsied to the older woman and smiled to the others.

  ‘I’m Mary Jones, the new lady’s maid,’ she said once more. ‘And yourselves?’

  ‘Hark at her!’ one of the maids giggled. ‘Ever so fancy, ain’t she?’

  ‘Be quiet, Agnes,’ the older woman snapped. ‘Speak when you are spoken to, and you also, Mary. Really, the very idea! I don’t know how things went where you where before, but this is a respectable house. You address Mr Winter as sir and myself as Mrs Melcher, always. This is Agnes, and this, Rachel. Now, do you have your things?’

  Thrift held out the suitcase she had been given to hold her new possessions.

  ‘What do you expect me to do with that?’ Mrs Melcher said. ‘Take it upstairs, this minute!’

  Thrift hastened to obey, scampering towards where a flight of stairs rose towards a door presumably connecting to the first floor only to realise her mistake, a moment too late.

  ‘The back stairs!’ Mrs Melcher exclaimed. ‘Really I...’

  Mumbling an apology and more flustered than ever, Thrift ran for a door she assumed led to the rear of the house, tugging it wide to find herself in a tangle of mops, brooms, skylight poles and other domestic paraphernalia as it fell out of the cupboard she’d opened so suddenly. Behind her Agnes and Rachel dissolved into giggles, but Mrs Melcher gave a single, sour grunt and stood up. Thrift, all too familiar with domestic discipline, realised what was about to happen even before the big woman had reached her, and was babbling entreaties as her wrist was caught in an iron grip.

  ‘No, Mrs Melcher, please! That won’t be necessary. It was a mistake. I’m sorry. I’m sorry! I’m...’

  Her words broke to a squeal of shame and fear as she was hauled across the housekeeper’s lap and the other servants arranged themselves for the show. Mr Winter looked stern, but the maids didn’t even trouble to hide their amusement as the wriggling, protesting Thrift was prepared for punishment. Locked tight in spanking position, her skirts an
d petticoats were hauled high, her split seam drawers spread wide to expose the full, pink globe of her bottom with the lips of her quim sticking out from between her thighs.

  Thrift was spanked hard, slap after slap applied until her cheeks were dancing and her legs kicking. She was squealing too, like a stuck pig, in both pain and indignation for what was being done to her, but far more for who it was being done by, a housekeeper she wouldn’t normally have bothered to acknowledge, and in front of, a butler and two giggling maids. It was too much. She’d burst into tears before the first sting of the spanking had even begun to give way to warmth.

  It was at least mercifully brief, each cheek smacked perhaps two dozen times before she was released to tumble onto the floor, flushed and snivelling. Her bottom was so hot and sore that she was unable to resist giving herself a quick rub before covering up, and to her relief she was not sent into the corner, but left to tidy herself up and retrieve her suitcase as Mrs Melcher gave her a brief but pointed lecture on the consequences of incompetence. Rachel was now holding the correct door open and Thrift followed her through to a kitchen and the scullery beyond. Only when they had begun to ascend the servant’s stairs did she dare speak.

  ‘What a frightful old harpy! Is she always like that?’