The American Bride

    In the early days of Michaelmas Term, when the showers of summer have given way to the glorious, cool, sunny days of October, the Thames Valley takes on a mellow autumnal atmosphere.  The grass is still green, the trees still in leaf.  Roses still bloom before the cottages and families still walk along the towpaths, enjoying the fine weather.  The days grow shorter.  The farmers attend to the haying and harvests, and on especially clear days one can see for miles, observing distant hills which, for most of the year, lie invisible in the haze between land and

sky.

    Megan, Mrs. James Fairwood, newly arrived from America with her husband and her maid, Rose, was especially impressed.  It was nothing like the crisp, dramatic Octobers of the United States, nothing like the wild beauty of the Hudson Valley.  Here was a cozy, quaint landscape of well tended fields and hedgerows, of tiny cottages, mostly of brick or the local flint, distinctive of the region.  Everything seemed smaller.  The streets were narrower, the houses and barns closer to the ground, the hills rounder, the horizon closer, the sky lower, with puffy clouds which seemed so close, she might have flown a kite into them.  Megan was that sort of woman.  While physically mature, she somehow had never lost interest in those things which make childhood a joyful time.

    The Marlow Donkey,  chuf-chuffed to the end of it's branch line, a mere three miles from Bourne End.  They had taken the White Star Line from New York, the boat train to London, a carriage to the Great Western Railway terminus, the GWR express (God's Wonderful Railway) past Windsor Castle, to Maidenhead, the local to Bourne End, and now this joke of a train, a tiny tank engine drawing two carriages. It made her smile.  Such a grand journey, three thousand miles, and she was about to set foot on English soil in a sleepy little town which hadn't changed a great deal since Elizabethan times.

    A handsome closed coach, with matched grays, was waiting, followed by a sturdy wagon, with a pair of chestnut horses, to carry her trunks.  Mr. James helped Megan and Rose to alight from the railway carriage, and two sturdy farm lads began to load the baggage on the wagon.  James took his wife's hand and led her toward a tall, handsome man who, in the time it took James to make three steps, had leapt from the carriage and strode to greet them.

    He was tall, but slender, with a rugged, rectangular face surmounted by unruly russet hair, just tinged with gray.  His green eyes sparked, as a smile rumpled his face and he embraced his son, who had inherited the red hair.  The two were dressed much alike, with frock coats and half-Wellington boots, identical hats and canes, but the older man wore his clothes like a battle banner, while James, it seemed, was only covered.  Megan flushed at the thought: if James matured as well as his father. . .

    "Pater," said James, "May I present my bride, Megan?"

    Megan executed the merest hint of a curtsy, smiled broadly in her American way, and extended her gloved hand.  "I'm so happy to meet you, at last, Sir Henry."

    The older man chuckled, a great growling suppression of a laugh, and shook her proffered hand.  "Henry," he said.  "We're all family, now."  James looked embarrassed.

    "Perhaps I should call you Father," she said, still smiling.  She was a little surprised at this rural informality.  Perhaps she had expected footmen, a coachman, the trappings of English gentility, the meticulous politeness with which James had courted her.  Sir Henry, for all he was a knight, had the air of a country squire, a man of the soil.

    Sir Henry helped her up to a seat in the carriage, and Rose followed.  “Will you excuse me, if I take your husband from you for a while?" he asked, as setting sun struck reddish glints from his hair.

    "Of course you may...Father,"  Megan replied, sweetly.  Sir Henry took his place on the driver's box.  James sat beside his father as the elder man whipped up the horses and drove briskly down the narrow High Street.  The local tradespeople gawked at them, the men touching their caps as Sir Henry rushed past.

    Megan and Rose, invisible to the townspeople, peeked out, noting the new gothic-style church on the high street of Marlow and the low sun gleaming on the Thames as they crossed the famous iron suspension bridge and passed the Norman Church at Bisham.  Soon they drove into an utterly rural lane parallel to the south bank of the Thames.  In mere minutes, it seemed, they were driving up an avenue of ancient oaks to Fairwood Hall.

    It was a huge house, a great pile of gray stone, not at all like anything she had seen at home, with elaborate gardens and topiary trees, leading down to the river, where white swans sailed serenely.  Sir Henry leapt to the ground and handed Megan from the carriage, while James felt for the step.

    "I am very impressed," she said, feeling a little stupid. "It looks as if it has been here a hundred years."

    Her father-in-law growled mirthfully.  "More like six hundred," he said, "for the central part."

    "Oh!" said Megan, blushing, she thought.

    "It's cold and damp," said the handsome man, still holding her hand.

    "Don't let him frighten you," said James, taking her from his father.  "It's very comfortable."  Megan could see a large central hall, like part of an ancient castle, with newer wings on the sides.  One upper window was enlarged, with a wooden balcony, and on the balcony was a grey-haired  woman, sitting in a wheeled invalid chair.  The woman waved.  “My mother,” said James, “wave back.”  Megan waved, and the woman smiled.  As hostlers removed the carriage, the Fairwoods walked to the door, with Rose shyly following.

   Inside, an efficient staff sprang into action.  The butler took her traveling cape, and her husband and father-in-law ushered her into a room the size of a hotel lobby.  Fairwood Hall was, indeed, built in the ancient style, around a great hall.  The ceiling soared overhead like a cathedral, and a fire blazed in a fireplace which looked as if it could roast an ox, whole.  There was a very nicely done portrait of Queen Victoria, with Albert, but the thing which caught Megan's eye was a portrait of a beautiful woman, dressed in an off-the-shoulder gown with a train, as if for presentation to The Queen.

    "James' mother, Catherine Derby Fairwood.   I can see why James fell in love with you, Megan.  You look so like his mother, the same rounded, womanly, figure, the same red hair.  Even something about your smile is reminiscent of my Kate."

    A dark-haired, almost swarthy, woman entered the room and handed Megan a note: “Dear Megan,  I do so want to welcome you to our family.  I hope you will excuse my not greeting you in person, but  my health is poor.  I pray you will enjoy your new home and that you will soon present us with an heir.  Yours, Kate, Lady Fairwood”

     Sir Henry said, “Megan, this is Carmen, our trusted housekeeper.  Carmen, Mrs. Fairwood and her maid Rose, who will be under your supervision.  I'm sure Mrs. Fairwood and Rose are fatigued from their journey.  Please show them to their rooms.  Mrs. Fairwood will want to rest, and when her trunks are carried up, to dress for dinner."

    Carmen and Rose helped Megan out of her layers of clothing, a dozen buttons up the back, her corset and crinolines, an outfit which it would be impossible to wear, were it not for maids.  Megan's room was delightful, in an antique sort of way.  A modern steam radiator warmed it, though there was a log fire in the grate.  The late afternoon twilight filtered  in, through south-facing windows which afforded a view of  farm fields and several buildings: barns, stables, a carriage house, a dairy barn, a glass greenhouse, a strange building with a large iron chimney.  In her underclothes, Megan relaxed on the bed, a canopied four-poster, hearing James moving in the adjoining room, and she was soon asleep.

    Megan wakened to find Rose unpacking the trunks.  Rose helped her wash and dress for dinner in fresh shift, corset, crinoline petticoats, the lot.  Her gown, a deep blue which would look good by candle light, set off her smooth shoulders, much like the gown James' mother wore in the portrait, downstairs.

    Rose, of course, ate with the servants, while James, Sir Henry, and Megan dined in the great hall, the three of them in an island of candle light amidst the gloom of the huge room, served by maids, not footmen.  Megan looked around her in awe, impressed by the ancient grandeur, almost frightened by the strangeness.  "Do you like what you see?" asked Sir Henry, who seldom took his eyes off her.

   "Oh, yes, of course.  However, it is so different from the house in which I grew up.  I shall have to get used to it."

   "Of course, of course," murmured Sir Henry.

   "You have impressed my father very well, Megan," said James.

   "Oh, yes, my dear Megan," added Sir Henry.  "And, if James does not fulfill your every need, I shall personally provide what you desire."

   "I'm sure I shall need for nothing," replied Megan, a little nervously. 

   After dinner, Sir Henry led Megan out to a terrace, with a view of the topiary garden, the river, and a forest of beeches beyond.  James  was  nowhere to be seen. "I wish to tell you, Megan, that I heartily approve of James' choice, and I hope you will be very happy here.” 

    "I'm sure I shall be very comfortable here, very happy, Sir  Henry ... ah, Father."

    "Just Henry.  Let me show you the garden, in the moonlight."  He offered his arm.  She let him lead her down a gravel path, past beds of blooming roses, past sculpted trees which were almost frightening in the gloom.  In the distance, they heard the puffing of a train, but there, by the Thames, it seemed they were far from any living soul, save themselves.  Megan felt the coolness of the October air on her bare shoulders, but it didn't bother her.  It was all so wondrous.  They stopped at the river bank.

    "I like the swans," she said.

    "Yes.  The cygnets are almost grown, now.  In the spring, there will be little ones, trailing their mothers like sloops in squadron with a ship of the line."

    "It must be delightful to see."

    "Yes.  We stand here now, amidst the bounty of the harvest, with the world of living things preparing for the sleep of winter.  But in the spring, new life will come forth."

    "You must love this place ... Henry."

    "Yes.  It has passed from father to son for seventeen generations.  We're not nobility, of course, but we're old gentry, proud of our bloodlines."

    "I'm flattered, somehow."

    "You have a very important role here, Megan.  James must have an heir.  The generations must go on."

    Megan felt a flush of warmth, a blush.

    "I don't suppose you have any good news, along those lines?" he said.

    "Sir Henry, James and I have only been married less than a month.  I fear it is a bit soon to ... ah, count the cygnets."  Megan was sure she was blushing.  Her mother had not been very specific about what she should expect from James, on her wedding night, as her mother had put it.  It seemed to involve something a husband would do when he was in bed with his bride, to beget a child, but Megan was not sure just what it entailed.  In truth, James had never been in bed with Megan.  Henry, her father-in-law, seemed to be taking a lot for granted, but she wasn't quite sure.

    "Yes," said Henry, "You are quite as beautiful as my Kate was.  James picked a winner."

    Somehow, Megan had never been taught to deal with such flattery; she wasn't used to it.  She looked at Henry, tall, handsome, even by moonlight.  He seemed so very... manly, compared with his son.  She saw Henry gazing at her.  Saw his finger reach out and trace the line of her jaw.

    "Do you think, my beautiful swan, that there may be a cygnet, come summer?"

    "I. . . I suppose, Henry.  That depends on your son, to some extent, does it not?"  Megan had never found herself in a situation like this.  Even her own mother had not spoken of such personal matters.

    "Yes, Megan, it does depend on James.  He and I have had a talk, a man-to-man talk, and he has agreed to expedite the matter of obtaining an heir."

    Megan's heart beat faster.  Her dreadful ignorance might soon be ended.

    "You have no objection, do you, Megan?  You are fully mature, healthy.  Don't you look forward to being a mother?"

    "Yes, of course.  When I agreed to marry James, I fully intended to be everything he would want in a wife."

    Sir Henry growled his little laugh, deep, from inside him. "Then, dear Megan, I will see to it that your every need is attended to."  He bent and kissed the soft roundness of her exposed shoulder.

    Surprised, Megan could only answer, "As a faithful wife, Sir Henry, I will try very hard to do my duty, to be a good mother."  She shivered, chilled, or perhaps fearful, expectant.  "It has been a long day, Henry, a tiring journey.  With your permission, I believe I should retire."

    Rose and the upstairs maids had left everything ready, warm water to wash with, the sheets warmed with a coal-filled warming pan.  Carmen entered her room and asked if all was well. 

   "Oh, yes,” replied Megan.  “Carmen," she asked tentatively, "you don't look English.  Are you?"

   "I was born in Argentina.  I have been in Sir Henry's employ for many years.  He has asked that I should be your confidante, should teach you things you should know."

   "How many years, Carmen?"

   "I was Master James' nurse, when he was a boy, and now I shall take care of you."

   "Ah... thank you, Carmen.  I'm sure we will be good friends."

   "You must trust me in every way, Mistress."

   "Ah...yes, of course, Carmen."

   "Now, you must be ready for your husband."

   A thrill of anticipation made Megan blush.  "Yes, Carmen, of course.  Ah... is there something special I should do?"

   "Permit me, mistress.  I believe Rose is already asleep."  Carmen undressed Megan and helped her into a loose flannel nightgown.  She brushed Megan's long hair a hundred strokes, then turned down the eiderdown coverlet and helped Megan to lie on her back in the center of the bed.  She produced four supple leather straps and gently bound Megan's wrists and ankles, leading the straps to the four posts of the big bed and pulling them taut, so that Megan's limbs were parted and she formed a human star.  Megan thought that very strange, but she did not want to betray her ignorance.  She felt she should trust Carmen.  Carmen drew the drapes. The last thing Carmen did, before blowing out the candle, was to try the door to James' room.  It opened easily.

    Megan was left alone, in the dark, but for the faint  red glow of the grate.  She wondered why she should be bound as she was, but she was sure it meant something important would happen.  It felt good, to snuggle down into the big bed, and she wasn't at all cold without the eiderdown.  For all that she should have been bone tired, she felt a thrill of anticipation.  Surely tonight. . . tonight would be that "wedding night" that her mother had spoken of.  In spite of her anxiety, she slipped into a light sleep, genuinely tired from her journey.

    A door latch clicked softly, and Megan opened her eyes.  She stared, expectantly, as a white-garbed masculine figure entered the room, wraithlike, leaving the door open.  She found herself holding her breath.

    "Megan," said James, "I'm going to move your nightdress."

    Megan was sure she blushed.  "Yes, James," she said, raising her hips to assist as he slid the soft fabric up to her waist, exposing her most private place.  Then he pulled it further, until her breasts were exposed and the soft fabric covered her face.  Bound as she was, she could not remove it, to gaze at her husband, but it did not interfere with her breathing.  She was naked in the presence of a man for the first time in her adult life.  She felt a cool draft across her exposed breasts.  Somehow, she was not embarrassed.  He was her husband, doing what husbands do, and she fully realized that she must comply with his every wish. 

    "Close your eyes and do not move."  So, it was to be like a tooth extraction; close your eyes and try to think of something else.  Megan squeezed her eyes shut and tried to visualize the fiery fall foliage of home.  After a suspenseful wait, she felt finger tips stroking her exposed breasts, then gently pinching her nipples, which she realized were upstanding, as after a cold bath.  She kept her eyes tight shut, and mused that it didn't hurt; it was rather pleasant, to be stroked and fondled so.  A wet tongue, lapped at her sensitive breasts, and taut lips kissed her nipples, even sucking slightly, as she felt the bed deflecting under the weight of her lover.  She felt fingers stroking her flanks, her belly, her thighs, and, though she involuntarily tensed, she found it exciting.  And then he touched her, down there, in her most private place, first toying with her curly hairs, then pressing and rubbing the lips of her womanly cleft.   She would never, of course, do such a thing to herself, so the sensation was novel ... not painful at all, rather thrilling.  She discovered that her lower lips had become soft and loose and inexplicably slippery, sliding easily under the manual pressure of her lover.  She knew, of course, that all of this must be part of making a baby, and she enjoyed the novelty, the joyous sense of expectation, the tingles which seemed to radiate through her body like Galvanic therapy, the famous electrical cure which she and her friends had experienced as girls, holding hands in a circle and giggling at the shocks.

And then he was between her parted legs, his nightshirt bunched up against her abdomen, and something else, not fingers, was pressing her lower lips, forcing itself between them, poking, prodding, moving up and down in her slippery cleft.  It didn't hurt, really, and at times, as the thing slid over a particularly sensitive spot, the friction was thrilling.  She felt herself flushing, as if with fever, and almost gasping for breath.  Still, she kept her eyes closed, and clenched her fingers in her  palms, and fought to keep from crying out.

     The poking and sliding increased in intensity, and hard fingers suddenly grasped her breasts like talons.  She found herself gasping at the hurt, as the hard finger tips rippled the inner structure of her breasts, and inexplicable thrills radiated through her body, joining her breasts and her bottom with telegraphic signals of pleasure which overwhelmed the pain.  Down her legs went the signals, and her knees jerked; it seemed even her toes must have curled, as waves of emotion clouded her mind.  To be so used, to submit thus to her husband, that, it seemed, was the fulfillment of her life, the grand event for which all her childhood and schooling was but preparation.   

    But suddenly it ceased.  Her squashed breasts were free, and the weight was off her body, and the delicious friction no longer sent waves of sensation through her insides.  It wasn't fair, she thought.  She wanted more.

    Megan heard the door open, and then she heard Carmen's voice.  "That wasn't so bad, was it, Mistress?"

    "Ah, no, I suppose not."  Actually, it had been exciting.  Megan felt the straps being loosed.  Carmen drew the nightdress down to cover her mistress and pulled the eiderdown up, to warm her.  "Good night, Mistress," she said.

     Tentatively, Megan reached beneath the eiderdown and pulled at her flannel nightdress.  She slid her right hand down across her belly.  Her fingers met a sticky fluid, splashed across her short hairs.  Was that the seed, the fruit of his loins, of which she had read in the Bible?  She slipped into a contented sleep.

The American Bride, part 2

    The next day was Sunday.  "Mistress," Carmen said, "Master James gave instructions that you are not to wear drawers or corsets."

    "How strange," murmured Megan.  "Of course, if James orders it...  Is Rose not here to dress me?”

    “You will have no further need for Rose, Ma'am.  I'll attend you.  Master James wants it that way.  He says Rose is unfamiliar with our English ways.”

    “I shall miss Rose, but of course, whatever my husband says...”  Megan put on a shift.  She allowed Carmen to dress her in a simple calico morning dress, as if she were still a child.  Megan's breasts, tender from their treatment the night before, were compressed as Carmen buttoned the bodice, and Megan wondered if she looked as strange as she felt, as if it showed that she was no longer an innocent virgin.  No matter; she was proud to be a wife, to have had her marriage consummated.

    James and Henry were in the hall as she came down for breakfast.  She was hungry, and she helped herself to eggs and gammon and kippers and toast, which was cooling in racks on the sideboard.  She chose marmalade in preference to butter.  It seemed Sir Henry avoided her eye.  Megan was perplexed, for it seemed that Sir Henry smelled of urine.

    Rose and many of the maids and farm workers walked in a cheerful group down the road toward the church in Bisham.  James rode a horse.  Sir Henry and Megan stayed at home.   Megan asked, “Are we not going to church, Sir Henry?”

    “I seldom go.  I consider myself a free thinker.  Does it bother you not to go?”

    “I suppose not.”

    “I shouldn't want you to be bored.  Why don't you spend some of your day of rest in the library?  I'll show you.”  One of the ground floor rooms was filled with books, some old but most of them published within the last twenty years.  One side was fiction, the other side mostly books of science and mechanics.

    “So many books,” Megan said.  “Have you read them all?”

    “Not those,” he replied, gesturing at the fiction.  “Kate reads a lot of novels and travel books.  I tend toward the practical arts.”  Megan was soon absorbed, browsing happily.

    When the group returned, Megan sought out Rose and found her, for perhaps the first time since arriving, cheerful and relaxed.  Hers was an unfamiliar face, and several young men seemed to have admired her.  “I think I'm going to like it here,” Rose remarked.

     Late that afternoon the priest arrived and asked to be introduced to Mrs. Fairwood.  “I just want to welcome you to the parish,” he said.  “James explained that you were married in an Episcopal church, effectively Anglican, so I have entered you into our parish records as a member.  I understand your health is delicate, and you will seldom attend services,  but if I can help with your spiritual needs, please don't hesitate to send for me.”  Megan thanked him for his attention.

     On Monday, Megan was wakened by the noises of the farm.  Before dawn, cans of milk clanked as they were taken to the railhead at Marlow.  Within hours, the fresh milk would be sold in London.  Later, she could hear wheat being threshed by a steam-driven machine, and there was more wagon traffic bringing in the harvest. 

She enjoyed her idleness in bed until Carmen, not Rose, came to waken her.   

     Megan followed Carmen who saw to the running of the house, approving the menus the cook, Mrs. Hobson, inspecting the maids, looking into most of the rooms and making such remarks as the housekeeper must make: "That grate must be cleaned and polished.  There is dust on that vase.  Oh, why can't one get efficient help these day?"  Megan was a passive spectator, with no apparent duties other than being a breeder.

     At two PM, sharp, a surrey drove up, and a portly man in tail coat and striped trousers alighted, carrying a black bag.  James took Megan by the hand and introduced  Doctor Simpson, the family physician, who had driven up from Henley to consult with James.  They all went into a small sitting room, where a fire burned cheerily and the air was warm.  Doctor Simpson put down his bag and said, "Mrs. Fairwood, I know this may be embarrassing for you, but would you be so kind as to sit here?  It is necessary that I examine you."  The indicated chair had a towel spread across the seat.  Sir Henry entered the room with Carmen and shut the door.  He crossed behind Megan, and suddenly she felt his strong hands on her upper arms, pushing her down, hard against the cushions.  "I...I don't understand," she said, softly, for a gentlewoman does not raise her voice.

    "Dearest," said James, "there seems to be a little difficulty, and Dr. Simpson is here to correct it."  He lifted Megan's skirts, revealing her naked thighs, as the doctor washed his hands in a smelly fluid, saying something about the doctrines of Doctor Lister.  We withdrew a sharp scalpel from his bag and washed it, too, wiping it dry with alcohol.  Then he prepared a swab, drenched with smelly fluid.

"Now, Mrs. Fairwood, this will sting a little, but we must avoid infection, if we can.  I'm told  have a rather tough hymenal membrane, and rather than hurt you, your husband has requested that I surgically deflower you.  You understand?"  Megan didn't, but she nodded her head, fearful of that scalpel.  "Now, Mrs. Fairwood, if you would be so kind as to part your limbs, so I may examine you..."  He gently pried her knees apart, as Sir Henry kept her imprisoned on the chair and James lifted her skirts.  At least Henry could not see her private place.  James had every right to, and Dr. Simpson was a physician, so...   It wasn't so bad.  Carmen and James lifted and parted her knees, the better to display her bottom.  She tried to relax.  For the second time in her life, she felt her nether lips parted and gently probed.  She was not wet and slippery, this time.  Her mouth was dry, too.

Dr. Simpson actually got down on his knees, peering and probing her, while James, with his free hand, held a lamp close between her parted limbs.  She blushed with embarrassment and might have giggled, had the occasion not seemed so solemn.  The doctor actually tried to press the blunt handle of the scalpel into her, and she gasped at the indignity.

     Dr. Simpson stood and nodded to James to lower her limbs and pull down the skirts.  Megan clamped her knees together and bit her lip.  The doctor cleared his throat.  "It is well that you consulted me, James," he said, though he seemed to be looking at Sir Henry, who still kept Megan pressed down in the chair.  I'm afraid that the situation is more serious than you supposed."  Megan shuddered to hear those words.  "It is not simply a robust hymen.  The vagina itself is incompetent, too small for normal coition.  Fortunately, the condition is curable.  I shall telegraph to London today for corrective measures.

   "I understand that it is imperative that Mrs. Fairwood conceive as soon as possible.  Conceive she shall, if you follow my instructions.  While it will be impossible to impregnate her for perhaps a few months, you must prepare the seed bed, as it were.  It is my belief that conception is more likely when the woman spends herself, has that paroxysm of passion that some call an orgasm."  He was talking right past Megan, as if she were not there.  "It is not normal for a virgin to experience such an event.  Indeed, many of my married patients never do, but it can be achieved with proper training.  If you wish an heir as soon as possible, I urge you to see that she is trained daily, so that she is as receptive as possible."

That sounded ominous, and Megan shuddered to be spoken of as if she were a bitch to be trained.  "There is some uncertainty," the doctor continued, as he washed his hands again and repacked his bag, "as to what time of the month a woman is most fertile.  It is my opinion that it is just after her monthly flow.  It stands to reason that Our Creator arranged it so the flow of blood brings the egg into the womb.  Therefore, as soon as the flow lessens, if her vagina is receptive, you must initiate sexual congress each night, for a week, at least.  Better, each night until her next flow.  But first, of course, given her inadequacy, she must be treated for that."  It pained Megan to be inadequate.  She could not help herself.  Tears glistened on her cheeks.  The doctor ignored them.

   "Mrs. Fairwood," he said, "your husband is going to do things to your womanly organs, things which may seem strange to you.  You must learn to respond with sexual passion.  Do you understand?"

   "I...I'm not sure, doctor."

   "Yes, of course.  You have not yet fully experienced the joys of married life.  Just remember that whatever your husband does with your body it is all right.  Try to learn to enjoy his attentions.  Be a good wife to him.  Will you promise me you will do that?"

   "Yes, doctor."

   Sir Henry released her arms to shake hands with the doctor, and the men went with him to the door, leaving Megan alone with Carmen to raise herself and try to sit with composure, heartbroken.  That night, Carmen did not bind her to the bed posts.

    The next day, a messenger arrived, bearing a brown paper parcel.  Sir Henry and James unwrapped it to reveal a handsome mahogany case.  James sought out Megan and led her by the hand to her bedroom.

   "My dear wife," said James, "you know you must obey me in all things."

   "Yes," said Megan, anxious but brave.  "I promised to love, honor, and obey my husband."

   "I am going to give you an order.  Do you understand?"

   "Yes, James; you are my lawful husband."

   "You must allow my father to do anything he wishes to you, to touch you in intimate ways."

   "No!  You cannot ask that!"

   "I can and I do.  You must receive Sir Henry.  I...I cannot allow myself to be intimate with you."

   "But the night before last, when you came to me..."

   "I did not come to you.  It was Henry, with my blessing."

   "No!  How could you?  You have made me an adulteress.  Incest!"

   "Not incest.  He is no blood relative of yours.  It is but a legal fiction that he is your father.  I must have an heir, and for reasons I prefer not to go into, I cannot make you conceive.  You must allow Henry to do it."

   "Never!  I'll run away.  I'll demand an annulment."

   James laughed.  "You have no money, no friends, no family.  You would not get past the High Street of Marlow, before they brought you back to me.  And then, as the law plainly allows, I should have to whip you for your disobedience.  I forbid you to leave this house, except in the company of Henry or myself or Carmen, with permission.  Now, take off your clothes."

   "No!  My soul will burn in hell, if I let you give me to your father."  Secretly, the thought of Henry touching her, as he touched her that night, excited her, but she could not admit that, even to herself.

   "Do not anger me," said James, with a hardness so unlike the gentleman she had married.  "Take off your clothes."

   "No."

   It was a short, one-sided struggle.  James easily wrestled her to the bed and stripped off her clothes, actually tearing her cotton shift from her body, leaving her naked and sobbing in her defeat.  From a nightstand, he produced the soft leather straps, and he fastened her standing between the bed posts, her hands high, near the canopy, and her feet, on the floor, widespread by straps to the lower part of the posts.  She hung there, standing splay-legged, her emotions raging.  Outwardly, she was angry, embarrassed, humiliated, to be so trussed up, displayed so openly in her nakedness and helplessness.  Inwardly, where her consciousness would hardly acknowledge it, she felt a glow of submission.  Her husband, her God-given other half, had displayed his manliness as never before, forcing her to submit, as, she knew, she should have when first he ordered it.  Could it be she was proud of him?

Even at mid-day, the air was cool, and she realized her nipples were puckering outward.  A cool zephyr played across her naked thighs, penetrated the curly hairs.  She wept at her condition.

   "Now, my dear wife, since you have disobeyed me, it is my duty as your husband to chastise you.  You understand?"

   "Yes," she whimpered, sniffling.  His riding crop slashed across her buttocks, and she screamed.  "Silence!" he snarled.  "Do you want the servants to know what an impudent woman you are?  Bite this."  He stuffed a piece of her torn shift into her mouth and bound it there with another strip, torn, effortlessly, it seemed, with the strength of his anger.  Nine more times the riding crop smashed against Megan's quivering nether cheeks, but she bit her gag and only grunted at each stinging blow.  When he had finished, the aching pain remained, reminding her of the folly of disobeying her husband.

    He laid the whip on the bed and stepped before her.  "You will obey my father as you would obey me.  You will submit to him in all things.  If you refuse his least request, you will be whipped again.  Next time, twenty strokes.  Then thirty, then forty, until you learn to obey."  James turned and left, leaving her spread, her arms and legs in an X, exposed and helpless.

    Sir Henry entered the room, wiping his hands.  Surely he had heard, perhaps even watched, her punishment and humiliation.  "Now, you are mine," he said.  Henry placed the mahogany case upon the night stand and opened it.  Looking fearfully over her shoulder, Megan could see it contained a series of ebony rods in graduated diameters, from an eighth of an inch up to more than two.  On one end, the shaft was smoothly rounded, but the base was enlarged into a bulb, larger in diameter than the straight part.  Henry selected the second smallest, thinner than a lead pencil, and wiped it with slippery cocoa butter from a small jar.  It glistened in the light from the window.  Then he stood before her, and looked into her eyes.  "Don't try to answer me, gagged as you are, my dear.  Nothing you say will matter.  What must be done must be done.  James must have an heir, and he cannot beget one himself, so that task falls upon me.  The Fairwood line must continue.  You understand that, Megan, Mrs. Fairwood, don't you?  You are my wife, married by proxy, and your duty is to obey and to bear me a son, legally James' son, who will inherit Fairwood Hall and keep it in the family."  He studied the look in her eyes.  "Yes, you understand.  You will submit."

     With that, Sir Henry knelt between Megan's widespread limbs and gently parted her lower lips with his fingers.  She felt the pressure of the smooth rod.  And then, quite suddenly, it slid within her, stretching her slightly.  She could feel it there, unnatural, violating her chastity, the pullet's egg sized bulb on the end preventing the rod from penetrating too far.  "Each day," said Henry, "you will wear a rod within you.  As your womanly sheath slowly stretches, I shall use a larger and larger rod until, in time, you can accept the manly organ of procreation.  With God's help, and modern science, I shall make a proper woman of you.  You must never remove the rod, except as I may allow.  When your monthly period commences, still you will wear it, but I will clean you out from time to time.  Do you understand?  Yes, I see it in your eyes."

    When Henry had released the rod, Megan tried to rock her hips, hoping to loosen the foreign object which violated her private place.  She could feel the mass of it, pressing her tender membranes, as she shook.  Henry chuckled.  "My dear Megan, if it should slide out, I will have to insert a larger one, won't I?"  Megan was suddenly still.  "And now," he said, "your training must continue."  Her eyes betrayed her fear.  "Now, now, Megan, my dear, my wife, you mustn't be afraid.  Dr. Simpson says it is much like training a mare to saddle, and Carmen will help.  In her youth, she became expert, and she will see that you don't suffer unduly."  He turned and called, "Carmen!"

    Megan watched the housekeeper enter.  Carmen stepped up onto the bed and, from behind, tied a silken scarf over Megan's eyes, a blindfold.  "Mistress, do not be frightened.  The mysteries of marriage, things never spoken of, are like the mysteries of  the nunnery, of devotion to God.  It may be that you do not understand, but submission will make you a better woman." Megan felt the bed move as Carmen climbed down.  How could Megan do anything but submit?  She was tied hand and foot, stretched out as if on a medieval torture rack, blindfolded, helpless, gagged and unable to protest.  She wondered if there was some way to resist, to avoid the "training" to come.  She decided there was not.  She remembered what Dr. Simpson had said.  She would accept whatever happened and hope it would not be painful.  As if reading Megan's mind, Carmen whispered, "It isn't going to hurt.  You will learn to like it."

     It began with Sir Henry's large, slightly rough hand against her cheek.  "There, there, my wife," he murmured.  She could not yet fully grasp that she was his wife, not James', and a little voice within her urged her to scream in protest, but she did not.  The hand moved to her shoulder and raised arm, caressing the silky skin.  Then his finger tips slid down the lower side of her arm and continued, sliding gently toward her left nipple.  They stopped short of the nipple, returned almost to her arm pit, and began again their slow progress.  His left hand began to mimic the right, symmetrically stroking downward across the swelling of her bosom.  She could feel his breath on her breast.  Megan endured, not exactly relaxed, but not struggling.  She felt the fingers circle the pinkness around her nipples.  He began to stroke from different directions, tracing the crease below her breasts, which were somewhat raised by her unnatural posture, arms tied in a raised position.  She momentarily thought of a picture of Moses, throwing his arms wide to part the Red Sea.  What must she look like, displayed as she was?

    "Ah, Megan, my wife," murmured Sir Henry --- reading her thoughts? --- "You are a beautiful specimen of womanhood.  Your breasts are like those of a classical statue, fine hemispheres, and you will have plenty of milk for our child."  She felt his hot breath as he kissed her swelling flesh, and then a hot tongue encircled her left nipple, the first time he had actually touched it.  An unfamiliar tingle of excitement seemed to radiate from the spot.  Now his hands returned to her raised arms, and the fingers, like the feet of little animals, a squirrel on a tree, perhaps, tickled their way downward across her ribs.  Megan consciously tried not to squirm, and it was not unpleasant.  His palms slid over the curve of her hips, and she felt his fingers exploring the fleshy globes of her buttocks.  They were still tender from her whipping, yet there was something pleasant, even exciting, about Sir Henry asserting his right to touch her, to touch her anywhere!

    The fingers traced curves across her tummy, gently probed her navel, slid down the fronts of her spread thighs, and, ever so gently, scampered up the insides of her limbs ... so sensitive!  She shivered and squirmed as he traced the crease where buttock joined limb, and the valley where her belly met oh-so-tender thigh.  Struggle as she might, she could not escape those gently stroking fingers.  "No, you are not hurting her, Sir Henry," she heard Carmen say softly.  "You must remember that all her life she has been taught never to let anyone touch her there, not even herself.  She has a lot to unlearn."  The fingers walked up her abdomen and again began to wander over the convexity of her breasts, treating each the same, in mirror image.  His finger tips and thumb brushed her skin, like the tentacles of a starfish, in five spots circling each nipple, and then he slowly drew them together, until they met at the exquisitely sensitive nipple.  She had never realized she could be so sensitive.  As the finger tips converged, enclosing the nipple, even pulling it gently, Megan realized that her nipples were hard and swollen, something she could not have imagined, and little tingles seemed to spread though her body, all the way to her fingers and toes!  For an eternity, it seemed, Sir Henry toyed with her.  As his finger tips stroked again and again the soft skin of her bosom, his palm might ever so lightly rub the very tip of her nipple.  It made her mewl through her gag, so intense was the sensation.

   But it was not an eternity.  Just as she felt she could not contain her excitement, as her heavy breathing made her breasts rise to meet his fingers, Carmen murmured something unintelligible, and he stopped.  Her gag was removed, so she could breath through her mouth.  Megan stood there, expectantly, feeling flushed and breathless, until, with time, the excitement subsided.  Megan waited, obscenely displayed, she knew, in the dark world of her blindfold, wondering when, hoping, Henry would resume the training.  Somehow she knew she mustn't speak.

She sensed, rather than heard, that Carmen was instructing Sir Henry.  Then she felt his fingers again, stroking downward across her belly, then wending through the curly hairs of her womanly triangle.  She had never seen another woman's pubic hair, and she wondered if her little forest was thicker and uglier than others.  The fingers found their way to the swelling folds which parted around the bulbous end of the rod within her.  She felt his finger tips sliding up and down the protruding flesh, dragging at the hairs, now sliding far between her parted limbs, to the cleft of her buttocks, now returning to the juncture in front.  It was a strange sensation, to have a man touch her so.  He put one palm firmly against the mound of hairy flesh over her pubic bone.  With an upward pressure, he slid her skin so that the edges of her cleft, below, were pulled taut, and the effect was electric, sending shivers of excitement through her until, she was sure, her toes were curling.  She felt a flush and could not help babbling something, some animal-like expression of...  rapture?

The American Bride, part 3

   It was almost dusk when Henry entered the room again and noted with satisfaction that the rod was still in place.  Megan still stood at the foot of the bed, grotesquely displayed.  The sense of frustration, of congestion, of unreleased tension, had slowly faded in the hours since Henry had stopped fondling her.  Her nipples no longer jutted forth, yearning to be touched.  Her lower lips no longer drooled with desire.  She was no longer conscious of the ebony rod within her.  She was tired of standing, naked and trussed, with the blood draining from her arms.

"There, Mrs. Fairwood, that wasn't so bad, was it?"  Megan did not speak.  She had resolved that she would not.  She knew he could make her submit, but he could not make her admit her defeat.  He released the straps which bound her feet, but still she stood with her legs splayed, not acknowledging his actions.  He released her hands, and her tired arms, drained of blood, fell limply to her sides.  She lost her balance and fell backward onto the feather bed.  Only then she brought her knees together, and discovered she could feel the larger end of the rod, pressing her labia against the inside of her thighs. Henry handed her a fresh shift and watched her put it on.  It offended her, that he should see her thus, in what should be a private thing, but she said nothing.  He handed her her dress.  "No need to dress for dinner, Mrs. Fairwood."  He buttoned the bodice for her, giving her breasts a little squeeze.  She shuddered, that he should be so free with her body, but, in spite of herself, she enjoyed it.  He found her attractive.  He could not keep his hands off her.  Never had James touched her in such an intimate way.

    At dinner, sitting at the table, just she and Henry, Megan could feel the rod, pressing up within her, stretching her, as the pressure of the chair forced the appliance upward.  She said nothing, ate in silence.  "You must be wondering where James is, Megan."  She sat, expressionless.  "He has gone up to London, with his cousin, Hank.  God knows what they are doing, but I hope he enjoys it."  She did not speak, and the rest of the meal passed in silence, but for the scrape of cutlery on the plates.

   When the dessert dishes had been cleared, fruit compote, Henry poured a generous glass of sherry and handed it to Megan.  "Drink," he said.  It was an order, not an offer.  Angrily, she drank it down as if it were lemonade.  He poured her another.  When she hesitated to drink it, beginning to feel the effect of the first, he took her by the arm and said, "We will walk in the garden.  You can bring it with you."  He had taken none for himself.

   Far from the house, he led Megan to a stone bench, surrounded by strangely sculpted trees, a giraffe, an elephant, an ape.  No servant could see them from the house.  It was dark, overcast, with only a glimmer of light from a distant lock keeper's house.  The river was ink.  Henry gently pushed her down to sit on the bench, and his left arm encircled her shoulders.  His right hand cupped her breast through the thin cotton of her dress.  She shuddered and clenched her teeth.  "Time for more training," he said, as he forced the buttons of her bodice.  Impulsively, Megan hurled the contents of her glass toward Henry's face.  His response was instant, and she found herself flung across his lap, held firmly by his right arm, while the left hand dragged her skirts up.  She struggled, letting the glass shatter on the paving stones, but it was hopeless.  In seconds, her dress skirt and shift were bunched around her waist, and she could feel the cool night air on her buttocks, still bruised and sore from her afternoon whipping.  Thankfully, he did not have a whip, but his bare hand gave her twenty hard slaps on her already tender bottom.  She clenched her teeth, determined not to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much he was hurting her, and she felt a glimmer of pride that she could bear his punishment.  Then she felt his hand pressing hard against her lower lips.  To her surprise, they yielded easily to the pressure, already wet and slippery.  His fingers grasped the protruding end of the ebony rod and wiggled it, stirring her insides.  He began to move the rod in and out, not all the way out, but with enough motion that she could feel the friction against her tender membranes.  She was thankful, then, for her wetness, imagining the excruciating pain had she been dry.  His fingers groped, toward her belly from the rod, and she felt those exquisite tingles from that especially sensitive spot toward the front of her cleft.  Struggle was useless.  She lay limp across his legs, as he had his way with her, the sensations building, the tingles and twinges, the storm surge, building in her body.  Her breasts, pressed against the stone bench, seemed suddenly to feel the slightest motion, as her body writhed under Henry's "training."  She felt the now familiar heat, like a fever, and was breathing in gasps, feeling, somehow, that the storm in her belly must soon yield thunder and lightning, so incredibly intense did the sensations become.

    But Henry stopped.  She almost cried out, "More!", but she bit her lip and sobbed, soundlessly, with frustration.  Henry flung her from his lap and dragged her to her feet, letting her shift and skirt fall haphazardly down her legs.  He hugged her to him and kissed her hungrily, pressing his half open mouth over hers and insinuating his tongue.  She couldn't bring herself to bite it.  Then Henry straightened up and became a different man.  Deferentially, he offered her his arm.  She lightly placed her hand in the crook of his arm and allowed him to lead her, in a leisurely stroll, back to the house.  Outwardly, she seemed composed, but she was terribly aware of the unfinished business with her womanly organs.  Her breasts fairly ached with longing, and she could feel the moisture running down the rod within her and dampening her inner thighs.  As she sauntered toward Fairwood Hall, she let her dampened thighs rub together and silently cursed her ill-defined sense of incompleteness.  She did not know how it should end, but not like this!

In bed chamber she undressed herself.  Before putting on a night dress, Megan examined herself with a hand mirror, a thing she would have been ashamed to do just two days ago.  Her buttocks were pink from her spanking, and speckled with faint bruises from her earlier encounter with the riding crop.  Between her legs, the hated rod ... did she really hate it? ... protruded, barely parting her nether lips.  She slept on her stomach.  She dreamt of Henry, holding her down and spanking her, there on the bed, and when she woke with a shudder, she found she was wet again.  Even as she slept, she was his plaything.  She growled to herself and hugged her pillow and tried to sleep again.  

    What is a poor American woman to do in a foreign country, with no money, no friends, no earthly way to escape from the horrors of Fairwood Hall?  The morning was uneventful.  The ebony rod, still inside her, did not interfere with using the water closet, did not show, and, in fact, she could forget about it for long periods of time.  Her bottom, while it ached, almost pleasantly, when she sat, did not prevent her going about her business, checking on Cook, scolding a parlor maid, complaining about the laundry, trying to establish her status, although is was Carmen's responsibility.  Carmen kept her distance, sensing that her mistress was somehow changed.  But it was not to last.  In early afternoon, Sir Henry found her and led her to her bed chamber.  She went, of course, refusing to speak to him, even if it meant foregoing a protest.

    When their privacy was assured, Henry casually requested that she undress.  Still silent, Megan stood her ground, making no move to unbutton her dress.  Within, there was turmoil, wild imaginings of what would happen, memories of the way Henry stole control of her body and made her writhe with the torment of the strange, somehow pleasant, sensations he produced in her quite against her will.  She knew he was unspeakably sinful, evil even, yet she could hardly wait for what she knew was coming.  Henry waited, repeating himself: "Mrs. Fairwood, remove your clothing, please."  Stubbornly, Megan stood, silently defiant.  She just knew that, soon, Henry would lose his temper and strip her naked and whip her, thirty strokes, this time.  Well, what will be will be.

    Instead, Henry grasped the bell pull and rang for service.  Half a minute later, a slightly breathless Carmen appeared, saying, "You rang, Sir?"  She gave no indication that she thought it unusual that Sir Henry should be in her mistress' bedroom.

    "Carmen," he said, "Do you think Mrs. Fairwood is fond of you?"

    "Yes, Sir, I suppose so."

    "And you would do anything for her?"

    "Almost anything, Sir, yes."

    "Bend over the end of the bed and lift your skirts."

    "Sir?"

    "She needs a whipping.  Mr. James is not here to administer it, so you will take her punishment from me."

    Carmen almost smiled, glancing from Megan to Sir Henry.  Then, slowly, she went to the bed and bent over from the waist.  Reaching behind her, she began to raise her skirt, exposing the backs of her knees, then even more honey-toned skin.

Megan shifted her weight from foot to foot and bit her lip and wrung her hands.  Sir Henry assisted in raising the skirt, until the globes of Carmen's bottom were exposed, and Megan could see, though she tried to avert her eyes, that Carmen's lower lips, visible between her thighs, were hairless, not like Megan's.  He swished the whip through the air and announced, "Thirty strokes."

    Resolutely, Megan turned her back, unable to look.  She heard a whack and a yelp of pain.  "No!" she screamed.  "You can't do that to an innocent who's done nothing to deserve it."

    "Mistress," said Carmen, panting, "I've been whipped before.  I can bear it."

    "I won't have it, Sir Henry.  This is monstrous!  Let her go."

    Henry turned and smiled at Megan, who glared at him, while darting glances at the red welt across Carmen's bottom.  She had spoken.  She had capitulated.  "Let her go," said Megan, resignedly, reaching for the top button of her bodice, by way of signifying her submission to Sir Henry's will.

     Sir Henry let Carmen's skirts drop.  "Go Carmen.  Such loyalty is rewarded."

     Carmen straightened up and looked warily about her.  Her eyes met Megan's, and Megan gave her a reassuring smile.  "I'm sorry, Carmen," Megan said.  "A little test, I think.  I'll make it up to you."

    "Yes, mistress.  Thank you, mistress."  Carmen flew from the room, closing the door behind her.  Silently, Megan resumed undoing her buttons and stepped out of her dress.  She removed her shift and shoes and hose and stood naked before Henry.  He had won.

    "There is still the matter of twenty-nine strokes," said Sir Henry, calmly.  "Lie on your back on the bed."  Megan did as she was told.  He used the straps to fix her hands and feet to the bed posts, tightening them until her limbs were taut.  She did not close her eyes or speak.  She glared at Sir Henry as if he were some loathsome being.  Henry took two more thin straps and made loops around Megan's breasts, drawing the loops tight, until the soft mounds stood proud, like mushrooms, and turned slightly pink.  The nipples jutted out, and Megan felt not real pain but a kind of tormenting ache, a constant reminder of her womanhood being abused by this madman.  Henry left the whip and chose instead a silver backed hair brush.  He dragged the bristles across the bulging nipples, and Megan nearly cried out at the exquisite pain, which shot through her to her knees, making her belly churn.  How can it be, she wondered, that my breasts are connected to "down there"?  She waited, wanting him to do it again.  He did, making her writhe with . . . pleasure?

"Twenty-nine," he said softly, and the smooth back of the brush smacked against Megan's cleft, the ebony rod clicking against the silver as it was jarred within her and the bulb on the end compressed her inner lips.  She clenched her teeth and bore it.  "Twenty-eight".  Smack.  "Twenty-seven." smack.

    Each blow, in itself, was bearable.  The cumulative effect, one after another, was not.  At each count, Megan held her breath, waiting for the blow to fall, wishing it to fall, wanting to get it over with.  Her lower lips became swollen and intensely sensitive.  From time to time, Henry would pause, and it was all Megan could do to keep from screaming, "Please, get it over with!", but she did not.  Several times, Henry tortured her swollen breast with the bristles, and twice he pressed them into her tender labia, causing her to writhe and gasp.  With each blow, electric shocks radiated from that little nubbin hidden in her gushing cleft, and Megan felt as if her body was completely out of her control, trembling with sexual tension.  She breathed in gasps, and perspired, felt flushed as with a fever.

    At last, Sir Henry said, "One", and tossed the brush aside.  Megan took a deep breath and tried to focus her reeling senses.  He ran his fingers over the inflamed labia, and she writhed and grunted.  Then his finger found that spot within, like a little nubbin.  "Oh, God!" she screamed.  Waves of sensation engulfed her and she seemed to see stars, fireworks.  For a second, all went black, as she shuddered uncontrollably.  Then, she experienced a most blissful relaxation, a euphoria such as, she imagined, opium smokers experienced.  She found herself giggling!  As soon as she could manage, she clamped her lips shut and breathed deeply through her nose, as the euphoria passed and faded, leaving her with a glow and a persistent ache in her tortured labia.  Sir Henry smiled and toyed with, twisted, her nipples.  He smiled as he looked down at her, using both hands to knead her tortured breasts and pressing his knee between her widespread legs.  The sensation was overwhelming, all consuming, with fireworks and a moment of sightless insensibility, followed once more by that blissful release of tension, that incomparable relaxation.  Megan sighed and let her head loll to the side, spent, utterly exhausted.

    Minutes passed, she supposed, before she could regain her breath and think at all.  Her eyes met Sir Henry's.  "The training goes well," he said, removing the bindings from her breasts, which tingled anew as they relaxed upon her chest.

In a dreamlike state, Megan watched Henry remove the ebony rod and insert a larger one.  It slipped in easily.  And then she fell asleep.

-4-

    Megan wakened when Carmen removed the straps which had spread her so obscenely upon her own bed.  Mechanically, she dressed, conscious always of the throbbing of her vulva and the feel of her shift against her tender nipples.  Before she could bring herself to go downstairs, she leaned against the wall, to gather her thoughts.  She could not believe what she had become, a vessel of uncontrollable passion, a demon, addicted to the pain of Henry's tortures?  Could this go on?  Could she stand it?  Could she stand it if he stopped?

    "You are recovered, mistress?" said Carmen.

    "Yes, I think so.  He is a cruel man."

    "He loves you.  He means well."

    That was incomprehensible.  "How can you say that?" replied Megan.

    "He is training you, for your own good.  I was trained long ago, to give a man pleasure.  I am a happier woman for it.  I would gladly have taken your thirty strokes."

    "Really?  How can you say that?"

    "Sometimes, there is pleasure in pain.  We women, we need to be mastered by a man,  It is our lot in life.  It is God's plan, I believe, the legacy of Eve, that we should suffer for our sins, yet enjoy just the same.  Even with that single blow, I was aroused, in a womanly way.  But now, I  have no hope that he..."

    "He beat you?  He beat you often?"

    "Yes, I was one of the favored ones.  But now he thinks only of you.  He no longer loves me."

    "Love!"

    "Yes, mistress.  He loves only you."

    "But you help him!"

    "For love of him, I must.  I will never stop loving Sir Henry." 

    Again there was the silent evening meal, during which Megan could never forget the pain/pleasure of the pressure of the chair which pushed the rod a little bit too much into her aching body.  This was married life?  Had her mother ever endured such treatment?  Was that, perhaps, the cause of her devotion to Megan's father?  Her mother had never described what went on between the two of them, in the privacy of their bedroom, but she had left young Megan with the distinct impression that it was nothing to talk about, something unpleasant, even shameful, perhaps.  Was her father half the man that Sir Henry was?  No, it would have shown on her mother's face.  Megan became convinced that her circumstance was unique, that no woman should ever have felt what Sir Henry had made her feel.  But...Carmen?  Shame.  Yes, Megan knew she should be ashamed, ashamed of her own passion, ashamed of the way she looked at Sir Henry, wondering what new and exquisite tortures he would train her to enjoy.  Her breasts still tingled beneath her bodice, and her memory kept returning to the awful, indescribable pain of the bristles, of Henry's pinching and twisting which drove her insane with uncontrollable spasms of her insides, as if a trapped  animal were trying to escape from her belly, and the long, slow, tantalizing build-up of tension, the indescribable climax, and the delicious aftermath, utter relaxation, as if she had been drugged.  But then, she was blameless, wasn't she?  He had forced himself upon her, while she was bound and helpless.  And Carmen, was it not Megan's Christian duty to sacrifice herself to save an innocent maid?

    Then sherry; she drained three glasses, and was light headed as he took her to the garden.  He had only to look at her in his smoldering way.  She practically tore at the buttons of her bodice, literally tore the chemise which restrained her breasts.  A shower of rain began to fall, cool on her flushed skin.  She threw herself on her back, pulling up her skirts, lying shameless in the damp, cold grass, feeling every blade where it touched her bruised bottom.  Sir Henry looked down at her.  She parted her legs, even further, displaying her swollen, sodden womanhood for his viewing pleasure, with the rod peeping out.  She grasped her breasts and offered them to him, squeezing them in imitation of the straps.

    "Get dressed," he said, "and go back to the house."  He turned his back.

His rejection struck her harder than a whip, leaving her speechless and dispirited.  She struggled to her feet, covered her nakedness, and fled to her room.

It must have been the wine.  How could she have been so shameless?  Would he come to her?  What if he did not?  At last Megan realized that Sir Henry was not coming.  She prepared for bed, shunning Carmen's help.

    Unable to sleep, Megan lay enclosed in soft down and imagined what Henry might do to her.  Her right hand tugged at her night dress, until her legs were bare.  Her finger tips brushed her inner thighs, light as spiders.  She found the protruding end of the ebony rod, and she wiggled it, feeling the inner end stir her very womb.  At last, holding her breath, her heart racing, she slipped a finger tip between her abused lower lips and sought out that special spot.  She didn't need Henry!

She was mistaken.  She could imitate Henry's friction.  She could imagine Henry doing it.  She could raise herself to a level of excitement, writhing in the bed as the tingles coursed through her, but she could not reach that sense of release.  She was doing it to herself.  In spite of her imaginings, she could not recapture that sense of guiltless submission, that sense of being helpless, that sense of being loved, which made Henry's touch so magical.

    Frustrated, she arose from her bed and sought out the mahogany box.  She easily withdrew the ebony rod, slick with her internal secretions.  She selected a larger one and placed the end where she thought it should go.  Gently, she pushed.  She could feel the pressure, a sensation of stretching, but it would not go in!  She pushed harder, using both hands, tilting the rod in an effort to get it aligned with her tiny tunnel.  Near to tears, she decided she had about half an inch of it into her.  She imagined Sir Henry's rage, should he find her empty.  Somehow she never thought of going back to the smaller rod.  Desperate, she backed against a low stool and held the lower end of the rod against the hard top.  As she bent her knees she felt the ebony being forced into her, slowly, painfully.  She let her legs go, sitting suddenly, and screamed, "OH! God!".

Breakfast.  Henry wasn't there.  Megan wondered if she was walking differently.  The rod between her legs could not be ignored; it stretched her with a subtle, persistent ache, like a carbuncle or a toothache, but there, between her legs, in her hidden place.  She ate little and wandered aimlessly about the house, trying to appear normal.  The glorious autumn sun lighted the gardens like a Dutch painting, and, aimlessly, Megan wandered out among the sculpted trees.  She sat on one of the "private" stone benches and watched the swans on the river.  She was reminded of that first walk in the garden with Sir Henry, the talk of cygnets.  And, of course, she was reminded of the cool stone, pressing against her dress, against the hidden rod, against the mysterious inside of her body.  Her mood changed to one of quiet pleasure, of enjoyment of her beautiful surroundings, the garden, the swans, the sun, the river.

    It was, perhaps, noon when Sir Henry found her.  "You disobeyed," he said, evenly.  "You left the house alone."

    Her heart pounded.  Should she pretend she had done no wrong, saying, rightly enough, that she was merely thoughtless, having forgotten her husband's order?  Should she admit her guilt and plead for mercy?  She waited several seconds, composing her thoughts.  "I suppose I must be punished," she said, standing and facing him.  "Forty strokes."  She noted that his riding crop was tucked under his arm.

    He strode toward The Hall, and she followed, half running to keep up.  With each of her strides, the rod between her legs seemed to throb, and she felt as if she must be wet, down there.  Certainly her nipples tingled, as her breasts jiggled in her bodice.  He went around the west end of the hall, to a kind of courtyard formed by outbuildings, stables, sheds, carriage house, and so forth.  He led her to a place she had never been, the laundry.

The inside of the barnlike stone building was warm and steamy.  She knew, of course, that Sir Henry was interested in science and modern machinery, but she was unprepared for what she saw.  There was a boiler, like that of a locomotive,  which was stoked with coal from outside.  It  made steam which drove the threshing machine and pumped water to a raised tank.  It heated the steam radiators in the house and also heated the glass house where a variety of plants, even orange and lemon trees, could thrive, even in winter.  Steam was conveyed through pipes to heat the water in several large tubs.  There were cranked wringers for squeezing the water from washed clothes, and long tables for ironing them, and all sorts of gadgets and racks to make the huge job easier.  There was a heated drying room where dozens of freshly washed sanitary napkins were hung to dry in the sun.  Of course, with so many female staff...  Sir Henry put his finger to his lips, signaling silence.  Megan heard, from another room, a rhythmic sound, like wet clothes being beaten to clean them.

    He took her by the hand, and they crept to a doorway, where he carefully, quietly released the latch and pushed open the door.  Megan gasped at the sight.  Two maids, laundresses, were so absorbed in what they were doing that they were oblivious to their master's presence.  Sir Henry observed them for a few seconds, then slowly withdrew, pulling the door partly closed.  The boiler rumbled and the steam hissed.  He could whisper without being heard.  "Your punishment, my dear Megan, will be deferred until I have dealt with this situation."

    The two of them listened.  Whap.  Whap.  Whap.  The sound continued, until they heard a girlish voice cry out, "Oh God!  Oh God, I'm coming!"  There was a pause.  "Oh, my goodness, that was something.  You made me see stars."

    "All right.  Now you be the master," said another voice.  It seemed to Megan that Sir Henry almost blushed, and the look on his face was that of a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

    Megan had a flash of insight.  "You beat the maids, too?" she whispered.

    "I have done.  Sometimes they must be punished."

    "I want to watch," she said, impulsively, suddenly remembering what Carmen had said about Sir Henry beating her.

    "Very well," whispered Sir Henry.  "As mistress of Fairwood, it may be that you will have to administer discipline yourself, some day."  This time, pushing the door open, they were discovered, and the two maids screamed with fright.  The maids had been interrupted just as they were exchanging places.  "Carry on!" boomed Sir Henry.

   "Oh, Master, we didn't mean no harm," blurted the one who was standing.  She had evidently worked in her shift, which was wet and clung to her young body revealingly.  The other laundress had taken off her shift and was kneeling, naked, across a low benchlike device.

    "The whipping bench," said Sir Henry, to Megan.  "Go ahead, lock her in," he said to the standing maid.  "It is patterned after the facilities found in modern reformatories for young women.  See there, a sort of pillory at one end."  Megan watched as the maid obeyed the order to lock her companion in, latching a sort of gate which confined the miscreant's hands and head, forcing her to bend over the bench with her rump upraised.  The supports of the bench were splayed, so that her knees were forced apart.  Megan could see directly between the young woman's buttocks, a first for her, as she had not seen so much when Carmen was to be punished.  Fascinated, she viewed for the first time the private parts of another woman so prominently displayed.  She could see the little rosebud of her behind and the slit of her feminine place, with curly hairs, unlike Carmen's naked labia.  "Perhaps, Mrs. Fairwood, you are not acquainted with the anatomy," said Sir Henry.  "This," he said, poking with his riding crop," is the anus, and this..." ,he actually parted the lips slightly with the leather tip , "is the vulva.  The labia majora you can see.  The more interesting parts are within.  Perhaps you will see them later."  He turned to the embarrassed companion, who was blushing, perhaps still flushed from her own "punishment."  "How many strokes did she give you?"

"I...I...I don't know, Master.  I lost count."

    "And what instrument did she use?  The birch?  The paddle?  The strap?  One of the whips?"

    "Oh, Master, it were only for fun.  She didn't mean to hurt me.  Not like when you..."  The young maid trembled, wringing her hands.

    "What instrument did she use?"

    "This, Sir."  The maid held up a wet cloth, wound into a sort of rope and doubled over.

    "Apply the instrument, just as she did to you."

    "Sir?"

    "Do  as I say!"

    "Yes, Master.  How many strokes, Sir?"

    "As many as necessary.  Make her come."  The standing maid blushed for certain.  "You came, didn't you?  Do the same for her."  The half-clothed maid swung the cloth against the buttocks of the naked one, the impact making the distinctive whap which Megan had heard before.  Again and again she applied the wet cloth, causing the kneeling maid's buttocks to blush pink.  With each blow, the end of the cloth penetrated the cleft of the woman's bottom and beat against the tender labia.  Megan noted how the labia responded, turning pink beneath the short dark hairs and gaping, swollen and slack, until the bright pink inner parts were visible.  The victim, restrained by the pillory, squirmed and mewled under the lash, though she did not cry out in pain.  Megan lost count of the strokes, several dozen, at least, administered regularly, like a music teacher counting time.  The victim began to pant, to sweat, her breasts, pressed against the bench, jiggling.  At last she gave forth a great noise, half growl, half scream, and she panted out some unintelligible words.

    "May I stop now, Sir Henry?"

    "No.  I think she needs more.  Mrs. Fairwood, perhaps you would like to observe the effect at the other end."

    Megan moved to where she could watch the victim's face, which contorted with each additional blow until, not many blows later, she repeated the inhuman sounding noises and slumped, almost in a swoon, muttering, "Oh, Jesus and Mary, I ain't never...  Oh, God!"

    The standing maid had stopped applying blows to the victim's bottom.  "Did I tell you to stop?" barked Sir Henry.

    "Uh...No, Sir."  She began the backswing for another blow.

    "Stop. Come here."  The young woman turned to Sir Henry and let the wet cloth hang from her hand.  "What punishment do you deserve?"

    "Master, Sir Henry, we didn't mean no harm.  We was cleanin' up and. . . well, one thing led to another."

    "Mrs. Fairwood," said Sir Henry, "these young women are of childbearing age, yet they have no husbands, nor are they likely to, while they remain in my employ.  Perhaps you can understand how one thing can lead to another."  Megan thought perhaps she did understand, now, and she nodded assent.  "Now, at various times, I have had to punish these maids for serious infractions.  That one," he said, pointing his crop at the pilloried woman, "was whipped three Saturdays in a row for stealing.  Should she need to be chastised again, be assured that I will find a different and more painful punishment."  He walked close to the exposed, bruised rump and applied a hard blow with his riding crop on the already tender flesh.  The maid yelped in genuine pain.  Then he parted her labia with the whip handle and actually pushed two inches of it into the woman's vagina.  "Observe, Mrs. Fairwood, the normal vagina."  He wiggled the whip.  "It is quite accommodating, even in its virginal state ...  You are a virgin, aren't you!"

    "Yes, Master," gasped the maid.

    "Of course, during the birth process it stretches a good deal more."  He withdrew the whip handle and pressed it against the place where the thin, pink inner lips came together in front.  "And here, Mrs. Fairwood, is an especially sensitive spot."  He pushed against the pink membranes, and the pilloried maid made an animalistic noise.  "It is sensitive to both pleasure and pain, and sometimes it is difficult to know which results.  I think we will leave this one here a while, to contemplate her sins.  Then there will be extra duties to perform, to compensate for her shirking.

And you," he said, turning to the other maid.  "What are we going to do with you?"  The maid did not answer, but stood with her lower lip trembling.  "Perhaps I should give you to Master James and let him swive you."

    "Oh, no!  No, please, Master, don't do that!  Please, no.  anything..."  Megan made a mental note that perhaps she should be thankful, though she didn't know why, that James was not asserting his conjugal rights.

    "No," said Sir Henry, "but we must do something about your lustful nature.  We can't have you getting in trouble, just hoping for a whipping."  The maid cringed, her wet shift clinging to her, so she might as well have been naked, from Megan's point of view.

    "Get out of that wet shift.  Get naked," he said to the frightened maid.  Without hesitation, she gathered up the cloth and worked the garment upwards and off over her head.  The wet cloth required some lifting and tugging, and Megan watched Sir Henry watching the maid's unclothed body wriggling as the wet cloth enshrouded her head.  Megan could not help making a comparison between the maid's breasts and her own and between the maid's thatch of hair between her legs and Megan's own.  In each case, Megan decided, she had more and better than the maid, who retained a child-like quality, although she must have been about Megan's age.  Megan was reminded of certain social reformers, who argued that the physical growth of the poor is stunted by malnutrition and sickness.  The maid showed no shame; surely she must have been naked in her master's sight many times before, to be so unmoved by her humiliation.

    Sir Henry took the cloth "rope" and used it to bind the maid with her back to one of the posts which supported the roof.  The cloth around her waist pulled her spine against the post, so that her shoulders and buttocks were forced forward, bending her body and tipping her pelvis so that the maid's vulva was better displayed and the knees were naturally bent a bit.  "Now," said Sir Henry, "I order you to finger yourself until you are spent."

    "Sir, I do not understand."  He took her hand in his and guided it between her legs, forcing her fingers between her lower lips.  "No, please, Sir Henry!  Please don't make me do that.  It's a mortal sin.  I'll burn in hell for touching myself like that."

    "Oh?" growled Sir Henry, as his strong masculine hand guided the slim feminine fingers up and down the groove.  "You can whip your friend until she comes, but you cannot touch yourself?  Explain to me, child."

    "There's nothin' wrong with a whippin', Sir Henry.  Spare the rod and spoil the child, they say.  But the nuns insisted we must never touch ourselves down there; we'd go straight to hell, for sure."

   "Ah, but God wants a loyal servant to obey her master, and I have given you an order," he said.  He was smiling, and he guided the woman's hand up and down a few times before releasing it and stepping away.  Megan saw that the maid did not remove her hand from between her legs but continued, more gently, the stroking which Sir Henry had forced upon her.  Henry and Megan stood watching the maid as, with a look of concentration on her face, she rubbed her labia with her right hand.  Light streamed in through windows and skylights, and the view was quite obscene, but the young woman seemed oblivious to the spectators.  Her skin flushed and her body shook, her pointy nipples dancing in air.  Her pelvis began to jerk, her chest to heave with heavy breathing, and a dreamy look spread across her face as perspiration dampened the skin between her breasts.  She experienced a kind of convulsion, and her hand fell away, the fingers slick with moisture.

The maid looked up at Sir Henry and smiled.  "I want you to practice that, whenever you feel the need, but do it at night in your own bed, not when you are supposed to be working."

She gave him a quizzical smile.  "Master, you are ordering me to rub myself at night?"  He nodded, and she broke into a real smile.  "Yes, Sir, I will obey your orders, Sir Henry."

   "Tell your friend I want her to practice also," he ordered, almost gruffly, before he turned his attention to Megan.

-5-

    "Megan," he said, "there is still the problem of your training.  Please release the maids and send them on their way."

    Megan worked at the knotted cloth, difficult to untie, as it was wet and tight.  Silently, Sir Henry handed her his pocket knife, and she cut the knot, releasing the naked maid.

    "Thank you, Mistress."

    "See if you can find some clean, dry shifts.  I don't want you going back to work in damp clothes," Megan said.  The young woman had no difficulty finding fresh shifts; there were piles of them folded on shelves.  Megan herself released the pilloried maid, who curtsied, seemingly oblivious of her nakedness.

    When the maids had dressed and been sent on their way with a few words from Sir Henry, he turned again to Megan.  She felt as if she should be frightened, but she actually looked forward to whatever novel experiences Sir Henry had in store for her.  "Young women of the lower classes," he said, matter of factly, "are much less inhibited in their sexual responses than women of breeding and refinement, such as yourself."  He looked her up and down.  "You are a handsome woman, and, ultimately, you will bear handsome children, but there is so much to be done, first.  Dr. Simpson was quite explicit.  You must not conceive until the birth canal is competent to pass the head of an infant.  Too often, in cases such as yours, mother and child die during childbirth, or the mother is grievously injured.  That must not happen."  Megan felt a sense of relief; Sir Henry would not let her suffer on account of her physical deficiency.  "Now, Megan, please remove your clothes."

    "Yes, Father, as you wish."  Obediently, Megan began unbuttoning her dress, a working woman's dress which could be taken off without the services of a maid, and of course, there were no corsets.  She hung the dress on a convenient rack and removed her shift and hose, placing her shoes neatly below the dress.  She was, of course, entirely exposed, in plentiful light, to the gaze of Sir Henry, but Megan forced herself to perform with no outward signs of self-consciousness or shame.  The maids had obeyed their master; Megan would do the same.  Calling him Father was her way of asserting herself.

    "Megan, my child," said Sir Henry, assuming the fatherly role which Megan had suggested, "your schooling has just begun.  You must be trained.  Have you ever fingered yourself, as the maid did?"

    "I confess, Father.  I tried last night, but, however much I  rubbed, I could not make myself come, as you call it.  It seems only you have the power to make my body respond."

    Henry smiled.  "Well, you must be trained.  Dr. Simpson is of the opinion that conception is more probable if the female comes before the man ejaculates his seed, and again, afterward.  He has actually performed scientific experiments with... female subjects, measuring the amount of seminal fluid which leaks out of them after coition.  There is definitely less, when the female has undergone those muscular spasms which, it would seem, God provided expressly to suck the seed into her womb.  Why else would He have equipped her with such passions?"

The question was rhetorical.  Megan stood silent in the steamy warmth of the laundry, wondering what new experience lay before her, what new heights of passion she might experience.  He led her toward the whipping bench.

She stood, naked, conscious of her womanhood displayed for him.  Her youthful breasts were gibbous on her bosom, and the curly hairs of her feminine triangle had nothing to cover them.  Though she could not see it, she was sure Sir Henry could see the bulbous end of the rod which distended her narrow vagina.  He came up behind her and, reaching around her arms, his hands cupped her breasts and began to squeeze.  A faint cry escaped her lips, as his fingers molded her soft flesh as if it were clay.  The semi-painful abuse of her tender tissues sent tingling tremors through her now-trained body.  She sighed, almost content, in spite of the discomfort.

    Then Henry arranged soft cloths ... there were plenty in the laundry ... in the cut-outs of the pillory and bent Megan, to place her neck and wrists into the cushioned receptacles.  He latched the covering gate, and she knew she was utterly helpless.  Somehow, it was a comforting thought.  She  was entirely at the mercy of this loving monster, and she could not be held accountable for what would happen.  Innocent, without shame or guilt, she would receive her "punishment", her training, and experience what she would, sensations she had no control over.  Her knees, widespread, rested on some sort of cloth cushions.  She was not uncomfortable.  Sir Henry had seen to that, a consideration he had neglected when the maid had been similarly pilloried.  Megan knew then that he loved her.  Bent over as she was, her head on the far side of the pillory, she had no idea what was coming next.  Would it be a stinging blow?  Or a caress?  It was the latter.  She felt her "father's" finger tips teasing her skin, almost tickling, as his hands roamed from the backs of her knees up along her thighs, over her buttocks, visiting all the places in between.  She tried to relax, content to feel his loving fingers possessing her.

    After a while, he seemed to spend more time stroking right between her parted thighs, and his finger tips sought out the tender, pink places beneath her now slick labia, while his palm pressed on the egg-shaped end of the rod, stretching her vaginal opening and stirring her womb, sending jolts, like lightning, through her belly.  She realized that, in these last days, she had become aware of her inner structures, her reproductive organs, about which she had previously been entirely ignorant.  Now I am a woman, no longer a child, she thought to herself.        

Slowly, inexorably, the tension built, the sensations escalated, and she found herself breathing hard, moaning, being transported to a level of experience she could not have imagined, until she was imprisoned in Fairwood Hall.  "Oh, OH!" she cried, as waves of sensation possessed her, driving her to utter distraction.  For a moment, she saw only blackness and fireworks and found herself limp and exhausted.  There was a moment of respite, but then her trainer began again, and she quickly found herself again in the throes of climactic spasms, he body jerking and shuddering with uncontrolled passion, then going limp in euphoric relaxation.

Still, Sir Henry persisted.  "Please, Father, enough of the torture!  I shall swoon if you persist," she cried, beside herself with uncontrollable yearnings.  Sir Henry did stop, and Megan regretted her outcry.  He had left her on a plateau of frustrating sensitivity, her body yearning for release, her mind yearning for the oblivion of the climax.

    "That, my love, was just the preliminary training."  He had used the word, love!  Your punishment is yet to come.  But, I have decided not to whip you.  Forty proper blows, after all, would leave you unable to sit or to perform your duties as Mrs. Fairwood, mistress of the house."  He left her there for a few moments, unsatisfied, acutely aware of her vulva, so recently stroked, now drying slowly in the warm air of the wash house.

    In a few moments he returned, with a pair of pointed pincers, such as mechanics use.  He used the instrument to grasp a single hair on the lip of her vulva, and he pulled slowly, stretching the soft flesh, until the hair popped out.  "Ouch!", she said.  He repeated the procedure, and Megan refrained from crying out, instead bearing the mild pain, fascinated at what was happening.  She lost count, dreamily concentrating on the way her labium would stretch, then spring back after the hair popped out.  He treated both equally, until at last he said, "Forty.  Fifty the next time you need punishment."

    "Until they are bare, like Carmen's?"  Sir Henry only growled.  His finger tips slid gently over the depilated portion of her cleft, and Megan wondered if Henry continued to pluck Carmen so or if she did it herself.  Then she felt his finger rubbing something, soft soap she supposed, on the puckered pink of her anus.  Then something pressed against the tight orifice.  Pilloried as she was, she could not see what her master was doing.  Megan tried to relax, and in a moment something smooth slipped inside her, slightly stretching the muscles which closed her nether hole.  She could not see, but she suspected what was to happen.  As a child, her grandmother, who believed in colonic irrigation, had done something similar to relieve a girlish tummy ache.

    Warm water began to flow into Megan's rectum.  The flow was slow; it was not uncomfortable, at first, but she felt a distension of her insides, and felt gurgling within her as the water worked its way deeper into her bowels.  She became aware of warm water leaking out of her, dribbling down between her legs.  Sir Henry pushed on the thing within her, and her anus stretched to enclose a round shape which popped into her and pressed against her from the inside, as the orifice closed around it.  "Do not let it come out," instructed Henry.  The flow continued, warm, invasive, filling her, finding its way deeper and deeper into her body.  She supposed she could feel her belly swelling.  There was something terrible about this.  She was being forced to submit to the invasion of her body by foreign material.  It was humiliating.  It marked her as a helpless slave of her dominating trainer, who so owned her body that he could do this to her with impunity.  She resolved to be stoic.  Whatever he did to punish her, she would withstand it.

She could see only the floor before her face, but she imagined Sir Henry, holding the instrument of punishment, seeing how much she could take before she could take no more.  She tried to tighten the muscles of her anus, which kept the ball from popping out under the pressure of water within her.

    The moment came suddenly.  What had been an uncomfortable stretching of her bowels suddenly triggered an explosion of pain and violent spasms in her belly.  "Ahhh!' she cried, uncontrollably, as the waves of pain wracked her abdomen.  She could not contain the ball which plugged her anus.  It shot out, followed by a gush of filth which spewed across the stone floor of the punishment room.  "Ah," she sighed, as the pain subsided.  Her bowels twitched, spurting warm water from her violated anus, the strained muscles unable to close it.  She quivered in her restraints, exhausted, as her body tried to rid itself of the invading fluid.  She heard Sir Henry sweeping her spew into a drain in the floor.

    "Was that my punishment for violating the rule about going out alone?"

    "Some of it," he replied, again pushing the nozzle into her anus, until the slacked muscles partially closed over the ball again.  She could not have resisted, even had she tried.

    "Do you punish the maids this way?"

    "Sometimes.  I usually delegate the chore to Carmen.  She is quite accomplished at determining how much a young woman can stand, without damaging her.  It is an effective punishment, don't you think?  Most plead for a whipping instead, but, of course, punishments are supposed to be unpleasant.  Dr. Simpson approves.  He says that, after a while, a whipping becomes less effective as a deterrent.  Some of the maids, I believe, actually boast to the others how many strokes they received upon the bare buttocks.  It somehow raises their status, below stairs.  This punishment leaves no marks to boast of, and the proudest delinquents are contrite after a suitable session with Carmen and the water treatment.  And, of course, many medical authorities praise the benefits of cleansing the body of toxins which accumulate in the bowels.  I believe, in London, a weekly cleansing is administered to the daughters of the finer families, for the sake of their health, regardless of their misbehavior."  Megan had heard of families where the daughters were regularly whipped, whether or not they had misbehaved, to encourage humility and decorum and to banish unchaste thoughts.  Surely, the water treatment would be even more humiliating, and, as Sir Henry had said, it leaves no marks.

"There is a consensus among upper class families, it seems, that daughters must be discouraged from touching themselves, in the way I instructed the errant maid.  I do not hold that premise, but it is almost universal.  A girl's chastity must be preserved until marriage.  Was that not the case in your family, in America?"

    "Yes, I suppose it was.  But I would never have thought of touching myself there, so, of course, I was never punished for it."

    "English girls," he continued, as more warm fluid irrigated Megan's insides, "are strictly forbidden.  But, sometimes, forbidden fruit is the sweetest.  So steps must be taken to prevent it."  He placed an hand under Megan, as if to gauge how full she was.  "There is a shop on Oxford Street which sells fresh stinging nettles, grown in glass houses, so as to be available in all seasons.  Some mothers subscribe to a service, where fresh nettles are delivered to the house thrice a week."

    "Nettles?" said Megan.  As a girl, walking through a field, she had brushed against some wild nettles.  The tiny hairs pierced the skin of her arm, causing a rash and an infuriating, stinging itch, which lasted for quite a while, even after her mother gave her a soothing poultice.  It was a lesson Megan never wanted repeated; she always stayed on the path after that.

    "Yes," said Sir Henry.  "The girl is made to sit on them, or to wear them inside her drawers.  The result, of course, is terrible to see.  The girl's hands must be restrained, to keep her from clawing herself, and you can imagine the effect on the tender skin between the legs and in the cleft of the behind.  I don't see how a girl could stand such punishment thrice a week, but some do.  The hard cases.  The stubborn ones."  He pulled the ball from Megan's slack anus and observed the spew.  "Yes, you are cleaner now.  Perhaps only one or two more irrigations."  He again applied the nozzle, and the now familiar warmth flooded Megan's rectum.  She relaxed and let it enter her.  She could get used to  even this.  "I visited a house in London, a magistrate's home, where his daughter was suspected of touching herself.  I could hear her cries clearly, all the way from the nursery.  The magistrate remarked that his daughter never seemed to learn, and the nettles were the only really effective punishment.  He could beat her until she bled, but she still would not keep her hands outside the covers at night."  The water began to distend Megan's bowels; the discomfort grew more difficult to ignore.  "We had an Irish girl, twelve or thirteen, who worked in the scullery.  She was caught licking a jam jar, and Carmen suggested that she might be too frail to withstand the whipping she deserved.  After one treatment with nettles, the girl ran away and was never heard from again."  Megan shuddered at the thought, and suddenly she had to spew again, her anal muscles unable to contain the pressure.  The ball shot out, and warm water gushed across the floor.  "That should do it," said Sir Henry.  "What comes next isn't part of the standard punishment, but in your case, my wife, it should be done."

    Again she felt the soap applied to her anus.  Megan felt something else entering her behind, and she realized that Sir Henry must have removed his trousers.  That manly organ she had felt the first night, but had never properly seen, pushed through her unresisting anus, stretching her anew, and stroked in and out.  It was neither pleasant nor painful.  She felt his hard body pressing periodically against her bottom, pushing her forward, so her shoulders pressed against the pillory.  In a few seconds, a few thrusts, it was over, and he slid out of her.  "Now," he said, "our marriage is consummated.  The law is that a marriage is not binding until it is consummated, until the wife is penetrated, and they are 'one flesh.'  I could not use the orifice God intended, but our union is consummated, nevertheless.  You are truly my wife, and I your husband.  You will stop that annoying habit of calling me Father."  He once more flushed her rectum with warm water, not so much as to be painful, this time.  She heard him dressing, putting on his boots again.

Dressed once more, he released her from the pillory, but he bound her wrists with a strip of gauze and tied her to an overhead beam, standing practically on tip-toe.  She wondered if her was going to whip her, after all, but he seemed content to leave her, draining, with water dribbling from her aching anus.  He could not, however, keep his hands off her naked body, so displayed, so vulnerable, arms raised, breasts thrust forth.  His stroking of her body, his compulsive attention to her breasts, had her shuddering with spasms of passion. Finally, when she thought she was losing her mind, her trainer took another strip of gauze and passed it around her waist, tied an overhand knot, and passed the ends between her legs.  He packed the crack of her behind with a rag and drew the ends of the gauze up tightly, tying them to the band around her waist.  The pressure of the taut gauze against her labia restored her sexual desire, but Sir Henry seemed unconcerned with that.  He released her hands and helped her to dress.  "We can't have you wetting your dress," he said.  "I'll remove that after dinner."

Megan, acutely aware of the pressure on her labia, felt she couldn't wait that long.  How depraved I have become, she thought to herself, as they walked toward the main house.  She was outwardly complacent but inwardly excited, feeling tingles between her legs as with each step the gauze chafed her womanly cleft and pressed the ebony rod deeper inside her.  I wonder what he will do to me tonight.

-6-

    Carmen helped Megan to dress for dinner, and of course Megan could not conceal the evidence of her afternoon in the laundry.  Carmen smiled and said, "Sir Henry is so adept at so many things.  He makes a study of subjects which interest him.  But with the water, he is so... clumsy.  He does not understand the finer points.  The next time he takes you to the laundry, ask for Carmen to administer the punishment."

    "He says you punish the maids," said Megan, surprised that she could speak so casually of a subject about which she couldn't have dreamed a few days ago.  "If you are the expert, won't it hurt more?"

   "Trust me, Mistress," replied Carmen.  "Perhaps I should teach him a thing or two about female anatomy.  Did he... did he place part of himself inside you?  Your behind, I mean."

    Megan smiled:  "Yes."

   "He used to do that with me.  That way, one does not get with child."

   The dinner, just Megan and Sir Henry together, was awkward, as Megan was constantly aware of the ebony rod and the taut gauze which continuously stimulated her sexual parts.  "Please, Sir Henry, may I remove the... uh, bandage directly after the meal?"

    "Yes, after our meal, my dear wife," he said, smiling.

    "Carmen suggested that you should let her punish me the next time, should that become necessary.  She feels left out.  You have been neglecting her, and she is expert in her craft, isn't she?"

    He smiled again.  "I like to think I taught her everything she knows, but, truthfully, she has worked hard to perfect her craft, as you put it.  I will consider that suggestion, should further punishment become necessary."

    Megan felt a thrill of anticipation, as she and her father-in-law ... no ... her husband ascended the broad front stairs to the bedrooms above.  Megan  was a bit disappointed when she walked into her room and found Carmen there, a fresh fire on the grate, the bed prepared, with the straps in place on the bed posts.  Carmen undressed Megan, and Sir Henry watched as Carmen removed the gauzy "chastity belt".  Not realizing that Megan had already replaced one ebony rod, Sir Henry directed Carmen to insert the next larger size.  Megan started to protest, but decided to keep quiet.

    Megan allowed Carmen to spread-eagle her upon the bed, naked, of course, but not cold, with the fresh, roaring fire.  She gritted her teeth as Carmen performed the operation, withdrawing one rod, which was still tight in the vagina, and inserting a larger one, which took some time and effort.  "Sir Henry," Carmen remarked, "it is a very tight fit.  I fear you are progressing too swiftly."

    "Megan can manage the discomfort.  We must hurry.  No one knows how much time James has left."

    "But Sir Henry, if it is too large, it may prevent the circulation of the blood.  There is a danger.  Perhaps you should consult with Dr. Simpson."

    "Are you finished, Carmen?  I might as well get on with the training.  Good night, Carmen."  Before she left, Carmen had a whispered conversation with her master, and slipped something into his hand.

    Megan's training commenced again, to her delight.  Bound and helpless, her only concern was to respond to her master's caresses; morality was not an issue.  Her trainer slipped a bolster under the small of her back, so her bottom was raised up, off the bed, and he had full access to her private parts.  "Carmen reminded me that part of your training might include this," he said, holding up a pine-tree shaped object made of ivory, she supposed.  He lubricated it, as he had the ebony rod, and pressed it against Megan's anus.  Still fatigued from the afternoon training, the muscles stretched sufficiently to admit the object, which fit like a cork in a bottle and kept her orifice stretched open, so her sphincter muscles could not draw it closed.  "You will get used to it, Megan, and it will reduce the necessity of so many training sessions in the laundry.  You must wear it always, like the ebony rods, except in the privy, of course.  The function is similar, to make your body more capable to accept mine."

    Megan found the stretching sensation not objectionable, rather like a prolonged bowel movement, and she soon forgot, as Sir Henry's ministrations sent waves of passion through her body.  His finger tips teased her with gentle caresses and tormented her with passion-exciting pressure on her breasts and vulva.  The anal obturator was practically forgotten when he used his strong hands to rub her labia, one against the other, so that the pain-pleasure sent her into an oblivion of passion, a little death, a momentary swoon, so intense was the sensation.  Finally, he was done for the night.  Megan wished he would lie beside her, but he left, saying something about finishing a bottle of claret.  Megan lay there, her back still arched by the bolster, her limbs taut.  Her breasts throbbed and her vulva, ornamented by the ebony knob on the end of the rod, was tender, but in an exciting way.

    Carmen came in and appraised the situation.  "He doesn't know his own strength.  Tomorrow, you will be a mass of bruises.  Of course they won't show."  She looked down at Megan and gently touched, either side of the ebony rod, stroking gently.

    "That belongs to Sir Henry," Megan said, reprovingly.

    "Yes, mistress," said Carmen, snatching back her hand.  "Another time."  She released Megan's limbs and tucked her into bed, drawing up the eiderdown and affectionately arranging Megan's hair.  "Sleep, my child.  I am old enough to be your mother.  You have much to learn, but I will look out for you."

-7-

The leaves fell, and from time to time it snowed.  The days were shortened, and the nights lengthened, until there were barely six hours of daylight.  London is about as far north as Hudson's Bay.  Usually, however, it was only chilly and damp, not the bitter cold Megan had known at home.  The Thames only freezes once in 400 years.

    Carmen and Megan assessed that her training was going well.  A dozen times a day, Megan thought, if only Mother could see me now, stuffed full fore and aft and without a shred of shame.  The ebony rod was now almost an inch in diameter.   Sir Henry sometimes neglected to bind her to the bedposts; she lay, spread as if bound, and accepted everything without complaint, although her breasts were in a chronic state of tenderness, and she had to be careful how she slept, so as not to press on them.  She came to relish the constant soreness as a reminder of how much Sir Henry liked them.  She became used to having her master use her anal orifice, sometimes several times a week.  She could easily relax and accommodate his rigid member without discomfort, though it never produced the delightful effect of his fingers on her vulva.  Best of all, now her lover sometimes spent the night in her bed, keeping her warm with a hand cupped over her naked breast.

    Her monthly period came on schedule, but that did not diminish Megan's enjoyment of her training.  "For hygienic reasons," her vulva was now plucked bare, and in its nude state it seemed even more sensitive.  Sir Henry took her several times a day to the laundry complex, where she would be pilloried, pressed naked against the whipping bench in the punishment room.  He withdrew the bloody rod and cleansed the vagina with a jet of warm water, flushing blood and clots down the drain, playing the stream over Megan's naked labia.  The second day, at Carmen's suggestion, he stood and watched as Carmen performed the vaginal cleansing.  At first, Megan resented that, wishing her "husband" would do it, but then Carmen paid special attention to cleaning the folds of Megan's vulva, directing the force of the water toward her sensitive nubbin, making her come again and again, until she was driven to a drug-like state of exhaustion.  Until her flow stopped, Sir Henry would do the same, to Megan's great enjoyment.  While Megan had always taken an interest in her "curse", her proof of womanly function, it became now a thing to be cherished, to look forward to, and it seemed too short, since the cessation of her flow meant there was no need to use the punishment room, until her next period.

    Carmen, it seemed, resented the fact that Sir Henry didn't seem to need her.  Megan noticed the change in Carmen's manner; she was sharp with the other servants and seemingly morose when she was excluded from Megan's room by Sir Henry, who had taken it upon himself to dress Megan.  And then, one morning in December, Carmen went hysterical, hurling an expensive china tea cup which smashed against the fireplace.

    "Megan," said Sir Henry, almost sadly, "don't you think she must be punished?"  Three serving maids had seen the incident, and discipline, Megan knew, must be maintained.

    "Yes, immediately," she said, noting a subtle smile on Carmen's face.

    "Would you like to be in charge of punishing her?"

    "I think the master of Fairwood Hall should do it.  After all, she is my friend and...   But I'd like to watch."

    Together, they took Carmen to the laundry, admonishing the staff to stay away.  Praise in public; punish in private is a good rule.  "Disrobe!" ordered the master.  Megan watched as her servant, old enough to be her mother, took off her apron, black uniform, and the underlying shift.  Then she took off her shoes and rolled down her hose, to stand naked before them on the tiled floor of the wash house.  Megan noted that Carmen's pubic trapezoid was at least a dark and bushy as her own, ending starkly, as hers did, with the plucked naked labia of her cleft.  A glance toward the door by Sir henry was instruction enough; Carmen went into the punishment room, where even a disobedient servant could not observe.  Sir Henry bolted the door, just in case.  Megan noted Carmen's breathing, her flushed complexion.  The woman was entirely different, anticipating her punishment.  Without being told, she took her place upon the whipping bench.  Megan fastened her in, cushioning her wrists and throat with cloths, as Sir Henry had done with Megan.

    "How many strokes do you deserve, you destructive creature?" said Henry.

    "Fifty, at least, master.  As many as required to correct my sinful ways."

Henry selected from among the instruments of punishment a fat, black leather strap, which had holes in it, to increase the effectiveness.  It whistled as he propelled it through the air, and the sound it made when it struck made Megan shudder.  As it fell away, Megan saw the broad pink stripe it left upon her servant's bottom, and the pattern of holes was reproduced on the skin as a constellation of little circles, where the soft flesh had be driven into the perforations in the strap.  Megan was sure it must have hurt terribly, yet Carmen had not screamed in pain.

Sir Henry assessed his work with his finger tips, then stuck again.  "I think, Carmen, that you should count the strokes," he said.

    "That was two, master.  Please, may I have number three?"  Sir Henry complied with her request.  "Please, sir, number four?"  Five, six, seven, eight... Megan marveled that Carmen was not reduced to blubbering pleas for mercy.  Carmen's buttocks, and her naked labia, exposed between her spread legs, were now spotted with dozens of the little red circles, where the skin had stretched, even to the breaking point, as she was beaten with the infamous strap.  After the ninth blow, Carmen cried out, "Oh, God, I'm coming!  Please, master!"  When Henry administered the tenth blow, Carmen howled and blubbered and said, "Oh, thank you, master.  Please, may I have number eleven?"  Megan was incredulous, but it was plain to see that Carmen was in the throes of passion, and in her drug-like trance she wanted more.  With the thirteenth she came again and had to catch her breath before she could ask for more.  Henry stopped at twenty, for Carmen was clearly exhausted and almost delirious with repeated orgasms.  Carmen's buttocks were fiery red, even bleeding, and the juices of her sex gleamed on her spread thighs.  She had come with such a spasm that she quite literally sprayed; Megan noted the distinctive odor in the air, not urine but the intimate juices of passion.  Henry allowed Megan to free her maid from the pillory, and several minutes passed before Carmen could stand.  Megan handed her maid a shift, playing the role of maid to Carmen, but Carmen backed away.

    "Sir Henry," she said hoarsely, "would you please allow me to serve my master as I used to?"  Sir Henry looked at Megan, who nodded assent, not knowing what would happen but feeling that anything Carmen wanted was justified, after such a beating.

    Henry dropped his trousers and Megan saw clearly for the first time his erect organ.  Carmen knelt on the floor before him.  She put her fingers around the base of his rampant member and put the end of it in her mouth.  Megan could not have imagined such a thing, yet there was Carmen, licking and sucking as if it were a stick of hard candy!  Before long, Henry tensed and grunted, and Megan watched, fascinated, as Carmen swallowed the seed.  "Thank you, master,” she said, getting to her feet.  Henry looked embarrassed, when he saw Megan watching, and quickly dressed.  Then Carmen allowed Megan to help her dress.

    Back at the house, Megan took Carmen to her room and let her lie, naked, face down, on Megan's bed, the better to recover from her ordeal.  Carmen's rump was frightfully pink, with little dots of red, where the blood vessels beneath her skin had broken.  "Carmen," Megan said, "we both know you wanted to be whipped."

    "Yes, mistress."

    "How could you enjoy it?  How could you be aroused to passion by pain?"

    "Mistress, there is no explaining it.  Some women...  It is how I was raised.  Sexual passion is in the head, not the belly.  When Sir Henry... I can't help myself.  I supposed I was trained to respond... trained like a dog."

    "Will you tell me about it?"

    "About what?"

    "About how it was you were trained, and why, and when."

    "As you know, mistress, I was born in Argentina, the seventh of eleven children.  We were very poor.  When I was fourteen, my father sold me to an Englishman, Mr. Roger Curwen, who ran a sort of gentlemen's club.  The Empire Club, it was called, in Buenos Aries."

    "Sold you?  As a servant?"

    "To be a whore," Carmen replied.

    "No!"

    "Why not?  Everywhere, there are whores.  Even here, in Queen Victoria's most civilized and enlightened Christian kingdom, it is said that at least one women in every fourteen or fifteen is a whore.  The streets of London are clogged with them."

    "But... go on, Carmen.  You couldn't help it, could you."

    "No.  Mr. Curwen took me into the city in a carriage, the first time I had even ridden in one.  When we got there, he gave me to a tall, blonde woman, whom I  was to call, "Mother."  She spoke English, but I think she was Swedish or Russian.  She took away my dirty rags of clothes and bathed me, the first time I ever had a real bath, with scented soap and everything.  I was sure I would like it there.  The club was like a grand hotel, but private, for members only, for gentlemen only.  They were all well-to-do, and they had to be nominated for membership by two existing members.  Some of the members kept rooms there, a place to stay when they were in the city, and a few lived there all the time.  Most, however, just came to dine and enjoy the entertainment, us girls.  After my bath, Mother would not give me any clothes to wear.  She said I must get used to being naked.  She took me to the kitchen, and I had what seemed the best meal of my life.  I marveled at my good fortune.  I had a bed of my own, with sheets and a pillow, in back, in what was called the stable.  I think it actually had been one, before it was rebuilt.  They sometimes called us fillies or mares, and the members might say they wanted to ride a mare.  There was a restaurant in front of the hotel, very elegant I was told, but women were not allowed in there, or in the reading and smoking rooms of the hotel.  Mother told me I must never leave the club; I would never see my family again.  There was a walled garden, where we could take the air, but only with another, and only naked."

   "Why was that?"

   "One girl had concealed a note, and thrown it over the wall.  And, of course, it would be harder to climb the wall and escape if one were naked, wouldn't it?"

   "It was like a prison, then?"

   "Yes, very much so.  But in some ways it was nice.  I ate well, filled out some, started to have regular periods."

   "You were just a child!"

   "I suppose so.  I couldn't have tried to get a note out; I couldn't read or write.  We were so poor; if I hadn't been sold to Mr. Curwen I might have ended up whoring on the streets."

   "But you had to 'entertain' men."

   "Yes.  Most of them were married, so we had to learn to give them what their wives wouldn't."

   "So how did they train you?"

   "Lots of ways.  Going naked most of the time was part of it.  They gave me a new name, Carmen.  That's not the name I was given at birth.  During the day, we were servants.  We cleaned, did the laundry, the bed linens, worked in the scullery ... naked, of course.  There were lessons.  Mother taught us English; most of the members were foreigners.  Singing and dancing lessons.  Ways to please a man.  My first real lesson came the night after I arrived there."

    "What happened?"

    "Behind the restaurant was a saloon bar.  The members could take supper there, smoke, have a brandy, and look over the fillies.  Some of the girls would move among the men, but others were on display, so to speak.  I was told to stand naked on a table and let the men look at me.  When I tried to cover my private parts with my hands, they whipped me.  I had to stand with my feet apart and my hands clasped behind my head."

    "It must have been terrible."

    "At first, I was ashamed.  But it didn't take long to get over that.  After a while, I began to enjoy those men looking at me.  I was something special.  I'd smile and wiggle my hips a little when one really stared at me."

    "So that was it?"

    "That was the beginning.  Then they auctioned off my maidenhead.  An Englishman bought me for six times what my father had been paid.  When I realized what was happening, I fought.  They tied me down, and the man took me from behind, like a dog."

    "That must have been... very unpleasant."

    "It was.  The next night, another man wanted me to go with him.  I thought it would hurt again, and, when I wouldn't go with him, he complained to Mother."

    "And?"

    "She explained that if I would not cooperate, then I must be given to a man who wanted an uncooperative girl.  She gave me to a Spanish-speaking man, a police official, I think.  He handcuffed me and whipped me, kept telling me whores are criminals and deserve to be punished.  Then he had me, anyway, so I was worse off than if I had gone with the first one.  I learned my lesson.  Take whatever you get; learn to enjoy it, if you can.  Never complain."

    "Didn't you worry that you would conceive a child?"

    "Well, at first, I think I was too young.  And then, before we went to the saloon, Mother would push a sort of sponge into us, which was supposed to help protect us.  After each session, we were supposed to flush ourselves with water.  But, you have to realize that those men didn't want ordinary sex.  They wanted what they couldn't get at home.  Some were cruel; they wanted to hurt an humiliate a woman, and they didn't have the cojones to beat their own wives.  Sometimes they would do it right there, in the saloon, so the other men could watch.  Almost all the men, if I offered to use my mouth, preferred that.  Or they'd use my arse.  So, it didn't seem so likely that I would get with child.  Mother kept careful track of our periods, on a calendar, to make sure we weren't pregnant.  I don't know, but I think she had some way of dealing with it, if we were."

    "I suppose when you were flowing, you got the night off?"

    "Oh, no.  We worked every day.  Some men liked a bloody cunny.  The mouth and arse still worked.  Sometimes, we'd be dressed up, put on show.  There was a sort of torture chamber, where a girl could be displayed on a rack, or in a cage, or tied up in some strange manner, or given colonic irrigation.  Lot's of men were satisfied just to watch.  If a girl needed to be punished for something, Mother would let the members participate, in the torture chamber or on the stage, in the saloon.  Some of the Englishmen were very strange.  They would want me dressed up in a costume, like an English school girl or a nanny, or sometimes in exotic leather costumes, and, instead of beating me, I would have to humiliate them and whip them with a birch.  I was there four and a half years, and I guess I did just about anything you could imagine, and a few things you couldn't. Each filly had to learn to be resigned to her job, to at least pretend to 'come' with every man.  I was good at it.  They made me train some of the new girls."

    "New girls?  What happened to the old ones?"

    "I don't know.  They never said good-bye.  If a girl got too old, too wrinkled or fat, and the men got tired of her, she'd just disappear, like the Carmen before me did.  We all tried harder, knowing we might disappear."

    "Where did they go?"

    "I really don't know.  Maybe they went to some lower class brothel, or became ordinary servants, or... they might be buried somewhere."

    "How horrible!  What happened to you, after four and a half years?"

    "There was a Russian diplomat, who visited the club every Sunday morning.  I suppose they thought he went to church.  He couldn't get stiff unless he inflicted pain, so he would ask for two girls, in the torture chamber.  One would be tied to a table or bench, ready for sex, and the other would be tortured until he could perform the sex act.  We all dreaded that, but we each had to take our turn.  Usually, Mother would watch, to make sure we weren't hurt too badly.  It came my turn.  The Russian had me suspended from a beam, by my wrists and my ankles, so I was bent double, with my legs spread far apart and my arse right out in front.  That was bad enough, but I was used to it.  Sometimes, I'd been displayed in the saloon that way.  Men like to see a woman's privates on display like that, and, of course, I was shaved down there.  In those days, my ears were pierced ... and my nipples and my lower lips.  I could wear three pairs of ear rings at once."

    "That sounds horrible."

    "By then, I was proud of my rings.  I could hook my fingers in the lower pair and pull them apart, flashing some pink at a man.  But this time, he had tied strings to the lower rings and around my legs, so I was held wide open as I hung there.  Normally, I liked to be whipped or spanked between my legs ... you saw how I responded today.  But he whipped the tender pink part, and it really hurt, and I was sobbing.  Still he couldn't get hard.  Finally, the crazy Russian took a hot fire poker and branded me, right there, inside.  I screamed, and the other filly screamed, and whoever was around came to see what had happened."

    "So, what became of you?"

    "Sir Henry was there, had been eating breakfast.  He's not much of a churchgoer.  He was visiting Argentina, something to do with building a new railway.  When he saw what had happened, he bought me from Mr. Curwen.  It was an act of pure Christian charity.  I love him for it.  He brought me to England with him."

    "So you recovered and became his mistress?"

    "No, I was scarred too badly.  Of course, I still had my mouth and arse, but Sir Henry wasn't interested in my body.  He was married to his Kate, and he loved her very much.  When young james was born, I became a nursemaid to young James.   It was only later, when Kate gave permission, that I told Sir Henry I loved him, and I wanted to make up, somehow, for his loss."

    "And you served him as you did this morning."

    "Yes, and with my arse, until you came."

    "Somehow, Carmen, I'm almost sorry.  Do you hate me for taking him away from you?"

    "No, mistress.  I love him, and it pleases me to see him happy.  You had better serve him well, and bear him sons, or I'll...  I know lots of ways to hurt a woman."

    “You said Kate gave her permission.  How could that be?”

    “The say that Kate has a weak heart, and that is why she keeps to her rooms. That is not the whole story.  When James was born, it was a very difficult delivery.  Kate was left with a vaginal fistula.  It happens.”

    “What is a vaginal fistula?”

    “The birth canal tears, and in her case, urine runs into her vagina, dribbles all the time.  She lives in nappies, like a baby, and her room reeks of urine.”

    “That explains why Sir henry sometimes smells...funny.”

    “Yes, he tries to make sure she is as comfortable as possible, visits often.  She always has a maid in attendance, night and day.  Since she needs more nappies than a dozen babies, Sir Henry had the laundry built to clean them.  He's very clever.”

    “His wife gave permission, because they could no longer  have conjugal relations?”

    “Yes, just as she has given permission for him to 'marry' you.  She knows you are here to produce an heir, and she knows James cannot impregnate you.”

    “Why can't James get me with child?”

    “James has syphilis.  Do you know what that is?”

    “No, tell me.”

    “It is a terrible disease which is spread by sexual contact.  James contracted it from some whore in London.  He could not have sex with you without passing it on to you and to your child, who would likely be stillborn or die young.  It is an evil disease.  Sometimes there are no symptoms, but then it flares up and causes a variety of symptoms, mimicking other diseases.  Often sufferers go blind, or go mad, before it finally kills them.  Sir Henry cannot legally marry you until Kate dies, and she is actually quite healthy, but she cannot have another child.  You must give Sir Henry another son, legally James' son, so that the family name will live on.”

-8-   

    In spite of the popular propensity to ape the royal family in the observance of Christmas, the holiday at Fairwood Hall was observed traditionally, which is to say hardly at all.  Sir Henry, in the privacy of her room, presented Megan with a beautiful ring, with chips of diamonds and rubies.

    "Dear Husband," she said, smiling, "I have not been allowed to go shopping, but I have something for you, too.  Carmen helped me choose your present."  She loosed his trousers and knelt before him, taking his already rampant member into her mouth for the first time.  She was surprised to find his semen tasted sweet, and she was thrilled when he declared, breathlessly, "Megan, I love you more than anything in the world," moments after she had swallowed his seed.

    After Boxing Day, late at night, James returned home.  Megan and Henry put on robes and rushed to see him, but he seemed not to even notice Megan.  He had lost weight, and his complexion was blotchy.  There was a wild cast to his gaze, and he said not a word to Megan, who stood back, incredulous that this was the same man she had married in America.  With James was a poxed doxy, a strumpet from Soho, dressed like a music hall girl, like the whore that she was.  The two of them retired to a distant upstairs room, and Megan was never permitted to see them again.

    "Henry," she said, hugging Sir Henry with tears in her eyes, "what is happening?"

   "Tell her," said Carmen.

   "We already knew, when I sent James to find a wife, that he had syphilis.  You know what that is?"  Megan nodded.  "America seemed a good place to find a bride, far from possible lawsuits from irate parents.  James chose you for me, not for himself.  He knew he could never beget a child without the probability of infecting both mother and child, perhaps killing her and producing an imbecile for an heir.  But he knew his duty as a Fairwood.  He brought me you."

    "And that woman?"

    "An old... professional acquaintance.  She may even be the one who infected him; we'll never know.  Dr. Simpson says the disease has progressed to the tertiary stage.  He's going blind and, I think, is losing his mind.  James doesn't have long to live, now.  You understand, Megan; let them enjoy their last days together.  You are not his wife.  Don't be concerned."

    "How long does he have to live?"

    "Who knows?  Likely he'll die before spring."

    "If I'm to bear his heir, I must be pregnant before he dies.  There is no time to lose, Sir Henry.  You must do it, now."

    "Megan, my dear, you are hardly an inch in diameter.  How can I?"

    "We must find a way, Sir Henry.  Consult Dr. Simpson."

    "I think," said Carmen, "I know a way, if you can stand the pain."

    Megan found herself once again in the laundry wash house.  The winter afternoon sun streamed in.  The boiler kept them comfortably warm, as Carmen helped Megan to undress.  Dr. Simpson was there, and of course Sir Henry, wearing a robe which opened in front.  "You don't need to use the pillory.  I will behave myself," said Megan.  "I'll just bend over this table."  She pressed her tender breasts against the padded laundry table, and Carmen held her hand a moment.

    Dr. Simpson stepped forward and withdrew the ebony rod, only an inch in diameter and a tight fit at that.  "Mrs. Fairwood," he said, "this is a brave thing you are undertaking.  If you can't bear the pain, we'll all understand."

    "Doctor," Megan replied, her cheek pressed against the table top, her hair spread across it like a comet, "This is something I must do, today, tomorrow, as many times as necessary."

    "You have earned our admiration, Mrs. Fairwood."

    "I'll do the job," said Carmen.  "I'm a woman.  I know how much she can stand.  Sir Henry, will you prepare her, please?"

    A solemn Sir henry stepped forward and applied his fingers to Megan's exposed vulva, gently, considerately, until she was well lubricated by her own juices.  Dr. Simpson looked away; even a physician must be embarrassed sometimes.  Carmen surreptitiously stroked Sir Henry, to assure that he would be ready when the moment came.

    "The Holy Inquisition used an agony pear, a metal device which could be inserted into the mouth of a blasphemer or the anus of a sodomist or the vagina of  a whore.  When it expanded, it caused excruciating pain, and often terrible damage.  This is a modern adaptation, an instrument of punishment such as Mother reserved for the worst cases," said Carmen.  "Sir Henry has never let me use it, before now." 

    Dr. Simpson interrupted.  “Think of it as a medical device.  The intention is not to cause pain but to make childbirth possible.”

    Carmen inserted a tube, with a rubber bladder over it, into Megan's tiny vagina.  Sir Henry filled a vessel with warm water, body heat.  Carmen began to pump with a hand pump, and the bladder within Megan began to swell as incompressible water filled it.  Dr. Simpson couldn't help watching, fascinated, as the bladder swelled, stretching Megan's tunnel beyond anything she had ever experienced.  Then the doctor looked away and went to hold her hand, reminded that a physician must comfort the afflicted.

    Beads of perspiration dotted Megan's forehead, and her eyes rolled desperately.  Grunts, stifled screams, came with every labored breath, with every stroke of the pump.  Still, Carmen kept pumping,  stretching the tortured membranes of the love tunnel, enlarging the entrance to Megan's precious womb.  "She's in agony," whispered Dr. Simpson, awed by the effects of the torture.  "I fear she may go into shock."  Megan gave a louder cry of apparent pain, and the bladder emerged from between her legs, as if she had given birth to a croquet ball.  For an instant, Megan's crimson cave gaped open, and Sir Henry plunged his member into her.

The shock of the invasion pressed Megan hard against the table, and she cried out, as her vaginal muscles gripped the huge shaft like a clenched fist.  Before she could get a second breath, after barely three or four quick strokes, she felt Sir Henry depositing his seed, close by the mouth of her womb.  The waves of an incredibly intense orgasm washed over her, and she began to black out, the storied "little death" of uncontrollable passion.  As her vision faded and an animal cry escaped her throat, she knew that this was the happiest, the most glorious moment of her life.

--- END ---