Properly Theirs, page 2
part #10 of Victorian Correction Series
Yes, the physician had of course covered thoroughly the matter of a natural man’s desire to share a girl over whom he held the right of the phallus. Mr. Rackley had himself enjoyed fucking several girls brought to the society’s clubhouse for just that purpose. Moreover, the estimable Miss Hannah Erskine, known to Miss Montgomery under the false name of Mildred Rackley, as sweet a fucking piece as Mr. Rackley had ever used for his pleasure and loved as a fellow, albeit differently sexed, libertine, acknowledged Mr. Rackley’s right of the phallus over her. As Miss Erskine’s master he had brought her to the clubhouse on one memorable occasion for punishment and fucking by all the members present.
As if reading Mr. Rackley’s thoughts, Doctor Brown continued, “I suspect your evident diffidence arises from the difference you may perceive between a man who possesses a properly submissive girl lending her charms to his friends and acquaintances for their convenience and pleasure upon a single, or even upon several, occasions—and the indefinite arrangement you and the earl have in mind.”
They had reached Doctor Brown’s comfortable suite of apartments, and the physician showed Mr. Rackley to an elegantly upholstered armchair.
“Cigar?” asked the physician, proffering a case.
“Yes, thank you,” replied Mr. Rackley, selecting one of the rich-smelling, enticingly tapered objects and giving it an appreciative roll under his nose as he inhaled its aroma deeply.
The doctor chuckled. “Not as enticing a smell as a virginal vagina, well readied for coitus, I know—but very nearly, if I am not mistaken?”
Mr. Rackley shared the laugh, and accepted the doctor’s cigar cutter. “I will not dispute it,” he said. “Two marvelous morning indulgences, I would say.” He lit the cigar and took a puff, very grateful for the time Doctor Brown had evidently elected to give him, in order to collect his thoughts.
At length Mr. Rackley took up the thread of the conversation, wishing to know precisely where the physician stood on the matter. He decided as he began to speak that he must fully declare his and his co-conspirator’s intentions.
“Did you mean, a moment ago, Doctor, that you do not draw a distinction between my for example sharing Miss Erskine’s cunt and bottom with the society and my judgment that Miss Montgomery should be placed under the erotic mastery of the earl, myself, and the other men we have selected—as well as with Miss Erskine? We have, after all, agreed that the girl will be shared with as much equality as we can achieve, even to the extent of his lordship having no more right to Caroline’s cunt than Robert the coachman will have—or indeed Miss Erskine.”
The doctor drew a long puff of his cigar, then took it from his lips to observe it for a moment, before answering. When he did speak, he spoke quite meditatively.
“A distinction, yes. Of course. What you propose for Miss Montgomery is not the same as a single man holding the absolute right to enjoy her with his penis in any way he might choose—the foundation of my theory, as you well know—and then choosing as part of that enjoyment to let other men, or indeed women, have as it were a sample of his sexual felicity upon occasion, as he looks on, or hears of later, commending his young lady’s obedience or punishing her faults in pleasing his friends as he sees fit.”
Mr. Rackley couldn’t help but recall the pleasure he had taken in whipping that minx Hannah Erskine after her night serving his fellow members, pretending to her that she had enjoyed herself too much with them and must receive her due reward. Bent over his knee with her night rail tucked up, the dark-haired girl had received a thorough visit from the punishment strap before Mr. Rackley had made her bend over his bed and open her own red-striped bottom-cheeks for the deep thrusts of his hard cock.
Sitting there with Doctor Brown, he heard Hannah whisper again in his ear, “I am yours,” as they lay together after that hard bottom-fucking, his hand still holding her punished cheeks, middle fingertip up against the tiny rose he loved to stretch open on his prick, as a reminder of his mastery. Mr. Rackley felt his prick swell a bit uncomfortably in his trousers at the thought, but he reflected that if one weren’t to become aroused in conversation with Doctor Brown one might as well be underground. He took a puff of his own cigar and adjusted his position in the comfortable armchair.
“On the other hand,” the doctor continued, “I do not see your proposal as standing in fundamental opposition to that idea, as you seem to fear. First, I see it as entirely possible to share the right of the phallus among several parties, if those men—and, in certain situations, women—are in agreement that the arrangement meets all their wishes. Second, should such a plan be put into action, the maintenance of certain protocols will quite probably ensure that each master, or mistress, feel him or herself to have a true opportunity of, shall we say, sole proprietorship.”
Mr. Rackley puffed, and nodded. “Do you mean, Doctor, that the girl should be shared among the company on a strict rotation of some kind? For Miss Erskine has already drawn up a schedule that might answer.”
“Indeed,” the Scot replied. “I should like to have a look at that schedule at your earliest convenience. Before we proceed to that rather advanced stage, however, I would like to satisfy myself on a more basic matter—that is, Miss Montgomery’s conduct and how it led to your taking this unusual—if, as I say, probably salutary—resolution. As the medical and philosophical adviser to the society, it’s my duty as you know to approve the disciplinary measures taken for the good of the members’ wards, and though what you’ve told me in your letter provides some of the information I will need to write my recommendation, I will also need some further particulars.”
“Of course, Doctor,” Mr. Rackley answered, shifting again in his seat to draw himself up more erect and visibly attentive. “As I said in the letter, it was an incident at Mrs. Treacher’s ball last week that set the events into motion. If Mr. Wendell weren’t a favorite of the Duke of Essing, and—I suppose—if the duke weren’t so very bent on correcting the faults of everyone associated with the Whig interest…”
Mr. Rackley could see that Doctor Brown had little interest in the political machinations of refined society. He decided to cut short the lengthy explanation upon which he had almost embarked. He said nothing of Mr. Wendell’s anger at Miss Caroline Montgomery for the terrible snub the girl had visited upon him, allowing Captain Rather to emend her dance card in a disgraceful manner. He said nothing of Mr. Wendell’s morning call to the Duke of Essing, or the duke’s declared resolution that Miss Caroline Montgomery must be well recompensed for her willfulness and the evidence of her just punishment shown to him by a fellow peer, or he would ensure the girl should never marry any honest man—or the unspoken implication that any honest man who undertook to marry Miss Montgomery without disciplining her thoroughly would never again be received into society.
He resumed the tale with the Earl of Hobberly, who had heard of the affair and taken it upon himself to observe the girl.
“Well, you know the earl and his rather irregular approach to your doctrines, I understand?” Doctor Brown nodded, frowning a bit. Mr. Rackley continued, “He offered to provide the duke with evidence of Miss Montgomery’s correction for her insult to Mr. Wendell, if that correction could be carried out to his specifications—that is, with Miss Montgomery’s defloration and possession for a full month by himself, me, and three others of my choosing.”
“I see,” said Doctor Brown. “And you agreed to this?”
Mr. Rackley nodded. “I must confess that it appealed both to my masculine desires with regard to the girl and to my sense that she requires a very special form of correction. As novel as it seems, I believed the earl’s plan might answer.”
“I concur,” said the doctor, after drawing lengthily upon his cigar. “I shall do myself the honor of visiting Miss Montgomery tomorrow in Sussex to make my examination and confirm the wisdom of the scheme. I trust I will find that she has already undergone some correction?”
“Indeed,” replied Mr. Rackley. “Miss Erskine planned to have the girl flogged on some pretext as soon as she arrived. I believe you will find her young backside well marked and her attitude receptive. The earl and Mr. Rather will travel down, I think, by the same train. If you confirm your approval, we will be able to begin Miss Montgomery’s training immediately.”
Chapter Three
Caroline had no idea how she endured the carriage ride to Red Meadows, the ancestral home of the Rackleys. Miss Rackley sat in silence, gazing at the endless rolling expanses among the hedgerows, covered with the slightly russet-colored grass that gave the old manor house its name. Caroline watched the back of the big coachman where he sat upon the box, flicking his whip from time to time to urge on the horses’ trot.
At one moment she would try to gather the courage to beg Miss Rackley for a commutation of her awful, unthinkable sentence. At the next she would attempt to maintain the dignity of a well-brought-up young lady—a proud girl despite the obscurity of her family origins—and keep a haughty silence, assuring herself that Miss Rackley could only have meant to frighten her. Such punishments were only stories with which old-fashioned bores like her aunt clung to some world of decorum that had never truly existed.
To cane a girl? An English girl? Perhaps in foreign lands they bestowed harsh discipline—how could men like the colonel refrain, when the British Empire must fulfill its divine mission of civilization? Some children were spanked here, Caroline knew, but she never had been. It happened in nursery rhymes, and perhaps at schools for boys.
She watched Robert the coachman flick his long whip forward and she started in agitation at the sight. Did he really flog the maids at the Rackleys’ house? Surely not. Surely a naughty chambermaid, caught snooping in her mistress’ things, wasn’t brought to the servants’ hall and made to bend over a… a… chair, and…
Caroline felt the heat come to her face as she found herself unable to stop imagining it: the young, red-haired maid bent over the low chair, and Miss Rackley herself raising the skirts of her gown and her petticoat, then lowering the girl’s drawers so that a plump little bottom confronted the coachman’s view. Robert standing tall, a length of rattan in his hand. The maid weeping, pleading, promising. Miss Rackley stern, speaking of the repentance that only a firm hand can elicit. Robert’s left hand on the maid’s back, to hold her down, and then the cane flashing through the air, to make the maid scream and scream as her little bottom became the place for her to learn a terrible lesson in obedience.
An imposing old house came into view, at the end of a long drive. Robert turned the horses onto it, so that they passed beneath a stone gate, emblazoned in a medallion at its arch, Red Meadows.
“Aunt?” Caroline said, her heart beating very fast and her breath feeling uneven.
“Yes, Caroline?” Miss Rackley said, with a severity that made Caroline jump as if the fatal hour—if it should truly lie in her future—had already come.
“Aunt…” she began again, still unsure of what she should say but certain she must speak, to dispel the vision of the punished maid. “I know you are teasing about the… the… cane… but…”
She had been facing forward, still looking at Robert’s strong back as she began, but now she turned to look into Miss Rackley’s face, assuring herself that she would find a smile there. Aunt Mildred’s mouth had turned up into what an observer might describe as a sort of smile, but it held no reassurance for Caroline, for it had in it pity mingled with self-satisfaction. Miss Rackley’s face had the aspect of one who may indulge a foolish inquiry from a young woman, in the knowledge that they have the sad duty to disabuse the inexperienced girl of her illusions.
Caroline felt the blood drain from her face, since that expression seemed to assure her that she would have no commutation, no reprieve. But she could not arrest the flow of her words, now, though they emerged from her throat in a much more desperate tone than she had intended.
“I am so very sorry for my disrespect, and I shall endeavor to be a better… a better girl. Thank you for bringing me here for my protection, and even though I don’t know how I attracted the attention of the earl I know it’s for my protection, and…”
The blood rushed back into her face as she heard herself positively begin to babble. Caroline prided herself on her wit and intellect despite having refused so many scholarly tasks while at school, in view of their obvious pointlessness and their clear intent only to make a girl learn that great lesson of society: she must become used to drudgery. To hear herself run on like that seemed a shame tantamount to… to…
To having my bottom bared for the coachman’s cane. To receiving the cane across my naked rump while Aunt Mildred watches. The thought rose into her mind so irresistibly that it made her gasp in the middle of her protestations of repentance, so that Miss Rackley could speak in a low, firm tone, and make matters infinitely worse.
“You must indeed make up your mind to be a better girl, Caroline, but now that we have reached Mr. Rackley’s house the time has come for you to learn a good deal more about why you are here.”
Caroline frowned at this unexpected declaration, and her heart beat even faster. Something in Miss Rackley’s voice seemed to tell her that the news the dark-haired woman meant now to deliver would discomfit her brother’s ward more even than the prospect of a flogging.
“Aunt,” she said, trying to compose herself and to show herself knowledgeable in the affairs of the world, in hope of regaining some of her lost dignity. “I cannot conceive you. I have come here to ensure that I do not elope with the Earl of Hobberly. I know that, though you have not said so in so many words. As I said, I have no idea how I attracted…”
Miss Rackley raised her right hand so imperiously that Caroline’s voice trailed away. She blinked at her aunt. The carriage had come halfway up the drive.
“I am not your aunt, Caroline. You know that. But I am also not your guardian’s sister. My name is Miss Hannah Erskine, and I am to oversee your punishment for your snub of Mr. Wendell and the training of your mouth, your cunt, and your bottom to give men pleasure.”
Caroline’s lips parted but for a moment no sound emerged. Indeed, she heard a sort of rushing in her ears, as if the fine Sussex day had been suddenly engulfed in a thunderstorm, or the blood in her veins had somehow decided to become a torrent, like a spring cataract, so loud in its passage that it blocked out the sweet song of the birds in the hedgerows.
Punishment.
Training.
My mouth.
My… Caroline had heard it once before: the terrible word Miss… what had the woman said? Erskine? Not Rackley?
My… Even Frederica Givens, the rude girl who had whispered the word into Caroline’s ear, had had the good grace to blush. Something about the very sound of it had told her—and had evidently told Frederica, too—that it was a word that must be whispered, this sharp syllable that it seemed men used to refer to a woman’s little slit, the private pout of which nature herself was so ashamed that she had ordained a covering of curly hair upon it.
My cunt. My cunny. Frederica had provided both words, the second less terrible but still awfully embarrassing, being a sort of softer variation of the terrible first, as if someone had decided that girls must have a nice way to speak of the place men wished to call by such a shameful name.
Caroline’s own cunny still peeped out through the fair thatch that had grown between her thighs, a little bit, so that she blushed when in her innocent curiosity she looked at herself in the glass with her shift raised, and quickly lowered the hem. She hoped that as she grew older, and gained a husband who she knew—without knowing any other particulars—would take an interest in that part of her, her curls would grow thicker, and hide the tender, virginal slit, the coral lips that someone looking upon her uncovered maiden charms could now see.
The last time she had done that—stood in front of the glass in her bedchamber with her shift up, so that she could look at her cunny, Miss Rackley… no, Miss Erskine, Caroline realized with a start as the memory came rushing back… had discovered her that way. Caroline had hastily put herself to rights, but Miss Erskine had told her to raise her shift again, so that Caroline might look upon her private part, as the older woman had called it then, while Miss Erskine—still in the guise of Miss Rackley, maiden aunt—delivered one of her lessons about a bridegroom with a firm hand.
“That part of you will belong to your husband, soon, Caroline,” the woman had said. “You must make up your mind to place it under his experienced guidance. He will train you, as you should be trained, to be a submissive wife to him. Now cover up that naughty place and go to bed. If your future husband knew you had made free with yourself, he would most certainly employ a firm hand with you as soon as the occasion arose.”
How different did those words seem to Caroline now, in the carriage, with Robert the coachman bringing them ever forward, inexorably, toward Red Meadows? With the censorious Aunt Mildred suddenly become the lewd Miss Erskine? Caroline remembered that as she had climbed into bed, after the admonition from the woman who had now grown so strange, that she had thought for some reason of Captain Rather, of the broad, muscular shoulders in his blue coat, of his gallant air, and of his tender dark eyes gazing into hers as they waltzed. What if he should be the man to… to train her? To take a firm hand with her? Would Caroline mind it so very much—as the feigned Aunt Mildred had seemed to think she should anticipate minding it?
These thoughts and memories, flooding into her mind—Frederica whispering cunt and cunny, waltzing with Captain Rather, Miss Erskine catching her with her shift above her waist and her eyes peering at the soft place between her thighs—seemed to make the rushing in her ears, just as they made the dreadful heat in her face. Caroline knew her cheeks must glow like the sun, betraying how terribly this Miss Erskine had discomposed her.
