Then her father was leading Mr. Verner over to where Priscilla stood, obedient and respectful, near the mantelpiece. He put out his hand for hers, and she felt the lovely sensation of the slight roughness of his hands that always reminded her of his days in the woods, where he had promised he would take her for their honeymoon and show her the very stumps of the trees he had felled when his father had taught him to build a cabin. Mr. Verner said that the family’s house in those woods was much grander than a cabin, but that his little cabin, high up in a fold of the mountains, remained standing because he repaired it every year. There he would take her, he had promised, to spend a night in the wild.

  Now that she had gone through the premarital medical exam, Priscilla couldn’t help wondering what else her husband-to-be might want to do in his little cabin. Maybe he wanted to lay her down on a little bed there and make her spread her knees wide for him, while he showed her something wicked, or made her do something shameful, or even turned her over and spanked her for thinking of such things. For the life of her she couldn’t figure out whether the governor had somehow stirred that kind of thought rather than, as she thought its purpose must be, taking it away.

  So as Mr. Verner said, “Miss Auden, dearest,” and brought her hand to his lips very gently, Priscilla blushed to the roots of her hair.

  “Do I find you well, darling?” he asked, when Priscilla did not at once respond to his greeting.

  Still thinking of the little cabin, Priscilla said in a rush, “Very well, Mr. Verner. I… I am so glad you’ve come to dinner.”

  “Not just to dinner, darling.” He spoke softly, almost in her ear, clearly in order that her parents not hear his words. She looked into his face and saw that his smile had taken on an air very much less bland than it had worn a moment before.

  “I… I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Verner,” Priscilla whispered. She glanced over at her parents, who were discussing dinner with Hopkins.

  “I know you don’t, dearest,” William said. “Not really. But you do know that after dinner I shall take you upstairs to your room?”

  “Yes,” Priscilla said slowly. “But I do not know what we shall do there.”

  “I think you know that what we do in your room will be according to my wishes, though.” A note of sternness in his tone made Priscilla tremble just a bit.

  “Yes,” Priscilla said, a little frightened now.

  “I promise, darling, that when I leave your room tonight you will understand everything. I am going to turn your governor up now, just a little. I want you to be ready when we go upstairs.”

  “What?” She felt her eyes go wide with alarm. She hadn’t thought he could just… “Do you…” Priscilla didn’t even know whether she could think of a question to ask.

  Her eyes grew even wider as she watched William reach into his breast pocket and bring out what seemed like a silver calling card. On its face, at the top, zero appeared. William ran his thumb deftly along the edge of the card, and the number changed to one, then to two.

  Priscilla drew a little breath, expecting that she would feel something down there, but in fact she felt nothing at all. She wondered whether the governor was functioning properly.

  William shifted his focus back to Priscilla as he put the little card away. His expression, though as kind as she had always found his face toward her, also had a very serious aspect now. He took her hand again and pressed it gently in his own. That was when Priscilla realized that something had indeed changed, down below her tummy.

  “Oh,” she whispered. The feeling, from the night of the kiss, from the night of the bathtub, from the whipping with the family strap, had come back. Not as strongly, she thought. Not the way it had when she lay awake after Mrs. Perkins had punished her and she had thought she could never, ever keep her hand from doing the immoral thing there where she ached and burned. “Oh,” she said again. “Oh, Mr. Verner.”

  William smiled tenderly, but again Priscilla could see through the tenderness somehow, and recognize that the man who would be her husband wanted more from her than simple affection—more even than simple respect and obedience, the qualities she had learned in school were the most important in a wife. That thought, inchoate as it was, seemed to make the warmth between her legs glow even more, and she found herself squeezing William’s big hand almost convulsively. The feeling wasn’t strong, to be sure, but to have it return like that after its absence since the doctor had installed the governor, and to know that William controlled her—governed her—that way made it almost too much to bear, and Priscilla felt she might actually faint.

  “Oh,” she said yet one more time, looking up into his beautiful chocolate-colored eyes and feeling the blood flush her cheeks. “Please.”

  As if seeing how confused she felt, William’s face lost all its hungry aspect, and only the kindness remained. “Hush, darling,” he said softly. “You will grow used to it. Remember that when I take you upstairs, I will soothe you with your lotion.”

  Priscilla drew a sharp breath, and the warmth in her private part, which had ebbed a little when William became tender, returned in a rush that seemed to leave her mind aching for him to kiss her, because down below the governor wouldn’t let the ache truly develop. She hoped desperately that William had spoken the truth: that she would grow used to it. At this moment, she didn’t think she had ever felt such confusion in her life.

  Though they were only across the room from her parents, her mother rang the dinner gong then, and Priscilla turned guiltily to see that her parents were smiling upon the happy couple. Priscilla’s mind felt so estranged from itself that she could hardly guess whether, if Mr. and Mrs. Auden had known what William had said to her and done to her, they would have expressed their approbation or their disgust.

  How could she possibly grow used to knowing that William had in his pocket a way to make her forget herself; to clutch his hand and to beg with her eyes—even with her words, she thought as she remembered the way she had said please—to beg for something she did not even understand. She tried to eat quietly, and to speak respectfully to her parents and her fiancé as they discussed the news of the day, an exhibition of medieval-revival paintings and the fortunes of their district’s cricket team.

  William asked Hopkins to send his compliments to cook for the tomato soup, and Priscilla’s mother beamed. Mr. Auden asked William if he preferred claret or port, and William said he liked both, but that his father had laid down some excellent claret when William was just a boy, which Mr. Auden would have to come and try, down at Vernerwood.

  Priscilla found, by the time the footman served the pudding, that if she had not grown used to knowing William had the silver card in his pocket, she had at least discovered that she had less cause for alarm than she had thought she might. Then, however, when her mother rose to lead her into the drawing room, William said, “I’ll just have a glass of port with your father, darling, and afterward I’ll take you upstairs.”

  She could do nothing but nod with furrowed brow and follow her mother out, biting her lip because of the warmth that spread now down inside her drawers, where William’s governor regulated his bride.

  Chapter Six

  Over their port, William and Mr. Auden discussed the bill, recently come before the Prosperian parliament, that would provide for the rounding up of the renegade men and women who had left civilization behind to live in the forests, almost like savages. Neither of the men said anything, of course, concerning what William would do when he finished his port: how he would lead his blushing almost-bride up to her room and exercise the privileges granted to him as her accepted suitor.

  “They truly have no decency, as far as I can gather,” Mr. Auden said. “They remove the girls’ governors and pretend that they’re practicing some sort of natural law. I suppose rounding them up and shipping them off-world is all we can do.”

  “Well, sir,” William replied thoughtfully, after a sip of the excellent port. “I’ve seen them, up on the borders of my family estate. In the park of Vernerwood itself, in fact.”

  “You don’t say.” Mr. Auden, a tall man with neat, grizzled hair and a silver goatee, spoke with a little alarm. “And you let them trespass that way?”

  William pondered what to say to his future father-in-law about a matter he considered so complex and on which he differed from what seemed most men’s opinion. “I do, sir,” he finally said. “The renegades I’ve seen only want to live in accord with the dictates of their consciences. They keep order in their camps and they migrate on a regular schedule as far as I can tell.”

  “Do they kill your game, then? I can’t believe your father would allow it.” Alarm seemed to have turned to disbelief.

  “When the renegades first moved in he did worry,” William admitted. “But he invited their leaders to a meeting and they pledged themselves not to hunt in the park.”

  “And they keep that pledge?”

  “They do, as far as we have ever been able to tell.” William took another sip of port; the ruby wine was almost gone. He thought about the little silver card in his pocket and had to resist the urge to reach inside and turn it up a notch, or even to use one of the governor’s more advanced functions, so that Priscilla might even beg her fiancé to spank her, as long as he put his hands on her.

  “Well, from what I read,” Mr. Auden replied, taking a sip from his own glass and looking thoughtfully at William’s, “if they keep that pledge they’re a rare group. I don’t think we should be making policy on the basis of what this or that group of renegades does. In the main, they are no better than savages who will give the practicals dangerous ideas. If we let the problem go, we’ll end up having to ship the entire workforce off Prosperia and bring in a new set of practicals with the proper gratitude.”

  William shook his head. He liked George Auden, but the man seemed content to spout the government’s positions by the hour. “I can’t see it that way, sir. I don’t think the threat to our way of life is as great as the prime minister makes it out to be.”

  “You’re not thinking of opposing the measure, are you?” Mr. Auden asked sharply.

  “Well, sir, I’m not in parliament, am I? What could my opposition mean?”

  “Your father, though… does he feel as you do?”

  James Verner was an appointed lord, one of fifty who sat in the upper chamber of the Prosperian parliament. William would probably be granted the seat on his father’s retirement, though his accession to the House of Lords had nothing legally binding about it. Fathers could recommend sons, and their recommendations had great weight, but the presentation, as it was called, lay with the lord chancellor, who served as head of the Prosperian state and fulfilled most of the functions of a constitutional monarch.

  “He does, sir, but he will vote with the government of course. As, I suppose, I also would were I in his seat.”

  Mr. Auden nodded decisively. “Quite right. Quite right.” He looked at William’s glass again, and his face seemed to soften. “Sure you won’t have another glass, my boy? It’s a marvelous thing to me, to have a man of sense to talk to after dinner, after all these years of taking my port alone.”

  William smiled, and the notion of telling his future father-in-law that, though the port tasted wonderful, his daughter’s cunt would taste a good deal sweeter flitted through his mind. “No, sir, thank you very much. I’ll look forward to our next opportunity.”

  “Of course,” said Mr. Auden, rising and extending his hand. “Priscilla’s a good girl, and I know she’ll make you a very good wife indeed.”

  William accepted the proffered handclasp warmly. The men turned and made their way to the drawing room, where Priscilla sat drinking a cup of tea and looking at the latest issue of Prosperian Bride.

  “Choosing your trousseau, darling?” William asked as he came up to her chair.

  Priscilla blushed to her eyes as she looked up at him, as if perhaps the simple sound of his voice could carry immodest thoughts to her mind. He looked down at the page she had open in the journal and saw that it featured discreet drawings of brides in rather wicked lingerie. The two-page spread bore the title: For a wedding night he will never forget, ask your intended to choose your intimates.

  “Why don’t you bring the journal upstairs?” he asked, smiling.

  “Yes, Priscilla,” said Mrs. Auden, who had a novel. “Mr. Verner can help you decide about the china. Mr. Verner, you would not believe how hard it is for that girl to make up her mind!”

  William turned to Grace. “She won’t get much help from me about china, Mrs. Auden.”

  “Oh, but you must put your foot down, Mr. Verner. I can’t do anything with her, but I’ve told her that that will all change once she has a husband to guide her.” William looked down at Priscilla again, and saw that her mother’s teasing had distressed her a little.

  “I will help with the china if she wants my help with the china.”

  “Oh, I do, Mr. Verner!” said Priscilla, speaking for the first time though her voice sounded rather quavery.

  “There, Mrs. Auden,” William said, turning back to the mother. “We shall do just fine.”

  Mrs. Auden did not appear much mollified, and William thought of how censorious the woman had seemed in Dr. Gowdy’s office. Grace Auden was apparently intent on making sure her daughter’s new husband would not fail to discipline Priscilla thoroughly. William had no desire to express his feelings on the matter to Mrs. Auden, but he couldn’t help thinking that when Priscilla carried tales of her married life back to her mother, Grace would find herself fully satisfied.

  Priscilla was indeed a good girl, but she also had a very dreamy bent to her character. William loved her for those sweet, distracted gazes she cast out windows and at works of art. He knew, though, that he would have to apply his firm hand quite frequently to her bare backside in order to train her to the obedience a Prosperian administrative-class husband had a right to expect and a duty to demand. Priscilla would go over his knee or over the punishment horse that would stand in her boudoir as often as necessary, and, in that boudoir, he would enforce her sexual submission with the help of her governor. He had no doubt at all that Mrs. William Verner would prove a model young wife in a few months’ time.

  He extended his hand to Priscilla to help her up, and she took it in her own. Her fingers trembled a little, but she squeezed and let him pull her gently upward. In her other hand she held the journal, a finger still at the page that, William thought, had made her blush. He wondered suddenly what the control card would say when he looked at it: the high-end governor he had chosen could tell him certain important things about his bride’s immorality as most Prosperians—including of course Mrs. Auden and Mr. Tester—termed it. He felt his cock stiffen a little at the thought of all the things he would now start to discover about his beautiful, dreamy girl. How long had she been looking at the drawings of the girls in their bridal lingerie before he and her father entered the drawing room, for example?

  “Kiss your father goodnight,” said Grace, and Mr. Auden came to kiss the top of Priscilla’s head.

  “Be a good girl, now,” George said.

  Grace stood, too, and kissed her daughter’s cheek. “We’ll see you in the morning. Mr. Verner, will you breakfast with us?”

  “No, thank you, Mrs. Auden. I’ll see myself out after my visit. I go to Vernerwood early tomorrow to meet with my man of business and arrange the settlements.”

  “Very well, very well,” said Mr. Auden. “We’ll see you back here this day next week, for your second visit?”

  “Indeed,” William said, glancing down at Priscilla, whose hand he still held and seeing a sweet little smile on her face that seemed to say that she knew nothing of the settlements or the arrangements or even of the china, but she trusted all such things gladly to her wealthy, confident fiancé. William’s heart swelled with pride; he couldn’t help it. He had wooed Priscilla Auden because he had thought, seeing her look at him at the début dance and spinning her round the floor, he could well love her, and she him—and it seemed now that such love had truly befallen them. How strange to think that he would now, according to the laws of his society, take this lovely, modest girl upstairs to her childhood bed and fuck her there for the first time.

  Certain clauses of Prosperian law were reserved for the reading only of adult male eyes. At age eighteen, along with the rest of his class at the Lord Chancellor’s Normal School for Young Men of the Administrative Order, William had gone to Prosperia Palace to take the oath of loyalty. In a classroom in that palace, just under the chambers of the Houses of Commons and Lords, he and his fellow subjects had learned the details of the Discreet Clauses as they were called. For years, of course, they had all heard rumors, but official policy dictated that the Discreet Clauses might only be discussed by those who had sworn the oath of loyalty.

  The sensible ordering of masculine and of feminine erotic behavior being of the utmost importance to the stability of society, be the following statutes therefore enacted.

  I. In order that the natural sexual dominance of male subjects over female subjects be preserved, these statutes shall be held in confidence by the adult male subjects of Prosperia, under penalty of exile.

  (a) Guidance shall be given to those about to swear the oath of loyalty as to how to enforce these statutes upon female subjects while also keeping the statutes confidential, and in particular in enforcing the statutes upon those female subjects whom they choose to enjoy sexually in accordance with the law.

 

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