Anonymous - Gynecocracy

"Julia, why, with that alluring, appetizing spectacle before you," asked Mademoiselle, slyly, and in a voice audible to me alone, "do you not forget your petticoats? Look at your cousin," she continued, half turning and motioning with her hand towards her; "what an attractive attitude! What do not those pretty ankles promise! Observe her air of perfect abandon, her lap gaping, her arms outstretched. Why do you not fly to her?"

Beatrice's pose was indeed all that Mademoiselle described it. Her shapely legs were stretched out and well apart, her skirts had travelled half way up to her knees, disclosing her close-fitting, open-work stockings and slender ankles. Her knees had fallen wide apart, her arms rested, one upon each of the arms of the wide dormeuse; her breasts, rich, full, and snowy white, rose and fell evenly, and with them the card bearing that dreadful name; her eyes were closed; her lips slightly open; a soft smile was upon her face and her cheeks were touched with a soft glow apparently borrowed from the scarlet ribbon round her neck.

She did indeed, as Mademoiselle said, look most attractive, most alluring, most appetizing. Her figure was most voluptuous and full of promise.

"How can I forget my petticoats?" at length I asked my governess, discontinuing my contemplation of Beatrice, and refusing to enter upon the dreams her beauty inspired.

"How can you?" rejoined Mademoiselle ironically. "Did you not forget them with me, with your mamma, with Maud?" and Mademoiselle looked down into my face, with a soft smile. 295

I at once felt my suspicions aroused and myself set upon the alert. This was some deep ruse of Mademoiselle's to entangle me and to discover the true state of things between Beatrice and myself. I had learnt enough of feminine nature to be well aware that, where such preference existed, it was impossible to withhold it from the apprehension of any feminine being. They inhale its existence with the air they breathe. It is an epidemic, and I thought the smile signified a soupcon of jealousy on Mademoiselle's part.

I have never understood, this being the fact and no hallucination of mine, the necessity of a lover's formal declaration of his passion unless it be that he must lay himself open to a breach of promise.

No woman could find that on intuitive perception. I felt that my situation was an extremely ticklish one. The real object Mademoiselle had in view was to discover who really was the possessor of my heart. She herself merely owned my body.

How I congratulated myself upon the avoidance of the snare. I rested my head against Mademoiselle's knee, and, with a wisdom in advance of my years, murmured as I did so, Hamlet's words to Ophelia: "Here is metal more attractive."

"That is all very fine, Julia, but what good are your petticoats to me?"

Mademoiselle positively blushed as she asked this.

"You made me wear them."

"Don't you want to eat between meals, Julia?"

"It's not fair to turn the tables upon me like this, Mademoiselle. I thought I was only-a-a-youth then."

"And now you find you are both that and a girl too-as Lord Alfred Ridlington will show you."

"Lord Alfred Ridlington! I thought you said Lady-"

"Oh, yes! That was before your adventure with Maud-you have been unsexed since, and I have invoked his aid instead of hers."

"Oh, Mademoiselle!" And I hid my face in my charming governess' draperie.

"Why, Julia, what has become of your aplomb? It is so long since you have been birched-by me at any rate-that I really think I must have recourse to those dainty twigs to enliven your wits. There is a lady asleep. That ring, I suppose, forbids your enjoying the privilege claimed by those who possess but one half of your dual nature. Come, I will remove it. Is a young lady to announce herself 'prostitute' in your presence for nothing?"

Mademoiselle made me stand up, and slipping her hand underneath my skirts, she removed the horrid implement.

She did not stop at that. She caught hold of Mons. Priapus and his purse and by her dexterous manipulation of both very soon evoked various inarticulate exclamations from my lips and an irresistible impulse to move myself to and fro in her hand.

"Now go to Beatrice," she ordered presently, "and do what you like, what you wish, or as much as you can-and if you want encouragement, let me tell you that if you don't forget your petticoats you will have good reason to remember a certain oak bench and my birch!"

For a minute I felt quite at a loss what to do. How much did Mademoiselle know? How was I to undertake such a task as she suggested with the girl I was engaged to? Should I blurt out the truth at once and say it was impossible with my future wife. And then there were Maud and Agnes. They might fly at me, Maud especially. And Agnes. I recollected that day in the wood, as no doubt did she. "Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot?" Beatrice had asked her and had made me teach her the exact meaning of the query.

"Go!" said Mademoiselle, and she stood up, pointing to Beatrice, and gave me a slap on the back below the waist just as though I were an infant in frocks.

I considered the subject no further. I felt compelled to obey, trusting to my usual good fortune for extrication from the mess. And notwithstanding Beatrice's threats, which I knew were perfectly sincere, notwithstanding all my apprehensions of the bondage I was perfectly certain was in store for me as her husband (apprehensions, I may observe, since fully realized), I was possessed by some strange infatuation for Beatrice which made me anxious above all things not to offend her.

What could give her greater offence than to violate her under cover of the card Mademoiselle forced her to wear?

Of course I felt naughty, but my passion was dominated by this reasoning.

"Oh, Mademoiselle!" I exclaimed. "You are punishing me, not Beatrice."

"Nonsense!" she answered. "I have not birched Beatrice. I shall birch you if you are such a recreant knight."

"It is immoral."

"Oh, no, Miss Julia! Love is not immoral. Perhaps, however, you do not care for your cousin."

"I–I-I think I care for her too much."

"And pray," instantly retorted Mademoiselle, "what then about your professions to myself?"

I was dumbfounded. I felt as though I had been struck.

In a dazed state I went without another word up to where Beatrice reclined and knelt down between her feet. I placed my arms round her and kissed her lips.

She murmured. I repeated the kisses. She opened her eyes in a dreamy way and looked at me.

"Oh, it is you, Julian!" she uttered, putting her arms about me, not sufficiently awake to know where she was. "I was dreaming. Dear boy, you may kiss me again! I suppose they have gone to bed. Where am I? What's this thing on my breast? Don't press it against me."

I kissed her again and she kissed me. I slipped my hand down underneath her dress, on to her knees, and let it glide higher up.

"Oh! Oh! Oh! You must-you must kiss me there!"

"Beatrice!" exclaimed Mademoiselle.

At the sound of her voice Beatrice started up and rubbed her eyes, leaving me still kneeling.

"Oh, I must have been dreaming!" she declared, flushing up to her eyes. "Julia, you wretch, how dared you take advantage of me?"

"Nice dreams for a young lady! Kiss me there!" went on Mademoiselle. "Where pray?"

"Oh, Mademoiselle!"

"And what about that card? Sit down again, Miss. Lift up your skirts to your waist-all of them. Statuo, 'I place,' Julia, pro, 'before.' "

"Why shouldn't I?" rejoined Beatrice. Desperately and with ravishing carelessness she obeyed Mademoiselle's injunction.

"There," exclaimed Mademoiselle. "Maud, Agnes, look at your sister. See how she absolutely gives herself up to the embraces of the first person who invites her. Wicked, abandoned girl. Go to my room instantly. And you, Julia, come with me. The heroine of the novel, a prostitute indeed! I suspected there was more than you wished me to suppose, Maud."