Anonymous - Gynecocracy

"Julian!" I exclaimed.

"You see," she exclaimed, "you have the advantage or disadvantage of being both masculine and feminine, both Julian and Julia. You have a dual part to perform in life. You have to satisfy men and women. I wonder which you will consider the pleasanter task?"

And she again moved, tightening her skirts across her shapely limbs. "Sometimes you will want a lover, sometimes a mistress. That is why you were dreaming about Beatrice," with a slight pout. "But I," she continued, "am determined by developing your feminine proclivities, to tame and counteract your formerly too aggressive masculine characteristics. You will," and she spoke more sternly and looked severely upon me, "always be under the petticoat. Now do you like what the petticoat exposes you to as a consequence of wearing it?"

I sat silent for some minutes, gazing at Mademoiselle, wondering, thinking, perplexed; very conscious of my pre-eminently feminine tea gown, headdress and general bedizening of the slender ankles belonging to long legs encased in stockings undoubtedly a woman's, and of the little feet shod in shoes also indubitably made for the gentler sex. And yet under all Mademoiselle's remarks lay a quiet tacit assumption that I was masculine. Her assertion of my double sex was made with an air that convinced me of its insincerity.

A feeling of indignation and of intense repugnance to my situation and garb began to reassert itself and when I thought of Lord Alfred Ridlington I grew hot and trembled. I think I almost loathed myself and certainly endeavoured to recall a chapter in Genesis, purposing to examine it.

"What was the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah? Was I in any way related to it or connected with its doings? Had it anything to do with a man being dressed in a woman's clothes, with hermaphroditism?" I must confess I felt very uncomfortable and began to kick my petticoats impatiently.

Mademoiselle ate her bonbons, and sipped her tea, and looked from time to time curiously at me.

How did I like what wearing the petticoat exposed me to?

If I was really a girl, or partly a girl, or a girl behind, and a boy in front, I suppose it was all very well that I should wear a petticoat and be treated as a female.

"I do declare, Julia," said Mademoiselle, disturbing my reverie, her patience at length worn out, "I do declare that I do not know what has come over you. Instead of the excited condition, the rapture, the enthusiasm, the abandon of the bride, the recklessness of one whose dearest wishes have been crowned with complete satisfaction, I find you morose, listless, dreamy, pale one minute, rosy the next, silent, not a word will you speak, there you sit munching your toast, and now looking at me, now at your clothes, now at those statues, then at those cushions-what is the matter? Why are you so distrait? What do you want? Whom are you dreaming of? Perhaps," she continued maliciously, and again moving in a manner which plainly shew her to be under the influence of very pleasant feelings, "perhaps you will reply that as a woman I should know, that your attention, your thoughts, are all of them concentrated inwardly upon the material he has supplied you with to enable you to make and reproduce an exact image of himself. Is it so? I can excuse you, if my conjecture is correct, and, indeed, shall feel bound to apologise for attempting to disturb your cogitations. A maiden suddenly converted into a woman, suddenly confronted with the necessity of answering the requirements of love by producing a child, may well desire to be left alone in order to collect and direct her whole energies to the work."

This would have been all very well if what Lord Alfred had given me had not travelled the same road as what Elise and Mamma and Mademoiselle had given me. There was nothing to work upon. If there had been I should have received it before, not behind. I was quite sure no one could make a child behind; not even the Venus Callipyge herself.

But how in a single-minded manner to discuss my difficulties with Mademoiselle, who stated one thing and implied another, who was evidently insincere and probably laughing at me, was quite another question.

It was no use hoping to discuss it with Beatrice, for she was blind to all possibility of my being at all feminine. Of course Lord Alfred Ridlington would only think me insane if I hinted my doubts to him. And besides I was aghast with terror at the notion of suggesting to him the possibility of my imagining he had behaved to a male as he had behaved to me.

So that there was nothing for it but to apply to Mademoiselle, and, indeed, this was probably the reason she had me there with her. She wanted to possess both my confidence and myself; so that, in spite of myself, I might be her absolute slave, body and soul.

Another question was latent in my mind, and that was the extent to which Lord Alfred Ridlington was Mademoiselle's fellow-conspirator or tool. However, it was necessary to rouse myself, for Mademoiselle's patience was evidently wearing threadbare.

As I considered my own frame of mind and really morose disposition, I wondered at myself. The influences and experiences I was under, and had undergone, were indeed calculated to produce a condition very different from this taciturn, cross-grained mood.

Mademoiselle was as alluring, as delicious, as ever. My chagrin may have been caused by erotic exhaustion. I was sensible of a nervous or cerebral fatigue and needed repose.

"Come, come, Julia!" cried Mademoiselle, impatiently. "You have sulked long enough. Answer the question I asked you long ago. You are in petticoats. How do you like what they expose you to?"

"You mean being made love to and treated like a girl?"

"Yes," rejoined Mademoiselle with a too frank smile. It was a smile-I saw it plainly-of laughter, of amusement, of ridicule, not of sympathy or of tenderness. "Yes; of having your secret charms invaded by the rude hand and weapon of a man; of his making himself acquainted with your nakedness and acquainting you with his own emotions at the same time that he learns your own most secret feelings. Do you like being a girl?"

"No, I do not."

"And pray, why?"

"Because I feel I can be more."

"More?"

"Yes. I was the wrong side up. Lord Alfred Ridlington may have enjoyed possession of me but I never seemed to possess him; and I do not think I shall have a baby. I had to run away almost directly. My womb retained nothing; there is nothing to germinate. I did not possess him as I possessed you and Mamma. I do not believe," with a burst of ingenuous candour, "that I am a girl or even half a girl."

"What nonsense!" exclaimed Mademoiselle, a little testily. "What did he do?"

"Well, I was amusing myself with that superb copy of Mademoiselle de Maupin, when he came in and began to make love to me."

I blushed. Mademoiselle watched me closely.

"He took me in his arms, put me underneath him, removing my skirts, and pushed himself into my womb; and in a paroxysm of passion it happened, and it happened to me in front. I do not love him. Whatever my feelings at the moment I have ever since felt vexed, irritable, annoyed, and I do not want to see him again."

"You are a strangely inconsistent young woman-but I shall insist on your taking all the consequences of your garments. You will have to be Lord Alfred's mistress while he is here, so you had better not be refractory, or I shall make your beautiful back again acquainted with the birch-and in the meantime now to convince you of your sex I shall put something up behind."

"Oh, Mademoiselle!" I exclaimed. "Oh, pray, do not!" I stood up and clasped my hands, as I thought of the terrible suggestion. "Oh, pray, pray, do not! I will not be refractory, I will be as good a girl as possible."

"I cannot allow any nonsense of this sort," exclaimed Mademoiselle severely. "A little conviction will be good for your mind and will induce you to take more kindly to your lover and his embraces. I see you are not sufficiently broken in. I am glad I chose Lord Alfred Ridlington to discipline you instead of his wife whom I first promised you. You must have your feminine character indelibly impressed upon your mind-and upon your body. Come here."