Anonymous: Beatrice

One weekend when she had come to stay, six or seven years before, Mother had said to me, "It is best if Jenny has the guest room tonight." Jenny had looked strange, I thought-sitting, listening. She had nodded at me lightly as if she wanted me to say Yes.

I had heard sounds in the night, that night. It was midnight. I had looked at the clock-the small clock that says yes to me when I want it to be a certain time. There were sounds. Sounds like leather smacking. I thought I heard Jenny whimpering. The servants sometimes made noises in the night in their moving. But now the servants, too, would be abed.

A voice said, "You are a good girl, Jenny." It sounded like my mother's voice. My dreams were often strange. I sat up in bed. There were more leather sounds, little cries, a voice like Father's voice. The sounds and the voices stirred and were mixed. I heard a woman-voice murmur: "More -harder-a little harder. Ah, how sweet she looks."

Oh, a little scream I heard, a screamy-moan, then quiet. Sounds of breath like rushing waters. Bedsprings tinkled. Small bells of the night. Two men went past the house below-rough men, not from our neighbourhood. One shouted and I lost the sounds.

"I just came," Jenny said now. "There are clothes in your wardrobe. Have you looked?"

She drew me up. The mirrored doors, whose mirrors were tarnished, opened. From a shelf Jenny took black stockings of silk with a raised, ornate pattern that was run through with hints of silver. With it she produced a tiny waist corset of satin black. The small fringe of lace at the top that would fall beneath my breasts was silver, too. From the bottom of the wardrobe she drew out long high bests of the finest leather. The studs around which the laces wound were silver. The heels were slender, tall.

"Where is Caroline?" I asked.

Her eyes were glitter stones.

"You will look beautiful in these, Beatrice. Who?"

"Caroline."

"Yes, I know. Remove your chemise, stockings and shoes. Put these on."

She held them to me as a gift. I took them. The boots were light in weight. They would reach up to my thighs.

"It is late," I said. I licked my lips. My uncle had wanted to see my lips wet. Jenny did not smile. She raised my chemise and drew it off my head. I shook my hair like a dog emerging from water. As carefully as if I were a nervous yearling she knelt and drew off my drawers, my shoes. Without my shoes my thighs looked plumper.

"Your pubis is full-a splendid mound," she said. "You are beautiful, Beatrice. Your hips have the violin curve that men adore."

"I want to go home," 1 said. I felt sullen. Caroline's face was my face. My lips brooded.

"You will be good," Jenny said. She tickled me. She knew I hated being tickled. I squirmed, laughed, my breasts jiggled. I fell back on the bed, I rolled. She smacked my bottom. I yelped. The bright spreading of her fingers was upon it. It was a superb bottom, she said, the cleft as deep as a woman's heart. Her hands fell and pressed on it so that I could not rise. Her knee came into the small of my back.

"You will dress, Beatrice. You are not naughty, are you?"

"No," I said. She had seen Uncle taking down my drawers. My pubis had been offered. On her entry into the room upstairs he had stopped and risen as if we had merely been conversing. "What did you do in my parents' room?" I asked.

"What?" she asked sharply. She did not know my thoughts, my memories. Her palm tingled across my bottom again. "Dress!" she commanded me, "I like you in stockings best. You have the thighs for it-plumpish, sweet. Do not disobey. Get up!"

I obeyed her. The long boots were at first difficult to manage. They were tight. Their tops fell but three inches below the dark bands of the stocking tops. I would have difficulty in walking in them, I said. The corset nipped my waist. My hips blossomed. The corset framed my navel beneath an upward curve. My belly gleamed white.

"You will walk in them slowly and with stately tread -that is their purpose, Beatrice. Try."

I moved from her. I walked. The high heels teetered. My legs were constrained. I felt the movements of my bottom, naked.

"Stand!" she commanded me. I stood, my back to her. She drew upon my wrists and brought them behind my back. A metal clink-a clink of steel. My wrists were bound. 1 wanted to cry and hide my face. Next she secured my ankles. Why?

"Lie down. Beatrice."

I was bundled on to the bed, face down. "I don't want to," I said. I did not know what I meant. Jenny tut- tutted and arranged the tops of my stockings above the rimming leather. My toes were cramped in the boots. Jenny turned my face and bent and kissed my mouth. Full lips. Rose lips. She straightened and her eyes were solemn, full of night.

"You will stay so a little while," she told me. She moved away. A chinking of metal as I tried to move.

"Please don't, Jenny."

She was at the door. "I always loved you, Beatrice," she said.

"Please don't, Jenny."

She did not hear. The door closed. I was alone with my aloneness. In the night. Where was Caroline? I listened as I listened when a child, on evenings when the curtains were drawn in my room against the evening light. I listened now, I heard. There were footsteps, soft voices. Voices heard, unheard. Was it the wind? I was half naked and bound, strange in my half-nudity and bonds. Jenny was naughty. She would come and release me and I would dress in my summer dress and we would picnic. Caroline would be tied to a tree. She would watch our small white teeth nibbling cakes. Lemonade would gurgle down our throats. The world would never come to an end.

Did Caroline remove her chemise in the attic?

I heard voices. Caroline's voice. She was laughing. Jenny was laughing. I knew I must not call out in my calling. They stopped outside my door and went on up. I imagined in my imaginings my uncle waiting for her in the attic room.

It was quiet again. The walls are thick.. I dozed. Tight in my bonds I dozed. The door opened. Was it a dream? Through slits of eyelids I saw Jenny. She was dressed as I was dressed save that there was no silver in her stockings nor in her corset. She wore drawers of black satin, but they had no legs. Their lines swept up between her thighs.

Aunt Maude entered behind her. The door was closed. From her ears dangled rubies in long gold pendants. Her mouth was carmine. In her hand the whip.

Was she an aunt? There were aunts in the garden once when I was young. They moved among the flowers and the shrubs. Sometimes Father and Mother would kiss them. We ate delicacies from silver platters. The servants were quiet, moving like wraiths. Tea was drunk from translucent cups. It was said that my uncle's first wife had left and died. 1 believe not that she died, but that she left I knew. Long later I heard of it. Her name was Lucy. She was but eighteen. My uncle then was a racier man. He sought a sexual abandonment to which Lucy could not lend herself. She was beautiful but shy. In the end my uncle grew impatient. He had wished to see her in the throes of lust. She had refused. One night, becoming impatient, he had called the butler. Lucy, naked, had been held down over the edge of the bed. First my uncle and then the butler had entered their penises in her bottom and buggered her. The butler was a lewd, crude man. Such things were not unknown. My uncle, it appeared, had been in raptures over the scene. He having buggered Lucy first, she was more docile and receptive to the second breaching of her bottom. Nevertheless, she departed soon after. For Australia, they said. Her death being announced, but never proved, my uncle remarried.

Aunt Maude sat now on the bed. I felt her weightness. She rolled me onto my hip, my back to her. Her hand caressed my cheek and brushed my hair back where the strands were loose.