Anonymous - The Autobiography of a Flea, Book 2

“I will remember it, my father,” Laurette meekly returned.

“Now, answer me truthfully. You are certain that this rogue did not deflower you? I know that you are still a tender maiden, dear Laurette, but since you are intended for your nuptials within a fortnight, surely your worthy parents must have given you some inkling of the duties which fall upon you as the bride of the patron. You understand, then, what I mean?”

Laurette's fair, milky cheeks turned a vivid crimson as she nodded. Drawing a deep breath, and keeping her eyes modestly lowered, she faintly replied, “He – he didn't do it to me, my father.”

“But he was about to, was he not?”

Another nod and a heartfelt little sigh: doubtless once again poor Laurette was remembering the forbidden moment of near-ecstasy which the worthy priest had so unexpectedly halted.

“But did you not struggle and resist this ravisher?” he sternly resumed his interrogation.

“N… no, my father. I – I love him so and it was to be the last time we met before – before -”

“Before you took your vows of matrimony, I daresay. Well, my daughter, as a compassionate man who understands the foibles of his brothers, I can perhaps understand your weakness. But surely you could not think of wedding Pierre Larrieu. And to give yourself to a man out of wedlock is surely sinful, this you know from all my teaching and that of your good parents, do you not?”

Laurette's golden head dropped even more as she whispered an affirmative.

“Now, if he had forced you against your will, and if you had cried out for help, my daughter,” the obese priest pursued, “the sin would not have been yours. Am I to understand that you allowed him to unclothe your private parts so shamefully? When I came upon you, my child, I blanched with horror to observe that your drawers were lying upon the grass beside you and that your petticoat and skirt were rolled up to your belly. Was this done by force, my daughter? Be truthful now!”

“It – it was not done by force, my father,” Laurette quavered, and two big tears glistened in her large blue eyes.

“Alas, what you have just told me fills my heart with sorrow. For a pure maiden to permit such licentiousness is indeed reprehensible, my poor child. Do you give me your promise never to see this wretch again?”

“But, my father, I would do so, and yet what if through no fault of mine he appears before me?”

“Take care, my daughter,” Pere Mourier's shaggy brows knitted in a stern and foreboding look. “Do not try to entrap me in such devil's logic! Why, then, in that instance, you will modestly remember your station in life and the fact that you must not allow a blemish to stain the good Christian name of Claude Villiers. And you will tell this scoundrel that it is odious to you to be accosted by him. So much for that. And now, my daughter, the moment has come for your chastisement. Are you prepared to submit to it at my hand?”

Laurette, who was blushing from her temples to her milky throat, uttered a poignant sigh and nodded.

Removing his little hat of office, the portly priest moved now to a chest of drawers beside his narrow, low bed, opened the top drawer and drew out a scourge. It was made of brown leather, with a short stocky handle from which dangled a thin thong about two feet long. At the last six inches of this thong, the leather had been split down the middle to form two tapering lashes, about a quarter-inch in thickness and as much in width. When he turned back to her, Laurette shrank back, eyes wide with fright, and clasped her soft little hands to her rosy mouth.

“Yes, my child,” he said sorrowfully, “one drives out sin by chastising the very flesh where it has entered or sought to enter. I do this for your own salvation, my sweet daughter. Accept the scourge in true humility as reparation for your having yielded, even infatuated though you were, to the impure desires of this young scoundrel. Mayhap this punishment will also bring you to sober reflection upon the precepts you must follow to obtain a good and holy marriage.”

“I – I will, my father,” poor Laurette faltered.

“Excellent! Your docility and resignation restore in me the glad hope that redemption is still possible for your soul, my gentle Laurette. Now, I enjoin you to kneel up upon that chair, to hoist your skirt and petticoat to your waist and hold them there tightly while I proceed to inflict your well-merited punishment.”

He made a gesture with the scourge toward a heavy, straight-backed chair near the window, whose shutters had already been drawn for the night. Poor Laurette slowly arose, and reluctantly approached the altar of her atonement. Slowly she knelt down upon the hard seat of the wooden chair, and as she grasped the hems of skirt and petticoat, I hopped upwards till I had reached the crown of her lovely head. Very slowly she drew up these protective garments till they were lodged about her waist, thus exposing her beautiful buttocks snugged in the tight thin drawers which she had already once discarded such a little while ago and under such different circumstances.

The worthy priest now advanced, his eyes glistening with anticipation. Transferring the scourge to his left hand, he proceeded to insert the fingers of his other hand inside the waistband of Laurette's drawers. The poor girl uttered a cry of shame, and turned her scarlet face toward him in agonized appeal.

“Do not dismay, my daughter,” he gently consoled her, while tightening his grasp of the waistband of her thin drawers, “this humiliation which you are about to feel is properly wholesome, since it at once indicates to me that all sense of modesty has not yet fled your gentle nature. If there is pain and shame in your punishment, my child, know that we must all suffer upon this earth, not only for our sins but also for those which we even consider and ponder upon.”

“But – but, mon pere,” Laurette quavered, “can – can you not punish me over my drawers? They are very thin and they will not protect me very much from that awful whip.”

“Alas, my child, this is simply vain pride which compels you to speak to me, your confessor,” Pere Mourier sighed. “Moreover, we speak now of degrees of shame. If you felt naught at exposing your most intimate parts to that young scoundrel a moment ago, how surely can you argue against baring yourself to the disciplinary scourge which will drive out wickedness? Resign yourself, my daughter, for it is the custom of a father who thrashes his daughter, just as I, your spiritual father, am about to do, to administer it upon the naked flesh itself. Bow your head humbly and pray for redemption, dear Laurette.”

The poor girl did not dare refuse his advice, and so with a stifled sob of apprehension and despair, bowed her head and submitted herself. With a greedy smile, the portly holy man tugged down her drawers till they rested just above her knees, thereby exposing the magnificent, milky white contours of her bare behind and splendidly rounded soft thighs. At this exposure, Laurette gasped, and she contracted all of her muscles in an instinctive defense which of course only served to accentuate her magnificent development of the posterior. The cheeks of her bottom were marvelously rounded, with the most harmonious proportion of curves from waist to hips. They were set rather closely together, resembling the ambery furrow which parted them, and their plump summits and the mouthwatering, swelling base of those luscious nether globes would have tempted a saint to risk perdition. I much doubt that Pere Mourier was a saint, and I suspected then at once that this means of chastisement was also a favorite penchant with him. For his florid face became still redder, and his eyes sparkled with an unholy joy, while the broad wings of his nostrils flared and shrank. Not only that: I perceived a sudden protuberance making itself known against the stuff of his black cassock just at the juncture of his thighs.