From the Top Shelf - Another Letter

From When the Master Speaks by Josephine Scott. Clarisse has done well in the city to which she fled, and lives in a large house with a male companion. Let's see what she has to tell Sophie this time:

Three nights ago Alfred entertained a whole crowd of people I had not seen before. These were men unlike those I had come across, these were men with hard faces and hard minds, for their talk was coarse when only I was present, and their tongues loosened with drink.

I made to leave on two occasions: each time Alfred detained me at the door, a gentle hand on my arm, a whisper of his spirit scented breath in my ear.

"Please stay, it is for my future" and each time I turned back from he door and went back to my place, on a footstool at Alfred's feet, for all the world as if I were his slave...

After everyone had drunk heavily of the mead and ale decanters, so he called for quiet among the babble of voices and beckoned to me to stand. I did, and breathed in the heavy cigar smoke and body odour of the men, for they were sweating in the warm evening, and had drunk and eaten well.

"My Clarisse here has a story to tell you. Clarisse, dear, tell these gentlemen of the thrashing your father and the elders gave you."

A coldness began to squeeze around my heart, for I began to have an inkling of why I had been detained, why Dominica had been sent away, why Cook was ordered to stay in her quarters and only I summoned to the evening of men.

...I stood up, and took my skirts in one hand, swaying slightly as I turned round and round, to face them all.

And I told them in great and gory detail of That Punishment Session, told how the strap fell over and over again.

And saw their faces go red and their breath come hard and the hands squeeze tight around the tankards. I raised my skirts very slightly higher and saw the eyes, saw them turn downwards, saw them focus in on the feet and ankles...and then raised a little higher and they caught a glimpse of calf and white stockings.

And oh, Sophie, I knew what was to come and I went warm inside, as warm as the toast on the end of a fork held before a blazing fire. Alfred stood up and without a word fetched the bench from the hall where it normally stayed to hold Alfred's boots. It was clean, and I knew this had been long planned in Alfred's mind...

Without him asking I laid down over the bench and let one of the visitors, one of the esteemed guests, remove my clothes. And I let another tie my wrists and ankles to the bench legs with thin strips of leather that gave slightly and I could have escaped had I wanted to, but he was not to know that, for the look of satisfaction he gave me when he stood back told me so.

Alfred produced a leather belt, one I had seen him wear in the past, and which I knew then to be soft and flexible and I closed my eyes tight as the first man approached me.

I thought Cornelius was a hard man, Sophie, but these men were hard. These men knew how to use a belt with maximum strength and maximum pain and every single one burned me through and I could not help but shout and scream and that excited them more. With harsh words and exhortations to "make her sing louder" each man gave me ten strokes, and would have done more has Alfred permitted it.

Sophie, my dear sister, there were eight of them.

How I cried afterwards, when the belt stung so much and hurt so much and my hips felt on fire where they had lashed me and drawn blood with the tip and I felt crushed against the hardness of the bench and it was like Papa's thrashing all over again. Then they drew lots to see who would have me and the biggest man among them whooped with delight when he had the result of the draw.

I was untied and again without being told took the man by the hand and led him into the dining room which was empty and quiet and where no eyes could watch us.

And there I disrobed for him while he watched and I took him into my body with all the lust I had which was plenty after such a thrashing which left my body singing with emotion.