From the Top Shelf - The End of Innocence

Voting has been on my mind lately. We've just had a round of municipal elections in our province, and thankfully that's the end of Ford Nation. In my own city, three of the candidates Ron and I voted for were elected, so we are pleased with the outcome. I consider it very important to vote whenever I can, because voting is a privilege that women have not always enjoyed. Things were very different in 1907, the year The End of Innocence by Paul Little is set. Today's selection is taken from it, and I had images of Downton Abbey in my mind as I read it.

Young Eleanor Woods - a housemaid, a beautiful young woman, a virgin - was in sexual danger, far behind the high walls of a palatial estate in Albany, New York, on one sunny May afternoon in 1907.

And no one could know her plight, or come to her aid. Eleanor might as well have been a medieval slave girl, immured behind the thick walls of a castle, which the estate in fact resembled.

A tall, self-conscious, light-brown haired young lady of twenty, she stood now in the bedroom of her employers, Matthias and Lucy Hartley, with her face crimson and her hazel eyes huge with consternation.

Her eyes were downcast and she fumbled nervously with the apron that fitted neatly over her black and white uniform.

Matthias Hartley, a handsome, arrogant-looking man of about 45, motioned to her to come closer to the bed on which he and his wife lay. In his rich scarlet dressing gown, and with his neatly trimmed beard, he looked every inch the wealthy aristocrat he was - but to the nervous Eleanor he appeared only as a demanding tyrant. Hesitantly she stepped nearer.

"Mrs. Hartley and I, young lady, have had just about enough of your scandalous carryings-on. And now this! What do you think our neighbors are going to say to us each time they see you? We've treated you almost as a family member rather than as a servant - even sent you to take business courses at college. And now the Dean writes to me to say she is considering suspending you for your wilful behaviour. You know, young lady, perhaps I wouldn't be quite so angry with you if this were merely a matter of your going out with a young man against the rules of the school. But what you have done is totally immoral and shameless!"

"But, sir," the scarlet-faced beauty stammeringly protested, "that's not fair! I believe in the cause, and I think it's shameful, since you choose to use that word, that men won't give women the right to vote. Women are every bit as smart as men and -"

"And that is quite enough!" Matthias interrupted. "Lucy, are you going to stand there and listen to this incredible servant girl of ours try to change the nature of the world? Not content with getting up in class and talking like this, she and a few other misguided females walked around the campus with placards!"

"Perhaps the girl meant no harm," said the beautiful Lucy Hartley, sitting beside her husband on the bed. A stunning blonde of about thirty-five, Lucy had a figure fully as lush as that of the young girl standing before her. But Lucy also had a coldly sensual face, and a cruel expression around the eyes, so Eleanor distrusted the older woman's apparent sympathy.

"Nonsense," replied Matthias. "She needs discipline."

"What kind, darling?" asked Lucy, wide-eyed.

"The corporal kind," Matthias said, looking Eleanor straight in the eyes.

Eleanor gasped as her little fists clenched and her shoulders straightened. "Oh no, that's too much! I'm a grown young woman. You haven't any right to punish me, not that way."

"The last time I gave any of you servants the strap, young lady, was too long ago," said Matthias. "Two weeks, in fact."

Eleanor's knees began shaking in fear, for she'd heard strange and terrible stories of the beatings the Hartleys sometimes administered to their servants.

"Still, I shall restrain myself, and permit my wife to do the honours," he went on.

Lucy looked down and murmured, "Oh no, Matthias, I just couldn't." But her hand seemed to be caressing Matthias' leg tightly under the covers. And Matthias was rubbing Lucy's shoulder slowly, very slowly. Eleanor saw that, and realised that her fear and her shame were exciting the couple on the bed in a way she didn't fully understand. They seemed unable to keep from touching each other, and that made Eleanor tremble all the more.

It made her angry too.

"No! You can't! It's shameful!" Eleanor cried out tearfully. "I shall run away, I shall, if you do this awful thing to me!"

"And now you are threatening me, are you, Miss?" Matthias rose and strode over to her, then slapped her face. Eleanor cried out in pain and shame. "Now your mistress will attend to you, and I'll be watching to see that you don't escape a single blow! Help me with her, Lucy! Onto the bed with this insolent little baggage!"

Lucy Hartley pretended to obey reluctantly, but her eyes flashed and she was breathing heavily. Disregarding the girl's struggles and protests, they tossed her on the bed, face down, where she writhed helplessly beneath their four hands. And those hands, Eleanor felt through her confusion, were darting everywhere on her body at once - rubbing into her armpits, slipping sensually over her breasts, pressing between her buttocks, and even passing lightly over her mound.

"Please, please don't," she protested, but they ignored her. And somehow - she was ashamed to realise - she was obtaining some enjoyment from their wanton touches. Twisting her head helplessly, she even felt a peculiar thrill at noticing that Lucy's plump breasts were now close to falling out of the nightgown that barely covered them.

But then Matthias rushed over to the nearby wardrobe and returned brandishing a short leather strap. No, no, thought Eleanor; they were serious. And Matthias handed the strap roughly to his wife.

"Now, Lucy, you must show this girl that she has no right to talk in that way. You must make her regret the fact that she even considered such talk. Her behind will be well warmed by a good thrashing and perhaps she will learn an important lesson. I certainly hope that she does."

Then he sat back down on the bed and with one large hand pushed Eleanor's skirts right up and exposed her bloomers. The other hand pinned the girl's wrists down so that she was stretched out, completely helpless.

Seeing Eleanor's white-clothed bottom shake and tremble in pitiful struggle, and knowing that the young servant was completely at her mercy, Lucy felt her excitement mounting pleasurably. Matthias smiled at her. Turning so that Eleanor couldn't see, Lucy rubbed the strap against her own crotch, and nodded at Matthias. "Let the games begin," he said.

Then Lucy brought the strap down with a resounding smack. Eleanor cried out and bit her lip. The thick leather strap came down hard and fast on her thinly covered bottom, and Eleanor trembled. She bit her lip harder and tried to endure the pain. Ten times the belt came down on her arse and ten times she shivered and cried.

And yet, as the blows descended - with plenty of time between each, so that Eleanor had to wait fearfully - somehow she felt the pain turning into a warmth which suffused her bottom-cheeks and even, to her shame and confusion, her sex itself. In her embarrassment, she tried at least to turn her face away from her tormentors but Matthias prevented that.

"She's trying to look away, Lucy, but that would spoil our fun," he said, forcing her head round once more so that she faced his wife. "We want to see exactly how much her face is flushed."

Lucy had paused to catch her breath. "But that's so cruel, my dearest," she said, yet the huskiness in her voice revealed how much she was enjoying this game. "Why her coyness might just mean that the girl is - aroused - perhaps from being partly unclothed in front of you."

Eleanor's embarrassment knew no bounds. Lucy approached and placed a hand on Eleanor's bottom; sensitive as that outraged behind now was, the touch inflamed. "Perhaps we should check the girl for damage, Matthias," Lucy said softly, pulling down Eleanor's bloomers slowly and deliberately. Eleanor began crying, in fear and humiliation.

"My, my, those plump cheeks are as red as cherries," Matthias said. "I think they need some very close attention." At those words, so obscenely suggestive, Eleanor felt a sudden warm throbbing deep within her sex.

"Yes I think those poor cheeks need a bath," Lucy said leaning forward. Astounded, Eleanor felt a smooth wetness on her bottom.

What followed was a very naughty three-way sexual encounter that was blush-enducing, so I conclude the excerpt here, except to say that a good time was had by all.