Being a Girl

by Chloë Thurlow

  ‘Would that be suitable, Milly?’

  ‘Yes, of course, Dr Goetz.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re going to be very happy here,’ he added.

  I was on a strict budget imposed by my stingy mother and couldn’t believe my luck as we descended the wide oak staircase to his study at the back of the house. It was a large, sunny room with French doors and ochre walls studded with sepia photographs. When I realised those photographs were of naked girls a crimson flush moved in a tide over my cheeks and neck.

  ‘Do you know Man Ray?’ the doctor asked, and I shook my head.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Wonderful photographer. Such light. Such attention to negative space. The devil, Milly,’ he whispered, pausing for effect, ‘is always in the detail.’

  As I drew closer to the photograph, I could see that the girl bent over a table being spanked by a bearded man had short curling horns that appeared to be growing from her skull and between the cheeks of her protruding bottom a long tail extended to the floor.

  We both turned and I looked into Dr Goetz’s deep-set eyes. They were green like pale chips of marble and seemed to shine with an inner light. His precisely-trimmed beard grew lush over the lower half of his face and gave him a distinct resemblance to the gentleman spanking the girl in the photograph. My palms had grown damp and my nipples for some frightful reason had hardened, pushing against the fabric of my thin blouse.

  ‘You’re not embarrassed, Milly?’ he asked, and again I shook my head.

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘It’s only art, my dear. Man Ray was the consummate photographer,’ he added, ‘really the forerunner of the new nude.’

  We continued the tour. There were whips and canes in patterns adorning the walls between polished bookcases and stone sculptures of Indian deities in positions that made me blush once more. We paused at his desk on which there was an open book with a photograph of a faded painting of a naked girl with her arms suspended by a length of rope from the branches of a tree. On each side of the girl were two men with bare legs, each holding a long cane. Alongside the men, like an audience, were two animals.

  ‘As you probably know, the tiger and rhinoceros have long been revered for the aphrodisiac qualities of their tusks and teeth,’ the doctor said, and he reached for another book which he opened at a page containing a black and white photograph of a nude girl tied in similar circumstances.

  ‘The original painting comes from the walls of the Ellora caves in India,’ he explained. ‘Buddhists, Hindus and Jains have been carving temples into the mountainside from as early as the 6th century, but what’s intriguing is that their sculptures have an eroticism clearly influenced by the mystical religions from before anno domini.’ His eyes moved from one picture to the other. ‘But here’s what’s interesting,’ he added, his voice intense with passion. ‘The plate from circa 1860 restages in close detail the fresco from India. Why and who made that plate we can only hypothesise but, for my money, I’d say it is the work of a missionary who dabbled in photography and made a pilgrimage, as many did, to the Ellora caves.’

  ‘Extraordinary,’ I said.

  ‘If you look closer, you’ll see that the girl in the photograph is practically identical to the girl painted on the cave wall,’ he continued. ‘What this means, Milly, at least to me, is that man’s idea of beauty and man’s aspiration to beat the object of his desire has remained unchanged throughout time.’

  I couldn’t at that moment see why man wanted to beat the object of his desire, but I didn’t think Dr Goetz would have appreciated the question. Instead I asked, ‘Are you writing a paper?’ and he stroked his beard as he glanced back at me.

  ‘I am, yes. I’m in the midst of my research and would dearly like to learn more about the photographer before I publish.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps you’ll find time to help, my dear.’

  As he fixed me with his marble eyes, my mouth was suddenly dry and I could only nod my head in response. The sun was pouring through the open doors and it was so warm in the study, the gusset on my panties was growing damp. The material had worked its way into the lips of my vagina and, what with the array of naked girls and the whips on the wall, I grew shamefully aware of the whiff of arousal filling the room.

  I hurried out to the garden feeling humiliated, but Dr Goetz, as if lured by the scent, came up behind me and we stood gazing at the flowerbeds around the edge of the lawn. ‘Ah, don’t you just adore that sweet aroma,’ he said, and as he spoke a warm dribble leaked from my pants and slid down my thigh.

  He glanced at me, eyes twinkling. ‘Saint Sebastian’s, that’s the convent school out near Harrow, isn’t it?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. Quite close,’ I answered, and his gaze ran from my lips, which I was biting, down to the strip of bare tummy below my blouse, and down to my knees which were trembling faintly below my white skirt.

  He pointed then at the stack of turfs on the far side of the garden. ‘We’ll have to get those laid before winter sets in,’ he said, and we turned to study the patches of bare earth. The garden was totally secluded behind mature trees and a lattice fence.

  ‘There is one more thing, Milly, just a little fetish, really,’ he added. ‘You’ll find a maid’s uniform in the cupboard in your room. Please wear it when you do your jobs in my study.’

  ‘Yes, of course, Dr Goetz,’ I blurted out. ‘Now I must go and get my things.’

  I fled from the garden and ran all the way back to the flat. The way Dr Goetz had sized me up with those shrewd luminous eyes may have tempted me to remain in the sanctuary of Tamara’s uncomfortable sofa, but it wasn’t even lunchtime and already the headboard was beating against the wall. A number 11 rugger shirt hung like the flag of a conquering army from the standard lamp and, as the drumming grew louder, I packed my bags and set out with the double-edged sword of anxiety and elation stirring my insides. A taxi dropped me and my books outside the house and the Marquis de Sade was watching from the portrait on the wall as Dr Goetz helped carry my things upstairs.

  When he opened the cupboard, the maid’s uniform shimmied from the sudden gush of air.

  ‘Here,’ he said, and turned, stroking his beard. ‘Just my little fetish,’ he added, and of course he had told me that already.

  I listened to his footsteps echo down the stairs and reached for the uniform. I slipped out of my clothes and my breasts tingled as I wriggled into the black frock. The fabric was silky soft, so sensuous against my bare skin I couldn’t help wondering what arcane secrets Luther Goetz had uncovered researching Mediaeval Sorcery & Debauchery, his classic work on the subject.

  The frock was high-fronted with a white collar, a white apron that tied in a bow at the back, and was so short you could see the frilly white knickers that completed the outfit. There was a pair of black heels, uncannily my size, and so high that in order to stand straight my legs grew long and tapering, my breasts were thrust enticingly forward and my bottom pushed out as if willing passing hands to give it a smack. As I fixed the little white hat in place, I remembered from school plays that the moment you put on a costume, you become the character; I was the waitress from a saucy postcard, the ingénue from French farce. I painted my lips red, slapped my cheeks to give them colour, then stood back to get a full-length view in the mirror.

  ‘Oo la la,’ I said and wiggled my bottom like a parlour maid. If only Jean-Luc Cartier could see me now!

  I didn’t put the uniform on again until Sunday morning. Dr Goetz was in the garden preparing lectures and that feeling that I was on stage came back to me as I drifted through the gallery of naked girls, flicking the feather duster over the canes and whips on the wall.

  The panelled room was like a museum with perverse implements ranged on shelves under the bejewelled watchful eyes of the Indian deities. I paused to examine a long phallus and, while I had no experience of such things, I knew it was odd having, not one, but two penises joined end to end, and couldn’t imagine what purpose it served. It
was faintly yellow and had the look of old piano keys, the surface veined and warm to the touch. The body of the object was connected to straps and the ends of those long penises were finished as leering snake heads with glinting emerald eyes.

  ‘It is made from the tusk of a white rhinoceros,’ said Dr Goetz as he entered. ‘All these things are rare and precious, the symbols of our innermost secrets and desires.’ He paused and fixed me with a mischievous expression. ‘Do be careful, won’t you? Like a sailing ship, a good house is driven by the winds of discipline.’

  My cheeks flushed as I put the monster back on the shelf. The doctor was amused by my reaction, and studied the maid’s uniform as I stood with my hands submissively at my sides. Dr Goetz was wearing black espadrilles tied at the ankles and his bare legs below khaki shorts seemed oddly out of place belonging, as they did, to a famous scholar.

  ‘Very nice, my dear. Very nice,’ he said finally, and I curtsied, keeping in character, as he turned to go back to the garden.

  A day or two later, I was sweating over an essay when there was a polite tap on the door.

  ‘Come in.’

  Dr Goetz entered with a large white box. He had invited his coven, as he put it, for drinks on Saturday, and would like me to dress appropriately to serve hors d’oeuvres. He placed the parcel solemnly among the books and papers strewn over the bed.

  ‘An essay?’ he asked.

  ‘On the role of castratos in Renaissance opera,’ I replied.

  ‘Let me read it when it’s done,’ he said. ‘We all want you to do your best, Milly.’

  He left the room and I felt like a child at Christmas when I pulled the lid off the box. I peeled back the tissue paper. ‘Oh, my God, I can’t wear this!’ I gasped, but even as I spoke I was popping open the buttons on my jeans and pulling my blouse over my head. I slipped out of my underwear and watched my reflection in the dark window. I had spent so much time stepping out of my clothes on the set of Cheats there hadn’t been time for eating, and now I rather liked being all angular and shapely, a geometric figure like the sign for infinity, rounded at the top and bottom, wasp thin in the middle, my hip bones like the handles on a school trophy.

  Inside the white box was a costume, a pair of green tights with a long tail attached to the crotch, green stilettos, again an oddly good fit, and a silk top that scarcely concealed my flagrantly pert nipples. Perhaps I should see the doctor, I thought? The little rosebuds were tingling painfully, aroused at the least provocation. I gave them a pinch and felt a contraction in my pussy. I was wet all of a sudden and stuffed a Kleenex between my legs so I didn’t leak into the green tights. I once asked Binky if she got wet down there all the time.

  ‘Only in the shower, Cammy,’ she replied. It was her baby name for me and she used it on those occasions when she felt a need to be disapproving.

  At the bottom of the box there was a rubber mask that fitted over the back of my head and covered the top half of my face, the swirling eye-slits in the same shape as the curling horns. I went to the bathroom and standing there before me in the full-length mirror was an emerald demon that reminded me of the photograph by Man Ray on the study wall, the girl with the tail bent over a table about to be spanked.

  The costume was curiously, coldly erotic. With your face half covered I imagined it would be easy to believe you were someone else and once you were someone else there was no telling what that someone might be capable of. I thought about something Dr Goetz had said: We all want you to do your best. I’m sure he had not been talking about my studies. On the contrary, I had a feeling that I was being prepared for something and dressed as a green demon I felt ready for it, whatever it was.

  It was getting late. I folded the costume back in the box and placed my books on the shelf. My essay would have to wait for another day. I cleaned my teeth, thought about wearing my pyjamas, but didn’t, and stepped naked between the white cotton sheets. I was sopping wet and feeling so revved up I knew I wouldn’t get to sleep without resorting to the discreet charms of the hand cream bottle, a perfectly shaped phallus, even the top was like the head of a penis, but I suppose that’s the point. Everything made for women makes you think of sex. I slid the bottle up inside me.

  Agh, that’s better.

  I like to do it slowly, churning the goo like whipping butter for a cake, my free hand screwing my nipples until they sting, first one then the other, the dear little monkeys. Mmm, it’s so wonderful being a girl. You’re never bored. There’s always something to do, something to play with. When I feel myself coming I make myself stop. I caress my breasts, my hip bones, the flat of my tummy, delaying the moment of pleasure to extract more pleasure, then back to the hand cream bottle, in and out, slowly, slowly, until my hips lose all sense of gravity, my toes curl and out it comes, a great gush of oily juice that stains the sheets and has the bittersweet smell of deep dreams and faraway places. I feel tempted to insert the tube in my bum but I feel so relaxed I roll over, close my eyes and doze off thinking about David’s smart little soldier.

  At the gathering that Saturday were several men, feudal academics attired in the eccentric manner of their calling, and a sprinkling of women with wan features, carmine lipstick and a weakness for gypsy dresses. Professor Martin was constantly brushing his hair from his eyes and studying me as if he were my mentor, rather than my tutor, and was proud of some girlish achievement.

  The last person to appear was a younger woman in a leather catsuit with a long zip open to her navel to reveal two perfectly round breasts in cups of scarlet satin.

  The other guests seemed relieved that she had arrived and were orbiting her like space dust drawn to a heavenly body. I felt the same pull and could hardly take my eyes from her ivory-white breasts as I passed the crackers and guacamole dip. I was aware subconsciously that while I was captivated by the woman, the rest of the group was intrigued by my reaction to her.

  I left with the empty tray and opened a fresh bottle of cava sent privately from the mediaeval convent in Peralada in Spain and celebrated, Dr Goetz had said, ‘for its primordial flavours and the bitter taste of tears’.

  When I filled the woman’s champagne flute we were introduced by Professor Martin.

  ‘Milly Petacci, my student,’ he said, and paused, ‘Dr Alba Iliescu . . .’

  I was juggling the icy bottle and as I tried to shake hands, she put her arm around my waist, my mouth fell open in surprise, and she inserted her tongue halfway down my throat.

  ‘. . . Ethics,’ added my tutor, and the others smiled.

  ‘It is the custom of my country,’ Dr Iliescu explained.

  The cava was frothing over my hand. She ran her fingers down my spine, playing me like a flute, and the feeling was both eerie and erotic in that room of spanked girls and contorted deities.

  ‘There is a man in the Carpathians who reads the future from the back bone and in these little hills and valleys I sense good fortune.’

  I didn’t know whose, hers or mine, and as I didn’t like to ask, I popped my tongue back in my mouth. She drank the cava in one long gulp and held out the glass for it to be refilled.

  ‘You have heard of Count Dracula, I presume?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I share his blood.’

  Dr Iliescu raised her glass and turned to Dr Martin.

  ‘Young but perfectly charming,’ I heard her say, although I wasn’t sure if she were referring to me or the Peralada cava.

  I toured the room, filling glasses, feeling light-headed, my spine like jelly, the ghost of her fingertips still waltzing to some faraway music. In the kitchen, I peeled the foil from another bottle of cava and poured a glass for myself. I sat to catch my breath, the bubbles making me feel light-headed as they went up my nose.

  More time than I had realised must have gone by and, when I returned to the study, the guests were already leaving and Dr Goetz was furiously making notes at his desk.

  From the entrance I watched Professor Martin looming over Dr Iliescu like
a deferential shadow as they made their way into the gathering darkness. I took the empty plates and glasses back to the kitchen. Dr Goetz was staring at the open page of a book showing a pentangle surrounded by the signs of the Zodiac and, when I said good night, he didn’t look up. It was a shame to waste the cava and I drank two more big glasses before tipping the rest down the sink.

  It was a relief to scurry upstairs back to my room and when I pulled off the devil mask my eyes were red, my ears hurt and my head was spinning. I climbed into bed and fell into a deep sleep where I saw myself running in a diaphanous negligee with footsteps pursuing me along the endless stone corridors of a castle. Every corner I turned led to another corridor and when I fell exhausted to the floor the black nuns of Peralada surrounded me like a flock of cackling ravens.

  I awoke in a sweat, stood for ages under the shower and as I got dressed in my uniform it occurred to me that nuns and parlourmaids wear the same colours.

  It was housework day and I had a whine like a radio stuck between stations playing in my head. I polished the sculptures and phalluses, the canes and whips, the leather spines of weighty books. I was running a duster over the glass protecting the prints when I noticed that one of the antique frames had opened at the join. I took it down from the wall and, like I was snapping a wishbone, I pulled the frame apart.

  Now you’ve done it!

  Dr Goetz was a perfectionist. He enjoyed beauty and ritual. He demanded order and obedience. I knew all that, you didn’t have to be a psychologist to work it out, but somewhere between my throbbing head and a sudden sense of Sunday madness, I wanted to see what would happen. Like a cat bringing home its kill to be admired, I wandered out into the garden to show Dr Goetz the damaged frame.