A Gentleman's Property

by Toby Abbott

  The Baroness numbered her dildos in the opposite order from her golf clubs. Number one was a delicate instrument (a wedge, so to speak) intended for buggering virgins. Number two was a gentle cunt tickler, number three a standard sized, comfortable pleasurer between friends, and number four a rather large one. Number six was a monster, definitely an instrument of punishment not pleasure. The Baroness made sure that Hesione got a good look at it before she unwound a black silk scarf from around her own neck and used it to blindfold the quaking young officer.

  “Legs wide!” she ordered, emphasising the command with a sharp smack to Hesione’s right buttock. The ‘old lady’s feeble’ blow stung like the devil. “You may undress me, Maria,” she said, turning to her maid.

  While the Baroness stood quietly weighing up the target before her, Maria unbuttoned her light Parisian frock and eased it from her shoulders and over her hips. She even raised her mistress’s feet to clear the garment from her ankles. The pretty but powerful bra she left. A lady in her seventies, however good her figure, does not like to expose her breasts. So the waist slip came next, followed by the French knickers. Underneath them the Baroness was wearing one of her number three strap-ons, a weapon she was rarely without. Her leather dildos had little loops of thread in the business end, with which, when dressed, she tied them tightly to a corresponding hook in the front of her suspender belt, so that they were practically invisible beneath her skirt. When tied back they looked like a jester’s joke codpiece, but when the little pink bow was pulled, as Maria pulled it now, the dildo sprang into a serious attack position. It was impressive how closely, after half a century, the Baroness still resembled the lady in Madame’s portrait.

  “Wait outside the door, Maria, until I call for you. Now, lieutenant, although you are still on duty, this is one occasion when you have my permission to lose control.”

  Such is the power of suggestion, that Hesione really thought she was being stretched and tortured when the Baroness slipped the number three easily into her sopping cunt. The old lady drove it fully home and then left it there - ‘to marinate’, as she had once expressed it to Madame - while she settled herself comfortably on top of Hesione, resting her full weight on her leather-clad back. She reached up over the lieutenant’s shoulder’s and grasped her nipple rings, to give herself interesting leverage when she did begin to thrust, though for the present she just toyed with them while she whispered moral precepts in Hesione’s ear.

  “Always remember that an officer is a lady, and must behave like one at all times, unless ordered to do otherwise. It doesn’t matter where she was born or who her mother was. Her commission confers gentility. If other ranks behave like lascivious sluts nobody need feel any surprise. It is a mere matter of discipline, where necessary. But an officer who loses control loses caste.”

  The Baroness drew the dildo back four inches before she continued. “What is an officer, lieutenant?”

  “A lady, Baroness...Oh!”

  The sharp thrust was timed to coincide exactly with Hesione’s answer.

  “Again, lieutenant.”

  “A lady, Bah!”

  “Again.”

  “A lah!”

  “Again”

  “Ahh!”

  When the blindfold was finally removed from a limp and drained Hesione the Baroness was immaculately dressed again, and looking as cool as ever, and Maria was carrying away the number six strap-on. Knowing better than to move without permission the lieutenant continued to sprawl across the table, panting and blinking.

  “Do well on the raid, my dear,” said the Baroness, stroking a buttock idly, “and I will show you some far more interesting ways of passing an evening. Attention! Dismiss!”

  Hesione struggled to her feet, saluted, and got out of the room with as much dignity as she could muster. In her dishevelled state it was not much. Though she was chary of revealing all the circumstances, Hesione would ever afterwards brag of how she had taken the Baroness’s legendary number six, and lived to tell the tale.

  A No-No Play

  Mary Bowdler had not worn a crinoline since she played Eleanor in an adaptation of ‘Barchester Towers’ that never reached the West End. As she stood in the wings of the temporary theatre in the Bonaventure’s great saloon the difficulty of controlling the unfamiliar frame added to her stage fright. The inventive Aubrey, who acted as stage manager for on-board theatricals, had naturally made it as large and heavy as he could while still allowing her to walk and act. Every step was an adventure in balance. But at least she did not have to worry about forgetting her lines. Oh no! She would never forget them. Mr Morimoto had discovered the infallible cure for drying up, though Mary could not imagine any actress voluntarily taking it.

  Her instructor in this new technique for studying a part had been a master Mary had not previously encountered on the Bonaventure, though she recognised him immediately as a popular historian frequently to be seen lecturing on television. Mary had read several of his books, which sold better than most novels. For the class Mary was dressed in a parody of school uniform: sensible black shoes, white knee socks, a pleated red skirt, white blouse, red tie, and straw boater, but no underwear. Professor Forbes wore an academic gown and mortar board, and carried a cane.

  Mary was placed at a school desk that seemed orthodox enough in its design. The same could not be said for the seat. This was a plank no more than six inches wide, supported by sturdy columns at each end. Fixed into the back of the plank a nine inch peg protruded upwards, angled slightly towards the desk. Above the plank there was a back rest two inches wide that could be adjusted in or out as required. While Mary was got ready this was in its furthest back position, so it was simple for her to sit as instructed with her legs to either side of the peg, which rested gently against her belly, and with her buttocks overhanging the back of the plank. The Professor arranged her skirt around her so that her buttocks and thighs, and even her knees were primly hidden. He pulled her ankles backwards and upwards, and buckled them into cuffs on the underside of the plank. Her hands he shackled loosely to the front corners of the desk, so that she would have enough freedom to turn the pages of her script. Then he adjusted the back support in towards the desk, forcing her buttocks into the gap between the plank and the support, and driving her naked cunt and belly tight against the peg. To prevent it from cutting her in half Mary had to arch her back as much as possible, thrusting her breasts forward against the sheer blouse, and exaggerating the obscene jut of her buttocks.

  Mr Morimoto’s playlet, which had been copied in a neat, childish hand by one of his Japanese slaves, lay open before Mary. The Professor drew her attention to it by tapping the desk with his long, thin, wicked-looking cane.

  “Memorize all the sections underlined in red, like whip marks across a naked bottom,” the Professor said with relish. “You have half an hour to learn your lesson, young lady. I will then return to test you. Be perfect or be punished.”

  Mary tried desperately hard, although the peg, which had insinuated itself between her sex lips, and was pressing against her swollen clit, was a serious drawback to concentration. She would begin to read a speech, but before reaching the end lose the thread as she found herself involuntarily sliding up and down the peg as much as her bonds would permit. It was not very much.

  There was no clock in the cabin, so Mary could not tell whether the Professor had really stayed away for half an hour. It seemed only a few minutes, and her task was hardly begun.

  “Close your book, miss,” he ordered sharply, as he stepped behind her, raised and rolled the back of her skirt, and tucked it into the waistband, leaving her protruding bottom terribly exposed and vulnerable. He strolled back in front of Mary, and giving her an avuncular smile that was infinitely sinister, tilted her chin up with the tip of his cane.

  “Now then, I feel sure that such an intelligent young lady will be word perfec
t. From the top, please, and I will supply the cues.”

  If there was one thing Mary felt confident about, it was the opening couplet of her part. As the Professor passed out of sight behind the desk she began with a spurt:

  “O, weary, weary are these little feet!

  What hope of com...”

  The verse ended in a hypermetrical scream as the cane kissed the middle of both buttocks, underlining Mary’s mistake in red, and driving her clit and belly against the peg with bruising force.

  “That should be ‘hope or comfort’, miss. Be perfect, I said. Mr Morimoto is not one of those sloppy authors who tolerates ad libbing or approximation. Again please.”

  Professor Forbes mercifully called a halt after half a dozen mistakes, and strokes of the cane, in as many lines.

  “This will not do at all,” he said sorrowfully, standing in front of the sobbing Mary, and tapping the desk with the cane to emphasise his words. “I will give you another half hour, and then woe betide you if there are any more mistakes.”

  To give significant point to his warning, before he left the room the Professor unbuttoned enough of Mary’s blouse to leave her breasts exposed, and jutting upwards and outwards because of her strained position.

  “Be diligent., Mary Bowdler,” he said, teasing the proud nipples with the tip of his cane.

  Mary studied much harder in her second revision period. The memory of recent pain concentrated her mind, and sharp present pain when she moved her bruised cunt against the peg put any sexual distractions out of the question. When the Professor returned - again much faster than she expected - Mary was not exactly brimming with confidence, her position was not calculated to inspire that, but she thought she knew her part as well as any she had studied for the legitimate stage. She was probably right, but that only went to show how poorly she had served her authors in the past. Serving a master imposed a very different discipline.

  She got through her first scene safely at the second run through, and the Professor was beginning to get quite into the spirit of the play, delivering the lines of the bandits and the Samurai with panache, when Mary stumbled again. It was at the words, “I would gladly pay your fee ten times over if I only had my fortune with me,” from which she somehow dropped the ‘only’. Retribution was swift and bitter, as the cane swished down onto her left nipple. A cool observer must have admired the accuracy of such a blow delivered by a man of more than middle age, but there was no cool observer present. The professor was boiling with lust as he acted out his favourite fantasy, nursed since a spell teaching in an exclusive girls’ school, and Mary was busy inventing a new and exciting sitting down dance. It was not a performance calculated to calm the Professor’s racing pulse.

  Mary suffered two more blows before the reading was completed, a matching stinger to her right nipple, and a solid blow to the meat of her left breast. The whole process lasted some time, as after each punishment it took several minutes until the first agony passed, and Mary was able to pay attention to the Professor’s orders. After each resumption she reflected bitterly on the impunity with which the Professor made blunder after blunder. In his defense, had he needed any, he could have pointed out that a reader of cues did not often have the distraction of his actress shaking her tits in his face throughout the rehearsal.

  After a third revision period, during which Mary began to understand for the first time the real nature of concentration, she managed to go through her part without a single error. The Professor then had her repeat it again more slowly. To simulate, as he put it, the inevitable distractions of a real performance, he kept the tip of his cane constantly hovering around her bruised nipples throughout the reading, flicking, stroking, and tickling, and only when she had survived this ordeal did he pronounce her perfect. Oh, yes, Mary really did know her lines.

  Her reverie was broken by the sound of the overture, and the raising of the curtain.

  “On you go, dear,” said Aubrey, accompanying the words with a shove in the back that nearly sent her sprawling. She recovered in time to make a reasonably dignified entrance, and advanced to the footlights, where she curtsied left, right, and centre to the select audience before speaking.

  “Oh, weary, weary are these little feet!

  What hope or comfort can this poor orphan meet?

  My name is Mary Smith. I am an unfortunate virgin, the daughter of an English captain shipwrecked here on the coast of noble Japan, where Western Barbarians are forbidden to set foot. I am entirely without friends or protectors. I have no money. Alas, what shall I do to live? How find my way home? This province is infested with bandits, ferocious men who prey on unwary travellers. A virgin is a feast to them, a Barbarian virgin a royal banquet. What do I hear? Voices! I will hide in this bush until they pass by. Jesus protect me now!”

  The Bandit Chief was played by Tommy Khan, his men by Mark Gertler and Reggie Atterbridge, but they were unrecognisable behind fiercely whiskered masks. They approached the front of the stage in a martial dance, clapping short swords against their shields, and uttering bloodcurdling whoops. Suddenly, the Chief spread his arms wide for silence.

  “My men, what do I smell?” All three sniffed deeply. “It is a woman!”

  “Yes, Chief, but not a Japanese.”

  “Seek and find!”

  The bandits took an absurd time to discover Mary behind her ‘bush’, a potted plant that was the only prop on stage, making a comic routine of passing her repeatedly with twitching noses raised and eyes averted, but eventually she was dragged forth shrieking. The bandits ripped off her skirt and petticoats, exposing the frame of the crinoline, beneath which Mary’s legs were still well hidden by frilly drawers reaching to her ankles. Aubrey had attached the crinoline very securely to a tight belt, so the three men were able to lift her high above their heads by grasping the bottom hoop of the frame. In this undignified elevation they paraded Mary round the little stage, while she kicked her frilly legs in a stylised balletic representation of panic. When their prize had been well displayed, they set Mary on her feet again, but immediately pulled her left foot backwards and tied the ankle tightly to her left wrist. This meant that she was balanced insecurely on her right foot, and she would have fallen if a bandit had not steadied her. The heavy frame was then forced down until the bottom hoop rested on the floor, and Mary’s right ankle was pulled back and tied to her right wrist. Her crinloline had become a mobile prison. While the two bandits made crude comments on the captive’s charms, the Chief began to undo the buttons of her bodice. Mary cried despairingly for help.

  Rescue of a sort was at hand, for at this point a masked Mr Morimoto made his entrance in the guise of a noble Samurai warrior, in built-up boots and an extravagant helmet, to prevent him looking too much smaller than the three young bandits.

  “Villains! Release this noble maiden, fit only for your betters! Run and live, or stand and die!” Morimoto emphasised the words by sweeping his long sword maladroitly around his head. The bandits stumbled back in genuine alarm, and made a hasty exit.

  “Oh, noble sir, how shall I ever thank you for this gallant rescue? You have saved my honour, perhaps my life.”

  “You may address me as ‘my lord’. No thanks are necessary. To rescue damsels in distress is part of the Samurai code. Just pay me the customary rescue fee and I will conduct you to a place of safety.”

  “A fee, my lord? Alas, I am a poor shipwrecked stranger, a native of distant England, and not a penny do I possess. But in thanks and prayers for your lordship’s prosperity I will be lavish.”

  “Poor? And a Barbarian? This alters things strangely. Is it not my duty to hand you over to justice for daring to set foot in Japan? Or should I leave you for the enraged bandits to find again, or beasts wilder even than they?”

  “Oh, please, my lord, spare me! I would gladly pay your fee ten times over if I only had my fortune with me.
And it is most unwillingly that I have trespassed on your coasts. Have mercy on a poor orphan girl.”

  “Well, now, let me see. There may be an alternative as far as my fee is concerned. It is usual to pay it in gold, but I see no reason why goods should not do as well. Your clothes are most unusual, and would make a curious display for our anthropological museum. The skirt is torn, but could be mended no doubt, and your other things are only a little soiled. Yes, I will accept your clothes as my fee.”

  “Thank you, thank you, my lord! As soon as I can obtain others I will sacrifice these very willingly.”

  “That cannot be, Barbarian. A Samurai’s fee must be paid at once on the spot where the service was rendered. Otherwise the gods are offended, and it is the warrior’s duty to appease them by decapitating the ungrateful one.”

  “De...decapitating?”

  “On the spot.”

  “Then if you will untie me, my lord, and turn your back, I will surrender the clothes immediately.”

  “Impossible! A Samurai never turns his back on a lady. His mother’s ghost would haunt him.”

  “De...De...”

  “..capitation!”

  “Untie me, my lord,” said Mary, with a very effective sob, “I will do it.”

  It really was the first time that Mr Morimoto had seen Mary naked. It was his whim to share the moment, in this dramatic way, with a gathering of friends. It was Aubrey who had rehearsed Mary’s striptease, insisting on every conceivable squirming evasion of outraged modesty. Truth to tell, many of these came quite naturally to her, for in spite of all her experiences on the Bonaventure it was still an ordeal to expose herself before this audience. Being on stage made things worse, for the footlights reminded her of fading dreams of Shakespearean triumphs.