‘What a mess you’ve made of your first day, non?’ she crowed in that relentless Cajun rhythm. ‘Your sole purpose in life is to make my aunt look good. And look at you!’
Her tone would’ve withered a hardened criminal, and the way she clicked that cane on the parquet floor as she paced, pantherlike, intensified her wrath. ‘What if Mr Proffit walked in? Why, he’d kick your foolish butts out to the street. And then he’d complain to Miss Delacroix — and you know what she’d do to you!’
The girls shifted nervously as their gazes fell to their feet.
Tap, tap tap. ‘What do you get when you cross Aunt Evil? That’s who she is, you know — my Aunt Evil. And for good reason.’ Monique continued in a rising cry. ‘What do you get when you cross Aunt Evil?’
Silence rang around the parlour, until Chloe’s red lips quirked. ‘Cross her with what?’
An unladylike snort escaped Annabelle, and then her dangling pearls quivered with her effort to stop giggling. Poor Sylvia looked mortified enough to wet herself.
‘You three are the most pathetic…’ Monique gripped her slender cane in an effort to keep from hurling it at them, a chorus line of dilettante domestics. ‘You deserve a spanking, and you know it. Now turn around and bend over that couch. Dresses up! Drawers down!’
Could I believe what I was seeing and hearing? I opened my mouth to suggest —
But, as the girls assumed the position she’d ordered, Monique turned to point her cane at me, shaking her head. I stepped back, abashed yet fascinated: the three girls, although clearly frightened by the corporal punishment they faced, prepared themselves as though they’d done this before. Three skirts and white shifts were hiked slowly over three backs that bent low over the settee, revealing ruffled white panties that billowed demurely over their hips — the latest rage in underthings. Three sets of hands reached back to three waist-bands, and slowly began to lower the frilly undergarments over firm young backsides.
To my horror, Fanny Frike then entered the room, to see what sort of commotion my maid was causing now. Taking note so she could tattle to Chapin, no doubt. The housekeeper stopped to stare, with the most amazed expression I’d ever seen.
‘Saints preserve us,’ she whispered. ‘They’ve all got balls!’
8 A Trio of Queens
‘Space yourselves! Spread those legs!’ Monique commanded. ‘Don’t make me tell you twice, you naughty maids!’
The three maids — if one called them that, considering the anatomical parts I now saw with utmost clarity — separated themselves along the couch, and then leaned over it for the punishment to come. I had followed Fanny’s gaze and stood gaping, my pulse galloping like a runaway mare, for surely the fusty old housekeeper would call a halt to this charade — and tell Chapin all about it the moment he got home.
Yet she stood stock-still, gripping her hands in front of her stomach. She had yet to blink.
Tap, tap, tap, went the cane’s tip on the floor.
Did I imagine it, or did all three miscreants lock their knees so their asses protruded more prominently? I couldn’t stop staring, for between each pair of muscled thighs dangled a set of testicles, each with its uniquely coloured haze of hair. A blonde, a brunette and a redhead. Displayed as though for my enjoyment; angled so I could watch their cocks starting to stiffen.
‘So you want to be queens, oui?’ Monique went on, so caught up in her role as disciplinarian, she was heedless of the housekeeper and me. ‘Well, even royalty pays the price for overstepping the line. Humiliation is the very least you deserve for your behaviour this morning, non?’
There was a murmured reply; a shifting of tight backsides anticipating the cane.
‘Yes, what, you pathetic pansies?’
‘Yes, Mistress Monique,’ came the chorus.
‘Maybe you’ll improve in your role of serving girls, as befits this fine household, if you have royal names to live up to,’ the virago in black intoned. ‘No doubt you were the ringleader, Annabelle.’
She gave the redhead in the centre a preliminary whack, making the fleshiest part of the maid’s ass jiggle and blanch before a pink stripe appeared. ‘And dressed so divinely, in Mrs Proffit’s prettiest pearls and turquoise gown. You fancy yourself French, oui? Marie Antoinette, perhaps?’
Again the slender cane whished through the air, producing a stripe above the first one.
Annabelle jumped, stuttering, ‘Yes, mistress, Muh-Marie Antoinette cut a stunning figure as queen.’
‘Toinette it is then!’ Monique gleefully landed another whack on the centre of that attractive backside, watching the flesh shimmy and shine pink above those quivering balls. ‘Try not to lose your head again. Even Marie only got one chance at it.’
Warming to her role, Monique paced behind them for a moment, to intensify the anticipation. The clatter of those tight boots, punctuated by the cane’s tap, tap, tap, was enough to make me pity whomever she humiliated next.
‘Dabbling in Auntie Evil’s cosmetics, were we, Chloe?’ she then demanded, and with a deft flick of her wrist the cane bit into the darker maid’s shapely backside.
This minx had the nerve to wiggle, making those balls swing seductively around a cock that prodded the couch. She stifled a cry, however, when Monique made her whip sing a surprise second verse — louder and harder this time.
‘With those dark features and that midnight hair, you belong in Egypt, non? Cleopatra, queen of the Nile?’
‘She ruled, yes! Her legend shines through the centuries,’ the newly named maid boasted. But her crowing rose to a howl when the whipping continued with two more quick whacks in succession, and then a third. This time the stripes were patterned in precise X-shapes, growing rosier as we watched.
‘De-nial is no place to float your boat now!’ Monique quipped. ‘You have no business trying Aunt Evil’s beauty secrets, trying to be as pretty as she. You are her servant! Her slightest wish is your command, oui, Cleopatra?’
‘I was only — yess, Mistress Monique!’ the sinner cried out when the cane met her dusky butt with a vengeance. ‘Just as Cleopatra served Egypt, I live to do Miss Eve’s every bidding.’
The parlour got quiet, except for the ragged breathing coming from the couch…and from the stout housekeeper who stood riveted by this performance. I’d never known Fanny Frike to fixate on anything the way she gazed at the three asses and sets of privates so blatantly displayed before us.
‘They’re young men, in the prime of life,’ she breathed, taking in every curve of their cushions, every sinew of the thighs that ended in a froth of white ruffles at their knees. ‘Yet I was certain they were girls. Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’
Religion was the furthest thing from my mind, however, for only one penitent awaited her due, and her creamy, rounded moons were already aquiver. White thighs framed a neat little pair of nodules adorned by hair so pale it was nearly invisible, yet I had no trouble imagining what stuck out in front, high and hard: Sylvia had shifted to allow it room to grow. Her panties ringed dainty knees and white-stockinged legs, with fine-boned ankles and feet just made to fit my beautiful see-through shoes. While it irked me that Sylvia had chosen my newest, most expensive footwear, I had to admire her taste.
‘And you, silky Sylvia!’ Monique’s voice crescendoed. ‘Carried away with straightening Miss Eve’s pretty slippers, even after I warned you, non?’
Whisss-smack went the slender cane, and the maid’s outburst wrenched my soul.
‘Please, Mistress Monique,’ she pleaded, her ankles wobbling on the high, narrow heels. ‘I was trying to do my best job —’
‘You tried on every shoe in the closet!’
‘— of placing each pair beneath the dress they complemented best, and —’
Tap, tap, tap.
‘— Miss Eve has such a lovely assortment, I couldn’t always decide —’
Whisss-smack, and again Sylvia yowled like a whipped kitten, reaching back to shield her ass with her hand.
I w
as ready to step in, but Mrs Frike took my elbow. ‘Obviously needs watching, that one,’ she intimated, shaking her head sternly. ‘Better to let her — him — take his licks now, and understand what’s expected in this house. I can tell you I won’t tolerate any such foolishness about your clothes and shoes when it’s me they answer to!’
Her vehemence gave me pause: in my years as Mrs Proffit, I’d known Fanny Frike to run a disciplined household, but not with a cane. Not by punishing some poor servant’s bare backside! Yet I sensed the thrumming pulse in her grip had nothing to do with this spanking spectacle. Something about having three young men with interesting idiosyncrasies under her roof was giving the housekeeper a whole new outlook on staff management.
‘All right, Cinderella!’ Monique continued, slapping the curved handle of the cane against her palm. ‘It’s down to the cellar with you — to let your sisters get all the glory — if you misbehave this way again, non?’
‘But I didn’t mean to —’
Whisss-smack, and yet another piteous yelp, and another shining pink stripe across that ripe, white backside.
‘It’s just that…well, Cinderella wasn’t a queen,’ Sylvia protested. ‘She was only the misfit princess in a fairy tale!’
‘Enough whining. All of you — up. Up!’ Monique banged the cane’s tip on the floor to hurry them along. ‘You will apologise to Miss Eve for using her personal effects for your own enjoyment. You will spend the rest of today wearing only your aprons, with your panties around your knees. And you will answer to your new names — cheerfully, oui?’
‘Yes, Mistress Monique,’ they replied as they turned to face me.
Cleopatra in her kohled eyes, and Toinette with her pearl headpiece, and Cinderella in her glasslike slippers without a prince to rescue her from such piercing shame. It took all my effort not to giggle as they made their apologies. Each maid in turn came forward, begged my forgiveness, and swore to behave with perfect decorum from here on out. And, as they peeled off their outer clothing, leaving their panties down around their knees, I realised the point of Monique’s punishment: their rosy rears would be on display for all to see, a reminder of their morning’s shortcomings.
‘What a bunch of sissies!’ Monique hissed — although, even with her wicked mask and fierce black attire, I could see she was enjoying herself immensely. ‘Back to work — all of you! And if you whine like whipped pups at what I make you do, just wait. This afternoon you’ll work with Mrs Frike!’
The heavyset housekeeper couldn’t hide a smile. ‘That’s my cue to have some tasks ready,’ she remarked with a final scrutinising of the three maids. ‘But I don’t mess with a silly little cane, girls. I’ve got a broad hand and an arm that never gets tired — hear me?’
Cleopatra, Toinette and Cinderella scurried towards the stairway as best they could with their white skiv-vies nipping at their knees, not daring a last look at the dour housekeeper who exited the parlour. When Monique and I stood alone in the centre of the room, I took a deep breath. What did I say — what did I think? — about the scene I’d just witnessed?
‘Must you be so —’
‘Strict?’ The black-clad mistress tugged at the fingertips of her gloves. ‘They must learn in a hurry, non? If they are to meet Mr Proffit’s approval — and make you look good? And never, never forget that Miss Delacroix, she trained them this way.’
Monique stepped closer then, to peer at me with those provocative dark eyes still surrounded by a mask of black satin that went up into pointed corners.
‘These girls who are boys?’ she asked in a confiding tone. ‘They make the best servants, Auntie Evil. Sissy maids live to follow orders. They’re born to serve. They choose this path, because to attend the School of Domestic Endeavor, to be trained and then recommended by Honore Delacroix, why — they can attain no higher life!’
Sissy maids. I’d have to take this new bone and chew on it, for I’d never been presented with such a philosophy, nor met anyone who knew of it. I simply could not fathom a healthy, normal young man becoming a — a maid. In skirts!
But again my personal servant — very unorthodox in her own ways — corralled my stampeding thoughts with a fingertip on my cheek, forcing me to focus on her unmasked face. She was flushed and lovely from her exertions, truly the queen of my staff. And once again her subtle charm cast its spell.
‘I’m planning a special surprise for tonight,’ she murmured, grinning as she thought about it. ‘Tommy Jon, he’s made you a gift, ma tante. And he wants to deliver it personally.’
My mouth went dry at the memory of her well-hung lover pumping her, but then reality set in. ‘I don’t think he’d better show up here —’
‘Non? You can refuse that handsome man and his special talent with —’
‘If Fanny tells my husband about these goings-on, I’m hanged!’
Her laughter filled the elegant room with a gaiety seldom shared in this sombre house. ‘Fanny’ll be busy watching those sissy maids,’ she explained with sparkling eyes. ‘And if the housekeeper’s so excited by their little secret, she’ll keep your secrets too, non? For if she tells Mr Chapin what’s under those aprons, he’ll send them away. Then everyone will be unhappy.’
My head spun with her skewed Cajun logic, but I was enjoying it too much to argue. It was indeed an ironic advantage that our stodgy Mrs Frike had found a new light in her life.
‘And, Auntie Evil, you know what they say — about when the cat’s away? The mice, they should play.’
Monique wiggled her nose like a mouse — a fetching little mouse in black who snatched up my hands. ‘T-Jon, he’s all excited about making your present. He’ll be so disappointed if you refuse him. And there’ll be no fun for me if my man’s not happy,’ she added pointedly.
With that, she headed for the door with feline finesse — probably so I’d notice the way her bared hips swayed beneath that tight black corset, while her footfalls set the pace for my pulse. She pivoted, to lean against the door jamb in profile, one leg bent with a foot to the woodwork as she slipped a little cigar from her stocking top, and then a match.
A spark flew from the bottom of her boot, and then she placed the cheroot between her lips, her movements exaggerated to full effect, making me watch until she was ready to take her leave. With sensual slowness she inhaled, her cheeks hollowing, until she reversed the procedure to blow her smoke. Then she smiled as only Monique Picabou knew how, a mixture of lazy lust and childlike charm radiating from her entire body.
‘Leave your suite’s gallery door open, Auntie. We’ll come like thieves in the night, to steal your innocence…your inhibitions,’ she whispered. ‘To teach you about seducing your husband when he gets home, of course.’
Of course. It would be true because this young woman declared it so, before leaving me with a flounce of her fully exposed behind. I could only listen and obey. And wonder who was really the servant here.
9 Confessions of the Caned
The more Monique helped me follow my husband’s orders, the more tightly I got wound into her naughty, treacherous web. What a shock, to see young men who made such pretty women. Being utterly fooled by their voices and looks and mannerisms. I felt downright drab and uninventive, when I considered the efforts it took to carry out their deception.
Monique had obviously known their gender all along — and surely had her reasons for procuring them — but Chapin would see nothing funny about what hung in their panties. He would banish my Cajun maid himself when he learned she’d brought them here. The entire blame would lay on my shoulders for, as Monique had reminded me, I was responsible for the conduct and deportment of my staff. Thoughts of Toinette appearing in my pearls, or Cinderella coming to our masked ball in my spun-glass slippers, made my head spin.
Yet my curiosity was more than piqued. And with Monique gone for the rest of the day, I had the perfect opportunity to get acquainted with my new employees; to find out why three attractive young men chose to live as women and wo
rk as servants.
They stood at the table along the kitchen wall, their bare backsides exposed as they polished flatware for Fanny. My hand went to my mouth. Those stripes radiated heat and pain I could not imagine, for even though my parents had used the occasional willow switch, they’d never made welts. Everything within me railed against whipping them this way, yet Monique was right: if I contradicted her discipline now, my sissy maids would play us against each other. If Chapin found this out, there’d be even more hell to pay.
I could, however, show some compassion — in exchange for information. Walking alongside the sink, I picked up Fanny’s jar of bag balm: it was formulated for the udders of dairy cows, and it soothed human skin as well.
‘Good afternoon,’ I spoke, hoping to sound firm yet friendly. ‘I think we’ll all be happier if I apply some salve to those stripes. It hurts me to look at them, so I can only imagine how awful you must feel.’
The trio glanced over their shoulders with a mixture of expressions, while Mrs Frike, kneading dough for bread, rolled her eyes as though she thought I was pushing my case a bit.
‘We’ll be fine. Really,’ Cleopatra assured me.
‘Not like we haven’t had our bottoms whacked before,’ Cinderella chirped.
I twisted the lid from the jar of balm. ‘So, Miss Delacroix condones canings at her school?’
‘Oh, she lives for them, Miss Eve,’ Antoinette informed me. ‘She insists that the pain and humiliation make us better domestics. More penitent, and likely to strive higher next time.’
‘And do you agree with that?’ I then wondered if I should have asked. After all, I wasn’t paying my staff to have opinions. I scooped up a dollop of the cream on my fingertips and touched it to his crisscrossed bottom.
Evil's Niece Page 8
