Catherine's Letters (6 page)

‘Thank you,’ Maria whispered against Adrienne’s shoulder, ‘that was wonderful.’

‘I hope I did it right,’ Adrienne murmured. The girl’s soft body seemed to fit perfectly against hers. Its warmth was only surpassed by the heat she could feel coming off Maria’s bottom, now her hands had wandered that far down to explore.

‘You certainly did!’ said Maria with feeling. She hugged Adrienne tighter as her fingers explored the marks left by the slipper. ‘Now let me do it right for you.’

She pulled back from Adrienne, who reluctantly found herself being pushed away. Her bottom was lifted by Maria’s left hand as her right slipped one of the pillows beneath it. Then both hands were on the insides of her thighs, parting her legs. Adrienne quivered with mounting excitement as Maria bent her head to apply her skilful tongue right where it was needed. Adrienne ran her fingers over the brunette’s head, eventually taking a gentle hold of a pigtail in each hand as the first of a series of small orgasms went off.

They stayed in bed for most of the day, eventually rising at tea-time to share a shower. Even that took much longer than it should have, with Maria apparently determined to make sure every nook and cranny of their bodies had been well soaped and rinsed. Finally fully dressed, Adrienne rustled up a quick meal from the freezer and they ate off trays in the lounge, the mediocrity of Sunday night television playing pointlessly in front of them.

‘Will you stay tonight?’ asked Adrienne hopefully. Now she had found someone who stuck around after sex, she did not want to let them go, regardless of their gender.

‘I’d better not,’ Maria told her. ‘Not because I don’t want to,’ she added quickly, catching the disappointment in Adrienne’s face, ‘but I don’t think either of us would make it to work tomorrow if I did. And I need a change of clothes before I go in.’

‘Oh, I understand.’ Adrienne knew Maria was right, but had been hoping for a little more in the way of irresponsibility from her.

‘But we can see each other again, of course.’ The words lifted Adrienne’s spirits immediately.

‘Really? I’d love to. How soon?’ She checked herself, realising she was gushing like a teenager.

‘How about Wednesday? In fact, how about every Wednesday?

‘Every Wednesday?’

‘Once a week. You’ve got tons of potential but there’s a lot to learn about sex with a woman, and there’s so much I can teach you. And I bet by Wednesday you’re so fed up with work your sex drive needs to be let off the leash for a night. I know mine does.’

‘So what are you suggesting?’

‘We meet every week, here or at my place, even if it is a bit poky. I’ll show you something new, or if there’s something you want to try we give it a shot.’

‘Are you suggesting an affair?’ Despite the illicit overtones, Adrienne found the idea exciting.

‘Sort of. Or you can think of it as a sexual aerobics class. I’m a brilliant instructor!’ They both laughed at the imagery. ‘So I’ll call you,’ said Maria, putting down her plate and reaching for her bomber jacket as she got up. ‘Sorry, but I really do have to go. I’ll call on Tuesday. I’ll have thought of something new to show you by then.’

‘I can’t wait,’ said Adrienne, rising with her. They embraced and kissed, gently but at length, before Maria turned and headed out with one more goodbye thrown over her shoulder.

As the front door closed, Adrienne picked up the plates and carried them to the kitchen. The washing-up could wait till tomorrow. Going back to her bedroom, she opened the writing case and flicked the secret catch. Taking out the next letter, she sank back on the unmade bed and began to read.

Chapter Five

My dearest Connie,

My relationship with Miss Prior having become so strange, I have taken it upon myself to write again, so that I might make sense of these events. I trust you, cousin, to keep my secrets. Do we not, after all, have plenty more between us, some most scandalous?

Today’s events are just such a case in point. My morning lesson with Miss Prior followed its usual pattern. My Greek and Latin were put to the sternest test. I tried my hardest, not feeling disposed toward the bite of the cane today. Miss Prior, however, must have felt disposed toward administering punishment, since her questions were of the hardest quality, such as one might expect to be asked of a Cambridge student or seminary novice. It was, she told me, the best – indeed, the only – way to measure my improvement.

If so, she must have been sorely disappointed in me. By the end of our lesson I had made six grammatical errors and I trembled, my bottom flinching beneath me in anticipation of the rod. Miss Prior told me to stand and step out in front of my desk. I did so, my head bowed and my hands clenched as I awaited the order to turn and bend over my desk. So I was not prepared for what followed.

Opening her own desk, Miss Prior took out a parcel, the one which she had placed such importance on collecting from the village post office some days ago. It was still in its brown paper wrapping, the address label tied to one end. Taking up her pen knife, Miss Prior cut the string. Clearly she knew exactly what the parcel contained.

I watched with fascination and fear as she unwrapped it. It contained a small black object, cylindrical in shape. As she lifted it clear of the paper it seemed to double in size and I realised what I was looking at, as the leather thongs fell away from the handle. Miss Prior now held in her hands a small whip.

She ran the tails, about a dozen in all, through her fingers, while clutching the handle lovingly in her right hand. ‘Do you like it, Catherine?’ She looked at me, but it was not a question which required an answer. ‘It is called a martinet,’ she went on, ‘and the traditional implement of correction in French households. Before I came here, I held a post with a prominent family in Paris. They had two headstrong daughters. At least, they were headstrong before I became their governess. When I returned to England they were the most demure, well behaved girls you could imagine.’ I shuddered at the thought. I could well imagine the methods Miss Prior employed upon them. ‘The head of the household was well pleased with my work and rewarded me handsomely. He also told me if I ever wished for anything for my trade which I could not obtain on this side of the Channel I should contact him immediately. When I saw you and discovered you were to be my new charge, I did just that.’

Miss Prior stood and came out from behind her desk. ‘You are such a lovely girl, Catherine; your complexion is so fresh, almost continental. It would be such a shame to mark it with nothing more than the cane or birch. It cries out for the soft leather of the French whip.’ By now tears were in my eyes. This woman was so cruel! She had not yet laid a hand on me and already I was distraught.

‘I wrote asking for a martinet to be sent to me,’ she went on, apparently oblivious to my distress. ‘In Paris, I used the family’s own implement. Needless to say, I could not bring it with me on my return, but my former employer was as good as his word, and this arrived within a week.’ She stretched the whip in front of me, her hands gripping each end gently. ‘It is brand new, Catherine; made just for your bottom!’ She said this with such relish, as the tears began to roll down my face. Then came the instruction I had been dreading. ‘Turn around and prepare yourself for its first kiss.’

I turned, reaching behind for my skirts and petticoats, then lifted them clear. I bent forward as I threw them up over my back and rested my breast on the desk. I felt Miss Prior’s fingers on the strings of my drawers. They loosened and the garments fell. There was no fire in the school room and my legs became covered in gooseflesh as they were exposed to the chill.

I heard Miss Prior take up her place on my left-hand side. Her clothing rustled, then, without warning, I felt a sharp pain in my exposed bottom, a series of stings all over it rather than the intense burning of a cane stroke. I gasped in shock. I had not been prepared. Unlike the cane, there was no warning tap across my seat, as Miss Prior took aim. She had simply whipped me.

She did so again, across the fullness of my bottom, the pain a little more bearable now that I knew it was coming. She went on at regular intervals, the tails of the whip apparently capable of covering almost all my poor bottom at each visit. Miss Prior was evidently not to be troubled by the problem of aiming, as she was with the cane.

She continued to flog me without mercy, as I gnawed at my fingers to stop myself from crying out. At first I believed it to be less painful than the cane, a gentle burning rather than the intense sting centred along one thin line, but as my punishment grew I learnt the secret of the martinet. Miss Prior was not wielding it with any great force or strength, but the accumulation of the strokes, covering as they did almost my entire nates, soon became unbearable. I sobbed my heart out, my bottom and legs swaying and shaking, but never so much as to spoil Miss Prior’s aim. Such was the power this beautiful woman now held over me.

I have no idea how long she whipped me for; only that by the time she stopped I was crying floods of tears in my pain and shame. Indeed, I barely realised she had stopped, my mind being such a blur of emotions, and not having the familiar swish and whistle of the cane to remind me each new stroke was coming.

Miss Prior left me to compose myself, possibly sensing how confused I felt. Indeed, I was confused. The pain and humiliation of my punishment were such that no human being could have tolerated more, I am sure of it, much less one of the gentler sex, but I also felt pride. Yes, Connie, I was proud of myself for having taken it. I thought of how Miss Prior must have whipped the two French girls in just the same manner, and wondered if they had made as little fuss as I had. I pictured them in a school room just like this, bent over side by side on twin desks, their dresses, the height of Paris fashion of course, thrown up carelessly about their heads. Or had Miss Prior flogged them at bedtime, in the room the sisters shared? I saw one laid face down on the blanket of their four-poster bed, her thick, white nightgown raised to expose her naked legs and bottom to Miss Prior’s attentions, while her sister, a year younger, watched from the other side of the bed, her hands clutched to her mouth in horror and her pretty face framed by her auburn ringlets as she saw what she too was about to receive.

The wanderings of my mind seemed to make the pain in my bottom subside and become bearable, but it did nothing for my beating heart and laboured breathing. I was still bent over the desk but had reached my hands behind to rub my sore bottom. As I thought of the French sisters going under the whip I began to rub a little slower. I do not know whether it was deliberate or due to some uncontrollable force of nature, but I found my hands beginning to pull my bottom cheeks apart, regardless of what I knew would be displayed to Miss Prior.

Her reaction was instant but somewhat surprising. ‘Careful, girl,’ she admonished me, pushing my hands away. I cringed with embarrassment at being found to be so wanton, but my heart nearly stopped on hearing her next words. ‘If you are not careful and do not know what you are doing, you may damage yourself. Let one with experience show you the way.’

I felt her firm hands on my hot and still-sore skin performing the same function mine had just performed. Then her thumbs crept inwards, as her fingers kept my nether cheeks splayed. I whimpered as she made contact with my sex, knowing it to be wrong, but powerless to stop her. She rubbed gently but persistently, opening my lips, which felt moist, but not venturing past the soft portals.

My moans grew once again, but this time it was not pain, but pleasure which drove me forward. Again time became irrelevant as I climbed some sort of emotional peak, my legs shaking as my excitement grew. Then the strongest sensation overtook me. It began in my spot, the very place where Miss Prior was touching me, but spread across my belly and down to my legs, filling my whole being with release, as if every muscle in my body were suddenly being tested.

My cries filled the room as Miss Prior gave my bottom a final rub, and then released me. I sank to the floor, my knees buckling, unable to hold my weight any longer. I grasped the legs of my desk for support. Through the mist which now fogged my brain I heard Miss Prior replacing the martinet in her desk, and then her footsteps as she left the school room. Evidently she had decided it would be best to leave me to myself for the time being. If only she had known the state of utter confusion I was in, Connie!

After a while I rearranged my clothing and retreated to my bedroom. I feigned the headache to avoid dinner, my experience leaving me with little appetite and no wish to sit opposite Miss Prior as she made polite conversation with Father. I am writing this to you, Connie, as I prepare for bed, not knowing if I shall be able to sleep, or what I shall dream of if I can. I do know, however, that I should not wish to change a moment of what happened this afternoon, and wonder at what future adventures my education is to hold. But be sure whatever the future is, I shall write and tell you everything.

I remain your loyal and loving cousin, Catherine.

Adrienne folded the delicate pages carefully and placed them on her bedside table. Her jeans had been opened a quarter of the way through the story. They had been pulled down and off, along with her pale blue knickers, halfway through. Clean on after the shower she’d shared with Maria, the underwear was already damp when she peeled it away from her sex. Pulling the sweater and T-shirt over her braless breasts, she sank back onto the duvet and began to masturbate with her right hand, her left gently circulating on her nipples, moving from one to the other every few seconds. As Catherine’s mind had been filled with images over a hundred years ago, so Adrienne began to paint pictures with her imagination. But it was not the two French girls being whipped by Miss Prior which she saw when she closed her eyes.

For Adrienne, it was Maria who held the whip. And she and another girl were bent side by side over the bed to receive it, all three of them completely naked. As her final orgasm of the weekend crept up on her, the nude body next to hers came into focus. In Adrienne’s mind, Rachel howled as Maria brought the martinet down across her bare, red bottom.