Madame Sancercy was shocked at Lisette's appearance; the young wife's eyes were red and swollen and she walked with difficulty, grimacing with every step.
"Oh, ma petite, what has happened?" she gasped. And Lisette. realizing she could not explain away the situation with some glib phrase or alibi and thinking in anguish that Jacques would soon return, burst into tears and groaned, "Oh, Madame Sancercy, you mustn't tell Jacques! I implore you! I shall bathe and compose myself. It will be all right. But please-it-it was an accident."
So saying, she hastened to her chambers, and in a few moments was waiting for the tub to fill with cold water. But the sight of her naked body in the full-length mirror hardly reassured her: The crisscrossing stripes of the switches had marred her entire bottom. A few scratches and darkening weals appeared at the tops and insides of her milky thighs. She soaked herself and then, emerging, towelled carefully. She next applied cold cream to the inflamed area, then perfumed talc. Her eyes fell on the little clock in the bathroom. The hour of her husband's return was at hand! Lisette donned a soft slip and a blue print dress, wanting no brassiere and certainly not panties. She thrust her feet into sandals. She hoped her beloved Jacques would admire her casual attire and not look too intently at her swollen eyes, which she bathed in cold water and then soothed with a solution of boric acid.
When she at last entered the dining room, Jacques sat already at table, eagerly awaiting her. He sprang up, went to her, took her in his arms and kissed her hungrily as if he had been away a week. She closed her eyes and trembled, on the verge of tears as her heart swelled in both love and guilt. He mistook her trembling for passion, and, his male ego delightfully flattered by this new proof of her love, he muttered huskily, "I could eat you up, my little Lisette. But wait a bit, we'll have a quick supper, then we'll send Madame Sancercy to her room and go into my study and lock the door, and there we shall take joy of each other as I know you're longing to do."
"Y-yes, my d-darling," Lisette faintly quavered.
His hands possessively glided down her waist to her hips, and then, by ill fortune, moved to caress the impudently jutting cheeks of her behind.
"Oooh!" she gasped as his fingers grasped those succulent hemispheres. At once the flames of the birching were rekindled," D-darling, we-we'd better eat!" she stammered as she squirmed to disengaged herself from his embrace and hurried to her place at the table. Once again, Jacques Duverneuil attributed her nervousness and blushes to her child-like modesty which tinged even the most amorous of conjugal acts; he smiled and seated himself.
Lisette paid only token attention to his animated and enthusiastic conversation. She wished she had thought to place a cushion on her chair, for the pain of her bottom intensified as it pressed upon the hard furniture. When Jacques wasn't looking, she shifted uneasily or winced and caught her breath and then picked at her food when his eyes again returned to her. It was, to say the least, a difficult ordeal for the unhappy girl. Madame Sancercy served them, beaming her approval at the young lovers.
At last the supper dishes were cleared away and the housekeeper dismissed. Jacques then murmured, "Ma chérie, I need you so! Let's go to bed!"
Lisette was scandalized; her face turned a fiery hue as she lowered her eyes. "But-but-it-it's so early yet, Mon amour," she quavered uneasily.
"Ah, that's because you're still my angelic little girl who hasn't yet learned, chaste creature that you are, that it isn't only the night that's made for love, but the evening, yes, and the morning and afternoon, too! One of these days, when work at the firm slackens, I promise you-no, I warn you!-I shall be home for lunch and then lock myself up with you in your bedroom!" So saying, he waggled a playful finger at the blushing young woman.
"Ohh-J-Jacques!" she stammered, furiously ill at ease and dreading the night ahead. In his ebullient and ardent mood, how could she prevent his making love to her? Frantically, she considered the excuse of her monthly time, but, alas, that had occurred just two weeks ago; she could hardly refuse him tonight on such grounds!
He left his chair and gallantly helped her up from her own. Once again, his hands seized her ripe hips. He pressed her to him, and kissed her throat.
"Go get ready. Put on your sheerest nightie, ma mie. I need you so!" he muttered against her lips. There was no escaping it. But perhaps, she thought, she could dissuade him from keeping on the night lamp!
If so, she might manage to hide the marring stigmata on her flesh. "All r-right-but you are a wicked man to make love to me so much." She smiled playfully but then his burning lips touched hers, followed by the dig of his fingers into her throbbing, raw behind. She gasped with pain.
"What's the matter, my darling?" he solicitously inquired as he released her, frowning.
"Oh-it-it's just that I have a tiny headache. Nothing too serious, really. I-I'll go to bed and get a good long sleep and I'll be fine by morning," she blushingly lied.
But Jacques, studying his young wife's delectable young body and observing how tightly her dress seemed to shape out her charms, was not to be denied. "Take it from Dr. Jacques Duverneuil," he teasingly rejoined, "sleeping with one's husband is a sure cure for headaches. Go make yourself more beautiful for me, my precious!"
And with this, he playfully slapped her bottom. Lisette squealed and seemed to spring forward as if propelled. She at once placed a hand upon her smarting posterior and looking reproachfully back at him, she left the room.
Jacques went to the study, read the evening paper and smoked two cigarettes. His pulse hammered with the expectation of his liaison with Lisette. Then he went to his room, showered and put on his pyjama trousers. He then entered his wife's boudoir, which adjoined his via a narrow door.
The lights were out, and when his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he spotted Lisette's body under the sheets. He chuckled good-naturedly.
"So you're hiding from your ogre of a husband, are you, ma belle?" he asked in great good humor. "Let's see if I can't find you. Here I come, ready or not!"
And with this, he advanced to the bed, flung back the sheets and clambered beside his quivering bride. Turning to her, he clasped her in his arms and began to kiss her cheeks and chin and finally her mouth, his hands greedily cupping her panting breasts, till at last an excess of passion seized him and he rolled her atop him, laughing huskily and his hands grabbed her haunches.
"Ohh-d-don't, darling-you-you're h-hurting me!" Lisette groaned, tears welling in her wistful eyes.
Something in her voice made him stop and scowl. He rolled her onto her back beside him, then climbed out of bed and turned on the night lamp.
"Now what's this nonsense about my hurting you, my beauty?" he grumbled. "Get out of bed and let me get a good look at you. Come to think about it, you've been acting like a scalded cat all night. Stand up, I say, and turn your back to me."
Lisette obeyed, her lower lip beginning to tremble, tears glistening in her dilated eyes.
"Now, pull up that nightie and let's see what's made your bottom so infernally sensitive all of a sudden," he commanded. "I don't recall ever having beaten you - at least not yet. And the lovepat and squeezing I gave you certainly can't have hurt that much. Come now, up with it, or I shall be angry!"
"Oh, J-Jacques-please-" she groaned.
His eyes narrowed with a sudden flash of suspicion. "Are you going to obey me, Lisette, or shall I have to beat you after all?" he demanded, his voice firm.
Weeping softly, Lisette stooped, grimacing as she did so, she grasped the hem of her pink silk night-gown, and lofted it slowly up to mid-thigh.
"Higher than that!" he commanded. "It's your bottom I want to see, my beauty!"
With a sigh of resignation, Lisette complied. The night-gown, in her trembling fingers, ascended slowly, reluctantly, over the plump round hemispheres of her bottom.
Jacques uttered a strangled, incredulous cry: "But what the devil - how did you get those marks? Mon Dieu, it looks - upon my word, I do believe - yes, certainly, you must have had a whipping! Now what's the meaning of this? Who dared mar that beautiful white flesh so hideously? Answer me, Lisette!"
He rose from the edge of the bed and advanced towards her; Lisette, dropping her night-gown, burst into hysterical sobs and covered her face as Jacques, furious at this feminine evasion, forced her to face him, his other hand forcing away hers.
"The truth, Lisette! How did you come by that whipping? The marks are quite fresh-explain this to me, or I swear I'll find out the truth for myself, even if it costs your bottom another thrashing!"
"Oh, no, my love! Oh, my darling, don't! Oh, I couldn't bear an-another--wh-whipping now! Oh, have mercy, forgive your poor little wife, I implore you!" Lisette feverishly sobbed.
"Then I command you: Explain yourself! And quickly, before I lose patience," Jacques Duverneuil exclaimed.
Yet Lisette still hesitated. If Jacques learned the truth, surely he would detest and spurn her as Janine had warned! "It-it was a b-birthday wh-whipping my-my love," she lied. "Some friends I knew back in the country-tb-they are in Paris now - they had a party for me this afternoon-oh, I swear it's the truth, my darling!"
But from panic in her words, Jacques understood that it was not. He seized his weeping wife by the wrist and drew her back to the bed. Then, flinging her down over his lap and rucking up the night-gown despite her protests, he exposed again the inflamed bottom-cheeks. Capturing her hands with his own left hand he vised her wrists in a strong grip, then raised his right hand and delivered a furious, sonorous slap against the ripest curve of her buttocks. Instantly Lisette released a strident cry of pain. Her bare legs flailed up and down as she turned her tear-stained face back to him pleading for mercy.
"Ohh-ahrr! Oh, my love, don't-don't beat me - if you only knew - oh, my darling, I-I endured it for your sake - and now you're punishing me for it"
"Yes, and to learn the truth, I shall spank you till your bottom bleeds if need be! Your birthday indeed, when it comes in March! What fabrication are you inventing? Have you perchance found some old roué you fancy more than me, a man whose warped nature makes him long to mar such beautiful white flesh? Answer me - answer me - answer me, I tell you!" His hand angrily rose and fell, punctuating each demand, smiting the inflamed bare bottom till it danced and quaked. Lisette screamed and shrieked as the pangs of the birching were cruelly, burningly, revived.
"Ohhh-ahrr-ohh forgive! M-mercy, my love-aiii-oh, no, no, it wasn't another man, that I swear to you, my dearest husband! I love only you-but they made me do it! Oh, no, have pity-ahrr-ohh, no more, no more, if you love me!" Lisette hysterically implored. But his hand fell twice more on her burning behind.
"Then tell me the truth, Lisette!" Again his hand fell again and again, before the agonised young beauty, her hips jerking and weaving wildly over his lap, capitulated.
"Owoeeeeahrrr! Ohh, mercy, darling! Stop-aii-ohh, I'll tell you, oh forgive me! Ahrrr--it hurts me so, Jacques! Oh, be kind to me and give me a minute-I-I'll tell you!"
"All right! One minute exactly-and then the whole truth, or you know what to expect!" he growled, holding her wrists tighter than ever and letting his right hand press over her shuddering, inflamed bottom to intimate to Lisette what peril she faced.
Weeping then in bitter shame, Lisette slowly confessed, fearing more the anger and loss of her husband's love than the possibility of his being morally offended at her Sapphic proclivities. Of these, she innocently managed, by dint of telling the story exactly as it occurred-starting with that first summer day when she happened upon the summerhouse-to convince him that her sin was hardly so great as she imagined; he well knew that girls, sent to a private school, often naturally develop a crush on a roommate or older woman who takes the role of tutor and initiator. But when she came to the ruse by which Janine Ericourt summoned her back into the toils of Lesbian bondage, he uttered an angry oath: "Mon Dieu! What a conniving bitch you have for a friend, my poor girl!" "Ohh, J-Jacques-I was so afraid-I thought you d look at me as if I were a-a-s-slut! I was so afraid-" she sobbed.
His face grew gentle. "No, darling, I don't blame you. And it's not so serious, after all. There you were, living only with a sick, nearly blind old aunt who couldn't possibly teach you the things every young girl should know, and you had no boys to flirt with and learn from. And I'm just as happy you didn't, because I'm sure I was your first lover-"
"Ohh, yes, yes, you were, you are, my dearest darling!" Lisette groaned, again dissolving into tears.
"Very well then, and I believe you," Jacques said tenderly as he lowered Lisette's night-gown and gently lifted her and set her on her feet. "But I have my own opinion about these shameless bitches who intended to corrupt you and turn you away from me-unless, to be sure, you feel more gratified when they caress you than when I do?"
"Oh, no! Oh, my beloved Jacques, how can you even think such a thing!" Lisette tearfully protested as she circled her pale, girlish arms round his neck and clung to him as if fearing he would disappear forever. "Yes, it's true, when-they made me do-certain things-when I was a girl, I-I was excited. And even today-and-and last week, too-I have to confess that when-when they c-caressed me, I felt p-passion. Oh, my darling, does this mean I-I'm a Lesbian, too?"
"Silly little fool, of course it doesn't!" he said tenderly as his hands stroked her quivering sides. "There isn't a girl living who hasn't at one time or another felt aroused by the attentions of another female. No, I'm satisfied from first-hand evidence, my dearest wife, that your response to me shows only a healthy sensuality-and I mean to keep it channelled in that direction from now on!"
With this, he whispered something into her ear, and Lisette gasped, blushed, then shyly nodded. And he added, "Since it appears to me that being punished on your lovely behind excites you, then be sure I shall take charge of your discipline from this moment forth, for I am jealous of anyone else's abrogating my rights! Now come, Lisette darling, come back to bed, and I'll see if I can't make you forget that sensitive and tender backside of yours!"
Now, stooping, he caught up the hems of her night-gown and lofted it from her quivering, naked body, and let it fall to the floor. Next, he unfastened his pyjama trousers, let them slither down, and impatiently kicked them off. His penis, rampant with desire, rigid and aching with longing, pressed hotly against the dark-golden curls of her pubis. Lisette moaned with sweet delirium, huddling tightly against him, ecstatic to realize she was still adored by her masterful, sympathetic, and tolerant young husband. Tears brimmed upon her curly lashes as she thought how lucky and grateful she was to have such an understanding mate. Now all the dread that Janine Ericourt inculcated in her ebbed away. The disappearance of that fear-the relief of its departure-left her shuddering with unfulfilled ardor initiated earlier by the whipping and the enforced caresses of the Lesbians.
"Ohhh, darling-ah-yes-take me-oh, I'm yours," she panted. "I don't ever want to see those dreadful women again! Protect me from them, my dearest Jacques!" She pressed her loins urgently against his, craving the harsh glory of his penetration, craving to feel-once and for all-free of the haunting fear that she was, like those women, tainted by warped, unnatural desires.
"Have no fear, little one, I'll protect you. But as to your not seeing them again, I shan't agree to that," he murmured huskily. He bent his head to take one of her rosy nipple buds between his lips. He sucked and kissed it lovingly, then flicked it with his tongue, till Lisette's head fell back, her eyes closing. She moaned with mounting desire and acquiescence. He lifted her in his arms and bore her back to the bed. "This time," he playfully whispered, "so as to ease your tender bottom, I'm going to be your sultan and let you serve me as a harem slave would, by lying atop me. Here, I'll show you how!"
Blushing furiously, Lisette allowed herself to be drawn over his naked body till she felt the pulsing pressure of his cock against the now moistening and twitching lips of her secret orifice. Closing her eyes and shuddering, she enlaced him with her arms, while he artfully slid his hands between their bodies, parting the lips of her cunt and then guiding his rampant organ into her warm, tight haven. Then, when he felt himself well planted into her, he removed his hands and gently squeezed the inflamed cheeks of her bare bottom.
"Now, my dearest little girl," he huskily instructed, "move up and down a little, but slowly, following the guidance of my hands. When I squeeze your behind, sink back down and absorb me, my beloved Lisette, my little harem slave!"
Lisette began pumping herself up and down, her legs spread wide and her face fiery with blushes. The panting turrets of her milky breasts flattened with rasping friction against her lover's chest, and the touch of her hardened nipples against his naked skin acted as a cantharide on Jacques Duverneuil. In addition, the images in his mind of his young wife's punishment by five Lesbians roused him even more furiously. Lisette groaned as his fingers tensed with accelerated cadence on the ripe hemispheres of her welted and inflamed behind. But to her surprise, she found that the up-and-down motions made her loins seethe with desire and that the pain of her buttocks merged with her sensual feelings, so that pain became at last pleasure. She began to sob, then groan in her wakened ecstasy; her face flushed from an admixture of rapture, maidenly shame and sweet torment, till at last she gasped, "Oh-oh, Mon Dieu-m'amour, take me! Ahh! Oh, it's so good-I love you, I adore you, I'm all yours! Oh, my sweetheart, my Jacques-my master, my king- oooohhhhhahhhhhh!"
In that inchoate nirvana of delight, she felt his savage gush flood her womb, and her own tides exploded and melted to meet his. Crushing her breasts against his straining chest, Lisette writhed in the bliss of their simultaneous climax. No longer were there any shadowing doubts concerning her thorough conversion to the "normality" of heterosexual love!
