munchausen
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Hi everyone,
Below is part 1 of a new erotic tickling e-novel I've written. It's different from a lot of my stuff, but if you liked Annie's Tale (see my archive), you'll probably like this, too. It's set in the early 20th century, somewhere around the Downton Abbey era. There's a good bit of buildup to the tickling in part I, but it's pretty heavy throughout after that. Hope you enjoy it!
In this world, as in many, there are certain among the people who are fit conduits and channels. They will be women, one and all, and be marked all by certain potentials and sensitivities, sensibilities and vulnerabilities. Who would know the power shouldst seek them, and draw them to a place of power…
From the Journals of Hieronymous Meade, circa 1722.
Given the extraordinary nature of this tale, and of the strange, wonderful, and near-inexplicable things that I have to recount that render it remarkably close to a true fairy story, it is perhaps fitting that it begins with a wicked stepmother.
Her name was Henrietta Bludgings, and she was precisely as unpleasant as her appellation would suggest. Short, rotund, moon-faced, nearly neckless, she resembled a great, overripe berry of particularly unpleasant type and flavor – the type that would make the curious sampler sick to his stomach. The same size and shape might have been endearing in another, were it not spoiled by the character of the woman herself. Shrill, domineering, jealous, petty, and altogether beastly, she wore her worst attributes in the expressions of her face, which ranged from prim, self-satisfied little smiles to crimson-faced outrage at some servant’s mistake or some perceived social slight. She ruled her husband’s estate like a martinet, enforcing with the power of her wealth and station her every whim and caprice. Due to a combination of her unpleasant appearance and insufferable personality, I came to think of her as Madame Pigg.
When I was eighteen, this creature became, for an agonizing few months, my de facto guardian – I cannot call her mother. My parents, adventurous souls who had taken me with them on their journeys to see and experience much of the world throughout my happy childhood, were killed in a tragic accident overseas as I studied back home, and I, a girl of 18, found myself orphaned.
I should take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Bethany Chase. I stand five feet six inches tall, and have a slender but strong figure, blessed with rather large breasts, a narrow waist, and long legs. I have long, dark-brown hair, the color and luster of polished mahogany, as I’ve been told, that falls in gentle curls over my shoulders and down my back. My proclivity for sport, exercise, and the sunny outdoors gives my skin a slight golden cast that contrasts with the alabaster of my more docile peers, but which has always seemed to attract rather than repel suitors. I include these details not so much to boast as to clarify that I was single by choice, and not because I could not attract a suitable mate. My temperament was simply incompatible with marriage at a young age: I bore a strong streak of my parents’ adventurousness, and with that came fierce independence. Perhaps the chief trait that has determined the course of my life, for better or worse, is a burning curiosity. Such curiosity is quite out of keeping with the docility and malleability expected of proper young girls in the world from which my parents had largely sheltered me for 18 years.
Were I allowed by law to inherit their considerable money and estate, I might have simply run my own household with the help of the loyal servants on our manor, continued my education, and been an independent woman quite ahead of my time, marrying if and when I met a man who proved to be my soulmate. British law at the time, though, said that a woman could not inherit property until she reached the age of 21, and so I, like some helpless waif, found myself shuttled off to London to become the ward of my father’s brother, Lord Edgar Bludgings, and his wife, the horrible Henrietta.
Henrietta took an instant dislike to me. It sounds self-serving and arrogant to say that she disliked me for my beauty, but given her constant snide comments to the effect that “a girl so pretty should be married by now,” and that “such a pretty girl should not waste her time cluttering her head with so much schooling,” it is difficult to come to any other conclusion. She clearly thought very little of my parents, with their progressive ways and the way that they, effortlessly and uncaringly, maintained the kind of rarefied social status and cache to which she aspired, sweated, and strove with every fiber of her being. It honestly seemed that she did her best to strike at them even after fate had taken them from the world. Her brow-beating led to our familial estate being shuttered, and the staff sacked. It was only through my insistence that they were paid generous severance and placed in suitable positions elsewhere through my glowing recommendation.
She was nasty to me from the beginning of my time there, constantly throwing out disparaging, if indirect, comments about the wild and inappropriate nature of my upbringing, and enforcing very clear ideas about the times and subjects appropriate for unmarried young women in the care of others to speak. My father’s brother was largely absent, even when at home – in retrospect, I believe his wistful attentions were more focused on the handsome manservants who disproportionately made up the house’s staff than on his swollen pimple of a wife. Thus, I was left largely at the mercy of a shrew who met the presence of a pretty, educated, independent girl in her house with seething resentment and outright aggression.
She forced me to dress as she dressed – all layered, uncomfortable petticoats and stockings and constricting underthings designed to compress and hide extra weight that I did not have. While I loved fashion and always dressed impeccably in public, about the house and grounds of our family home I delighted in wearing as few clothes as modesty permitted. I particularly enjoyed, and enjoy, going barefoot – my feet have always been delightfully sensitive, a trait which will become surprisingly significant shortly, and I loved the sensations of wiggling bare toes in thick, luxurious rugs or the impudent, ticklish caress of dewy spring grass on bare soles. The first time I dared emerge barefoot from my chambers for breakfast in my new home, however, Henrietta accused me of having no more regard for her home than I would for a peasant’s, and shamed me into confining my feet in stockings and slippers outside my own room.
Even that chamber was no haven, though. Madame Pigg had a habit of bursting into my chambers at any time, surprising me as I dressed, wrote, read, or even bathed. When she came upon me in a state of relative undress, she always made me feel as if I were in the wrong, even though it was my room. She looked upon my nakedness with mingled disgust and envy, as if the curves and features that would excite the lust of men were signs of my turpitude rather than theirs. All the rooms in that tacky, stuffy, knick-knack crowded, mostly bookless house were her rooms, you see, and she made quite clear that I should never feel that any portion of it was in any sense mine. I was an unwanted interloper, and this was less my new home than it was a place where I, a wretched refugee from fate, squatted by her grudging toleration.
It was her total disregard for my privacy that brought things to a head, and brought about both my abject humiliation in the short term and my liberation in the long. As I have said, the house was tended by several very handsome manservants – none would have dared look openly at me, of course, with Madame Bludgings about, but I, starved for pleasant things to contemplate, found myself watching them with great interest. I was modest enough, and had acute enough sense of propriety, that I would not have presumed to flirt with one, but I devoured them with my hungry young eyes. My parents, while they had certainly never gone so far as to encourage me to lasciviousness, never burdened me with the restrictive and unnatural prohibitions common to girls of my time and place, and I, as a curious, hot-blooded girl, had long since discovered the pleasures of my own body. I was, and am, quite easily inflamed, and in that awful house, surrounded by specimens of masculine beauty, found myself frequently driven to quench my desires in the only way that I could.
One early spring afternoon, having spent the morning watching two of the servants, stripped to their undershirts, move furniture for the Madame, I found myself particularly aroused. Announcing my intent to take a nap, I retired to my room and undressed. I lay naked among the bedclothes, gently rubbing the soles of my bare feet against the soft sheets, and began teasing my erect nipples as the flow of my juices rendered my nether-parts slick. From there, I began vigorously and energetically pleasuring myself, circling my sweet little bud with a moistened thumb while thrusting first one finger, then two, inside. I moaned, allowing my other hand to stray down from my breasts to join its mate between my thighs.
Arousal dimmed my constant awareness of the fragile privacy that house offered, and I fear I gasped aloud as I built toward the inevitable crashing release. In any event, whether she stood listening for the optimal moment or whether hideous luck had somehow favored her, Henrietta burst through my door (which, of course, had no lock, despite the presence of men in the house) and witnessed me just at the apex, as my fingers brought the symphony of pleasure to its crescendo and I came.
I must have been quite a sight, feverishly circling my clit with one hand while plumbing my moistened grotto with the other, my face contorted in beautiful agony, my pelvis thrusting skyward, my toes curling with unbearable pleasure. I shall never forget the look in her eyes as my pleasure receded enough for me to see her clearly – it was a mix of outrage, elation, and, I now suspect, arousal. I flushed crimson and grasped belatedly at the bedclothes in an effort to cover my nakedness, but it was done. She feigned a fainting spell, falling back against the door and clutching at her bodice, but those mean little piggy eyes remained clear and cold. She had a weapon to use against me, now. And my humiliation was only beginning.
One would imagine, wouldn’t one, that were one legitimately stricken with shame over the very private act of one’s close relation, one would avoid speaking of it to all and sundry? Quite the contrary with Madame Piggy. Every gathering of her intimates, every lunch with ladies, over the next few weeks seemed to include her horrified account of what she had caught me doing. Each time, her cold and ugly companions clucked, gasped, and tut-tutted, duly scandalized, addressing my erstwhile caretaker with sympathy and disbelief. What a burden for her to be charged with such a harlot, particularly when we were not even of the same blood. To a person, they all behaved as if the very impulse, much less the practice, of pleasuring one’s-self was utterly alien to their experience. I know, now, as I have come to know more of the world, that some, perhaps many, must have been squirming a bit on the inside as they made a great show of outrage and shock. A red-blooded woman does not grow to middle age with an inattentive husband without taking a bit of pleasure now and then, however much she may want to ascribe sexual desires solely to strumpets and men. Then again, most of these biddies looked as if if you cut them, nothing would come out but venom and ichor.
Generally when she told all and sundry about my transgression I was elsewhere – in the next room, perhaps, or in my chambers – but her booming, hideous voice filled the house even at a whisper, so much so that I am certain even the manservants were fully informed about me. At times, though, she would speak of it in a kind of stage whisper even when I was in the room, causing all those prudish, judging eyes to come to rest on me, and making me flush crimson with humiliation and, in large part, rage.
I wanted nothing more than to flee that house, that wicked harpy’s den, and to make my way on my own – but what could I do? I was unable to take possession of my family’s estate until I reached the age of 21. My uncle, a detached nonentity, was rarely at home, and when he was, he showed no interest in speaking to me, much less in taking my part against his harridan wife. For her part, Madame Piggy had moved from informing her entire social circle of my misdeed to seeking out a place to put the “utterly unmanageable girl” I had proven to be. There was talk of convents, of strict girls’ schools devoted not to the intellect but strictly to “proper comportment.” As much as I loathed Madame Piggy’s house, each of these alternatives frightened me all the more. My parents’ will had insisted upon my higher education, but it was up to M. Pig to determine whether I should spend my days reading great literature and exploring the sciences, or learning when and how one should curtsey. I was an adult, close enough to legal independence that I was not in danger of living the life of an orphan. But as long as I was dependent on Madame Piggy for my bread and board, I was at her mercy.
I was dragged to meetings with a series of stern, severe headmistresses. All spoke to Madame Piggy exclusively, sparing me only the occasional sidelong glance – save one, a Mother Superior at a convent who leered at me and praised my beauty lavishly in terms that made me feel she wanted to eat me up. Never did Madame consult with me about how I regarded my options. Never did she talk to me about my own future. I may as well have been a four-year-old – and a neglected, ill-treated one, at that.
My salvation, though I hardly recognized it as such at the time, would come due to Madame’s vanity. Talk began to circulate around her club of an exclusive academy for young women, located far away in the countryside. It was exceedingly selective, the rumors said, admitting only the most distinguished of candidates from the very best families. While it was primarily an academic academy, it also, it was whispered, specialized in rehabilitating girls who had lost their way, but who might still grow into fine, prominent women. Placing a relation there – even a fallen one, like me – would be quite a coup for Madame Piggy, and would serve the dual purpose of removing me entirely from her life and transforming me from a source of shame (however insincere and manufactured) to a source of bragging rights. The headmistress would be in town briefly at the end of the month, as it happened, and my guardian, giddy with the possibilities and confident that my generous inheritance, of which she held the purse-strings, would enable her to buy my way in, set up a private appointment.
I was honestly uncertain about how to regard this new development. A selective academy for young women could be a fine place, were it progressive enough to focus on mind rather than strictly on manners; it could also be an awful den of arrogant cows. Still, it was not a convent, which would clearly have been a terrible fit, and it was not a sanatorium. I reserved judgment, imagining that at least nine places out of ten that I might end up would have to be better than Casa de Pig.
The Madame, for her part, showed more interest in me during the afternoon leading up to the meeting than she had during the rest of my stay with her combined. She had purchased a new outfit for me – a fine dress, new shoes and stockings, even a rather ostentatious necklace – all very expensive, of course, and all paid for from my own inheritance, of course. She brought in her hairdresser who fawned over my mahogany locks and piled them into an elaborate but, admittedly, lovely style. For the first time, Madame Piggy looked upon my beauty with pride and approval rather than with envy and disapproval – now, it might serve to get me out of her home, and win her some societal regard, as well. I must admit, by the time the door chime announced the arrival of our visitor after dinner that evening, I looked quite stunning – though more suited for a wedding or royal ball than for an evening at home. In any event, I found myself quite eagerly anticipating the meeting.
At the chime of the bell, Lars, the head butler, admitted two very different-looking, but equally striking women. The first seemed to me to be a veritable giantess – she stood well over six feet in height, and the riding outfit she wore – a man-tailored white shirt, tight khaki jodhpurs, and tall, spit-polished brown boots – accentuated her powerful shoulders and thighs. She was quite beautiful, though, in an intimidating way: her brown hair was tied in a single braid down her back, and her strong jawline was softened a bit by her lovely dark eyes and well-drawn features. For all the power of her physique, it still had a woman’s shape, and however mannish the tailoring of her shirt, it did nothing to conceal a remarkably large, firm, and well-shaped bosom. “The Countess Alexandra Wilde,” she announced – there was a marked accent in her speech, like cockney but not, that I since learned was a legacy of her New Zealand upbringing.
The woman who entered next was breathtaking. She wore a fashionable but practical blouse, skirt, hat, and boots that likely cost more than I had spent in a lifetime. But her cornflower blue eyes sparkled with unmistakable humor and kindness, and the manner of her entry, though eminently graceful and proper, gave the slightest hint that she regarded such ceremony as a bit of a joke. She looked to me like a fairytale princess grown up into a wise, strong woman: she was stunningly beautiful, with bone structure and features to break one’s heart, and her smile featured perfectly even, flawless white teeth. (I had always been rather proud of my own teeth, which I think were a particular bane to Madame Piggy, who looked as if she had spent most of her youth gnawing stale tea bags.) Perhaps most striking about her, though, was her hair. I suppose it was blonde, but it was unlike any hair I had seen before, resembling nothing so much as pure, bright polished silver. It was not silver in the way that older women’s hair silvers – this woman, and her companion, were in their middle to late twenties at the oldest. Instead, it was a healthy, shiny, magnificent silver, falling about her face in fetching curls; it was as if she had had access to a color in the palette unavailable to most of humanity, and, given the loveliness of the overall effect, she deserved such indulgence on purely aesthetic grounds.
Madame Piggy fell all over herself, fawning and curtseying and making a scene, while I regarded the two with anxious, if reserved, interest. The larger woman stood aside, and, once she had ascertained the safety of the environs, adjourned to wait in the motorcar(!) that had brought them. Madame led us into the salon, had tea served, and closed the doors, that we might talk in private.
Once we were seated, Madame Pigg was off to the races. She went on and on about the family, our history, my parents (whom she had never liked) and their accomplishments and wealth, and then about my obvious beauty and breeding. I sat silently, a bit embarrassed, as she gassed on; our guest, the Countess Alexandra, sat perfectly poised, taking the occasional demur sip of her tea, enduring what I can best describe as Madame’s shrill drone. Occasionally, she glanced at me. When she met my eyes, I found myself looking immediately at my shoes, though I have never been prone to shyness. Each time, though, I thought I could detect the hint of a warm, humorous smile at the corners of her mouth.
At last, she seized the opportunity afforded by a noisy inhalation to speak. “Yes, Mrs. Bludgings. Wonderful, wonderful. Your family is truly most impressive, and Bethany here is clearly a beautiful and, I’m sure, charming young woman. I am curious, though – I understand she has had some mishap, some moral slip, that has led you to seek far and wide for her rehabilitation?”
I blushed crimson. Somehow, that this beautiful, sophisticated, worldly woman should be told of my actions made me ashamed, for the first time, not just of my privacy made public, but of my actions themselves.
“Oh, yes,” Madame Piggy said, making a great show of hanging her head in shame. “I’m afraid that for all her breeding, and for all my best efforts at encouraging her morality and cleanness through close observation and monitoring, she has gone astray.”
“Astray?” the Countess asked, raising one eyebrow. I stared hard at the carpet, as if my gaze could burn a hole in the floor and drop me through to Hades – a fate which seemed, at that moment, infinitely preferable to sitting through the conversation I knew was coming.
“I walked into her chamber one afternoon and caught her …. defiling herself.”
The Countess looked puzzled. “I’m sorry?”
“Committing an uncleanness.” Madame Piggy’s voice was a hissing stage whisper.
“I’m sorry, I’m still not understanding.”
“Performing an impurity.”
“What? A Satanic ritual? Has she joined a cult? Did you discover her chanting over a slaughtered goat?”
I thought my embarrassment would rise up and kill me. But in that moment, she caught my eye, and I swear, she threw me a wink! A little conspiratorial wink, as between friends! And I realized that she knew exactly what Madame Piggy was talking about, and that all of this was intended not to stoke my shame, but to force this priggish little woman to speak plainly, however it embarrassed her to do so.
Madame Piggy sighed, squirming visibly. “She was…touching herself,” she hissed, looking about as if some random passersby might suddenly pop up in the salon and overhear her scandalous revelation. “Sexually.”
“Ah. I see. Well, that certainly clears things up. And I am deeply relieved that she was not engaged in human sacrifice, or cannibalism.” The Countess straightened in her chair, setting her cup and saucer down on an end table. Madame Piggy nodded energetically, utterly incapable of reading the sarcasm in the Countess’s tone.
“Right. I believe Miss Bethany may well be a suitable candidate. I shall need to speak with her in private, though. I must insist we not be disturbed until I signal that we are finished. Is this acceptable to you?” I realized that she was asking not Madame, but me. I managed to reply in the affirmative.
Madame Piggy was clearly not pleased with this development, but on some level must have expected it. Reluctantly, she rose and scurried out, in a rustle of petticoats and a smell of baby powder over fat, sweaty skin. She was always sweating, even when, as this evening, it was quite cool and comfortable. Probably the sheer effort she put into being unpleasant. At any rate, she left, pulled the door closed behind her, looking in at us reluctantly even as she did so, and I was alone in the privacy of the windowless salon with the Countess Alexandra.
She held up one finger as if to signal both that I should be quiet and wait a moment, then tool a small pendant from her bodice. It was tiny, set with a gem about the size of my thumbnail, and it glowed a strange green. She whispered a few words over it – I could not hear clearly, but they did not sound like any language I had heard before. A spell? An incantation? I stared, open-mouthed; I fear I must have looked quite the simpleton.
“Now, no-one will be able to hear us beyond that door, and anyone attempting to open it will find it stuck quite fast. Thank goodness! What an absolutely beastly woman!” she said, whirling to face me with a smile so kind and genuine that it made her, impossibly, more beautiful than ever. “How you have lived here without throwing yourself from a window or fleeing to become a woman of the streets is beyond me. She is absolutely repellant, isn’t she?”
I was not certain how to respond. Could this be a test? A trap, to see if I would speak ill of my “benefactress?” And what was this strangeness with the stone? Was this woman mad?
The Countess cocked her head and clucked at my reticence. “I know, I know. You’ve no idea what you’re to do in this situation, do you? And it’s nothing to do with lack of cleverness – I can see that you’re clever, simply by looking at you. You exude a kind of intelligent confidence, which means that you’ll never belong in a world of Henrietta Bludgingses. God bless you for that. It would be tragic if a girl with such potential were held back by a person like her.”
“Th-thank you, mum,” I said, still taken aback by her candor and openness. I still had a bit of the air of the penitent, my personal shame having just been the subject of group conversation. She picked up immediately on my emotion.
“Oh, dear, are you feeling self-conscious because of what that harpy was telling me about you? Darling, you mustn’t. Tell me this. What would you think of a person who had a banquet spread out before her, fresh and new each day, of the most divine and succulent delicacies this world and its varied cultures can provide; a person who was starving, craving, dying for a morsel, whose whole body ached for satiation; a person who could, at any moment, using the hands the maker gave her, partake to her satisfaction and free her mind and energies for other things; but who did not, preferring to wait for a man to come along, decide what she should eat, and when, and dole it out to her according to his appetite, while denying even the existence of her own? Well, I should think that person something of an idiot, wouldn’t you?”
I was stunned. I had never heard pleasure of that sort discussed as anything but sin; my parents, with all their travels, had never treated it as such, but had died before really discussing it with me at all. The Countess’s words seemed stunning in their clarity and sense. “I suppose so, mum,” I replied, honestly.
“Good. So let’s have no more shame over that, then. Consider it part of your education. Surely, there are many delights, perhaps the finest of all, that are to be created and enjoyed with a husband or partner. But far better to create those delicacies as a practiced chef than as one ignorant of the kitchen entirely.”
Oh my goodness! I could not believe the frankness of this beautiful, exquisite, aristocratic lady, but I found it thrilling and endearing at the same time. To be spoken to like this, without judgment of condescension, in honesty and good humor – it was something I had nearly forgotten during my time at Casa de Pig. I fell in love with her, in that girlish way that one does, at that moment.
“Now,” she said, sitting back down across from me. “Make no mistake about this. No matter what the outcome of the conversation we are about to have, I am going to deliver you from this place. That woman will hand over to me a tremendous amount of money, all from your inheritance, in exchange for her never having to see you again. I will accept that money and promise her that you will be enrolling in my academy. But that will not be my money, any more than it is her money. That is your money, laws of inheritance be damned, and if you choose not to join us, Cassandra– my associate -- will take you wherever you wish to go, will give you all of your money in cash, and will see to your safety until you have established a place to stay. From then on, your life will be yours to live as you choose. You are an adult woman, after all.”
“Yes ma’am,” I replied. This was incredibly kind, if only the just thing for her to do. But I honestly did not relish the thought of taking my leave of her. In fact, whatever academy might be run by a woman like this seemed to me likely to be a wonderful place, indeed.
“Right. Now, with your permission, I would like to ascertain your suitability for admission to my…academy. Now, I suspect you may be someone quite special. If that proves to be true, and you fit the requirements, I shall invite you to join me not only at the academy, but also in my own manor home, for a particular kind of education. To see if I am right, I will have to ask you a very few questions, some of them very personal. I will also have to lay hands on your person in a way that will not harm or violate you in any way, but that you may find overly familiar, and perhaps uncomfortable. If your…responses are appropriate, then perhaps we can pursue this further. If not, then have no fear – I shall still set you free from this awful house with your worldly fortune and my best wishes. Now, would you like to audition for the academy? I certainly hope you will.” She smiled brightly, and gave a charming little incline of her head.
I started to say “Yes, ma’am” again, but given that it was all I had said since our conversation began, I feared sounding like a simpleton. “I would very much like to audition, ma’am, if I am able,” I replied.
“Excellent! Now, I must ask you to answer some questions with complete honesty and candor. Will you?”
“Absolutely, ma’am,” I replied.
“Right. Now, you have attained your eighteenth year of age, am I correct?”
“Yes, ma’am, I have.”
“And you are not, by some odd chance, older than the age of 24, are you?”
“Oh, no, ma’am. I am eighteen. I turn nineteen in June.”
“Good, good. There’s that one out of the way. Now, then, tell me a bit about your life here. I know that awful woman must be a nightmare, but do you have ties to anyone else here? Are you close with your uncle? Have you a lover, or a dear friend, from whom you could not bear to be parted?”
“No, ma’am. No-one like that. My real family – my parents – were killed in an accident some months ago, as you know. Since then, I have lived here in this misera –I have lived here, and have formed no real attachments.”
“And your Uncle?”
“I seldom see him, and when I do, he takes little interest in me as other than a duty to be borne.”
“I see. I’m quite sorry for all that, of course, but it does bode well for your suitability. Now, a few more personal queries,” she said, giving me a bit of an embarrassed smile.
Quickly, though, that look faded, to be replaced with pure business. “Are you still a virgin? I mean, have you ever engaged in full sexual congress with a man? I don’t mean a bit of frigging or even a tongue in your quim – I mean full, potentially generative sexual intercourse.”
Somehow, she made the words, which might have been coarse coming from anyone else’s mouth, sound elegant. I was taken aback by the frankness of her language, but determined to meet her questions with a cool sophistication nearing her own. “Yes, ma’am, I am still a virgin.” I had never even engaged in the acts she described, being a model of propriety outside the privacy of my own chambers.
“Excellent. No moral judgment here, of course, but for reasons I am not at liberty to explain, it is important to your candidacy. Now then, the most personal of my questions. Are you able to orgasm?”
“Ma’am?” I knew, logically, what she was asking, but could not bring myself to respond without some demurring.
“I imagine you are, given what your aunt has already blurted about you, but one cannot assume these things. I once knew a girl, poor soul, who labored and labored at herself, but could never bring herself off. I gave her a gift I acquired on Cypress – a lovely little artifact of polished ivory and ram’s horn – and as I understand it, she was eventually able to solve her problem. Still, I must know, as I require a particular type of physical and temperamental makeup. When you touch yourself, do you spend? Cum? Orgasm?”
I swallowed, blushing again. “Yes, ma’am,” I said, forcing myself to speak clearly and assertively.
“Wonderful! All right, then, you seem a good fit thus far, fingers crossed! There’s only one more test you must pass. I could simply ask, but I find it more reliable to find out for myself. If you do not mind, please remove your shoes. Stockings, too – I’ll need you barefoot, if you please.”
Puzzled, I hesitated. This was all so curious – first, the odd glowing stone, then these wildly inappropriate and personal questions, and now this! Caution and skepticism vied with what I can only describe as an odd desperation to please her; then, curiosity, perhaps my chief defining trait, came to the latter’s aid and won the day. I did as she asked, slipping off my shoes and rolling off my heavy, dark stockings. The rug was soft beneath my bare feet.
“Right,” she said. “Thanks very much. Now, if you please, place your feet on the ottoman here.” She moved a small leather hassock in front of my chair, and I rested my feet, crossed at the ankles, on top of it. She looked them over thoughtfully. I had always been a bit proud of my feet: they were neither over large nor small and dainty, but strong, well-formed, shapely, high in the arch and a bit wide across the ball, with long, regal toes. They were a bit pale pink, now, but were habitually golden-tanned from my time barefoot outdoors, and I took care to keep them soft and smooth. I did feel a bit self-conscious putting them on display, though; I had seldom had someone study the bottoms of my bare feet. “Ah! Pretty, pretty,” she said, smiling that warm smile again.
“All right, my dear,” she said, smiling more broadly than ever before, her eyes twinkling with a kind of naughty delight. “Your task is simply to keep your feet on the ottoman, no matter what I do.”
The puzzlement on my face swiftly changed to alarm as I felt the subtle, overwhelming sensation of her fingertip – a single, gentle, delicate fingertip – touching the pad of my big toe, then tracing slowly, almost lazily, down to the base of my toes. They twitched as my foot flinched, but I held it steady, biting my lip. My eyes squeezed shut. To my surprise, she giggled a bit.
A second index finger joined the first, repeating its mate’s exploration of my toes. I have mentioned the sensitivity of my feet – need I add that it manifests most particularly in extreme and uncontrollable ticklishness? Her first touches were so light, her purpose still so relatively uncertain, that with some effort I was able to control myself beyond some reflexive twitching and curling of the toes. As she began her explorations in earnest, those impudent little index fingers became like tiny ice skaters, tracing delicate, gentle figure 8’s over the balls of my feet. I let out a mortifying little squeak through my tight-clenched lips and opened my eyes. The warmth in my lady’s expression had not gone, exactly, but it now coexisted with a look of wicked delight and amusement. I fear the deep brown eyes that looked back into hers must have been pleading desperately.
“Now, how does that feel, my dear?” she asked. She put the littlest bit more pressure behind her playful finger-stroking. I felt myself beginning to tremble uncontrollably, tried to force it to stop.
I spoke, though I hardly trusted my voice. “I-it ti-hi-hickles, ma’am,” I said, and immediately regretted it. Once I had spoken aloud, I lost control of the giggles that had been rising inside me; they began to spill out, in spite of my best efforts, in a continuous little ripple. I was mortified, but helpless to control them.
The Countess seemed pleased. “Ticklish, are you? About the toes, here?”
I nodded, trembling with giggles, writhing as I forced myself to keep my feet in place. My toes wiggled as I tried unsuccessfully to fight the sensation.
“And here, at the bases of your toes, and about the balls of your feet? That’s quite tickly, isn’t it?”Her touches became more intense, and more effective. I let out a humiliating little barking laugh and nearly yanked my feet off the ottoman, only just recovering. She paused, lightening but not ceasing her teasing, waiting for my utterly superfluous verbal response.
“Y-yehehesss…” I managed, before surrendering to another wave of giggles. Why was this woman vexing me so? And what if I gave in to every screaming impulse coming from my poor feet and pulled them away, hid them under my skirts, rubbed the awful tickles off in the thick pile of the rug? Would I lose any hope of going with her? I determined not to give in, though I had an awful, inevitable sense of where those teasing fingertips were eventually going.
“Aaaand how about here, about your little smooth heels? The skin is a bit thicker, here, but still quite sensitive, is it not?”
I could not muster a verbal response – I merely gave a convulsive little nod and hiss of breath. My whole body shook with suppressed laughter; the giggles and squawks that escaped were merely the tip of a very large iceberg. As silly and foolish as it sounds, it was torture, the worst of my young, sheltered life. I had a vague and awful sense that my whole future might be at stake – might come down to my being able to resist the terrible ticklishness of my bare feet. And, as she had worked her way conspicuously around my high, supremely sensitive arches, I knew the worst was yet to come.
She took me absolutely by surprise. Rather than proceed to the dreaded arches with the same mocking, hummingbird-like exploration of her index fingertips, she gripped my right ankle and attacked the very apex of the arch with five scribbling, scrabbling fingernails. I screamed, thrashing about, exploded with laughter. Her grip on my ankle only amplified my desperate impulse to escape. Panic erased my resolve. I slid to the floor, kicking over the ottoman, overturning the chair in which I had been sitting, and yanked my tormented foot from her grasp!
I lay, shaking with laughter, rubbing my overexcited feet together. Then, in an instant, realization came, and I jumped up, desperate.
“I’m so sorry, ma’am!” I cried, swiftly righting the chair and ottoman as if doing so would erase my failure, propping my feet back up and wiggling my toes in a desperate invitation. “If you would please just give me another chance, I am sure I can resist!”
She looked at me with amusement, raising an eyebrow. “Very well, poppet. Let us try again.”
And so again, this time with both hands, she began a full-on ten-fingered tickle attack on the most ticklish parts OF the most ticklish parts of my body. Her fingernails seemed shaped and textured to be the most effective tickling tools imaginable – a combination of sharp and smooth that set my every nerve aflame. They danced over my heels, the balls of my feet, wracking me with giggles, then dived between my writhing toes, zipped into the hollows of my arches, setting me to body-jarring, hysterical guffaws.
Those among you, dear readers, who share with me a singular susceptibility to tickling can likely understand the physical extremity to which those talented fingernails on my sensitive soles drove me. Who can imagine, though, the emotional struggle that accompanied this cruel test? Here came this angel, come to set me free from the miserable prison of Casa de Pig. Here were these ideas, these shocking, thrilling, wonderful ideas, that challenged all the stultifying ideas that surrounded me. And here was the promise of a school that would not only deliver me from Madame Pigg, but also allow me to feed my mind and spirit instead of bury me in layers of repression. And, most of all, here was this wonderful mystery to solve, this magnificent conundrum that had walked into this dreary, stuffy little house! And here I was, on the very razor’s edge of losing it all by simply giving in to the demands of my body, by simply acquiescing to the demands of my every instinct to pull my poor, tormented, terribly ticklish feet away from the devil’s own torture.
For all my teeth-gritting, fist and toe-clenching struggle, the outcome was inevitable. I shook, heaved, bucked with laughter for what I believed to be several minutes, but what the grandfather clock in the corner would reveal to be mere seconds. Then, with a quavering wail of dismay, I surrendered, yanking my poor feet back off of the ottoman and hiding them beneath the chair.
By now, I was desperate. I admit, I began begging. “Please, please, ma’am. Just once more. I’m sure I can do it! I’m simply unaccustomed to being tickled so. Another chance, please!” Tears, now, began to wet my cheeks; laughter had brought them close to the surface, and now sorrow set them free.
She regarded me a moment more, and then gave in, embracing me, kissing away my tears. “Oh, poppet. Please don’t cry. I’m so sorry! But, darling! You’ve passed the test! You’ve passed!”
I blinked at her in puzzlement, allowing myself to hope. “But…I couldn’t take it.”
“Yes, I know. Your lovely feet are hopelessly, dreadfully, delightfully ticklish. And that is exactly what I needed to discover! Had I indicated that I needed a ticklish girl, you might have pretended to be one, even if you were not. If, however, I led you to believe that I wanted you to be able to resist, your failure to do so would inevitably be genuine. I am sorry to have been a bit misleading, but you have proven yourself an ideal candidate! Congratulations, darling!”
I was in a state. Still recovering from being tickled nearly mad, I was full of more questions than I knew how to voice. “But…why…”
“Sssh. In good time, sweetie. At the moment, I feel we have probably all but exhausted your Aunt’s patience. Quickly, back on with your shoes and stockings. Let me help you fix your hair – there, that’s put right. Ready? Excellent.”
She muttered a few words once again, holding the peculiar pendant in both hands. She waited a moment, shot me a wink, then threw open the door quickly, bumping quite forcefully into Madame Pigg, who had clearly been listening at it.
“Oh, Madame, I’m terribly sorry,” she said, helping the horrible woman up. “I had no idea you were huddled here eavesdropping. In any event, the news is good! Bethany’s interview has gone splendidly! She shall come to join us at Mystmeade!”
Below is part 1 of a new erotic tickling e-novel I've written. It's different from a lot of my stuff, but if you liked Annie's Tale (see my archive), you'll probably like this, too. It's set in the early 20th century, somewhere around the Downton Abbey era. There's a good bit of buildup to the tickling in part I, but it's pretty heavy throughout after that. Hope you enjoy it!
The Secrets of Mystmeade Manor
By Munchausen
Part the First: In which I am Uprooted, Humiliated, and Tortured. Thank Heavens!
By Munchausen
Part the First: In which I am Uprooted, Humiliated, and Tortured. Thank Heavens!
In this world, as in many, there are certain among the people who are fit conduits and channels. They will be women, one and all, and be marked all by certain potentials and sensitivities, sensibilities and vulnerabilities. Who would know the power shouldst seek them, and draw them to a place of power…
From the Journals of Hieronymous Meade, circa 1722.
Given the extraordinary nature of this tale, and of the strange, wonderful, and near-inexplicable things that I have to recount that render it remarkably close to a true fairy story, it is perhaps fitting that it begins with a wicked stepmother.
Her name was Henrietta Bludgings, and she was precisely as unpleasant as her appellation would suggest. Short, rotund, moon-faced, nearly neckless, she resembled a great, overripe berry of particularly unpleasant type and flavor – the type that would make the curious sampler sick to his stomach. The same size and shape might have been endearing in another, were it not spoiled by the character of the woman herself. Shrill, domineering, jealous, petty, and altogether beastly, she wore her worst attributes in the expressions of her face, which ranged from prim, self-satisfied little smiles to crimson-faced outrage at some servant’s mistake or some perceived social slight. She ruled her husband’s estate like a martinet, enforcing with the power of her wealth and station her every whim and caprice. Due to a combination of her unpleasant appearance and insufferable personality, I came to think of her as Madame Pigg.
When I was eighteen, this creature became, for an agonizing few months, my de facto guardian – I cannot call her mother. My parents, adventurous souls who had taken me with them on their journeys to see and experience much of the world throughout my happy childhood, were killed in a tragic accident overseas as I studied back home, and I, a girl of 18, found myself orphaned.
I should take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Bethany Chase. I stand five feet six inches tall, and have a slender but strong figure, blessed with rather large breasts, a narrow waist, and long legs. I have long, dark-brown hair, the color and luster of polished mahogany, as I’ve been told, that falls in gentle curls over my shoulders and down my back. My proclivity for sport, exercise, and the sunny outdoors gives my skin a slight golden cast that contrasts with the alabaster of my more docile peers, but which has always seemed to attract rather than repel suitors. I include these details not so much to boast as to clarify that I was single by choice, and not because I could not attract a suitable mate. My temperament was simply incompatible with marriage at a young age: I bore a strong streak of my parents’ adventurousness, and with that came fierce independence. Perhaps the chief trait that has determined the course of my life, for better or worse, is a burning curiosity. Such curiosity is quite out of keeping with the docility and malleability expected of proper young girls in the world from which my parents had largely sheltered me for 18 years.
Were I allowed by law to inherit their considerable money and estate, I might have simply run my own household with the help of the loyal servants on our manor, continued my education, and been an independent woman quite ahead of my time, marrying if and when I met a man who proved to be my soulmate. British law at the time, though, said that a woman could not inherit property until she reached the age of 21, and so I, like some helpless waif, found myself shuttled off to London to become the ward of my father’s brother, Lord Edgar Bludgings, and his wife, the horrible Henrietta.
Henrietta took an instant dislike to me. It sounds self-serving and arrogant to say that she disliked me for my beauty, but given her constant snide comments to the effect that “a girl so pretty should be married by now,” and that “such a pretty girl should not waste her time cluttering her head with so much schooling,” it is difficult to come to any other conclusion. She clearly thought very little of my parents, with their progressive ways and the way that they, effortlessly and uncaringly, maintained the kind of rarefied social status and cache to which she aspired, sweated, and strove with every fiber of her being. It honestly seemed that she did her best to strike at them even after fate had taken them from the world. Her brow-beating led to our familial estate being shuttered, and the staff sacked. It was only through my insistence that they were paid generous severance and placed in suitable positions elsewhere through my glowing recommendation.
She was nasty to me from the beginning of my time there, constantly throwing out disparaging, if indirect, comments about the wild and inappropriate nature of my upbringing, and enforcing very clear ideas about the times and subjects appropriate for unmarried young women in the care of others to speak. My father’s brother was largely absent, even when at home – in retrospect, I believe his wistful attentions were more focused on the handsome manservants who disproportionately made up the house’s staff than on his swollen pimple of a wife. Thus, I was left largely at the mercy of a shrew who met the presence of a pretty, educated, independent girl in her house with seething resentment and outright aggression.
She forced me to dress as she dressed – all layered, uncomfortable petticoats and stockings and constricting underthings designed to compress and hide extra weight that I did not have. While I loved fashion and always dressed impeccably in public, about the house and grounds of our family home I delighted in wearing as few clothes as modesty permitted. I particularly enjoyed, and enjoy, going barefoot – my feet have always been delightfully sensitive, a trait which will become surprisingly significant shortly, and I loved the sensations of wiggling bare toes in thick, luxurious rugs or the impudent, ticklish caress of dewy spring grass on bare soles. The first time I dared emerge barefoot from my chambers for breakfast in my new home, however, Henrietta accused me of having no more regard for her home than I would for a peasant’s, and shamed me into confining my feet in stockings and slippers outside my own room.
Even that chamber was no haven, though. Madame Pigg had a habit of bursting into my chambers at any time, surprising me as I dressed, wrote, read, or even bathed. When she came upon me in a state of relative undress, she always made me feel as if I were in the wrong, even though it was my room. She looked upon my nakedness with mingled disgust and envy, as if the curves and features that would excite the lust of men were signs of my turpitude rather than theirs. All the rooms in that tacky, stuffy, knick-knack crowded, mostly bookless house were her rooms, you see, and she made quite clear that I should never feel that any portion of it was in any sense mine. I was an unwanted interloper, and this was less my new home than it was a place where I, a wretched refugee from fate, squatted by her grudging toleration.
It was her total disregard for my privacy that brought things to a head, and brought about both my abject humiliation in the short term and my liberation in the long. As I have said, the house was tended by several very handsome manservants – none would have dared look openly at me, of course, with Madame Bludgings about, but I, starved for pleasant things to contemplate, found myself watching them with great interest. I was modest enough, and had acute enough sense of propriety, that I would not have presumed to flirt with one, but I devoured them with my hungry young eyes. My parents, while they had certainly never gone so far as to encourage me to lasciviousness, never burdened me with the restrictive and unnatural prohibitions common to girls of my time and place, and I, as a curious, hot-blooded girl, had long since discovered the pleasures of my own body. I was, and am, quite easily inflamed, and in that awful house, surrounded by specimens of masculine beauty, found myself frequently driven to quench my desires in the only way that I could.
One early spring afternoon, having spent the morning watching two of the servants, stripped to their undershirts, move furniture for the Madame, I found myself particularly aroused. Announcing my intent to take a nap, I retired to my room and undressed. I lay naked among the bedclothes, gently rubbing the soles of my bare feet against the soft sheets, and began teasing my erect nipples as the flow of my juices rendered my nether-parts slick. From there, I began vigorously and energetically pleasuring myself, circling my sweet little bud with a moistened thumb while thrusting first one finger, then two, inside. I moaned, allowing my other hand to stray down from my breasts to join its mate between my thighs.
Arousal dimmed my constant awareness of the fragile privacy that house offered, and I fear I gasped aloud as I built toward the inevitable crashing release. In any event, whether she stood listening for the optimal moment or whether hideous luck had somehow favored her, Henrietta burst through my door (which, of course, had no lock, despite the presence of men in the house) and witnessed me just at the apex, as my fingers brought the symphony of pleasure to its crescendo and I came.
I must have been quite a sight, feverishly circling my clit with one hand while plumbing my moistened grotto with the other, my face contorted in beautiful agony, my pelvis thrusting skyward, my toes curling with unbearable pleasure. I shall never forget the look in her eyes as my pleasure receded enough for me to see her clearly – it was a mix of outrage, elation, and, I now suspect, arousal. I flushed crimson and grasped belatedly at the bedclothes in an effort to cover my nakedness, but it was done. She feigned a fainting spell, falling back against the door and clutching at her bodice, but those mean little piggy eyes remained clear and cold. She had a weapon to use against me, now. And my humiliation was only beginning.
One would imagine, wouldn’t one, that were one legitimately stricken with shame over the very private act of one’s close relation, one would avoid speaking of it to all and sundry? Quite the contrary with Madame Piggy. Every gathering of her intimates, every lunch with ladies, over the next few weeks seemed to include her horrified account of what she had caught me doing. Each time, her cold and ugly companions clucked, gasped, and tut-tutted, duly scandalized, addressing my erstwhile caretaker with sympathy and disbelief. What a burden for her to be charged with such a harlot, particularly when we were not even of the same blood. To a person, they all behaved as if the very impulse, much less the practice, of pleasuring one’s-self was utterly alien to their experience. I know, now, as I have come to know more of the world, that some, perhaps many, must have been squirming a bit on the inside as they made a great show of outrage and shock. A red-blooded woman does not grow to middle age with an inattentive husband without taking a bit of pleasure now and then, however much she may want to ascribe sexual desires solely to strumpets and men. Then again, most of these biddies looked as if if you cut them, nothing would come out but venom and ichor.
Generally when she told all and sundry about my transgression I was elsewhere – in the next room, perhaps, or in my chambers – but her booming, hideous voice filled the house even at a whisper, so much so that I am certain even the manservants were fully informed about me. At times, though, she would speak of it in a kind of stage whisper even when I was in the room, causing all those prudish, judging eyes to come to rest on me, and making me flush crimson with humiliation and, in large part, rage.
I wanted nothing more than to flee that house, that wicked harpy’s den, and to make my way on my own – but what could I do? I was unable to take possession of my family’s estate until I reached the age of 21. My uncle, a detached nonentity, was rarely at home, and when he was, he showed no interest in speaking to me, much less in taking my part against his harridan wife. For her part, Madame Piggy had moved from informing her entire social circle of my misdeed to seeking out a place to put the “utterly unmanageable girl” I had proven to be. There was talk of convents, of strict girls’ schools devoted not to the intellect but strictly to “proper comportment.” As much as I loathed Madame Piggy’s house, each of these alternatives frightened me all the more. My parents’ will had insisted upon my higher education, but it was up to M. Pig to determine whether I should spend my days reading great literature and exploring the sciences, or learning when and how one should curtsey. I was an adult, close enough to legal independence that I was not in danger of living the life of an orphan. But as long as I was dependent on Madame Piggy for my bread and board, I was at her mercy.
I was dragged to meetings with a series of stern, severe headmistresses. All spoke to Madame Piggy exclusively, sparing me only the occasional sidelong glance – save one, a Mother Superior at a convent who leered at me and praised my beauty lavishly in terms that made me feel she wanted to eat me up. Never did Madame consult with me about how I regarded my options. Never did she talk to me about my own future. I may as well have been a four-year-old – and a neglected, ill-treated one, at that.
My salvation, though I hardly recognized it as such at the time, would come due to Madame’s vanity. Talk began to circulate around her club of an exclusive academy for young women, located far away in the countryside. It was exceedingly selective, the rumors said, admitting only the most distinguished of candidates from the very best families. While it was primarily an academic academy, it also, it was whispered, specialized in rehabilitating girls who had lost their way, but who might still grow into fine, prominent women. Placing a relation there – even a fallen one, like me – would be quite a coup for Madame Piggy, and would serve the dual purpose of removing me entirely from her life and transforming me from a source of shame (however insincere and manufactured) to a source of bragging rights. The headmistress would be in town briefly at the end of the month, as it happened, and my guardian, giddy with the possibilities and confident that my generous inheritance, of which she held the purse-strings, would enable her to buy my way in, set up a private appointment.
I was honestly uncertain about how to regard this new development. A selective academy for young women could be a fine place, were it progressive enough to focus on mind rather than strictly on manners; it could also be an awful den of arrogant cows. Still, it was not a convent, which would clearly have been a terrible fit, and it was not a sanatorium. I reserved judgment, imagining that at least nine places out of ten that I might end up would have to be better than Casa de Pig.
The Madame, for her part, showed more interest in me during the afternoon leading up to the meeting than she had during the rest of my stay with her combined. She had purchased a new outfit for me – a fine dress, new shoes and stockings, even a rather ostentatious necklace – all very expensive, of course, and all paid for from my own inheritance, of course. She brought in her hairdresser who fawned over my mahogany locks and piled them into an elaborate but, admittedly, lovely style. For the first time, Madame Piggy looked upon my beauty with pride and approval rather than with envy and disapproval – now, it might serve to get me out of her home, and win her some societal regard, as well. I must admit, by the time the door chime announced the arrival of our visitor after dinner that evening, I looked quite stunning – though more suited for a wedding or royal ball than for an evening at home. In any event, I found myself quite eagerly anticipating the meeting.
At the chime of the bell, Lars, the head butler, admitted two very different-looking, but equally striking women. The first seemed to me to be a veritable giantess – she stood well over six feet in height, and the riding outfit she wore – a man-tailored white shirt, tight khaki jodhpurs, and tall, spit-polished brown boots – accentuated her powerful shoulders and thighs. She was quite beautiful, though, in an intimidating way: her brown hair was tied in a single braid down her back, and her strong jawline was softened a bit by her lovely dark eyes and well-drawn features. For all the power of her physique, it still had a woman’s shape, and however mannish the tailoring of her shirt, it did nothing to conceal a remarkably large, firm, and well-shaped bosom. “The Countess Alexandra Wilde,” she announced – there was a marked accent in her speech, like cockney but not, that I since learned was a legacy of her New Zealand upbringing.
The woman who entered next was breathtaking. She wore a fashionable but practical blouse, skirt, hat, and boots that likely cost more than I had spent in a lifetime. But her cornflower blue eyes sparkled with unmistakable humor and kindness, and the manner of her entry, though eminently graceful and proper, gave the slightest hint that she regarded such ceremony as a bit of a joke. She looked to me like a fairytale princess grown up into a wise, strong woman: she was stunningly beautiful, with bone structure and features to break one’s heart, and her smile featured perfectly even, flawless white teeth. (I had always been rather proud of my own teeth, which I think were a particular bane to Madame Piggy, who looked as if she had spent most of her youth gnawing stale tea bags.) Perhaps most striking about her, though, was her hair. I suppose it was blonde, but it was unlike any hair I had seen before, resembling nothing so much as pure, bright polished silver. It was not silver in the way that older women’s hair silvers – this woman, and her companion, were in their middle to late twenties at the oldest. Instead, it was a healthy, shiny, magnificent silver, falling about her face in fetching curls; it was as if she had had access to a color in the palette unavailable to most of humanity, and, given the loveliness of the overall effect, she deserved such indulgence on purely aesthetic grounds.
Madame Piggy fell all over herself, fawning and curtseying and making a scene, while I regarded the two with anxious, if reserved, interest. The larger woman stood aside, and, once she had ascertained the safety of the environs, adjourned to wait in the motorcar(!) that had brought them. Madame led us into the salon, had tea served, and closed the doors, that we might talk in private.
Once we were seated, Madame Pigg was off to the races. She went on and on about the family, our history, my parents (whom she had never liked) and their accomplishments and wealth, and then about my obvious beauty and breeding. I sat silently, a bit embarrassed, as she gassed on; our guest, the Countess Alexandra, sat perfectly poised, taking the occasional demur sip of her tea, enduring what I can best describe as Madame’s shrill drone. Occasionally, she glanced at me. When she met my eyes, I found myself looking immediately at my shoes, though I have never been prone to shyness. Each time, though, I thought I could detect the hint of a warm, humorous smile at the corners of her mouth.
At last, she seized the opportunity afforded by a noisy inhalation to speak. “Yes, Mrs. Bludgings. Wonderful, wonderful. Your family is truly most impressive, and Bethany here is clearly a beautiful and, I’m sure, charming young woman. I am curious, though – I understand she has had some mishap, some moral slip, that has led you to seek far and wide for her rehabilitation?”
I blushed crimson. Somehow, that this beautiful, sophisticated, worldly woman should be told of my actions made me ashamed, for the first time, not just of my privacy made public, but of my actions themselves.
“Oh, yes,” Madame Piggy said, making a great show of hanging her head in shame. “I’m afraid that for all her breeding, and for all my best efforts at encouraging her morality and cleanness through close observation and monitoring, she has gone astray.”
“Astray?” the Countess asked, raising one eyebrow. I stared hard at the carpet, as if my gaze could burn a hole in the floor and drop me through to Hades – a fate which seemed, at that moment, infinitely preferable to sitting through the conversation I knew was coming.
“I walked into her chamber one afternoon and caught her …. defiling herself.”
The Countess looked puzzled. “I’m sorry?”
“Committing an uncleanness.” Madame Piggy’s voice was a hissing stage whisper.
“I’m sorry, I’m still not understanding.”
“Performing an impurity.”
“What? A Satanic ritual? Has she joined a cult? Did you discover her chanting over a slaughtered goat?”
I thought my embarrassment would rise up and kill me. But in that moment, she caught my eye, and I swear, she threw me a wink! A little conspiratorial wink, as between friends! And I realized that she knew exactly what Madame Piggy was talking about, and that all of this was intended not to stoke my shame, but to force this priggish little woman to speak plainly, however it embarrassed her to do so.
Madame Piggy sighed, squirming visibly. “She was…touching herself,” she hissed, looking about as if some random passersby might suddenly pop up in the salon and overhear her scandalous revelation. “Sexually.”
“Ah. I see. Well, that certainly clears things up. And I am deeply relieved that she was not engaged in human sacrifice, or cannibalism.” The Countess straightened in her chair, setting her cup and saucer down on an end table. Madame Piggy nodded energetically, utterly incapable of reading the sarcasm in the Countess’s tone.
“Right. I believe Miss Bethany may well be a suitable candidate. I shall need to speak with her in private, though. I must insist we not be disturbed until I signal that we are finished. Is this acceptable to you?” I realized that she was asking not Madame, but me. I managed to reply in the affirmative.
Madame Piggy was clearly not pleased with this development, but on some level must have expected it. Reluctantly, she rose and scurried out, in a rustle of petticoats and a smell of baby powder over fat, sweaty skin. She was always sweating, even when, as this evening, it was quite cool and comfortable. Probably the sheer effort she put into being unpleasant. At any rate, she left, pulled the door closed behind her, looking in at us reluctantly even as she did so, and I was alone in the privacy of the windowless salon with the Countess Alexandra.
She held up one finger as if to signal both that I should be quiet and wait a moment, then tool a small pendant from her bodice. It was tiny, set with a gem about the size of my thumbnail, and it glowed a strange green. She whispered a few words over it – I could not hear clearly, but they did not sound like any language I had heard before. A spell? An incantation? I stared, open-mouthed; I fear I must have looked quite the simpleton.
“Now, no-one will be able to hear us beyond that door, and anyone attempting to open it will find it stuck quite fast. Thank goodness! What an absolutely beastly woman!” she said, whirling to face me with a smile so kind and genuine that it made her, impossibly, more beautiful than ever. “How you have lived here without throwing yourself from a window or fleeing to become a woman of the streets is beyond me. She is absolutely repellant, isn’t she?”
I was not certain how to respond. Could this be a test? A trap, to see if I would speak ill of my “benefactress?” And what was this strangeness with the stone? Was this woman mad?
The Countess cocked her head and clucked at my reticence. “I know, I know. You’ve no idea what you’re to do in this situation, do you? And it’s nothing to do with lack of cleverness – I can see that you’re clever, simply by looking at you. You exude a kind of intelligent confidence, which means that you’ll never belong in a world of Henrietta Bludgingses. God bless you for that. It would be tragic if a girl with such potential were held back by a person like her.”
“Th-thank you, mum,” I said, still taken aback by her candor and openness. I still had a bit of the air of the penitent, my personal shame having just been the subject of group conversation. She picked up immediately on my emotion.
“Oh, dear, are you feeling self-conscious because of what that harpy was telling me about you? Darling, you mustn’t. Tell me this. What would you think of a person who had a banquet spread out before her, fresh and new each day, of the most divine and succulent delicacies this world and its varied cultures can provide; a person who was starving, craving, dying for a morsel, whose whole body ached for satiation; a person who could, at any moment, using the hands the maker gave her, partake to her satisfaction and free her mind and energies for other things; but who did not, preferring to wait for a man to come along, decide what she should eat, and when, and dole it out to her according to his appetite, while denying even the existence of her own? Well, I should think that person something of an idiot, wouldn’t you?”
I was stunned. I had never heard pleasure of that sort discussed as anything but sin; my parents, with all their travels, had never treated it as such, but had died before really discussing it with me at all. The Countess’s words seemed stunning in their clarity and sense. “I suppose so, mum,” I replied, honestly.
“Good. So let’s have no more shame over that, then. Consider it part of your education. Surely, there are many delights, perhaps the finest of all, that are to be created and enjoyed with a husband or partner. But far better to create those delicacies as a practiced chef than as one ignorant of the kitchen entirely.”
Oh my goodness! I could not believe the frankness of this beautiful, exquisite, aristocratic lady, but I found it thrilling and endearing at the same time. To be spoken to like this, without judgment of condescension, in honesty and good humor – it was something I had nearly forgotten during my time at Casa de Pig. I fell in love with her, in that girlish way that one does, at that moment.
“Now,” she said, sitting back down across from me. “Make no mistake about this. No matter what the outcome of the conversation we are about to have, I am going to deliver you from this place. That woman will hand over to me a tremendous amount of money, all from your inheritance, in exchange for her never having to see you again. I will accept that money and promise her that you will be enrolling in my academy. But that will not be my money, any more than it is her money. That is your money, laws of inheritance be damned, and if you choose not to join us, Cassandra– my associate -- will take you wherever you wish to go, will give you all of your money in cash, and will see to your safety until you have established a place to stay. From then on, your life will be yours to live as you choose. You are an adult woman, after all.”
“Yes ma’am,” I replied. This was incredibly kind, if only the just thing for her to do. But I honestly did not relish the thought of taking my leave of her. In fact, whatever academy might be run by a woman like this seemed to me likely to be a wonderful place, indeed.
“Right. Now, with your permission, I would like to ascertain your suitability for admission to my…academy. Now, I suspect you may be someone quite special. If that proves to be true, and you fit the requirements, I shall invite you to join me not only at the academy, but also in my own manor home, for a particular kind of education. To see if I am right, I will have to ask you a very few questions, some of them very personal. I will also have to lay hands on your person in a way that will not harm or violate you in any way, but that you may find overly familiar, and perhaps uncomfortable. If your…responses are appropriate, then perhaps we can pursue this further. If not, then have no fear – I shall still set you free from this awful house with your worldly fortune and my best wishes. Now, would you like to audition for the academy? I certainly hope you will.” She smiled brightly, and gave a charming little incline of her head.
I started to say “Yes, ma’am” again, but given that it was all I had said since our conversation began, I feared sounding like a simpleton. “I would very much like to audition, ma’am, if I am able,” I replied.
“Excellent! Now, I must ask you to answer some questions with complete honesty and candor. Will you?”
“Absolutely, ma’am,” I replied.
“Right. Now, you have attained your eighteenth year of age, am I correct?”
“Yes, ma’am, I have.”
“And you are not, by some odd chance, older than the age of 24, are you?”
“Oh, no, ma’am. I am eighteen. I turn nineteen in June.”
“Good, good. There’s that one out of the way. Now, then, tell me a bit about your life here. I know that awful woman must be a nightmare, but do you have ties to anyone else here? Are you close with your uncle? Have you a lover, or a dear friend, from whom you could not bear to be parted?”
“No, ma’am. No-one like that. My real family – my parents – were killed in an accident some months ago, as you know. Since then, I have lived here in this misera –I have lived here, and have formed no real attachments.”
“And your Uncle?”
“I seldom see him, and when I do, he takes little interest in me as other than a duty to be borne.”
“I see. I’m quite sorry for all that, of course, but it does bode well for your suitability. Now, a few more personal queries,” she said, giving me a bit of an embarrassed smile.
Quickly, though, that look faded, to be replaced with pure business. “Are you still a virgin? I mean, have you ever engaged in full sexual congress with a man? I don’t mean a bit of frigging or even a tongue in your quim – I mean full, potentially generative sexual intercourse.”
Somehow, she made the words, which might have been coarse coming from anyone else’s mouth, sound elegant. I was taken aback by the frankness of her language, but determined to meet her questions with a cool sophistication nearing her own. “Yes, ma’am, I am still a virgin.” I had never even engaged in the acts she described, being a model of propriety outside the privacy of my own chambers.
“Excellent. No moral judgment here, of course, but for reasons I am not at liberty to explain, it is important to your candidacy. Now then, the most personal of my questions. Are you able to orgasm?”
“Ma’am?” I knew, logically, what she was asking, but could not bring myself to respond without some demurring.
“I imagine you are, given what your aunt has already blurted about you, but one cannot assume these things. I once knew a girl, poor soul, who labored and labored at herself, but could never bring herself off. I gave her a gift I acquired on Cypress – a lovely little artifact of polished ivory and ram’s horn – and as I understand it, she was eventually able to solve her problem. Still, I must know, as I require a particular type of physical and temperamental makeup. When you touch yourself, do you spend? Cum? Orgasm?”
I swallowed, blushing again. “Yes, ma’am,” I said, forcing myself to speak clearly and assertively.
“Wonderful! All right, then, you seem a good fit thus far, fingers crossed! There’s only one more test you must pass. I could simply ask, but I find it more reliable to find out for myself. If you do not mind, please remove your shoes. Stockings, too – I’ll need you barefoot, if you please.”
Puzzled, I hesitated. This was all so curious – first, the odd glowing stone, then these wildly inappropriate and personal questions, and now this! Caution and skepticism vied with what I can only describe as an odd desperation to please her; then, curiosity, perhaps my chief defining trait, came to the latter’s aid and won the day. I did as she asked, slipping off my shoes and rolling off my heavy, dark stockings. The rug was soft beneath my bare feet.
“Right,” she said. “Thanks very much. Now, if you please, place your feet on the ottoman here.” She moved a small leather hassock in front of my chair, and I rested my feet, crossed at the ankles, on top of it. She looked them over thoughtfully. I had always been a bit proud of my feet: they were neither over large nor small and dainty, but strong, well-formed, shapely, high in the arch and a bit wide across the ball, with long, regal toes. They were a bit pale pink, now, but were habitually golden-tanned from my time barefoot outdoors, and I took care to keep them soft and smooth. I did feel a bit self-conscious putting them on display, though; I had seldom had someone study the bottoms of my bare feet. “Ah! Pretty, pretty,” she said, smiling that warm smile again.
“All right, my dear,” she said, smiling more broadly than ever before, her eyes twinkling with a kind of naughty delight. “Your task is simply to keep your feet on the ottoman, no matter what I do.”
The puzzlement on my face swiftly changed to alarm as I felt the subtle, overwhelming sensation of her fingertip – a single, gentle, delicate fingertip – touching the pad of my big toe, then tracing slowly, almost lazily, down to the base of my toes. They twitched as my foot flinched, but I held it steady, biting my lip. My eyes squeezed shut. To my surprise, she giggled a bit.
A second index finger joined the first, repeating its mate’s exploration of my toes. I have mentioned the sensitivity of my feet – need I add that it manifests most particularly in extreme and uncontrollable ticklishness? Her first touches were so light, her purpose still so relatively uncertain, that with some effort I was able to control myself beyond some reflexive twitching and curling of the toes. As she began her explorations in earnest, those impudent little index fingers became like tiny ice skaters, tracing delicate, gentle figure 8’s over the balls of my feet. I let out a mortifying little squeak through my tight-clenched lips and opened my eyes. The warmth in my lady’s expression had not gone, exactly, but it now coexisted with a look of wicked delight and amusement. I fear the deep brown eyes that looked back into hers must have been pleading desperately.
“Now, how does that feel, my dear?” she asked. She put the littlest bit more pressure behind her playful finger-stroking. I felt myself beginning to tremble uncontrollably, tried to force it to stop.
I spoke, though I hardly trusted my voice. “I-it ti-hi-hickles, ma’am,” I said, and immediately regretted it. Once I had spoken aloud, I lost control of the giggles that had been rising inside me; they began to spill out, in spite of my best efforts, in a continuous little ripple. I was mortified, but helpless to control them.
The Countess seemed pleased. “Ticklish, are you? About the toes, here?”
I nodded, trembling with giggles, writhing as I forced myself to keep my feet in place. My toes wiggled as I tried unsuccessfully to fight the sensation.
“And here, at the bases of your toes, and about the balls of your feet? That’s quite tickly, isn’t it?”Her touches became more intense, and more effective. I let out a humiliating little barking laugh and nearly yanked my feet off the ottoman, only just recovering. She paused, lightening but not ceasing her teasing, waiting for my utterly superfluous verbal response.
“Y-yehehesss…” I managed, before surrendering to another wave of giggles. Why was this woman vexing me so? And what if I gave in to every screaming impulse coming from my poor feet and pulled them away, hid them under my skirts, rubbed the awful tickles off in the thick pile of the rug? Would I lose any hope of going with her? I determined not to give in, though I had an awful, inevitable sense of where those teasing fingertips were eventually going.
“Aaaand how about here, about your little smooth heels? The skin is a bit thicker, here, but still quite sensitive, is it not?”
I could not muster a verbal response – I merely gave a convulsive little nod and hiss of breath. My whole body shook with suppressed laughter; the giggles and squawks that escaped were merely the tip of a very large iceberg. As silly and foolish as it sounds, it was torture, the worst of my young, sheltered life. I had a vague and awful sense that my whole future might be at stake – might come down to my being able to resist the terrible ticklishness of my bare feet. And, as she had worked her way conspicuously around my high, supremely sensitive arches, I knew the worst was yet to come.
She took me absolutely by surprise. Rather than proceed to the dreaded arches with the same mocking, hummingbird-like exploration of her index fingertips, she gripped my right ankle and attacked the very apex of the arch with five scribbling, scrabbling fingernails. I screamed, thrashing about, exploded with laughter. Her grip on my ankle only amplified my desperate impulse to escape. Panic erased my resolve. I slid to the floor, kicking over the ottoman, overturning the chair in which I had been sitting, and yanked my tormented foot from her grasp!
I lay, shaking with laughter, rubbing my overexcited feet together. Then, in an instant, realization came, and I jumped up, desperate.
“I’m so sorry, ma’am!” I cried, swiftly righting the chair and ottoman as if doing so would erase my failure, propping my feet back up and wiggling my toes in a desperate invitation. “If you would please just give me another chance, I am sure I can resist!”
She looked at me with amusement, raising an eyebrow. “Very well, poppet. Let us try again.”
And so again, this time with both hands, she began a full-on ten-fingered tickle attack on the most ticklish parts OF the most ticklish parts of my body. Her fingernails seemed shaped and textured to be the most effective tickling tools imaginable – a combination of sharp and smooth that set my every nerve aflame. They danced over my heels, the balls of my feet, wracking me with giggles, then dived between my writhing toes, zipped into the hollows of my arches, setting me to body-jarring, hysterical guffaws.
Those among you, dear readers, who share with me a singular susceptibility to tickling can likely understand the physical extremity to which those talented fingernails on my sensitive soles drove me. Who can imagine, though, the emotional struggle that accompanied this cruel test? Here came this angel, come to set me free from the miserable prison of Casa de Pig. Here were these ideas, these shocking, thrilling, wonderful ideas, that challenged all the stultifying ideas that surrounded me. And here was the promise of a school that would not only deliver me from Madame Pigg, but also allow me to feed my mind and spirit instead of bury me in layers of repression. And, most of all, here was this wonderful mystery to solve, this magnificent conundrum that had walked into this dreary, stuffy little house! And here I was, on the very razor’s edge of losing it all by simply giving in to the demands of my body, by simply acquiescing to the demands of my every instinct to pull my poor, tormented, terribly ticklish feet away from the devil’s own torture.
For all my teeth-gritting, fist and toe-clenching struggle, the outcome was inevitable. I shook, heaved, bucked with laughter for what I believed to be several minutes, but what the grandfather clock in the corner would reveal to be mere seconds. Then, with a quavering wail of dismay, I surrendered, yanking my poor feet back off of the ottoman and hiding them beneath the chair.
By now, I was desperate. I admit, I began begging. “Please, please, ma’am. Just once more. I’m sure I can do it! I’m simply unaccustomed to being tickled so. Another chance, please!” Tears, now, began to wet my cheeks; laughter had brought them close to the surface, and now sorrow set them free.
She regarded me a moment more, and then gave in, embracing me, kissing away my tears. “Oh, poppet. Please don’t cry. I’m so sorry! But, darling! You’ve passed the test! You’ve passed!”
I blinked at her in puzzlement, allowing myself to hope. “But…I couldn’t take it.”
“Yes, I know. Your lovely feet are hopelessly, dreadfully, delightfully ticklish. And that is exactly what I needed to discover! Had I indicated that I needed a ticklish girl, you might have pretended to be one, even if you were not. If, however, I led you to believe that I wanted you to be able to resist, your failure to do so would inevitably be genuine. I am sorry to have been a bit misleading, but you have proven yourself an ideal candidate! Congratulations, darling!”
I was in a state. Still recovering from being tickled nearly mad, I was full of more questions than I knew how to voice. “But…why…”
“Sssh. In good time, sweetie. At the moment, I feel we have probably all but exhausted your Aunt’s patience. Quickly, back on with your shoes and stockings. Let me help you fix your hair – there, that’s put right. Ready? Excellent.”
She muttered a few words once again, holding the peculiar pendant in both hands. She waited a moment, shot me a wink, then threw open the door quickly, bumping quite forcefully into Madame Pigg, who had clearly been listening at it.
“Oh, Madame, I’m terribly sorry,” she said, helping the horrible woman up. “I had no idea you were huddled here eavesdropping. In any event, the news is good! Bethany’s interview has gone splendidly! She shall come to join us at Mystmeade!”
