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Miss Mabel

By: potsherd



This is my first attempt to write erotic fiction. It seemed natural to me to give my tale specific locations, Loughborough, Leicester and North London, and a specific time-frame, the 1850's. I hope my tale gives pleasure, despite being so far removed from most stories on Literotica. Please bear with it. Almost all the characters are made up, but two, Alderman Biggs and William Perkin lived real lives. Much to my regret I totally lost touch with my first volunteer editor when my computer ingested its hard drive and spat out the bits. All I can now remember is that his name was Ed. (Ed. if you remember me, please get in touch) I am indebted to him and, for their generous help, to my more recent editors, Creative Talent and LustyMadame. I made use of their advice and suggestions, but, of course the end result (w.a.f) is my own. 

Miss Mabel

i. Caught in the act

My name is Arthur Cowell and this is my story. Most people have no story at all. They live and die unnoticed, even by their neighbours. Some, like the brave soldiers of the peninsula, have many stories. Sergeant Coxon, who sits, tankard in hand, evening after evening in the snug at the Dun Cow is one of those who has outlived a myriad of adventures. Some; like me; have but one story, but one that will live in their hearts until the day they die. 

I was born in 1834 in the village of Burbage, near Hinckley in Leicestershire. Although only a village lad; the elder son of a poor framework knitter, I had the inestimable privilege of being educated at grammar school at the expense of my generous patron Alderman Biggs of Leicester. I received this munificent gift, not by any merit of my own; (as I fear that this narrative will amply show); but because of my late father's reputation as a man of shining probity and loving-kindness and a devout and eloquent Unitarian elder. Our beloved pastor, Henry Saltmarsh of Hinckley was as poor as he was generous. After my father's sad passing, leaving a widow and three children, Pastor Saltmarsh commended us to Alderman Biggs of Leicester, one of the leaders of Unitarianism in our area. 

My older sister had married a railwayman and lived nearby with her little daughter. The Alderman helped my younger sister to get a place in service with a kindly family and gave my mother a small pension of ten shillings a week. I was eleven years of age at that time; just ready to leave school and work as a bobbin-winder, but when he was consulted, the master at our National school in Burbage spoke very highly of me as a scholar, and gave it as his opinion that I was the cleverest boy at number work he had ever taught, and Alderman Biggs used his influence to get me a place at Grammar school, and paid the fees. My young brother Ceddie, who, sadly, showed no talent or aptitude, remained with my mother, and was later apprenticed to a glover. It was my pleasure and privilege, as time went by, to assist them both to a reasonable standard of comfort, and to enable my mother to stay in her own home until the day she died.

So it transpired that a few months after my father died, I found myself lodging in Great Wigston, with a family much like my own, and attending the Wyggeston grammar School. I had a struggle to catch up with my form-mates, but I worked hard and had an excellent, retentive memory, so that even the dreaded Latin became intelligible in time. Four years later, I left school and took the job of office boy in a branch of the Midland counties bank. 

***

I begin my story in early May 1858, when I was twenty-five years of age. One morning I was summoned from my desk at in the Loughborough branch bank in the Marketplace; to see the Chief Cashier at the Leicester office. Of course I searched my conscience to see what I had done wrong -- but nothing more than the most trivial of sins came to mind. I am one of those happy people for whom columns of numbers dance intricate and beautiful dances, and so, work in a bank was my idea of heaven. The bank at Loughborough was a happy place for me, as I had found there a real friend and mentor; the branch cashier Frank Dennis. 

At Leicester I found I was not on the carpet. Rather, I was offered a handsome promotion to a post in the new London office, at Holborn, in central London. This was a wonderful opportunity for someone like myself, born without wealth, position or connections. I had only once been to London - a huge and terrifying place -- but offers like this come only once. Accordingly, in the last days of May I bade a sad farewell to my mother and family, and, privately, to my sweetheart Jessie, and took a railway train for only the second time in my life; the Midland Railway to St. Pancras station.

On my arrival at the Holborn offices, I reported to my new senior, a huge towering Lancashire man, Mr Ollerenshaw. He welcomed me and told me to report at 8 sharp on Monday. This being Friday afternoon, I had perfect freedom for a long weekend. Mr Ollerenshaw's assistant had given me the address of some suitable accommodation; very respectable lodgings in Boscastle Street, a fifteen-minute walk away off Kingsway. Little could I have know as I made my way there through unfamiliar streets that this house was to be the scene of some of the most thrilling moments of my life, and the place where I was to find my life's partner. 

14 Boscastle Street I found to be a handsome, four-story, stuccoed house, with a railed area below from which came sounds of cheerful chatter and the smell of cooking. I went up the steps to the front door and rang the bell, to be greeted by my future landlady Mrs Bissell. She was a stout, florid, handsome, motherly woman, showing signs of former beauty and also of former affluence. I later learned that her late husband had been a merchant, apparently prosperous, in the Levantine trade; an importer of currants from Smyrna and mastic from Chios. Alas, when he had died suddenly the extent of his debts was revealed. His widow found herself in straitened circumstances, and forced to take in paying guests.

Mrs Bissell introduced me to her sister, Miss Harriet, and showed me to the room she had designated for me, subject to mutual approval. I was delighted. With its handsome marble-topped washstand, large mahogany chest and wardrobe, and huge, soft feather bed, the room seemed palatial compared with my little attic room at home. Over the mantle, with its small cast-iron fire-grate (lit only in cases of illness in bleakest midwinter), stood a pair of pink lustre candlesticks. Above them two drab, browning oil paintings of highland cattle in the rain recalled to me the Queen and the late Price Regent's relentless promotion of the Highlands. Why, I wondered for the thousandth time, was art so often drab and dispiriting? Why couldn't more paintings be full of life and vitality like Mr Frith's wonderful "Derby Day", that I had stared at, enchanted, in Leicester Art Gallery? 

The terms for half-board were high, but well within my means, and I could see that I could be comfortable and happy there. My pleasure was increased when I discovered that, apart from Mrs Bissell and her sister, the only other residents above-stairs were her two pretty daughters, Miss Mabel and Miss Emily, and two elderly ladies who were paying guests. I was the only adult male in the house, a situation I was well used to and of which I knew the advantages well. 

Mrs Bissell told me that hot water would be brought to my room at a quarter past six each morning, and breakfast would be at a half past six. Evening meals on weekdays would be at half past seven, but that allowances would be made if I were kept late at work. On Saturday, usually my half-day, and Sunday dinner would be at half past one, after church, with high-tea at six. This was all a far cry from the poverty of my childhood, with my parents snatching a hurried slice of bread and a mug of mock coffee, made from burned crusts as they sat at their work; but I had some indirect knowledge, as most of the boys I had known at grammar school had spoken as if these regular mealtimes were universal.

On Monday morning I started work, at the impressive new Portland stone bank building, heated throughout by hot radiators, with wonders such as a passenger lift (made in Leicester I was delighted to see). No more winter days in an icy room heated only by a tiny coal fire, with me as the junior having to provide the kindling (the older men provided the coal), clean the grate in the mornings and feed the fire through the day. In the Loughborough branch counting house, the fire was obscured on many a winter's day by the drying coats of the men and boys, smelling strongly and unpleasantly of sheep. Here there was, of all things, a drying room with a radiator for our use on rainy days. 

I discovered that my work concerned overseas receipts and payments, an area of work totally new to me, and of never-ending fascination. Seldom could a young man have been happier in his work. Mrs Bissell's forbearance over evening meals was amply tested, as I was seldom able to leave Holborn before seven -- and sometimes much later. Thus began some of the happiest years of my working life; but enough now about my work.

I have said little of my landlady's two daughters, but now they come to the centre of the stage. Miss Mabel, the older, was around nineteen, and Miss Emily eighteen months younger, had just celebrated her eighteenth birthday. They were fair, pretty, buxom, cheerful girls, always neatly and becomingly garbed, their hair dressed neatly in bunches of ringlets in the latest style. They chattered endlessly over meals, and whispered and giggled together behind their hands. Having two sisters of my own, I was accustomed to the company of girls, and enjoyed it. I made little jokes and teased them gently. They seemed to like me in return, so we became friends very quickly. My work tended to keep me late, and so it was unusual for me to leave the office at six sharp, and stroll home amid the crowds of shoppers. A week or so later, when the opportunity arrived to get away at six, I took full advantage. When I arrived at my lodgings the front door was open and Ellen, the maid-of-all-work was flirting with the postman who was just making his final delivery of the day. As I climbed the stairs I could see the door of my room ajar, and hear girlish giggling within. I pushed open the door and there, sitting on the bed were Mabel and Emily. To my shock and fury I saw that they were reading my sweetheart's rather warm and affectionate letters. 

Seeing me the girls coloured crimson, and sat open-mouthed with horror. I was home a good hour early, and had caught them in a most compromising situation. They stared for a long moment, then, together, they burst into tears, flung down the letters and ran from the room. I sat down myself on the bed, scarcely able to contain my rage, and picked up the letters. How dared they pry into my most intimate secrets? What could they, or I do now? 

A long quarter of an hour passed as I considered my course of action. Then, just as I was going in search of the errant girls, there came a soft tapping on my door and Miss Mabel sidled timidly in. 

"Emmy was too scared to come with me," she burst out, "but I had to come to ask you not to tell Mother. She would be so humiliated, and we couldn't bear to hurt her!"

I said nothing for a moment, but just looked at her face. She blushed even deeper, and looked close to tears. I had had a little time to think my reply, so I said calmly. 

"It is my duty to complain to your mother, and I am afraid that, if I do that I shall certainly have to leave here. I cannot tell you how angry it makes me to be forced to give up such pleasant lodgings because of the behaviour of two thoughtless, wicked girls."

Miss Mabel blushed crimson, and her downcast eyes filled with tears.

"Please don't do that! I should never forgive myself. I am so very sorry; I never meant to offend you so".

"You means you never meant to be discovered. If you will the deed, you should will the consequences."

Then, as if struck by a sudden thought:

"Alternatively I could punish you both myself. You shall both come here at 9.o'clock in your nightdresses and receive my punishment -- which will not be light!"

I chose nine o'clock with some thought. At that time the servants would be having their own meals in the kitchen, with no reason to come upstairs unless they were summoned. Mrs Bissell and her sister would be down in the parlour, perhaps playing the musical-box, or Miss Matilda would be reading aloud whilst Mrs Bissell sewed. The girls could easily make the excuse of writing letters, and everyone was well accustomed to me withdrawing on weeknights to catch up on work. A little noise would not be heard from outside my room. I could see these thoughts race through her mind, as she replied: 

"No, please, please don't leave here on account of our wickedness. Couldn't you just punish me? I am sure I deserve it more. I am the elder and I was the one who suggested coming in here to look through your things." 

I was tempted, but the thought of the two of them gloating over Jessie's letters hardened my heart. 

"No, it must be both of you."

"Very well," she gave in, "Emily must accept your punishment too; but please don't be too hard on her, she is not a bad girl, just easily led."

In the interval before dinner, I removed my trousers and undergarments, and, sitting down on the bed in my shirt-tails, I took up that same razor strop that I had so dreaded as a child in my father's lifetime. It was a double strip of heavy horse-hide, one side coated with a fine abrasive for sharpening the razor, the other polished and oiled to impart the final razor edge. At the ends were shaped leather handles with holes from which the strop hung on the wall beside the shaving mirror. I practised slapping myself on the tops of my thighs, trying to judge the amount of sound, and, also the amount of pain a sensitive female might stand. A few minutes experiment convinced me that it was, indeed, no light punishment I contemplated 

After dinner I retired to my room as usual, but, for once, work had no charms for me, and I waited with increasing tension. Twenty minutes later I heard the girls on the stairs, subdued and silent. They went up to their room, and, ten minutes later, the door opened softly, and there they stood, pretty as a picture in their voluminous white linen nightgowns; their fair hair, fringed and plaited, curled round in twin buns over their ears.

They came in hesitantly and stood side by side with their hands behind their backs, looking at me. 

"Miss Mabel", I said, "You shall be first. Lie across the bed and raise your nightdress to your waist. Miss Emily, you go around the bed and hold your sister's hands tightly if she can't trust herself to stay still. I am going to give you each a dozen hard smacks of my hand, then half a dozen with the razor strop. I advise you to keep as quiet as you can, if you do not want your mother as a witness."

Imagine, if you will, those creamy-ivory globes and the slender, shapely legs below them, revealed to the soft lamp-light as Mabel shyly raised the skirts of her night-dress over her back. I was struck by the sheer beauty of the sight, and felt a momentary qualm about marring this beauty as I intended, but, still angry at the violation of Jessie's sweet, tender letters, again, I hardened my heart.

A hard, crisp slap on each buttock, and bright pink handprints rose on the creamy, smooth skin. Mabel gave a little groan at each stroke, but refused to allow her sister to capture her hands. I was sure that in her own mind she was, atoning for her crime, and setting an example to her weaker sister. Ten more slaps followed and her bottom glowed pink. A fat tear rolled down her left cheek, as she turned her face to me; avoiding my eyes. Then, I confess, with a little reluctance, I followed through my sentence, and picked up the razor strop. Emily, the other side of the bed, was already crying at the sight of her sister's punishment and the prospect of her own.

By now I was uncomfortably aware of the wondrous perfume of female flesh, and of a shameful excitement rising in me that sorted ill with a righteous punishment. Luckily Emily's eyes were averted, and she was in no position to discover my secret. I picked up the strop and brought it down hard across Mabel's reddened globes,. After a few seconds a livid purple streak appeared, white-edged across the already reddened flesh. She gave an audible squeal, and controlled herself with an effort. Again, and again, without much pause, the hard leather fell with an audible slap. Then three more; slower, and now Mabel was sobbing audibly. 

"That's enough, get up now". I said unrelentingly stern. She rose, and walked stiffly and painfully around the room to take her place by the other side of the bed. I glanced at her face, usually pretty and composed, but now with eyes swollen and reddened, and tear-streaked cheeks, and we both had to look away as our eyes met.

Emily did not move until Mabel firmly instructed her, reminding her of the need to protect their mother's security and their reputations. Emily, crying openly, took her place on the bed, raised her skirts, and reached out, convulsively, to her sister. The little satisfaction I had experienced was now gone out of me; all I had left was determination. She wailed pathetically as I carried through the smacking, and the strapping, less severely than with Mabel. By this time, my main desire was to have the whole thing over with. Afterwards, they peeped up and down the passage, and, sure that they were unobserved, stealthily returned to their room, leaving me the prey of gloomy thoughts. If the events of that night had stood alone, I should never have slapped naked girl-flesh again, and the whole course of my life would certainly have run differently.

The following morning I rose for an early breakfast, and was just decapitating my morning egg, alone in the dining room, when Miss Mabel slipped in. With a sweet smile, she thanked me for my forbearance in not speaking to their mother, and kissed me on the cheek, leaving the room with a blush and a smile. She at least had forgiven me and somehow I knew at that moment that she would be over my knee again before many weeks had passed.

Miss Mabel Ch. 02



Miss Mabel: chapter 2. Sunday at Home

After I had dealt with Miss Mabel and Miss Emily, our relationship was subtly changed, and more observant people, less wrapped up in themselves than Mrs Bissell and Miss Harriet, would have noticed it and commented. Whilst Miss Mabel was, if anything, friendlier and rather playful, Miss Emily was rather timid and ill at ease, seeming distinctly frightened of me. 

Then came Sunday. The rule of the household was that all, family, and the servants, excepting the cook Mrs Ross, went to Sunday morning service at Kingsway Wesleyan Methodist Church, where the late Mr. Bissell had been a trustee, and held a family pew. 

I was exempt from this rule for the simple reason that my family were committed Unitarians, for whom a trinitarian service was little short of idolatry. Coming from the East Midlands, where Unitarianism is strong, I was surprised to find that in London it was very much a minority creed, and that the nearest congregation to me was at Islington, almost an hour's journey away. 

So on Sunday mornings, I was allowed the indulgence of staying in an empty house with the Sunday newspaper. In the evening I would often walk over to Islington for the 6 pm service, but this was a preference, not a rule.

That morning, shortly after breakfast Miss Mabel ran into the front parlour where I was reading my Weekly Dispatch, and snatched the paper out of may hand and threw it across the room, saying petulantly: 

"Why do you read that silly old paper instead of talking to me?" 

"Miss Mabel", I said sternly, "you are in trouble again, and I am going to have to punish you." 

"Oh Mr Cowell, I am so sorry", she retreated, "Please forgive me; don't punish me again." 

"Too late", I replied, seeming to fall into a pre-ordained script, "Can you miss Church this morning, and come to my room?" 

"Oh, well, if you are going to be so stern and horrid, I suppose so." 

I resumed the paper, and waited events.

At a quarter to ten, the family set out on the short walk to Church, and I was left alone in the house, but for the cook, Mrs Ross two floors below. Almost immediately the door opened and Miss Mabel crept in, hanging her head, but full of suppressed excitement. 

" I told them I had a pain in the back, and couldn't sit on a hard pew for two hours." 

"Good thinking," I said, half to myself, "that will explain why you are a bit stiff and sore later." 

Miss Mabel grinned at me no fear, no guilt or apprehension evident in her manner. 

"Get ready and come to my room in ten minutes," I said, "and bring a pot of cold cream for your poor back."

The door opened ten minutes later, and there she was, in her grey, wide-skirted, watered silk Sunday frock, but without the pretty matching merino jacket with tight sleeves and piping of black bugle beads, that made her look so stylish for the Kingsway congregation on Sunday mornings. 

She put a small pot of cold cream down on the bamboo bedside table, and stood in front of me, her face downcast, but looking up at me through her lashes. I felt a thrill of such excitement that I could barely keep my face solemn.

"Well, Miss Mabel, it seems that you have not learned your lesson, so I am afraid we must try again to teach you good behaviour. This time you will go over my knee for a good spanking". 

"Oh Mr. Cowell, please, please forgive me, I swear I shall be a good girl", she replied, her face full of innocent entreaty. 

"No, it must be so. Raise your skirts and lie over my knee". I said sternly. 

At this time, the crinoline was de rigeur for any fashionably-dressed young lady. Normally the crinoline skirts kept their shape by means of a thick, heavy bell-shaped horsehair petticoat, itchy and uncomfortable in wear. The tendency of the crinoline to rise up and reveal an embarrassing amount of lower limb had led to the wearing of under-drawers, (not so long ago the exclusive province of women of easy virtue), and straight petticoats that clung to the legs, minimising embarrassing revelations. 

As Miss Mabel raised her skirts I saw at once that she had removed all but one flounced petticoat from under her dress, and that her legs, clad in dark grey stockings with white clocks, and gartered at the knee, were innocent of the pretty frilled pantalettes, which, since I first saw them on the clothes-line, had featured in dreams and daydreams alike. 

The over-the knee position was so intimate, her slight weight pressed on my groin, the creamy globes of her buttocks raised invitingly, her head hung low, hands gripping the rungs of my chair. Somehow I felt closer to a woman than I had ever felt; closer than in the much greater intimacies I had exchanged with my sweetheart and a few other girls at home. I resisted the temptation – so strong – to stroke her bottom lovingly, for that would be to ruin the moment, and perhaps destroy this budding relationship forever. 

Raising my hand high, I slapped down hard. Mabel, once again made that little moan, barely louder than a whisper, and a crimson blotch spread across one cheek of her bottom Again my hand fell hard, again the little moan escaped her, and the other cheek bore a matching blotch. Slowly, this pattern was repeated, until, after a dozen slaps as hard as I could contrive, my hand ached and stung, and her lovely bottom was a bright crimson. I stopped. 

"Off you get", I said quietly. 

Mabel stood upright, facing me, her skirts still held waist high, revealing her rounded belly from the little flat whorl of her navel, to the scut of brown fuzzy hair at the parting of her thighs. Did she know what she was revealing? I wondered, but although her eyes were dripping with tears, a little upturn at the corners of her mouth suggested that she knew very well. 

"Miss Mabel", I said softly, "If you will promise to behave yourself with me and be a good girl, I could remit the rest of the punishment."

We both looked out of the corner of our eyes at the razor strop hanging over the wash-stand. 

"Thank you Mr Cowell, you are very sweet", she replied, "but how can I promise to be good in your company when I all too often want to be naughty?" 

"Very well then, lie over the bed. I shall give you half a dozen with the strop. But, if it hurts too much, just say "Stop", clearly and I shall stop at once." 

She blushed, and silently complied. Six hard blows of the razor strop followed one on another, streaking the crimson with dark, almost purple bruises, white-edged where the edges of the strop left weals on the tender skin. Now she was crying in earnest, but still quiet and strangely self-possessed. I began to wonder which of us was the strong, and which the weak one.  

I spoke tenderly. "Would you like me to put some soothing cold cream on your poor bruised cheeks?" 

"Yes, if you please", she replied, and placed herself back across my knees, skirts still held high. 

I felt almost intoxicated by the woman's scent that rose from her heated body, as I smoothed cream, gently in littler circular motions on the flaming, scorchingly hot flesh. At first I kept to the bruised areas of her bottom and the tops of the thighs, which I had hit once by mistake with the strop. 

The crying gradually ceased, and she lay, passive and still. Now I had reached the testing time, and I took a huge risk, that quite frightened me. Could I, even mow, have misunderstood, and mistaken her innocence for coquettishness? 

My fingers slid, slowly and cautiously down between her parted thighs, Down from the globes of her bright bottom, up from the streaked red and white thighs, and I was stroking the line of her secret parts, what the men of my childhood, in men's company called "queynt" or "quim", and the outway vulgar called "cunt".

Still she did not protest, and reassuringly, I could feel the slick moisture on and between the lips. Her thighs parted just a little further, and my fingers continued their exploration. Not a word was spoken, but she again made the little groaning sound, just at the level of a whisper she had made when I spanked her. My fingers moved more boldly...

I glanced at the bedside clock. It was getting late. 

"Miss Mabel...." I began. 

The voluptuous moment popped like a balloon. She dissolved into a fit of uncontrollable giggles that tipped her of my lap onto the floor in a tangled mass of clothing, and she lay on the floor, laughing, hiccoughing and rolling around. A minute or two passed before she caught enough of her breath to speak. 

"Oh Arthur, you are so funny. Calling me Miss Mabel, when you have seen and touched more of me that even my mother, since I learned to bathe myself." 

"Let's be on the safe side, my darling. I'll remain Mr Cowell; you'll stay Miss Mabel, even when we are private. We cannot afford a mistake that will make people curious about us. And by the bye, I wanted to tell you that your mother will be back from Church in a few minutes."

She picked herself up in a flurry of bare thighs and grey stockings and brushed down her dress. 

"Very well, Mr Cowell. I shall return to my room." 

This time she kissed me, not on the cheek, but firmly on the lips. 

I later learned that when her mother and sister returned, Miss Mabel was lying face down on the bed, a hot-water bottle in the small of her back, and a damp cloth around her head. They quietly withdrew, and took her dinner to her on a tray. 

That evening, I was in my room reading when the door slid open and there stood Miss Mabel, thrusting at me a slim newspaper parcel. 

"Here", she said, kissing me again, "you may find a use for this. Mother bought it years ago, but she could never bring herself to use it" 

Tied with a pink ribbon bow, it was the sort of crook-handled cane sold for a halfpenny at the local ironmonger's, Although ostensibly for beating rugs; I have sometimes thought that the stout matrons bending them and swishing them in the air at the back of the shop, seem often to have more lively targets in mind than carpets.

Thus ended the day, with a kiss and a promise.



Miss Mabel Ch. 03



Note. This story is a direct continuation from Miss Mabel parts 1 and 2. The setting is North London in 1858. Whilst I hope it can stand alone, it might be more enjoyable for the reader to read the earlier parts first. My thanks to Creativetalent for editorial help, and to Michchick98 for her help with basic text formatting.

Miss Mabel. Part 3. The Megrims

An older colleague of mine in Leicestershire, Frank Dennis; a man with much experience of women, told me many things when I was a youth, just starting out in life, and enjoying my first sexual escapades. One thing he told me that I have subsequently found amply confirmed, was that once a woman has shed her clothes and engages in intimacies, she will do so again and again as long as she retains her affection for the man in her life. 

This was so with Miss Mabel, but more than fleeting opportunities were very hard to come by. Again and again, she would come into the room where I was working or reading, sit on my lap with her arms about my neck and kiss me deeply. I would reciprocate the kisses, with great enjoyment, for, to me, the moisture, warmth and sensitivity of lips and tongue replicate the sensations of other, more secret and less accessible areas. I would slip my hand up her skirts, to the division of her pantalettes (which were nothing more than two tubes of frilled and embroidered linen, held up with a drawstring) and caress what she called her "little quimmie", finding the delicious lips, and the entrance to the tunnel beyond. Then I would direct my caresses at the source of all these delicious sensations, the little pink bud, which I taught her to call her "little man in a boat". After a couple of minutes of this, some noise, a footfall, or a voice calling, would make her leap to her feet and walk out of the room; leaving us, I guess, equally frustrated and eager for a more lengthy encounter. This was to take time, but in the meanwhile, events moved forward in an entirely unexpected way.

Ever since I was a child, I have suffered from occasional attacks of the megrims -- blinding headaches accompanied by nausea, jagged flashing lights before my eyes, and an inability to bear light. When an attack is at its height, any movement of my head gives me almost unendurable pain, and all I can do is lie in a dark room and hope to die. until it gradually fades away. 

One midweek day I was at the bank when the megrims hit. It was a hot, sultry June day, with rain not far away, and I was working through the early morning on a complicated transaction to buy dyestuffs from Germany for a large hosiery manufactury in Nottingham. The problem was to avoid paying three separate customs dues between Leipzig and Antwerp, and I was casting around for solutions. As I worked I could feel the tension grow in the back of my neck, and a band tightening painfully around my head, and I knew that an attack was coming. I worked on, trying to get the paperwork for the proposal finished whilst I was still capable, but at mid-morning, the chief clerk came over to my desk, looked at me carefully, and said:

"You had better go home Cowell, for all the good it would do for you to remain here. I'd better send the boy out to hail a cab for you." 

He was right. Whilst he sent the boy for a cab, I wrote a brief note to give to my landlady when I got home, for I knew that by then I should be in no condition to explain. 

The Hansom cab took me quickly to my lodgings. Blinded by the light I staggered up the steps, thrust the note into the hands of the girl, and tottered the few steps to sit on the stairs. A minute or two later, willing hands led me to my darkened bedroom, and I collapsed onto the bed. 

I must have slept for several hours, and woke with the nausea somewhat abated, but the headache still intense. I forced myself to undress and put on my nightshirt. I have often noticed before in similar attacks, that these headaches were accompanied by a throbbing stiffening of my virile member (vulgarly my prick). This is the torture of Tantalus, since I could not relieve it without moving my head and driving red-hot spikes of pain through my forehead. As I lay there, giving way to unaccustomed self-pity, Miss Mabel slid into the room.

"Oh, Mr Cowell, your poor head," She said softly. "I have been down to the pharmacist and got you some headache powders. Come, try to take one, and sip some water. And here's a fresh wet cloth for your forehead." 

She unwrapped the powder and folded the paper into a little trough. I opened my mouth and put out my tongue; the powder slid onto my tongue and caked my dry mouth as I tried to swallow. She trickled water into my mouth, and I managed to get the powder down. I felt exhausted by the labour. Mabel crept out of the room, promising to return later. Time passed -- I have no way of guessing how much as I lay, drowsing intermittently - and she returned. 

The nausea had gone, although the intensity of the headache was little reduced; but I had an idea of how all this pain could be turned to profit. Mabel was accustomed to my hands on her most private parts, and welcomed them there, but she had neither seen or touched mine, nor, if I was any judge, those of any other man. Now was the time. I folded back the bedclothes, exposing my erect prick and balls to her fascinated gaze. She reached out a hand to touch lightly. I lay still, not speaking or moving, but trying to smile at her through the pain. She got up her courage, and began to investigate. 

I lay helpless, unable to speak, and using what energy I had to avoid grimacing with pain. Some divine intuition, without which the sexes would not mingle or the species continue, guided her hands, as she took my ball-sack in her left hand, and grasped my prick, gently but firmly in her right. She gently drew back the foreskin, allowing the head to spread. A thin ooze of stringy, clear liquid was forced up through the head of my cock as she began gently moving her hand up and down the shaft. The sensation was intense, and the excitement increased by the sure knowledge that she had never seen or felt an erect prick before. The mixture of a severe and blinding headache and the pleasure of the gentle friction on the head of my prick passing in and out of her soft palm was as acute a mixture of pain and pleasure as I have ever felt, and it was rapidly reaching a climax. 

The pain in my head intensified as the sensation of impending spend ran through my body. It felt as if the seed was being dragged violently from the muscles of my backside, and I felt the thick spend force its way up my rampant prick and shoot in ropy gouts over Mabel's hands and onto my bare belly. 

"Oh!" she cried, "What? Have I hurt you my darling Arthur? Oh, what can it be?"

My whole body relaxed into a feeling of glorious lethargy, the fruits of long weeks of abstinence. I lay back and let out a long sigh. For a moment my head throbbed so that I could not focus my mind sufficiently to talk.

"No, my darling, it is just the way I reach my pitch of pleasure. What you have so cleverly let out of me is the seed from which babies are made."

She snatched back her hand as if burned. 

"What -- will I have a baby?" she demanded, anxiety written all over her pretty little face.

"No, no my dear. You would only have a baby if I spend my seed right inside the secret place where I put my finger".

She laughed out loud. 

"Don't be silly Arthur dearest. How could that great thing go into my tiny quimmie? Why, you can scarcely get your finger in there." At that moment I saw with clarity the gulf set between the knowledge of the poor working girls I had consorted with at home, and a young woman of the middle class reared in a household of women. The village girls, brought up in a couple or rooms, sharing beds with sisters and brothers, and often sleeping in the same room as their parents, know long before the age of ten what men and women do together in bed. 

They had heard it, seen it, and, all too often experienced it years before the age at which they could bear children. In any village, people knew of men who were brutish enough to prey on their children, and women who, in fear of further childbirth, through soul-destroying weariness, or merely from callous indifference; allowed their husbands to appease their lusts on their young daughters. Everyone knew it, but turned their faces away unless the evidence was forced before their eyes. 

And here was the polar opposite; a young woman of twenty years of age, who had no idea of the connection between the physical pleasure of sex and the act of procreation. Even my sweetheart, Jessie, although she came from a respectable and comfortable home, was not as ignorant as this!

There was but one thing to say at this present, before I gratefully turned to sleep. 

"My darling, do not worry, I shall explain and show it all to you when I can, but meanwhile trust me. I swear on all I believe in that I shall never again do anything against your will, or anything that can cause you harm."

"Arthur dear, you have never done anything against my will. Of course I trust you. I have proved that often enough by now, haven't I!"

With that she left the room, and I settled to sleep, a sticky pool of spend drying amid the hair on my belly.



Miss Mabel Ch. 04



Miss Mabel is my first attempt at erotic writing. It is set in North London in the late 1850s, and I have tried to get the speech and manners as right as I can. 

You may recognise that I have appropriated the character of Camille from Walter's tome My Secret Life.

My thanks to volunteer editor CreativeTalent. 

Miss Mabel, a story in six parts 

Part 4. Playing at kittens, part one. 

North London, September 1858.

"Arthur dearest, what does 'playing at kittens' mean?" 

It was in one of our snatched moments together. Mabel was on my lap, and her hand was creeping softly inside my trousers, seeking for the instrument that, once she had encountered it, seemed seldom far from her thoughts. 

In that position the hoops of her semi-crinoline gave me easy access and my hand, likewise, had found its way to paradise. My caresses stopped abruptly, and I sat up straight, almost tipping her on the floor. 

"Where did you come across that?" I asked. There was only one place she could have found it - the letter in which the phrase occurred was hidden away separated from the others, and under lock and key. 

"Oh, Arthur dear, I have been awfully naughty again, and I knew you would be angry with me, but I just had to know. I am afraid that I have earned a punishment." 

"Tell me how you found that letter", I asked. "It was not in the secretaire with the others. Did Miss Emily see it too?"

"Oh no, Arthur, of course not. I wouldn't dream of letting her see it. I am afraid I have been going into your room on my own. I can't help it; her letters are so beautiful and exciting. She is so lucky to have a sweetheart like you. 

Usually I just lie on your bed and think about you, but the last time I went, you had left the key to the drawer on the washstand, and I just had to look."

"Well", I said, "You certainly know what to expect. It will be the cane this time."

"So, aren't you going to tell me? How do people play at kittens?" 

"It is something delightful that lovers do to please each other. If we could find an afternoon on our own I should love to teach you."

"Are we lovers then, Arthur? I do so want us to be, for I know I am starting to love you."

Flashback Loughborough/Leicester 1851.

Once I was alone again, my mind travelled back to Loughborough in the July of 1851; that Summer when the news of the Great Exhibition filled the pages of the newspapers and packed excursion trains enriched every railway company in the Kingdom.

The Midlands were suffering under an oppressive heat wave, and I was at my desk, sweat running down my back as I worked. The Chief Cashier, Frank Dennis's door was open, and he called me cheerfully from within.

Frank was maybe twice my age; a slim, dapper man with an air of unconquerable affability and charm, appealing to men and women alike. Happily for me, he was chief cashier at our branch bank, and he supervised my work with meticulous care and kindness. 

I was especially fortunate as he took a liking to me, and over our snap, and our occasional cups of coffee after work, I soon learned that his great passion was the ladies, and it could not escape my notice that he had great success there. He became confidential, and gave me hints and suggestions that I implemented with some success with the local girls. 

"Arthur my lad, I have a treat in prospect for you. I am taking you to the Singing Rooms in Leicester. A comedian from London, the Original Joe Miller will be foot of the bill and I should like to see him. 

Have you ever been to a Singing room? Well then, there really is a treat in store for you, especially if we meet up with one or two of my little friends. Don't worry about money. This one's on me". 

" The original Joe Miller? He must be pretty ancient", I replied, for Joe Miller's Jest Books were the staple of my schoolboy years.

"Everyone's pretty ancient to you Arthur," he teased me. "But don't worry, you'll grow out of it."

Joe Miller was a large, elderly, red-faced man in a drab short-coat with a bludgeon sticking out of one pocket, red muffler round his neck, florid weskit and knee-breeches. 

He strode about the stage, behind the flickering row of gas-lights; told a string of jokes and then sang The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington with frequent interruptions for cockney patter. 

His jokes, delivered in a droll manner, in a loud, raucous voice, were very raw. Many of them passed me by, but the whole audience, men and women alike, laughed uproariously at lines that would have earned me a beating with my father's razor-strop, 

About the Singing Rooms; a large, gaslit room over a hostelry in Silver Street; I remember little other then the heat, the overwhelming noise and the odour of crowds of overheated men and overscented women. 

The greatest excitement of the evening was to come later. In one of the intervals, when the crowds were calling for beer, gin and pigs-feet, Frank took me to admire the Ladies of the Night, in the area at the back of the room that served as the promenade. 

They were certainly a contrast with the poor, bedraggled, half-starved creatures who plied for trade in the streets around the railway station at home. 

These women were well, even sumptuously dressed in bright silks and lace (Frank afterwards told me that most of them did not own the dresses they wore, but instead hired them from the inconspicuous older women who stood, eagle-eyed in the shadows.) 

Their hair was elaborately done up, and they wore perfume, powder and rouge and colour on their lips. They smiled invitingly, and some greeted Frank as an old friend. Frank, meanwhile searched the bright, gay group for a familiar face, and, soon he found one. 

"Camille my dear", he cried, reaching out his hand to a plump, thirtyish woman with dark hair and dark eyes, wearing an elegant evening dress in wide stripes of alternating dark and light green, out of which rose her white shoulders and the cleft of her bosom. 

She smiled at him, and replied "Monsieur Frank, quel plaisir." Her voice was low, soft and beautifully modulated, with a strong French accent. 

So, was this one of the legendary Parisian whores one read about in the Holywell Street press? What was she doing in a dowdy provincial town like Leicester, rather than in Shaftesbury Avenue or the Haymarket? 

Frank introduced us. "Camille my dear," he announced, as I shook her gloved hand, "I want you to meet my young protégé Arthur. I hope you will take his education a little way towards completion". 

"Mais certainement, avec plaisir", she replied, a sweet smile on her sweet face, "but I do hope you will be joining us, Monsieur Frank." 

We left the Public House, just behind High Cross Street, and, resisting Frank's urging to take a cab, we walked down towards the house she apparently used when in Leicester, in the maze of shabby, run-down streets around the recently-built "Bastille", the Union Workhouse, where, only a few years previously, the rioting inmates had presaged the Chartist disturbances of 1842. 

The house she led us to was larger and better built than its neighbours, We knocked and the door was opened by an elderly maid. Camille sent the maid out for drink, and led us up the stairs to the front bedroom. 

Frank lit the colsa-oil lamp, which soon gave a bright, cheerful glow to a room furnished sparsely, with bed, chest, wash-stand, two armchairs and a rag-rug in a geometrical pattern; a counterpart to the one in my mother's front parlour. Even before the maid returned with the brandy, Frank and Camille, after a hurried and secretive consultation, began to disrobe. 

In a minute they were naked, and as calm and self-possessed as if this was their attire of choice. I had never been in the room with a naked man, or woman, and had certainly not disrobed before anyone's eyes since infancy. Embarrassment and a crushing lack of confidence in my scrawny boy's body overcame me. 

Frank's naked body was smooth, white and almost hairless. As he lay down lazily on the bed, a cigar in one hand and a glass of brandy in the other, he looked as handsome and as confident as if he were in his business clothes, conducting a client to his office. 

"Go ahead, Frank", he said cheerfully. 

Camille concurred. "Mais oui Monsieur Arthur, "shall I help you to disrobe?" I scrambled out of my clothes and she, perfectly naked; her immaculately dressed dark hair contrasting strangely with her naked body. 

I stared, entranced at her round, tip-tilted breasts, with the large brown nipples, and the thick black triangle of coarse hair at her groin. She folded my clothes neatly over a chair. 

As I vainly tried to hide my genitals, she sat me in an armchair and knelt before me as if about to take the sacrament. She gently removed my hands, and took my rising cock in hers. She caressed it gently and encouraged it to become fully erect.

Franked called over to me from the bed; "This is called la minette, Arthur, "it is one of life's great treasures, and Camille is an expert. Place yourself in her hands."

Not her hands alone. Her pointed tongue flicked out and delicately licked the head of my prick. Next she tongued all round the rim, concentrating a little on the area immediately before her face, where the sensations are the strongest. I gasped in such confusion that I hardly knew what to do with myself. I realised, as the old joke has it, that relations between the sexes in Loughborough were indeed in their infancy. 

Next she took the whole head of my cock in her mouth and sucked, gently upon it, hollowing her cheeks. Her eyes searched my face and she smiled reassuringly. 

"Relax and enjoy it Arthur," called Frank from the bed. I forced myself to relax. Under the unremitting stimulation of her lips and tongue my excitement grew apace.

Suddenly I began to have a horror that in my excitement I might spend in her mouth. What, I wondered would happen if I did something so gross? I imagined myself being thrown out of the house, naked into the streets, and Frank turning from me in disgust.  

Both of them detected my anxiety, and responded. Camille lifted her mouth from my prick and looked at me, concerned. Frank asked outright, 

What's the matter Arthur? You look as if you've seen a ghost!"

"I could only blurt it out. "I am frightened that I might spend in Camille's mouth." I replied, abashed.

To my surprise they both laughed out loud. "But of course you must", said Camille, smiling broadly. Arthur agreed. "My dear boy, that's the whole idea. Believe me, Camille would doubt her powers if you didn't."

I was reassured, and relaxed, allowing the sensations to sweep over me. Soon she was sucking deeply, and each time as her mouth rose of the head of my cock, her lips tightened over her teeth, stimulating me beyond endurance. 

I felt the spend rising up my cock and jetting into her mouth. She sucked on, and then, to my complete astonishment, took up a clean handkerchief, and snorting loudly, blew my spunk down through her nose into the handkerchief -- a trick that I have never seen or heard of since that day.

She got up and went to lie on the bed beside Frank, with her white thighs spread. " I looked for the first time in my life, straight into the secret parts of a woman. The purple-brown lips were wrinkled and slightly parted showing the moist pinkness between plump mounds of soft flesh, fringed with coarse, straight black hair that spread to the tops of her parted thighs. 

"Now Arthur," said Frank, "you can return the compliment. First of all, take a deep breath of her perfume."

I put my nose close to the opening and breathed deeply. I smelled an indescribably exciting aroma. Scented, moist flesh, with a salty, somewhat fishy tang and something I could not name, but which immediately started to stiffen my flaccid prick, so recently drained of its vital fluids. 

I parted the folds, and opened her cleft up, to reveal pink suffused with crimson. Unable to stop myself, I leaned in and ran my tongue all the way up the cleft, tasting the delicious tastes of oysters and anchovies, wine and raspberries which is the essential taste of woman. 

I afterwards learned that Camille, although scrupulously clean, would never use soap or perfume on her body, for fear of spoiling her unique flavour and scent. Neither, for the same reason, would she trim her pubic hair or the tufts under her armpits. 

I set to a feverish licking, sucking, tasting and probing with lips, tongue and teeth, until Camille stopped me. 

"Here", she said, touching the little pink bulb of her clitoris, set in its hood at the head of the entrance to her sex. "Here, suck on it. You need not be gentle with it."

"Lick it, suck it, nip it with your teeth, but best of all with your lips", said Frank. I did as he said, and Camille murmured encouragingly as I feasted on her flesh like some Mingrelian vampire from the penny dreadfuls. She started to pant, and her face was reddened when I looked up from my work. 

Just a moment more," she said breathlessly, "quick, with your finger, press my little button against the bone and rub hard..." 

After that, all was moaning and panting until, with a little shriek, she relaxed, leaving my hands and face wet. I felt as proud as if I had climbed a mountain. I did not even know that a woman could spend - yet I had made the miracle happen.

Later, after I had rested, I entered Camille at her suggestion and we fucked. Reader, if you find the frank Anglo-Saxon term offensive, forgive me, for I know no other that does justice to the most basic of all human acts. 

Lying with her hips on the edge of the bed and her knees drawn up, she waited until I was well started on a rhythm, then turned her head and beckoned Frank over. She took his long, white prick in her mouth and sucked him as I fucked her. 

The sight multiplied my pleasure a hundredfold, and as I watched I imagined enjoying those sensations myself. My rhythm quickened, my penetration deepened, and her body pushed down to meet mine in perfect synchronicity. 

At last I felt the aura as my climax began. Not ready to finish quite yet, I stopped. 

"What?" she asked hoarsely. 

"I didn't want to spend already. I want to wait and spend when Frank does. And you too Camille, if I am so fortunate." 

"Tu es tres gentil, Arthur," she said. Frank, ever the mentor, added his words of wisdom. 

"Arthur, if you feel the spend coming too soon, put your finger and thumb down at the base of your prick, and press hard on the tube with your fingertip. You can do that whilst still fucking. Don't want to disappoint a lady, do we?" 

I took his advice, after a moment the impulse to spill my seed receded and I was able to play my part in what proved to be a satisfying mutual climax. 

My conclusion then as now was that whilst the sensations of being minetted are extraordinary, the spending comes as a slight anticlimax, whereas the pleasure of the fuck builds to an intense, shattering and long lasting climax.

We relaxed back on to the bed together, for the moment replete. I found myself relaxed and happy beyond my expectations. I looked at Frank's cock; the first adult male cock I had ever seen. 

Of course as boys at school we got them out and compared lengths, girth, colour, shape and excitability is a boyish way, just as we competed to piss highest and furthest. 

These boyish investigations revealed that mine was neither the biggest nor the smallest, but a good average in size and thickness, remarkable only for the relative largeness and redness of the head. 

Now looking at Frank's prick I saw that it was long, not very thick, and white; heavily veined, with a long foreskin that bunched over the head. Camille saw me looking and said kindly,

"Monsieur Arthur, your prick is not as large as some you will see, nor as thick as others, but believe me, you will always have the means to please any woman you encounter."

To make our way back to Loughborough, Frank, who seemed to know everyone and everything, took us round to the yards behind the Railway Station on Campbell Street, and got us aboard a coal-train, and we rode home in style on the footplate. Timidly I broached the subject of money. He laughed. 

"I don't often pay for female companionship, but I can well afford it when the mood takes me. That was my present to you. I hope that one day, women unknown will bless Camille and me, without ever knowing our names."

I met Camille two more times before she finally left England for her native Paris. One of those occasions was so notable, and so startling, that I shall tell of it on another occasion.



Miss Mabel Ch. 05



Chapter five 

Playing at Kittens - part two. 

North London, September 1858.

Since she had disclosed that she had been spying in my room again, and my vengeance has been pronounced, I had been pressing Miss Mabel to spend a clandestine afternoon with me, but I could not think of a suitable ruse to enable her to escape the house.

The next day was Wednesday. Miss Mabel whispered to me that she had the answer. 

"Just leave it to me Mr. Cowell", she said grandly. "All you have to do is to offer to escort me. Think of some business you have to do in the vicinity."

Next morning at breakfast, she produced a little note from her old Sunday school teacher Miss Butler, inviting her to tea.

"Mama, I really should go and see her; perhaps on Saturday afternoon. Oh Emmy, do please come with me, Miss Butler would be so pleased to see you!" 

Miss Emily was in one of her frequent petulant moods this morning.

"You know I hate that stuffy old room, smelling of camphor and old lavender bags. Besides she will serve up an old dried-out seedcake and her weak-as-water china tea and talk religion. I should be bored rigid."

Mrs Bissell spoke up.

"Emily that is enough out of you. You are growing too pert by half. But really Mabel, I cannot allow you to go alone, and, as Emily declines to go with you..." 

"But mother, really I should go. The poor old dear loves my visits, and I haven't really thanked her for the lovely Minton comfit dish she sent for my birthday."

"Oh yes," Miss Emily interjected, "she always remembers YOUR birthday."

I was a little late on my cue, but not enough to notice. Before Miss Mabel could reply and send the two of them to cap-pulling, I interrupted.

"I should be pleased to escort Miss Bissell," I suggested. "I have business at Mr. Blanchard's, the bookseller on Aldwych. He should have the new edition of Baines' Manual of Banking in for me, and he always has something good in his second-hand presses." 

"Well, if it is not putting you out, that would be very obliging of you Mr Cowell."

So it was settled.

My next task was to find a house of accommodation were we could rent a room for a couple of afternoon hours. This proved to be simplicity itself. I considered my colleagues one by one, and decided which of them was most likely to have a use for such an accommodation, and might be prepared to divulge it to me.

I approached my first choice with a little circumlocution. But there was no need.

"You sly dog!" he guffawed, "So you've found your self a nice bit of home comforts. Good for you. How I wish I was a single man again."

The house he mentioned was in Embury Street, not far off the Aldwych, and on the way home I looked it over and made an approach. The fat, landlady chuckled, wobbling her three chins and her mighty bosom, and told me the price of a room with clean sheets was three shillings an hour, and if I didn't know an obliging young woman, she certainly did, or two if I liked. 

Later that evening I told Miss Mabel almost all of this -- merely omitting the final offer. 

On Saturday afternoon, Miss Mabel presented herself to me, looking a picture in her grey silk walking-out dress, merino jacket, grey stuff bonnet with violet silk lining that just caught the colour of her eyes, and one of the Nottingham lace shawls that I had bought for her and her sister. In her hand she clutched a reticule, ostensibly containing a small gift for Miss Butler.

"Do you think my old Sunday-school teacher would approve?" She asked, a mischievous look in her eye. 

She took my arm and we walked through the streets to the house at Embury Street. We presented ourselves at the door and a slatternly maid in a sacking apron showed us up to the front bedroom. I was nervous myself, and from the convulsive way she gripped my arm and the whitening of her face, it was clear that Miss Mabel was positively frightened. 

But she took possession of herself, and began to remove her bonnet and shawl, placing them on a chairback. Then, to my surprise, she lifted the skirts of her ankle-length dress, exposing her crinoline petticoat and proudly produced -- a cane with a pink ribbon tied in a bow around it. 

I was taken aback. "But Mabel, do we really need to use that horrid implement?"

"Arthur dear," she said earnestly, looking up into my eyes, "I know you are a gentle person, but you must believe me. I behaved very badly indeed, searching your room and finding your most cherished letter, and reading it. It was inexcusable. Especially as you had expressly forbidden me to go in there."

If you are to forgive me, and I can feel truly forgiven, I have to take my punishment. Do you think I like the pain of being beaten? No! I dread it, but I know it will put things right between us."

"Very well then," I answered, but this time you shall remove all your clothes."

She giggled, blushed, but began to comply. I took off my jacket, necktie and weskit and rolled up my sleeves. Ad an afterthought I sat on the bed and removed my boots and stockings. Then I watched, entranced, as Miss Mabel disrobed. 

First she unbuttoned her dress, turning her back to allow me to undo the difficult buttons down her back, then she drew the dress over her head. 

Beneath it she wore her stiff crinoline petticoat, and under that another, straight with a bodice to which were attached layers of white linen flounces with lace edging. 

That removed, she appeared in her whalebone stays, pantalettes and black cotton stocking gartered at the knees. The drawers were removed next, then the stockings. 

She turned her back to me, asking me mutely to untie the stay ribbons behind her back I complied, and the stays were peeled off in their turn. 

My excitement grew. Few indeed were the occasions I had ever seen a naked woman. Jessie and I had never had that chance, and my only previous experience of total nakedness was in Leicester with Camille, a mature woman, not a girl like Mabel. 

Beneath the corset lays one more garment, a white cotton shift, well above the knees, with most of her lovely bosom on display above, and most of her lovely legs below. The shift went over her head and at last she was naked. 

I saw with a slight shock that the tightness of her stays had impressed deep red marks in her flesh around the waist and across her back where the creases of her shift were driven into the flesh. I felt a deep, guilty excitement at the sight of these weals, mute testament as they were of woman's desire to please her man. 

"There, Arthur dearest," she demanded in triumph, "was that worth waiting for?"

"Mabel, you duck, you are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. You take my breath away." Her figure was slim but full-breasted, with a softly rounded belly below the lovely curve of her bosom, and the generous width of her hips below. 

The deeply cloven scut of gingery-brown frizzy hair I had glimpsed once before was now on open display, as she tried to hide nothing of herself from me.

Out of the reticule came the jar of cold cream, as she placed it on the table by the bedside. As I sat on the bed, she came and laid herself across my lap, her beautiful bottom high in the air and the cane laid on the bed beside me. 

We both knew well what came next, but before I reddened those creamy globes, I stroked and caressed them with all the affection of my nature. Then I raised my hand and brought it down smartly on her proudly curving buttocks with a loud smack. 

A dozen times or more my hand rose and fell, and I saw the white of her beautiful bottom blush pink. Turning then I stopped, excitement rising almost unbearably in me at the sight, the scent and the thrilling feeling of joy as this wonderful girl made this sacrifice for me. 

She rose to her feet, softly kissed me on the lips, and positioned herself across the bed. 

The slight parting of her thighs exposed the cleft and lips of her sex to me; a thin sprinkling of brown hair just visible. The temptation to kneel and kiss the wonders on display was overwhelming, but I knew there would be time enough for that later. 

Now there was a cleansing ritual to be gone through. I took up the cane. I knew by now that it was no use offering premature absolution, so I raised the cane high and, after a couple of sighting taps, brought it down hard across the centre of her buttocks. 

There was an audible swish, and a slapping sound, but less noisy then my hand had made. An angry livid line, turning, after a few seconds to a crimson streak, sprang up across the centres of her round buttocks. 

She squealed and made to get up, hands reaching around for comfort or protection, then, with a palpable effort, she recovered herself and lay back down on the bed, arms extended at the sides of her head. 

Another blow, a little lower, with the same result; then a third, high, just below the twin dimples of her spine and hipbones. 

The squeals became groans, and her bottom was now marked with three dark track-marks, surrounded by crimson borders. Tears were running down her cheeks by now, and I felt pity for her pain, and admiration for her fortitude.

"Only three more, Mabel dearest." I said quietly, and, somehow this quieted her. Three more blows of the cane, three more track-marks, one low, just under the curve of her buttocks, and then it was over. She relaxed visibly. Her face, though wet with tears, was serene.

"Thank you Arthur dearest", she said. "Now we can be friends again."

Miss Mabel picked herself up off the bed and presented herself to me for soothing. Her crimson bottom now had a tracery of purple lines, white edged, and I applied cold cream to these with the most delicate touch I could contrive. 

Round and round in small circles I spread the cold cream, rubbing it in to the ridges and furrows with finger ends, and then with the palm of my hand,

My fingers dipped involuntarily down along the cleft of her sex, and I felt again the slick wetness that told me that she was experiencing an excitement like to my own.

She rose to her feet, and I rose with her and clasped her to my breast. We kissed long and deeply, lips widely parted . It felt as if the spirits were being drawn out of our bodies, and mingling in our mouths. By the end of the kiss we were gasping for breath and suffused with joy.

"Mabel dearest," I said." It is time for me to be as naked with you as you are with me." 

She sat down on the bed and watched intently as I disrobed. Off came my shirt and undershirt, my stockings, trousers and undergarments, and I stood before her naked. I went to her and we lay side by side in the wide bed.

"Now my dear, I shall teach you how to play at kittens. Will it be uncomfortable for you to lie on your back whilst we play?"

"Oh no dearest! I feel so excited already. Now you must tell me exactly what to do."

"No telling necessary. You just do to me exactly as I do to you."

She lay back on her back, and looked at me with calm trust. I had promised that nothing I would do would harm her and it was clear that she did not need to hear it twice.

I started by sitting up and, lowering my face over hers, kissed her face feature by feature, the forehead, the eyebrows and eyes, the ears, dipping my tongue into each ear in turn and nibbling on each earlobe, then her sweet little nose, her chin, and finally her mouth, which I kissed long, deeply and tenderly. Then I lay back down at her side, and looked up at the ceiling.

She gave a little giggle of pleasure and sat up beside me. Feature by feature she repeated my every action. Kissing my eyes ears, nose and mouth as thoroughly as I kissed hers. Then, apparently satisfied, she lay back down with a luminous smile.

Next I kissed her neck, nibbling it all over, under the point of the jaw, and round to kiss beneath and into her ears. I used my tongue copiously, and took tiny bites with my teeth shielded by my lips. 

She rose as I lay down and, again, repeated my actions with principal and interest. She was laughing now, and I could see that her imagination was racing. 

Next, her armpits, with the magical scent of womankind in each tuft of hair, and a taste in my mouth compounded of salt, sweetness and, just faintly, a trace of lifebuoy soap. 

Next the hollows of her collar-bones drew my kisses, and my tongue traced the line of her breast-bone, and then one lovely, round breast after the other was kissed, suckled, licked and nibbled at length. 

As I sucked her pink nipples I reflected that this was the first time I had touched her breasts, as no opportunities had offered in our furtive, short meetings at her mother's house.

I lay down with a question buzzing in my mind. Would she follow my lead, or would she begin to shrink from the growing intimacy. 

She sat up and her lips and tongue found my armpits, and I saw with delight that there was no fear or pudeur in her. She then moved to my nipples, and, having never had them sucked before, I was amazed how sensitive they were, and what a thrill they gave me.

"Well, my dear, how do you like playing at kittens?" I asked. 

"I love it," she replied. I have never done anything so exciting in my life." "Not even being spanked," I asked mischievously.

"Oh Arthur, you're silly," she replied. "I wanted you to see me undressed, because I want you to like me as I like you. The spanking was to give you an opportunity to be naughty with me."

Not wholly convinced, but thrilled by the candour and openness of her reply, I rose to continue the game of kittens. Just one stop now before my final destination. I brushed my mouth over her smooth, white belly, my tongue tracing damp lines across the skin. Then I centred on the whirl of her navel and dipped my tongue into its concavity, wriggling my pointed tongue, and making her squeak. Lastly, I traced the line of her hip-bones, standing proud at either side of her flat, rounded belly.

I lay down and she replicated my actions, with the subtle additions of sucking at my navel, and brushing her face down into my tuft of hair. She lay down with a wicked smile, knowing full well by now what was to follow. 

I rose from the bed and stood over her, my cock fully roused. I saw her eyes fall to look at it as I moved around to the bottom of the bed and spread her unresisting thighs. 

I had five or ten minutes to make her a convert to minetting. Breathing in her unique perfume, I began by planting kisses all up and down her cleft, and all over the cloven tuft of hair above. 

She murmured, "Oh Mr. Cowell, really you shouldn't," but she said it to appease the jealous fairies, not to make me stop. 

From kissing to licking, and gradually to sucking, as my excitement grew, and I could hear from her murmurs that she too was intoxicated by the moment. My stiff tongue probed the opening to her sex, and I tasted that strange combination of fish, fruit and wine that I loved more and more at each experience. 

Then up to the flower-bud, her little man in the boat, and I teased it, nibbling and pinching and gently pulling with my lips. 

Then finally, as Camille had taught me so well, I added the tip of my finger to my mouth, and, whilst my tongue licked the honey from her sex, my finger massaged the bud until she was throwing her head from side to side, gasping and panting. 

At last, with a great gusty sigh, she relaxed languorously on the bed, and placed her hand over her cleft, a signal for me to stop.

I lay back down, still licking her flavours from my lips, and breathing in her scents from my wet face. We lay side by side, lost in reverie for a minute or two. Then she sat up. The grin on her face told me everything. 

Step by step she retraced my movements round to the foot of the bed, then her face buried itself in my ball-sack and she breathed in the scent of my sex. 

Concentrating on my balls, she licked, sucked, and finally took one ball into her mouth and sucked on it, and repeated the action on the other. The sensation was tickly and pleasing, but the pleasure dwelt more in the idea of her doing this lubricious thing, than in the physical sensation. 

Not so when she ran her tongue all the way up the shaft of my prick, circled it around and under the crest, the licked at the slit at the crown. Now I was being carried away on a tide of sensation so great that I was frightened of being overwhelmed by it. 

"Mabel!" I croaked warningly. 

"I am not stopping until you have spent your seed!" she declared firmly. "I want you to have as much pleasure as you gave me."

She did not have long to wait. As she sucked gently on my prick, lips and tongue caressing the crest of my knob, I felt the tension build and the spasms begin deep in my buttocks. 

With a grunt, I spurted got after gout of spend, careless of where it went. She sucked on, deeper and harder, and I looked down to see a column of pearly-white ropy seed trickle slowly down her chin. 

She gulped, and said with wonder in her voice. "There now, I have done it. And, just think Arthur. some little part of you will become a part of me. You have fed me on your seed." It might have been a religious ritual she had partaken of, not an act of sensual gratification. 

We lay for a half-hour, drowsy ands replete, before dressing, and taking our leave. Before we left, we each made use of the chamber-pot under the bed. 

She squatted daintily on it and her piss tinkled down into the pot She blushed a little, but seemed not much embarrassed, perhaps because she shared a bed with her sister. When it came to my turn she watched, delighted, laughed and clapped her hands. 

"I have seen men turn into the bushes, and up alleys to do it, Arthur, but never seen it come out before. How clever! Next time may I hold it and direct the stream?" 

Yes, you can even sign your name with it for all of me," I replied jovially.

As we walked home she said, reflecting. "Well now I know how to play kittens, Arthur, and I hope we play it again and again. But why is it called playing at kittens?"

"I don't know, dear." I replied.

"Well, it is a pretty name for a lovely game."



Miss Mabel Ch. 06



My gratitude to Creativetalent for her help and advice.

Miss Mabel - a story in six parts.

Part 6. The consequences of a letter.

After two months at my lodgings at Boscastle Street, the front sitting room had been tacitly recognised as my province, at least in the evenings and weekends. I could write letters and check accounts at the bureau-bookcase, which also held my few books and folders of press-cuttings. I could sit at my ease in the armchair with the newspaper, ever alert for the news from France, the Low Countries, Austria-Hungary, Prussia and Saxony which could affect the bank's business.

As a favoured and privileged paying guest, I did not despair of having a fire in the fireplace once winter had set in. By now Emily knew of our affairs and would not spoil sport, so Mabel, seeing that we were unlikely to be disturbed there, was growing ever bolder, although we were ever alert for a warning footstep outside.

On Saturday morning, I was in a buoyant mood and started singing to myself the popular minstrel song:

I am going to Californ-i-ay, my true love for to seeI am going to Californ-i-ay, my banjo on my knee.Oh Susannah, don't you cry for me,For I'm going to Californ-i-ay with my banjo on my knee.

Miss Mabel heard me singing, rather loudly I confess, with the door, as usual, ajar. She slipped into the room.

"Oh Arthur, I don't like that song", she said. "Was poor Susannah like me, do you suppose? "When you went to Loughborough to see your sweetheart I cried all weekend, although there was nothing between us then. How much worse it would be for me now."

"Come, my dearest, it's only a song". I replied feebly.

"When you marry Jessie, I shall be all alone. Perhaps you could make me your mistress, and keep me in a little apartment in Regents Park. Oh but you're not rich enough for that, are you?"

It was not like Miss Mabel to let her fears out so openly, and I did not know what to say. I tried to change the subject.

"Mabel dearest, we must let the future take care of itself. Besides, long before I could afford to support a wife, Mr Harker, or one of your other old flirts will ask you to marry".

"Willie Harker! That dry old stick! I should far rather stay single. If he wants anything from me, he wants my share of this house. At least you want my kisses and cuddles."

In her volatile way, she immediately dropped her melancholy, and we fell, to planning our next visit to the house at Embury Street.

We had made three more visits to the house of assignation since our first game of kittens. Only once had Miss Mabel brought the cane -- after she had flared up in a temper and slapped my face on finding me reading a letter from my sweetheart Jessie.

She then went into a paroxysm of remorse, and wept on my shoulder, blaming herself for being a jealous, mean-minded cat.

So it did not surprise me that she appointed her own punishment. On the two later occasions, we spent the hours naked, and brought ourselves to a pitch of pleasure that grew greater as our knowledge of each other's bodies grew.

I could feel, all the same, that Miss Mabel's curiosity about the act of love was growing, and that it could not be put off much longer.

This worried me, and for good reason. Firstly, I was concerned that her chance of making a good marriage would be compromised if she gave up her maidenhead.

Secondly, I was concerned that, with all precautions, and the regrettable but necessary employment of Captain Condom's clever prophylactics, she might fall for a child.

I had never tried a condom, but my friends told me that even with the use of cold cream or macassar oil, the sheep-gut of which they were made, chafed the tender skin of the penis, and they were difficult to put on and take off.

One reason above all made me willing to make the attempt and hang the consequences. This was that as Jessie became more distant in time, and Mabel closer and closer, my affections were shifting.

I was becoming steadily more attracted to my Miss Mabel; responding to her attractiveness, her courage and resilience, her irrepressible sense of humour, her loving nature, and, I confess, the deep vein of voluptuousness that I was helping to uncover in her.

She began to seem to me the perfect combination of wife and mistress that men dream of and so seldom find. She was becoming bolder and less fearful of the consequences, almost as if she wanted to provoke a confrontation with her mother and her aunt.

Her recent trick was to come into the front parlour when I was working, open my trousers, and, gamahuche me, licking and sucking my cock, although seldom to a conclusion. When I remonstrated with her about the risks she was taking, she would put on her most innocent look and say,

"But Arthur dearest, don't you like it? I know I do," and I would not have the strength of will to resist her.

In October we planned our next assignation, and Miss Mabel carried it through with aplomb, arranging a visit to a new dressmaker he had discovered off the Aldwych. Miss Emily was in on the plot, seeming to gain a pleasure of her own in deceiving her mother and aunt, and she said that she had arranged for an old schoolfellow to come to the house that afternoon, but that she would visit the dressmaker next time if she proved suitable.

Of course I had business in the neighbourhood and offered to escort her.

On that Saturday morning a letter arrived for me from Loughborough. It was from Jessie and Miss Mabel collected it from Ellen as it arrived. She gave it to me, tragedy writ large on her countenance. Don't worry Arthur," she said. "I am not going to make a fuss", and she left the room saying no more.

I looked at the letter with slight surprise. Jessie's letters had been getting fewer and shorter of late, and rather more like chatty accounts of the doings of her neighbours and friends than the passionate outpourings of love I had received in the first month or so; the ones that Mabel and Emily had read.

This one laid out the matter clearly:

Loughborough, October 1858.

My Dear Arthur,

You may already have an inkling of what I am going to say. No doubt your friends will have told you that I have been seeing something of Henry Spencer. The long and short of it is that he has asked me to be his wife, and I have consented. We hope to marry in the spring.

I am very sorry if this comes as a shock to you. I have the greatest affection and respect for you, and I cherish the memory of all we have been to each other and all you have taught me. However, your circumstances are such that we could not marry for several years, and I am not prepared to wait and wish my life away.

Finally, I must beg you to destroy the letters I have sent you, as I have destroyed those you have sent me. Whatever anger and hurt you are feeling, I cannot believe that you would be so malicious as to use them against me.

Forgive me, and believe that I remain

Your affectionate friend,

Jessica Stacey.

Strangely, I felt no anger, disappointment or humiliation at this rejection. My one thought was that now Mabel could be mine, and I could be hers. Jessie, I found I could brush out of my thoughts as if she had never existed.

My strongest feeling was that I could not tell Mabel about this letter until we were completely private that afternoon. Meanwhile, she would have to suffer and there was nothing I could do to comfort her without the risk of giving our assignation away.

That afternoon at about three, Miss Mabel presented herself to me in her walking-out dress, forcing a smile to her face. We walked down the steps and into the street in silence, and it was not until we were well away from the house that she spoke.

"Arthur dearest, please forgive me for being such an old misery. I try so hard to be good, but I get so jealous. Perhaps you had better give me a good spanking."

I could not resist teasing her, knowing it would only make the news more joyful when I broke it to her.

"Perhaps we should not go to the house, if it is going to distress you so."

"Oh no Arthur, please don't say that. You know I live for these afternoons. I could not bear to have them snatched away from me."

We said little until we got to the house at Embury Street and got to our room, as we felt it to be. At last I could explain.

"Mabel my love, there is no need at all to be jealous. See here, Jessie has released me from our understanding. I am now free to love you and you are free to love me".

Her face lit up with joy. She took the letter and read. A frown crossed her face.

"What a horrid letter. She's nothing but a cold, unfeeling jilt. She cannot have really cared a fig for you, to write so."

"Never mind about her, dearest, let's talk about us."

"Never mind talking about us, let's do something about us." She began to disrobe as fast as she could, fumbling at her buttons and catches. I was as excited as she was, and soon we were naked in each other's arms.

She lay spreadeagled on the bed, and as I sat by her side, she turned her head towards me and her mouth immediately found my rising prick. I trailed my hand down her flat belly, through the thicket of gingery frizzy hair and my fingers began to tickle her already damp quim.

She spread her thighs wider and lifted her pelvis up, plainly waiting for me to take up the soissant-neuf position that gave us so much pleasure. At the moment, anyway, that was not my intention.

"Well Miss Mabel, I said in a jocular tone, "Is this a good time for us to try something new?"

"Do you mean putting it right inside me, Arthur dearest?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I mean. Now that we are free to be each other's love, perhaps we could risk it."

"Well Arthur, your darling fingers and tongue make me very happy, but I am dying to try your prick in my little quimmie. I still can't quite believe that it will go in there at all."

"Darling, if a baby can come out of there, the biggest cock in the world could go in. But, I should warn you that it may hurt a little the first time."

Mabel laughed a lovely peal of delighted laughter. "Arthur dearest, did I mind when you beat my poor bottom black and blue? As if a little pain could frighten me now".

We lay side by side, facing each other. Our mutual caresses had made us ready. I turned Mabel on her back and prepared to mount her. She, as anxious to participate as I, spread her thighs wide and tilted up her hips to accommodate me. I aimed my prick at the entrance to her cave, and pressed it forward.

She lay quite steady and helped me as much as she could. I pushed harder and she pushed too, but I could not gain an entry.

I had enjoyed quite a dozen girls in this way in Hinckley and Loughborough, and spent two memorable nights with Camille in Leicester, but, up until this point, I had never tried to penetrate a virgin. It was more difficult than I had dreamt.

What is more, the discomfort was drying up all her natural juices, making penetration even harder.

"What's the matter Arthur?" Mabel asked worriedly, "Why won't it go in? Is there something wrong with me?"

"Don't worry darling", I replied. "We shall just have to try again, but first I shall give your lovely quimmie a good lick to make it wet again."

"Oh, yes Arthur dear, and shall I suck your darling prick again and make it all stiff?" was her good-natured response.

Three more times we tried, and three times failed, and by then Mabel was getting very sore, and so was I. It was discouraging beyond anything.

"Isn't there something else we can try?" she asked. "We can't give up just yet. We don't know how long it will be before we can come back here again."

We could try a different position", I replied. If I lie on my back, perhaps you could sit on top."

"Yes, let's do that." she replied. As he knelt above me, lifting up her hips for me to place my prick in position, she asked curiously, "is this a usual way to make love Arthur?"

"Yes, dear, it is quite usual. It even has a name; it goes by the name of "Riding Saint George."

Mabel thought for a moment and her little frown of concentration broke, as did her composure. She threw back her head and began to roar with laughter, her lovely breasts wobbling like blanc-mangers as she whooped and hiccupped, tears running down her cheeks.

As she laughed and writhed with mirth, the miracle happened and with a sudden spasm of her lovely face, she sat down firmly on my prick and engulfed it. She flopped down onto my chest and lay there, my cock all the way in and our tufts of hair mingling.

"We've done it". She crowed triumphantly. But, oh Arthur what a silly name."

"Why silly, dearest? I think it a very good name."

Arthur, you're the one that's silly. Can't you see that it's the dragon (that's you Arthur) who has the lance, and poor St George (that's me) who has got impaled?"

The absurdity of it hit me for the first time, and I began to laugh as heartily as she. We lay there, giggling and guffawing by turns, tears streaming from our eyes, until we recollected ourselves.

I turned her over on her side, and turned with her, still inside her. We began to move together, and were soon overcome by the sweetness of the sensations we were feeling. We began to rock, slowly in rhythm, my prick deep in her womb.

We smiled into each other's eyes, deeply satisfied and moved by what must be humanity's most common achievement. I moved my face towards Mabel's parted lips and kissed her deeply, but could not hold the kiss long as, unconsciously we had begun to move quicker and we were starting to pant.

Mabel, characteristically, was giggling and, catching my eye, she grinned broadly.

"Well Arthur dear, we have done it. You are as deep inside me as you could get, and doesn't it feels lovely?"

Our mutual rhythm quickened, and we were thrusting strongly as our excitement grew and grew. Suddenly Mabel's face, which had grown pinker and pinker as we proceeded, showed a spasm and an expression almost of pain as her climax hit her.

I thrust even deeper, feeling my own climax growing, and, as I pulled back for an even deeper thrust, my prick was pushed completely out by a violent spasm that contracted her womb.

We both fell back onto our backs and watched bemused as my prick jetted rope after rope of white, jelly-like spend onto her belly and hip. My prick was smeared with a little pinkish blood, and, seeing it Mabel cried out in alarm,

"Oh Arthur dearest, did I hurt you?"

I hastened to reassure her. "No darling, it isn't my blood, it is yours."

"Oh, that's all right then," she said gaily. She reached out for my prick, and began caressing it gently. I wondered aloud if we should, do something about the stained and wet sheets, but Mabel, with a woman's practicality, said not to worry, the landlady must be accustomed to stained bed linen, and the most we should do was to leave thruppence for the maid.

I took my handkerchief and wiped her damp thighs and quim, and she took it and did the same for me. If I expected tears and lamentations for her lost maidenhead, I sadly misjudged my Mabel. I slipped a finger into her newly opened quim, and caressed the inside as I had not been able to do previously, Mabel lay back and spread her thighs to accommodate me.

"Does it hurt?" I asked.

"Yes, " she replied, "it is a little sore. Perhaps you could use your tongue for a little while instead of your finger."

Delighted at her readiness for more play, I did not need a second invitation, and moments later we were stretched out soissante-neuf , the head of my prick tucked in her mouth and her tongue caressing it, as my tongue found her most sensitive spot.

I glanced at the clock on the bedside table and saw that we still had another hour. One of the most momentous events of our lives had passed by in a scant half-hour.

***

Fearful of wearying the imagined reader, I shall leave my younger self, full of love and happy lust, with the girl, and woman of my heart. It remains to say is that we carried on our clandestine affair for another year, no longer concealing our affection for each other, but, little by little attaining the unofficial status of an engaged couple.

How long this situation might have gone on, I don't know, since my income was small, and it was deeply imprudent for us to marry for some years, but, after a year or so, circumstances came to our rescue.

My benefactor Alderman Biggs, who had sponsored me to Grammar School and gave me the education that enabled me to rise to the status of bank clerk, gave me one last gift -- a generous legacy of one hundred guineas on his much-lamented death.

This enabled me to make a loan of £100 to the brilliant but impoverished young chemist William Perkin, whom I met by the most happy chance.

Encountering him in the bank at Holborn, I ascertained that he had just returned from Leicester, where he had tried, in vain, to interest the knitting masters in the new artificial dyestuff he had made in his laboratory in the east end of London. He was severely short of working capital and had applied, in vain, to the bank for a loan.

With a boldness that, even now leaves me breathless, I forthwith offered him a loan of one hundred pounds, reserving just five pounds for myself for emergencies.

We kept in touch periodically, and I was heartened by his growing success. He assured me that he regarded my loan as in the nature of an investment, and promised me a substantial return in the course of time.

At this critical moment in my affairs, I was unexpectedly visited at work by my old friend, who told me, somewhat diffidently, that he and his brothers wished to buy out the three or four small investments in his dyestuffs business of which mine was one.  

Suddenly, years before I ever dreamed possible, I had the money to take a long lease on a small house off the Holloway Road, and Mabel and I could marry.

Six years later, after the sad death of their beloved mother, her younger sister Emily came to join us in our household, a beloved maiden aunt to our growing family.

With marriage, the cane did not vanish from our lives, although Mabel and I agree that loving and loved children do not need to be ruled by the fear of punishment.

But, from time to time, even today when three of the children have left home, my lovely wife, now grown matronly and a little grey, appears in my study with a "Miss Mabel" look on her face, and something held behind her back.

This signals an early night, and soon we are back in the Embury street of our imagination, with punishment for Mabel's trivial (I sometimes think imaginary) sins followed a night of all our old sensual pleasures. We learned to be lovers before we became man and wife, and we are lovers still.

THE END