hunger for romance proved to be my undoing when I allowed myself to be wooed by this deviant aristocrat with wild black hair and a slight limp. His chest and shoulders were broad and strong, his head held high as was his ego. I noticed the wide dimple in his chin deepened when he set his mouth in a grim line. Lord James Carlton was as handsome as a prince of the realm and he knew it. He exuded charm, though I would later discover this show of assuredness and sybaritic demeanor concealed a different side of him that when challenged erupted into a dark, decaying soul.
I knew none of this when I accepted his hasty proposal of marriage. Trying to hide my surprise as well as my girlish pleasure, I fancied myself in love with him and could not admit that what I felt was mere infatuation. What did I know about love? Nothing. What I didn’t know I concocted into stories, romantic tales too often centering around an idealized heroine created out of an alchemist’s bottle.
And now this display of bare skin and beautiful breasts and round buttocks askew before my eyes, what God himself had designed to covet the devil’s lust, made my mouth drop. How can I explain to you the emotions racing through me? I was a young girl, barely nineteen, and though I rarely admitted it, I was rather naive about the ways of the world save for what enticing books I’d read in this house, their salacious descriptions never matching the rise of anticipation playing out before me. I couldn’t take my eyes off the girl’s buttocks. Red streaks crisscrossing her cheeks. Long, straight marks. A wild craving hungered deep within me, something I never expected, as if my dark alter ego was enjoying the pleasurable lashing. I never dreamed so innocent an item could induce such a look of pleasure on a young woman’s face. Eyes closed, plum lips parted, jaw slackened, head back, glorious red hair tossed to and fro over her pale nude shoulders, her expression could only be described as saintly, as if the blows from the crop erased her sins from her soul and she floated toward the heavens in a state of spiritual ecstasy.
Hail Mary, full of grace…
I envied the freedom she possessed to accept the shadow of her other side, something I dared not do. Though I prided myself on my independence and my modern view of a woman’s place in society I was, through no accomplishment of my own, Lady Carlton, wife of Lord James Carlton, his lordship born to Braystone House, a fifteenth-century limestone goliath situated somewhere in the Midlands and unknown to me.
As was this side of my husband.
A mischievous giggle escaped my lips. Who ever dreamed his lordship fancied a taste of the whip for his pleasure?
Settling in, I’d had little time to accustom myself to his persona since I was a stranger to this new reality, but this display of flesh and depravity took my breath away and evoked a different feeling within me. A feeling that both puzzled and delighted me. Sniffing the sweet, odorous scent between my legs off my fingers, I smiled and accepted it as a sign of my readiness to abandon my virginity for pleasures promised. I pulled the thin wrapper closer around me and in doing so, awakened a family of dustballs from their slumber. I couldn’t deny my ego was as fragile as the ball of dust I crushed beneath my bare foot. It was obvious my husband took no interest in the fact that his bride yearned for his embrace and had performed a succulent toilette for his benefit. Hours ago I had wiggled into a cocoon of peach silk and fancy ribbons, insisting the maid loosen the lacings on my night corset, then peeled down my white stockings and attempted to do the same with the constrictions of my staid upbringing. I was determined to enjoy this night, asking him to “Touch me here, milord, and there. Yes, I like it. Do it again.”
I was at this moment without words. Dry lips parched, I could only stare at the scene being played out in the dimly lit room in the five-story house in London’s Mayfair district near Berkeley Square. Flanked on either side by equally elegant facades, I had been impressed by the crest of arms upon the gate piers nearly obscured from view by the rich foliage surrounding the mansion. No doubt so was the ribald behavior of its occupants.
Cramped, I continued to watch my new husband wield a riding crop with a dexterity that not only slapped the pink rump of the willing girl with inviting sounds, but clearly indicated his familiarity with both the pretty subject and the leather instrument. Calculated, solid blows. Each perfectly aligned and making the girl cry out. Breathy whimpers at first, then rising sounds both shrill and anxious, accompanied by the fast, constant cracking of what I perceived to be a very ordinary-looking riding crop.
Ordinary? I shook my head. Nothing here was ordinary, I protested inwardly, knowing far more than skin and flesh was revealed here. I saw a man who craved power, who must conquer, dominate. Such a man intrigued me, but I was too innocent to see the treachery inside him that would eject me from my ordinary world and into a place where temple bells sounded to announce the changing of the winds, monks uttered incantations to keep demons away and the echo of a man’s voice reverberating in a hidden valley urged me homeward. As you can see, I find it difficult to pull myself away from what has become so familiar to me in Japan, but I must because it is important you understand the unique happenings on this night that sent me upon that journey. Curious thoughts pricking at my mind. Odd murmurings nudging me not to turn away, but watch, listen. Sigh.
I couldn’t look away.
Strange stirrings awakened deep within me, the same sensual, wiggly feelings I’d experienced only when I rode through the woods on my mare, my pubic mound pounding hard into her flanks. I didn’t resist the stream of pleasure overtaking me. I imagined should anyone gaze upon my shocked face, they’d see me wide-eyed and incredulous, then a slight smile, my lower lip quivering, turning into a look of amazement then awe that such a thing could make me wet.
Very wet. Yes, I detected a stickiness between my legs similar to what I’d noticed on more than one occasion when I was near Lord Carlton. James, he insisted I call him. When we first met, my mother doted on him when she discovered his father was a duke, then shooed him away when he revealed he was a second son. It wasn’t until his lordship made his business connections known to her that she convinced my da he was a proper match and our marriage banns announced. I had no idea then the marriage would set the course for a great adventure that tugged at the transparency of my youth and made me realize the life I led was as fruitless as rich, fertile earth without a plow to penetrate her, nurture her.
But at that moment, hiding in a closet like a rag doll teetering on a shelf, I could think only of what my new husband was doing to the redhead and how much she enjoyed it.
’Tis not a sight for a girl of your station, I could hear my mother saying. Look away, Katie, before the devil himself claims your soul.
But he already had. And what games he played in what I perceived to be a spanking room by the looks of the nefarious items I saw tossed about on the floor, strewn on the table, thrown across padded chairs. Wooden paddles, thorny evergreen brushes, a cat-o’-nine-tails, leather straps and restraints, manacles attached to wooden beams, a black hood, a high-back wing chair, even birch canes standing in a china vase filled with water to keep them pliant and green. I had read about such items, but I had never been privy to seeing them.
I perceived here a woman desirous of a spanking, whipping, birching, scourging or prickly brushing could get her bellyful. The thought was scandalous to me. My eyes, wide with curiosity, stared and stared. I tried to swallow, but my struggle against what I was seeing and what thoughts it provoked in me tightened my throat muscles, nearly choking me. The idea of my new husband as master of such items altered my perception of married life and changed it from a light romantic flight of fancy and awkward physical coupling to a sensual, highly erotic, naughty union of flesh.
Would he lay the crop upon my bare backside?
No, he wouldn’t dare take such a liberty. I was his bride, not a woman of the streets or a spritely maid with a taste for domination, a pawn in the game known as the English vice.
Flagellation.
Was this what the two maids chirped about whenever I hovered near this room, this den of decadence? Dressed in shiny black polished cotton and white lace collars, cuffs and caps, the younger miss, Lucie, and Campbell, her older counterpart, made no secret of their