“Oh!” she gasped, choked by furious chagrin and hurt pride. “You… you… low creature! And to think I wasted my good time with you, listening to your pretty speeches about how much you loved me and how beautiful I was in your eyes! I’ll never give you another date so long as I live, Gregory Matthews, not if you were the last man on earth!”
“So now you’ve come down a bit in your threats to me. First, I thought I was going to the penitentiary for abducting you; if I were in prison, I could hardly keep a rendezvous with you. Explain the change of heart-aren’t you going to prosecute me?”
His bantering tone maddened and yet struck sinister, subtle apprehension into her shallow heart.
“Well,” she replied, trying to cajole him with a forced smile, “after all, you haven’t, really harmed me and I can forget this joke, on the condition that henceforth we’re just acquaintances, nothing more-”
“Were we ever, anything else? Some of my friends go out with girls of. your own set and even if the girls are teases like you, my pals at least get a kiss or two. out of it. But you haven’t even given me that moderate satisfaction, my dear and I’ve spent a young fortune on your vintages and viands at the various chic night spots around town.”
“Well, Greg… a girl… has to have time to learn to like a man,” she murmured and cast him a provocative, artificial glance from between lowering, fluttering lashes.
“Save that little trick for your customers, Marcia; I’m sure they’ll appreciate it, but I’m heartily sick of all these games of yours and mean to show you just how much,” he retorted.
The coquettish mien was replaced with a pallor and nervous apprehension, for the beautiful debutante began to realize vaguely that her abductor was carrying this beyond the stages of a joke. So, trying to turn the conversation to a less dangerous subject, she said, averting her eyes as if in modesty, “Won’t you please, Greg, put some clothes on? I… I… I’m not used to talking to a naked man.”
“Few of your kind are, as a rule, Marcia,” he said and then, rising and releasing her ankle, he returned to Marie, who promptly slipped her lovely rounded arm about his waist and flashed amorous, humid eyes of desire upon his virile body.
“Greg, This game has gone far enough-all right, I’m frightened. I want to go home and I’m sorry if I’ve offended you. There! Is that enough? And… and I’ll even apologize to Marie for being short with her!” exclaimed Marcia, her eyes nervously searching his face to learn whether at last a smile of forgiveness would dawn upon it and announce her freedom.
But no smile passed upon his sensual lips; for these compressed and his eyes coldly swept her voluptuous, gowned body as she stood, fettered and trembling.
Then he remarked, “For you, that is an enormous concession. Just fancy, Marie-she’ll even apologize to you, darling. She doesn’t know the meaning of the word and so her apology would be another insult, nothing else.”
“I beg you, Greg, let me go. My wrists hurt from this rope,” said Marcia earnestly, trying to give her voice an inflection of crestfallen humility.
“And make Marie lose your potential bedroom drawing appeal? Not on your life, my dear Marcia. And I am tired, too, of your whining and your too obvious maneuvers to regain your former spell over me-that’s ended. You shall become my wife after I take you out of here, but not a wife of love or desire. I shall marry you because I need a slave to look after my needs. This is no joke and you are going to learn, it. Now, Marie, I think I have talked enough and-what she does not understand from my words now, she will learn the hard way-and I do mean hard!”
And he burst into uproarious laughter, to which Marie joined her delicious silvery girlish laughter.
It chilled Marcia’s vain heart and for the first time in her life she was desperately afraid.
For she had never encountered a man whose will was stronger than her own, whose ambition and aspirations were so masterfully cumulated and combined into a vigorous plan of action; nor, for that matter, had she ever been opposed by anyone among her set or family circle.
Then Gregory turned to Marie, while Marcia still sought to regain her composure and remarked, “Do you approve of your new girl’s attire for the business of the house?”
Marie pursed her red, soft lips, stared thoughtfully at Marcia’s body and after a moment replied, “Mmm… n-no… not entirely, Greg, darling. She needs higher heels, for one thing and she doesn’t show. enough of her breasts and hips in what she’s got on.”
“Do you prefer her naked, perhaps?” asked Gregory, totally ignoring the aghast face of Marcia, who simply could not bring herself to believe her own ears; “No, darling; that must come later, when Marcia’s ready for beddie-bye” said the pretty blond with an alluring smile. “But I mean that that gown of hers is too formal, even if it does wrap around her big hips so hard as to make them seem the flanks of a Percheron!”
“Oh! Marie! How dare you talk about me like that!” cried Marcia, white with fear and humiliation.
“Your Percheron neighs, it would appear… the whip would give her something to neigh about,” said Gregory.
“Darling, wouldn’t it be more fun to watch her through the peephole in the next room while her first lover takes care of her?” suggested Marie. “And he could use the whip if she didn’t give!”
“A capital suggestion, honey! Then you just want to doll her up a bit, eh?”
“It will be easier, yes, now that she’s tied up, darling,” replied the golden-haired maid, whose face revealed delight at the prospect of rendering her mistress this intimate service-which she had fulfilled in the past, although in a far different light than now! “All right. I’m at your service, Marie. Tell me what to do!” said Gregory.
“First, hold her ankles again, honey,” said Marie.
Marcia, thus warned, began to kick out desperately, her face a mask of terror at the imminent reprisal threatened.
But Gregory evaded her successfully and soon, stooping, had her ankles once again in his iron grasp and thrilled to feel those chiseled limbs writhe and flex with violent agitation beneath the soft, fragile silk which kissed his fingers so involuntarily. Indeed, it was the first kiss he had received from Marcia in their relationship.
Marie then approached, a charming and insouciant portrait of delicious feminine nudity and amorous thralldom, her white body so adorably rounded, her bosom heaving with expectant pleasure. And, placing her right hand on the V-cut of the velvet gown, she tore the expensive, lush fabric down… down… down… till it had reached the split of the thighs and the rent garment parted, hanging loosely on the patrician debutante’s pinioned, erect body.
“Oh! You hussy-my best party dress! That’ll come out of your wages, you little fool!” raged Marcia.
Standing close to her mistress as she was, it was a simple matter for the blond beauty to calmly slap Marcia’s petulant mouth.
“Ohh! How dare you!”
“Do you love humiliation so much, then, Marcia?” asked Marie innocently, gazing deep into the widened brown eyes of her beautiful mistress, now her captive-her hireling in this brothel of wealthy desire!
Marcia, overcome by rage and futile desolation, sensing that her haughty ego was being gradually rent of its aloof and pretentious veneer before the eyes of the one man who had persistently pursued her, was white with frustrated anger and tears brimmed her lovely brown eyes… ah, but these were not the divine pearls of love’s ecstasy which brimmed her orbs, but rather of humiliation and chagrin-therefore insincere, false pearls of a pretended emotion! So narrow, so bigoted of soul was she that she thought more of her torn gown than of Marie’s justification for treating her in this way; she had thought she could walk through life presenting her demands and now she found that life had its own bill to present her with and the payment would be costly and dire to her vaunted snobbish psyche.
“I see you are silent. That is better, to begin with,” said Marie, “and as for my wages, you are going to earn enough for me this week to enable me to take a long vacation from your employ. Besides, Gregory wouldn’t let me starve.”
“He’s welcome to you and then some,” flared Marcia.
Crack!
Again Marie’s tingling little palm flashed across the debutante’s creamy cheek, staining it with a harsh and carnal splotch.
And again, Marcia was overwhelmed to think that her maid, her despised maid, a domestic from the lower ranks of life, should not only talk to her in a deprecating tone but actually use physical force upon her! It was inconceivable-why, the revolution might be said to be starting.
There would be a revolution-and it,would bring its changes! “The half-gloves we’ll keep on,” decided Marie, returning to her pensive contemplation of the trembling debutante, who made an enchanting study in shame and terror, cringing against the wall, her arms outstretched, the svelte enticement of her body visible through the rent velvet, provocative in her lingerie.
Marcia wore a magnificent pair of orange silk and lace panties, secured snugly over her sleek hips by means of a narrow,band of black satin embroidered with tiny pearls, which fastened at the back with hooks and eyelets made of mother-of-pearl; the band formed the circular rim of the topmost portion of the intimate garment; the coquettish legs of the panties descended just to the middle of her ivory thighs, being exquisitely festooned with lace. Her flesh-hued gossamer stockings clambered almost to the hem of these dainty leglets, the tops being free and extended to their ultimate length and the stockings were secured in place without mar or fold by means of adorable rosettes, also of that same rich orange hue.
To complete the tonal ensemble of her undergarments, the debutante’s pear-shaped breasts were tautly encased within the cupping clasp of an orange silk brassiere, with a very deep cut, so that no remnant of its molding might be visible through the gap of the bodice of her gown.
“Not too bad,” said Marie diffidently, her mouth curving into a delightfully kissable moue of half disapproval, “but since you are a brunette with a very white skin, black is your shade and will be more alluring to your prospective lovers.”
“I tell you, Marie, I shan’t let you shame me so! I’ve never had a lover and I’ll not yield to any of your dirty-minded friends, no, nor Greg’s!” exclaimed Marcia.
“Then you admit you are a virgin, Marcia?” asked Marie coolly.
And she had the satisfaction of witnessing a scarlet blush mantle the haughty face of her mistress.
Marcia, recovering her discomfiture at that intimate remark, which showed a total lack of concern for her status as the maid’s mistress, replied, after a slight hesitation, “That’s none of your affair… I said I’ve never had a lover.”
“Perhaps you used a candle, then?” piquantly remarked Marie, with a tinkling laugh, to which Gregory added his hearty chuckle of approving merriment at the embarrassment which flooded Marcia’s being.
“Oh! What a horrible mind you have, Marie! And to think I considered you a nice gentle girl when you were my maid!” gasped Marcia.