The Gentleman's Confession Ch. 02

Originally published in "The Discerning Gentleman's Weekly"

Volume IX, number 18

Issue dated March 25th 1896

It has been some days since last I took up my pen to add to this sad and sorry narrative of shame. I could not bring myself to resume the thread, but after days of drink and despair I knew that I must return to my notebook, locked in the drawer of my study, and unveil the rest of my downfall. I have started the tale; only a coward would refuse to complete it.

You can imagine, I suppose, the guilt I felt as I returned home to my wife on the evening I had crawled to kiss the boot of a girl who was young enough to be my daughter. A beautiful, enchanting girl... A Lady. How I had become her pet, her boy. And then returned home, to see and speak to the woman I had loved for so many years. I could barely bring myself to speak to her at all that evening; the shame was a feeling akin to having been kicked in the midriff. Annabel knew that I was out of sorts, of course, but could do nothing to lighten my mood. Even to look upon her was a reminder of how I had betrayed her.

And the very worst of it was that I knew, even then, that I would betray her again the following day. All the next morning and all through the day of working at the bank, the feeling gnawed at me like a hunger.

I could not at all concentrate on my work that day. I saw the ledgers and the account books pass across my desk, and I daresay that I signed any number of bills and contracts, but had you asked me that day what I had looked at even five minutes beforehand, I would not have been able to tell you. My mind was full of Her -- of the white flesh of her thighs, of the glimpse, the merest glimpse, I thought I had had up her skirt... Oh, the shame, the shame! I thought of the boot, how I had kissed it, the look in her eyes...

Eventually, mid-way through the afternoon, when I had tortured myself for hours with my problem, I snapped. I banged my hand hard on my solid oak desk, and called through to the vestibule for my secretary, Simmons.

"Simmons!" I shouted, at the top of my lungs. "Simmons, get in here now, man!"

Simmons was a young and nervous fellow, an ink-spattered weedling of a man whom I had been rather forced to employ as he was distantly related to one of the members of the bank's board. The thin, sandy-haired youth immediately scampered through from his side office, wiping his inky hands on the tail of his coat.

"Sir?" he asked, once he had scuttled to the front of my desk.

"Simmons, I want you to go out to the Telegraph Office on the corner of the road and have a message sent home to my wife. You know the address, I believe."

"Yes sir, of course!"

He fished into his pocket for a notebook, and pulled a small, stubby pencil from its resting place behind his ear.

"What message, sir?" he asked, licking his lips eagerly, looking like some novice newspaperman waiting outside the courtroom of a particularly salacious murder trial.

"Simply tell her that I am liable to be late home tonight. Very late. I am detained by work, and she is not to wait up for me. That is all, Simmons."

He was confused. Even one as obtuse as he was perhaps not quite so easily fooled.

"Busy, sir?"

I glared at the insolent youth.

"Yes Simmons, busy!"

That perfect, feminine leg danced across my mind again, as my reserve cracked like a broken windowpane.

"The... erm... The Hartley account... It... It needs more work," I added, rather pathetically. What use was it? It was an excuse, plain and simple. Well, even if Simmons knew that, Annabel was never likely to discover the truth.

"The Hartley account sir? But isn't Mr Ericsson...?"

"Do as I say man!"

I slammed my palm down on the table once more, and a look of panic crossed the boy's face as he practically ran from the room.

"Yes sir! Sorry sir! At once sir!"

He was so contemptible, that fellow. But a thought struck me as he scurried away -- had I really been any different last night, in the eyes of that Lady? When I had crawled to her and worshipped at her feet? Had I been any more respectable than Simmons with his weak-willed, simpering ways?

I would end it tonight. I decided, then and there. I would go to the house and I would tell her that I had been foolish, that I was sorry for inconveniencing her, and that I would not be partaking in any activities with her again. I would put my foot down. I would take charge of the situation.

Yes. Yes, that was what I would do.

There was considerably less fog that night, although the weather was still decidedly inclement, as rain had replaced the cloudy wisps that the night before had clogged the streets like fatty tissues in the chambers of an old man's heart. I was almost soaked even walking the short way down from the bank to the end of the street where the taxis were to be found, but I made no effort to shield myself from it.

I deserved it.

I did work considerably later than anybody else that day. I remained in the office until half past seven, into the darkness and well past the time that even the most junior and overworked of the clerks had gone home to their wives. I found myself thinking of such things increasingly through the afternoon and into the evening. Remembering how once I had found nothing more thrilling or exciting than Annabel's sweet nature and witty conversation. How I had hurried home to her, as a young married man, when I had been one of those junior clerks.

I could not taste that excitement any longer. I could not bring it to my mind. When I thought of excitements of the human mind, all that I could see was the Young Lady. And her eyes, and her leg, and her boot. The thoughts made me, as I had been frequently that day, as hard as iron inside my breeches.

I know. I know how base a thing to write about that is, but I must share my shame. I must bare all.

I was perhaps a minute or two early for the scheduled appointment in Maple Street. I had made sure that there was nobody I knew in the street as I hurried from the taxi to the front door of number twenty-two -- I had no desire for the Colonel to catch me in the street where he lived. After all, I had still not explained to him why I had not appeared for cards the night before -- what would he think of me visiting some other house a few doors down from his?

It occurred to me then, as I waited, damp from the rain, on Her doorstep that the Colonel might perhaps know something about this young and utterly beguiling female. It was certainly something to consider. But if he did know about her, might he read something into why I was enquiring?

It was all so confusing.

I had stood there for a while before I checked my watch. It was a minute past eight already. I had been so involved in my sorry thoughts that I had not heard the church bells and the clocktowers striking the hour. Fool. She would be displeased at me for being late now.

No, no -- it did not matter whether she was pleased or displeased. I attempted to convince myself of this, but as you can imagine, reader, without any success. I knew, in my heart, that all her mattered to me was her pleasure. That was why she was so dangerous. Why she had such a curious hold over my entire being.

I put my hand to the door to sound the knocker and announce my presence, but as soon as I touched the heavy brass implement, the door swung back slightly. It was already open and unlocked. Clearly, she was expecting me.

I was so predictable. I had come crawling back to her, just as she had imagined. Well, if I was to do this, better to get it over and done with now. I took a deep, steeling breath, and pushed the door fully open, stepping inside.

The hallway within was in almost complete darkness -- the gas lamps mounted on the walls were lit, but at their lowest possible flow, so they guttered like dying candles. It leant the passageway an air of foreboding, a warning that I suppose I might have done well to heed.

But I could not turn tail and flee then. Because standing there, in the shadows at the very end of the hallway, past the stairs, was the Young Lady.

"I knew you would come," she said. Her tone was neutral, giving nothing at all away. "Good boy."

Good boy... Oh why did I swell with such pride at the compliment?

"My Lady..."

What was I going to say? Perhaps I was going to protest, to explain that I could not stay, but as she stepped forward into the dim light of the hallway the words died in my throat. She looked... magnificent. She wore tight white breeches, so perfectly moulded to the skin of her shapely legs that it was as if she were a statue of herself carved in the purest alabaster. She wore boots again, of a dark, rich, oak-like heavy brown leather this time, with high heels at the back, boots which had a most peculiar effect upon me... She wore a black jacket, with a white blouse of some sort beneath, and a man's cravat of the deepest red at her throat. As she took her arms from behind her back and folded her hands in front of her, I saw that she wore tightly-fitted grey gloves, of what appeared to be the softest kidskin. Her hair flowed free as it had the night before, and those eyes fixed me in their glare like a hare in the sights of a poacher's rifle.

"You look beautiful," I said. For it was the truth. The only truth.

She bestowed upon me a smile then, a full and genuine one that showed the happiness of a girl pleased to have been paid a compliment.

"Thank you boy," she said. Then the smile was gone, and look of command that came so oddly naturally to this Young Lady's face returned.

"Now on your knees for me, pet," she ordered gently.

I stepped forward, one hand raised in protest. It was here that I was going to take my stand. I had come this far, but would go no further. I would be a Man. I would stand up for myself, I would be faithful to my wife, I would be a good and decent and morally upstanding person and I would end the corruption of my being and my mortal soul here, at this juncture.

"Now look here..." I said.

A glance of such steel and domination gripped me from her eyes then that once again my sentence was stopped before it had ever really gotten started.

"My boy protests?" she asked.

"I... That is to say... Well..." My firmness had become desperation. Utter, complete, desperation and pleading. "I cannot... My Lady, please... I am a married man. A respectable man in a respectable profession... I cannot do this. I cannot. It is... it is against everything I have devoted my life to!"

"My silly little boy is attempting to tell me that he only came back here this evening to tell me that he cannot come back here this evening?"

She was smirking at me. Smirking! This Lady, this child, was looking upon me as a governess might look upon a small boy who has said something particularly stupid.

"I... I mean... Yes, my Lady," I finished, weakly. I cast my eyes to the floor. What had happened to my reserve? My steel? My conviction? Why did it vanish so when I was in her presence?

"No, my pet," she said softly, shaking her head. "If you truly desired to be free of me, you would simply not have come. You would never have visited here again, you would have simply ignored me. You may have tried to convince yourself that you were coming here to tell me you wished no further part in this, but really you came because you desire to know what is to happen to you next. What is to be done to you. Mmmmmmmmm, and I cannot wait to show you, my dear little boy!"

She giggled at that. Giggled with the look of a woman who has plots and plans afoot. I wanted to know what they were. I knew that I should turn and go, but she had me hooked upon her line as the fisherman hooks a trout.

"I have to go..." I whispered, feeling tears of frustration welling in my eyes.

"Go then," she shrugged, smiling. "Go back to your wife and your happy home, and go with my blessing, pet. Turn around, walk out of that door and close it behind you. But of course that means you can never come here again. Never see me. You will never, ever know what might have happened to you if you had stayed. What might have transpired tonight. If you walk out and close that door behind you, you are walking away from me forever. If you close it now, from this side, and stay within with me, well... Then who can say what might become of you?"

I had a choice then, reader. A very firm and definite choice. This was the moment at which I was to make my decision, the decision as to what kind of a man I was. Or whether I was really a man at all, or simply a boy. Her boy.

"Please..." I begged, a tear trickling down my cheek.

She laughed to see me.

"So broken so soon!" she exclaimed. "You are a weak little pet... I could have such fun with you..."

She was so young as she said that! Like a girl with a new toy, a doll's house perhaps. Her coquettishness was overpowering to me. I shook my head.

"I... I..."

"Your choice," she whispered, fixing me with another of her most intoxicating stares.

I hung my head in shame. I turned. I grasped the edge of the door.

And I swung it shut, blocking out the wind and the rain. Blocking out the world completely. There was only that house. That hallway. Me. And Her.

"Good boy," she said approvingly.

"Who... Who owns this house?" I asked miserably, suddenly concerned for my reputation. "Who else is present? Who knows that I am here? I ask not for myself, my Lady, I promise, but my wife, my children, the reputation of --"

"Shut up."

It was cool and commanding and clinical, and it cut through my words completely. I was silent.

"You are wet," she observed. "You're dripping all over my lovely carpet and making it quite damp. This will never do. I shall be terribly upset if my nice new pet ruins my lovely carpets. Kindly remove your clothes. All of them."

"My Lady?"

"All of them. Now."

I gaped, like a fish. I had never, ever been naked in the presence of a Lady before. Perhaps once or twice with Annabel when we had first been married and had been flush with the excitement of youth, but always then in total darkness. I had known the feel and contours of her body completely, as she had known mine, but never would we have dared to undertake such behaviour with the lamps lit, even in private, even in an empty house.

"My Lady, I have never... That is to say, I mean... Well it is hardly proper, for a Gentleman such as I to be... to be... in front of a Young Lady such as yourself..."

"I see no gentleman here," she said dismissively. "Only a silly little boy who will learn soon enough not to question the commands of his Lady. I desire you to be naked, boy, and what I desire I am used to receiving. Now, kindly remove your clothes this instant. You will only make it worse for yourself if you do not."

The look in her eyes told me that she was entirely serious. I knew not what dread consequences she might inflict upon me if I did not obey. I did know, however, that I had accepted submission to her commands by the closing of the door. That had been a sign, a sure sign, as binding as a signature on a legal ledger. I was hers now. Bought and sold.

I said nothing. I removed my hat, and placed it on the top of a cabinet just inside the hallway. My cape I shrugged off and hung upon the coat rack, which graced the opposite wall.

She nodded approvingly.

"Keep going pet," she encouraged. I felt as if I were performing for her. I felt embarrassed, ashamed, ridiculous even. But the feeling between my legs betrayed the fact that I also felt excitement. Perhaps a greater excitement than ever I had known before. Those young eyes, watching my every move intently! To shame myself in front of such a girl as her!

My boots were next. I cast them aside carelessly, with no mind for the proper place or order of things. Then my waistcoat, similarly cast to the ground, and the shirt followed it, and finally the undershirt. My hands trembled as I pulled the soft material over my head, and once free of it could see her staring most curiously at the pale skin thus revealed.

"Very nice, pet," she said admiringly. "I can see that I have chosen well. But keep going, my sweet. I know that you have so much more to show me."

She was smirking again, because she knew of course what was to come. So did I. I was able to meet her eyes for a moment or two, before I swallowed and began to unbuckle the belt about my breeches. It was quite the task, as my hands were shaking, shaking so hard that a bystander, had there been one -- perish the thought! -- might have thought me afflicted with a palsy.

"Having trouble, boy?" she said, giggling once more with girlish delight.

"I'm sorry, my Lady," I mumbled.

Why was I doing this? Why? My heart was beating nineteen to the dozen, my mouth was dry, there was a sticky sweet taste upon my tongue and suddenly my breeches were lowered, and out of them I stepped.

Only my long-johns remained to protect my modesty. The bulge within them was shamefully obvious, and my cheeks coloured scarlet almost instantly. Was it so hot in there all of a sudden? Worst of all though, oh the worst humiliation imaginable, was the spot of dampness that marked the leakage of my excitement, soaked through the material of the underwear.

"You see boy? I knew that you never wanted to leave me!" she exclaimed in delight. "Now come along, my pet -- show your Lady everything that she owns. Show her what you have for her."

Oh God!

I think I whimpered at that point. Certainly I was long past capable of making any identifiable speech. I hooked my thumbs beneath the band of the long-johns and slowly, head bent to avoid her eager gaze, I pulled them down, over my feet, and allowed them to drop to the floor.

"Stand up straight. Hands behind your back. Look at me."

Slowly, slowly, I did as she ordered. My hands were clasped behind me. I was looking at her as she gazed up and down my body. My... my member stood proud and erect in front of me, and there was nothing that I could do about it. Nothing at all. The fact that she looked upon it with such a lascivious gaze made it so.

What was I doing? What was I doing here being forced into nakedness by a woman little older than a schoolgirl? What had become of me to reduce me to this?

"Lovely, pet," she said. "Now turn around for me, in a circle. Let me see all that you have to offer, boy."

"Please..." I finally managed to beg again.

"Do not plead with me, pet. It is so very pathetic. You will speak when I bid you to speak, just as you will do whatever I bid you to do. And I have commanded you to turn right around in a circle for me. Slowly. Let me examine you."

Slowly, miserably, but oh-so-excitedly, I shuffled my feet around to move for her in the manner that she had commanded, displaying every inch of my naked flesh for her inspection. When I was turned around so that my backside was upon display, she giggled at me again.

"Oh yes, that one will do," she said. "That one will do very nicely. We shall have some fun with that, my boy."

She did not explain any further what she meant by this remark, and I continued to turn as bidden. Eventually, after what seemed to me to have been an eternity, I was facing her again. I was still hard, oh-so-painfully so, and so very aware of it. Again, she giggled at me.

"Now, onto your hands and knees. Quickly please."

She sounded for all the world like the clever girl in a schoolroom doing an impression of the schoolmistress for the delight of her fellow pupils. Using airs and mannerisms more assumed than naturally occurring, and yet when she took them on they seemed to fit her as well and as snugly as the kidskin gloves she wore.

So I did as I was told. I sank first to my knees, then adopted the familiar posture from the previous evening's exercises, and went forward onto my hands as well. After resting there a moment, considering my situation and my shame as I stared down at the thick, red carpet, I looked up at her expectantly. Desiring instruction, domination, correction.