Chapter One

 

 

"Oh Gerald, I do try so hard..."

"It isn't hard enough, my dear. The house is a disgrace..."

It wasn't really. In fact it was all but perfect. Evelyn worked hard in it all day to please her husband Gerald when he came back from the office. He was an up and coming young executive in a communications company and had already been ear-marked for big things. The faults were minor. Dinner was three minutes late being served; Daniel, his manservant hadn't laid out the right clothes for dinner; the furniture was not just so in the drawing room... Such small things, but in Gerald's eyes, important things.

Women must strive for perfection and his woman particularly. He aimed for nothing but the best and in his mind it was essential she did as well.

"You aren't going to punish me again, are you, Gerald...?"

Her husband smiled thinly. "Of course, my dear. You must learn that I expect this house to be perfect at all times."

She crumpled a little, staring down the long table in their beautiful dining room at him in fear and shame. "But please, not in front of the servants."

His smile broadened. "Of course in front of the servants, Evelyn. How are we to expect them to lift their game if they don't see you punished?"

The logic of this fatuous statement completely escaped the young executive's lovely wife but she didn't say anything more. He was obviously going to punish her in that so demeaning way and there was nothing she could do about it ...

 

By the latter part of the Twenty-first Century, society had come full circle. Women were once again virtually the property of their males. As girls they were controlled by their fathers and in adulthood, by their husbands or brothers and, in the absence of either of these, by their nearest male relative or employer. Women could own no property; they had lost the right to hold public office and even to vote. They were not acceptable as office-bearers in anything except strictly women's clubs and even these were monitored. Indeed it was illegal for women to even meet together in groups of four or more without a male chaperone.

The swing back to male domination had begun after the excesses of the women's liberation movement in the early years of the Century and had culminated in the Control of Women Act of 2065. Under that act males were held responsible for their women and were expected to control them at all times. They were required to punish them for misdemeanours and to hand them over to the state for more severe correction in cases of serious offence.

Public scaffolds were set up under the Act in all larger localities and a male could take his women down there to be publicly disciplined if he felt it might help her demeanour. Gerald hadn't got to that stage yet but he was determined that Evelyn was going to be an exemplary wife and later on, the mother of his children.

It wasn't that he didn't love her. He did, very much. Who could not love Evelyn? She was quite lovely. She was just the right height at 1.7 metres and her body was that of an athlete. Her father held the conviction that his daughters should be exercised hard and from a very early age he had had them attend a gymnasium three times a week with the admonition to their trainer to 'work them very hard'. She had been quite an athletics star at her school as a result.

But her body aside, she was really beautiful. She was fair with golden hair that was so fine it wafted in the slightest breeze. Her skin was true peaches and cream and her eyes the brightest sky-blue. Her breasts were not too big but were perfectly formed while her waist was very slender and her belly flat. Her hips were generous and her thighs and calves reflected the hard work her husband demanded of her. For he, at her father's suggestion, had continued on with her gymnastics sessions.

"Ring the bell, Evelyn. We may as well inform Daniel and Emily..."

She hated these sessions. The pain aside, they were so humiliating. And with Gerald insisting that the servants not only be present but take part in her punishment, they were doubly so. It wasn't that she held any notions of superiority over them. Far from it. In fact perhaps this was part of her fault in Gerald's eyes. She was perhaps just a trifle too friendly towards them. There was a fine line to be drawn between affability and domestic discipline and she erred towards the former.

"Yes, Madam," said Daniel as he approached her chair.

He was tall at just under two metres and possessed a magnificent physique. He was very good-looking. He was also black, his ancestors having emigrated from Jamaica in the middle years of the Twentieth Century. He was young at twenty-three but with his wife, Emily, kept house and cooked for the Hargraves'. And they did it very well, despite Gerald's carping.

"I am to be punished, Daniel. You will see to the arrangements, please..."

"Yes, Madam."

The handsome young black didn't bat an eyelid. In fact he had suspected for a few days that this was coming. It wasn't an every day occurrence but Gerald ordered it often enough that he and Emily were almost used to it. He felt sorry for his mistress in one way but of course it was the master's right to punish his wife. Hell, he put Emily across his knee often enough when she sassed him. Actually, he delighted in spanking her small but so cheeky buttocks and in stripping her beforehand for the punishment. He also thought she enjoyed it more than she let on as well. But he knew Evelyn Hargraves hated it. He also knew she tried her hardest to be what Gerald wanted of her. She was just so friendly and effervescent and the master was such a stickler for the smallest detail. Hell, he and Emily worked hard to keep the house and garden in tip-top shape but when an accident occurred in the kitchen and the dinner was delayed a few minutes, it really was beyond their control.

He moved over to her side and she stood up, her lovely face pale as she thought of the coming ordeal. She didn't look at Gerald. She knew very well he would be a picture of urbanity: serene, untroubled, the slightest of smiles on his handsome face.

Daniel took her by her upper arm and led her out of the dining room. He didn't need to. She knew very well where they were going and she wasn't about to resist, but it was part of the ritual and to Gerald, ritual was an essential part of life. There was a place for everything and everything should be in its place. This applied as much to manners as to things and when Evelyn stepped across the line, no matter how small the error, punishment was as inevitable as night and day.

They went up to the master bedroom and there Daniel undressed her. She wasn't allowed to do it herself. It was demeaning to be undressed by a male servant and this was what Gerald required. Daniel took off each item of clothing and then handed it to her. She had to fold it and put it away herself-a role reversal that underlined her present status.

They didn't speak to each other. Daniel wanted to console her but knew better. Gerald was a good employer but young as he was, he demanded a proper respect for domestic etiquette and for Daniel to have sympathised with his mistress in her present predicament would have been a gross breach of trust. As for Evelyn, well she was close to tears already. Even one word might well have tipped her over the edge and to have appeared before Gerald red-eyed would have been another black mark.

Daniel tried his hardest not to show an interest in the emerging body of his mistress but it was very hard. His own wife had a near-perfect body. She was slightly more muscular even than Evelyn, who had been an athletics star and still went to the gym three times a week. Emily worked her own body even harder since her husband delighted in muscular women and her efforts had certainly paid off.

But Evelyn Hargraves' body was something else. Her skin was so velvet-smooth and her shape just about perfect. But still, naked or not, he was still a servant and he was expected to show a proper decorum towards his mistress. When she was quite nude he went over to the chest of drawers in his master's dressing room. Evelyn watched him with the distress she felt clearly evident in her eyes. She stood up, perfectly naked, aware that the young servant desired her and even lusted after her. She knew he wouldn't touch her improperly but it was still so horrible to have to be undressed by him and then wait while he went for the awful dress which Gerald kept in his own closet.

He came back with it and held it out to her silently. She stared at it in utter distaste for a second or two but then reached out and took it from him. She shook it out and then put it over her head, letting it fall down over her naked breasts, belly and thighs.

She uttered a single sob as she saw herself in the mirror-as well she might. The sight was utterly bizarre. The 'dress' was made of hessian, a coarse cloth made from jute and used to make sacks, among other things. It was extremely rough and scratchy on her skin and it made her itch horribly. But it wasn't only the material of the garment that so shamed her. It was its cut. First, it was designed so her breasts were virtually totally exposed. The bodice had been deliberately made too low to cover them properly. Second, it was too short, coming only to the tops of her thighs and so as she moved, her bottom and her loins were open to view. But third, this was exacerbated by the slits that had been cut into it at front and back. The dress was fairly tight at the hemline and so every time she moved, it spread apart and the cleft between her buttocks and her sexual organs were exposed to view.