Mrs Grainger's Gift 26

By Ritchie Moore

(I'll forward it to the author)

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This work is intended for ADULTS ONLY. It may contain depictions of sexual activity involving minors. If you are not of a legal age in your locality to view such material or if such material does not appeal to you, do not read further, and do not save this story.
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MRS GRAINGER’S GIFT

XXVI

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Tuesday 4th August

Matthew’s final check; Andrew turns up as invited. Two frigs and more in the wood. At night, a visitor to the bed.

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Matthew was getting accustomed to wearing little below the waist, but as long as the necessities were covered he felt all right. After breakfast however he was surprisingly told to have himself anointed and get it over with, and Jennie was instructed to do the honours. “Out there in the sun,” said Mrs Grainger, “and then you can sunbathe for a while!” Catherine looked at him wryly, and he could but shrug.

Out on the grass he looked at Jennie with a scowl, and she was grinning as she got the ointment on her hands. “All right!” she cried, “open up your legs and we’ll get on with it!” Amelia stood by to admire the process, but Catherine had to stay away. She was glad her regimen was over, and hoped the doctor would tell Matthew the same that afternoon.

At lunch he was sitting on his towel and reassuring Mrs Grainger that his bottom felt fine, it had never been itchy or anything. “Well,” she said, “I can’t imagine what it is, Dr Fauré is puzzled about it. Still, he gave Catherine a clean bill yesterday, so maybe today you’ll be declared recovered. First though you’re examined. As before, you’ll have the towel. That old shirt you’ve got on will not do, of course. So again you can look for a short shimmy, you must have something. Away you go. Modestine will be waiting for you shortly.”

He was just about to shake the donkey’s reins when Amelia appeared with some carrots and another shirt.

“What’s that?” he asked in dismay.

She laughed and replied “Oh, Matthew! Mrs G just knew you’d pick something with a long tail, so she’s got this one instead. Take that off and put on this.” He groaned but yanked off his cover and took the other.

He pulled it down and saw it only reached his waist. “Hey, Amelia,” he said, “for God’s sake, this won’t do! It doesn’t—”

“I’m afraid Mrs G wants that, Matthew,” she said smirking and taking the other shirt, “so good luck!” She smacked the donkey on her rump to start her on her way, and Modestine, after a glance of dislike, began to plod along the well-travelled road. Matthew had to sit there in anxiety, wondering how things would turn out.

He sat there on his towel in a short shirt that only came down to his waist, his buttocks bare and his balls open on display. He quite enjoyed the freedom, actually, and had to admit to himself that he could understand the nudist organisations who talked about the healthy sensations of being naked in the open air. If everyone were naked, in fact, it wouldn’t be so bad, and actually living in such a community would desensitise people, if that was the correct word, and negate the feelings of shame. Which he still had of course. Remembering the dinner talk, he wondered if that was how it had been with the Spartans…. He considered for a fleeting moment taking the towel and wearing it then and there, as he knew he would have to sooner or later – wouldn’t he? – but dismissed the idea, for the nonce anyway, and slid away into a daydream that was only broken by a voice that hailed him to ask for a ride.

Modestine stopped amiably and Matthew looked up to see a girl of his own age who repeated her request. He goggled at her in confusion and tried to splutter an answer, and she took his reaction for agreement and climbed up beside him. Desperately he covered his groin and tried to get the towel, but she was sitting on one end of it and he didn’t dare make a fuss. He thought of pushing his penis between his thighs but that would draw her attention to his condition. She meanwhile seemed quite unperturbed by the sight of his bare thighs, and introduced herself as Stephanie Desmarais, fifteen, going to the village to call on a friend. Matthew couldn’t answer, being beside himself with shame. His hands were in his crotch, and his thighs were bare, and his bum was bare, beside this girl, who (for some reason) was looking ahead at the road instead of at him.

Her nearness made him tremble – her leg was touching his, and her hands were alarmingly close to his body. All this made his penis insist on swelling behind his hands, and realising his arousal added to his tumescence, making his member stand, as well as it could, still hidden by his hands. He had to get the towel, but didn’t want to call her attention to his state, while she seemed to be ignoring it politely. But they were getting near the village, and he couldn’t go through the streets like this! She was talking to him, making ordinary conversation in an extraordinary situation, and he was trying to respond, telling her his name, where he was living, and so on. Then he saw another girl on the road, who turned and hailed them. This was a friend of Stephanie, evidently, called Monique, and he was asked to stop and help her up. He had to give her a hand to do this, taking it off his penis, and with thudding heart he hauled her up beside him, only to find to his anguish that she wanted to share the towel, so squeezed him off. He shifted, he rose, and found himself standing holding the reins at his crotch as they settled themselves comfortably two feet behind him to gossip. His backside was bare to them and his penis jutting out in front, though they couldn’t see it too well. They could however see his ballocks quite easily between his parted legs. He was frozen and couldn’t think of what to do. And then they began to talk about him and his nakedness. “You’ve a fine arse, Mathieu! But why are you naked?”

He explained in a halting mixture of French and English why he was in that state, and they hooted with laughter, telling him they knew Dr Fauré and his daughter, and they weren’t surprised.

“Hey,” said Monique, “let’s go along!”

“Yes,” said Stephanie, “why not! Mathieu, we’re coming too!”

He shivered and clutched the reins, then remembered his situation. “Listen girls, Stephanie, Monique,” said the boy pleadingly, “I’m naked! Je suis nu! I can’t go into town like this! Please let me have that towel you’re sitting on! Look, we’re nearly there! Oh God!” He quailed as Modestine picked up her pace to pass a crowd of schoolgirls, who looked at the sight and shrieked in laughter.

“But you make a magnificent picture, Mathieu,” said Monique, “your cul is fine –” she smoothed her hand over his firm bum, “and your couilles are great!” Thrusting her hand between his legs, she caught his testicles in her warm hand, and Matthew squealed. Shifting her seat to be able to look at him sideways, and his erection, she continued, “And your queue there, what do you say, your prick! Yes, it is so stiff and handsome!” She put her hand out to grasp it, and her companion helped by applying herself to his backside, fondling his buttocks and inevitably finding his anus to tickle and enter. Modestine took them down the road, passing another group of girls as the bawdy pair excited him to spend, his semen shooting forth onto the rump of the donkey, who brayed in surprise as the girls guffawed and the others in the street broke into astonished laughter.

They milked him dry, then took pity and girded him with the towel. “Now you are decent,” said Stephanie. “Now we can go to the doctor.”

He parked the cart fairly close this time and gave the carrots to Modestine, then walked very carefully, minding his towel, along the street, ignoring the girls, who walked behind him, admiring the way his backside moved under the cloth. They came to the door and he opened it in some dread, knowing only too well that more embarrassment awaited him.

In the waiting room he found Fauré looking at his watch, who said in a distracted way “Good day! Let’s look at your perineum. Sit here,” indicating the couch along one wall. “And who are you?” he asked of the girls, who introduced themselves and admitted, with a blush, that they had come to see the boy. “All right,” he said with something of a grin, “Mme Grainger, his employer – the English lady across the valley – she thinks girls should know about boys.” Matthew moaned, he’d suspected as much. So there was no chance Fauré would stop the girls looking at him and touching him! “Right,” said the doctor. “Take off the towel. Raise your legs, yes, like that. Show us your anus and perineum.” Matthew noticed the “us” in the order, and wearily exposed himself again. Fauré peered at the boy as the door opened to admit another group of excited girls, who saw the scene with delight. There was the naked boy showing his private parts to the doctor, and two other girls rapt in attention. They were in good time, it seemed – the entertainment had only started. Matthew shut his eyes with a sob.

“Hello, girls,” said Fauré with a smile, greeting familiar and unfamiliar faces. “Today will probably be the last treatment for Mathieu’s problem. Let me examine him. Mathieu, hold your legs –, heavens, you girls, take a leg each and hold them up to reveal the anus. Yes, very good! Now everything is better. And you, Héloise, if you please, hold up his testicles away from the perineum so we can see it plainly. Yes, very good.”

Matthew was panting in arousal by this time, and as Héloise took his scrotum in her cool hand he shuddered in shame, she meanwhile looking him in the eyes with open amusement, moving her fingers over the skin and feeling the testicles within. The other girls looked on with lascivious fascination, and Fauré peered at Matthew’s seam and pursed his lips. “See,” he indicated to the girls next him, “there is no more infection to be seen! Yes, my boy, you are clean. I don’t know whether you passed it on to your colleague Catherine while copulating, or she gave it to you, that’s immaterial. It’s clean now.”

Geneviève spoke up: “That means we won’t be applying the medicine again, papa?”

He frowned and then smiled. “No, no medical cream.” Matthew gasped in relief. “But perhaps a soothing one, as we did with his colleague. Try the balsam we have next door.”

Matthew flinched. “Doctor,” he quavered, “I’m fine. Let me go, I’m all right—”

“It’s good, Mathieu, this will just make you feel better. I’ll be sending the bill to Mme Grainger shortly – this balsam is extra, no charge! Yes, gratis, for being such an agreeable patient. Ah, Geneviève, you have the balsam. Very good. I leave you to apply it. Good day, boy. I hope we meet again under better circumstances! And give my salutations to Mme Grainger.”

He nodded and left, ignoring the appeal in Matthew’s eyes, while his daughter opened a large jar of aromatic cream and looked around at her friends. “I don’t know that it’ll be very comfortable here,” she said, “for us or for the boy! Let’s go outside, as you suggested last time, Héloise.”

“Yes,” said Nicole, “and those other girls, Madeleine and her friends, they’ll want to see too!” Matthew swallowed and began to mouth protests as the girls released his legs and Héloise reluctantly let go of his testicles. He was pulled to his feet and escorted out to the back green, where he squirmed to see Madeleine, Marie and Gabrielle again, looking expectant and breaking into smiles as they saw the naked boy and his giggling entourage. Matthew saw with anguish that another group of girls was coming to join the bawdy crew, evidently told about the show by Madeleine or another , and he cringed before the crowd, unable to cover himself, as Genevieve showed them the jar and announced that they could all take part in an anointing ceremony. On his perineum. What? His bottom, his arse, his balls, of course! They laughed coarsely and made approving remarks, while the naked boy bit his lip and shut his eyes, and hoped for a quick orgasm and a quick release.

“Mme Grainger! This is Dr Fauré. Your Matthew is here and I have examined him. I am pleased to say the infection of his anus is gone. I believe now it was caused by insect bites and not an actual dermatological problem, you know? I will be sending you the bill for the treatment of both servants shortly.”

“Very well, doctor. He’s still there, is he?”

“Yes, madame, he’s out on the back lawn right now being attended to by my daughter—”

“Ah yes! And her friend, maybe?”

“Well, madame, I hope it is acceptable, but recalling our conversation, you did say girls should know about boys—”

“Yes, yes, I did. So your daughter is tending to him, in what way?”

“Ahem!” He looked out the window at the scene, counting the crowd. Nineteen! His eyebrows rose. “…. Well, she and her friends—”

“Friends? Yes, I did say that—”

“In truth, madame, quite a few of her friends, nearly twenty in fact, have come along because of their interest in the treatment, namely the application of a healing ointment, as you know, to the anus and the perineum, and the testicles as well actually, in this case, and they have been helping in the process, each in fact taking her own turn at putting on the ointment.”

Lydia laughed delightedly. “That’s fine, doctor. I’m glad the girls are getting something out of it.”

“Yes, madame. I may say that both your servants have been delightful for my children and their friends, and they will be missed!”

“It’s a pity in a way, then, that they’ve been cured so quickly! But, doctor, it occurs to me….”

“Yes, madame?”

“I see no reason why they can’t come over there again, however healthy they are. Listen! Do you have facilities for a therapeutic bath?”

Out on the lawn the naked boy stood, surrounded by nineteen girls aged eleven to sixteen, his hands behind his head, a girl at his loins with busy fingers, applying the aromatic balsam to his cringing flesh. She was the fifth girl to do this pleasant task, and as she slithered her hand between his legs to oil his seam and arsehole she grinned at the sight of his erect cock bobbing as the victim moved his pelvis. Matthew had his eyes shut, not wishing to see the lecherous glee of the assembly,who made personal remarks without catering to his sensitive feelings, and who awaited their turn impatiently. Then she finished and yielded to another. Matthew had lost count by this time, and was trying to control himself, though it was difficult. Will I just give in, he asked himself, why not let them pull me off and have done with it? Why am I resisting?

Then for some reason his self-control broke down, and he found himself pushing against the lubricated hand, pushing and trying to attain the welcome release of an ejaculation. He knew they didn’t want him to spend so soon, but oh God he had to, he had to—! Then he was on the crest, and he emitted a sobbing cry as his pelvis jerked and sperm leapt from his penis to spatter the face and dress of the girl, the thirteen-year-old Madeleine, who put out her hand to grasp his cock and turn it aside. The touch of her fingers on his penis caused it to jerk again in an arc of semen, and the audience applauded as they might have a circus act. Gabrielle took her friend aside and started to clean her up, and Matthew subsided to the ground wearily. Now at least they’d stop, wouldn’t they? Not really.

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When Catherine came into the garden that afternoon she found Mrs G in conversation with a young man. When she saw who he was she went crimson.

“Catherine! Come here. See who’s come to visit? It’s Andrew Petrie, the nice boy from St Vincent’s, you remember?” Indeed she did, and she felt idiotic shaking hands with the boy only two years older than she, who had taken part in that awful skirt fitting in June, then bathed her and felt her, caused her to orgasm, and made her wank his horrible erection.

He on his part was enthusiastic to see her and shook her hand firmly, saying “Well, Catherine, it’s good to see you again. You’re looking fit. I see you’re getting the sun. That tan looks very good on you.”

Mrs G looked at the reunion with a cynical smile. “I invited Andrew when he was at Summerton last,” she said. “He’s on a little tour, and I’ve said he can stay here for a couple of days before going off to Italy. I hope you’ll be accommodating.” She looked sharply at the girl, who nodded nervously. “I mean in everything,” Lydia added. “He’s my guest.” Catherine stammered some sort of reply, her wild imagination conjuring up horrid pictures in her mind, and her mistress smiled wider and said “I say, perhaps you can take him for a walk, Catherine! Show him some of the property. Yes, off you go. I’ll see you in a little while.”

The boy had a pleased grin as he seized Catherine’s jand and led her off. “Right! Now, be my guide, Catherine! Show me the place.” She took him round the surroundings of the house and showed him the wood, at which he exclaimed “Aha! That looks interesting. Let’s wander in there for a bit.” She shrugged and led him in under the trees where it was cool and quiet with only the occasional bird-call to be heard. He paused and turned to her with an odd expression. “Now, Catherine, we’re alone. So we can enjoy ourselves. Come.” His hand went to the buttons on her blouse, and she cried out as she realised his purposes. She tried to shrink away but remembered Mrs G’s command, and understood what she was supposed to do.

But she can’t want me to give myself to him, she can’t! Especially when she can’t witness it! Everything else, though—! Oh God, let me get through this!

He took off her blouse and admired the faint sight of her breasts through the thin cotton of her slip. Then he was at her waist undoing the buttons of her skirt. Down it came, and she stepped out of it, and he looked at her skimpy knickers, saying “My, Catherine, didn’t we say these ‘panties’ did nothing to hide you? It’s great the way they accentuate your nakedness, outlining your mount of Venus, clearly showing the slit of your vulva. It’s great!”

She drew a deep breath but couldn’t answer him. Then he was at her feet – her shoes and stockings came off, and he ran his hands up her legs. “Oh, Catherine! I bet you’re tanned all over! Your legs, your thighs, and what else?”

His thumbs went inside the elastic of the knickers and he drew them down slowly to savour the sight of her slit, as he’d said, the centre of her beauty; then he quickly drew off the slip and she was totally bare. She stood facing him, an absurd blush suffusing her face, for he’d seen her before, so why be embarrassed?

He stood for a moment admiring her, then began to caress that tanned skin, moving round her to feel her shoulders, the small of her back, her breasts – perking up in response, and his fingers teasing the hardness of the nipples – her arms, her lower back, her midriff, her delightful belly—.

“Oh, Catherine, Catherine! Your belly, so flat, so smooth, so touchable!” Her thighs, her backside, feeling the dimples of her arse, the roundness of the cheeks, the enticing cleft, the lure of the bumhole –. “Christ, Catherine! You’re perfect. Outside and in!” And his finger invaded her bowel, to press in and out, to get more frenetic with every move, and then he came out and gasped “God! Wait!”

She looked at him in dismay as he rapidly shed his clothes to stand naked before her with that awful erection seeming to strain at her trembling body. He couldn’t intend to rape her, could he? No, he just went down on his knees to stroke her hips, to pass his fingers over her pubis, to put his thumb to the puffy slit and feel the moist lips –. “Yes,” he breathed, “your cunt is the best part of you. Let me admire it, all of it. Inside and out!”

One finger, two fingers, reaching in to her clitoris, and despite herself she reacted, thrusting her cunny against him and bringing about the delicious climax. “God!” she cried, “God! Aah, aah!”

He was pleased with his handiwork and stepped back to watch her writhe, then forward again to take her hands and place them on his hot penis. “You know what to do,” he said. “Wank me! You like it!”

Her grasp of his penis tightened, and he gasped in pleasure. She felt the skin under her palms, and under that the throb of his sexual pulse that grew in excitement as she moved her hands over the organ. The foreskin was drawn back to show the naked knob of the penis head, with its little slit at the tip, now moistened with pre-come. Andrew’s breathing grew ragged and panting, and he moaned “Catherine! Come on, pull me off!”

She put one hand under his scrotum to feel his testicles, press them between her fingers, and tickle his seam, all the while using the other hand to roam up and down the shaft of his erection. With a shout and a shuddering the boy thrust his pelvis forward as if to fuck an invisible cunt, and jets of come spurted forth, narrowly missing Catherine’s disgusted face. Andrew had shut his eyes, so that he didn’t see her reaction, and was well pleased with her help, imagining she was as much an admirer of his manly tool as he was. Christ, she thought, it seems bigger and worse than that awful last time! It’s horrible! I pity the poor girl who gets fucked by that monster! Then she looked at his face, wreathed in lusty pride, and added to herself, Lord! He is the most arrogant self-centred prick! He can’t see how ridiculous he is, how ugly he and his cock are! And now what? What else does he want?

The boy began to dress himself, oblivious to her dislike and distaste. When he was decent again he grinned at her and took her hand. “All right, Catherine, let’s go on.”

She stared. “But I’m naked!”

“Yes,” he said in a gloating way, “and so you should be! The world should be able to see you naked! Come along, leave your clothes, we can come back for them!”

She moaned but had to accompany him deeper into the forest. It was quite a few minutes later that he stopped in another clearing and turned to her.

“Maybe this is a good spot to have some more fun,” he said with bright eyes. She looked at him in increasing bewilderment as he undressed again. What could they do that they hadn’t done?

He drew off his last garment and displayed his cock, slowly rising to its glory.

He fingered it as he spoke to her, with an excited leer. “He wants to kiss your cunt, Catherine, yes he does! He wants to press himself against your clitoris and rub against and inside your vagina!”

She took a panting breath and began to make a desperate protest, but he interrupted.

“It’s all right, Catherine, don’t fret, your maidenhead is safe, But your clit still asks to be enjoyed, doesn’t it? You want to be felt, you want to be fucked! Well, John Thomas won’t get there, but we can always satisfy you.”

He pushed her down and separated her legs, then knelt between them. She took a moment to understand his intentions, then exclaimed in a strange mixture of disgust and relief that he was going to use his tongue. First he kissed the nether lips, then licked them from top to bottom, then teased them apart and set about stimulating her most sensitive part. Using nothing but his tongue he gradually incited a shaking and tingling that grew and grew till she could bear it no longer and yelled “God! Andrew, for God’s sake, take me over! I want it! Shag me! Oh no, oh God….”

He didn’t pause in his attentions, in fact redoubled the assault, licking the whole interior of the vulvar cavity and finishing with a real attack on that much abused little button, which inevitably finally brought her to a shrieking ecstasy, and he sat back wiping his chin and grinning in exultant pride.

She looked up panting and trying to regain some calm, to see his penis still poking upright and he flourishing it like some weapon.

“Now!” he cried. “Now you can taste me!”

She shuddered as she realised what the randy youth meant. God, he wanted her to do that sucking-off that Jennie had done at the dinner-party! How could she?

He pulled her to her knees in front of him and presented his genitals for admiration. “Come on! Don’t act so innocent. You know what I want, you know how to do it! I bet you you’ve done it before! Come on, start licking!”

She shuddered and raised her hands to the awful member, which was practically poking her in the face, and as she touched it he gave a sensual moan, which changed to a deeper groan as she opened her mouth to take him in. She felt the knob on the glans of his penis on her tongue and closed her lips round it. Then she began to roll the glans in and out in little movements, as if tasting an unfamiliar dish, which by God it was! The taste wasn’t very pleasant but she supposed she could put up with it. He started pushing in and out, and she almost gagged to feel him at the back of her throat, but persevered, raising her eyes briefly to see him, with closed eyes and open mouth, evidently in a sort of ecstasy. She sucked deliberately on that organ, coaxing it into a trembling excitement that seemed to grow and grow till he let out a cry and a gush of sperm entered her mouth. She should have been prepared, but somehow it took her by surprise, and she automatically swallowed his seed, but the taste was strange and unpleasant to her startled palate, and she gagged again, releasing his prick to spout on its own, while she turned aside and spat out some vomit, hoping he wouldn’t be offended at her spurning of his ejaculate. She needn’t have bothered, he was still in the throes of his entrancement, and stood there with head flung back, revelling in the moment and in its aftermath.

He looked at her sitting there, and grinned. “That was a great suck, Catherine, great! You’re very good. Don’t tell me you haven’t done it before.’

She didn’t bother to deny it. Let him think that if he liked. She was sure she’d never do it again, to anybody. Not even Matthew? She’d need to think about that.

They got back to the house to be greeted by Mrs Grainger, who somehow or other knew (Catherine sensed) what they’d been up to, and beamed at them. “Well, children! Had a pleasant walk, eh, a nice … talk? What do you think of the place, Andrew?”

Catherine didn’t stay for the ensuing conversation, but bobbed her head and sidled out of the room, to lie down on her bed and think about crying. Her mind turned naturally to Matthew, and she hoped in a sort of hopeless way that he was not being treated unbearably by the uncaring doctor and certainly by the horrid girls. How much longer could things go on? – Answer, just as long as Lydia Grainger wishes. God help them….

That night Andrew was pleasantly surprised to be joined in bed by a pliant Jennie, who dropped her nightie and crawled in beside him to plant a kiss on his lips and mutter “You needn’t say a word, Andrew. Just do it. Do me. I’ve been thinking about this all day.”

He silently nodded and grinned, and threw off his pyjamas, showing her a cock erect and more than willing. Able as well, as she found, when he’d slipped on a condom (“not taking chances!”) and taken her by the waist. “I’ve thought about you too,” he said, not fooling her in the slightest, but she was content to let him fuck her anyway. And in several ways, as it turned out. She slipped from the bed halfway through the night, and he closed his eyes and smiled. Not a bad fuck, as fucks go, he thought. Hey but what about that other one? Still, let’s ease off to dreamland thinking about Catherine’s great cunt, it’s still the best….

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Wednesday 5th August

Another bath in the afternoon. Another fuck at night. M does an errand

“I expect you’re pleased that your visits to Dr Fauré are over, with clean bills of health.” Lydia looked at the children benignly as they nodded. “Well, all that went so well that the doctor and I have decided to maintain your healthiness by instituting a regimen of therapeutic baths.” She waited as they absorbed the information.

Matthew looked at her with a pained expression and said falteringly “B-but Mrs Grainger, madam, we don’t need—”

“Yes you do,” she cut in. “To keep your handsome bodies healthy.” She looked at Catherine, who had gone pale. “Yes, Catherine! We’ve been a bit lax with regular baths, and it struck me that having them done by others would be a good thing. So I’m sending you over to Dr Fauré beginning tomorrow. Matthew goes first. Tomorrow, the 6th. On the 8th, Saturday, it’ll be Catherine’s turn, unless something crops up. In between, on Friday, I’m sending you both to see Mr Morelli. Then we’ll see.” She gazed at them with a sardonic smile. “What! You don’t seem too keen to be clean!”

Catherine mumbled, “But madam, we had some awful experiences there, both of us! I just know it’ll be the same, those boys—”

“And those girls!” broke in Matthew. “For fuck’s sake!” he exploded, and her eyes opened in startlement. “Look, madam, I’m sorry, I know I don’t swear that often, but this is too much! Please, please, don’t send us back there. We’re afraid of the exposure to giggling boys and girls! We—”

“Be quiet!” Mrs G stared at him, wrinkling her nose. “That’s enough. You are going for a bath at the doctor’s – this is not the same as the ones you’ve had from Jennie and Amelia, or the other girls we’ve happened to have handy. It’s not the same as your dip in that tin bath in the kitchen, Catherine! You’re going to be steeped in a special bath with healing salts – Dr Fauré will explain it all to you. I understand it takes some time, so don’t make any other plans for the day. I must say, I am very pleased the doctor is willing to supervise this special regimen. He’s a busy man, you know, and he does have other patients.”

Matthew frowned. “Mrs G, a point of explanation, clarification, whatever—”

“Yes, what is it?” she asked irritably.

“If he’s as busy as you say, he’s not going to delegate the task to someone else, like his children, is he?”

She smiled malevolently. “Ah, Matthew! So perspicacious! I wouldn’t be at all surprised!”

After she’d gone, the children looked at each other in dismay. “I just know it, it’s going to be another awful time,” said Catherine. “I bet you that so-called nurse, the girl Genevieve, will insist on taking a hand. And for me, it’ll be that boy François, and probably his crony Louis, ogling me again—”

He put his hand on hers. “Maybe,” he said, “but we’ve managed to survive all this before, and we’ll survive it again. Courage! At the end of the day, we’ll see each other and make up for it, hmm?” She smiled sadly and nodded. They’d get through it.

M. Bertin

“Well,” said Lydia, “it’s pleasant having the odd visitor, though I do tend to begrudge my time and attention paid to guests, who have to be pampered to a degree. Young Andrew, now, makes no difference however, and is no trouble. Besides, the girls seem to like him.”

Yes, thought Catherine, we could see they flirted with him shamelessly. He’s good-looking, yes, but I know the lecherous bastard behind the smooth face!

“Whereas,” Lydia continued, “my distant neighbour Bertin goes to an extreme. Some are fondly receptive to all and sundry, especially sundry – I mean riff-raff – but he is at the other extreme, and utterly eschews company. He’s not exactly a hermit, but he’s stand-offish, shall we say, to a very cool degree. He’s got servants, he’s not alone, he has a daughter who presumably has friends, but he doesn’t seem to stir outside his domain, where he’s been, they tell me, for forty years. Anyway, I’m telling you this, Matthew, because I’m sending you over there with a letter for him.”

Matthew looked surprised. “You’re not post—”

“No, because it is an important cheque which he has to have delivered, and you are my special courier. Do you think you can do that?”

“Oh yes, madam, surely. I just deliver the cheque and come back?”

“That’s it, there’s no reason to dally. It shouldn’t take you so long, though you’ll be on foot. I’m not sending Modestine out there.”

Catherine looked puzzled. “Why not?”

Lydia frowned and snapped “Don’t ask silly questions! What’s it to you? Matthew is perfectly capable of walking the several miles uphill and down! Isn’t he?” She glared at the girl, who flushed and subsided apologetically and looked at her friend. He shrugged and agreed.

“Certainly, madam, I can manage it. But is he really as fearsome as Mireio says he is?”

“Ha! Perhaps. I’ve only met him once, by accident. He’s not a hermit exactly, as I said, though that’s what the locals call him, but he is a misanthrope. And misogynist. He likes animals, they say, better than people, but he’s no Saint Francis, Matthew! He doesn’t have to like you, you’re just a messenger, and goodbye. All right? Now, here is a rough map of where he is. You’ll see the road to Vaulx, the road to Gassin, the one that’ll take you to the Girard place, the one to the Morelli place, the old Matalone chateau that is…. And this one that is rather rough, to Bertin’s place. He doesn’t care about visitors, so he doesn’t bother to keep the way in good repair. If anyone wants him, he’s got to put up with it. Can you follow that?”

“Oh yes, madam, it’s really clear, thank you.”

“Right. Here’s the envelope with the cheque. Keep it safe, I need hardly say.”

“Oh yes! I’ll be very careful of it, madam. Trust me.”

“Hmm,” she said, looking doubtfully at the boy. “All right. Take a drink before you go. Take one with you, in fact. Mind your sunhat. Use the sun lotion. That’s it then. I don’t suppose you’ll be too long, though I’m not sure how far it is. You’re young and strong and virile and fit, so it won’t take you long. Goodbye.”

She went out to her chaise on the lawn and picked up a book. Matthew looked at Catherine and went off for a drink of cool water before smoothing Fauré’s butter over his limbs and face, his chest, and got protection on his back from Catherine. A hat, a shirt, his loose trousers, and sandals, and he was ready. He kissed his lover and set off whistling a pretty tune he’d admired at the show put on by the locals. He was in a good mood – a fine day again, a girl to love him, an easy task in a beautiful countryside – what could go wrong?

“Catherine, come through.”

The girl put down the book she was reading and came into the living room. “What is it, madam?” she asked with a bit of a quaver in her voice.

‘It’s another bath. An ordinary one, not from the doctor. You might as well take it out on the lawn. I’ve told Mireio to put that tin bath out there and get the water ready. I do think taking it al fresco will be very pleasant and stimulating.” She stared at the girl, who was breathing hard, and said “Well?”

“Yes, madam.” What else could she say?

“Now, Andrew would probably be happy to help—”

“Oh, madam!”

“Yes, but he’s still in town. And Matthew’s off on that errand. So to start with at least you’ll be all by yourself. Out you go, no, you might as well undress in your room. Away you go.”

The girl went off with a sigh to take her clothes off, and returned to see Mireio pouring hot water into the tub. Then the doorbell rang, and Mrs G predictably told Catherine to answer it. She did so, trembling, to find half a dozen boys come to work in the garden, who greeted her with bawdy grins, two of them, who were new to the group, looking at her body with incredulous delight. “See,” said Toumas, “we told you! She is all bare again!”

She cringed as she let them in, then shut the door and hurried back to the living room, where madam welcomed them with a smile and told them that before they got busy with the flower beds they could assist the girl with another bath. They took this in with happy comments, and she was told to step out there into the bathtub and wait.

Catherine stood upright in the bath, trying to hide in the oh so accustomed way, but Lydia peremptorily told her to stand straight with her hands on her head, allowing her to be ogled by the randy teenagers for a minute or two, while she asked the new boys their names and ages. They were both sixteen, they said, one named Robert and the other Léon.

“The girl is Catherine,” said the chatelaine, “and she’s fifteen years old. Well-made, isn’t she? Yes, well she’ll take her bath now, and you can be ready to help her. Make sure that every part of her nice body gets the soap and the water and a rub or two. Catherine! Begin.”

The girl sat down with a sob and got the soap, lathering her upper body, feeling the excited nipples as she passed her hands over her breasts, trying to ignore the lascivious crowd that encircled her, who were emboldened to make admiring comments on her beau corps. Then she washed her feet and lower legs, then she had to stand to wash her middle. It was now that the comments grew in loudness and enthusiasm, and Catherine looked around to see that every one of the throng had an obvious erection straining the trousers. Somehow it was more embarrassing to be cleaning the delta and reaching back to the rounds of her bum pushing soapy fingers over her anus, in the close sight of ten boys following every move with staring glee. But she finished, and washed the lather from her body. Now to get out?

Mrs Grainger, who had gone inside for the while, came out to clap her hands and say “Well done, Catherine! A nice show for the boys. Boys, now it’s your turn.”

Catherine gave a little shriek as she realised what her tyrant had in mind. The boys were invited to get the soap and lather her again. All over. Every one of them. This meant she was stood up and washed from head to foot several times, for they all wanted a shot at cleaning her beautiful curves and grooves, the joints and folds, the roundness and the straight, her cul and her chatte, while she surrendered and submitted to her own libido, relishing in a surprising way the attentions of all those palms and fingers, squirming in a hot flushed way and pushing, yes, pushing her body into their hands. It took no time at all to get her first orgasm.

She was feeling a little tired by the time Andrew breezed in, took a look at the scene, and rolled up his sleeves with a grin. “Hola, boys!” he exclaimed, “Permit me to show you how I do it!” They laughed and stood back, giving him free rein to go over her quivering body yet again, and coax yet another climax. Léon congratulated him on his technique, and led the entire crew in a last combined assault on her bare flesh. She surprised herself by having another orgasm of major proportions that left her exhausted and prone on the grass, the object of admiring looks and proud grins. “We will return, Catherine,” said Robert, “you may be sure of that! We will have to repeat this delicious game!” He turned to Mrs Grainger, who stood at the door smiling condescendingly at the happy scene, to say “Madame! I thank you for allowing us to come to your beautiful estate and meet the beautiful Catherine, to salute her charms, to … touch her pretty body.”

Mrs G laughed and told him he and the others were all welcome. “Now come along and I’ll give you a glass of wine before you start your real work, hein?”

Matthew was able to follow the map quite easily, and made good time, he thought, though he didn’t feel like being too energetic in the morning’s heat.

When he was still some way from the place he could see it peeping out from a forest, evidently what could be called a small fortress, with walls and a turret, it seemed, perhaps five hundred years old. Lydia’s little estate, while not new by any means, was still rather modern-looking, and had certainly been brought up to date, but this one promised to be really old, and Matthew expected it to be in ramshackle shape. It peered out of the forest almost secretively, and the boy was glad of the shade when he reached it.

He ultimately grew tired of the ache in his feet, hardly protected by leather sandals, and trod on the grass, beside the path, relishing the relief. Bertin really did hate visitors, it seemed, for the road, or path more like, was so rocky and neglected that Matthew wondered how a vehicle could manage to negotiate it. But the grass was rather lush, and soft under his sandals, and the trees were shady. He moved through them, enjoying the relative coolness of their protection, heading towards the building he could see more clearly now perched up there on a hill, looking quite the part of a mediaeval fastness – grey walls, two round towers, what must be the slits or loops he’d heard about to shoot arrows out of at attackers. He wondered what history it had … he’d have to ask Lebouc about it, and – wait, he heard voices – children playing and splashing about in a stream, it seemed.

He turned to the side and followed the sounds, curious as to who was playing about in the woods. Perhaps it was Bertin’s young family? But then he stopped in. confusion and a shock of glee when he saw what produced it. In front of him was a sizeable pool, half-shaded by the trees, and in it frolicked laughing and yelling two young girls – but not so young – not children, but grown girls of the late teens, and they were naked.

Matthew stood there agape, drinking in the sight. They couldn’t see him at the moment, for he was obscured by tallish bushes, but he could see them all right just twenty feet away, and he breathed hard as he took in their pale bronze skin, their lithe bodies, slim and sleek and naked, naked! Their breasts bobbing in the water, their legs, their arses, so pretty, and the intermittent sight of their pussies (good American word), their chattes (good French word), repeating in their pubic hair (poil) the hair of the head (cheveux) so attractively. He stood there, taking in the gratuitous display and conscious of his body’s boyish reaction. God, to touch those tits, to caress those bums, to finger their cunts! Yes, he admitted to himself, he was hypnotised by lust. Then the fascinating moment shattered.

“Oh!” The girl with blonde hair screamed, looking directly at him. He froze for a second, then turned tail and fled, hoping it was the right direction, for he’d lost the path. He could hear the girls running aftyer him – he’d hoped they’d take time to dress, but there they were, chasing him in their pretty nudity, and he running for his life with a great hard-on.

He was getting out of breath when he tripped and fell with an oath, at the top of a slope that carried him down about twenty feet into a pond, luckily not too deep, but still very wet and very muddy, as he was when he rose out of it to continue his flight. The girls seemed to have stopped, so he was able to get back on the path and wheeze his way to the Bertin place and pull on the bell-rope by a massive oaken door.

It was opened by a young girl in her mid-teens, he thought, who gave a little scream when she saw this dirty bedraggled figure before her. Matthew panted something to try to reassure her, but she turned and ran off In another minute a burly-looking man in middle age came to the door and, looking disgusted at the apparition, which was evidently rather smelly as well, enquired his purpose. Matthew tried his best French.

“Excuse me please, forgive my appearance. I’ve had a … an accident. I’ve come to see M. Bertin.”

The butler, if such he was, sniffed, then made a face as he inhaled the stench of the visitor. “Wait here, please,” he said. “You cannot come in as you are. And take off your clothes.”

Matthew goggled at him, but saw the justice of the advice. Still, he couldn’t undress here, could he? That girl might come back! The butler said “Wait!” and closed the door.

After a couple of minutes the door opened again, on evidently well-oiled hinges, and two young men came out to stare at him. They were in their mid-twenties, and some inches taller than Matthew. One had longish auburn hair, the other a mass of dark, nearly black, curls.They told him in a mixture of French and English that he had to undress, for he could not be perfmitted to enter in his condition. He stared at them numbly, and they exchanged an exasperated look before advancing on him and proceeding to strip him naked, letting his few clothes accumulate in a forlorn dirty pile on the threshold. He covered his crotch as usual and squealed as they seized his arms to yank him inside the hall and escort him to a flagged atrium sort of place with a drain in the middle of the floor. “Stay here, please,” they said, “attendez! Vous devez rester ici!” – and left. He fidgeted there for a minute before they returned with two small tubs of what turned out to be cold water, with which they doused him into a semblance of cleanliness. The shock made him howl in dismay, which seemed to amuse them, and they offered him a rough rag to dry with. “Now,” said the auburn one, “we go to see the master. Venez.”

He was led shivering down a passage to an oaken door, where the one with dark curls knocked. A thin voice answered with “Entrez!” and Matthew was escorted into a room full of books, to see a crabbed little man, half-bald, with white hair, who peered at him with myopic eyes and asked a question. “What’s this. Aimeric? Who’s this?”

The auburn one explained the circumstances, and Bertin’s eyes studied his visitor.

“Well, what about you?” he asked. “Who are you, and what do you want? And mostly, how come you’re naked? You were dirty, it seems. Why so?”

“Er, excusez-moi monsieur, pour … pour ma nudité. J’ai … tombé dans un … trou.”

Bertin looked at him with an unbelieving stare. Matthew faltered on.

“J’ai un letter pour vous. Un letter de madame Grainger—”

“Quoi? Madame Grainger?” The old man stood up and gesticulated in some agitation.

“So where is this letter? Where is it?”

Matthew couldn’t understand the problem, and tried to explain that it was outside, in his pocket. Bertin understood well enough and gestured to the youth called Aimeric, telling him to fetch the envelope from the boy’s clothes. The other, addressed as Denis, was told in rapid French to do something about a bath. Not another one! But Matthew wasn’t completely clean, anyway, and he probably still smelled. Denis nodded and left. While they waited Matthew fidgeted on the carpet, feeling more comfortable in the warmth of the study but very conscious of his nakedness, and looked at the floor. The room had a strange musty flavour to it – not an unpleasant odour, in fact rather attractive, like old pipe tobacco and (aha!) the bindings of old books. Matthew looked about him at the walls, which were shelved to a high ceiling for books, books, books. The library was a lot smaller, he thought, than that at Summerton, but maybe it was more choice, and he wondered what it contained. The host meanwhile came round the desk to stand in front of him just as Aimeric returned flourishing a soggy envelope, the sight of which made the boy’s face go pale and the eyes of Bertin grow round and furious.

“Well, open it!” he barked, and stared as the envelope fell apart in Aimeric’s hands and he was shown with a shrug a very wet slip of paper which on examination bore utterly illegible writing. Bertin practically danced on the spot in his rage and turned on the hapless boy. “What—what—what have you done? You fell in a hole and got wet, and allowed this most important letter to be ruined? You ass! You fool! You criminal!”

He was throwing a fit of some kind, his eyes bulging and spittle flying, and threw himself at the unprepared youth. He slapped him across the face, and drove him to the floor, getting in some more blows on the way. Once down, Matthew covered his head and crawled into a foetal position as the incensed chatelain seized a walking stick that lay by the desk and thrashed it down on the naked backside. The servant had fled by this time, well used to these tantrums.

After a minute Bertin stopped and looked intently down at him, putting on a devilish gleeful expression, and sat down again, seemingly recovered from his apoplexy.

“Get up, young man,” he said in English.

Matthew rose stiffly in some bewilderment. “You speak English?”he asked timidly.

“Of course,” replied Bertin, “does not every gentleman? But come, fear not, not too much anyway. What does the sentry in Antigone tell us? Stergei gar oudeis angelon kakon epon, isn’t it? ‘Nobody likes the messenger with bad news.’ Tell me, what happened?”

Matthew, pleased to have an anglophile (or speaking) audience, managed to tell him of his mission and his accident, skirting any mention of his peeping activities., and the old man hemmed and hawed and finally said “Well, so your clothing is wet and dirty now; very well, it will be cleaned and dried, by the servants. Till then I’m afraid , you must be naked.”

He rang a bell on his desk and drummed his fingers till the man returned somewhat cautiously to be given orders about the collection and washing and drying of the muddied clothes, and to check on the provision of a bath for the poor child. After that? “Put him in the garden,” laughed the old man, “along with the other nudes.”

The other servant arrived to join his comrade in escorting Matthew down a corridor to what turned out to be the kitchen, where a large but shallow cauldron steamed with hot water next to the whitewashed wall. He looked around to see a rather large room with shelves and cupboards and tables and ovens, pots and utensils hanging from the ceiling, and the butler wearing a cook’s cap, evidently, in charge of the room and looking at him with dislike. Yes, he probably still smelled, and he was for a thorough wash, administered by those two young men. Aimeric was the one with auburn hair, Denis the dark one. A a, D d. Very appropriate. There, he’d got the names and colours agreed. The cook or major domo was addressed as Monsieur Carousse, though behind his back he turned out to called Pépin. And why was Matthew interesting himself in names anyway? In order to be polite to everybody, of course, for they all might be as touchy as the old man. He tried to explain that he was fifteen and could bathe himself, but the two servants would have none of it. The master had spoken – they would obey. Get into the bath, and hold on to those bars projecting from the wall there. That would keep him upright with his arms stretched out on either side while they washed him from head to toe.

His wandering thoughts were brought into shocked focus by the arrival of two girls of about his own age, who evidently worked in the kitchen. They stared at him as he hurriedly covered himself, and began to giggle. Carousse yelled at them to go about their business, and they turned to do something obscure in a corner just twenty feet or so away. Aimeric had rolled up his sleeves and picked up a bar of soap. Denis motioned to Matthew to enter the bath, which he did by some manoeuvring that couldn’t help showing his genitals, and he flinched as he saw the girls pointing and giggling in the corner. The cook shouted at them to concentrate on their duties, and stamped off in ill humour, casting a glare at the boy who was disrupting his day.

Denis told Matthew to stand up and hold on to those bars, making no secret of his admiration for the boy’s body, now stretched and vulnerable to the eyes, the back modestly turned. He rolled up his sleeves too and placed his hands on Matthew’s shoulders. His companion got his hands covered in lather and passed the soap to Denis, and together they proceeded to soap the visitor from head to waist. They splashed water over him to get rid of the soap, and then attacked his lower limbs. Aimeric smoothed lather over his bum with a contented smile, and Denis washed it off. Together they did a good job of cleaning him, but their touch somehow induced an erection which surprised Matthew and seemed to entrance them when he turned round to face them. (And face those girls, oh God! They were looking, staring, giggling!) Then of course they attended to his loins, washing his groins, his scrotum and his erect penis, which brought him to a frustrating pitch of excitement. Christ, were they going to toss him off? No, just make him hang on those handles and raise his legs and feet to be cleaned in their turn.

Through all this, naturally, the scullery maids were watching the process with bawdy interest; at the beginning, with the boy facing the wall, they could enjoy the look of his bum, and when he was turned round, mon dieu, what a sight! So they were highly pleased to be called over by the young men, and came at an unseemly rush to look in evident amusement at the spectacle..

“Renée! Louise! We need more hot water, here. Quickly!”

They obeyed with eager speed, and eyed Matthew, standing with his arms to the side and the body bare and very plain to see, as they dutifully poured some more into the tub. The washers didn’t bother to send them away again, but let them linger at the side to watch more closely the final wash from top to toe of the hapless visitor. Under that scrutiny, with the added mortification of their shameless giggles, Matthew presented even more of an erection, which he wouldn’t have thought possible, that they openly (and vocally) admired, the older boys seemingly acting as proud showmen of the beautiful phenomenon, holding him so that he couldn’t cover himself, and looking at the girls with understanding as if to say Yes, we think he’s beautiful too! Look at his bum! Look at his prick and his ballocks! They’re great, aren’t they?

And then he was brought out and stood on the floor, and the girls told to produce towels of some sort. When they came with them, the accommodating boys let them help with the drying and the making sure of its completeness by feeling the skin. Matthew was told to put his hands on his head to keep them out of the way, and he therefore stood naked and erect, blushing madly, to be gently caressed by the two youths and stroked and teased by the inquisitive fingers of female teenagers, till he reacted with a violent spasm of the body and a great orgasmic spout of an ejaculation that spattered over the flagstones that were the floor.

“Oh!” the girls screamed in glee, and the boys laughed and sent them back to their corner. Then Denis wiped the end of Matthew’s penis and he was led out through an obscure door, which seemed rarely used, to an outside area which was a rather large expanse of turf divided by sandy walks and flower beds, among which he saw quite a few statues, mostly of classical figures. By golly, there was a copy of that embarrassing Apollo Belvedere! And why was he here?

“You must wait,” they said slowly for his limited intelligence, “wait here.”

“All right,” he said,, “très bon!” But it would be a bit of a boring time. And he understood that he’d have to come back with a replacement for the cheque. This time no peeping Tom. Hey, that must have been the daughter I heard about! A nice-looking girl, by golly! And her friend as well, a nice-looking pair! Of course as his thoughts dwelt on the sight of two attractive nubile maidens his naked prick began to wake up again.

That did not help his composure when the two girls themselves came on the scene. He crouched in dismay when he saw them walking along the path, and wondered how he could hide. Silly idea! They saw him at the same time and crowed with delight.

“Hello! So you found the way! We would have been happy to escort you! And wash the dirt away!”

“And pat you dry, and make sure you were fit for society!”

He didn’t understand half what they said, it being so fast, but he wasn’t looking at them, he was trying to decide where he could run to for safety, but it was no use. They came up to him and the blonde took him by the arm, nearly dislodging the protective hand from his prick. He shook his head and tried to excuse himself, but his French was inadequate, or maybe they realised he was English and decided to show off their education.

“Oh! You are English! What is your name?”

“M-Matthew,” he stuttered, growing more nervous at their closeness, and yelped as the brunette put her arm round his waist.

“I am Margot Bertin,” she said, lowering her hand to caress his bum.

“Oh God!” he moaned, “please leave me alone!”

“No.” said the other, “we won’t. You have to apologise to us first for ogling (is that correct?) looking at us like that, with lust, were you not? Now, my name is Andrée Favreau, and I have … no, I am seventeen years old. And you are how old?”

“Fifteen,” he squeezed out from anguished lips, “please, don’t do that—”

Margot continued her massage and smiled cruelly. Andrée decided to do her part and put her hand on his shoulder, which she rubbed sensuously, going on down his arm to where his trembling hands met at his crotch. “Apologise!” she yelled in his ear.

He jumped and mouthed some words but saw he’d need to be clear in his abjectness, so looked at Margot and said haltingly – nearly breathless with the erotic effect of that hand – “I am very sorry, Miss Bertin, for … oh! for ogling you. Ah! And er, Miss Favreau, right? I’m ever so sorry to have upset – hah! Upset you—” he broke off because the forward girl was tickling his belly with one hand and trying to dislodge his hands with the other.

“You might as well stop that,” said Margot, “trying to hide. We’ll see you eventually. But in the meantime, get up on that piece of marble.”

She nodded to a plinth, as he thought of it, a low stand like the bottom of a temple column, just the sort of thing the other nudes were on. He saw what they wanted and with a tremulous sigh mounted it, not without difficulty, trying to maintain his cover after all. Once he was there, they stood back to admire him, discussing him in comparison with the other statues around. He heard some of the same names Mr Grandison had used that awful time, and he should have been pleased that the girls were comparing him favourably. But he felt dreadfully exposed, up on the stand, displayed in his cowering nudity, suffering the remarks of two girls just a bit older than he as they strolled round their captive work of art. With a finger each stroked his limbs, following the lines of his spine, his thighs, his attractive arse (Quel cul tu as! Tu dois en être très fier! ), his trembling legs, and the erogenous nipples on his chest, and his beautiful flat belly. He was shivering and wondering how long he could support this admiration, when he saw with the heart thudding in his breast that same girl who had answered the door approaching from the direction of the house.

She came at a very slow pace, her colour mounting as she got nearer, till she was in full blush, twisting her fingers in nervousness. Margot turned to her with a smile.

“Hé, Dominique! Come and meet our guest. His name is Mathieu, and he is fifteen years old. Mathieu, this is Dominique Geroux, one of our servants. She’s fourteen. Say hello.”

The pair looked at each other in bewildered embarrassment and muttered some greeting. The girl kept lowering her eyes to the ground, then raising them to his body as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. A boy near her age, stark stiff naked, trying to hide his arousal from his audience of three. Her blushes matched his own, and he was trying to avoid looking at her. But then his glance met that of the other girls, and he writhed in anguished mortification. How would he escape this?

“What have you come for, Dominique? To look at our friend here, to admire him? Look at him, he’s really nice-looking! His legs, his arse!”

“N-no, Mlle Margot, I … I was told to come and s-summon you all to lunch. That’s all.”

“Ah, yes, it’ll be that time. Mathieu, you understand? Pretty Dominique here says come to lunch. Get down and we’ll go. Dominique, will you lead or follow us?”

“I’ll … I’ll follow, miss, please.”

“I bet you will. Then you can admire the boy’s arse, can’t you, eh?”

The young girl’s blush intensified, and she hung back as Matthew got down from his perch and began to follow Margot. He was conscious of the other two walking behind him, one a bawdy brash patent admirer, the other a red-faced girl of fourteen who undoubtedly was a secret admirer of that arse of his, which he clenched in shamed reaction to the stares he could practically feel. Then the situation was made tenser by Andrée making playful remarks, which he unfortunately understood, about that arse, the dimples at the sides, the nice symmetry of its rounds, that enticing cleft that divided them, that led to his hole, which one would like to touch, to tickle, to enter, even! What fun one could have with that arse, don’t you think, Dominique?

He didn’t hear the reply, being so agonisingly aware of his situation and paradoxically deaf to as much as he could screen out. He stumbled along, wondering what the lunch would be like. How many would be there? How many others would see him? Margot came back to walk beside him and reassure him, somewhat.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “I think I know you’re bothered, anxious, about someone else seeing you and making joking remarks about your nakedness. But I think it will only be us, and father of course, and perhaps his secretary, Bernard Jouvet. He’s a pleasant man of 38 I think, very efficient. He helps papa with his correspondence – he writes letters all over the world about his research. And the table servants too of course. Aimeric and Denis, who are an amusing pair, in many ways. I think,” she said in what was meant as a roguish provocative way, “that they are lovers. And someone to carry a dish or two. But here we are!”

They were at the foot of a short stone stairway that led them up to a verandah, where a table was set with plates and glasses and utensils, a carafe of iced water, and half a dozen chairs. Dominique followed, still mesmerised by the boy’s behind, and suddenly came to herself and curtsied, saying she’d tell the master, and fled into the house, her blush no way diminished.

They seated themselves, the girls making sure they were in a position to ogle his endowment as much as possible, and he sat down carefully, managing to conceal his genitals between his thighs, which was not very comfortable, since his erection was still rather cumbersome. But he was hidden, which was the main thing. The girls understandably were disappointed when they realised his manoeuvre, and winked at each other to signify they’d fix that very soon. Then Bertin appeared, with a dry-looking man in uncomfortable-looking clothes, who was introduced as M. Jouvet, the secretary. He nodded to the company and sat discreetly apart, and never said a word throughout the meal. Bertin however played the host and was voluble enough for two.

“Perhaps you’ll take some salad, boy?”

“Oh. Yes, sir, thank you,” the boy muttered, shifting in discomfort.

“Help yourself,” said the host, and Matthew had to stand to reach the bowl. He separated his thighs and his erection popped out, though he was hidden by the table top. Once he filled his plate he sat down and in despair gave up the idea of hiding his privates from the others.

“Well, sir!” The host was inclined to be facetious with this figure of fun. “What is—no, wait. How does Housman put it in his ‘Fragment of a Greek tragedy’?”

Looking rather droll he recited:

“O suitably-attired-in-leather-boots

Head of a traveller, wherefore seeking whom

Whence, by what way, how purposed art thou come

To this well-nightingaled vicinity?

My object in inquiring is to know.

But if you happen to be deaf and dumb

And do not understand a word I say,

Then wave your hand, to signify as much.”

Matthew goggled at him.

“Out of Aeschylus, mostly. ‘To learn your name would not displease me much.’” He stared at the boy and picked up a carrot.

Matthew finally understood Bertin was quoting something at him, and answered readily, while trying to avoid looking in the direction of the girls.

“M-Matthew Raven, sir.”

“And how old are you?”

“F-fifteen,” he stuttered.

“And where are you from?”

“I live in England, in Essex, but I’m here with Mrs Grainger to accompany her on holiday. I’m just a servant—”

“Of course you are. How is she?”

“Er, she’s very well, thank you. Listen, I’m sorry about the cheque—”

“So I should think. But what’s the use of locking the stable door after the Rubicon is crossed, hey?”

Matthew tried a sycophantic smile at the silly joke but didn’t have much success. He cleared his throat and tried some conversation.

“I’m impressed, sir, by your library,” he said. “We have one at Summerton—”

“Yes,” Bertin said, “but not like this.” His eyes lit up as he defended his own collection. “No, not like this!” His eyes followed Matthew as the boy helped himself to the greens, and he smiled in what seemed a sardonic way. “You’ll have to see it. It is my constant companion. I really lack for nothing else. With my books I have an eternal conversation, out of which I never fail to draw fresh insights, new ideas, and everlasting enjoyment. However, as another poet says

‘Volumes gay and volumes grave,

Many volumes have I got;

Many volumes though I have,

Many volumes have I not.’ Alas.”

He looked at Matthew and eased his incomprehension. “Ralph Hodgson. Of course it’s obvious. But those I do have make up to a really large degree those I must do without. Hmm. Well, tell me about your library at Summerton.”

Matthew didn’t really want to talk about dirty books, and had no wish to annoy his host again, let alone titillate these girls, who for some reason were looking at him almost voraciously. “Em, it’s quite old,” he began safely, “because the family have been forming it for a very long time. It’s got some fine old atlases and travel books, and, and, The Arabian Nnights, yes, and Boccaccio, and ….”

His voice trailed off as he temporarily ran out of innocuous titles.

“Yes,” said the old man with something like a gleam in his eye, “but does it have Petronius? Does it have Le Moyen de Parvenir? Les Bijoux Indiscrets? Contes Secrets Russes? Hey?”

Matthew was astonished – the man seemed to be boasting about the erotica he had. Was this another Grainger? No wonder Mrs G was sending him cheques.

“Er, I think we have the Bijoux, isn’t that where … the …” He paused, and Bertin continued “The petit coin speaks in several languages? Yes, my young lad! So you do know about that!”

Matthew flushed and explained about the library and his connection with it. Bertin was amused, and the girls were looking at him with some more interest. Jouvet forked some salad into his mouth and ignored the conversation.

“And the others? If she’s at all comprehensive, she has to have Béroalde de Verville’s mad classic, Le Moyen de Parvenir. No? It means ‘The Way of Succeeding’, or getting there, there being the petit coin, naturally. Among other things. It must be read in the original of course, it’s so … individualistic.”

“Papa,” said Margot, “you will have to tell us a story from it.”

He laughed and attacked his meal. A minute later however he put down his utensils and took a draught of his wine, and looked at Matthew. “I think,” he said judiciously, “that it would be interesting to narrate an anecdote from the book, yes. At random of course. One that springs into the head is told by a character called Donatus. Now there’s quite a few figures Béroalde might have meant here, but there’s little doubt he had Aelius Donatus in mind. I should say that the book is all about a series of conversations at a banquet – a latter-day Symposium, though a far cry from Plato! And the conversationalists are well-known people, for the most part, from modern times and antiquity. It’s the contrast between the grave reputations of distinguished philosophers and so on, Aristotle, Demosthenes, all sorts, and the subject matter of their stories that makes for humour.

“Well, then, Aelius Donatus was a fourth-century grammarian, a teacher of saint Jerome, who composed commentaries on Virgil and Terence, and a Latin grammar, The Eight Parts of Speech, which was studied in all the universities and familiarly called le Donat. So he is facetiously represented as telling this story, about his landlady’s daughter.

“One day this young woman desired to go to a wedding, and asked leave of her mother, who granted it on the condition that she would solemnly promise to watch her honour, and the girl readily agreed to the condition, being mindful that such things as.maidenheads could be lost at affairs like weddings. So she went away to the wedding, and set herself to keep guard over her honour. The lads and lasses all danced away, but she didn’t dare, nor did she dare approach the table of the feast; she stayed all the time in a corner of the room, with her two hands at the bottom of her belly, until a young man called Coypeau, seeing her so miserable, came up to her and said:

“‘What cheer, Coz? shall we tread a measure for a while?’

“‘Nay,’ she said, ‘I dare not, for fear I lose my maidenhead; my mother bade me take great care of it.’

“‘Oh, oh,’ says he, ’and is that all? Why sweet Coz,’ he whispered, ‘follow me to this little closet, and I'll sew it up so tight it shall never shift.’

“He said it in a whisper, but she heard him well enough, for she was eager to be dancing; and so she followed him. He pushed her onto a chest, and taught her the dance of the wolf, with his tail between his legs, and sewed up her maidenhead so securely that he told her it would never fall out through that cleft.

“Thereupon she began to dance, and enjoyed herself to her heart's content; but she liked needlework so well that she asked for some more, and got three more stitches. Coypeau was quite able for that, and he gave the lass a great treat. She ate some of the nice things that were laid on, and feeling ashamed no longer, she bethought her of her maidenhead, and went up to him, and asked him if he would give it another stitch.

“‘Goodness,’ he said, ‘I can't, I haven't any more thread.’

“‘Oh no,’ she said, ‘that’s not true! I’m sure I saw two nice little balls of it between your legs! What have you done with them?’”

The girls tittered, and Matthew gave another weak smile. He was wondering, though, why Bertin was behaving so amicably. For a misanthrope, he didn’t seem so bad, though by God he had hurt his arse back there, and maybe a temper was all he might show…. But he was raising his glass and smiling in that devilish sort of way, evidently with another bawdy anecdote in mind.

“Yes!” he exclaimed, “Another we can call The Breaker of Eggs. I can’t recall who is supposed to tell it, but anyway. Like this.

“Once upon a time there lived alone in a lodging near the chapel of St Yves – that’d be Saint Yves of Brittany, who had a chapel in Paris – there lived a young man, who took little interest in these theological discussions others had and devoted his attention to the maid, who was a fine young thing, though something of a simpleton. He would talk with her from time to time, and one day said:

“‘You’re from the country, little friend?’

“‘Truly, sir,’ she said.

“‘I thought so, and you’re a very good housekeeper.’

“‘I thank you kindly, sir,’ she said.

“‘Well,’ he said, ‘little friend, since I’m fond of you, and so that you may serve us well, I have to tell you, for your own good, of a certain ill that befalls country maids when they come to dwell in the town; namely that small eggs grow in their bellies and harden there, so that these poor maids have to show their behinds to the doctor. I would grieve should it come to that, and it shall not be so, if you hear me. I want to help you, and I see that it’s full time to begin, for, by your colour, I can tell that the eggs are already there!"

“‘Indeed, sir,’ she said, ‘I’m greatly obliged, for truly I don’t feel right.’

“The next day she went to his chamber and he gave her a spoonful of white hypocras – spiced wine,” he added seeing puzzlement. “Very good for the digestion, and also supposedly an aphrodisiac.” He winked at the audience, and the girls giggled, while Matthew sighed and wished he was out of there. “He told her to go about her housework and then break her fast on a little dry bread. This treatment was continued for a couple of days, then one morning, when her mistress was out of the way, he took hold of the maid and, laughing gently, pushed her against the bed as if to look into her mouth.

“‘Alas! sir! what are you doing?’ she cried.

“‘I’ll do you no harm,’ he said, ‘I’m just going to break an egg which is fast hardening.’

So she let him do it, and he did it so well that he put live flesh in live flesh.”

The girls smiled roguishly, and Matthew felt very uncomfortable.

“He finished the job pretty soon, and she found the business so much to her liking that she came back again and again to have the eggs broken, and indeed she was wishing for a belly in which one might break eggs for a hundred years without doing anything else.

“One day she loitered too long at this pleasant pursuit, and her mistress fell to scolding her when she came downstairs, saying:

“‘You sly wench! You’ve been in mischief with that man upstairs! Idiot! Little hussy! What have you been up to, up there?"

“‘Nothing, madam,’ she said. ‘Don’t be angry, I’ll tell you.’

“‘You’ve been after no good with that man above.’

“‘No, madam, you do him wrong; he’s the most honest man in the world. I had eggs in my belly, and he broke them for me.’

“‘Eggs, you slut!’ cried her mistress, ‘what eggs?’

“‘Look, madam, if it’s not so; I’ll lift my smock, and you’ll see my front part, which is still all damp with the white of the eggs, which came out when he broke them.’”

Matthew groaned, and the girls laughed at his reaction. Jouvet looked up and smirked, then went back to his plate.

Bertin peered at the boy through his wineglass.

“You don’t think it’s amusing?” he asked.

Matthew swallowed. He didn’t want to upset the irascible misanthrope, and stammered “W-well, sir, I, um, I don’t think,” seeing a way out, “I don’t really think it’s the sort of story to tell in the presence of young ladies.”

Bertin looked at him in amazement and burst out laughing. “Oh my,” he said, “if I thought you were serious I’d send you packing as you are. Have no fear, young man. My daughter is an informed woman of the world. Mlle Favreau here likewise is mature and able to laugh at the foibles of mankind. And womankind too. Still, that’s the kind of tale that Béroalde de Verville is full of. If Mrs Grainger hasn’t got a copy I’m surprised, and if she wants one I can always supply her. I have at least two copies in various editions. As well as the Machen translation, such as it is. You must tell her, all right?”

“Oh, yes sir, I will,” said Matthew, glad to have skirted a dangerous spot. Trying to make polite conversation, he went on, “Is the Grainger library not famous, then? I thought it would be known, among bibliophiles at least. Lovers of erotica, such as you seem to be, sir,” giving a sycophantic smile.

Bertin looked at him with a sort of sardonic humour, as if he saw through the boy’s attempts at flattery, and said “It’s not known terribly well. I’d heard of it, but not much. Actually I don’t pay much attention to other collections. I have mine here, and while there are one or two unique things I covet from time to time, I am quite content, I assure you. Besides, I suspect that like all English collections it may be assumed to contain nothing much more than that boring flagellation, which you must know is the English vice. But I see you’ve finished your wine. I suggest Margot and her friend take you on a little tour of the property. It’s an old Cathar fortress, originally.”

Matthew trembled as he saw what might happen. “Oh no sir,” he babbled, “I’m comfortable here,” and shifted his arse in the chair to make sure his privates were obscured.

“No,” said Bertin with a savage grin, “I insist. Up you get and go with the girls. Girls, he’s in you care. Treat him gently.”

With that he left the table and disappeared into the house, summoning the secretary with a crooked finger. Margot looked at Matthew and laughed. “Up you get,” she repeated, and waited till he rose from his cover, shielding his groin from their libidinous grins. Then the girls stood themselves, approaching him to peer quite openly and rudely at his quailing body, then seize his arms and drag him away from the table off the verandah and on to a sanded path, where they took his hands in theirs to stroll casually along. He was of course trying to think of ways to turn so that they couldn’t see his balls, which was useless and silly. Why didn’t he just accept it and try to pretend nonchalance? But no, he said to himself, I’m embarrassed! They’re looking at my prick and laughing! But hey as long as they don’t think about touching me, like those other girls….. Of course he spoke too soon.

The girls led him over much of the formal gardens, which was the preserve, they said, of a very talented gardener, M. Jean Maurras, who was rather proud of his efforts to turn the wilderness that used to be into a miniature Luxembourg. “It is very pretty,” Matthew agreed, “and it does remind me of the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris.”

“Ah! You’ve seen that?” exclaimed Margot. “Very good! But now come and see the rest of the main building. This part is about seven hundred years old, I forget how old exactly. It belonged to the Cathars, a heretical religious group which was put down ruthlessly by the Catholic authorities. I don’t know how this place escaped so lightly. Papa has looked into the history. It’s a terrible story, and had a lot to do with my disillusion with the Church.”

Matthew looked around at the old hoary stones and asked “Your father, then, told you about it? He’s an atheist maybe?”

“Oh no,” she replied with a laugh, “not quite. A ‘freethinker’, though, is that the phrase? He doesn’t go to church, and he had a terrible row with Père Michel some time ago. He calls him a pauvre … bigot, you understand?”

“Bee go?” repeated the naked boy with a frown. “Oh! You mean a bigot. I follow. But that’s just because Father Michel is a sincere believer in his religion, surely. He isn’t … militant about it.”

“Perhaps with you, Mathieu, but then you haven’t seen papa in one of his rages, have you? He can become quite furious in his arguments.”

Matthew grimaced and didn’t pursue the discussion. He was grateful for the implied warning however not to cross the old scholar, particularly in regard to religion. Then he felt Andrée’s hand on his arse again, and shivered as Bertin strolled by in conversation with his secretary.

“Oh,” she said, “are you cold? You were perspiring in the heat of the garden. Maybe you should have a bath.”

He flinched and flushed again. “Oh no,” he squeaked, “not another! I had one—”

“What of it?” said Bertin, “Wash off the sweat – look at you, you’re hot! And then apply that cooling cream. Yes.” And he passed on, resuming his conversation with Jouvet.

“Well, Mathieu, it seems we’re to give you a bath. Come along now.”

Margot seized his hand and dragged him to the stairway up to that verandah, where she stopped to cry out “Oh! You’ve come! Excellent! Look what we have here! A boy for us to play with!”

This was addressed to a couple of young girls who had been sitting down with wine, who jumped up at the news to exclaim in delight to see a nice naked boy.

“Mathieu,” she said, holding his hand so that he only had one to cover himself, “this is Bernadette and Élodie Charbonneau, friends who’ve come to visit from Greves, a little place some miles in that direction.” She threw a hand out vaguely. “They’re eighteen and sixteen respectively, and they’re dying to meet you.”

“Oh yes,” said Bernadette, a striking-looking girl with long blonde hair, “M. Bertin ’as told us about you. We are pleased that you are naked! You are very ’andsome.” Her accent was strong but understandable. Her dark-haired sibling was blushing at the sight to match the poor stranger, and said “Yes, Mathieu, is it, we like it that you are all naked. M. Bertin told us we should make you welcome.” She smiled dazzlingly, and the boy looked at his feet.

“Well,” said Andrée, “we were told to give you a bath! So let’s do that!”

The two newcomers squealed in glee and helped pull Matthew into a proper bathroom this time, where all went as blushingly usual and he finally was brought to ejaculation, greeted with joy by all. Then he was anointed with Dr Fauré’s cream, to protect all that skin (now turning nicely brown) from the fierce Provençal sun, which nearly precipitated another emission, but it was too soon, Margot thought, and let him be. Then it was another little meal with wine, al fresco, and even more stilted conversation.

“Well,” said Bertin, “so you’re nice and clean and protected from the sun. You don’t need clothes, really. But we’ll see how your clothes are in a little while, and when you are fixed up you can leave. Till then, enjoy your nudity. The girls certainly enjoy it. What do you say, Mlle Élodie?”

The sixteen-year-old blushed becomingly and admitted that she liked to see it. Her sister smiled in a bantering sort of way and said that her sibling had hardly had any opportunity of seeing a boy with no clothes on, but she was sure she was paying attention to every detail of the young Englishman’s anatomy. She glanced at Matthew, who was blushing again at the attention and the unabashed way they were speaking about him. As usual he didn’t know what to do with his hands – cover up, thus drawing attention to his crotch, or free and easy, giving them all a good look, and especially a young girl only a year older than he, who was admittedly interested in that very part of his cringing body? Of course the latter. And think to himself You hypocrite! Admit it! Mrs G will tell you, you’re actually getting some thrill out of this. You’re an exhibitionist, like Saint Francis! There’s a secret sort of warm tingle when a girl sees your prick. Don’t deny it!

Bertin plied them with wine and fruit, while he toyed with some special concoction of lamb and herbs, and regaled them with more stories. The girls hung on his every word, and doubtless learned things, though Matthew, who still had an old-fashioned attitude in several areas, thought they could well do without a lot of them.

“After all,” said Bertin, “the male form is met with in art, to be sure, but vastly outnumbered by that of the female..” He looked at Matthew, who was led to remember the dinner conversation, and stuttered “B-but that’s because the artists were all men!”

“True,” smiled his host, “and the same thing goes for literature. Stories about naked men exist, of course, but they’re outnumbered ten to one by stories about naked women. From Diana, even, to Boccaccio’s Griselda. For the same reason, of course, because the creators of the tales are mostly men.”

Matthew broke in, saying that he thought Petrarch and co. hadn’t stressed that too much. Bertin looked surprised and pleased at the boy’s being so informed, and opined that Petrarch, from whom Chaucer’s Clerk had got the story, had played down that aspect for propriety’s sake. “Still, you will recall that your Chaucer describes her as ‘bright of hue’, does he not? And that means blushing brightly, so she has reason to blush, being shown in her nakedness to the assembly.

“There’a story in Straparola, though, that he got from a fabliau, about an amorous clerk who is tricked into posing naked on a cross; the husband he had intended to cuckold tells two nuns who have come to fetch a crucifix for their abbess that they can have that one. They look him over and say it’s very lifelike, but the carver has made it too true to nature, meaning that the sisters would be dismayed to see his genitals. ‘No great bother,’ says the carver, ‘I’ll easily sort that,’ and makes for the priest with a sharp tool. The terrified man leaps down naked from the cross and runs off, and the nuns cry a miracle, the cross has come to life. The story, the true story, gets out of course and the priest has to flee the town.”

“Yet such a story is outnumbered, you say,” said Bernadette, smiling.

“Yes, my dear,” said Bertin, and chewed his meat for a while. “For instance, here’s another tale from Béroalde. Oh, excuse me, girls, but I was talking about this author earlier, the book is a compendium of titillating anecdotes told at a feast by a learned company, and this one is about a girl called Marciole. She was the daughter of the miller of a monsieur de La Roche, and one day the miller had gathered a fine crop of cherries, the first of the season, and put them in a basket and sent Marciole off to the chateau to present them to the lord. I should say first he was a dread overlord whose word was mighty and had to be acted upon with no argument, on the instant. Well, he’s feasting with his cronies and the well-to-do from all over, with servants bringing meat and drink and so forth, and in comes this girl with her basket of cherries to show to her lord.

“Now she was a well-made girl of fifteen or so, fresh and desirable;” and he leered at the guests, who simpered back. Matthew was getting impatient with the old man’s (roué’s?) manners, and sighed. Bertin looked sharply at him and his lip curled, he nodded as if to say Just wait! and continued.

“So she makes the presentation, and de La Roche says ‘Ah, how fine!’ and orders the servants to bring the four best linen sheets in the house and lay them on the floor. Once they were laid out, he commanded the beautiful young girl to strip.” Here he raised an eyebrow roguishly and the girls began to giggle. “Poor Marciole began to cry, and he says “Ha, you’re clever! You shouldn’t cry; the girl whose mouth is crying, her cunt is laughing. Come, hurry; or I’ll get annoyed.’ So in fear she begins to take off her dress, her shoes and stockings, her cap, to free her hair, and then, careful! Her chemise. And then she, totally naked like a nymph coming from the water, on the command of monsieur, starts to scatter the cherries from one side to the other, up and down, on the linen sheets. Her fine dishevelled hair, floating over that masterpiece of Nature, polished, full-fleshed, in fine shape, showing in the diversity of gestures, a million admirable daintinesses. I won’t elaborate too much, but our author describes lovingly how the girl moved and displayed every bit of her body, her breasts, infinitely varied from every angle, and so forth.”

Matthew realised with a twinge of dismay that he was getting a little aroused by this recital, and hoped the girls wouldn’t notice.

“She was I suppose as attractive as that other maiden that Eustache Deschamps makes extol her charms in his virelay, Suis-je, suis-je, suis-je belle.” He smacked his lips, and seeing puzzlement on the faces of all five of his audience, explained further.

“She tells us that she’s fifteen years old; she has a sweet face, red lips, lively eyes, fine brows, blonde hair and a regular nose, round chin, white throat, a firm chest – no, let’s say firm breasts, and high-set, and a slim figure. ‘Tell me,’ she says, ‘if I’m beautiful.’ She goes on:

            J’ay bonnes reins, ce m’est vie,

            Bon dos, bon cul de Paris,

            Cuisses et gambes bien faictes;

Sui-je, sui-je, sui-je belle?

In English we might say …

My loins well-curved, in my opinion,

An arching back, a nice-looking arse,

Thighs and legs well-made;

Am I, am I, am I fair?

It’s a fine poem, and catches the voice of the proud lass very nicely.”

“But papa,” said Margot, “what’s that about ‘an arse of Paris’?”

“Oho,” chortled her father, “I suppose it’s just that her arse is as good, as attractive, shapely and so forth, as any you’d see on the fine ladies in Paris. I think it has nothing to do with the later fashion of having a padded behind, what they called bum-rolls, I believe, in English.”

Matthew started, and stuttered “That must have given them the idea for the bustles in Victoria’s time.”

He flushed and subsided, regretting drawing attention to his naked self. Bertin nodded in approval and went on, licking salacious lips.

“Then she goes on to talk about her ‘pretty treasure’, which is her maidenhead, obviously, or can we be less metaphorical and say her hymen? And she’ll keep the key to it. And in case you’re wondering about a literal key and a literal cage for her vulva, I don’t think there’s much credence to be placed in stories of a chastity belt. But anyhow, back to Béroalde.”

He drained his glass and took up his tale.

“Well now! The cherries were picked up again, giving more chances to see the folds of her body and her sinuous lines, and then she was allowed to dress and sit at the table and eat and drink and recover. But during all this delightful exhibition, the lascivious eyes of the whole multitude had been following her movements, and her unsuccessful attempts to hide herself, especially that centre of attraction – but I go on too long. During this time, I say, the company were exclaiming how the vision was worth more than a hundred crowns – no, two hundred! And so on. So at the end of it the lord, who’d been listening carefully to the lecherous guests, stood and said ‘Right, now you all can lay down the price you’ve boasted of, what you said this sight was worth to you.’ And they had to pay up; and so a fortune was poured into the basket for Marciole to take back, which delighted her of course and made up for her humiliation. De La Roche said ‘Give it to your father, and tell him you earned it by showing your arse.’ There’s many who show themselves don’t earn nearly as much but if they do they go after a greater fortune.”

“Aha,” said Margot, “that story has some justice to it at least. It’s true of course that men, and boys especially, like to feast their eyes on naked girls. Don’t you?” She turned to Matthew and looked down at his crotch.

He stared at her in dismay. “W-well,” he stammered, “we….”

“Oh yes,” chimed in Andrée, “You do! Peeking from the bushes!”

Matthew got a cold feeling. What was she going to reveal?

Bertin’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Do you like peeking at girls from the bushes?” he asked. “I’m not saying I blame you, mind. Boys do that, undoubtedly. Have you peeked lately?”

Matthew swallowed and couldn’t think what to say. It was no use, Andrée was letting the cat out of the bag.

“Yes, monsieur! He saw us when we were bathing, and—“

“What!” Bertin’s eyes grew large, and his face grew red. “He was spying on you, bathing! You were acting the voyeur, were you? You puritanical hypocrite!” He stood and addressed the hapless boy, who couldn’t understand the fury at what had seemed an expected male habit. It was his daughter of course, but wasn’t she a woman of the world?

Inconsistent or not, Bertin had worked himself into another rage, and yelled “Stand up!”

Matthew did so, his hands seeking his crotch automatically.

“Girls,” Bertin ordered, “seize him and follow me.” He turned and led the group down to a door in the side of the building, which gave into a sort of cellar, Matthew thought, with alarming furniture. Surely that wasn’t a set of stocks? And there were hooks in the ceiling, posts with straps, and Christ it was like the game room at Summerton, fitted up for torture! He struggled and slipped out of the grasp of the girls, to stand against the whitewashed wall and raise his hands in a plea for mercy.

“I’m s-sorry,” he babbled, “really I am, please f-forgive me, I meant no harm. M. Bertin, je vous prie!”

In answer Bertin pulled him over to a low copper tube like a drainpipe that went from wall to wall and maybe was part of the toilet system, if there was one. His hands were fastened to a hook in the wall and his feet to a ring in the flagstone floor, his legs separated slightly, his penis squashed on the pipe and his testicles free, and his behind elevated in an excellent position for a thrashing.

“So,” the old man grated between his teeth, “you abuse my hospitality by ogling my daughter and her friend.” He turned to Margot.

“And did you not chase him?”

“But of course, papa,” she said. “We chased him away, and he fell into that miry hole.”

“Of course, it had to be that way, so he got dirty and destroyed my cheque!” His eyes grew bigger and his face redder, and he seized a leather strap. “Well, there are always consequences!”

He drew back his arm and let fly at the boy’s bottom, where the leather met the flesh with a resounding whap! Matthew jerked and screamed, and tried to say how sorry he was, but his host was deaf to the entreaties, and had his eyes fixed on that beautiful arse. His tongue was between his teeth and his breath was laboured as he drew back for a second blow, which landed on the other cheek, and Matthew gave a loud anguished moan. Then Bertin lowered the strap and turned to the girls. “Go upstairs,” he said calmly, “and fetch Aimeric and Denis here, quickly.” He waited till they all left, then regarded those offered buttocks with a gleeful stare.

“Well,” he said musingly, “things always come to light.” He smoothed a hand over Matthew’s arse, and the boy whimpered. What was going to happen, with the two servants? And how long and vicious would the beating be? For it was sure to continue.

“So now you meet amicus redivivus, as my old master called it!” He looked at the strap affectionately and almost nonchalantly made another swipe at Matthew’s displayed bum, and the boy howled another protestation of a promise of good behaviour. Then the girls came in, with the two servants, and though Matthew couldn’t see them from his position he could imagine their expressions by what they said to Bertin and each other.

“Ah, what a sight! His arse is so pretty and brown!”

“Ah, sir, it is indeed a pleasant thing to see like this. But what am I to do?”

“Well, Denis, the boy is laid out like this to accommodate a thrashing with this belt. And also any other treatment.”

“Oh sir, is it allowed to touch him like this?”

“Of course, Aimeric, why do you think you’re here? Touch him – all of you can touch him. Feel the softness and the strength of his gluteal muscles there. Caress the little central point, that pretty little hole, yes, that’s right, Andrée! Can you reach his testicles? All of you – ah, boy, you should see the pleased look on their faces. They’ve seen you before, most of them, touched you, but they can’t get enough of you! Now it’s Bernadette … that’s right, now Margot … Élodie … and you pair.”

Matthew felt the impudent fingers on his smarting behind and twitched, conscious that his penis was hardening again. He supposed they’d bring him to ejaculation again, but why was Bertin swishing that leather strap that he called the reviving friend? Oh God, is it going to be like the Malvern gang, and everyone gets a whack at me?

“Ah, sir, thank you for the opportunity, again!”

“No, Aimeric, you’re not finished. He’s in a perfect position for something else.”

Matthew flinched.

“Ah no, sir, I beg you, do not spoil his beautiful arse! Denis will agree, it is amazingly attractive.”

“No no, Aimeric, calm yourself. I’m not saying you should sodomise him, either, though I know you want to. No, insert your member under him, between his thighs. It’ll be very similar for you, I believe. You’ll fit nicely up to his ballocks.”

“Oh sir, but the girls—”

“Pay no attention. Down with your trousers. That’s it. And you can use the oil over there, it won’t be so rough for either of you.”

The girls began to giggle and gasp, as the approaching spectacle would be new to them, and Matthew began to stammer a protest, but Bertin roughly told him to shut up, amicus was still there. With a sinking heart the boy clenched his backside as well as he could and waited for … what?

He soon knew; a hand covered in olive oil, he surmised, was thrust between his thighs, an erect penis was placed somewhat shyly under his perineum, just touching the underside of his scrotum, and he realised he’d soon be finding out what Catherine had felt at the exposure punishment at the dinner. Then the young man put his hands to Matthew’s waist and began to push his penis forward in that confined pseudo-receptacle. The girls were cheering him on, though he felt quite mortified to be doing this private thing within feet of a quartet of randy females. It didn’t take many minutes for him to stiffen his body and convulse in an orgasm, squirting semen between the boy’s thighs and incidentally re-lubricating the perineum nicely. The girls applauded and giggled.

Bertin clapped his servant on the shoulder. “That’s it, Aimeric, well done. And you, boy, did you like that?”

Matthew panted some sort of answer, but grimaced as his erect prick pressed against the pipe, and Bertin grinned fiendishly. “All right! I see your trouble. The erection, isn’t it so? Well, girls, help him. Free his feet, let him up on his knees, and the prick can swing free. Yes, that’s it.”

In a trice he was kneeling to show off that troublesome hard-on, and the girls remarked on it, to his mortification. He didn’t have much time to reflect however, for Bertin was already urging the other young man to participate. Aimeric had drawn up his trousers and edged in blushes to the back, and Denis, a year younger and a bit brasher, was quite ready to be told to strip to the skin to have his enjoyment of that beautiful backside. The girls clapped to see his lithe nakedness, and he rewarded them with a ready erection, whose size was evidently rather notable, from the girls’ remarks, and Matthew was thankful that at least he wasn’t going to feel the brunt of it. Denis stepped forward to seize Matthew’s hips, and inserted his erection against the perineum as before. For some reason the repetition made Matthew shiver in anticipation of more delights, and he closed his eyes in shame at his feelings.

Denis seemed more in control of his member than Aimeric had been, and took the exercise a little more slowly, though after some minutes, being urged on by the audience, he increased his speed and soon was panting as he approached that crest, to explode in an ecstasy of orgasmic euphoria and gradually come down again to catch his breath and wait for his heart to normalise its beat. The girls applauded again, and Bertin congratulated his retainer on a good performance. Élodie however drew the attention of the others to Matthew, who was shuddering in an orgasm of his own, shedding sperm over the flags to join that of the other young man.

“Ha!” crowed Bertin, “you’re excited, of course! A testament to the pleasurable force of Denis’s prick, no? My word, that’s quite an emission! Well done!”

Matthew, scarlet with shame at yet another public ejaculation, and secretly wondering why he had been aroused by another boy’s prick! – breathed brokenly and hung his head.

“Right,” said Bertin, “away with him now. Wash him – all of you, wash him. Then we can renew our civilised snack, no?”

He was led away with enthusiasm to the kitchen, where hot water was readily available, and lowered into a vast cauldron, probably used for washing clothes, in lieu of an actual bathtub, lovingly tended by all six of the participants, and viewed with interest by the kitchen staff, to be cleaned several times, and brought once more to a satisfying ejaculation. Louise and Renée washed away the mess, giggling shamefully, while Pépin glowered at the invasion. Then the company trooped back to their abandoned table, and Matthew was plied with more wine. Bertin looked at him with an indulgent smile.

“Well, Matthew,” he said pleasantly, “I’m told your clothes are now dry, though still somewhat less than clean. You’ll have to apologise to Mrs Grainger for that, it was all your doing. You should not have tried to escape, you see, but stayed to take your punishment like a man. And you did spoil my cheque,” he added with a frown. “Which means you will have to come back in a day or two with another. And this time behave yourself.”

He smiled in a threatening way, somehow, and Matthew gulped.

“No matter,” continued the old monster, “if you do misbehave, what happens will be no surprise.”

“Are you remembering, papa, about Angelique and Brigitte—”

“Ah, an interesting point. No, Margot, I hadn’t forgotten them, and I think that will make it a lot more interesting for all concerned.” He rang the bell on the table, and it had to be young Dominique who answered.

“Dominique, fetch the clothes that were being cleaned.” She looked wildly at Matthew and ran out, followed by the laughter of the company.

“Well,” said Bertin, “you seem to have made an impression there, Matthew! I’m sure she’ll want to renew the acquaintance. Ah, there she is. Eh, a blush! But don’t you think he’s handsome too? Stand up, Matthew. Let her see you. All of you.”

The boy stood up to show his naked self, swallowing painfully and looking into the wondering eyes of a fourteen-year-old, who couldn’t help but allow herself a faint smile to be presented with a boy this nice-looking – and heavens! He was attaining an erection for her!

“All right,” said Bertin after what seemed many long minutes of the girl’s inspection, “that’s sufficient admiration for one day. Bring the clothes here. Aimeric, perhaps you and Denis can get the boy dressed, and we’ll send him home.”

They all gazed at him rather hungrily as the two youths put Matthew into his shirt, drew up the trousers over those tanned thighs (stroked and muttered over), and the now total erection, and shod his feet. Denis plunked the straw hat on his head and held his hand against the younger boy’s cheek.

“Au revoir, Bel Ami,” he said. Matthew thought for an awful moment he was going to kiss him, you could see it in his eyes, but no, the hand was dropped and the servant stood back.

“Au ’voir, Mathieu,” said Aimeric, seemingly conveying a whole sentence into the phrase.

“Right!” said the boy, trying to be nonchalant. “Goodbye all. I’ll be back with your cheque, monsieur, very soon.”

They chorused farewells, including Dominique, who was bright red but being more open now about her feelings, with a smile that said I like you like this! Your balls and your prick!

He looked back to see them all gazing after him, Bertin with a pleased look on his face, probably anticipating his cheque, Dominique anticipating more nudity, and the others most definitely looking forward to another show. Matthew squared his shoulders and strode down the bumpy path, wondering how he’d tell Mrs G about all this….

The interrogation that ensued was quite embarrassing.

“What on earth took you so long? And what happened to your clothes? Take them off.”

His pleading look was ignored.

“Come, take them off. What’s that? Wait, turn round. What’s that on your behind?”

She’d noticed the fading bruises on his arse cheeks, and was intrigued.

“Well, what happened to your bottom? Don’t tell me Bertin punished you? For what? Falling in a hole? There’s more to it than that.”

He had to explain, and Lydia was drily unsympathetic.

“See what libido can get you! A beating, because of the destroying of the cheque, of course, too.”

Andrew had listened to this with great amusement, and commented “You’ll have to go back, of course, won’t you?”

“Yes he will,” said Mrs G with a grim note in her voice. Catherine was sympathetic, for she understood him, and smiled at him to say she forgave him for being a peeping Tom.

So he would have to go back in a day or two, and he didn’t look forward to it. He knew it would somehow be another shaming experience…, and he feared another upset with the irascible hermit, and attendant punishment, not to mention the two young servants and what they might do…. He bent to recover his clothes, but his mistress kept him from leaving.

“Still,” Lydia said carelessly, “what did you think of him, besides all that?”

He paused, with the clothes in his hands. “They said he corresponds all over the world. I hate to think of the poor postman having to travel that rocky road with lots of letters!”

“Yes, Matthew, but Mireio was telling me that the voluminous correspondence is brought using the back road. I mean Bertin uses the postal facilities in Greves, on the other side of the hill, mountain or whatever, and the way to the castle is quite easy from there, for a vehicle at any rate. He still doesn’t encourage visitors of course, so he keeps it quiet. However, he seems to have taken to you, after a fashion. Perhaps because you were a source of innocent merriment. I imagine his existence must be very placid otherwise. Boring in fact.”

“But madam, if I may say so, you don’t do anything here either. You don’t go out—”

“Don’t be impertinent! I come here precisely for that – blessed inactivity, ‘away from the world and its toils and its cares’, as Thackeray says. My own ‘snug little kingdom’ suits me fine, and I suppose Bertin is satisfied with his.”

Matthew began to leave, asking “They spoke about ‘research’ – what would that be?”

“Again, Mireio; she hears he’s terribly brainy, knows many languages, and investigates old stories. Historical mysteries, for instance . French, I suppose in particular, like the Man in the Iron Mask, but others, like the culpability of Richard III of England in the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower – you must know about that. Moreio was quite in awe of his erudition. She still doesn’t like him, of course.

“Anyway, you’re going back there, whether you like him or not. And this time there will be no excuse for misbehaviour. I’m going to send a note along with the cheque to the effect that if he faults you in anything, in any degree, he has my full permission, indeed my strong instruction, to punish you in any way he sees fit. All right? Of course not, but that’s the way it is.”

Of course it wasn’t all right. But surely nothing could go wrong this time?

That night Andrew was visited by Amelia, who dropped her clothes and slipped into his bed with a snigger. He welcomed her and quickly shed the pyjamas he was wearing, to show her a ready erection, which she grinned to see. Then he produced a condom, and said “When I’m wearing one of these, Amelia, you’ll know I mean business!” She laughed and snuggled down among the sheets, to accept his preliminary advances.

Once they were all heated up sufficiently, she looked him in the eye to say “Andrew, I want you behind me. To begin with, anyhow.”

“Surely,” he said, in some surprise. “Not everyone likes it up the arse. I’ll be happy to accommodate you. Maybe you want some grease though?”

She showed him a jar of cold cream, and he grinned. “You come prepared, yes!”

She turned her naked back to him, and said roguishly “Are you used to doing it then? We’ve all heard about the public schools!”

He laughed. “Maybe I’ll tell you a few stories,” he said, “but for now, just relax that sphincter and let it all happen.”

“Yes!” she said, licking her lips. “And then….”

====================================================================================================================================

Thursday 6th August

Andrew leaves for Italy, promising a postcard or two. Matthew’s “therapeutic” bath

Mrs Grainger ate her boiled egg carefully and daintily, and took a bite of toast. “Well, Matthew,” she said, dabbing a napkin to her lips, “this is your first therapeutic bath. Yes,” she added, “I did say ‘first’, for you’re going to have several of these. Till we leave, in fact. But that won’t be too long. School starts fairly soon, and we’ll be back for that. You helping in the lessons, for instance. I think it might be amusing, for me and all the girls, to see you dancing Sellinger’s Round naked on the lawn!” She laughed at his despairing expression, … She finished her egg, dabbed her mouth, and rose. “Mireio! Coffee in the garden!”

She invited Andrew to join her in a cup, and they were soon in a companionable tête-à-tête, laughing and talking about his Grand Tour, which she was determined to manage. Matthew scowled and took up a newspaper, trying to shut them out. Catherine came by from the bathroom to join him, and sat down with a sigh. “He goes today, I think,” she said.

“Not before time! Catherine, love, when I think of what he did to you … my blood boils. I can’t forget it, as long as he's in the neighbourhood. Can you?”

“I admit the fact he’s here is a constant reminder, yes. But I’m telling myself he’ll soon be off, and I’ll probably never see him again. So I’m trying to be patient. As you have to be. You’ve got other things to bother about. You’ve got this medical bath or whatever it is, haven’t you?”

“Lord, yes, and I shudder to think what it’ll be. Wait! What’s happening?”

She looked out and smiled in relief. “I do believe he’s going. He’s going!”

The nasty young man came in to bid farewell to the orphans, with something of a sneer, as Matthew thought. “Cheerioh, you two! It’s been nice knowing you. Perhaps we’ll meet again at Summerton, who knows? I’m off.”

Matthew roused himself to bid adieu to the hateful boy, and Catherine smiled politely. Then he drove off in a cloud of dust, and they sighed in thankfulness. Now all they had to worry them was the impending “therapeutic bath” – nothing too scientific about it, surely; they both knew it was just an excuse for exposure and shame.

Matthew parked the donkey-cart in a shady spot, not knowing how long he’d be at the doctor’s. He gave a couple of carrots to Modestine and stroked her nose. “I’ll see you,” he said, “in some condition or other. Look, here’s some more carrots, I’m putting them down here for you. I hope you don’t get thirsty. Maybe I’ll tell Fauré to attend to you, hmm?” Modestine looked at him as if he were mad, and chewed. Matthew sighed and made his way to the surgery, where he found several people in the waiting room. They looked at him without curiosity and he sat down in a corner to wait his turn. He was bored with nothing to do, and couldn’t start a conversation, so picked up a magazine and tried to read it. Pictures, he decided, were certainly useful in conveying information that text kept unclear. He managed to gather some garbled information about German politics before he heard his name called, and looked up to see Geneviève beckoning him through. He rose in some anxiety to follow her, and she led him next door to a rather roomy bathroom with tub and lavatory, where he was left for a few minutes.

Fauré bustled in, looking harassed as usual, and said abruptly “Take off your clothes. Didn’t Geneviève tell you? It doesn’t matter, get them off, and we’ll get you in the bath.” He turned and left, and Matthew began to unbutton his shirt. He was taking off his socks, the last thing he had on, when Genevieve walked in to say Bonjour, and smile at his confusion. She went to the bath and turned on the taps, then looked over at him as he stood there naked again, shielding his genitals with shaking hands. “The bath takes several minutes to fill up,” she said. “I will return to check it.” She left, leaving the door open, and Matthew made haste to close it, peeking out at the crowded waiting room, and he saw with a twinge of anxiety that one could see straight from one to the other. Closing the door, he went to the bath and tested the water. It seemed a bit hot but presumably they’d wait till it cooled a bit, and he relaxed.

He leaned against the wall and folded his arms, then saw the bath was getting rather full – he had to leave room for his own body! Dashing over he turned off both taps and looked as the door opened to admit a girl he’d never seen before. She was about eighteen or so, with auburn hair tied up in a bun, dressed in a green smock. She smiled at him in a business sort of way and spoke in slow French for the ignorant Englishman. “Good day! I am Constance Lefevre, Dr Fauré’s nurse. How is the water?” Without waiting for a reply she tested the temperature herself and nodded. “Please get in.” Matthew recovered from his cringe and lifted a leg to get in, and she came over to steady him. Her hands were cool on his waist, and he gave an involuntary shiver, and she said only “The water will warm you.”

Then he was in the tub, and the nurse looked critically at the level of water, then reached in to remove the plug for a minute. When she thought there was room for him, she replaced it and told him to lie down. Once he was supine she looked down at his nude body with what he hoped was objective disinterest, and said “You must stay there for a while and let your pores all open. Then we will add some special things to the water.” She left, and oh God didn’t close the door. Matthew could easily see a slice of the waiting room from where he was if he lifted his head, but tried to forget about it and closed his eyes. Let his pores open. He was very comfortable, and thought this might be an enjoyable day….

He was nearly asleep when the nurse returned to ask him to stand up. He scrambled to his feet and thought about covering himself, but told himself he was being silly. Yet all the same, she’s not much older than me! And is she looking at my cock, like everybody else? Mlle Lefevre didn’t give him time to protest, but told him to unplug the bath to drain the water. But wasn’t she going to add some stuff!? Oh well, maybe later on. He did so, and endured her appraisal while the water, now tepid, swirled around his ankles. Then she said “You will get out of the bath now and I will dry you.” Somewhat bewildered, he obeyed, and she seized a large towel and proceeded to dry him, turning him round to do so, during which he saw the door was still open and he was a potential sight for anyone out there. He began to mumble nervously, but she paid him no heed and finally set him up standing by the bath, which she rinsed out with tap water and put the plug back in. “Just wait there,” she said, and walked out.

Matthew was going to go after her to shut the door when it was opened wider and Geneviève came through. Automatically he covered himself, seeing in dismay that she’d left the door open, and he could actually see into the waiting room, where some people were sitting. The girl came in, not shutting the door of course, and grinned at him. “Next we have a lotion, you use the same word, yes? It is a lotion for the skin. Come over here please.” She put him in a spot on a rug a little closer to the door and went to a cupboard for the skin treatment, while he was flinching in his exposed position. He didn’t dare look through to the waiting room in case he saw someone looking at him, and clenched his teeth.

“Geneviève,” he said in a falter, “d-do you think we could close the door?”

She turned round with a bottle in her hand. “Oh yes,” she said, “but you really need to have the air circulating. And the door will be opening and shutting all day!”

“All day? What do you mean?”

“Why, we will be going and coming in and out. Look, here comes Héloise.”

He nearly screamed as he saw the girl approach, her face grinning at him and his horrified expression. “Why is she here? For God’s sake—”

“It is easier to apply the lotion quickly if two people do it. So Héloise has offered to help put it on.” I bet! he thought savagely. She volunteers to get her hands on me. Just as you do, you salacious bitch! And your father, how can he let you? Doting daddy lets his kid do anything she likes, oh God!

Heloise greeted him merrily and the two girls got the lotion on their hands, looking at him and deciding where to start. Then as one they started applying the salve to his shoulders, his arms, his hands, his back, his chest, his bum, all the while making satisfied noises, little chuckles and the odd comment, which he didn’t bother to try to translate. His legs, his thighs, his belly, and lastly his loins, lovingly and carefully anointed, as they had before, rubbing the lotion in to the soft skin of his groins, his seam, his ballocks, feeling for the testicles, and then ultimately his penis, now hard as iron, it seemed, and the comments grew ruder and his face grew redder, if possible. Then he looked up to see into the waiting room again, and Christ this time there were several faces there, girls he thought, staring at the exhibition with laughing eyes!

To avoid the sight he shut his eyes, which somehow made him more conscious of what the hands were doing. And that was quite deliberately provoking his cock to the ejaculation point. He gave an anguished moan as he came, feeling guilty in a pleasured shame, collaborating in his orgasm with the lecherous teenagers, pushing his cock into their hands and making them serve his lust. He opened his eyes to see three or four girls standing at the door looking at him with eager grins, and he came again, enduring their ribald attention, thrusting forward as if in exhibition till he felt empty. Genevieve looked over at the audience and said “That’s it, he’s finished. Did you like that?” They chorused their appreciation and thanks, and Matthew realised that they had (of course) been invited specially by the ‘trainee nurse’ to watch his treatment. They went away and shut the door, and he relaxed as well as he could, not bothering to argue with the girls (girls!) about his exposure.

He was asked to lie down on a towel-covered table so that the lotion could dry on his skin and penetrate. The two girls looked at him with satisfaction and left, and he relaxed and tried to forget his condition. He opened his eyes in shock as the door opened and another girl came in, coming right up to him and eyeing his loins with interest. He looked at her in despair and realised he was on display for Genevieve’s friends, and so it proved. The girl was joined by another, and they looked their fill, then went out laughing. It was only a minute later that another pair came in to check up on him, as they boldly admitted. Then it was half a dozen, who made no bones about discussing him and his revived erection, which they didn’t allow him to conceal.

That party stayed during the next stage, which was another soak in a herbal bath, accompanied by a lively discussion about his qualities, followed by a concerted drying of his delightful body (they said), after which Genevieve came in and handed one of her friends a suppository to be inserted in his colon. She managed this with giggling aplomb, and they all trooped off. He sighed in relief, but Genevieve reappeared to tell him to get up and sit on the lavatory seat. “Because that suppository in going to make you chier, just in a few minutes!”

Wearily he did as he was told, and sat dejectedly for a little while, feeling some commotion in his bowels. Then the door opened to admit an enlarged group of girls, who were, they found, just in time to see the boy taking a shit, triggered by their entrance. He farted and deposited quite a bit of merde into the pan, and the salacious crowd were highly amused.

He cleaned his arse, and they applauded the sight, then left again, giggling. Genevieve directed him to wash his hands, and said they’d have lunch. She whisked him through another door, and led him into a kitchen where a stout middle-aged woman was busy at the sink. She was introduced as “Ma mère, Josette Fauré. Maman, ceci est le pauvre anglais Mathieu, tu sais?” Matthew nodded in greeting, saying “Bonjour madame.” But what about his nudity? She looked him up and down with a glance that seemed disparaging to the embarrassed boy, and motioned them through to a little dining room. He was horrified to see the family there, the doctor, a boy who had to be François, the son, and two more girls (oh God) of his own age, he thought, who looked at him in glee as Genevieve introduced them (Julie Benoit, fifteen, a cousin of Geneviève, and Colette Aurenche, a month older, a friend of Julie). Fauré explained Matthew’s presence (and his state) to the girls, saying that his body had to get an airing, and they nodded sagely, looking at his crotch, which he was valiantly trying to shield from their curiosity. “Do you mind?” asked the doctor. “Oh no, monsieur,” they said, “we understand. We don’t mind at all. Besides, he is handsome!” Fauré laughed and agreed, directing Matthew to sit between the visitors. This meant that when he was using his hands to eat, he couldn’t hide his privates, and he hoped his unruly penis would behave. It was rather like his experience chez Bertin, but at least here he wouldn’t have to listen to bawdy anecdotes.

The meal was simple – soup, salad, wine. Matthew ate with lowered eyes and hoped no-one would speak to him. He could see François grinning away to himself, and tried not to react when the insufferable boy made pointed remarks to the girls about sunbathing in the nude, and nodding at Matthew to say how good it was to see a body brown all over, from head to tail. Matthew knew that the word for tail also meant prick, so he bit his lip and munched his lettuce in silence. He flinched however when the boy asked his father about the next stage of the treatment, and Fauré answered him, in English, so as to be understood.

“Well, François, we have had the bath, the lotion, the suppository to bring on defecation – that was successful, was it not, my dear?”

“Oh yes, papa,” answered Genevieve, “he produced a good amount.”

Colette wrinkled her brow and asked what he’d done, and Genevieve, with a glance at her father, told her “He … defecated a good amount – of caca, that is.”

“Ooh!” crowed the girls, “awful!”

Fauré good-naturedly explained the function of the suppository, and they looked at Matthew and laughed, Colette managing to put a hand on his bare thigh. He cringed, hoping the adults would step in, but the doctor merely looked at François and continued, “Now we have exercises. Mathieu will be put through some physical movements, to raise a sweat; then after sponging him down, he’ll have a long soak in a herbal bath. Then thoroughly dried and sent home. I will telephone the estate to summon a car to take him home.”

Matthew roused himself. “No, doctor, I came in a donkey-cart. It’s outside beneath a tree—”

“So? Ah, François, perhaps you should look after that. Perhaps the animal needs a drink.” The boy agreed, and Matthew was relieved. “Your donkey will have to remain for a good while yet,” said the doctor. “I suggested a car because you would be naked.”

“What?” Matthew stared at him in anguish. “But I can’t—”

Colette moved her hand! Oh God don’t let her do that—! She looked at the doctor, and spoke in English. “That will be interesting. The exercises, and the bath.”

Christ, what’s she up to? She can’t expect Fauré to invite her to witness this? But after all those others, why not? God, he will….

“Yes,” chimed in Julie, “I think it would be instructive.”

The doctor smiled. “Indeed, girls, it is an interesting process. The pores of the skin open up to sweat, you see, and then the herbs can enter to invigorate the body. I think you will enjoy seeing it.”

Matthew shuddered, and blushed in anticipation – but then blushed deeper as Colette’s hand now moved a little more to put her fingers in his groin. Julie looked down and grinned, then with great sangfroid said “Thank you, uncle! We will be very attentive.” François was laughing behind his hand, and Mme Fauré, who he had thought might protect him, gave him a careless stare and rose to collect plates. François asked his father about l’anglaise, and the doctor started to tell him about the adaptations to the programme that he would be making when Catherine came in a few days. “I want you to assist in this, of course,” he said. “Nurse Lefevre will be busy, so it will rest on your capable shoulders. Do you mind?”

“Oh no, papa, of course not,” the boy said eagerly, his eyes brightening at the prospect. “And it will be all right to have Louis or Henri, perhaps, to help?”

“Naturally,” said his indulgent father. “They were helpful before, and I was pleased with them. They have other friends of course….”

Matthew clenched his teeth and heard no more as the girls (all three) took him back to the other room, and for twenty minutes or so he was made to carry out physical jerks of several kinds, his genitals on open display, and a fine erection to fascinate the visitors as it bobbed about. He indeed worked up a real sweat, and when he was finally allowed a breather he stood there before them, not bothering about his hard-on, and panted, hearing them pay compliments to his body and his cock. In the absence of the adults their conversation was very free, and they were overjoyed to be given a sponge each and invited to wipe him off. Two girls his own age were sponging down his body, carefully applying themselves to his back, his bum, his chest, his belly, his prick, ah God!

They lingered there a while and delicately tickled him till he was close to orgasm, and he stammered “Please, girls, please, frig me!”

They didn’t know what the words meant but knew what he wanted, and between them all (Colette at his balls, Julie at his prick, Genevieve at his prostate) they managed to make him come copiously. He was put into the bath, soon filled with warm water and aromatic herbs, and he lay there breathing deeply, looking up at their smiles. “Well,” said Genevieve, “we’ll leave you for twenty minutes or so. Let the medical herbs into you. Rest.”

Left alone, he couldn’t believe what they were doing to him. He closed his eyes and thought about dozing, but the door opened again and Mlle Lefevre came in to look at him critically and ask how he was. He answered “Fine! Very well!”, and she nodded in satisfaction and left.

When the girls came back, he was hauled out of the water and stood up on a mat. They each seized a towel and proceeded to dry him off. Not long after they started that door opened wide and Héloise and Monique came in, their faces brightening as they saw what was happening. “Hello,” said Genevieve, “you can join in! Get a towel!”

It was inevitable: they dried every inch of him, and every inch of the six that projected from his loins, and managed to precipitate another massive ejaculation. Matthew was in a daze as he was escorted to the door and Genevieve opened it. “For God’s sake!” Matthew cried, “I’m naked! My clothes!”

Monique laughed and said “Look, silly, there’s no-one in the waiting-room.,”

That was fine, but they opened the door to the street, and he howled and struggled.

Héloise laughed and said to her friends, “Let’s just put him outside and see what happens!”

Genievieve chuckled and said “Well, not entirely maybe. Monique, get a towel and hold it round him.” The girl quickly obeyed. “Now, we can escort him to his cart. All of us, around him.”

Matthew gulped in distress as the little procession made its way up the street towards the tree under which Modestine sat, a tin dish of water by her side. The passers-by looked at them in some astonishment, but Matthew was relieved to think he was practically unseen among his female entourage. Then he found himself at the cart, and greeted the patient donkey as an old friend. “Take me back home, Modestine,” he muttered. “Take me back home.” The girls snickered and suddenly Monique tore away the towel.

“God! Please, girls, je suis nu!” he muttered, not wanting to broadcast his plight. Monique however put her arms round him and hugged him, while the others pressed in close, deliberately smoothing their hands over his skin. He could feel himself erecting again, and looked out into the street in anguish. Some out there were looking over at the mysterious scene, intrigued by the actions of the crowd of girls. Then (oh God!) he felt hands at his genitals and knew they wanted him to ejaculate – in the street, for God’s sake! “Please, girls! Please let me alone! You can’t make me spend in public, in the street!” They responded with wicked grins and seized him, lifting him up to the cart. He was still obscured from the gaze of the town, for they crowded round him, and Monique climbed on beside him to continue her attentions. Colette reached up to contribute her hands to his twitching body. Between them it didn’t take long to produce a grand hard erection, which throbbed as he gazed out to the people of Vaulx, who were now quite interested in what was going on, and the thought of his imminent ejaculation within sight not only of the randy girls but the general population brought it on, and he leaned back and arched his body, lifting his bum from the seat to thrust, thrust, clenching his fists and moaning loudly. Then Monique and Colette got down, and the beleaguered boy gasped weakly as he saw his cover disappearing. “Please, girls! I’m naked!” They tittered, and the ringleader answered him pertly.

“Yes, Mathieu, you are tout nu, and it is charming! But now you go back to madame, and we are sorry to see you go.”

“But for God’s sake, Genevieve,” he screamed as quietly as he could in his terror, “I can’t go through the town like this! Let me have the towel at least! But what happened to my clothes, anyway?”

The future nurse laughed merrily. “I am not sure. We were going to put them in the car that took you home. Now however we have no car. As for the towel, it belongs to papa, and it has to go back.” She laughed again at the horror on his face, then turned to her friends. “What do you think we should do?”

“I think,” said Julie, “we can protect him by walking along beside the charrette and keeping people away, no matter how much they want to approach him and touch him.” Matthew couldn’t believe it, and the awful picture in his mind’s eye made him twitch again. No, for Christ’s sake, I’m not going to get another hard-on! Colette came to his rescue, after a fashion. “I think,” she said judiciously, “that we should all get on the charrette and accompany him to the edge of town. Then we can see. No?” The others thought this an excellent idea, and they piled on to the cart. For an awful moment the boy’s bare body and limbs were exposed, but the girls disposed themselves so that he was hidden from the sides and back, and as for the front –!

He grasped the reins and shook them, and Modestine roused herself to begin to plod forward. Matthew was quivering in shame and kept his eyes low as the cart edged its way out into the middle of the street. Surely the townsfolk could see his condition! Could they see past his nervous hands to his loins, could they see his – God, his erection! Then he felt someone’s hands coming round him, and he gave a small shriek as they met at his navel, to travel down, to brush his poil, to cover (Christ!) his prick.

His face was burning as Modestine took him through the square and along the leafy road he had cheerfully come the first time he visited that unspeakable doctor, who had no qualms about exposing him to his precocious children and their seemingly innumerable friends. As they went the girl behind him began to stroke his penis, and he groaned as he saw they intended him to come in the middle of the street. But then another hand carelessly draped the towel over his crotch, so that he was at least covered. He stammered out his thanks, but cut off as the first girl managed to bring him almost to the crest, and another slid her hand under his bum to find his anus. By this time they seemed to be at the outskirts of the town, and they passed the last cottages as Genevieve cried “Bien! So now we may leave you. You can get home easily now. My friends, let us go!”

With one accord they leaped from the cart, and Genevieve retrieved the towel and smacked Modestine on the rump. She brayed in surprise and started to trot, leaving the girls behind waving goodbye to the horrified teenager. He could do nothing but cower on the seat hoping that his ordeal was over. The donkey was moving faster, thank goodness, but there were still miles to go before they reached sanctuary, and what if he met someone on the road? For God’s sake, he was naked, with an unsatisfied hard-on, in a foreign country, and he couldn’t even speak the language well enough to explain himself. He shivered in misery and urged Modestine on, relying on her to get them home as usual. The sun felt hot on his bare skin and he wondered about sunburn, but that was surely the least of his worries.

In a few minutes he began to feel better, somehow, and he consoled himself with the thought that if anyone got into trouble over this flouting of public decency it would be Lydia Grainger. But then with a quickening of his heartbeat he saw that she might take out her ire on him nevertheless, and his people back in Essex. He encouraged the donkey to move faster, and she obliged after a reproachful look back at him. Then to add to his distress he needed to pee.

His erection had subsided by now so he knew he’d be able to urinate, but he was afraid to stop, and so he jiggled the reins to keep Modestine going while he stood up and turned to the side in order to pee off the cart into the dusty road. That meant that he wasn’t looking ahead, and so when he heard a voice call out he was startled, then mortified, to see a girl standing in the middle of the road looking at him in amazement. He couldn’t stop, so had to stand for a few seconds more, openly pissing in front of a girl, oh God, then he hastily dropped his hand from his penis and sat down again, in scarlet embarrassment, while she looked up at him and laughed, saying something in the local patois. Matthew stared at her and mouthed a greeting of some sort, feeling absurd in doing so. She said something else, but he couldn’t understand her, and was only able to sit there immobile being scrutinised by this girl, who looked to be sixteen or so, and who stood in front of Modestine scratching the donkey’s ears, smiling in disbelief at this apparition.

He suddenly made up his mind, and shook the reins, to urge the donkey forward past the girl, who stood aside to let her pass, and inspect his bare body as the cart took him past her amused eyes. He looked down at her, blushing more as their eyes met, and then turned away to stare fixedly ahead. The cart left her behind, still grinning, calling out some compliment or other – or maybe an insult, who knew? All Matthew could say to himself was that he was probably going to become as famous in the Vaulx valley as he had become at Summerton. And that Lydia Granger would be delighted at the results of her designs. He encouraged Modestine to pick up the pace, and the animal obliged, maybe sensing the urgency in his voice when he spoke to her, asking her for God’s sake get on and take him home.

It seemed a long time before he got to the gate of the little estate, but that was only because he was sensitive to the exposure of his body to the air and the open road, conscious of his vulnerability, and of the gradual development of another erection. He didn’t know what he’d do if he met anyone else, even a man or boy; and then he threw back his head and cried to the sky, “No, God, I know it’ll be a girl! Lots of girls! Why are you exposing me like this?”

Then he saw sense and quieted down, reassuring Modestine, who had turned to look at him with disapproval, muttering “All right, I know it’s Lydia Grainger manipulating me like a string puppet. She’s the one that manages everything, even though she’s not even on the stage. I know. So I have to accept what happens. As Bryden said – but oh, it’s hard! And Catherine will have to endure the same sort of thing from that bastard François and his lecherous pals. Yes, we’ll have to endure….”

At last they were home, and Modestine stopped, and he gazed about him at the idyllic place. Climbing down, he went into the house, not caring who saw him, but was upset nonetheless to meet Mireio, who looked at him sympathetically as she passed, but said nothing. He got to his room and sat down on the bed with a grunting sigh, then lay back and willed himself to rest. Maybe he’d wake for their meal. And maybe not.

He hadn’t seen Catherine, but assumed she was helping Mireio, or maybe just resting in the summer heat. He learned later that she’d been allowed off for a walk, and when she told him about it he clenched his fists in impotent fury.

She had explored the road, then a poor path, that led to the hamlet of Gassin, which turned out to be a handful of cottages and not much more. Continuing on, she left the path, which petered out in fact not much farther, and made her way slowly through bushes and small trees till she came to a pool. The sun was hot, and she found herself sweating. What more natural than to take a quick dip in the inviting water?

It was cool and oh so refreshing. She swam about, and started turning somersaults in the water, baring her beautiful arse to any who might see, at which thought she laughed out loud. Hey, maybe I can ask Matthew to take some shots of me doing that, she thought. How improper! She grew serious to remember Grandison’s awful session at the Academy. But then if Matthew takes some snaps, and I take some of him, for ourselves, who could we trust to process them, develop them? Not that photography shop in the village, surely! Hmm. She frowned in disappointment, then exclaimed in panic as she heard voices approaching. Fuck! She had been stupid to start this in a strange part of the forest. So what to do? She was frozen in fright, otherwise she might have darted out to put something on, but she was trapped if the people came close, and they were doing exactly that. She cowered in the water, concealed in a fashion by an overhanging branch, and waited in trepidation.

Then they entered the glade – six young men, or boys rather, maybe twelve to fifteen years old, who stopped at the pool’s edge and proceeded to take their clothes off. Oh no! They were going to swim!

The boys splashed into the pool, and Catherine waited frozen, waited for the inevitable discovery. Chaotic thoughts raced through her head – should she make a break for ir or what? Oh Christ, there was that awful Folliot boy – no, the pair of them! And oh no, that other one, Alain Poirier, who had escorted her to the cairn, and felt her up! She couldn’t stay – but she couldn’t move – but her indecision couldn’t last, and all too soon the option was denied her by one of them catching sight of her body under the water He couldn’t believe his eyes, and quickly swam to her and grabbed the apparition by the legs – her thighs, her arse – and she screamed in shock, so alerting the others. They looked in surprise, that turned to delighted amazement at a girl’s nudity, as they crowded round, conscious of their nakedness as well as hers.

She was held immobile by two boys while the others plastered their adolescent hands all over her, she squirming in crimson horror, that soon – what! – led to itching anticipation. She looked around wildly and panted, broke free and hurled herself at the bank, to be grabbed from behind by someone’s bawdy fingers and halted. She found herself on all fours, with Alain’s cheeky paws at her bum, and Jean Folliet’s thirsty fingers at her vulva. She gave in to her want – yes! her want, her want – and came deliberately. What was she doing?

They saw her reaction and joined in the fun. Carefully guarding her clothes so that she couldn’t escape, they felt her all over, each of them, all over, tickling her erect nipples and fondling her backside, stroking her belly and thrusting into her cunt. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, but the substance of it was clear. She lay on her back shuddering in another massive orgasm, and looked up at them as they stood round her and shamelessly, proudly, stroked their erections to ejaculation. Then they looked at her in satisfaction and dressed. Were they going? God, they could just leave her! Pierre Folliet held her clothes and looked at her with a leer. “No!” she shouted, “s’il vous plaît!” The boy spoke to his comrades, who seized her arms and hauled her rather roughly with them as they went through the wood to that hamlet.

“Oh Matthew! They dragged me through the village and showed me to the people there. Two of the women began swearing at me (as far as I could understand them), and began beating me.”

“Yes,” he said with a scowl, “I can see that.”

They threw me in this hut and spoke (I think) of having me locked up. I had an awful vision of being paraded through the town, through Vaulx, and put in gaol…. But there was a boy put on the door to keep me there, who said he was Étienne, and all of twelve years old. He … he ogled me up and down and … he … let me know that if I let him feel me, he’d turn his back and let me go. Matthew, I … didn’t have much choice. I lay down and let him enjoy himself for quite a few minutes, and by God I had another orgasm. Then he tore down his trousers and asked me to masturbate him. He took it with an angelic smile on his face. He came, quite copiously actually. Then as a reward, as promised, he released me, and I dashed off, still naked, and ultimately got back here, always dreading another encounter. But I made it, I crept in and ran myself a bath, and lay down.

“I know it’s my own fault, Matthew. Somehow or other I wasn’t thinking, really. I expect it’s because – it’s because we’re in a sort of closed world here, where—”

“—Where we’re acting and reacting in odd ways, because of that bloody woman and the way she’s manipulating us!”

“Exactly. And we have to bear it, live in this world of hers, without complaint, for both our sakes.” She sighed. “I was remembering how Mr Bryden advised us to keep heart in our troubles and humiliation—”

“I did too! And I told myself to have courage and all that, and then cried out it was awfully hard to bear.”

“And it keeps on happening. Remember, tomorrow we’re supposed to visit Morelli, the film producer? I just know it’ll be an excuse to expose us somehow. Oh God! I bet you he wants to film us naked, like that man Grandison, d’you remember?”

He nodded and sighed. “I expect so, love. So we just grit our teeth and bear it.”

She laughed rather bitterly as she remembered her exposure at the Radcliffes’ party, and reminded him about it.

“Oh Catherine, I’m afraid that’s our motto, and for a good while to come. I expected too much, I think, when I heard about Provence. It’s a beautiful place—but then so is Summerton, and they’re both nice on the eye—but we can’t escape the other things. I’d love to spend a holiday here, enjoying the country and the people. It’d be great. With you, it’d be paradise.”

She smiled, and said “Yes, Matthew … and maybe with a book of verse and a jug of wine, we could be happy here.” She broke into song.

“If I were the only girl in the world, and you were the only boy….”

“Yes, love, ‘I would say such wonderful things to you…’”

“‘There would be such wonderful things to do….’”

He grinned at her. “Like making love, for instance!”

She sobered. “We could be happy, but for that woman.”

They drew a sigh together. Then he made matters all right for a little while by kissing her.

End of XXVI

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