His Lordship · Part 1 (1/2)
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Part 1 It was early afternoon on the second Sunday of November, 1931. His Lordship, Henry, the 5th Earl of Harrisford, heard footsteps on the polished floor of the hallway outside the library of his London townhouse. His wife, Elizabeth, the Countess Harrisford, had left the room about 30 minutes earlier and he thought that it must be she, returning. But something didn’t seem quite right. The sound of the high-heeled boots which his wife had been wearing made a sharper click; these footsteps were softer.
He heard the large library door open and close, and then only silence for a few seconds.
Then there was the familiar sound of their maid, Isabell, clearing her throat, as servants did to get the attention of their employers. “Excuse me, your Lordship.” Isabell was his wife’s lady’s maid, a petite slip of a girl, the Earl would have guessed that she was barely 18 years old.
A simple word like “surprise” could hardly do true justice to the Earl’s reaction. Because, at that moment, he was in a singularly undignified position. Not only was he naked, but he was tightly bound and gagged and securely strapped down over what he and his wife had come to call their Whipping Bench. He had been silently and motionlessly awaiting the return of his wife, Lady Harrisford, who he was expecting to give him his fortnightly caning.
Twenty-one years earlier, in 1910, the Earl had been one of London’s most eligible bachelors. He had met his future wife at one of the many balls and cotillions which served the matchmaking function for the British nobility. They were married less than a year later, when he was 22, and had been blissfully happy for the last 20 years.
Contrary to the reputation of the traditional Victorian and Edwardian noblewoman, the Earl had been delighted to learn that his new 20-year-old wife was a highly sexual creature. And, in the safety of marriage, all of her bottled up sensuality had been allowed to explode. Not only was she not coy about traditional sex, but their relationship shortly adopted elements of dominance and submission. This began only one month into the marriage when, while cuddling naked in bed, Lady Harrisford had playfully slapped her husband’s bottom. Unlike many married couples of that era, they actually talked to each other. And listened.
Henry overcame his inhibitions and confessed his secret feelings, which included fantasies of bondage and submission to the authority of a woman. Elizabeth was not as shocked as he had feared, and she soon began to regularly indulge her husband’s preferences. He soon realized that there was more than mere acceptance and compliance in his wife’s acquiescence, and that she sincerely enjoyed their games.
To the outside world, including their household servants, they remained the staid and proper couple. Only in the privacy of their bedroom did the domination progress. And within a year of their marriage the Earl spent many evenings tightly spread-eagled and naked on their large bed, while his wife mounted him and took her time bringing them both to explosive orgasms.
As a curious adolescent, Lady Elizabeth and her girlfriends had heard and gossiped about something known as “oral sex”. And, once she had a curious and willing husband, she wasted no time in experimenting with this, both in giving and receiving. It wasn’t long before she found herself enjoying many happy hours, reclining on the edge of their large bed, propped up on a pile of comfortable pillows, with her husband bound and kneeling between her legs. And she was not unwilling to reciprocate, of course, and pleasure her husband with her mouth, almost always while he was tightly bound and gagged.
Lady Elizabeth greatly enjoyed dressing up in her leather corsets and knee-high lace-up boots, with heels far higher than those normally available in English lady’s shops. Sometimes, to secure articles either for herself or her husband, she had to rely on a specialty leather-maker in Switzerland. One such item was a 3” high collar of the stiffest reinforced leather which, when buckled around her husband’s neck, prevented him from moving his head in any direction. And then there was the gag and the blindfold. The Earl had contributed to the acquisition of equipment by placing an order, at a London foundry which fabricated shackles for the police and military, for handcuffs and leg irons.
Her Ladyship gradually and methodically increased both the duration of her husband’s bondage, the intensity of the bondage, and the intensity of his punishment scenarios. What began with a few playful hand spanks evolved into spanking with the back of a hairbrush, and then a doubled-over belt, then a riding crop, then a riding whip, and ultimately a light wispy cane and finally a stiffer and heavier cane. As her Ladyship kept increasing the degree of the punishment, the Earl’s appetite for pain had increased accordingly. A mutually satisfying arrangement.
“My dear, do you think that I am an oddity, or is it possible that most wives harbor the secret desire to be able to punish their husbands, on a regular basis, for real or imagined causes?”, asked her Ladyship one day, as she was about to begin her husband’s caning. As he had already been gagged, the Earl made no response, so she answered her own question. “I think all wives do; I’m just one of the more fortunate.”
At first they set aside the second Sunday of every month as his official punishment day, but it wasn’t long before, at the Earl’s request, this ritual was expanded to twice a month, on the 2nd and 4th Sundays.
As part of this official and regular occurrence, the couple designed an appropriate piece of furniture and the Earl himself sketched the general design, with measurements. This Whipping Bench had then been fabricated of heavy oak by a master carpenter, who was told it was meant as a special work table. It was mounted on castors, for easy movement, but the castors could be locked into position so that the bench was thereafter immoveable.
The bench was about 36” high and had what appeared to be a step on one end, about 18” above the floor, on which the Earl knelt. At the level of his Lordship’s waist was the tabletop, on which he then lay. It was not perfectly horizontal, but tilted slightly down from his waist, so that his buttocks were nicely elevated and stretched and held in a prominent position ideally suited to receive the cane. His legs, just above his bent knees, were strapped out to the edges of the bench and held about 18” apart. The Whipping Bench was heavily padded and upholstered in black leather and, all in all, was a very comfortable piece of furniture.
The table portion of the bench was not a perfect rectangle; it was 18” at the back, where it supported the Earl’s hips, but tapered down to only 6” where it supported his upper chest and lower neck. This shape was contrived so as to provide comfortable support and yet allow access to his Lordship’s nipples. He had very sensitive nipples, and her Ladyship enjoyed teasing them before and during the punishment session. His legs were held apart to facilitate her doing the same to his cock. She always made a point of providing her husband with a very satisfying orgasm, after his punishment, while he was still strapped down and gagged. She could reach underneath his pinioned body if she wanted to use her hand, or there was room for her to sit or kneel under the bench, if she chose to use her mouth.
Slots had been cut into the heavy wooden superstructure of the Whipping Bench, to accommodate heavy leather straps, which served to firmly pinion the occupant’s body. When each of these straps was cinched tightly, it made all but the tiniest movement impossible. To add to the restrictiveness, when the Earl was thus secured, his wife also buckled the stiff leather collar around his neck, which kept his gaze focused straight ahead. Additionally, there were metal staples on either side of the narrow end of the bench, to which this heavy collar could be fastened, with short chains, in order to hold his head absolutely immoveable.
So, this being the second Sunday of November, here was where the Earl found himself. He had been expecting the same ritual in which he had participated for many years. Less than an hour before he had removed the coverlet from the Whipping Bench and rolled it to the preferred position, which had the front end facing into a corner of the room. His wife preferred this positioning, so that he could not see her, unless she chose to walk around to the front of the bench. She felt that restricting his gaze thusly, to keep him from viewing the rest of the room, added to the suspense. She especially enjoyed the fact that he could not see her when she entered the room.
The Earl locked the castors in place, preventing any further movement of the bench. Lady Harrisford arrived a few minutes later and he noticed that she was dressed quite formally. There was never any telling how she would be dressed; it was purely her whim. It was not at all uncommon for the Countess to completely disrobe during the punishment session and to administer the caning naked.
Today her Ladyship was in a simple grey ankle-length skirt, with a matching jacket above a white ruffled blouse. Just barely visible below her skirt, the Earl recognized the toes of her especially provocative knee-length lace-up high-heel boots. She carried a sack from which emerged the crooks of several canes. She laid this sack on the Earl’s desk and said, “Shall we begin your preparation, my dear?”.
The Earl smiled and removed his dressing gown and slippers, leaving him standing naked before his wife. He turned his back and waited for her to apply his restraints. She began with another creation of the Swiss craftsman, made especially to keep his hands well away from the target area of his bottom. It resembled a satchel of heavy leather, with two long straps. The Earl put his arms behind his back and bent them at the elbows, so one wrist was next to the other elbow. The Countess brought up the satchel part of the restraint to envelope his arms. Holding it in this position she tossed each of the straps over one of her husband shoulders.
The strap over his right shoulder she drew across his chest and pulled it under his left armpit and buckled it to the side of the satchel part. The strap on his left side was similarly pulled across the man’s chest and buckled on the right side of the satchel. With his arms thusly pinioned, the Countess buckled on her husband’s stiff leather collar.
“Just take your place, darling”, Lady Harrisford cooed and, with her hand steadying him, the Earl knelt on the step portion of the bench and spread his knees to either side. After the straps had been fastened which held his legs apart, he leaned forward and laid his body on the slightly tilted tabletop of the Whipping Bench.
Her Ladyship fastened the heavy leather belt just above his buttocks, at the base of his spine, and then another belt at his mid-back, over the leather sack which restrained his arms, and then a third belt just below the level of his shoulders. She made sure that each of these belts was buckled very snugly. Lastly, she fastened the short chains which connected his collar to the front of the bench. The Earl was effectively immobilized.
The Countess walked over to her husband’s desk, to retrieve two more items, and took the opportunity to look back at the restrained man. As always, she noted that she found it very gratifying and stimulating to watch her husband when he was tightly bound.
Shortly after they began engaging in punishment sessions in earnest, Lady Harrisford realized that she did not enjoy hearing her husband cry out in pain. She enjoyed inflicting the pain, she enjoyed seeing him flinch, but she didn’t like him making noise. She considered it an interruption to her power, her show. Plus, she was vaguely afraid that someday he would beg her to stop a punishment session before she wanted to do so. She wondered what she would do if that ever happened.
So, a secure gag had always been part of the Earl’s bondage. It was also prudent for another reason. On Sundays most of the servants had their day off, all except Isabell whose day off was Monday. And it was possible that Isabell might hear the Earl’s involuntary cries of pain as her Ladyship administered the cane.
But there was another reason why Lady Harrisford never failed to affix the gag, even when she knew that Isabell was out of the house. She had a sudden realization one day, as she was fastening the gag strap, and confided to the Earl, “It must be every wife’s dream, dearest, to now and again be able to silence her husband.”
She returned to the Whipping Bench and walked around to the front, where her helplessly bound husband had no choice but to stare into the corner of the room. She bent down to her husband’s face and kissed him on the cheek. “Open wide, darling”, she said. When he promptly complied, she inserted the sponge-filled leather bulb of his gag into his mouth and tightly buckled the retaining strap behind his neck.
It was only after the gag was firmly affixed that her Ladyship began to excite her husband. She reached underneath his chest and ran her fingernails across his nipples. She could just barely hear his low moan of pleasure through the gag. She continued to flick his hard nipples for a few moments, and then took them between fingers and thumbs and gently pinched and twisted, eliciting more moaning sounds. The gag was very effective, but her Ladyship was attuned to these little sounds from her husband. She peeked under the bench and saw, as expected, that her husband’s cock was fully erect. She reached underneath and began to stroke it softly. She let go and peeked again, and saw that it was even harder.
This was how she usually left him, to await his caning. But today there was to be one extra addition, an accessory which they had not used in many years, a blindfold. This consisted merely of two wide leather disks, with sheepskin on the inner surfaces, which were held against his eyes by a leather strap. Lady Harrisford had realized, after using it only a few times, that she really preferred being able to look into her husband’s eyes from time to time, during these sessions. She enjoyed seeing the emotions which they conveyed; his excitement and apprehension. And sometimes, after an especially hard stroke of the cane, if she walked around in front of him and stroked his hair, she could detect a plea in his eyes. But today the blindfold would be needed, for a special reason.
As the Countess positioned the leather disks over her husband’s eyes, the Earl made another small noise, barely audible, which his wife recognized as an expression of surprise and curiosity. His wife merely ignored this and finished fastening the strap of the blindfold.
Lady Elizabeth again took the time to walk around the Whipping Bench and enjoy the view of her husband confined in this position. How delightfully vulnerable, she thought. After she had walked around the bench a few times, testing the tension on the straps, she let her fingers wander underneath the Ea
His Lordship · Part 1 (1/2)
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