Chapters The Taming of Josephine Chapter 2
Fleur-de-bouche. The phrase sounded so harmless. Fleur sounded French, like a flower. How bad could it possibly be?
Jo wriggled in her straight-backed chair at the opulent dinner table as the young maid, Frannie, dabbed drool from her chin with a silk handkerchief for what felt like the hundredth time.
The trammeled guest huffed in protest through her flaring nostrils, but it didn’t get her anywhere. The elaborate bouquet erupting from her mouth simply tickled her nose, as Jo breathed each constrained, shallow breath through it. Even filling the lower half of her face with half a garden, she couldn’t quite tell if the petals were real or fake, but either way the heady perfume impregnated every wisp of air she drew in.
Yet, Jo had to use her nose, as the entirety of her mouth was sealed by an inflated rubber ball that acted as stem to this foliage covering her mouth, silencing her and proudly implying Jo’s mouth had more appropriate uses than speech.
Jo hated the fleur-de-bouche even more than the soother, which would have been unthinkable just a few hours before. Frannie had swapped the two before firmly guiding her to join the others in the dining room. Jo had no idea how a simple tap of the maid’s finger could coax this ridiculous device to automatically inflate, spreading her jaw and cheeks wide, pinning her tongue down impotently.
It was massive! It was humiliating!
And yet, Jo couldn’t ignore the stirring from the very core of her depths. Surrounded by so much formality and frivolity, her most basic of instincts manifested. The feel of the bulb pinning her busy tongue made her think of the way the other girls back home, the popular girls, had so candidly discussed Friday nights with their boyfriends on Monday mornings. She wondered if this was what it felt like to have a man’s thing inside her mouth. She ran her tongue below the obstruction and sucked experimentally. This one had a taste too, yet not so pronounced. In another context being so occupied could have been something akin to fun. Maybe the sweet farm boy she’d left behind had a point after all. She squeezed her legs together beneath the countless layers of petticoats and skirts and wondered.
Whatever curiosity she felt about the bulb stuffing her little mouth full, it was mostly lost due to the pang of her empty stomach. Though the neighbours had meant well, after her parents had died, she had faced so many meagre or empty tables. To see such a lavish setting before her without the opportunity to sink her teeth into the spread was maddening. Even after three courses of men-only aperitifs, sitting bored and bound, she was beyond frustrated, furious. Hugh, her corpulent and seemingly friendly uncle, chatted with his many guests–the male guests. All the women in attendance were in the same state as Jo, her aunt and her cousin. Yet, Jo could not detect a hint of boredom or irritation in the expressions of the women, above the fleurs or porcelain balls or panel gags with elegant embroidered names and crests across the front. There was almost a warmth and pride visible in their eyes as they maintained a dutiful gaze on their husbands, while occasionally making encouraging glances to the other ladies in attendance. Jo sensed that perhaps there were entire conversations communicated with only their eyes as they sat in still and elegant silence.
Jo had been sat off to the side with her cousin Gertrude at the far end of the table, like an afterthought. Her statuesque, blonde cousin had minced her way into the dining room so delicately. Though her own maid in attendance had guided her, it appeared to be mostly for show. Gertrude, as empty headed and delicate as she clearly was, seemed to be completely in her depth in that dining room. She sat in the chair, her back straight, her chest thrust out. She was simultaneously the picture of modesty and pure lust with the low cut of her evening gown, putting her substantial bosom on display to the men of the room. Yet, she didn’t seem at all aware of the effect she’d created. While her appearance and demeanour begged–pleaded–for attention, she also fit perfectly with her surroundings–harmonising with them. Opulence reigned across the ornate room of tapestries, oil paintings, gold leaf, and moulded plaster. Jo found herself blending too, but perhaps only in appearance. She wondered if Aunt Emily had picked their dresses, their full ensembles, to match with the dining room.
This whole aristocratic world was beyond reason.
She wanted to scream out, “Enough!” but no matter how she shook her head, tossing her sausage ringlets dancing across her painted face ridiculously, the fleur-de-bouche–the muzzle–wouldn’t even budge! Her whole lower face was effectively a vase for decoration, lips completely obscured by the petals, as were Emily’s and Gertrude’s, their chins held much higher, their posture impeccable against the strange chairs that held to the spine of their stays, monogloves hanging straight down behind, a simple loop slipped in an ungainly hook, keeping their bottoms down, sat firmly in their place.
Even without her loop secured, unlike her model cousin, Jo had only made it to her seat on her preposterous heels with Frannie’s hands firmly holding around her tight waist, keeping her from tipping, head over literal heels, crashing down the main stairs in a ball of cotton and silk.
And Frannie was still by her side, as she wiped Jo’s chin and worried at the hem of her charge’s dress. “I know it’s difficult, ma’am, but please behave,” she whispered in Jo’s ear. “I don’t enjoy counting paddlings for bedtime, but if you fuss it will give me no choice!”
Frannie’s British accent made it sound to Jo’s American ears like she was being called “mum”, and distracted her while the word “paddlings” skipped right through Jo’s mind, somehow less absurd. Surely it couldn’t mean the same thing in Britain as it did back home? If she’d thought for a moment that they would spank her for not going along with this whole absurd affair, then corset or no corset, monoglove or no monoglove, she would have destroyed the whole dinner party!
“Who is this delightful firecracker, Hugh?” A smug voice carried down the table to Jo’s perked ears. They’d introduced him at the door as the young Lord Cavendish, but Uncle Hugh called him Edward, the only gentleman in attendance without a lady at his side. Instead he rubbed elbows with her uncle at the head of the table as apparently the guest of honour. He was tall and handsome like a model from a fashion magazine; cold, distant, aspirational and unrelatable. What’s more, there was an undercurrent of contempt beneath his playful remark. It made Jo want to challenge him so–to prove him wrong–or perhaps right?
Uncle Hugh chuckled deeply and motioned with his half full glass to Jo. “Oh, yes, my niece. Yes, firecracker is the word…” He took a drink.
Edward patiently waited for a real response.
“Ahem, Josephine Agnes Finney, visiting from the Union States.” Uncle Hugh managed before succumbing to another sip.
“The States!” Edward exclaimed to Hugh after only giving Jo a passing glance. “I never imagined I’d meet a girl of the Americas in such a humble place! I would think such a rare bauble would only be available for viewing through the sturdiest of steel bars at the most exclusive of menageries!”
Uncle Hugh paused. Aunt Emily raised her eyebrows so slightly that it was almost imperceptible. Cousin Gertrude stared forward, her carefree smile was obscured by the pink petals on her own gag, but it was visible in her eyes. Jo wriggled in her chair. She may not have known what a menagerie was, but being likened to a bauble–a trinket–made her blood boil.
“She came to us quite by chance, Lord Cavendish.” Uncle Hugh said finally. “I’ll not bore you with the details as of now. They’re hardly appropriate for the supper table with delicate ladies present, but perhaps later if your curiosity burns so.” He looked between Edward and Jo. “I caution you to attempt conversation with her. She doesn’t know the first thing about polite discourse.”
Edward’s eyes danced with apparent delight. “Oh, really?” He glanced in Jo’s direction. “That makes me all the more curious about what might come out of her untrained mouth. I’ve always wondered what the raw, uncultured voice of a young woman might sound like!”
Uncle Hugh looked tired. “I can assure you…you’re not missing much at all!”
Edward smiled to himself and then looked at Jo in a way that made her feel as if all the layers the maids had heaped upon her were stripped away all at once, save for the armbinder keeping her wrists back and meagre chest forward. She felt rawly naked under his intense gaze, and noticed her thighs rubbing together seemingly of their own accord in response. It wasn’t anything like when the boys back home would leer at her and the other girls at the swimming hole, or in general. He didn’t look at her with longing. He looked at her as something he could acquire at his whim.
The next course the servants brought to the table rivalled anything Jo had ever seen at Thanksgiving or Christmas. Jo’s mouth watered as the fragrance of beef penetrated past the petals obscuring her nose. Frannie hastily wiped her chin and cautioned her to control herself.
“It’s not becoming of a young lady to show too much appetite,” the young maid lectured in a respectful, restrained whisper.
Jo shifted in her chair and grunted into her gag making the maid raise her hands in a desperate, calming gesture. In the far mirror, Jo could see the fear in Frannie’s eyes, the way she glanced at Agnes in apology for every one of Jo’s squeaks and squirms. The girl seemed to mean well, and even if she didn’t Jo realised that she was utterly dependent on this maid, at least for the moment. She swallowed her irritation and turned her attention back to the savoury smelling food. She felt the napkin under her chin again.
“Miss Josephine, please…” The maid whispered.
Jo shot Frannie a glare. She hadn’t eaten since a hurried breakfast on the train from Southampton! How the nervous young maid expected her to somehow not be hungry was beyond her. She watched the servants, their heads bowed, serve the men at the table first. The ladies sat, still as exquisite, marble statues. If they were anticipating food like Jo, they certainly weren’t showing it.
Each lady at the table had a maid standing by her side. When the servants finally began to bring the ladies’ plates, they handed them off to the maids, who in turn gently placed them in front of the trussed and gagged charges. Jo was so appalled when she saw what was on her plate, or rather what was not on her plate, that the nagging question of how she was to eat without her hands or her mouth free was momentarily forgotten. While the men’s plates were positively laden with sumptuous looking food and their glasses were filled with wine, the ladies’ plates looked more like something fit for tamed rabbits!
Jo wondered why she looked to the other ladies for their reactions. Of course they were not the least bit perturbed by their tiny portions. They didn’t seem to be the least bit perturbed by anything.
The maids looked to Uncle Hugh at the head of the table. After a moment he returned their gaze and announced with a nod, “You may release the ladies now.”
The maids curtsied in almost perfect unison and quietly replied, “Yes, my lord.”
Jo felt enormous relief when the bulb in her mouth deflated. Frannie pressed the handkerchief under Jo’s chin to catch any saliva as she delicately pulled away the fleur-de-bouche. Having been so restricted, being able to freely move her tongue and to relax her jaw felt wonderful. She ran her tongue over her dry lips and waited for the monoglove to be removed next, happy that her relatives and their customs weren’t completely unreasonable.
Yet seeing these people as even slightly reasonable was short lived. Indeed, Jo found that she had no cutlery of her own, just as all the other women at the table were without. Instead she watched Frannie’s arm pass by her pinioned shoulder, delicate fork in hand, and fetch her some of the miniscule portions on her plate. The maid brought the greens up, inches from her lips, and said the most unbelievable thing: “A-are you… not going to say grace?”
“My what?” Jo practically shook at the meal so close to her lips, her hands twisting in their glove. She would have leaned forward and snatched the bite for herself if not for her very outfit keeping her so straight and narrow.
“Please, Miss Josephine…” Frannie’s forkful wavered. “Say grace so I may feed you.” When Jo clearly didn’t understand what she was asking, the nervous maid repeated, “Your grace, Miss Josephine. You must whisper your thankful prayers to God and Mr. Gainsborough for your meal!”
Sure enough, Jo could see her cousin and aunt silently mouth a short recitation before being fed like helpless infants from the hands of their staff. All around the laden table, the dozen or so ladies discretely flexed their freed jaws before using this miniscule freedom to thank their jailors for holding them captive!
Looking sideways at Jo, Gertrude swallowed a dainty bite of carrot and quietly said to her mother.
“Mummy, I don’t think Jo knows her prayers. May I help her?”
Aunt Emily practically glowed. “Yes, you may, my little dove.” Some of the other older ladies overheard the hushed question and smiled adoringly at Gertrude as one might smile at a little dog performing its tricks.
“Josephine…” Gertrude said softly. “Like this.”
Jo watched her cousin bow her head and close her eyes with the same utter sincerity as before. The dining room lights shone off her blonde hair giving her an angelic look, like something Jo might have seen out of an old art book in school.
“Try repeating after me,” Gertrude began. “Almighty God, my eyes look to you before I am fed. Bless the earthly bounty you have provided through my fa–” She paused, opened her eyes and timidly said, “I say ‘father,’ but you’ll say ‘uncle’!” She closed her eyes, bowed her head again and continued, “‘Let these nourish and strengthen our frail bodies that we may become vessels of beauty and life and whatever your servant wills…” Gertrude peeked at Jo’s expression of sheer disbelief, then smiled, “Oh yes, it’s a bit long, you only say ‘Bless the earthly bounty and my father’–or ‘uncle’–for the rest of the meal, it’s the least we can do, and…”
Jo was mesmerised by the pathetic, almost blasphemous prayer that she had absolutely no intention of repeating. Her dropped jaw, aghast, must have caught a few eyes, for Edward chuckled to Uncle Hugh in a voice loud enough to cut Gertude short. “My, my, so they are as godless in our former dominion as I have heard! Your Gertrude ought to be commended for trying to bring some civilization to the little savage!”
There was a noticeable pause at the table. The faint sound of the men chewing and the clink of silverware were the only noise until they died away too.
Uncle Hugh cleared his throat. “Gertrude certainly has a knack for…”
Jo’s lips quivered with indignation. She strained against all the fabric and lacing and straps that imprisoned her. The very idea that this overdressed, manicured, pompous horse’s ass had the gall to call her “uncivilised” made Jo see red.
“You bastard! You call us godless? I’m a savage?” She yelled, tossing and twisting against her bondage. So lost in her anger, Jo couldn’t feel Frannie’s shaking hands on her bare shoulders trying to press her against the backrest of the chair, or the young maid’s desperate entreaties that she be still and silent.
Calling a man a bastard back home would have been fighting words, at least if Jo had been a man. Still, it would have at least elicited an angry response. Much to Jo’s surprise, Edward didn’t seem the least bit disturbed. In fact, he seemed amused, like one might be if a small kitten had swiped his fingers. The silence that had come before was like a cacophony compared to the uneasy stillness that followed Jo’s outburst.
Edward sat back and casually took a sip of wine and then licked his lips. “Such language! I rest my case!”
How could he sit there so smugly satisfied when any sane person would see his madness and the madness of his whole society? Jo filled her lungs to launch into another tirade. She had to do something to push him off his lofty perch! Yet just as she was about to let loose another barrage on him, she felt the bulb returned to her open mouth. Shoved inside and inflated even firmer than before, filling her cheeks, it pinned her wicked tongue down. Agnes had left her place next to Aunt Emily and assisted the frazzled Frannie in re-muzzling the fuming girl. Jo shook her head violently side to side, until the shallow breaths caught up with her. She was too incensed to consider that no amount of thrashing would dislodge the fleur-de-bouche from her protesting mouth.
“Well done, Agnes!” Uncle Hugh praised. “My apologies, Lord Cavendish–and to everyone. I had no idea that she would be so unruly! We might as well have dined in a stable!”
Jo had exhausted herself and sunk back into her chair, panting and sweating, the hands of both maids still resting on her shoulders, as a round of polite chuckles arose at her expense.
“Think nothing of it, Lord Gainsborough,” Edward nodded politely. “I think I speak for everyone here when I say that you should be admired for taking in this tiny lump of red clay. No doubt, under your careful guidance she’ll be sculpted into something truly elegant!”
The mood at the table became calm again and everyone resumed eating. Jo, suddenly remorseful, lowered her eyes to her plate and became acutely aware of her hunger again. She glanced at Edward. He wasn’t even paying attention to her now. Had he baited her knowing what would happen? Jo looked up at Frannie and gave her a pleading look.
Frannie dabbed Jo’s moistening chin again and quietly said, “I’m sorry, Miss Josephine. Young ladies who talk out of turn at the table are not allowed supper.”
“Mummy?” Gertude murmured to her mother. “What does bast–”
“That’s quite enough, Gertrude!” Her mother hissed. It was the first time Jo had seen her aunt appear out of sorts. “Now, eat your supper and ask no more questions about your cousin’s little tantrum, or you’ll have to join her.”
“Yes, mummy!” Gertrude looked at Jo and gave her a polite smile that the gagged girl could not quite decipher. She didn’t seem pleased that Jo had been silenced, but she didn’t seem bothered by it. It was just something that had happened. Perhaps her cousin simply didn’t know how to react.
Jo cursed herself as her tightly pinched stomach growled, louder than her muffled huffs.
Uncle Hugh, having clearly overheard Jo’s sullen grumbling, sighed into his glass and then purposefully set it aside.
“Agnes, Josephine is clearly overwhelmed from her travel and all the activity. Please put her to bed.”
Jo stiffened in her chair. The large grandfather clock showed that it was only a quarter past seven! Agnes curtsied and stepped between Jo and Frannie.
“Mummy!” Gertude chirped. “May Josephine stay in my room tonight? It would be ever so much fun!”
Aunt Emily smiled politely. “Oh, my little dove, I don’t think…”
“I think that’s a wonderful idea!” Uncle Hugh cut his wife short. “Agnes, put her in Gertrude’s room!” He was straight-faced, but his voice was playful when he spoke to Gertrude. “Now, pumpkin, Josephine desperately needs you to be a good example, a perfect young Lady. So you’ll be on your best behaviour now won’t you?”
Gertrude blushed as all eyes were on her and she was required to reply without whispering. “Oh, yes, papa! My behaviour will be flawless!” With a nod from her father, she returned to alternating between quiet prayers and birdlike eating.
Agnes assisted Jo to her feet.
Uncle Hugh stood up with all the other gentlemen at the table. “Goodnight, Josephine.” He said, and everyone at the table echoed him. There was a touch of relief in their voices.
Before taking his seat again, Edward added, “I hope, Miss Josephine, to see you again. I’m certain some proper rest will cool your temper and improve your conduct.”
Unthinking, Jo tried to respond with venom, but only succeeded in mumbling nonsense. Edward smiled back at her, the clear winner of every pass of their verbal joust. Before she was guided away from the feast, her constrained stomach growling, Jo caught a glimpse of Aunt Emily. She was the only one who had not said goodnight to Jo, and she looked down at her plate with a very displeased expression.
The male-dominated conversation and the clinking of silverware grew fainter with each step from the dining room. Even if Jo didn’t already have a reason to stay in this madhouse, subjugated by her clothes and with Agnes on her left and Frannie on her right, running away would have been impossible. She followed, putting all of her effort into shallow breathing against her tight stays and maintaining her balance upon the precarious heels.
At the bottom of the stairs, Agnes took a sturdy cord wrapped in white silk and embellished with faux roses of the same material and attached it to Jo’s monoglove. “Miss Josephine, you will find patience and important virtue to cultivate. Practice it now. Frannie and I will be back to retrieve you in a moment.” Agnes took Frannie by the elbow. “Come along now, girl.”
Frannie’s cheeks were red, as if she were holding back tears. She managed a choked, “Yes, ma’am,” before she was led through a nearby door.
Jo stood there in the hall, preoccupied with her own bondage — the heels, countless layers, severe stays, fleur-de-bouche, and monoglove — the last of which she tugged at from its hitching point on the bannister. She felt like a troublesome mare about to be put back in the stables, and her snorts of defiance didn’t sound much better past the flowery gag.
Then she heard a crack, a great THWAP!! from past the doorway Agnes had led Frannie through. Tottering forward with little clicks of her heels, Jo strived to peer inside the door, ajar, and found what she saw… unbelievable!
There was her maid Frannie, the timid girl who had held so much power over her–whether she ate or starved–bent over a table on her forearms, one lock of her perfect hair falling past her teary eyes. The older maid had hitched up Frannie’s dress and petticoats, and pulled down her bloomers, all conspicuously of a less pure silken white than what Jo was swaddled within. There shone in shining red the skin of her buttocks, met once again by Agnes’ wooden paddle with a THWAP!! causing Jo to flinch and the younger maid to whimper.
Three more were given before the punishment was complete.
Agnes strode out to catch Jo peeking at the very end of her soft white leash, and Jo caught herself shrinking a bit for the first time since arrival. She dared not step backwards lest she lose her footing in the heels.
“I would normally apologise and remind m’lady that such reprimands are not for your delicate eyes or ears, but as we both know, you are no Lady, and by the wrestling you offered earlier, certainly not delicate. Yet as long as Mr. Gainsborough sees you worthy of such treatment, I must remind a lady-to-be’s actions are imbued with consequence.” She straightened the apron of her uniform and was shortly joined by Frannie, who wiped her cheeks with a kerchief, tucked the loose lock of hair back, and dared not look at either of them in the eye. “Excellent, now let us get you to bed, miss!”
Even though she was still famished, much to Jo’s chagrin, she really was tired from the day’s activity, just as her uncle had told the table. Going to bed was almost as attractive an idea as eating. Though she was relieved to feel the heaviness being lifted from her as each successive layer was removed, it took nearly as much time to be undressed as it took to be dressed. The shedding of layers, the untying of laces, the wiping away of makeup, and the unpinning of hair was done methodically, as if Agnes and Frannie were following a very long checklist. Jo’s patience was already well past thin. When they removed her fleur-de-bouche from her mouth, she felt almost anxious that she might pop off and say something she shouldn’t. The bliss of the massage her shoulders and arms received after the glove came off, however, quieted her displeasure.
Jo’s momentary relief was tarnished when she watched Frannie lay out everything she would apparently need in order just to sleep in this insane place. The exhausted girl started to raise her arms in protest, but found them still weak and numbed from their binding, even after the blessed rubbing they had received from Agnes’ strong hands. Besides that, both maids were prepared for her to struggle, and they did not give her a sliver of a chance to do so. Frannie, her eyes still red from crying, was especially vigilant in rapidly transferring Jo from one elegant, cloth prison to another.
Stripped down once again, Jo still could shrug off how foreign her body looked. Scrubbed pink and denuded of all hair, she felt disconnected from it in a way that unnerved her. Even though the maids drew no attention to her state, Jo desperately wanted to cover herself, but Agnes held her hands firmly behind her.
The most significant layer to replace from Jo’s dinner outfit was her corset, yet the idea of it being replaced at all was an unpleasant surprise. Just as soon as the severe evening underlayer was loosened and unwrapped from her waist, before Jo could take a full breath, a softer and more form-fitting piece of what Americans would have surely classified as ‘lingerie’ was pulled over and tied almost as tightly. It cinched her waist but this time ended just underbust, so as to not constrain her breathing too greatly.
“We don’t want to lose the progress on your waist training today…Still, night stays are kept at only 22 inches. We believe in proper respiration through the night to prepare a lady for the day to come!
Before Jo could protest, Frannie approached with a white bundle of cloth, and Jo wondered what it was for.
When Frannie unfurled it, Jo forgot the stays and her mouth dropped open. “I–” she began, not believing that she would have to utter the words. “I don’t need a diaper!” She exclaimed looking at the thick, white, lace trimmed thing in the younger maid’s hands.
“Of course you don’t, Miss Josephine.” Agnes reassured her. “Nappies, as we say here in the King’s language, are for babies. These are decency drawers. They’re for maidens to wear at bedtime.”
Jo shrank into Agnes and away from Frannie.
“Now, now,” Agnes stiffened her grip on Jo’s slender wrists. “Every unmarried girl in a proper household wears them. They keep your treasure safe, and yes, like a nappy, they’re there in case of any accidents.”
“My–my treasure is perfectly safe without them and I haven’t had an accident in…” Jo didn’t like how whiney her voice sounded, she hadn’t had to argue about her own continence in many, many years!
“Miss Josephine,” Frannie said with an edge of desperation in her voice. “Just step into these, if you please.” She held the drawers at Jo’s knee level.
“Frannie,” The older maid said. “You must be polite to young ladies in your charge, but you must be firm with them if they do not obey immediately.”
Frannie cleared her throat and tried to appear sterner. “Miss Josephine, step into your drawers at once.” She said with just a modicum of force in her voice.
Jo looked at Frannie, who had a full day of work behind her, and a raw rear end for the effort. The memory of the poor maid getting paddled on account of her was fresh in her mind. Frannie didn’t seem like Agnes. She didn’t have the same sadistic glint in her eye, the satisfaction of upholding an order that seemed written in skin as much as stone. With a deep sigh, Jo picked up one foot and slipped it into the puffy garment. Though the cotton was still as soft as the bloomers she’d worn to dinner–softer even–Jo’s skin crawled as the drawers were secured around her slender waist. The excessive padding made it impossible to close her legs fully. The bulk combined with the lace ruffles covering the seat made her figure appear comically clumsy.
“Thank you, Miss Josephine.” Frannie said.
Jo was uncertain how to reply. “You’re welcome?”
Frannie barely hid an awkward smirk as she nodded in response and continued her work.
The so-called “decency drawers” were secured by simple buttons. Jo wondered how these fasteners were supposed to “protect her treasure” when she could take them off with ease. Of course, it was unsurprising that they had an answer to that. After slipping the stifling, ankle length, long sleeve white cotton nightgown over her head and buttoning it up to her neck, Agnes immediately reacquired her arms and thrust the girl’s hands out in front of her. Frannie trapped Jo’s outstretched hands in padded white mittens which cinched at the wrists, and then placed them into a long pink muff of sorts. It was then that Jo understood how the drawers would keep her safe from herself and why there was a fear of her having an accident during the night.
Jo was made to sit on the soft four poster bed. While Agnes placed a lacy nightcap on her head and tied a large bow under her chin to secure it, Frannie took Jo’s feet and placed them into what looked like pink ballet slippers, but she could feel a stiffness to them she did not expect. Jo gave a start as Frannie began tugging on the ribbons and her feet stretched until they were painfully pointing downward! There was no way that she’d be able to walk with her feet like that!
Finally, Jo was bade to lay down in one half of the queen-size bed, but found herself without a pillow! Agnes simply grabbed the long muff and pulled it above Jo’s head, along with her entrapped hands, pushing the silken padding under her cap. It was wide and soft enough to cradle her ears, even her cheeks, yet unrelenting as Jo tentatively attempted to pull her pinned and mitten-bound hands from up around the sides of her head.
“See how this posture opens your chest, widens your clavicle, stretches your shoulders? Slipping into the glove tomorrow will be even easier than today, I assure you, miss.”
Jo wanted to retort that she felt like she was trapped in a marshmallow, and she certainly wouldn’t be going back in any kind of monoglove or arm restraints tomorrow, not without a good reason, but Agnes pre-empted her rebuttal and simply pressed a finger to Jo’s lips, and looked to Frannie who put a small device on her nightstand. It looked like a baby monitor.
“This will ensure you rest peacefully, Miss Jospehine,” Frannie whispered lightly, barely audible. “If there is an emergency, all you must do is raise your voice.”
“But if you rouse us unnecessarily.” Agnes spoke at her normal polite yet dry tone, causing a red light to go off in the monitor. “We will not be pleased, and neither will Lady Gainsborough. I assure you that sleeping in a soother is not pleasant.”
And with that said, both maids, older and younger, departed, leaving the pink room barely illuminated with a soft nightlight.
Laying in the near twilight, Jo tested her new boundaries. She experimented with moving the muff that trapped her hands from behind her head and then returning it. It was better than the monoglove, but not by much. With some difficulty, mainly due to the still-restrictive night stays, she propped herself up against the headboard with a small grunt. She glanced at the monitor and wondered how sensitive to sound it was. When the maids did not return after perhaps a minute or two, Jo felt safe. She wanted to test the slippers next, but the pressure already in her ankles just from wearing them made it doubtful that she could stand up in them. Jo sighed and lay back down. She thought about the indignities she’d suffered and her current hunger and discomfort. She comforted herself by repeating what her aunt’s letter had said: ‘ample inheritance.’
Jo was not particularly materialistic, but she knew the value of a dollar–a pound. She knew that there wasn’t much of a future for girls like her. In the Union States a girl could live alone, be a homesteader even, but work was still hard to come by for women. She’d missed many meals since her parents’ passing as she picked up small-time farm jobs, and then been dismissed for her scrawny stature.
A large sum of money could change everything.
So she resolved that she’d carry on for as long as was necessary to collect. A few days living in “leisure” would be a small price to pay for what had to be a huge windfall. The pink and cream contents of her cousin’s room, sickeningly sweet as they were, were no doubt worth more than her parents’ modest home. The soft nightgown caressing her slender body was probably more expensive than every piece of clothing she’d ever worn. She couldn’t imagine how much money her uncle had.
With a small fortune in her pocket Jo could go back home, maybe buy back her parents’ ranch from the bank. She wriggled more deeply into the soft bed, thinking about the night before her departure again, specifically about the feel of that boy’s hands on her. Cliff, that simple handsome boy who could rope cattle and thought that was the whole world. It could be her whole world if her pride let her, but she wanted— needed to do this herself. Still, his strong hands had felt wonderful, but so had reasserting herself and telling him, “no.” Still, she supposed she could have done it a little nicer. Would he wait for her return? Did she even want him to?
She found her legs squeezing together at the thought again, but the decency drawers bunched up and discouraged her. Jo bit her lip and imagined, what if she’d kept quiet and let him have his way with her? In her memory, suddenly he became less clumsy, more sure of himself, more forceful. She gasped, “no” but he silenced her with a savage kiss. His strong hand squeezed her breast until she wanted to cry out, and then he whispered in her ear, “I’ll domesticate you, my little colonial savage.”
Jo gasped. She was appalled by her own imagination, and even more so by her body’s response to it–swelling and needy, and all for a brief fantasy of a man she despised. She was frustrated that she could do nothing about her body’s response, but almost glad that there were measures in place to restrain her.
“Damn,” she mumbled with a wry smirk. “The decency drawers actually work.”