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.We could speak but we had not spoken.Our minds whispered.We were wicked.A chink of light.Our blindfolds were removed.Caroline blinked more than I.She had not seen before.People stared at us more strangely now.They were of all ages.Eyes glowed at the bobbing of our breasts.“You must go to bed.A servant will bring you supper,” Jenny said.I moved carefully, cautiously—wanting to be touched, not wanting to be touched.My hips swayed.I thought of Arabella.As we reached the bottom of the stairs she began to descend.We waited.I wanted to be masked.Accompanying her was the older woman in purple.I knew then that it was she who had held her wrists.Their eyes passed across us unseeing.“And there will be a garden party—for the church, you know,” the woman in purple said.Arabella's eyes were clear, her voice soft and beautifully modulated.“Of course—I should love to come,” she replied.They entered the drawing room together as we went up.“Did you see?” Caroline asked me the next morning.“There was nothing to see.People were making noises,” I replied.I wanted her to sense that I was more innocent than she.“Uncle felt my breasts,” she said.She looked pleased.TENLIKE the mornings, the bright mornings, the sun-hazed mornings.It was so when we sat in the breakfast room that morning, Caroline and I.The chairs had been taken away save for hers and mine.“You will breakfast alone in future,” our aunt said.“Eat slowly, chew slowly.Have you bathed?” We nodded.Jenny passed the door and looked in at us.Her face held the expression of a sheet of paper.There was a riding crop in her hand.It smacked a small smacking sound against her thigh.The drawing room had looked immaculate as we passed—its doors wide open, announcing innocence.The walls against which we had been bound were covered with mirrors, paintings.Perhaps we had dreamed the night.There would be riding, Aunt Maude said.We were not to change.Our summer dresses would suffice.Katherine passed the window, walking on the flagstones at the edge of the lawn.She wore a long white dress that trailed on the ground.The neck was low and frilled.The melons of her breasts showed.Her straw hat was broad-brimmed.There were tiny flowers painted around the band.She carried a white parasol.Her servant walked behind her in a grey uniform.When we had eaten Jenny came again to the door and beckoned us.We followed her through the grounds and beyond the fence into the meadow.Frederick stood waiting, holding the reins of two fine chestnut horses.They were gifts to us, Jenny said.The leather of the new saddles was covered in blue velvet.We were told to mount.The servant looked away.He studied the elms on the high rise of the ground in the distance.“Swing your legs over the saddles.You will ride as men ride.No side-saddle,” Jenny told us.The breeze lifted my skirt, showing my bottom.We wore no drawers.I exposed my bush.Frederick had turned to hold the reins of both horses.The stallions stood like statues.The velvet was soft and warm between my thighs.The lips of my pussy spread upon it.Jericho.Jenny said we were to ride around her in a tight circle, I clockwise, Caroline counter-clockwise.The servant turned my horse.I faced the house.It looked small and distant.A doll's house.When we returned and entered it we would become tiny.Jenny clapped her hands and we began.The movement of the velvet beneath me made my lips part with pleasure.Caroline's face was flushed as she passed me, the flanks of our steeds almost brushing.Our hair rose and flowed outwards in the breeze.We kept our backs straight as we had been taught.Father could not have reached up so high to smack me.“Straighten your legs—lift your bottoms—high!” Jenny called.She stood in the middle of the circle we made.The breeze lifted our skirts, exposing us.The hems of our skirts curled and flowed about our waists.The sky spun about me.“Higher!” Jenny commanded.Our knees straightened.Frederick had gone.I was pleased.In profile the pale moon of Caroline's bottom flashed past me.I heard her squeal, a long thin squeal as the crop caught her, light and stinging across her out-thrust cheeks.And then mine! The breath whistled from my throat.I kept my head back.In the far distance near the house two figures were watching.My uncle was watching.Katherine's head lay on his shoulder, her parasol twirling.Again the crop.It skimmed my naked bottom cheeks, not cutting but skimming as if it were skittering across the face of a balloon.Who had taught her that? It stung, lifting me up on to my toes in the stirrups.I leaned forward, clutching at the horse's mane, breathing my whistling cries to the far-deep empty sky.At the twelfth stroke of the crop upon each of us, Jenny raised her hand.We slowed, we cantered, we reined in.Panting we fell forward, exposing our burning bottoms to the air.The breeze was cool across our pumpkins hot.“Dismount!” Jenny called.Frederick the servant was returning.He carried things.“Stable them!” Jenny ordered him.She referred I thought to the horses, but he ignored them.My bottom tightened as he approached.The ground would receive me—surely it would receive me.I would bury myself in the longer grass and hide until I was called in to tea
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