Ruled by the Rod (11 page)

I think not a
fraction of breath passed any of our lips as we awaited our fates,
and our knuckles were as white as our faces. We nearly fainted from
sheer relief when papa answered.

'Let it be the
lesser, since, as you say, the radical excision can be done at any
time, if we or a husband desire it.'

We did not
know then to what this apparently compassionate decision condemned
us, or we would not have felt so much at ease, nor performed our
contagion extractive duties with quite so great a feeling of
gratitude. As it was, we went to our beds feeling as if we had been
saved from a fate too horrible to contemplate, and stroked our
spared buds.

It was some
days later that we were sent for, and set out for the doctor's
residence, with George, the groom, driving us in the trap. Arrived
there we were ushered into the surgery by Mrs Boucher, a formidable
lady whose appearance and demeanour were quite in keeping with the
doctor's complaint of her at the vicarage dinner. We waited
nervously, in apprehension of the surgery we had been promised,
though we did not comprehend its full significance at that
time.

After ten
minutes of agitated anticipation, the doctor arrived, bringing with
him a young woman, no more than my own age, who he introduced as
his daughter, saying she would act as his nurse and surgical
assistant, and saying that we were to follow her instructions as if
they had been his own.

'For,' he
said, 'she has performed at many of these operations, and is quite
conversant with the procedure involved.'

Though young
and not unattractive, her nature was obviously derived from her
mother rather than her sire, and she was a harpy in the making.
With a scornful tone she ordered us to remove our clothing, as far
as our stays and shifts, telling us that she wondered we had the
poor sense to keep such an appointment, dressed as if for
visiting.

'The simplest
of attire would have been more appropriate to females of your
condition, for the very fact that you stand in need of such
trimming is disgraceful in itself, and you should not make a show
of yourselves at such a time, but rather, dress modestly and
unassumingly.'

She had each
of us sit on the end of a leather couch, used for examination
purposes, and had us lie back, drawing up our shifts, and exposing
ourselves.

'Open your
thighs,' she commanded, and proceeded to probe our nether lips and
the secrets they held, pulling out our buds and exclaiming over
each, in a tone of undisguised disgust. Mine she called an ill
formed berry, set in a cabbage leaf, while Charlotte's appeared to
her, or so she said, like some growth on rotten wood. But she
reserved her deepest scorn for Marion's lush bud.

'Why,' she
declared, ''tis like the eye of some monstrous slimy toad. It is
beyond me why papa should trifle with these horrors. If it were in
my hand I would have them out, all three, as I've often seen him do
in the past. Still, since it is to be reduction rather than
excision, let us get you ready. You girl,' she called to Marion,
who must have been her senior by eight or nine years, 'get yourself
up here so that I may secure you fast.'

She stood by a
narrow marble slab, mounted on a framework that held it some three
feet off the floor, at the best height for a surgeon to operate. At
one end a pair of metal bars projected vertically, carrying at
their tops two forks or stirrups. Marion was made to sit on the end
of the slab between the posts, then lean back until she lay along
the chilly marble. The shrewish 'nurse' fastened a broad leather
belt, attached at one end under the table, over Marion's waist, and
buckled it tight on the other side, thus securing her firmly to the
operating table. She took hold of the wrists and pulled them to the
other end of the table, securing them too with straps. Now she
called on Marion to raise her legs, the shift of course falling
back to reveal her mossy nest, and place each calf in one of the
stirrups. Secured with straps at the knee, she was now stretched
wide, her vulva completely open and unobstructed and the patient
secured so that, whatever her agony, she could not move her hips a
fraction.

The young
vixen then took soap bowl and razor, shaving off all that soft
intimate down that shields our private places, removing each last
delicate hair with deft strokes of the gleaming blade. For, give
her her due, she did not lack skill which seemed to prove her boast
that she had assisted at similar operations many times before. Next
she cleaned down the site to be operated on with alcohol on a pad
of cotton, the action of the spirit in the delicate membranes, and
the skin scraped raw by the razor, causing Marion to writhe as much
as she was able in her fixings, and drew a whining protest from her
lips. All now being ready, she called to her parent.

Dr Boucher
came over at once and made a last examination of the site, before
picking up a piece of soft copper wire and a length of narrow glass
pipe. He placed one end of the pipe over the swelling bud of the
clitoris and sucked strongly on the other, drawing the bud out to a
length of half an inch or more up the bore of the pipe. Holding it
there by the suction of his mouth, he wound the wire tightly
several times around the base of the gland. When he released the
suction and removed the pipe, the top of the bud stood stiffly on a
neck of copper, which held it firmly above the surrounding folds.
Twisting the long ends of the wire together, he fashioned them into
a handle, by which the bud could be held and manipulated. Now came
the moment of horror, for his daughter had already brought the
cautery to heat, and he had exchanged the glass pipe for the
gleaming sharpness of the bistoury. With a swift and practised
stroke he dashed off the top of the swollen gland he held in its
copper cradle, as one might take off the top of an egg at the
breakfast table, and with no more emotion. Throwing down the deadly
little blade he snatched up the cautery and had staunched the wound
before the blood had fairly started.

Marion
screamed one long gurgling scream, the two shocks were too close to
distinguish, then a string of choking cries that gradually subsided
until she lay still, except for a twitching of her thighs and
belly. Charlotte and I near fainted with the horror, knowing we
were soon to endure its like, but Miss Boucher watched the
proceeding with a stony face, only remarking, when Marion had got
herself in hand, 'The good work continues, but it should have been
deeper, papa.'

When Marion
had been helped from the operating table and placed to recuperate
on the couch, with a pad of cloth between her legs, the doctor
indicated that he would take me next. I could scarcely walk for
terror but forced myself to approach the marble slab, and stand on
a stool, so that I could sit on its end, still warm from contact
with Marion's body. I lay back, and Miss Boucher fastened the belt
so tightly across my waist and belly I could scarcely breath, and
my aspiration was not helped when she roughly drew my hands above
my head and secured them with straps, stretching me tautly.

Now I was made
to lift my legs until they were near vertical. The shift had
already fallen to leave my thighs bare, but she pulled back on my
legs to lift my buttocks somewhat off the table, and pushed the
fallen folds under me, leaving me quite bare from the waist
down.

Now came the
moment of total surrender. With churning stomach I parted my legs
and let each calf rest in one of the stirrups. Since they were
thirty inches apart, you may judge how widely I was spread, and how
open and defenceless my womanly parts. These the 'nurse' now
lathered thickly, then took the gleaming blade of the razor and set
about my glossy fleece. Despite having seen her dexterity myself, I
could not help but shudder at the feel of the cold steel on my
flesh, where no weapon so keen and threatening had been before.
However, I cannot say it was a painful experience, and I was amazed
to feel by the end that my bud, so dangerously close to the
sweeping blade, had actually stiffened in its nest of folds, and
pulsed warmly.

And I was not
the only one to observe it.

'How
disgusting!' Miss Boucher observed. 'But perhaps this may cool your
ardour,' and she slapped the swab filled with alcohol full on that
tender portion. The spirit on that pink and delicate membrane stung
abominably, and I shrieked with the shock as it flowed into the
even more susceptible tissues below, even onto the entrance of my
maidenly sheathe. It was several minutes before I could accommodate
the pain and stop my thighs and belly from their twitching and
spasming.

Again it was
the turn of her surgeon father. I would have shrunk from his touch
had not my bonds held me rigid, when his fingers tested my bud and
the glass tube took it in its grip. Then the wire was around it,
gripping tight and lifting it above the surrounding folds, as it
scarcely did in nature. I felt him give it an exploratory tug and
braced myself for the agony that would follow, but he let it drop
and took hold of the prepuce, or hood above it, with forceps I
assumed, for I could see nothing of what transpired between my
legs, laid back on the table as I was.

The grip on my
tiny hood tugged and twisted and then, suddenly, I felt the blade
slice into the flesh. It seemed to go on forever, severing it close
to the flesh from which it sprang. It was a level of pain difficult
to bear, and the long slow ablation made it even more so. I
contained, just, the shrieks that rose to my throat, but whined
like a whipped bitch throughout, and lay, a mass of heaving sobs,
when at last he had trimmed my hood to what he considered a
sanitary size. My whines soon restarted, for where I had feared the
cautery and had lain trembling with terror, instead, he put several
silk sutures in the wound to hold it closed until it healed. And
still I could feel my bud throbbing in the confines of the copper
coils, awaiting its own martyrdom.

I felt his
fingers grip the wire handle, then a bolt of agony like an arrow of
white fire shot through my body, radiating out to my belly, my
womb, my breasts even, for he had plunged the point of his scalpel
directly into the end of my most tender bud. This time there was no
question of holding in my screams. I let out a shriek that echoed
off the ceiling, then lay back, choking with the mingled sobs and
cries that, for some minutes, I could not stem, rekindled as they
were when his assistant applied astringent to the puncture, to
reduce the loss of blood. At least I had been spared the
cautery.

Not so poor
Charlotte. After I had been removed to the couch to recover, where
Marion yielded me her place, going to sit on a bench instead, for
she was still weak from the shock she had endured, Charlotte was
put to the table, where Marion and I had already suffered. Neither
of us was in a state to observe her fate, but it would appear that
she was dealt with much as Marion. Certainly, from what little of
her cries filtered through my haze of pain, the pattern seemed
identical, and her wound, when we saw it, resembled Marion's.

The ride home
was purgatory, as you may imagine, and we were very sore for some
days, papa even excusing us our customary weekly corrections until
we healed. But we were healthy young women, creatures notorious for
their resistance to injury, and powers of recuperation, and within
ten days, what with careful washing with salt water several times a
day and clean dressing to start with, we had made good recoveries.
Dr Boucher had called to see how we did every other day, and had
taken out my stitches on his third visit. Though it hurt at the
time, it was good to be rid of the drawing in my most tender
spot.

We went back
to our duties and our routines and, by the month's end, were little
changed from what we had been before. We had even begun to
experiment with that soft and intimate stroking, whereby we eased
our febrile tensions in the night. We were all happy to discover
that we still retained that ability, though we had to tread warily
on the newly healed tissue.

Charlotte's
pleasure, however, was short-lived, the more disappointing for her
that she was the most avid devotee of the gentle usage. Indeed, it
was this well known addiction of hers that had caused the doctor to
prescribe as he did, and now it was time for her treatment to enter
the next phase.

On a day, the
trap took her to the doctor again, for he preferred to treat such
patients in his surgery where his operating table held them fast.
We did not accompany her, so did not see firsthand what
occurred.

When she
returned she was much distressed, and as sore as before. When it
came to putting her in her bed and enquiring her state, she showed
us her bud, once more scabbed and swollen. It appeared the doctor
had used pipette and wire to catch her newly healed gland in a
copper vice, then had abraded it all over with emery pasted to a
board, such as ladies use to file their fingernails. The process
had gone on, minute by agonising minute, while she writhed and
howled, and the stony-faced daughter had looked on. Dr Boucher had
persisted, then he had removed the wire grip, and the gloating
daughter had applied astringent, to generate more cries to follow
the howls and whimpers that poor Charlotte could not keep back
throughout that terrible scouring.

Nor was that
the end of Charlotte's cause for misery, for the doctor had
informed her that she would return at least twice more for the
treatment to be repeated, more if the membrane over the gland did
not thicken sufficiently to deaden its sensitivity
sufficiently.

In fact, she
had to submit to three more visits, three more sessions in the
stirrups of Dr Boucher's table, whimpering and sobbing, while the
doctor ground away the new grown surface of her pubic nerve, and
the daughter watched, quite without emotion or pity for her own
sex.