The Institute of Sexual Research (closed thread)

Advertisement in The London Times, June 29, 1884

A Message of Import to Young Ladies of Scientific Training and Bold Temperament:

A former professor of physiology, late of Queen’s Hospital, has need of a suitable young lady to serve as his research assistant in a project concerning the symptoms of ‘female hysteria’ and hyperesthenia and investigations towards these modern scourges.

Applicants should be of child-bearing age, properly trained, unemcumbered by the demands of family, and possessed of a modern spirit of open inquiry that does not shrink from bold new ideas and radical techniques. This is a live-in position, and the successful applicant will be supplied with room and board as well as a monthly stipend.

Inquiries should be directed to the Institute’s director for consideration: Dr. E. Mabeuse, Ph.D, FRS (formerly)

The Personal Journal of Mrs. Daphne St. Claire

Dear Diary,

In the months since my poor Bertram's death, a strange foreboding has haunted me, spoiling what should otherwise have been an uneventful widowhood and some pleasant hours alone with my books.

Alas, I learned today the reason for my unaccustomed pessimism—I am penniless. My husband's debts necessitate the sale of Father's house and everything in it, but for the clothes on my back and one change of silk pantalettes.

Oh, Bertram. How could you!

But I am being unfair. Bertram could not have predicted his untimely demise on our wedding night - else, he would have spared us both the unpleasantness of the marriage bed by dying a mere eighteen minutes sooner. Not that I would have wished it, of course.

Indeed, I experienced sexual congress for fully seventeen and one-half minutes before my bridegroom passed away. (Or more accurately, before I realized that the awful stiffness was no longer due to excitement, but rather the opposite.) I shudder to think how long we might have lain there like that - Bertram's nightcap dangling in my face so that it all but blocked my view of the mantel clock - had I not attempted to engage in conversation.

Sexual congress was taking rather longer than I had expected, and I needed to speak to Cook before she retired for the night. Glancing again at the clock, I asked Bertram whether he would prefer bacon or sausage at breakfast. He said nothing.

I confess to some irritation when, having repeated the question, I still received no reply. Not even the heavy breathing and disturbing snorts that had accompanied the insertion of Bertram's private part into mine.

"Sausage, then," I sighed. And added, "I ought to put the cat out. Would you mind finishing this by yourself?"

Alas, I was never to have an answer. My darling Bertram had expired!

I thought I would die of grief. Until Cook, unable to remove my husband's body from my person, had to summon the Fairmounts' butler and two passerby. Then I was certain I would die of embarrassment.

Yet here I am, alive and in dire straits.

Bertram would roll over in his grave if he knew I must disgrace the St. Claire name by seeking employment of any kind - much less a position such as the one I am considering. Not that I will allow myself to be drawn into anything improper! As I envision it, my responsibilities to this Dr. Mabeuse will be purely clerical. I shall put to use the skills I learned working at Father’s side, cataloging his collecton of scarab beetles and recording the research that made him a figure of controversy in Coleoptera circles.

It will be no easy task to convince the Doctor that I am the right person for this position. No blushing maiden or flirtatious girl, but a woman who has experienced sexual intimacy and would just as soon take notes instead.

I must persuade him to disregard my tender years. My delicate appearance. The maddening tumble of blond curls that are forever escaping from their pins, and the innocent-seeming baby-blue eyes that cause men to treat me like a china doll. Not to mention, the too-tight bodice of this ill-fitting gown, which is the least desirable of all my mourning attire and the only one I was allowed to keep.

Will Dr. Mabeuse be able to see past my looks and give me an opportunity to prove my devotion to Science?

I pray he will, Diary. For I cannot face life as a governess, who by all accounts must be on constant guard against the lust of her male employer.

I am done with lust, thank goodness.

Mad! That’s what he called me: mad! Dr. Phineas Benson, that crotchety old blatherskate alienist at Bedlam, had the nerve to insult me thus in front of his anatomy class when I pointed out to him the female clitoris and expounded upon its function. These men—men? Pardon me my lapsus calami but I misspeak. Boys is more like it! Fourth year medical students but still no more than a pack of schoolboys guffawing down their sleeves as I tried to point out that the female is entirely as capable of sexual pleasure as is the male of the species. They laughed. My lecture on the Care and Hygeine of the Clitoris may as well have been given to a pack of baying hyaenas. The fools!

Fools! Idiots! With all their sickly, ingorant palaver about female humours and vapours and the falling damps! They cannot see that the female of the species is entirely capable of sexual enjoyment, that she needs it—nay! must have it—if ever she is to avoid the panoply of symptoms we recognize as female hysteria. But no: the cling to their outmoded concepts that the female is unequipped to appreciate the gifts of the marriage bed, that sexual congress for a woman will always be but a grim duty in obedience to her lusty husband’s animal needs.

Well fie upon them all. Fie I say! My endeavors here at the institute have not been without result. The various women I have successfully treated speak for the efficacy of my work. If only these women could speak openly of it as well! But no, society would not allow it, and I must not insist. I must always be the gentleman.

No. I have decided rather to embark on another plan. I will find a woman, some poor, benighted creature, hopefully possessed of an ardent temperament beneath her socially repressed exterior, and one suffering greatly from this malady, this female hysteria. I know enough now to treat such a woman, I am sure of it. She shall be my test case, and I, her Pygmalion!

I shall bring forth her sexual being, force it to bloom like a hot house flower, and pluck her at the moment of her fullest bloom. I shall teach her the pleasures of the human orgasm, and by so doing, set her free! (As well as redeem my name and reputation) Then together we shall sally forth, a liberated, fully realized woman and I, her Doctor and creator. What will the fools and doubters say then? Eh?!

I have already placed an advertisement in the Times seeking an assistant to help me with my research. After due consideration, I have decided that this assistant must be a female as well, so as to lend the necessary air of propriety to my clandestine endeavors. Once I have hired such an assistant and made her comfortable here, I shall start my search for a suitable subject.

One thing remains: Can such a subject be found? A woman who has never felt sexual pleasure, yet has infinite capacity for the same? A woman suffering from the pangs of female melancholia, but unaware of its cause. Sweet in temperament, bold in spirit, willing in demeanor?

Furthermore, can I find a subject who will accept my rather 'unconventional'' treatment techniques: the wh*ps and ch**ns? (I must exercise caution even in this journal) I am conmvinced that there is no quicker way to incite a woman to the full flower of her passions, yet will I find one who will not be scandalized by my treatments?

That is the question. Where to look for such a beauty?

The Personal Journal of Mrs. Daphne St. Clair

Diary, I cannot still my trembling! In a moment, I shall be delivered to the door of the Institute for Sexual Research, and into the hands of fate.

How unlike me, to succumb to a fit of girlish nerves. And how unfortunate, when I am on the threshhold of what may be my one opportunity to avoid the sad life of a governess in the household of some lust-crazed lord who will take advantage of my helplessness.

Oh, it will begin innocently enough. This much I know from my last, tearful conversation with Cook, who advised that I should drown myself in the Thames rather than become a governess. 'Tho it chilled me to the bone to hear what goes on in ordinary households, Cook could not allow me to take our last parting without giving me the benefit of her counsel.

Governesses, it seems, are scarcely allowed to take care of their young charges between bouts of forced intimacy sufficient to make one swoon.

"First," she said, leaning across the kitchen table where we shared a cup of tea before I was turned out of my home, "First there will be just unseemly talk, when you're alone with your master, outside the hearing of the lady of the house. Next thing you know, he's brushing up against you, accidental-like, and stealing a look down your blouse."

"Surely not!" For a moment, I felt almost naked in my dove-gray widow's weeds, despite the gown's high neck. "You cannot mean that a husband and father would be so bold, in the very home of his children."

"Bold and bolder, Missus," said Cook. "Why, one lass I know got her bodice ripped before she'd unpacked her bags."

"No!"

"Yes! It gets worse, too. His Lordship comes to her room in his nightgown and - "

"Stop, Cook. I will not hear such talk. I am not a governess yet, nor will I be."

"You're going to drown yourself?"

"No, Cook. I am going to become the research assistant to this Dr. Mabeuse, whatever it takes to convince him of my qualifications."

"That's the spirit, Missus!"

"I will not be subjected to assaults on my person, by having my livelihood at the whim of some bodice ripper."

"You're wise to take care of your bodice, seeing as how you've only got one now."

Indeed. One bodice, and one chance to make my way in the world, doing valuable work for a man who has use for my mind instead of my body.

The hansom cab turns onto an unfamiliar street, and I determine to calm myself before I arrive at The Institute. When I pay the driver, I will have nothing left to my name but this carpetbag containing my underthings, the family Bible and Father's unfinished manuscript, "From Leaf to Dung: Identifying the Geographic Origins of Coleoptera Scarabaeidae Sp. by Post Mortem Examination of Stomach Contents."

I pray that this Dr. Mabeuse is as wise and kindly as my father. If so, he will forgive my youth, and give the benefit of the doubt to the daughter of a fellow scientist.

The first interviewee for the position of research assistant, and possibly the last! A very young widow, Mrs. Daphne St. Clair (the daughter of that eminent entomologist Basil Blair-Thatcher, no less; he of dung-beetle renown), childless, unencumbered, blessed with uncommon intelligence and ability and possessed of quite striking physical attributes: comely in the extreme (almost, I might add, to the point of distraction!)

I have insisted that she stay for dinnder where I hope she will finally accept the position, though my invitation was necessitated by her speall of faintness when I showed her my treatment room. But perhaps I should start at the beginning.

Mrs. St. Clair—or Daphne as she insists I call her, in the modern manner—has regular features dominated by a pair of the most remarkably deep and blue eyes of angelic innocence, and framed by a glorious mass of golden blond curls which most charmingly refuses to be domesticated, and in escaping from her coif gives her intelligent face a most deliciously wanton aspect, an aspect enhanced by the alluring way she keeps her lips parted slightly when spoken to, as if constant anticipation of the most delightful surprise.

She carries herself very well, a back as proud and erect as is Chrisianly decent, an attitude she maintained through my most probing questions, and, though I am far from what the hoi poloi would call ‘a bosom man’, her womanly endowments are difficult to ignore, especially as they are crowned with a pair of the most delectably saucy nipples, which showed clearly through her widow’s weeds and were most distracting when I spoke of certain aspects of my work.

I received her in the library, and quickly disposed of the mundane details of her history and her training. It was when I set about discussing my work and perhaps grew more enthused than I had anticipated that I noticed this remarkable response on her part.

“You see, Daphne, my work has demonstrated quite clearly that the female is fully as capaable as the male of sexual arousal and pleasue from the act of coitus and its ancillary rituals, perhaps even moreso. Through the application of techniques I have developed here, I intend to train a suitable subject to go past her prejudices and the repressive training society has subjected her to and claim the full flower of the sexual pleasure nature has intended for her to enjoy. I have no doubt that the experience of orgasm will not only rid a woman of any trace of hyterical symptoms, but will serve to increase her capacity for emotional intimacy—love, if you like—and help her become a more vital, self-realized creature. It is my mission to return a woman's own sexuality to her.”

It was then that I noticed the erection of Mrs. St, Clair’s areolae. That, combined with her eyes, which took on a depth and clarity of color that was most remarkable, proved to me that she was a woman who was already taking a most avid interest in my work.

“The techniques I use are most extraordinary, and you must be ready for some unconventional modes of treatment,” I said, coming around from behind my dek to sit casually (or so I hoped) on the edge nearest her chair. “For I’ve found that one of the most effective stimuli for eliciting the female sexual response is the observation of a similar response in the male. In other words, his own excitement excites her in return. Therefore many of my techniques are deliberately salacious, perhaps even bordering on the lewd and the forbidden. Extreme problems require extreme solutions, I find. This wouldn’t upset you?”

There was a brief moment while she seemd to collect herself, so rapt had her attention been. She swallowed with what I took to be a bit of nervousness, but then she shook her head no.

It was when I led her down to the treatment room that I believe the excitement became too much for her. I couldn’t help but notice her eyes grow wide as she looked at the special apparatus: the whipping racks, the chairs and bed hung with chains, the manacles. But it was when I opened my cabinet and she saw the collection of whips and straps that she suddenly grew pale and I had her sit down on the treatment bed.

Perhaps I was precipitous in showing her too much too soon. She had, after all, been traveling much of the day, and probably taking little nourishment. I tend to forget that my methods come as a shock to those unfamiliar with my theories. A bit of brandy brought some color back to her cheeks. though I still noticed a bit of a tremor in her hands. That's when I absolutely insisted that she go up to the tower room and rest quietly until dinner is served, which should be shortly now.

In any case, I am very hopeful that she will accept the position. Then I will only have to find a suitable subject.

The ideal candidate would be someone just like her, I am quite sure.

If only I knew where to press my search!

I could jump, of course. It is not a large window, but I am a small woman and I should have no trouble going through it. Drowning myself in the Thames as Cook suggested was never really an option for me. The water is filthy! At this height, I would almost certainly die instantly upon hitting the paving stones, and that is better than drowning.

So there is a way out.

But is it necessary? Is my good sense incapacitated by hunger?

The fragrance of something delicious drifts up to the tower, and I draw comfort from the fact that I needn't jump immediately. I can at least enjoy a meal across the table from a handsome, intelligent gentleman before I -

Gentleman. Is he? Without question, the Doctor is well-mannnered, supremely intelligent, and as fascinating a person as one could wish to meet. He is pleasant to look upon, as well. Not handsome in the delicate way that Bertram was handsome, but impressive and powerful.

Powerful and disturbing.

I felt a tremor when he touched my gloved hand upon our first meeting. I could almost call it fear, 'tho it would be silly to fear a man who has done nothing to frighten one. No, it wasn't precisely fear, but more of a wariness.

I sensed in the Doctor, for all his gentlemanly manner, that he wears civilization the way other men wear a well-tied cravat. Given the right circumstance, he might rip away that fragile cravat with one of his big, strong, thick-fingered hands, and cast it away ~ like some fierce gladiator escaping his chains! What would happen then, I dare not even imagine!

Nor could I have imagined what he would show me in the Treatment Room.

The things that I saw in that room, no lady of gentle birth should ever look upon. Much less, should a lady consider working in such an environment. Not even if it keeps her from starvation or the poor house!

Unless...

Unless I am mistaken. Perhaps the Doctor intends to shock his subject by exposing her to the mere threat of the things in that room. He never really plans to use them at all! That must be it.

My father's work was controversial, too, and frequently misunderstood. More than one woman, and Lord Percy Braithwaite, fainted during Father's lecture at the Egyptian Society, when he revealed that the sacred scarab is a dung beetle. Why, Father was shunned for the remainder of the Season!

Surely I have misunderstood the Doctor's intentions regarding the Treatment Room. Did I not tour it uneventfully, and leave with my virtue intact? And after recovering from my near-swoon, did I not also feel strangely energized? Stimulated, one might say?

Perhaps I have been guilty of leaping to unwarranted conclusions, and of judging the Doctor unfairly in my ignorance ~ as did those who so cruelly rejected father's research.

Is that roast beef I smell? I can almost taste it! It is as if my senses are heightened in some way. Probably that is what happens when a person confronts suicide. Appetites are aroused. Appetites that have been suppressed! Indeed, I have scarcely eaten since the eviction notice was served, so upsetting have these days been.

Surely I can give the Doctor the benefit of the doubt, long enough to enjoy a delicious meal, and an hour or two longer in the stimulating company of a scientist.

There will be plenty of time to jump to my death after dinner.

OOC: Kudos and congradulations to you both. Excellent story and writing.
I've subscribed so I can follow the story and cast my "5" vote already.

PP

A strangely propitious dinner! I think it went well, although it ended in near disaster, and I must admit to being in some fear of losing the cold scientific objectivity I’ll need for this project. Daphne seems to exert such a peculiar and salubrious affect upon my more baser animal appetites that at times I feel the most confused emotions in her presence. Perhaps it is the fact that I am now so accustomed to dealing with the fair sex only in their role as patient and petitioner, that honest social intercourse seems to be unusually stimulating to me. How ironic that I am perfectly myself when engaged in the most intimate genital manipulations of the female hysteric, and yet can be so discomfited by the sight of those large blue eyes and parted lips facing me across an intimate dinner table!

But again, I run ahead of myself. Details, details!

James served an excellent dinner, and it was charming to see Daphne struggling with her natural sense of etiquette and good manners when she was obviously near to famished with hunger. I kept up with her through the turtle soup, not wanting to embarrass her, and did my best through the roast beef and pudding as well, although I seemed strangely sapped of my desire for food, being more inclined to simply enjoy her own eager appreciation of everything that was set before her. Such robust animal health! She was never less than a perfect lady, of course, but her honest enjoyment of her meal was quite charming to see. She is a young lady of most avid sensual appetite!

Instead of eating, I’m afraid I may have talked too much, for something in her bearing or in the way she attends to me makes me grow insufferably prolix, I’m afraid. I had my brandy at table while Daphne took port and walnuts and a healthy slice of Stilton, and by that time my enthusiasm had quite run away with me. I discoursed at length about female erogenous zones and their proper manipulation, quite forgetting for the moment that I was speaking to someone who might very well know more about the subject than I did myself, and she by firsthand experience.

I do recall some of my words, though I doubt I can recapture the embarrassing level of enthusiasm in my voice as I said them. I said something about the difficulty in treating the unfortunate sufferers of advanced inorgasmic hysteria due to their having been so long repressed and stifled by social pressures, and I told her how it was more often necessary than not to have to physically restrain them by means of the equipment she had seen in the treatment room: the chains and the ropes. I of course approach these treatments with nothing but the purest objectivity, or so I’d always thought, but now, speaking into those wide and wondrous blue eyes and hearing my own words, it’s obvious to me that the treatments have had a more significant effect on me then ever I imagined.

“The levels of physical excitement a woman can reach just by being bound and presented for treatment can be quite remarkable,” I said, or words to that effect. “And it leads me to believe that for some women the very act of restraining them has a marked stimulating effect on their own repressed needs and desires. There is something in the feel of the restraints that seems to elicit her own passions, and the most shy and retiring virgin can suddenly attain such a degree of desire that I must keep smelling salts always at hand to revive them when they swoon, which happens not infrequently.”

Mrs. St. Clair stared at me wide-eyed, her glass of port raised to her lips and trembling slightly, but completely ignored. (Or did I just imagine the tremble? Perhaps it was the candle flame?)

“I’ve experimented with various substances to administer the actual physical treatment,” I went on (and I believe my eyes here betrayed my eager enthusiasm for my subject), “Suspecting that there might be a natural affinity between these materials and the female sexual humours, and indeed there seems to be. Animal fur, feathers, and leather all seem to work quite well, each in their own way; wood and metals less so, though they have their place. Most efficacious for strong stimulation seems to be leather, hence all the whips and crops you saw in the treatment room. A leather glove seems to work very well, especially if it is dyed black. Black kidskin seems to be ideal. I believe that there’s something in the visual stimulus of seeing the black leather moving against their own fair skin that is most efficacious. The clitoris also seems to have a high affinity to being stroked and teased by a leather-clad hand, and orgasms of gratifying intensity may often be achieved in this way.”

Perhaps I should have noticed that her breathing had become somewhat rapid and shallow at this point. I did notice that her pupils were widely dilated and her delicate nostrils were flared, but I assumed she just found my accounts of my research as profoundly intriguing as I do.

“Lately I’ve been experimenting with direct contact using my own hands and lips. It’s rather radical and extreme I know but… Here, here! What’s amiss? Daphne? Are you quite all right?”

I hurried from my seat and was able to catch her just as she was about to pitch forward onto her wedge of half-eaten Stilton. Syncope! The poor girl had all but fainted.

A few whiffs on the salts I carry in my pocket at all times brought her around, but a quick check of her pulse showed me that it was racing. Her skin was quite pale.

She murmured a few words in embarrassed apology, and allowed me to help her from the table. James came to assist, but I was fully capable of seeing Mrs. St. Clair up to her room. She leaned heavily against me as I led her upstairs, and again I noticed a repressed yet violent trembling in her hands.

I thought perhaps that it was the effect of those accursed corsets, that perhaps her stays were too snug, but as I helped her to her room, I couldn’t help but notice that she wore no corset, or at least none that I could perceive. What I had assumed to be the result of strict lacing and whalebone stays were in fact the gift of a benificent mother nature. I grew somewhat dizzy myself.

It wasn't until I had left her that the thought struck me that perhaps Mrs. St. Clair suffered from the very malady she was to help me investigate. Of course, it made perfect sense. Here I’d been prattling on about the treatment of female inorgasmia to a woman who suffered from the very disease, albeit it quite possibly unawares!

I am back in the library now, having a final brandy as I work on these notes, trying to piece together the consequences of this discovery. Is there a possibility of enlisting Daphne as the subject of my experiment as well as an assistant? What would the implications of such a choice me?

And: could I possibly maintain my scientific objectivity if such a delicious specimen were the subject???

I’m afraid I allowed myself the liberty of imagining Daphne in the treatment room, unclothed as all my patients must be, her wrists chained above her head, her ample breasts presented to me in eager expectation of the first kiss of the whip, her lips parted, her eyes partially closed in the near-swoon of her pwerful, newly-awakened desires.

The thought was so disturbing that I fear sleep might be impossible for me now. I shall therefore have James bring me my cape and take a brisk walk, though the hour is late. Perhaps physical exhaustion will do for me what mere force of will is helpless to achieve.

The Personal Journal of Mrs. Daphne St. Claire

Dear Diary,

What I must do now, I do in the interest of science and out of respect for Doctor Mabeuse.

I approach this obligation with dread, Diary, but what choice do I have? I am a woman alone and penniless, and but for the Doctor's kindness I should have been cast into the streets three nights ago. In the eyes of polite society, my choice will be utterly abhorrant ~ and yet, where was society in my hour of need? It was the Doctor, and not the Ton who offered shelter to the young widow St. Claire, when she had lost her home and all else, save the very poorest of her mourning gowns; a gown which fits so tightly at the bosom that the merest hint of a chilly draft reveals the erection of my nipples, as if I were wearing nothing more substantial than my transparent silk chemise!

No, diary, Society turned its back on my father, and on me. In truth I am an outcast no matter what I decide now.

With no one to advise me, perhaps I ought to pray for guidance. But the Lord has matters of more importance to attend. Also, it might be best not to call His attention to this particular dilemma. I should hate for the Lord to misunderstand what is, after all, a business decision on my part. It is not as if I am motivated by the same perverse curiosity that brought that woman to the Doctor's door!

But I haven't written about the interviews, have I?

In the three days and nights since I last wrote, so much has happened. Let me begin with that first dinner.

How charming was the Doctor's company, and how pleasant it was to be treated as a guest in his home when I might have expected to dine with the servants! The meal was lovely, the conversation stimulating. Most significantly, I realized that the Doctor not only approved of me, but was eager to have me accept the position of research assistant.

He did not press me for a decision. No doubt, he realized that the nature of his work is somewhat shocking, even for a woman whose interest in such matters is purely scientific.

Indeed, the conversation became a bit too stimulating when the Doctor began to describe, in detail, the precise methods his research will employ. My maidenly embarrassment, which had lain dormat with the help of the Doctor's excellent Bordeaux, was now aroused to a disturbing degree. Which was surprising, in light of my having lain half-naked beneath a wheezing, grunting, sweaty bridegroom, may God rest his dear soul, for the longest seventeen and one-half minutes of my life. Why, the room was not even fully dark when Bertram mounted me! I should be immune to embarrassment after that.

So you can imagine my dismay when I fell into a near-swoon at the dinner table! The Doctor escorted me upstairs to this chamber and allowed me to recover in privacy. But I felt certain that my demonstration of weakness would cause him to change his mind about hiring me.

Diary, I could not bear the thought that I had disappointed Doctor Mabeuse. Had I lost the opportunity to work at his side? Would I not be the one to witness the erection of a proud, new era in medical science, as conventional thought reluctantly yields to his insistent probings and the firmness of his convictions?

Immediately upon recovering from my faint, I went downstairs to find him. When James told me the Doctor had gone for a walk, I ran outside and was I relieved to discover him still on the grounds of Mabeuse Manor.

Alone with his thoughts in the moonlit night, he was as impressive a figure as you will ever see ~ standing tall and solid as the Roman statue of a phallus that serves as a sundial in his rear garden.

Breathlessly, I begged his pardon for my earlier behavior and promised that I would not allow such unaccustomed squeamishness to interfere with our work, if he would accept me as his assitant.

Since that night, life has been wonderful. I have been given the tower bedchamber for my own, and have spent many pleasant hours in the Doctor's library, where we have talked of everything from the Egyptian Society and the controversy over Father's dung-beetle work, to the Doctor's travels abroad, including the months he spent in Siam's royal bordellos, subjecting himself to a torturous exploration of bizarre sexual practices, in the service of science.

As promised, I do not allow myself to faint when he speaks of such things. I admit, I do try to seat myself in shadow when the Doctor escorts me to the library for these after-dinner hearthside talks, for I cannot help blushing. (And my nipples respond strangely, growing sharp and almost painfully hard, even in the absence of a draft. It is most curious.)

But I digress. I intended to tell you about the interviews, and the incident this afternoon that has led me to this momentous decision.

Among my responsibilities has been the placement of a newspaper advertisement for the other position which the Doctor must fill: the subject of his experiments. The first to arrive this morning was not a woman at all, but the husband of one. I overheard some of the interview from the side parlor where I was familiarizing myself with the Doctor's written theses.

"You are here on behalf of your wife?" asked the Doctor.

"I am," replied the gentleman. "You may be our only hope."

"She is unable to achieve sexual arousal?"

"Good heavens, man! Quite the opposite. The woman is insatiable. I am hoping that whatever method you use to help some other female enjoy the sex act, can be employed in reverse on my wife. I have a business to run. There is only so much a man can do."

I missed the rest of their conversatioin, due to having spilled my tea.

A parade of women followed, none of good repute, for it goes without saying that the lady who associates herself with something so unconventional risks becoming a pariah. The applicants have been predominantly trollops and guttersnipes, hoping for steady work in their field of experience. I daresay the Doctor had not taken into account that sex is social anethema to ladies of breeding.

This afternoon, there came the exception that proves the rule. A distressingly exceptional person, in fact. I heard only a portion of her interview, but it was sufficient to cause the crisis of conscience which has led to my decision.

"I'm gratified to hear that your late husband was an admirer of my work, Lady Higgenbottom."

"Oh yes, Doctor Mabeuse. He spoke of you incessantly after the lecture last year. The enormity of his Lordship's enthusiasm was impressed upon me again and again. Many a late evening, he would join me in my chamber, or summon me to his, whereupon we would spend hours in rapt discussion of your work. I would ask him questions about your ideas, and my husband would exhaust himself to accommodate my curiosity, describing your methods over and over, in vivid detail. It was inspiring."

"You were not shocked, my Lady?"

"Shocked? Oh...Why, yes, of course I was shocked! Any lady would be. Why, the very thought of having one's bottom bared to view, by a stern and virile scientist who wields a leather flogger or an even crueler cane...Or worse, to be stripped of one's clothing altogether, placed in restraints, and forced to submit to the use of tight clamps upon one's nipples! There will be clamps, will there not?"

"Perhaps. My selection of implements is based upon the subject's response to - "

That, dear Diary, is when I took my exit from the side parlor, unwilling to listen any longer as Lady Higgenbottom tried to seduce the Doctor into a perversion of his work for her personal titillation!

As brilliant as he is, the Doctor like most men is a poor judge of women's character. Particularly tall, auburn-haired women whose tightly laced corsettes emphasize overly voluptuous breasts, the tips of which are scarcely hidden by the plunging necklines of so-called mourning attire; gowns which would be considered indecent for afternoon wear even if the women were not widows of less than a week!

She may dress in black, but Lady Higgenbottom is no more grieving than she is a harem dancer.

Not that I care. It is the Doctor's work that is my concern.

Over dinner, he spoke of having nearly despaired of finding a suitable candidate ~ until his interview with Lord Higgenbottom's widow. I nearly choked on my cutlet.
My employer, in his eagerness to prove his theories, is about to be deceived into treating a woman whose only sexual problem is an inexplicable desire to bare her bottom! If Lady Higgenbottom takes this ruse any farther, she could make a laughingstock of the Doctor's theories.

Alas, Diary. I shall have to sacrifice myself. For I may be the only woman in London who is truly qualified to be the subject of these experiments.

The other applicants are either streetwalkers motivated by money, or upper-class tarts for whom seducing the handsome, mysterious Doctor Mabeuse is worth the cost of social condemnation.

I, on the other hand, lost my social standing along with my home and fortune. I can provide the Doctor with a healthy body of excellent lineage, with no known physiological oddities (except for the recent dubious behavior of my nipples.) Most importantly, I can say with absolute conviction that I have no desire to show my bottom or otherwise disgrace myself for purposes of seduction.

I will do it for science. But only if the Doctor agrees to minimize the use of glaring electric lights in the laboratory. One must maintain a degee of modesty.

Tomorrow, I shall volunteer to serve him in this new capacity. But I will first have to inform the Doctor that I do not believe there is such a thing as a female orgasm ~ or even sexual arousal, for that matter, in ladies of good breeding, except for the French.

Doctor Mabeuse may be offended by my skepticism, but he cannot deny that it makes me objective.

Great disappointment! I believed I had found my subject, but alas it is not to be! Lady Althea Higginbottom no less! I held a preliminary interview with her today, and it went very well—up to a point. She was very attentive as I explained my theories on the female orgasm, and she concurred eagerly and enthusiastically, opining that she was quite sure I must be correct in all my surmises. My preliminary descriptions of some of my techniques drew her rapt—dare I say almost spiritual?—attention, and she showed the most gratifying interest in the entirety of my work and my current project. Given her reputation as something of a flibbertigibbet and woman on indifferent morals, who would have guessed that she had such a deep and I might say consuming passion for medical Science?

Things went swimmingly up until I queried her on her own manifestations of female hysteria. While she told me of a most impressive list of symptoms, including some I had never encountered before (the “screaming mimis,” “woozy wobblies,” and “intestinal curlie-cues” are entirely new to me, and not to be found in the standard texts), when I went to examine her I found not a sign of the disorder. Her pulse was full and robust (as far as I could tell. Lady Higginbottom had a most disconcerting reflex of stroking my hand when I went to take her pulse), no pupillary dilation, respiration disappointingly normal (I declined her invitation for to osculate her bare chest)

The final straw was when, upon preparing to take her leave, she asked me when she might expect the “wing ding” to begin. Obviously I can’t allow such an attitude to impinge on the integrity of the project, so I was obliged to disinvite her, to her considerable displeasure.

Meanwhile, something most remarkable has happened with Daphne. She seems eager to accept the position but so far has been noncommittal, and over the last few days has been manifesting a certain coldness and reserve whose origins have baffled me. Today, as I was seeing Lady Higginbottom out, I found Daphne in the hall outside my study, apparently straightening some pictures on the wall, though that is hardly her job. She was quite upset for some reason I could not make out, and was very nearly chuff with me. A certain amount of scientific detachment is desirable, of course, but chuffness I will not tolerate.

Still, the incident was perhaps a blessing in disguise, as it forced me to take a good, objective look at her (I confess that it’s very difficult for me to keep my scientific objectivity concerning Daphne), and to my considerable surprise I was forced to make a preliminary diagnosis of advanced female hysteria! Daphne St. Clair, my own research assistant, has all of the primary symptoms: the general dysphoria, stiffness of carriage, propensity to syncope and general female neurasthenia.

The thought has occurred to me that she would be ideal as a subject. I could then combine her duties as both subject and assistant. Think of the wealth of data! First hand, subjective reports on our progress and her experience of the treatments.

Think too of the level of intensity I could bring to these treatments! The role of animal magnetism in eliciting the female sexual response cannot be ruled out. Certainly she would be a most gratifying subject for my particular treatments.

But how to pose the proposition to her: that’s what I must resolve!

deleted double post

"Unhand me, I beg of you!"

"Never, my beauty. You were warned what would happen if you tried to escape, and you have sealed your fate. Bind the princess to the mast, lads. She is too haughty for a pirate's whore, and must be taught a lesson."

"Aye, Cap'n Mabeuse. An' should we rip her bodice?"

"Indeed, yes."

"No, please! It's my only one!"

"And your last, if I like the look of you naked. Those widow's weeds look awful! It's time I had a look at those naughty nipples of yours. They've been begging to come to me, since the hour of your abduction."

"You are wrong, Sir! There was a chill in the room, a draft. I ~ No, oh please no!"

~ ~ ~

Dear Diary,

Sleep eludes me this night, and when it comes I have the most disconcerting dreams, of which I remember only fragments. I awaken with my pulse pounding, my skin damp and feverish, and a strange, restless throbbing in my most private regions.

I should not have lingered in the library after the Doctor retired. Alone with his books and the souvenirs of his travels, I allowed myself to indulge in unseemly fantasies.

I have been curious about the Kama Sutra, and could not resist a peak. The color plates were certainly imaginative, if a bit lurid. But this unsettling restless sensation, I associate with a different collection of pictures: the Doctor's prints of Monsieur Bouguereau's nudes.

The Abduction of Psyche...The Revels of Bacchus.

The bodies are executed in the classic manner, but the poses and subject matter are shocking! These are clearly intended to arouse the viewer's base sensual nature; to incite the primitive instinct of the male animal to dominate his mate, and of the female to submit to his greater strength...Indeed, she not only submits, she welcomes the power of his desire.

Poor Psyche! Plotted against, kidnapped by a god, carried to his lair, all naked and helpless...And yet she wears a look of ecstasy. Psyche revels in her submission. One has a sense that some long-denied hunger is about to be satisfied. Perhaps she hopes to feel relief from a restless throbbing in her private regions.

What she ought to feel is indignant. The gods might at least have allowed her to bring a change of underthings.

Silly, I know. It is only a naughty picture.

Seen by an impressionable female, Mr. Bouguereau's nudes could almost fool one into believing that a woman could achieve an orgasm. (Why a woman would want to, is another mystery. By all accounts, orgasms are a messy business; Bertram cannot have enjoyed the one that killed him.)

Mrs. Bouguereau must suffer terribly for her husband's art.

I must sleep now, Diary. It shall require all my energy to convince the Doctor that I am a better subject for his research than Lady Higgenbottom. If I am not mistaken, she sat for a portrait by Monsieur Bouguereau last year.

Clearly, the woman is a trollop.

What a propitious day for our research! Daphne has graciously acceded to my request to serve both as assistant and subject of this grand experiment! How remarkable it is that a project of this nature, once undertaken, soon takes on a life, even a personality, all its own. We are just barely beginning, but already I am seized by an almost feverish excitement to plunge headlong into the work at hand. I fairly tremble at the thought of beginning her treatments, and can scarcely tear myself away from working on the therapeutic regimen she shall undergo, making lists and drawings and sketches. Truly I am a slave to my scientific curiosity and rationalist spirit. It grips me like a febrile catarrh!

It was at breakfast that I first broached the subject, after a considerable bit of awkwardness in which Daphne informed me that she had something she urgently needed to discuss with me as well. After a prolonged and almost humorous exchange of each of us trying to cede precedence to the other’s topic of conversation, she convinced me to go ahead, and I’m afraid it wasn't my best presentation. How my palms sweated with nervous eagerness to inform her of my conclusion that she herself should serve as sole subject of the experiment. I’m at quite a loss to explain my nervousness. However, by the time I managed to present her with my proposition (my scone, lavished with butter and marmalade but other wise quite untouched, held in my hand throughout my speech), she answered me with quite a pretty little speech of her own. To wit:

“I will be quite frank with you, Doctor. Personally I have substantial doubts concerning your central thesis on the very existence of the female climax, and it must therefore follow that I also have doubt about its therapeutic role regarding hysterical disorders. However, I am a scientist’s daughter and dedicated to the pursuit of truth, and I owe it to his memory as well as to the spirit of rational inquiry that your work be done as thoroughly and with as much integrity as ever mortal man can achieve.
“Quite honestly, I have been appalled at some of the potential subjects you have been forced to consider, and I am quite sure that any data collected from such women would be of the most dubious scientific value. I was therefore going to suggest myself that you consider me for the role of subject in this work.”

It was then that I dropped my scone, face down upon the cloth, in my considerable excitement. But Daphne held up her hand.

“You realize, of course," (she went on)" that my own personal feelings about the chimerical nature of the very thing you seek will make your task more arduous. On the other hand, if your are correct in your hypotheses, I will most certainly not let my own prejudices stand in the way of the truth, and if you can convince me, a veritable doubting Thomasina, then certainly your theories will gain much more credence than they would had your experiments been carried out on one of those low born flapskirts—excuse my language, I beg, but that is what they are—you have heretofore been considering.”

The spirit of Hypocrites himself must have seized me at that moment, so excited was I. I’m afraid my enthusiasm for experimental science got the better of me and I took her hand within mine, my eyes glowing with the spirit of scientific rationalism.

“Such nobility of purpose, my dear,”—for thus I addressed her in my enthusiasm—“Such sense of sacrifice! I hardly know what to say. You have made me very happy. Extremely happy indeed!”

Daphne kept her composure, however, and went on, “I am also aware that you believe me to suffer from that very ailment you seek to treat, and I must inform you that in this I cannot concur. Of course I suffer occasionally from the vapours and a touch of insomnia, but what modern lady doesn’t? In any case, I am sorry to disappoint a medical man, but I hardly think that warrants a diagnosis of pathological hysteria.”

“Then let us see!” I suggested, rising from the table.

“Here? Now?”

“Indeed, why not? Let the work proceed immediately!” I said. “I’ll fetch you a notebook, and we can begin at once!”

I quickly excused myself to fetch a clean, bound notebook (and wash the marmalade off my fingers) and returned to find Daphne seated patiently in the loveseat.

“Very good,” I said. “Now, this will be merely a preliminary examination. For my own information. I hardly think you need even record my observations at this point, although do make a note to call Mrs. Croft, my seamstress and corset-maker, and Mr. Fortenbras, my harness-maker. We must get you fitted and the necessary garments and equipment made up.”

“Corsets? Harnesses? Whatever sort of garments must I have?”

“Oh, give it no mind. You must be suitably attired as we get into some of the more advanced techniques, Daphne. It is all part of the treatment regimen. Now here, let me have a look at you.”

I couldn’t help but notice her pupillary response at the words ‘corset’ and ‘harness’: brief, but quite noticeable. I took her pulse, which was a bit accelerated but otherwise quite normal, and then her carotid pulse, which I found a bit rapid.

I’m afraid I then abandoned my carefully arranged diagnostic schedule, and, acting on a sudden inspiration—often so rewarding in research—I got up and walked behind her.

“This is a method of diagnosis I learned in Persia,” I informed her. “Pray tilt your head towards your left shoulder. I will not hurt you.”

Daphne endured this patiently and did as I said. Her hair was up as she always wears it, and she presented the long, smooth, gracefully sculpted column of her neck to me. I bent over her, and as I did I detected her delicious scent: clean, fresh, with a hint of some floral note, and beneath that something rare and exciting that I could not quite place, but something I associate with women of a certain ardent temperament. I pressed my lips softly to the side of her neck, about an inch below and an inch behind her right ear.

The lips are much more sensitive than the fingers as the Persians well know, and capable of detecting subtleties in the pulse and vital aura to which the fingers may be quite blind. Daphne caught her breath at first, but I held her gently by the shoulders and slid my lips slowly down the column of her neck, then back up to rest them just below and behind her ear.

How canny those Persians are! What a wealth of information was delivered me in that brief examination! Her skin is warm and welcoming and exquisitely soft. I felt her initial rigidity, a sharp intake of breath followed by a brief cry of surprise (a normal first reaction, and one that I stilled by a reasurring squeeze of her shoulders), and then detected that panoply of symptoms that the Persians in their inimitably poetic way call “The Rose Waiting To Be Plucked”. Her shoulders relaxed and she slid into an easy languor. Her respiration grew shallow yet more rapid, a fact I could ascertain by seeing the gentle heaving of her bosom before my eyes (which were still open at that point), and her skin raised in that delicious response most unfortunately referred to in the West as “goose bumps” (which often, in my own observations, accompany the stiffening of the nipples, a fact I was not yet prepared to ascertain for Daphne).

I kept my lips pressed against her neck no more than a matter of seconds, but long enough to detect a corresponding response in my own person as well. A gentle languor of my own, yes. Incipient penile tumescence? Of course; I won’t deny it. I was also quite aware of an acute benign muscular weakness and a very pronounced psychological reluctance to terminate this osculatory portion of her examination.

The effect on both of us was such that I had to postpone the rest of her examination in order to settle my agitated nerves with another pot of tea, in which Daphne joined me, both of us sitting there quite speechless, lost in our own thoughts of the noble venture we were about to embark on, I daresay.

In any case, there is much now to do. I have spent a most gratifying morning sketching out the items I want my seamstress and harness-maker to construct, and I’m afraid I’ve truly let my imagination run wild in my desire to make this project my Magum Opus. Such garments would truly be scandalous were they to be used for anything except the most rigorous scientific research!

Now it’s off! My garment makers should be here any moment, and Daphne, who is currently lying down, must be measured.

I must say too, that the Persian portion of her exam has been with me constantly since first I carried it out. I am quite sure I didn't extract all the information I should have from that osculation, and I am anxious to repeat it. Most anxious, I must say.

The Personal Journal of Mrs. Daphne St. Clair

Dear Diary,

Roughly calculated, and not taking into account the grade elevation, the distance from the tower window to the paving stones is in excess of 16 metres. The harness maker's assistant, a Monsieur Duprée, pointed out that my hips will clear the narrow opening with seven centemetres to spare, unless I am clothed, in which case there is the complication of a bustle. "You shall have to jump in your nightrail or chemise, Madame," he continued, unnecessarily.

I thanked M. Duprée for the use of his tape measure and assured him that I have no intention of jumping, but believe it prudent to be aware of all my options.

"I would do it naked, I think," he went on, "for dramatic effect." I forgave his presumption, as there were still half a dozen straps to be unbuckled, all of them at my back. One makes allowances for French tradesmen.

Splendid! Splendid! Things are going splendidly on this project I’ve come to think of as my magnum opus, the rectification of Daphne’s female humours and her entire transformation through the powers of what I’ve come to call: Mabeusian Therapeutic Orgasmology!.

The work has but barely and already there have been such noteworthy developments, not only in Daphne, but in myself as well! I’ve written before about my own ill humours and bouts of depression and discouragement, but I hadn’t even noticed the latest manifestations until I concluded the preliminary treatment with Daphne and I found myself rejuvenated and restored to such a vitality of spirits as I’ve hardly ever known! What joy!

My clothiers were here today. Having taken her measurements yesterday, they had already prepared the treatment corset, and we were all eager to try it on, though Daphne’s enthusiasm was not quite what I might have wished. She in fact delayed herself in the changing room for sometime, and I couldn’t help but overhear her frequent exclamations of dismay. She finally appeared only after several admonitions on my part, and then she insisted on keeping her dressing gown, which quite frustrated Mrs. Croft and Mr. Fortenbras, who wanted to check the fit. Daphne was, however, quite scandalized, a reaction I must admit I didn’t expect from her, and it was only after I dismissed the clothiers, drew the shades and locked the doors and did a considerable amount of cajolery that she agreed at last to let drop the robe.

But Ah! Venus in leather!

The garment is, of course, when divorced from its perfectly innocent scientific context, quite revealing and even criminally scandalous! It covers no more of the body than does a corset, and one cut immodestly brief at the hip. It is made of sturdy leather, rubbed to a high gloss, and cinches the waist in most severely (it must, in order to provide support for the agitation the internal organs can be subjected to during the violent paroxysms of orgasm) and therefore pushes the bosom up and out into the two diaphanous cups of some very, very sheer material that presents the flimsiest film between Daphne’s sumptuous womanly charms and the world at large. The corset laces snugly up the sides, and is done up with more laces in the back. The crotch piece (what else may I call it?) is a clever piece of workmanship that runs from the back, between the legs, and buckles to the front with three tiny silver buckles. When unbuckled and lowered, the female genitalia are entirely presented for therapeutic manipulation.

But no account of this debut can be complete without trying to capture some of Daphne’s beauty and allure in this garment, and the way her scientific zeal conflicted with her own modesty in a most becoming and dare I say stimulating way..

She is not a large women; small yet lavishly endowed would best describe her. The widow’s weeds I’d seen her in earlier really did nothing to show off her figure to the advantage it deserves, as I now couldn’t help but notice. She is perhaps a bit too large in the bust, too long in the leg by contemporary standards, but for all that, the sight of her in such a garment tested my professional detachment and objectivity to the very limit.

I will not recount the difficulty I had in convincing her that we should take advantage of the moment to begin our work at once. She repeatedly begged off, asking for time to become familiar with the garment, but I was very insistent, and at last I convinced her to come down to the treatment room with me.

I had her don her robe again. I’d dismissed the servants, but one never knows who might be still lurking around, and she followed me downstairs. Once inside, I locked the door for privacy and instructed her to sit in the treatment chair. Poor dear. I had to remind her to discard her robe.

I’ve described the chair elsewhere in this journal, but I shall recapitulate: it is simply a heavy, straight-backed arm chair of extremely sturdy construction. The seat is shallow, and there are leg rests that support the thighs, with laces affixed to ensure a snug fit. These thigh supports are controlled by a mechanism which can be adjusted to provide the necessary spread of the legs, thus keeping the legs apart and supporting most of the sitter’s weight. Additional straps hold the ankles securely, and the arms are equipped with additional straps to hold the sitter’s forearms, preventing any sort of twisting or torsion of the trunk.

I did her arms up first, then positioned her thighs into the leather sleeves and laced them up snuggly. I strapped down her ankles, and the last binding was a wide, heavy belt that fixed her waist to the back of the chair.

The novelty of the chair must have been a bit much for her, as her respiration had become rapid and noticeably shallow. She was so on edge that when I adjusted the mechanism to spread her legs, she gave a little startled cry, and suddenly remembered that she thought she had left the kettle boiling on the stove and shouldn’t she go look?

Nonsense, I said. I would have heard the kettle whistling, and cook had damped the fire long ago. I proceeded to light the candelabras necessary for the right therapeutic mood. I must admit I needed all my concentration, because the sight of Daphne bound in the chair, legs spread, was having a decided effect on my animal spirits. I was unabashedly erect and breathing hard myself, a reaction I’d never noticed with my other patients.

“I’m going to begin this treatment with manual stimulation of your genitals,” I told her. “It may feel unfamiliar and uncomfortable at first, but that will pass. I want you to concentrate on the feelings of my fingers on your genitals, and when something gives you discomfort tell me “no”, and when something feels especially good or arousing, tell me “yes”, or words to that effect, do you understand my dear?”

She assured me that she did, and I immediately undid the little silver buckles that held the strap protecting her pudenda. Daphne gasped and bit her lip as I peeled the strap back to expose her vagina.

I must admit that my fingers were trembling. I’ve seen any number of female genitalia in my medical career, but never did any effect me as deeply as did Daphne’s. I am at a loss to explain it, except to say that my composure was no doubt assailed by my very strong feelings of admiration and respect for her as a woman, and my deep desire that this first treatment be a success.

It was with considerable trepidation, therefore, that I cautiously extended a finger and made contact with her exposed labia. Amazing! Never in my entire career have I felt any flesh that was so soft and yielding, so, as it were, alive under my fingers. It was as if her very flesh reached out to me somehow, begging for my touch. The blood rushed to me head and I actually felt faint.

Daphne’s response was no less marked. She threw her head back against the padded head rest and uttered a sound somewhere between a sob and a wail. “Oh God!” I think she said, though the words were anything but distinct and my own powers of perception were clouded by the veil of sudden lust that gripped me.

Yes, lust! There was no mistaking it. My scientific objectivity went by the boards and I was suddenly consumed with the single-minded desire to possess this exquisite female who was giving herself to me with such staggering generosity, possess her by being the sole source of her pleasure, the fulfillment of her every need. I slid my finger up her vaginal crease, opening her up slightly, and was rewarded with an outpouring of her own generous supply of internal lubrication, as if it was her gift to me.

I was poised over her, one hand on the arm of her chair for balance, and I ran my finger up and down her several times, unable to stop. The feel of her on my finger, the way her flesh yielded to me, quivering as it did so; the small shudders of pleasure that wracked her body and the look of intense forbearance on her face—almost a look of suffering—all conspired to unleash in me something terribly powerful, almost frightening in its intensity. I was like a man possessed, unable to stop touching her. My own genitals were throbbing, my penis pushing insistently against my garments, and the most lewd and suggestive images came to my head.

I managed by great force of will to push myself away from her and stagger to the sideboard where I splashed some water from the carafe in my face, then dumped the entire contents over my head in an attempt to regain some semblance of composure.

The rest is not clear to me. I know I freed Daphne from the chair, mumbling something about that being sufficient for the night, and she took her robe and quickly went up to her room, no steadier on her feet than I knew I would be myself. I immediately came here to my study and started writing these notes while the impressions are fresh.

Is it any wonder that these notes are so haphazard, so, as it were, scatterbrained. I must pull myself together.

What can this mean?

The Personal Journal of Mrs. Daphne St. Clair

Dear Diary,

The weather was unseasonably suXXX clouXXXXs far fair

Nice weather. Scones for breakft

Holy Mary!

-------

dear diary

some things ahappened.sd... I cannlt hold the pen now.

tomorroo, details. I promse.

regards,

DafXXy

daffphny

XXXX!X

D

Masturbated three times last night in attempts to calm agitation. Copious ejaculate; surprising force. Physical relief evanescent at best. Resorted to brandy with 20 drops tincture of laudanum at half-past one. Dreams of a most disturbing and carnal nature. (Theories on deleterious effects of self-abuse are nonsense of course. Even so, must remember to check spine for signs of curvature. Have been doing sums in head to insure mental powers have not been compromised.)

Daphne too must have had a restless night, so I let her sleep in while I dozed on and off. The clothiers were back this afternoon. I sent them up to Daphne’s room but I did not attend. I sent along a note saying that I expected her for dinner and that treatment would continue thereafter. I feel much like a man who has been thrown from his horse. It’s imperative that I persevere and complete this initial work with Daphne in spite of my own emotions, and yet I scarcely trust myself.

My vibratiators have arrived from Mssr. Hulot, the watch-maker in Geneva. What exquisite work he does! There are three of them, the smallest the size of a generous panatela; the largest about 8 inches. The smallest is made of brass covered with leather, the intermediate size (about six inches in length and perhaps an inch in diameter, no more) is of gutta percha, and the largest of well-oiled ebony, and finished in a series or bumps and gentle protrusions to simulate the natural topography of the male organ. Each is elegantly curved, and equipped with a spring-drive whose robustness belies the intricacy of its clockwork mechanism. These should serve nicely in replacing the unreliable reciprocating coital simulacrum which behaved so poorly with the unfortunate Madame C last fall. (As per my assurances to Mme C, the simulacrum has been dismantled and its mechanism geared-down to provide a very satisfactory rotisserie for the kitchen. Our supper last night was prepared on it.)

Should I be again overcome by those bestial urges that so possessed me when I manipulated Daphne during our previous session, use of the vibratiators may provide a successful recourse. I’m hopeful that their modern mechanical design will put me at one remove from my personal involvement in her treatments and possibly remove that tactile stimulation that so completely unnerved me last night.

I’m painfully aware of my obligation to record my own responses to Daphne’s treatments with the same meticulous care and attention with which I insist that she record hers, but I blanche at fulfilling my duties. I fear my scientific objectivity is hopelessly compromised, and, worse, I recoil from the picture I’m afraid my own words shall paint of me: that of a man whose own animal appetites make a sad mockery of his academic training. Nonetheless, it must be done:

Alas! Words fail me! How well I can picture that noble and comely, brave young woman strapped and laced into that cruel, unforgiving chair, her every female feature enhanced and exaggerated by the skin-tight grip of the smooth, glossy corset! Her forearms were bound to the chair by the leather sleeves, her pale, trembling thighs likewise encased in tightly-laced sheaths of wickedly polished black leather. Her blond curls were piled upon her head, exposing that heart-breakingly beautiful neck, and her eyes, of the clearest, most captivating blue, held in them a look of pleading and eager expectation that all but caused my blood to boil in my veins. Cursed beast that I am that her own helplessness should engender in me such a wild and uncontrollable lust, as if her willing surrender were an invitation to me to do my perverted worst: to use her, defile her--even hurt her!-- to slake this overpowering sexual desire I felt for her then.

(Get thee behind me Satan!)

But even more than that was her attitude when at last my fingers made contact with her trembling flesh. These fingers, which have always had such strength and unerring skill, suddenly trembled and grew uncertain, and approached her as a supplicant might approach a holy of holies, overcome with awe before the sanctum sanctorum!

Upon considerable reflection (I might almost say ‘obsessive’ rather than ‘considerable’!) I have become quite certain in my mind now that by some action of her person, Daphne contrived to subtly thrust her body at me in such a way as to make it seem that her very flesh rushed eagerly to my touch. Perhaps it was mere reflex on her part, a twitch of her over stimulated nervous system, but I felt an answering pressure from her sex, a kind of thigmotactic response, as an animal shows when, upon being touched, it reflexively pushes back. But couple this with her violent physical reaction, the way her head snapped back against the padded headrest and her entire body was galvanized as if by an electric current, and, more than that, the look of pained ecstasy upon her face: her slack jaw, her fluttering eyelids. Even just writing these words sends me once again into a painful and most unwelcome tumescence!

I’ve never subscribed to Mssr Mesmer’s theories on his supposed vital fluid and animal magnetism (the mountebank!), and yet I could have sworn some kind of ineffable electrical charge passed from her body to mine as I touched her, something I’ve never experienced before.

Thus you see my trepidation in continuing this work. However, it must be done.

I have procured for myself a pair of heavy, rubber-coated dyer’s gauntlets against the chance that there is something to Mesmer’s ideas. I hope I shall not have to use them as they would make the necessary manipulations most difficult. But use them I shall, should it be necessary. The work must continue!

The Personal Journal of Mrs. Daphne St. Clair

Dear Diary,

What a pleasant day it has been. For once, I was awake before the rest of the house. I found some lovely strawberries in the kitchen, and devoured them with fresh cream and two of yesterday's scones, both slathered in butter. I had the appetite of a bear!

I must have hibernated like one, too (haha!) for I was blessed with a deep and dreamless sleep such as I have not enjoyed in months. And not just last night, Diary, but all of yesterday as well! Evidently, I awakened just long enough to scribble that nonsense on the preceding page. Otherwise, I slept straight through, without a conscious thought between yesterday's fitting of the Treatment Corsette and today's pre-dawn awakening.

Such laziness is inexcusable, I know, particularly since the Doctor was to begin my treatments yesterday. But I daresay, Doctor Mabeuse will not be sorry that he allowed me to sleep without interruption for nearly 20 hours. For I awakened with renewed vigor, wholly dedicated to the start of our scientific endeavor. Indeed, I surprise myself by almost looking forward to the first treatment.

Yes, Diary, I failed the Doctor twice yesterday, sleeping through an appointment of great import to him after an unbecoming display of timidity involving the Treatment Corsette. I welcome the chance to redeem myself in his eyes, with anticipation bordering on giddiness. Indeed, when the clothiers returned this afternoon, they were surprised to find me so chipper.

As for the Treatment Corsette, I have worn it today as often as I have been alone in my chamber, determined to overcome my shyness of it. The garment is not unpleasant. Its restrictive nature is strangely comforting, as a strict parent must be comforting to an errant child. The manly scent of leather, the sleek feel of it upon my skin, and the firmness with which it binds my body, have an energizing, even stimulating effect. This is perhaps due to its rather punishing tightness, which compels me to be mindful of good posture.

Had the laces been properly tightened, I should never have been able to eat that second scone, nor to lick the bowl clean of all traces of cream. I did my best to tighten them, but the Treatment Corsette is a garment that must be mastered to be worn as it deserves. I submit to its embrace as to a stern rebuke for my absence in the laboratory yesterday.

I wear it now beneath a robe of deep-blue velvet, which is among the new "wardrobe essentials" provided by my MaXXXr Doctor. I go to await him in the Treatment Room, where he typically spends some time before the evening meal. His note said we would begin work after dinner, but I shall volunteer to start right away, as an exercise in discipline. I am practically a-quiver with eagerness to make amends.

I trust he will be pleasantly surprised to find me waiting for him there, a day late but properly penitant. I shall seat myself in the Treatment Chair, so that he sees me upon entering the door...Encircled by candles, draped in midnight-blue velvet, the sumptuous robe open to my waist. I shall leave the sash untied, I think, the better to reveal the sheen of black leather that signals my strict obedience to scientific inquiry. If the room is cold and hardens my nipples to painful points, so be it. Such are the demands of science.

I hope my employer was not so disappointed by my absence yesterday that he has lost enthusiasm for our first experiment.

P.S. I must remember to ask the Doctor how I shall know if I am experiencing sexual arousal. Not that I expect it, but I must keep an open mind, make copius notes, and be alert to any symptoms which might indicate that an orgasm is taking place.

It is done!!! Most extraordinary. Almost beyond my powers of description. But it is done.
Done!

And I may report success. After a fashion I think. Not without cost. But success nonetheless! Most wonderful, radical (and perhaps bewildering) success!!

Forgive me. There are matters I should no doubt explain at the outset, significant and puzzling matters, such as Daphne’s apparent sudden amnesia concerning last night, but really, in light of this evening’s most exceptional results, such items seem to be almost too petty to mention. I shall treat with them as time allows. But now as to the main occurrences, laid down while the impressions are fresh.

I came down to the treatment room following a brief supper to find Daphne already waiting for me, seated in the treatment chair, quite pleased with her own punctuality, and apparently totally bereft of any memory of having been there the night before. I made the decision on the spot not to deal with this curious although not entirely unexpected reaction on her part. My attention was on executing a successful treatment, and I would let nothing distract me.

My own emotional reaction to her began as soon as I saw her sitting there in the treatment chair wearing her training corset, her new blue velvet cape about her shoulders (how well it sets off her eyes!). It continued to grow as I removed the robe from her shoulders and laced her forearms into the leather sleeves affixed to the arms of the chair.

Happily for me, Daphne was most casual about the initial procedures as I strapped her into the chair, almost pathologically so, I might say, chatting on about breakfast and the peaceful night she’d spent, but by the time I had secured her thighs in the restraints, my own fingers were noticeably shaking. I was already painfully erect and conscious of the lascivious but embarrassing thrill of my own pre-ejaculatory fluids seeping from my urethra in the most shameful manner as I set about binding her into the chair. I focused my all my powers of mind on the task at hand, but I daresay it would have been all but impossible to control my own animal urges, so powerful were they by then, had not Daphne assumed such a light-hearted and chatty attitude, so remarkably at odds with her own present physical situation.

I laced her thighs into the sleeves quite tightly, something inside me indeed enjoying the look and feel of the leather against her fair skin. I made her ankles fast and again tightened the broad belt about her waist as she expounded incongruously upon the making of a truly light and porous scone, the importance of using really fresh eggs, the milk to be scalded but not too hot, the batter to be beaten but not too thoroughly. Her discourse continued up to the point where I undid the tiny silver buckles holding the crotch piece in place and lifted it aside to expose her feminine treasure once again, whereupon a most unseemly half-strangled groan escaped my tightly compressed lips in spite of all my strictly imposed self discipline. Daphne, assuming that I was sympathizing with her over the importance of a well-tended oven in producing a truly delicate scone, began to speak even more rapidly, recalling the finest scones she’d ever encountered, where tasted, the type of jam or jelly employed as the case may be, how many eaten, how many she would liked to have eaten, etc. etc.

I stepped behind the chair and adjusted the leg rests, forcing her thighs apart slightly, and she gave a sudden little squeak of alarm and left off her exposition in faltering dribs and drabs. I must confess that I’m afraid that the look on my countenance had much to do with ending her soliloquy, for I have no doubt that my visage bore clear witness to the intensity of my struggle to maintain my composure in the face of my considerable internal turmoil.

In hoarse tones I repeated her instructions: she to inform me of a positive sensation by saying “yes”; to a negative by a simple “no”. She asked me with some nervousness in her voice to bring her her notebook, that she might transcribe her sensations as they occurred, but given that her use of her limbs was severely curtailed, I declined. By now it was clear to me that she was dissembling, whether consciously or not, and I resolved to forge ahead in the name of science no matter what distractions she threw in my face, and damn the consequences.

But the first touch of her naked skin upon my bare hand! The same fierce jolt of sexual energy, the same aching need in my very soul! Her flesh did not seem to leap out at me as in the last time. If anything, she seemed to pull back as she drove her hips farther back into the chair. I was not to be denied, however, and my fingers quickly found the tender vaginal fold between her labia majora, and boldly I pushed my greedy finger within and touched her at her feminine core.

A gasp, a furious shudder. Her eyes closed in modesty and her lips compressed as if against a fierce pain. Her hands balled into fists and she threw her face to the side, her chin against her bare shoulder as if in denial of my very touch, and yet her hips thrust themselves up against my hand as if with a mind of their own, her labia parted, and I was treated to a sudden copious exudation of her lubricious female essence. How that inflamed me! This gift from this goddess!

“The discomfort will pass,” I said with what I hoped was some tenderness, but truly, control of my voice was all but beyond my powers at that point.

“Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, I’m sure it will.”

I opened her labia with my fingers, exposing her most sensitive womanly flesh, and ran my finger around her orifice, then up, trailing a considerable amount of her oils, and circled the fleshy nub of her clitoris. She kept her head turned to the side, eyes closed, yet opened her mouth to expedite her sudden very rapid and exceptionally shallow breathing. Her hands, which had been balled into fists, opened wide, as if seeking some purchase, something to hold onto, then, frustrated in their search, closed tightly on the arms of the chair, her knuckles growing white with the strain.

“Yes or no, Daphne?” I asked in a low voice, seeking from her some verification that my treatment was proceeding as planned.

“Oh my,” she breathed. “Yes! I must say yes.”

I took a moment to scan her body. Her thighs were trembling slightly against her bonds, no doubt trying to close in a normal reflex against such an intimate invasion of her privates. Her back was arched and rigid, the glossy smoothness of her leather carapace drawn tight against her straining body. I couldn’t help but notice now that her nipples—always her telltale sign—were stiff and projecting insistently against the sheer fabric of the corset cups. Her breathing was markedly accelerated, and I could see from the pulse in her lovely throat that her heartbeat was terribly accelerated as well.

My own legs were trembling too, something that had never happened before. I was quite concerned that Daphne might open her eyes and notice (how could she not?) my painfully engorged state and grow alarmed, so I sunk to my knees at the foot of her chair, my fingers never losing contact with her.

She took little notice. I held her labia apart with the fingers of my left hand, while I tenderly stroked her with my right, my customary procedure in cases of this type, and yet again there was that extraordinary feeling of touching something almost sacred, something imbued with such awesome powers and beauty as to be well beyond the powers of my description. I felt as though I held Daphne’s very heart in my hands, and from her reactions I must say I imagine she felt something similar, for at once it was as if her last defenses crumbled, and she gave a great wail of desperate need and emotion. Her vagina actually spasmed under my ministrations—I could feel the muscles contract—and despite her bindings, despite the belt around her waist, her hips began to move in the chair in a most convincing imitation of coitus, a motion so raw and so primal, so deliciously lewd, that I groaned again, quite forgetting myself.

“Yes or no?” I croaked, my lips dry as the sands of the Sahara. “Yes or no?”

“Oh God yes, Doctor! Yes! Yes! Yes!”

She had changed utterly from the distracted young lady I’d strapped into the chair. There was an animal power about her, a look on that lovely face of a wanton pleasure too intense to be borne. Her frail muscles flexed against the adamantine grip of the chair; her vagina continued to spill its heated discharge onto my fingers, and her hips ground urgently against my hand, seeking to take me inside, I have no doubt.

I could not resist her. My carefully arranged therapeutic schedule fled out the window, and I gave into my urge to slide my finger inside her, into the very yielding softness of her body. I commenced a gentle but insistent thrusting into her body while my thumb slid over the well-lubricated nub of her clitoris, finding a rhythm she seemed to like. My other hand, through a mind of its own, sought the warm, welcoming weight of her breast and I squeezed softly in time to the working of my finger. Daphne’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again.

She incensed me. She drove me wild with desire for her: to own her, possess her. Her beauty slashed my heart like a knife and made me sob out loud like a child.

I am ashamed to recount what happened next. I can scarcely believe my own actions, me, a medical man, a man of science. But my very soul throbbed with sexual desire for her, to be close to her, touching her, inside of her.

I got to my feet. The seat of the chair, as I’ve said, was narrow. Although the height was awkward, I managed, by bending my knees, to bring the head of my tumescent penis into contact with Daphne’s vaginal flesh. It was difficult and clumsy, and thinking of it now makes me redden in shame, but half-kneeling over her like that like some primitive savage, holding onto the arms of the chair, I managed to thrust my penis against her in a frantic dumbshow of penetrative sex, thrusting at times so hard that I felt the front legs of the heavy chair leave the floor, grunting with the effort and groaning in unabashed carnal pleasure.

Of course my phallus was still trapped within my trousers as well as my briefs, but to me it felt as though it were her bare skin I felt upon my own, the intimacy of her vaginal depths. That same sexual current seemed to flood into me from her: that same overwhelming feeling of need and urgency. Daphne’s moans of arousal were punctuated by great sobs as the head of my trouser-clad penis rubbed against her vagina. She threw her head back and I, losing all semblance of rational thought, brought my lips down on hers.

I have never had a kiss like that, filled with such hunger and desire and total surrender! I grow erect again, thinking of the urgent intimacy of that kiss! I plunged my tongue into her mouth like a demented Frenchman and she was waiting for me. Her own tongue came out against mine, and then she sucked it into her mouth where she nursed on it, moaning all the time with a kind of beseeching acquiescence that I felt from my scalp to the very base of my spine.

We were both of us mad; totally insane. Daphne opened her mouth and began to chant, “Yes! Yes! Yes! Harder, Doctor, harder!” and I complied, despite the trembling in my entire body that informed me that, in spite of my masturbatory excesses last night, I was about to spend again, and this time with an urgency and animal vigor unlike any ejaculation I had ever known before.

And spend I did, with such paroxysms of blinding pleasure that I was only vaguely aware of Daphne’s climax as well, although climax she did. I heard her cries of unleashed pleasure, savage and sweet, as I ejaculated into the confines of my undergarments. I felt her shuddering and trembling against me in spite of all the laces and restraints, but other than that, the external world ceased to exist for me. There was just that feel of release, an outpouring of all my need and anguish and desire, a brief glimpse of paradise and a fusing with my subject that all but brought tears to my eyes.

So it is that I have little of use I can report about Daphne St Clair’s first therapeutic orgasm. A success, and yet in many was, a tragic loss. Strange that I don’t feel more badly about the data that were lost.

I collapsed against her and held her in my arms as I ejaculated again and again, thrusting my hips convulsively, even calling her name (who would have believed so much? Three times last night!) and then, as I slowly became conscious of what I’d done and the serious breech of protocol, I was at a total loss as to what to do. I meekly released her and fell onto my hands and knees there on the floor of the treatment room, panting like a dog, my trousers wet with my own animal-like release.

“Well, that went rather well,” I gasped, trying to put the best face on it as I could. “Most encouraging, don’t you think? Yes, most encouraging.”

I untied her, all the while telling great nonsense about things going right according to plan, and about her receptivity making me feel that she was quite ready for the “osculatory therapy” that comprised my savage kissing of her, taking her pulse by palpating her breast and other bits of improvised folderol.

She is, I believe, asleep now. And I’m left to try and make what sense of these events that I can, quite bewildered, quite impressed, and utterly at a loss.

The Personal Journal of Mrs. Daphne St. Clair

Diary,

Oh, but that I could share the Doctor's delight over what occurred today in the Treatment Room! No one deserves this triumph more than he - brilliant, stalwart, heroic Doctor Mabeuse. I shall not spoil this moment for him by sharing my fear...

It is true, Diary: the Female Orgasm exists. I can scarcely believe it myself - I who was the vessel by which it revealed itself, nearly killing me in the process and causing the Doctor, in an attempt to protect me from succumbing to the fullness of its power, to hurl himself upon my writhing body and emulate the marriage act, as if he might break the orgasmic spell by raising the unfortunate spectre of Bertram.

Alas, so craven had I become during those shattering moments, that even the Doctor's skillful simulation of sexual intercourse did not recall me to any sense of shame or decency. How can I explain what I cannot understand? I was drunk with lust! From the moment he touched me, his fingertip cool in contrast to my fevered flesh, my body began spilling hot fluid from its core, as if to stain the world with my carnality.

"Yes or no?" he said, and in my state of animal arousal, it sounded less a question than a command. A command to give myself to this strong, virile male animal, whose touch I craved as my lungs crave air!

"Yes," I cried - one time or a dozen, I know not - for I was past rationality, Diary.

Then the spasms began, throbbing deep within my sex, roaring in my ears as if my gasping breaths and pounding heart were echoing off the walls. Soon my body was wracked with tremors so violent, I now understand the necessity of the Treatment Chair. Just as the Doctor had warned, my internal organs might have been ripped from their moorings had they not been held safely in place by the protective confinement of the tight leather corsette.

You should have seen him, Diary! What a figure of a man. What strength! What a full and sensual lower lip! How skillfully he coordinated the movements of his thrusting tongue and fing

But I digress.

Oh, Diary, I do not know what to think of all this. Shall I share with him my fear of what we have released? If the discovery of the Female Orgasm falls into the wrong hands, I doubt the survival of civilization. Mothers will leave their children to starve in the streets; gentlewomen will abandon their homes, to seek out men like Doctor Mabeuse to manipulate their genitalia. For I confess, Diary, that as terrible as it was, the orgasm haunts me now like an addiction. I crave the Doctor's touch even now, as an opium addict craves the pipe.

What I do not understand is how the Doctor can call this a "cure."

Until a few hours ago, I was a well-bred Englishwoman, troubled only by some recent mischief by my nipples, and an errant imagination in reponse to naughty pictures. Whereas now, I cannot stop wondering what it might have been like if the Doctor, instead of feigning sexual intercourse, had opened his clothing and thrust his hot, hard manhood into my helpless, writhing pu

Oh.

Well!

There is another post-orgasmic symptom which I must remember to add to my laboratory notebook. I hope that by morning, I shall be over its effect on my imagination. Else, I shall not be able to peel a banana at the same breakfast table with my employer.

I am wont to believe that Mrs. Shelley must have suspected the existence of the Female Orgasm when she penned her infamous novel, "Frankenstein, The Modern Promethius." The Doctor and I have tampered with nature, Diary. I trust that with my help, his brllliant mind will find the means to master this thing, and harness it to his will.

A change in the research! A new theory that must be tested!

The most incredible thought occurred to me last night, a thought that has radically altered the direction of this research, at least for now. I had dropped off to sleep like a stone tossed into the sea when my head first hit my pillow last night (after bathing of course. See the previous day’s entry). I slept no more than an hour or two however before I was awakened by the most lascivious dreams. I can scarce remember them now except for the one where Daphne in her training corset rode a mad bull while eating a banana. I grew most peculiarly aroused! But no matter that now…

I spent the rest of the night dozing until an idea came to me that was so alarming, so unexpected, that it brought me to full wakefulness in a heartbeat:

What if Daphne’s condition is contagious? What if the humoural theory of female hysteria is wrong and Pasteur and Lister are right in their belief that all disease is caused by germs and malevolent animacules? Surely then we would have seen a general epidemic of hysteria among both sexes, would we not I hear you ask But not so, say I! Man’s naturally superior constitution and capacity for lofty abstract thought might very well make him a firmer master of his emotions. men could be infected—could even be carriers—of this disease and never be and more aware of it than they would, say, of a tic under a hobnailed brogan! It would only manifest in someone such as I, who am so finely in tune with my own emotions, who has honed his perceptions to the keeness of a razor’s edge.

And besides, think of the actions of a man newly smitten with love. Do they not mimic those of a woman sufering in the throes of hysteria? The same dull, moony eyes, the rapid pulse, lack of appetite and sudden yearning for mawkish poetry accompanied by music of the lute, the mandolin, even the low and vulgar hurdy-gurdy? Surely there is something to this hypothesis of mine!

There is only one thing to do: test my hypothesis. I have already devised the proper experiment.

While Daphne is held bound to the wall (for control purposes, of course), I will attempt to infect myself further with whatever pathogenic organisms she might carry. Judging from my reaction last night and the night before, the manifestations of such an infection should be quickly apparent to me. I will make every attempt to facilitate such infection by touching her with my fingers, lips and tongue, giving fell contagion every opportunity to lay me low, eagerly courting plague and pestilence in the name of Science!

No doubt her mouth is infected, sweet though it seem. Her breasts too—that curious reponse her nipples make could be a symptom. And what more? Could the center of her femininity have the power to infect me? Dare I find out? For science, of course.

There is much to be done!

Laboratory Record/Hysteria, Female, Treatment of

At 9:52 o'clock in the evening, Subject presented for experimental treatment attired in protective internal-organ restraint garment.

Dr. Mabeuse secured Subject to Treatment Chair and digitally manipulated her shamXXXXXy exposed cuXXX XXXXXX XXX X private part.

Subject experienced a restless throbbing sensation in her cXXX personal area, which was accompanied with swelling and dampness.

Further digital manipulation and digital penetration caused Subject's vagXXX private part to produce a copius amount of hot, creXXX XXX!! At this point, Subject's pXXXX lower abdomen experienced spasms of unfamiliar nature, simultaneous to the occurrence of breathing difficulty, loss of coherence, and a veritable flood of fever-hot, stinging wetnXXX XXXX XX XXXcked his tongue!

Subject furthermore began to XXXXX XXXX Xwhile silently evoking the mercy of Jesus and all the Saints, and promising to lead a life without sin hereafter if only the Doctor would fXXX fill her poor swollen pXXXy with his thick meXX private part, XXXXXXX XXXing her sensitive cliXXXs pearlXX private part.

More accurately, Subject experienced a perceived need to be impaled upoXXXX for internal contact with the Doctor's XXXXk private part.

Dr Mabeuse then simulated sexual congress, and the Subject achieved what can only have been the elusive Female Orgasm.

Notations by D. St. Clair
on behalf of Dr. E. Mabeuse

Initial draft, not for publication

~ ~ ~

The Personal Journal of Mrs. Daphne St. Clair

Dear Diary,

In light of the Doctor's historic triumph in the laboratory yesterday evening, his mood today has been most unexpected. He seemed distracted, and was almost terse with me over tea in the library this afternoon.

Later, the Doctor joined me for a stroll through the gardens and kindly apologized for his earlier irritability. He gently suggested that my laboratory notes, while otherwise quite satisfactory, might benefit from the use of other terminology when referring to the female genitalia, "private part" perhaps being insufficiently descriptive for purposes of medical research.

No doubt, he is right. Sad to say, my experience with Father and genus Coleoptera has been of surprisingly little help as I approach this unfamiliar field of inquiry. I had thought the beetles work would exert a continuing influence.

The Doctor's mood was much improved, until the point in our walk when I began, absent-mindedly, to rub my hands upon the surface of his majestic phallus.

I mentioned the object before, did I not? It is a Roman relic of great antiquity, which functions as a sundial in his rear garden and stands fully as tall as a man. It is evidently one of the Doctor's most prized possessions, for he displayed a rare but entirely justified moment of temper when I caressed the stone with such careless disregard for its historic value.

Later, I was summoned to the study, where the Doctor apologized once again, despite my assurance that I was wholly at fault.

He then announced an unexpected change in plan regarding tonight's experiment. I am not to wear the Treatment Corsette, but the more revealing Treatment Harness, a rather shocking garment consisting entirely of slender kidskin straps and a system of metal buckles and connecting rings. The straps criss-cross the body, lifting the breasts and separating the globes of my buXXXXks bottom, exposing more skin than they cover.

I expressed some concern for my internal organs, should they fall victim to another orgasm without the compression of the tightly-laced Treatment Corsette to hold them in place.

"Never mind about that, my dear," said the Doctor. "There will be no sexual climax for you tonight."

I begged his pardon.

Doctor Mabeuse explained the need to prove the validity of last night's apparent orgasm, by bringing me to the brink of sexual climax and then withdrawing the stimulus, probably more than once.

I wonder whether there might not be something the Doctor isn't telling me. As the subject of his research as well as his assistant, there are naturally some things I cannot know in advance.

I suspect that he wants to spare me the violence of another orgasm so soon after my first. A noble gesture, but I privately question the wisdom of this change in plan. Suppose that I get out of practice, and my body 'forgets' how to climax? Even more worrisome is my secret fear that I shall have another one and not survive it.

I have a feeling I shall miss the security of my Treatment Corsette tonight!

Session 2 (or 3?). Day cool and overcast. Fire in the kitchen in AM. Put out, no damage, Received invitation from Royal Society for dinner honor of somebody-or-other. Can’t recall. Lord Feedsnipe called to discuss funding for project but I had no time. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Now, as to the session with Daphne:

She was under strict orders to relax all afternoon: no visitors, no stimulating beverages. Her bath was drawn at 8:00 after which the servants were all dismissed for the night, the house locked up, the curtains drawn. I awaited her down in the treatment room dressed in my snug black trousers (my good ones) and my poet’s shirt from the Society Masquerade ball, the one that shows off my chest to best advantage. I’d decided that I should do everything in my power to make myself more attractive and thereby enhance Daphne’s sexual arousal for this session. After all, if female hysteria is caused by a pathogen, then my chances of infecting myself would be increased by bringing her to the point of maximum infectiousness. (I toyed with the idea of inserting an appropriately-shaped courgette into my trousers, but rejected the idea. Perhaps it might have augmented Daphne’s sexual excitement, but there was also the risk of alarming her should there be slippage, or should my own natural response make me appear some sort of freak of nature.)

Daphne appeared at the appointed time, even as the mantle clock upstairs was chiming nine. She descended the stairs like a vision of loveliness, covered in her blue velvet cape from head to toe so that I could not see what she wore beneath. I must remark on the most extraordinary shoes she wore, however. Slight things they were of black patent, with the most alarmingly wicked high heels. French, perhaps (or Italian?) It appears the Mssr Eiffel is not the only who can devise breath-taking beauty from the application of the most elementary engineering principles.

I led Daphne to the wall rack where the straps and ropes were already affixed. Though not a word was spoken, there was no mistaking the gleam of nervous excitement in her eye, and again I was beset by an almost palsy-like trembling of the hands as I made her fast to the equipment.

Doing so required the opening of her robe of course, and it was here that my trembling reached its zenith. The harness she wore is of black leather, again highly polished, and is designed merely to provide the means whereby she may be made fast to the experimental apparatus while leaving the relevant parts of her anatomy exposed. There is a collar that buckles around her neck, and a strap that runs down the center of her body, between the breasts and the legs, and is provided with a clever little latch or clasp towards its distal end which, when undone, fully exposes the genital area. A strap runs around the ribs just below the breasts, and a series of straps around the stomach, accenting her natural hourglass figure. The straps around her hips are hung with a kind of skirt of swagged silver chain, and the breasts are covered with a fringe of similar chain, providing at least some modesty. The whole is fixed with convenient silver rings and buckles for adjustment, all of which were as snug as I could possibly wish. Aside from the strap between her legs and the one around her hips, her loins are quite exposed, showing nature’s grand design in all its heart-stopping elegance.

I chained her hands to the frame, stretched out to the sides at shoulder height, and used the rings on the harness to pull her hips snugly back against the wall. I had planned on tying her ankles too, but I was afraid that if I got to close to those shoes I would do something most unseemly and ultimately humiliating, so I let them be

Let me not mince my words or mumble into my beard. I was at this point insistently and painfully erect.

I made note of the fact. Perhaps I was already showing signs of infection.

I let the robe slip from her shoulders, and, when I was able to free my tongue from the roof of my mouth from whence it had unexpectedly cleaved, I explained the purpose of the experiment once more, touching on my new theory, carefully explaining my methodology, and suggesting the possible outcomes. I’m afraid I was still having some difficultly with my tongue, however, and when Daphne, in a breathless voice asked me to repeat what I had just said, I was reduced to whispering, “I’m going to lick you all over!”

That I proceeded to do, starting with the base of her neck where it met her shoulders, holding her head in my hands as I ran my lips over the warm smoothness of her throat. I could feel her pulse beginning to accelerate faster and faster, and was aware of her accelerated breathing. She rolled her head to the side with a soft moan. Sure enough, her skin felt warm and feverish beneath my lips, and the soft sounds that issued from her lips could only indicate a most deep and profound pain and discomfort.

She began to twist and writhe in the chains as if in the greatest agony, and sure enough I felt the contagion leap into my body as well! I was taken with a violent urge to kiss and suck her flesh, to take it in my hands and squeeze, to press my body against hers, and before I knew what I was doing I had both her breasts in my hands and was kneading and squeezing them, their soft femininity intoxicating me and driving me quite out of my rational mind, and the more I squeezed and rubbed against her, the more her pain increased, until her hips of their own volition pushed against my engorged phallus and she contrived (by what muscular control I can scarce imagine) to grind and revolve her pubis against me. The feel of that slick leather belt sliding against my organ and the knowledge of what lay behind it, wet and waiting for me sent chills up my spine and made me redouble my efforts to own and possess her, irrational as that must sound.

I forced her body into temporary quiescence by leaning my entire weight against her and formed the pliable flesh of her breasts into such a conformation that her nipples were exposed, swollen and engorged with blood. I could not help myself from licking and even biting at these exposed signs of her own most obscene arousal, and all thoughts of the experiment and scientific protocol fled as I succumbed to this insidious virus that now raged throughout my person.

I managed to get one hand down to the clasp on her harness and open the crotch piece, and little can I say about what happened then, about the now-familiar loss of rational thought that ensued when my fingers felt her moist desire. Her eyes were closed but her mouth was available, indeed her parted lips gave me an invitation no mortal man could resist, and I took what she offered me, kissing her deeply, with a passion I have never experienced before.

Her lips, her entire body seemed to melt against me in the most incredible way, as if her entire body turned into some sweet female ambrosia in my hands, and I knew from her compliance that she would do anything I would now have her do, totally, without reservation.

Strangely, that realization seemed to fire my own greedy lust for her, and the more complaint she became, the more demanding of her I became in turn. I had told her that she was not to orgasm this night, but that pledge was quickly forgotten. I wanted her to orgasm. I wanted to see her again turn helpless with pleasure under my caress. My lust for her took a cruel, angry turn; my lust became a kind of rage. Her beauty, her surrender inflamed me, and suddenly I wanted to do the most obscene and degrading things to her.

“You like it when I play with your pussy, don’t you?” I demanded, using the cant expressions I had decided earlier to employ as a means to increase the eroticism of these exercises. “You’d like to come on my hand right now, wouldn’t you, my delicious little whore? My exquisite slut!”

My lust quite ran away with me, but strangely, though I saw Daphne wince at my crude language, her own heat did not abate one whit. If anything, my disparaging remarks (though certainly said only in the heat of passion and meant in no ways literally) increased her own fervor, which was, at this stage, quite marked.

I’m afraid then I quite lost my head. I quickly ripped Daphne from her chains and unfastened her from the stage. I pulled her to the center of the floor and forced the cowering girl to her knees before me. I held her there with one hand tangled in her tresses, while with the other

Someone at the door. Will finish later.

The Personal Journal Of Mrs. Daphne St. Clair

Dear Diary,

Is it any wonder that the Doctor is somewhat out of sorts, when Lord Higgenbottom's widow has become such a nuisance? This morning, she arrived unannounced, to ask the Doctor whether she ought to be punished for whatever flaw of body or character had made her unsuitable for his research. She was most insistent, and was only persuaded to leave when reminded she was late for His Lordship's burial service.

Just now, she all but manhandled poor James, forcing her way past him to the study, whereupon she begged Doctor Mabeuse to take a look at her bottom, as she feared she had sat upon an upholstery tack in the funeral brougham. That is when I asked the chimney boy to release the squirrel.

Now, where was I?

Ah. Yes. Well.

I shall look upon writing this account of last night's treatment as an opportunity to accustom myself to the use of medically appropriate terminology for the private parts.

I must first comment that I am, upon reflection, even more in awe of the Doctor's passion for scientific inquiry. The dilemma of female hysteria arouses him to risk sacrificing his own health - his sanity, even - upon the altar of progress.

At the time, I failed to appreciate the nature of the Doctor's sacrifice, or the instinct that drove him to feign a sort of hysteria himself.

I confess, I was frightened out of my wits by my employer's fervor. In my diseased state - yes, Diary, I now believe that I am indeed a sufferer of hysteria - my fear of the Doctor's unharnessed sexual power affects me most strangely and inappropriately. I find myself both shamed and seduced by the unholy light in his eyes; entranced by the heat and smoothness of his strong tongue as it traces a path of sin across my flesh. I tremble with unspeakable desires when his mouth closes upon my exposed nipple, his hands kneading and punishing my quivering breasts. And when he takes the other nipple between thumb and forefinger, squeezing lightly at first and then - oh god, Diary - when he then pinches my poor nipple until I cry out, it is not a cry for him to stop, but a prayer for him to chastise the demon I am become!

How is it that the Doctor understands what I had hidden from myself? How does he know that the white-hot pain of a pinched nipple can only be quenched by the sting of its master's teeth upon its impudent twin? And when his fingers claim my private...When he cups my sex in the palm of his hand, pressing upward; then parts the swollen folds and penetrates my vagina with a rough, merciless thrust of one thick, calloused finger, undamming a river of creamy fluid...We are both reduced and elevated to a state of base, animal primitivity.

Or so it seemed to me then. I mustn't forget that this is the Doctor's work, and my treatments are his scientific method.

Nevertheless, what happened last night was an act of sheer heroism, performed on my behalf by the most selfless man I have ever known! Like an exorcist who risks his soul to save another, Doctor Mabeuse risked becoming contaminated with the disease of hysteria! He exposed himself - tongue, teeth and fingertips - to my tainted bodily humours. He invited the curse of sexual hysteria to take him over as it had taken me, and when it seemed that we were both in the throes of unreasoning lust, even then he was not satisfied that he had given the experiment his all!

He was relentless, Diary! A madman, or so I believed at the time, 'tho I realize now his performance was intended to push me beyond what little remained of shame and propriety, so that we might learn the full extent of my hysteria.

With the marks of his teeth encircling my nipples, and bruises marking my heaving breasts, I would not have believed a woman could feel more. Until the Doctor, in his wisdom, freed me from the restraints with which he had bound me to the wall and pushed me to my knees!

I was bewildered - incoherent - my mind and body in a torment of confused feelings: fear, arousal, a fevered need to please my mDoctor and join with him! Trembling all over, my knees aching from contact with the cold stone floor, I recall his hand fisted in my hair, forcing me to look up at his face. He was godlike to me, inscrutable. A force of nature, to which we both knew I must submit.

"Beautiful whore," he hissed, his voice harsh as winter wind. "Now we will end your pretense of innocence. Now you will have what you hunger for."

Oh, Diary, my hands are shaking so I can hardly continue. What happened next was so shocking, and my response to it so alien to my nature, I cannot account for it. Suffice it to say, "private part" would not describe what was then presented to me as



Oh piffle! That squirrel is in the room, leaving a trail of soot. Where is that chimney boy?

I have been trying to amuse and divert myself by reading the new novel “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, but I must confess that I find the entire premise preposterous in the extreme. The idea that a potion or any sort of physical influence could so strip a trained scientist and medical man of his reason and lifetime’s sense of dedication is just completely risible, and so I have set it aside for now. It is amusing, but entirely without literary merit.

Now, as to where I left off in my account of last night’s activities with Daphne…

Ah yes: I had forced the trembling girl to her knees on the hard stone floor of the treatment room, one hand gripping her wrist with fearsome strength, the other entwined in the sensual tumult of her wildly flowing tresses. She looked at me with a look in her eyes compounded of unholy fear tempered with the strangest expression of eager anticipation, as if she at once was appealing to my better nature while at the same time imploring me to do my worst to her, to forget my role as a gentleman and protector and treat her with all the savage fury of the unhindered male lust which I now felt. But by then I was quite past all possibility of self-control. I had already decided to throw myself into the maelstrom of symptoms of male sexual hysteria, and that I had done to the extent that there was simply not the slightest chance of turning back at that point, nor did I hesitate for the merest moment.

Perhaps I should feel some remorse and shame at what I must recount next, but, strangely, any such feelings are dwarfed by the lurid thrill of excitement I feel again as I pen these words and remember my actions. I let go of her wrist long enough to wrest my cock from my trousers (‘cock’ I call it, for it was no longer just a mere ‘penis’. It was a proud shaft, a rampant stallion, achingly hard and engorged with passionate blood. It was a spear, a scimitar, a brutal lust-club with which I would subdue the trembling woman before me) and as I pulled it out in its full throbbing glory, Daphne’s eyes seemed to go into a demi-swoon of worshipful awe, as if the sight were just too much for her. Her jaws fell open and I took advantage of that to tighten my grip in her hair and pull her open mouth against my wildly jerking shaft.

“Bitch!” I hissed down at her, “Open your mouth and suck my cock! Suck it!”

Daphne hesitated only a moment, perhaps overcome by one last lingering echo of her rapidly fading sense of propriety, but she could not escape the fact that she was on her knees before me dressed in the treatment hardness, the tight leather straps and buckles biting into her delicate flesh, and in the throes of her own violent attack of sexual hysteria. She pursed her lips and planted a long, supplicating kiss on the head of my cock and as she did so I could feel her last vestiges of self-control flee her body. She opened her mouth with an obsequious little moan of acceptance and impaled herself on my prick.

The feel of her mouth on me! Hot and wet and soft, her eager little tongue all over me, tasting, teasing, and, more than that, the sight of that angelic face pierced by the brutal root of my animal lust was more than I could stand. I held her head fiercely and began to move my hips, fucking her mouth. (Forgive my choice of words but no other term will do to capture the feeling of savage brutality with which I used her.) My own snarls and muttered words of obscene pleasure were matched by her own moans and hums which seemed to indicate a kind of deep sensual gratitude. It is perhaps difficult to understand, but she seemed to derive some pleasure from the act, a pleasure equal or perhaps even greater than my own, though that is hard to understand, for while I simply had to stand there and enjoy her lubricious oral ministrations, Daphne had to force her jaw uncomfortably open, bob her head and make accommodation for the head of my engorged member butting against the sensitive tissues of her glottis. Several times did I feel and indeed hear her gag, but that only seemed to spur her on to more feats of heroic self-control and denial. Indeed, she seemed in the grip of some febrile catalepsy and hardly in her right mind.

Nor I in mine! My own scientific powers of observation fail me, and indeed it would take the gifts of a poet to describe the emotions that tore through my soul at the sight and feel of this heartstoppingly beautiful goddess on her knees before me, worshipping me like a maenad in her frenzy, oblivious to the world around her.

Oblivious but not quite, for I reached down now to where her breasts bobbed and swayed from the vigor of her workings upon me. I captured a nipple in my fingers and I squeezed hard.

“Play with yourself, bitch!” I growled. “Play with your pussy and make yourself come while you suck my cock!”

I scarcely recognized the voice as my own, but there you have it nonetheless. Such will sexual hysteria do to a man.

She was barely in control of her limbs and seemed uncertain of what to do, but, without missing a stroke of her oral caresses she at last reached down between her thighs and began to frig herself. I must confess I was astonished at how much ready familiarity she showed at this obscene exercise. She very quickly and expertly found her own clitoris and began to frig herself, moving her fingers in quick, eager circles with practiced ease. Who would have guessed that any woman of Daphne’s breeding and stature would be familiar with the techniques of self-abuse. In all of England there could hardly have been more than a score coversant with the practice of Devil’s Solitaire, and yet Daphne worked upon herself with the sure touch of a past mistress.

The sight of her pleasuring herself was more than I could stand, no doubt more than any mortal man could stand. The gentlemanly thing to do—if, indeed, I can even use that term to describe my actions at this stage of the game—would have been to excuse myself and withdraw from her mouth and discharge politely to the side, perhaps into my handkerchief. But in my animal frenzy I would do no such thing. Nor, indeed, do I think Daphne would have allowed it.

I warned her. I cried out several times, and she must have felt my thighs tighten, my buttocks clench. Her fingernails were dug into my bottom like claws, keeping me fixed firmly in her mouth, and despite my entreaties she firmly refused to let me go. She looked up at me, and must have seen my face just as my jaw went slack and my own eyes fluttered closed, for she began to tickle my cock beneath the head with the tip of her tongue, teasing me like a minx. The world went dark for me. I felt the power of sexual release gathering in the soles of my feet all the way up to my scalp, and with a howl of animal pleasure I began to ejaculate into her mouth.

I hardly know how to describe what happened next, for as quickly and copiously as I discharged, Daphne swallowed it. She drank it down with eager gulps, like milk from a teat. I have heard of such things, of course, and as a medical man I confess that there can be little dangers from such an action, but I am hard-pressed in this as in so many things to explain the wildly disproportionate effect this had on my body. I did not just ejaculate: I gushed into the girl’s mouth, long, thick ribbons of hot cream, each contraction accompanied by a level of orgasmic rapture that simply defies description. Knowing that Daphne was ingesting my seed, my very male essence, feeling her avid greediness for it and hearing her moans of selfish womanly pleasure followed by her own cries of ecstatic sexual release—at her own hand, mind you--simply put me out of my head and I must have swooned.

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At this point I hardly know what to think anymore. I can hardly pretend that this is still a scientific experiment. The truth of the matter is, more than anything else I want desperately to fuck Daphne. I long to feel her below me, tied hand and foot to the posts of the bed, moving with me as we share the pleasure of each other’s body. I want to feel my cock shoved up into her, want to see her face screwed into orgasmic pleasure as I gush inside her.

I dream of her with my semen hanging from her lips or spattered over her heaving breasts. I’m haunted by the sight of her own fingers working in her pussy in her transport of excitement. I still hear her cries of release, muffled by the thick mouthful of my come she bears.

And beyond that, into truly troubling waters: I see her tied to the frame as I bring the whip to bear on her breasts, on those eager and erect nipples. I see her on her knees with her wrists tied to her ankles, her ass in the air where I can alternately whip her and then kiss away the pain. I see myself taking her that way, as if we were no more than animals in a dark back alley, and I hear her moans of pleasure.

Troubling thoughts, and so appealing.