Free Tight Laced by Roxy Soulé

dear, are at the Herkimer Sanatorium for Female Hysteria.”
    “What?”
    “On request of Her Ladyship of Highcastle. We’ll take right good care of you here. You’ll be rid of your nasty urges in short order.”
    “Unbind me at once! I am the eldest daughter of the Earl of Highcastle, and there will be consequences if you – or anyone – lays a hand on me.”
    “Shush up, now. Doctor will be in shortly.”
    “Doctor? For what?”
    “He’ll be cutting out your depravity, miss. You’ll thank him bye-and-bye.”
    Lacy yanked on her wrist ties, “Cutting—what?”
    “Insatiable self-pollution, miss. Bedding your brother-in-law. Among others, no doubt. Scandal. Disease. You can’t be sullying your late father’s name, now can you?”
    Lacy realized then what was about to happen. They were planning on removing all sensation from her. She had to think fast. And just then, the doctor strode in, a large man in a long, white coat. “The lady doth protest? I could hear her from the verandah.”
    “Doctor, she’s a wicked one.”
    Lacilia took a deep breath. Certainly if one was consigned to hospital for hysteria, one must prove otherwise. It took all the mettle she had not to scream at the top of her lungs. The doctor approached her, his hands sheathed in gloves. “We’ve prepared you for surgery, and now, we’ll give you a little chloroform, and you won’t feel a thing.”
    “Yes, so you’ve said. Or, so your nurse has said. But before you lacerate me in my most delicate area, I must inquire as to the validity of such an act.”
    “Validity? Well, your mother wants only the best for you. We can’t very well have you roaming around the countryside taking dukes to bed willy-nilly, can we?”
    “My step mother was waylaid by grief, Sir. She’s made a grave mistake. You’ll note, if you examine me further, that I am indeed intact.”
    The doctor pulled a pair of half-spectacles from his inner pocket and placed them upon his nose. “You don’t say?”
    The nurse folded her arms. “Hmmph. She’s a tricky one, this trollop.”
    The doctor took his position at the foot of the cot and pulled Lacilia down toward him by her ankles.
    “Sir! Please. I am flesh and blood, not some cadaver!”
    “You’ll hold your tongue, lass,” the doctor grumbled.
    The nurse was all too eager. “Shall I mask her?”
    “Hold on, hold on,” groused the doctor. “Bring the oil lamp hither, would you? I must inspect this purported virginity. I have heard there are women who will stitch up a slit on a skilamalink maiden.”
    Lacy grew faint as the doctor pried her apart. Had she washed up adequately from the night before? Would he find evidence of the duke’s seed on her person? The nurse had no doubt been the one to shave and clean her. What had she found in her preparations?
    “Hm,” mumbled the doctor.
    “Well, then, you see? My incarceration was in error.”
    “Not very consistent with prostitution,” muttered the doctor. “But I do see an abnormally large organ. Certainly blood-filled. I would need some assistance for this particular clitoridectomy.”
    The word clitoridectomy caused Lacy to feel faint once more. The last words she heard before giving way to dizziness were quiet and observation .

Women, if physically and mentally normal, and properly educated, have but little sensual desire. If it were otherwise, marriage and family life would be empty words. As yet the man who avoids women, and the woman who seeks men, are sheer anomalies.
    ~ Richard von Krafft Ebing, sexologist

    D ARLINGTON WAS STUNNED. Twelve hours earlier he’d been rapturous and insatiable in the arms of a woman he now coveted more than anything he’d ever dreamt of. And now. Now he sat beside his, his bride ! A woman so homely and gruesome, it took everything he had not to cringe when his gaze skimmed her features.
    And it wasn’t merely her looks that unsettled him. It was in combination with her voice, her manner, and her bizarre lack