Free CamillasConsequences by Helena Harker

buttocks.
    “No, Virginia! As your husband, I command you—”
    Before I have a chance to silence him, Virginia shouts, “Be quiet!” The paddle smacks his reddened skin.
    Bravo, Virginia! It is a clumsy blow, but she will improve with practice. “How did it feel?” I ask her.
    She gazes at the paddle as though it has taken control of her. “The heavy burden I’ve been carrying…feels lighter. And if I strike him again?” She seems to be asking permission.
    “It will be lighter still.”
    “No, Virginia!” Aldridge grimaces.
    “If you continue to shout I will…I will…” She pauses. “I will gag you with your servant girl’s washing rag. Because I know you are molesting her!” Gripping the paddle until her knuckles turn white, Virginia strikes at Aldridge’s buttocks again and again. His cries echo loudly.
    Oh I see such marvelous potential in her. She is glorious to behold. She stops to catch her breath, the paddle in mid-air.
    “You can also use this as an opportunity to force him to confess his sins,” I suggest. “Think of what you would like him to say.”
    “Describe your first encounter with a man.” She waits for him to respond, but he merely glares at her.
    “May I show you how?” I ask.
    “Please.” She steps aside.
    I stride forward, grabbing his hair, holding him from behind, exactly as he held Tewkesbury. “How does it feel to bugger a man? How does it feel to spill your seed inside his arse?” I slide my hands over his skin. I have often tormented my victims, struck them, humiliated them. Part of me, the powerful part of me, wishes to know what it feels like to have the ultimate sexual power over a man…penetration.
    “The first time?” He grunts and shifts on his feet.
    “Yes, the first time,” Virginia says.
    “It was after I was thrown from my horse during a stag hunt. The doctor came here to examine me several times.”
    Virginia gasps. “Doctor Ferrengeld?”
    “While you were downstairs gossiping with your friends over sherry and pastries, he was…initiating me to the joys of male love.”
    “Dear Lord.” Virginia’s hand flutters to her breast. “In our bedchamber.”
    “In our bed. He wanted me to bugger him. And I did, and I enjoyed it more than I had imagined. Like a bull, I thrust into him. Again. Again. I had always fantasized about a man. Always. Finally my fantasy was fulfilled.” He sags against the rope, as though the confession has depleted him physically as well as emotionally.
    “Have you ever been buggered in return?” I asked.
    “No. I do not allow it.”
    Still holding his hair with my left hand, I slide my right down his back, down the cleft of his tightly clenched buttocks. He does not want me to touch him there. Good. I want him to resist. I want him to try to get away, to be frantic to get away, but not be able to. My gloved finger presses against his puckered hole.
    He twists and writhes, but it is all in vain. “Why don’t you allow it? Tewkesbury enjoys it. Perhaps you will too.”
    “No!”
    To be penetrated by a woman would add to his humiliation.
    “Please! I will give you True Pride!”
    “And one of your prize mares.”
    “Yes!”
    Very well. I have put fear in his heart and shamed him before his wife, so I will grant him a reprieve. I place my hand on his shoulder, and a shuddering sigh escapes him.
    “That is how it is done,” I tell a wide-eyed Virginia. Shall I entrust the wife with my evidence? Why not? She will need leverage against him.
    “Thank you, Camilla,” she says.
    I take the Panoptographs from the desk and offer them to Virginia. As she looks at them, her lower lip trembles and her eyes become glassy.
    “Keep these. Threaten to use them against him if he ever displeases you again. Do not keep them in this house.”
    “I have a place,” she says.
    “Now set conditions.”
    “Conditions?”
    “For your marriage. He must do as you say. After all, you now have the power to send him to prison.”
    She