The Dominant Male

purposes other than walks on wet days or citrus fruit production, and it was for these reasons that the rod room had been fitted out in the chamber next door. It was also for this reason that, amongst the maids and some of the other staff, the orangery was more commonly dubbed, ‘the pinkery,’ from the hue of so many young maids’ bottoms after visiting that place.
    So it was that Comfort had to help Hope carry the heavy little pommel horse from the rod room to the pinkery, a task no maid apart, perhaps, from Hope, carried out with a light heart. Ellington directed them in where to set the horrid thing, and then they had to fetch the birches and the canes. The order to take off their pinafores and dresses came next. Comfort was obliged to help Hope out of her uniform and she made sure to pinch the blonde girl’s plump flesh as this was revealed. Hope just made a little ‘Oh!’-noise though, and did not sound the least distressed by Comfort’s malice. Then it was her turn to be helped out of her dress and stand before the young men, blushing furiously, in nothing but her stockings, corset and her drawers.
    ‘The drawers will have to come off too,’ Mr Ellington remarked quite casually, taking a pull at his cigar and turning back to the window to draw Algernon’s attention to a fine redwood tree beside the lake.
    The maids did as they were bid and soon stood in black silk stockings, gartered just above the knee, and their snow-white coutil corsets. Comfort kept her hands in front of her shaven quim but to her despair Hope stood with arms behind her, clasping the opposite elbow with her hands. This was a submissive if immodest posture, one that Comfort had been ordered to adopt enough times, but there had been no such order and it threw out Hope’s plump breasts, already pushed up by the corset, forward and, of course, exposed her quim to the gentlemen’s gaze. Comfort knew with furious certainty that it was not good discipline or the desire to seem obedient that had prompted the shameless little hussy to adopt that particular position.
    And when he turned, Mr Ellington did indeed look long and hard before languidly instructing both girls to bend over the horse, side by side, ‘so that we can assess the targets as well as the implements.’
    Comfort’s whalebone-reinforced corset creaked in protest as she forced it to bend, feeling the heat of Hope’s hip by her side as they exposed their tender rumps, completely bare now, and thrust out by their posture, awaiting the gentlemen’s attention.
    ‘Good Lord, that truly is a magnificent view!’
    ‘Quite a prospect isn’t it. My Uncle is most proud of it.’
    ‘Capability Brown, or Repton?’
    ‘Don’t be impious, Algernon, obviously God alone could have designed such perfect beauty.’
    Comfort could not suppress a startled little gasp as she felt his hand pat her naked bottom and going by the squeak from beside her, Hope had had hers pinched.
    ‘Well,’ said Algernon. ‘They seem fairly well matched. The blonde is shorter and a little more voluptuous but they both have lovely plump behinds.’
    ‘A pair of peaches,’ put in Mister Ellington, ‘and both unlined which is a turn up, in this place. So how do we decide which delightful bottom gets the birch and which the cane?’
    ‘I cannot choose,’ the other young man said. ‘I think we have to toss for it.’
    This provoked a deep chuckle. ‘Don’t tempt me, Algy,’ Richard Ellington said.
    ‘I mean a coin you dolt!’ Algernon said. ‘I pity your parishioners, when you take up your duties, truly I do. Here, heads the blonde girl for the birch, tails for the cane.’
    In truth, Comfort could not have said which option she dreaded most. But her heart seemed to stop, all the same as she waited to hear her fate.
    ‘Tails. You get the little blonde chit, and I will birch the brunette,’ Ellington said.
    Suddenly, the birch seemed to be by far the more daunting prospect. Something akin to panic seized hold of Comfort. All the same a part of her was delighted, because a little wail beside her told her that Hope had just realised that it was Algernon Metcalf not Richard Ellington who was going to be attending to her wiggling, naked rear.
    Another coin-toss decided the order. Hope was ordered to bend over the pommel horse, made to jump up so that her feet dangled above the ground. Comfort had to get down and buckle the leather straps that were attached to the horse-legs round the blonde