The call from her husband to say that Hanspacker was coming down for the weekend took the good lady back to the day when she had first been shown around her new home, now so prized and beloved. That had been the day she had vowed to have the floor in the ballroom polished until she could see her face in it. And still the room was shut and unused with that lovely floor unpolished and sorry looking as on the day she had arrived. A determined Dorothy resolved that this oversight must be immediately rectified.
The Girl was working in the garden when this happy thought came to her Mistress. The gardens were looking marvelous by now, although she was still being distracted from the truly creative side of things by the need to keep the falling leaves clear of the lawns and paths. Mrs. Bottomley’s eagle eye never failed to miss any leaves that were allowed to lie for more than a few minutes (with the usual painful consequences for her by now toughened arse). Suddenly the Mistress, under the influence of some kind of brainstorm, flew out of the building and dashed over to the Girl, seizing her by the ear and dragging her squealing indoors and up a flight of stairs into a room she had never been allowed into before.
Releasing the Girl from the painful grip, she pointed at the floor.
"I want that floor to SPARKLE before the day is out. If I can’t see my face in any and every part of it, then woe betide you, Slave!"
"What do I use to polish it with, Mistress" quavered the astounded Girl, surveying the huge expanse of floor. "Is there an electric polisher?"
"There is, but not for you! You get on your knees and polish it all by hand. Sweep it first and then POLISH it! Afraid of a bit of hard work, even after all I have tried to teach you? Have you still no self-respect? Do you still expect to drift idly through life without making any effort at all?"
"No, Mistress. I will do as you say and it will be as you wish before the day is done."
Miss Huskisson bustled in with cloths, polish and a broom. The Girl was left to her Herculean labour, being told, to the vigorous accompaniment of a parting punch in the stomach from Husskisson, that she would not eat or drink until it was done.
It was not until nine that evening that the floor was finished. The Girl was faint from hunger and almost dying of thirst. Her arms ached as they had never ached before. The job would have taken hours with an electric polisher, but by hand it had been a task more exhausting than any she had been given yet. Even so, the place had definitely been transformed and she felt a certain satisfaction as she looked at her face, sweating and framed by damp golden hair, and her bare arms and breasts looking back at her from the polished surface that was her own doing!
All should have been well, and the Mistress ought to have been forced to concede that her original dream had been brought to glorious fruition by the Girl’s sterling efforts. Unfortunately, the Girl in her tiredness, had neglected to gather up all the cloths and one was left just inside the door.
This door burst open and Dorothy Bottomley strode in, her face lighting up with a beam of joy. She was about to congratulate the Girl and give her some reward. The Girl saw the danger to her Mistress, but too late. Her warning sang out just as one of Dorothy’s feet laded plumb on the duster! The startled Mistress slid yards along the floor on one leg before her ample bum hit the ground with what the Girl’s sensitive ears recognized to be a classic example of the "Sickening Thud."
Still under the sway of inertia, the Mistress continued to slide rapidly along the slippery surface of the newly polished floor until she was brought short by the wall at the other end of the room. In the minutes it took the shaken Mistress to recover the Girl managed to cut short a peal of laughter, but not before the Bottomley had heard it. The Girl hastened to go to the Mistress’s assistance and helped the good stout lady to her feet. Her solicitousness did her no good, however. That screech of laughter had gone neither unnoticed nor un-forgiven!
"Go to the Kitchen and ask Miss Huskisson to beat you. Then go to the pantry and ask Jenkins to beat you and then go to the garden and ask Fitch to beat you. He’s working late tonight. Then come back here and get another beating from me! Off with you slut! A joke, was it? Let’s hear you laughing after we’ve all of us done with you!"
"It isn’t fair! I worked really hard all day and I almost killed myself to make that floor so nice. Beat me if you like, but I’ll not go around asking for it to be done. That is wrong of you! I‘m sorry I laughed, though. You could have been hurt and I was careless."
Dorothy went white with anger. How dare the Girl talk back to her like that! She seized her ear again and dragged out into the garden.
"Fitch! This is a disobedient Girl. I want her to be punished. I believe you have a horsewhip in your shed. Get it and use it on her. I want to see the blood run down her back."
"Go to Hell, you old devil. I’ll not be party to that," replied Fitch to both Dorothy’s and the Girl’s amazement "You’ve gone too far. You’ll pay a heavy price if you mark that Girl for life. You may as well know that! I‘ll kill you with these bare hands if a whip ever touches her sweet lovely skin, no matter who uses it on her. So help me I will."
For the first time since taking charge of the Castle, Dorothy weakened. She began to see that she had maybe slightly overstepped the mark this time.
"Very well, Fitch. Just use the belt as usual. Oh, and don’t bother turning up for work again. You’re fired! See to the Girl with that belt, or you do not get your last wages. The Girl can do the garden from now on. She has been doing most of the work, in any case, ever since she got here."
With this she returned inside to nurse her bruised bottom and even more bruised ego.
"So it’s goodbye dear old Fitch," said the Girl putting her soft and rounded arms around his neck and kissing him.
"You’d better use your belt properly, or you won’t get paid. I’ll make sure you get your reward one day for being better to me than any of the others. I mean that. I can‘t explain how, although I think you may be able to work it out if you think really hard!"
"I won’t ever lay hands on you again, my dear. Or on the wife. I only hit her when I’m drunk anyways and I won’t be able to afford to drink any longer! Goodbye, for now. Why don’t you leave? I can’t make you out, putting up with the way they treat you. Whatever you were fleeing from can’t be as bad as this! If you ever did decide to walk out, we’d give you clothes and shelter until you got yourself sorted out. You know that."
The Girl laughed and bent over, presenting her much-abused rump ready for Fitch’s final chastisement.
"Don’t be so silly, Fitch. You need the money and so does your wife. I don’t mind a bit -- not from you! She‘s watching so don‘t hold anything back or you won‘t get a penny out of the old bitch!"
A calmer Dorothy watched as Fitch removed his trusty leather belt for the last time and did as the Mistress and the Girl had both told him. She watched his arm rise and fall until the old fellow looked fit to collapse from exhaustion. He was an old man, after all. She went over to her bureau and took out some money and went out into the gardens, up to the pair of them, the Girl and the old man, the one bent submissively over and the other still doing his by now unwelcome duty.
"That should do Fitch. Here are your wages and thank you for all you have done. Be off the premises in five minutes. YOU (addressing the Girl) can spend the night on the lawn as you did when you first arrived. Come inside for now and eat and drink. Goodbye once again, Fitch!"
The Girl was taken to the kitchen where food and drink were placed on the floor for her to eat and drink as if she were a dog. This particular humiliating and degrading refinement of the regime had been in force for only three days by now, but she had already adjusted to this further debasement. She ate and drank gratefully, before being cast out into the gardens to spend a very cold night under the twinkling and unseeing stars.
If anyone had been awake in the early hours of the following morning they might have seen someone climb over the wall and drop lightly to the ground as had the Girl when she first appeared at the Castle. The figure made its way to the huddled figure on the lawn, palely lit and ghostly white in the moonlight. Whoever it was squatted down beside her. After a few minutes, the visitor departed as he or she had come: over the wall, climbing swiftly up and over the other side. The Girl drew up her knees to her chin and gazed at the spot from where her mysterious visitor had appeared. Finally she settled down again and tried to sleep, despite the severe night chill. She was still totally uncovered and every nerve ending was let her know about it!
When it was light, she made her way to the garden shed and surveyed all the implements in what was now her domain. She saw that the horsewhip was not there any longer and hoped that Fitch would burn it and not use it on his long-suffering wife. (He did burn it.)
The Girl/gardener did not have long to work outside before being told to come in. The remainder of the day was spent in the household drudgery that she hated more and more all the time. A guest was expected and also Mr. Bottomley. She was told to stay out of sight when the special visitor was around. He was not a local person and would not take kindly to the sight of a naked shameless slut (Dorothy’s words, not mine).
"Must have been cold for you, last night," said Miss Huskisson as she watched the Girl on her hands and knees, vigorously scrubbing the kitchen floor. "Shouldn’t cause you any problems, though. Stupid Girls like you don’t feel pain like intelligent people such as me and Mr. Jenkins do."
"Mr. Jenkins and I," muttered the Girl under her breath. Unfortunately, she did not mutter quite quietly enough and got few painful flicks from Mrs. Jenkins’ switch.
"Get on with your work and watch your mouth, slut," said that amiable lady before getting on with lunch.
Dorothy came in after the Girl had been cleaning for a couple of hours and looked at her in horror.
"You get the dirt off the floor only to get it all over you -- you mucky little tramp -- reverting to your old ways, I see! And Fitch is not here to hose you down any longer. You’d better use the shower in future. Make sure you DON’T turn on the hot water. Heating costs money."
‘Well, a shower was a shower,’ thought the Girl. One step back to civilized living, albeit a small one! She pondered the Mistress’ words about heating and the expense thereof. Her little room was getting to be quite unbearable at night. The experience on the lawn last night had been scarcely more horrible. She would have to ask for blankets, but doubted she would get any.
Coming out of the shower and still dripping from head to toe, she met the Mistress.
"Can I have a bed covering, please Mistress, now that the nights are getting colder?"
"No. How dare you whine to me!"
With these words she began to sweep away down the corridor, then she saw reason and came back to the still damp and shivering Girl.
"I will let you have a heater, but it is to be turned on not a second before midnight and OFF at five in the morning when you get up. I can’t afford to throw too much money at a useless bitch like you. Now get on with your work!"
‘I wonder how many little victories that is in two days?’ she thought to herself as she busied herself with sweeping the main parlour.
‘Three, I suppose. No multiple beating or horse whipping -- just a farewell pasting from dear old Fitch. A shower every day, even if it is a bloody cold one! A heater in my room. Things ARE looking up! I‘m really being spoiled!’
"Who the devil was that?" said a startled Hanspacker.
"Who the devil was what?" replied Fred,
The pair had settled in to their rooms a minute or two back and were now promenading around the castle perimeter, admiring the wonderfully transformed gardens in the late Autumn air.
"A naked woman. She saw us and ran around the Castle out of sight. Incredible!"
"Must be some one from the town, playing some silly kind of prank. What a time to choose for a stunt like that. Getting a bit fresh and chilly for that sort of thing! Still some of these young folk are up to all sorts of tricks!" Mr. Bottomley hoped this would suffice to satisfy his guest’s curiosity.
Hanspacker said nothing. But thoughts were whirring inside that shrewd tax evader’s head of his. He’d seen an intruder, obviously and doubtless well on the way home after being spotted. But a familiar intruder, he suddenly realized! He’d seen her before -- not a lady you forgot that easily. YES!! Holy Shit! What was SHE doing here, bare-arse naked like on the day she was born? What was Mrs. Granville, the Professor’s lovely young career woman wife, doing around these parts, when she was supposed to be overseas on some high-flying assignment? Curiouser and curiouser!
He was about to tell Fred who he thought the young woman was, but decided against this - at least for now. After all, he could be wrong. It had been the briefest of glimpses so maybe he’d best say no more. He was 99% sure, though!
"Golly! That a bit was too close for comfort!" said the Girl to herself. "I bet he recognized me, too as he’s nobody‘s fool, that one! I only hope he keeps his trap shut, or things could start getting awkward. Why, oh why did droopy, drippy Fred have to invite HIM down here?"
The next couple of days were a very anxious time for the Girl. The two guests went away late on Sunday night and her normal routine resumed. She was glad of this, as the garden shed was even less pleasant a place to sleep than her bare garret high up in the castle. Happily for her, Fred did not tell his wife that the Girl had been spotted by the guest, or she would have felt it hard and strong on that much belaboured bum of hers!
One advantage of being out of sight and out of mind was that her arse had had a chance to recover from its latest onslaught, delivered by the Mistress the day before the guests came and before Fitch’s parting gift had entirely faded. She squirmed round to examine it as best she could, using the small mirror that Fitch had used to adjust his shabby clothes before leaving for home, and saw that it had nearly resumed its proper firmly rounded shape and normal pinkish colour. She felt it with her small sweet, if toil-hardened hand and it seemed smooth and soft, without any irregularities. There were times when she feared her looks would never recover from her experiences in this hellish household. And she was a forgivably vain person, justly proud of her beauty!