Some days passed. I was working alone in the laboratory one morning, when I sensed a looming silhouette peering in through one of the windows facing onto the road. However, I was at that moment concentrating on a task involving a pipette and a precise quantity of sulphur trioxide, and when I could turn to look, the person had gone.

After a minute or two, I heard a tap at the back door, which gives onto a field. When I had dragged back its rusty bolts, I opened it, to be confronted by the shapely yet imposing figure of the handsome widow, Mrs Threlfall.

She said, ”I saw that you were alone, and came to beg you a favour.”

Her tone was the very opposite of begging. Still, I told her that any favour that it was in my power to perform, etc., and then waited as she considered me in her imperious way.

”I have recently acquired a maid,” she said at last, ”who, at 19, is older than the usual run of junior servants, and as a result seems to forget her place. This morning she cavilled when Mrs Gargil — Mrs Gargil is my housekeeper — Mrs Gargil ordered her to brush the dried mud out of the brush-braid at the hem of my second-best walking skirt. And that was the last straw.”

I reflected that there would have been straw and a good deal worse dried into the brush-braid, and so it will be until skirts become shorter or horses become obsolete.

”Since all else seems to have failed, Gargil suggested that I ask a vigorous gentleman to administer punishment. I thought of you. Your manliness recommends you.”

I was astonished. But Mrs T was, so to speak, the dragon at the gate of my dear, dear Lydia’s secret desires, and I had best humour her. So: ”Punish her? How?”

”That will become clear in due course. You must go to the old summerhouse at the far end of my grounds at noon.”

I knew the summerhouse. When a chill wind blew, it had given Florence and me shelter while we abandoned ourselves to the ecstasies of the sacred circle — but rather than admit to trespassing, I let Mrs T give me directions.

So it came about that just before noon that day I was picking my way along a sunny path between brambles heavy with black fruit. The thorns occasionally snatched at my trouser-legs, but misgivings slowed my footsteps more. To strike a woman merely for being reluctant to perform a task which I would baulk at myself, seemed to me unchivalrous, and in any case probably illegal.

I therefore opened the door of the ruined summerhouse with some diffidence — to be greeted by a most pleasing sight.

Foliage grew through the windows and weeds pushed between the floorboards. The sun beamed warm and strong through bare roof-timbers, striking one whitewashed wall. And facing me, aglow with reflected sunshine, was a naked female posterior, two delightful pale globes atop a pair of pale, slender legs. The owner of these attractions was bent over a wooden saw-horse, her servant’s black dress and patched petticoat taken off and folded into a cushion over its scarred timber. Her arms were resting on a second saw-horse, so that her back stretched horizontally.

I stopped in the doorway. My first thought was to fetch each enchanting globe a token slap and, my duty done, introduce myself. However, before I could act, the maid gestured sideways towards a sawn-off piece of tree-trunk serving as a rude table. On this I saw a ewer of water, a rubber cleansing globe, a jar of slippery unguent — in short, all the necessities to prepare for the sacred Rite of the Lesser Portal.

I needed no clearer instruction. In a moment I was unbuttoning my waistcoat — soon after I was naked. I looked again at the pretty rump on offer. It was deliciously rounded, a tempting peach with invitation in every creamy curve.

Her feet were lodged either side of the saw-horse’s legs, clear of the ground. She ducked her head to look between her wide-parted thighs, and I saw her eyes peeping upside-down from beneath a delightful Mound of Venus and a pair of glistening inner lips. To my surprise her eyes showed no alarm at the sight of my manly organ, which now reared hard and domineering, and which, as I have perhaps mentioned, is of remarkable length and (especially) thickness. I proceeded to lubricate the sturdy engine of the girl’s punishment. That done, I took my place behind the girl. At once she placed a hand on each buttock, and obligingly pulled them apart.

The point of entry thus revealed was as charming as any fine lady’s, nestling rosebud-pink between the snowy pillows of her backside. I approached the girl with my organ eager to do its duty, but her back door appeared tight-shut. Could she be feeling a touch bashful? I took myself in hand, and enjoyed myself by slapping the head of my manhood against the entrance a few times. This must have pleased the sensitive portal, because after knocking thus for admittance half-a-dozen times I saw a distinct relaxation, and after half-a-dozen more, the door was plainly ajar. I therefore pushed my rampant member down and used the tip to probe the obliging orifice. To my surprise, the head gained rather easy admission.

I was so plainly welcome that I drove deep in, and began at once to show my gratitude with long, powerful strokes. Pretty soon, soft cries of, ”Oh, sir,” began to escape the girl. She put one hand beneath her, and judging by a flexing in the muscles of her shoulder, she was briskly polishing the little doorknob at the front door while I invaded the back.

At first, after each stroke, I almost withdrew the head of my manhood, and to my delight, the clever girl then gave the head a squeeze with her muscle, gripping it firmly as I plunged it in afresh.

Next I bent my naked torso forward and reached under her. Each of her breasts was a scant handful, but they had a nymphly firmness and were blessed with long, thick nipples that it was a delight to roll between my fingers and thumbs.

Her plea that I ”do the nipples rough, sir” I obeyed at once, and her moans became passionate. I upped my pace, and dragged on her breasts at each thrust, pulling myself forcefully into her, and pretty soon I was going into the girl so hard that I might indeed have been punishing her, judging by the slaps as my groin struck her twin cushions. She uttered rhythmic high-pitched moans of pleasure — and, too, of that sort of pain which is itself a pleasure, groaning out such words as, ”Oh sir, you do stretch a girl, sir!”

The lustful wench was not long reaching the zenith of her joy. Her orifice gripped and dragged on my manly shaft as it never wanted to let go, and her piercing moans of ecstasy rebounded off the bare walls.

She had raced ahead of me. I continued my labours. Passionately crushing her breasts in my hands, I pretty soon had the satisfaction of feeling her propelled to another climax, and not long after, a third. Her breathing calmed and her back relaxed. I released her breasts, stood straight and held her hips, but I still used her delightful hole as I wished, slowing my pace to luxuriate in my pleasure, pressing deep and forceful between her yielding cheeks, until almost against my will, I was overwhelmed by spasm after spasm of the most electric ecstasy.

At last I withdrew. We both stood upright, she turned, put her arms around me, rested her dark-haired head against my broad chest, and breathed, ”Oh, thank you, sir. You are a true gentleman, and no mistake. You done this girl just the way she likes it, and I think I must’ve pleased you too, sir.’

”You pleased me well indeed, my girl.”

At this moment I heard a faint rustling amongst the leaves which crowded one of the glassless windows. I glanced that way, and seemed to glimpse in the shadows beyond, a conventional white mob-cap such as all Mrs T’s servants were made to wear. Well, I thought, let old Gargil have her pleasure, even at second hand, as I’m sure she gets none otherwise.

The servant-lass whom I now held in my arms, and who turned her face up to mine with a smile, I knew by sight. She was a lively-looking Londoner, an East End sparrow, with the bright black eyes of that bird, small-built overall, even a touch scrawny. She had the knowing glance which comes from life on hard city streets, and her straight black hair and liquid eyes argued something of the Lascar in her parentage.

”Morwena, isn’t it?” I asked.

”Yes sir, and you are Mr Jaspers.”

”Well, young Miss Morwena, since you know my name, you probably know my occupation. I’ve left certain scientific potions slow-seething away, so I’m afraid I can’t linger.” I bent and picked up my trousers. ”But perhaps half a sovereign for your troubles, eh?” And I felt in my pocket for the coin.

”Oh no sir,” she said with dignity. ”I’m not for sale, sir, for all it’s not my first time at the game of bee-in-the-dahlia, as you probably guessed.” She looked quite haughty for a moment. ”Just you get dressed and run along.”

And thus dismissed, I was soon striding back to the “lab”.

Reader, I had not forgotten my pledge of faithfulness to Lydia. But I had my eye on a noble goal: satisfying the urges of my precious Lydia’s loins. True, I knew Mrs T’s secret, but no gentleman would stoop to blackmail. So if I was ever to be alone with Lydia, I really had no other course but to pander to the dragon Mrs T as best I could.

All the same, as I slipped my white laboratory coat back on, I felt a definite confusion about the whole episode. I decided that Mrs Threlfall had not thought that so slight a girl as Morwena could relish “punishment” with so large an organ as mine. How very wrong I was, the reader will discover in later chapters. But for now, I will say that young Morwena’s posterior was not the last I must perforce enjoy as I pursued the captivating Lydia.