Lady Agatha, Countess of Wildenshire, emerged from her bath to be towelled lovingly dry by her ladies' maids. The maids were all clad in ankle-length black dresses of a nineteenth century style, and crisply starched aprons and mob caps, all home-made by each maid and maintained by her in her spare time.
Natalie and Samantha cleaned Lady Agatha's boots as Jemima and Claire perfumed her and laced her carefully into her full-length steel-boned velvet corset.
"Breathe in, My Lady" ordered Claire as she bent her forward and Natalie put an ankle-booted foot in the small of her mistress's back to draw the laces as tightly as they would go. The aristocratic redhead moaned in pain and pleasure as she was confined, laced in as tightly as her considerable endurance would tolerate.
The maids had all been carefully selected. Some were from a long line of serving girls, conditioned by tradition to obey their betters. Some were identified by that unmistakeable instinct for submission and subtly recruited. Others still sought out their positions eagerly, excited by the lifestyle they had chosen. A few had resisted the blandishments, the advances, the ravishment, and the domination by their mistress. It gave Agatha the greatest thrill to break these wilful girls. Natalie had been one such. She mistakenly thought her youthful eroticism, the desire she could provoke in Agatha, made her an equal. Long hours of punishment and discipline, tortures bringing exquisite agony and strict bondage had taught the girl unequivocally that this was not the case.
Now Natalie was the most submissive and obedient of maidservants, She and Samantha were licking Lady Agatha's stiletto-heeled boots from toe and heel to top, tonguing them lasciviously, then polishing the leather till it gleamed, enjoying the debasement involved in their task. Agatha watched superciliously as they worked.
Louisa entered, with Agatha's hose, Joanna with her gown, and Rachel with her jewellery.
The corset was a Victorian antique and had adorned the bodies of Countesses for over 150 years. The boots were Edwardian. The stockings though were brand new, to be worn only once. Leila removed them from the cellophane and card packaging, knelt before her mistress, and drew them one by one up her long, strong legs. The Oroblu hold-ups had a wide lace welt subtly elasticated, but the girl still dutifully clipped black velvet suspenders to them, then slipped black lace garters up and around each powerful thigh.
The maids on boot duty approached and slid Agatha's feet into the toes then buttoned their way slavishly up from heel to knee.
The jewellery attendant slipped gold rings on the Countess' fingers, a fine pearl necklace about her swan-like neck.
The maidservants guided her to the mirrored wall of the dressing room.
Lady Agatha looked upon her reflection and smiled. A stunning beauty even in her forties, she could have passed for half that age. Tall, even taller in the wicked stiletto boots which gave her an air of imperious, threatening command. Flawless white skin. Arresting green eyes. Full red lips and perfect teeth. A body that no man, and few women, could resist – a perfect hourglass in that cinching corset, her full firm and heavy breasts squeezed into an inviting cleavage. She was completely shaven – a duty granted to whichever maid was her current favourite. Jemima looked questioningly at her. She nodded. The girl brought a pair of flimsy velvet panties, barely more than a thong, and laced the ribbons at her hips, tying bows that would tempt her young lover at each side.
She took one more look at herself dressed for fetishistic sex, then had the maids dress her in the elaborate shoulderless velvet ballgown. Then looked again. Just as imperious, just as alluring, yet now respectable enough by any standards. Only when she chose, in private, would her lover see her reveal her decadent side. As it should be for any aristocratic sex goddess.
She considered who would attend her.
"Natalie! Jemima! Number Five uniforms, and be ready in four minutes!"
They scurried quickly away. The other maids withdrew.
Alberts, the family butler, discretely appeared.
"Your Grace! Young Master Edward awaits" he prompted.
"Thank you, Alberts. Have a light champagne supper prepared for us later".
The chosen handmaids returned. They had dressed as commanded. Clinging transparent chiffon catsuits covering their bodies from neck to ankle while concealing nothing, their willowy athletic bodies displayed proudly. Leather buckled cuffs at wrists and ankles, and broad belts, with thin chains affixed. Ready to be bound or to bind, as commanded. Spike-heeled ankle boots. Dramatic eye and lip make up and pale faces. Obedient handmaidens. Sex dolls.
They flanked Lady Agatha as she strode through her palatial home. The other servants discretely stepped aside, turned their faces away, saw nothing.
The servants knew their place. They knew that the doings of the nobility were above them and they must not interfere or gossip. They learned quickly to see and hear nothing, no matter what transpired. And what went on at aristocratic house parties could be quite scandalous. The previous evening at dinner the Earl, Lord Nigel, had drunkenly and coarsely propositioned their house guest, a slender, glamorous TV presenter known to the public as a sweet-natured working-class girl-next-door. She had shrugged, grabbed him and led him by the hand out of the eating room there and then. Agatha had heard the panting, the groaning, the squeals of their lovemaking from her apartment next to her husband's. Tempted though she had been by the girl's fresh, athletic beauty and frank, aggressive sexuality. Agatha had chosen not to join them. She did see through her open bedroom door that they moved to the master guest bedroom, with its sex dungeon accoutrements. The seemingly innocent girl was clearly in complete control, striding naked but for her red slingback stiletto heels, the unmistakeable marks of which already lined the flesh of the Earl's back as he followed her to his further torture. Agatha felt a frisson of jealousy at the sado-masochistic rites she would surely be inflicting on the strapping, manly, yet secretly submissive aristocrat. How she would have enjoyed tormenting and degrading her husband along with the young celebrity, and then perhaps initiating her into the sapphic pleasures of lesbianism...