Monsieur Hankey

I. The Man Himself

William Hankey, the eighteenth Earl of Whippet, stood on the marble steps in front of the manor, looking out on the morning skyline of Paris. Smoke from the factories and dynamos of modern industry hung in a dark pall over the city. And there, off a touch to the left of center, stood the incomplete framework of that new tower which was under construction... What did they call it? La tour Eiffel? Hankey snorted. That so-called Eiffel tower would never amount to anything; it was a freak and an eyesore, and it would one day be scrapped and forgotten.

But then, Hankey himself was without doubt a freak of nature. As he stood here on the front steps, he could sense a tide of sexual urges roiling and sweeping across the city of Paris. Even from several miles' distance, Hankey could sense the sexuality of the metropolis as a palpable flow. The fireworks of early morning coitus had by now given way to a gentle current of sexual excitement, a thousand sightings of attractive women on city streets, the lust of manifold daily encounters, and here and there a distinctive note above the noise. There, someone in a frenzy over the joy of the lash; there, a lonely hunger for women draped just so in furs; and there, in the third or fourth arrondisement, an entire crowd stirred up over... someone... something... a lady?... parading down the street en déshabillée...

Hankey stood there on the steps, drinking in and savouring the delicious sensations of a city in sexual flux. This had been his secret gift from youth on: William Hankey was able to read the hidden sexuality of other people like an open book. Their most hidden and peculiar urges were to Hankey as directly sensible as the shape of their nose or the colour of their eyes. This gift was to Hankey both a pleasure and a curse; it was responsible for his present state of exile, an expatriate English nobleman dwelling here in the French countryside near Paris.

"M'Lord?" It was his butler, Jennings. "The post has arrived, and in it is a letter from Whippet Hall. From Thompson."

"Eh? Very good, Jennings. I trust Thompson will have a good report." Hankey set to pacing to and fro on the white marble, roused from his secret preoccupation.

As for Jennings, Hankey could sense that the old family retainer was undergoing a bout of unusual lust over the feet of some lady... the exquisite turn of her ankle, her adorable toes... Hankey secretly knew Jennings for a feet man. Oft had Hankey pointed Jennings, in the bustle of a city byway, toward some woman whom Hankey could read as receptive to the worship of her feet. "You've a good eye, m'Lord!" Jennings was always grateful, but not quite comprehending of how his master did it.

Jennings, as a feet man, had an easy time of it. How often Hankey met strangers in the street whose letch for feet burned within them like a fiery brand! But how rare to find Hankey's own desideratum... In all the streets of London and Paris, in all of Bruxelles and Berlin and Geneva and Florence and Edinburgh and Dublin, Hankey had never once sighted a woman who shared his great desire... his great desire to have her clamp her large smooth beautiful hand TIGHT over his mouth, and hold him shut up, hold her hand fast over his mouth no matter how he barked and moaned and twisted and wrestled against her...

William Hankey, Earl of Whippet, had always burned with a secret desire to have a beautiful strong woman hold his mouth tight shut in her hand, and hold him captive, wordless, unable to speak, in despite of all his most fervent struggling... But how rare this desire was! Feet, the sting of the birch, leather, furs, corseting, all so common! But hand over mouth... once only in all his life had Hankey met a woman who shared his urge for hand over mouth, and that was to him a perpetual agony...

Ah well... Hankey strode in through the front doors, into the hallway, and on into his study. Here the walls were lined with shelf after shelf of books, one of the finest collections of erotic literature in all of Europe. Hankey was a connoisseur. He had many rare forbidden volumes in his collection, but not a one which catered to his own secret desires...

Hankey broke the wax seal on the envelope and read the letter from Thompson, at Whippet Hall where Hankey had been born and passed his boyhood. Yes, repairs needed; yes, the expense of reliable tradesmen; yes... Hankey dipped his pen in the inkwell and composed a response:

Dear Thompson,

I am in receipt of your letter of the 5th instant. Do proceed with repairs on the roof, and with other necessary repairs and expenditures in regard to the hall and grounds. Deeming your judgment sound and worthy of trust, I remain,

Yours sincerely,
Whippet

Hankey arose from his writing desk, thankful that whatever his woes, he was a very wealthy man. He would not, now or ever, want for the means to maintain his ancestral estate in Whippetshire, while at the same time bearing the considerable expense of a household here in exile, in a manor house hired from a French comte who had been ruint at the gaming tables.


II. A French Chambermaid

As Hankey walked back across the front hallway, he met a chambermaid coming, with an armful of linens. A delectable French peasant girl, and... oh, her hands! Large smooth creamy womanly peasant girl hands! Hankey could sense within her a frisson of excitement; she was attracted to him, and moreover she was in a sexually preoccupied mood. Good, she was new here, Hankey would have to follow her up...

But first Hankey had to stop by the pantry and talk with the cook, Miss Worthington. Hankey could tell she favoured women, so he left her strictly alone, despite her large powerful hands. "Yes... there will be three adults in the party arriving for dinner this evening: the Duke and Duchess of Folkestone, and their daughter will be traveling with them. They'll be staying through Friday morning. Oh, and Worthington... His Grace has a taste for venison pie."

And then... that French peasant woman! Hankey felt dizzy at the thought of her hands. Out into the hallway, and up the wide flight of stairs from the ground storey to the first storey... Hankey stood looking down the carpeted upstairs hallway. The chambermaid was standing, linens in her arms, facing away from him, outside the door of one of the guest bedchambers.

Hankey advanced down the hall toward her, his feet silent on the rich Persian carpeting. He made as if to pass her by; the peasant girl glanced up at him in surprise. Then, even as he felt the pang of attraction within her, Hankey paused, reached down, and seized this peasant girl by her left wrist. "Viens, ferme ma bouche avec ta main!" Hankey's French was rough but serviceable.

"S-si vous voulez, monsieur..." Hankey could read this beautiful young brunette's shock and excitement at his bold advance. He lifted her hand toward his face, but she knew what to do. Without hesitating, she wrapped the large broad palm of her big smooth peasant girl hand TIGHT over his mouth. Tight! This young woman had large soft warm STRONG French peasant girl hands, and from her sudden firm grip on his mouth, she was well acquainted with this convenient rustic mode of obtaining a person's quietus.

"Mmmmmmhh... Mmmmmmh, hhmmmmmm... Mmmmmm, hmmm mmm MMMMMHHHH!! Mmmmmm, wwmmmmm..." Hankey's heart was pounding as he essayed in vain to speak through her big soft hardsqueezing silencing hand. "Mmmmmm, MMMMMMM'HHMMMM!!!" He could feel his male member standing erect within his trousers. He stretched and strained his jaw, turning his head this way and that, making noises which could not possibly be understood, as a wicked grin broke out on the peasant girl's face.

"Mmmmmmmhh.... Hmmmmm, mmmmmmhh, mmmm'hmmm'mmmmmmmh!" Ragged breaths in his nostrils, her thumb resting across his nose... Hankey unlatched the door, and let this amused French girl lead him through into the bedchamber. The door clicked shut behind them. "Mmmmmmh, MMMMMH HMMMM MMMMMMMMH!" He could read within her a taste for dominating a man; she didn't exactly desire to hold his mouth, but she was enjoying holding him prisoner like this. Good, Hankey knew well how to use the urges and desires of others to shape them to his will. He knew by experience, and he had learnt from his disastrous mistakes, mistakes which had landed him here in exile.

"Mmmmhhh, hmmmm MMMMMHH hmmmm, mmmmm hmmmmmm!" This peasant girl had unusually large and powerful hands, and he couldn't open his mouth no matter how he tried. "MMMMMMMHH! MMMMMMMHHH!!" Unable to speak, Hankey reached up and tugged, first gently and then with more strength, at her big soft smooth hand locked oh so tight over his mouth. But she wouldn't let go, and he found her rough peasant strength more than his match. "Mmmmmhh, wwwmmm mmmmm hmmmm mmmm MMMMMMMH, mmmm hmmmm MMMHHHH, hhmmmm mmmm wwmmmmmm..." She was enjoying her power over him, and he was incapable of prying her large feminine peasant hand away from his mouth. Her merry face was a study in delight, as she beheld an English nobleman reduced to lowing and barking beneath the stifling power of her creamy smooth French peasant girl hand.

The linens lay on the floor where they had been dropped and forgotten. Hankey turned down the covers on the bed. "Mmmmmmhhh, mmmm mmmm HHHMMMM hmmmmm!" But he was unable to speak, for her warm soft strong country girl hand stopped his mouth. So Hankey took and tilted her, and together they tumbled into the bed. "Mmmmmm, hhhmmmmmm mmmmmmmm!" He felt and fondled her until she was moaning. She wouldn't let go of his mouth, so Hankey dumbly lowered his trousers, and flipped up her peasant girl dress, and he climbed on top of her, between her legs, as he sank his turgid member home. Her face lit up, a loud gasp of surprise, as he went to work on her. But she kept her hand gripped tight over his mouth, now with her thumb underneath his chin, and not even the rapture of her climactic cries induced her to moderate her hand's tight grasp across his face.

They lay there together in bed, quiet. Hankey could read her satisfaction at being bedded by a man of the aristocracy, her silent excitement at holding him prisoner with her hand even as he had his way with her. After a few minutes she gazed into his eyes, and then with a final hard squeeze she removed her big soft powerful peasant girl hand from his mouth. Hankey arose and pulled up his trousers. Then without a word he left the room; she would see to changing the linens and making up one more bed. That was her job.


III. Jinny the Giantess

Hankey went up another flight of stairs, to his own quarters on the second storey of the manor. Here he washed up before the mirror, with a basin and pitcher of cold water. It was nearly eleven o'clock. Hankey came down to his study and read The Exhibition of Female Flagellants, in the Modest & Incontinent World, until a lunch of smoked herring and tomatoes at two.

Ah, The Exhibition of Female Flagellants... "The Mania for Flogging and the Birch"! It put Hankey in mind of his younger days... As he sat eating, his reminiscences carried him back to Whippetshire and to its villages such as Slatternly, and Whippet, and Willow Bottom, and Stokey Hole; and of course to the village of St. Anne Minor, where he was sent for a year of finishing at the School of St. Anne Minor before matriculating in Cambridge.

He thought back to those heady days, when he was but eighteen years of age, and how the school headmistress had oft occasion to discipline him. Yes, Mistress Anne and the three young women who served under her would often correct him by holding a hand firmly over his mouth for upwards of an hour. Yet his secret gift, even then operant, showed him that they had no special urge to it, but did it to him merely as a practical method of punishing and silencing him. So he talked often on purpose in the school, to get them to hold him shut up with their hands.

Mistress sometimes wielded the birch on Hankey's posterior as well; and on one occasion when an especial lesson was called for to be impressed upon him, she fetched a gigantic milkmaid from the dairy to take Hankey up and hold him horsed on her back whilst Mistress birched his behind with abandon. Hankey's transport at the sight of this "Jinny the Giantess" was eclipsed by his wonder at sensing that this Amazon milkmaid, Jinny, held hidden within her a burning desire to silence him with her enormous muscular farm girl hands.

Ah, what wonders followed between eighteen-year-old Hankey and twenty-year-old Jinny! Yet what agonies ensued, to this very day! Jinny the Milkmaid was the only other person he had ever met who had an urge for hand over mouth...

Hankey got up from the table as he finished the last of his herring. He was pale and trembling. He must go and see Jinny, right now.

"Worthington? Shall we need fresh butter and cream for tonight's dinner? No, no bother, I can fetch it down at the dairy yet this afternoon."

Hankey started down the grassy lane to the dairy attached to this manor, wondering what kind of fool he was. A nobleman, offering to go fetch butter and cream for the cook like some common errand boy? No doubt it was his American side showing: his American mother, not his English father. Or else it was simply his raging desire for Jinny...

Hankey had always felt torn, of two worlds, amphibian, neither fish nor fowl. Neither fully English nor fully American in his habits or his speech, never fully at home in either world. Always a foreigner and a stranger, wherever he went. And his secret gift and his hidden hand-over-mouth urges but compounded his sense of never fitting in anywhere, in any rôle or clime. To society he was Lord Whippet... the Earl of Whippet... Whippet... My Lord... To the French peasants in this locale he was Monsieur Hankey, an exotic import. Monsieur Hankey: perhaps that was nearer the mark. Since coming into exile here, he had come to see himself fundamentally and simply as Hankey. Yes, Hankey... a fish out of water, a square-cut peg in a round hole.

Only with Jinny could he be himself; only with Jinny was he a whole man.

When Hankey had succeeded to his title, shortly after he came down from Cambridge, he had Jinny brought to Whippet Hall, to the dairy attached to his estate. And so also he had brought her, with his whole ménagerie and household, into exile here in France. For ten years now Hankey had looked after Jinny, had seen to providing for her in his employ, had shared many a rapturous hour with her in their joint secret pleasure of female hand-over-mouth...

Hankey entered the stone milkhouse through a side door. There, her back toward him, stood Jinny breaking cheeses out of their moulds at a work table. She was an extremely tall woman, shapely but broad of shoulder and built like an oak, and she dwarfed the two young men, French peasants, who stood working beside her.

The men noticed Hankey first. "Eh, le voilà qui arrive, allons-y!" They gathered up their cheeses to leave; they knew well the English nobleman wanted to be alone with the milkmaid.

Then Jinny turned, towering head and shoulders above the peasant men... And she saw Hankey, and her face lit up with a broad country smile. "Alright Willy, how be on?... Too long 'tis been zince I zee'd 'ee!"

Jinny's delight at seeing her beloved Willy was palpable. So too was her hunger to enclamp his face vise-tight within her treble-large farm girl hand; so overpowering was it to his hidden gift at this close range, that it very nearly bowled him over.

From the next room, Hankey overheard the departing French peasants jabbering in their patois, something about "Monsieur Hankey et la géante anglaise"... Yes, "the English giantess," that was Jinny all right, all six feet nine inches of her...

Hankey recognised his own excitation at the sight of Jinny, nor was she slow to remark on it: "Why Willy, lookit yer draws! Are ye happy t' zee me, or wot? Lookit, yer draws be standin' right out in vront of 'ee like a poppit! Jis' like when we wur at the school, jis' like when ye vurst zee'd me, if'n ye recollect?"

"Jinny, you know I'm always happy to see--mmmmmmmmpphhh!" Unable to resist a moment longer, the milkmaid swept Hankey up in her large muscular arms and she clamped her huge gigantic strong smoothbacked powerful forceful farm girl right hand STEEL-TIGHT over Hankey's mouth and nose and eyes, oh!! "Mmmmmmmmhh, mmmmm hmmmmmm gghhmmm wwmmmm, hhhhmm MMMMMHHH! Mmmmm hmmmm MMMMHHHH!! Hmmmmmhhh, HHMMMMMMMMH!!!" Blind and dumb and dizzy, Hankey felt Jinny whisking him up off his feet, holding him effortlessly aloft in her arms, her left arm holding his chest tight enwrapt with his back against her bosom, her mammoth soft warm amazon-strong hand clamped like a tight steel mask over his entire face from his jawline up to his brow...

"Mmmmmmhhh... mmmmmhhhh... Ggghhhmmmmmhh, mmmm hmmm HHHMMMMM MMMMM'HHMMMM!!" Hankey squirmed and thrashed, muffled groaning, unable to get free from Jinny's tightsqueezing embrace, unable to budge her huge strong arms by even a fraction of an inch... "Mmmmmmhhh.... MMMM! MMMMH! Mmmmmh, wwwmmmmm hhhmmmm... MMMMMMMHHHH!!" She could hold him suspended in thin air without even trying, for as long as she wanted, and there was no way he could ever escape, or break free from her imprisoning arms...

"Mmmmmmhh, hmmm MMMHHHH hmmmm MMMMMMMMMMHH!!" Her gigantic milkmaid hand kept his entire face imprisoned in stifled meaningless mmmmphing darkness, from one ear to the other, and he couldn't talk, he couldn't see, he could scarcely draw breath through the unbreakable tight facelock of her colossal warm soft tight faceholding mouthholding hand...

"Ah, Willy, jis' ye shoosh! I got 'ee, an' ye kinna talk not a word!"

"Mmmmmhh! Wmmmmmm hmmmmm mmmmm hmmmm, mmmmm hmmmm HMMMMM, mmmmmhhh!" Hankey squirmed and writhed what little he could in Jinny's aerial embrace, his feet dangling in air, her left arm compressing his chest and lungs painfully tight. Somehow he got one arm free and reached up and pawed, pried, shoved, pulled blindly on her faceclamping hand, but it was no use. No matter how hard he tugged and pulled on her gigantesque farm girl hand, even with all his strength he would never be able to budge her hand from its unbreakable tight vise-grip over his mouth and face. "Mmmmmmhhh... mmmmmmhh.... mmmmm, mmmmmmhhh..."

A cool breeze told blind dumb Hankey that his male member was now jutting clear out of his trousers and into the open air. He heard Jinny laughing out loud at him. "At the school I ne'er zee'd nought like 'ee, Willy. Useta be I tuck up a boy an' horsed 'un on m' back fer the Mistress t' give 'is bum a proper birchin'..."

"Mmmmhh... hmmmmhh... hhhhhmmmmmmmhhhh" Hankey picked and pried in vain at the vast velvet-smooth back, the big steely-strong fingers, of the milkmaid's enormous unyielding face-engulfing hand.

"Zumtimes he got hard, oncey-twice't a year I zee'd a boy git wet, don' ye think I din' kennit. But 'ee, Willy, when I vurst tuck 'ee up an' horsed 'ee, ye got hard right off, ye got wet right off..."

"mmmmmmmhhh... hhhhhhhhh... phhh'hhhh... mmmmmhh... ggghhmmmmm..." Hankey was having an extremely difficult time breathing from behind Jinny's huge hand clenched so savagely tight over his face.

"An' var as I be vrom dainty delicate, still I could veel 'ee hard an' clip, clip, clippin' 'ginst m' back. An' I 'ad the spots t' warsh out'en m' shift to show it! Shore's I got eye'n, Willy, e'en the milkmaid kin zee there zumthin' eatin' 'ee."

"mmmm--mmmm-mmmmm... mmmmhhh..." Hankey slapped and pulled blindly at Jinny's adamantine faceholding farm girl hand, dizzy from lack of air, mummified in the overpowering direct sensation of Jinny's burning desire to engulf and crush and devour and smother him in her all-puissant suffocating milkmaid giantess hands... AND HE LOVED IT! Yes, even the milkmaid can see there's something eating you.

Then, just a point ahead of suffocation, Jinny released Hankey's hot sweaty face from her unnaturally huge mammoth hand, and she stooped and laid him on his back on the dirt floor. His trousers were down, his glistening member standing up like a maypole. And Jinny lifted the skirts of her rude rustic shift, and sat down astride him and impaled herself on him.

And she commenced to ride him, and then she pressed her impossibly large soft warm sweaty right palm down hard and tight over his face, so that she was stopping his mouth once more, his mouth and nose and much of his face squashed painfully hard beneath the steampress tight weight of her thumb-down faceholding farm girl hand.

"Mmmmmhhh... Mmmhhhhh, HHMMMMMMMH!!" This time Jinny had her hand at an angle across his face, so that with one eye he was able to look up into her broad beautiful face. Her white milkmaid cap was askew, and long blonde tresses had come loose and spilled down across her chest. Her eyes were half-closed and dreamy, her lips in a wide grin, and from within her Hankey could read her cold seraphic joy at fucking and using him, helpless beneath her sturdy muscular six-foot-nine frame, with her enormous hand eclipsing his face in tight harsh enforced unspeaking obliteration.

"Mmmmmmhh! Mmmmmhh, hhmmmmm mmmmm HHHMMMM, mmmmh HHHHMMMMM!" Jinny laid her other huge hand slantwise across the first, covering his free eye, so that Hankey was now blind, pressed down tight and incommunicado beneath the powerful weight of both her crossed face-smothering hands.

"Mmmmmhhh.... mmmmhhh..." As she rode him in an accelerating rhythm, Hankey was able to reach up with both hands and, in his silenced blindness, tug and pry with all his strength against Jinny's gigantic face-pressing hands and her robust oak-powerful forearms. But it was no use, Jinny was way way WAY too strong for him. She pressed down with both hands harder and harder and HARDER until his blind mute facelessness was blotted out in unbearable burning white-hot tightness... "mmmmmmhhh... mmmmmh, mmmmm mmmmmmmhh!" Oh, painfully tight! Riding him hard and fast now -- can't speak, can't see, can't breathe -- her huge hands much too tight, felt like going to crack his face bones -- "mmmmmh, mmmmmmmmmh!" Unbearably tight, her hands pressing his head down HARD into the dirt -- faster, faster, faster! -- her raging desire to eat him alive by blotting out his face and smothering him -- "mmmmmmmmhh!!" -- her hands, her knotted muscular arms, too tight, pulling on them, can't budge -- Hankey rocked, rocked, rocked, gained explosive release, blind and dumb and mmmmphing -- "MMMMMHHH!" -- Jinny continuing to ride him in frightening forceful crescendo into climax -- I can't talk! -- heart hammering in his chest -- "mmmmmm...... mmmmm.... mmmh........ mmmmmmmhh, wwmmmm hhmmmmmmmmm....."

Hankey remained imprisoned, faceless, beneath Jinny's huge mammoth strong warm soft smoothbacked farm girl hands clamped crosswise, invincibly painfully TIGHT over his mouth and nose and eyes and entire face. He needed badly to get more air, but he just couldn't, and Jinny ignored his feeble frantic tugging at her tightlocked face-covering hands as she panted and gasped and made little ragged noises down in her throat. Finally, as if it was an afterthought, she removed her hands from Hankey's face, and he puffed and gulped for air as he looked up at Jinny's flushed sweaty face. Her eyes were glistening, unfocused. Her long blonde mane had all tumbled loose, and hung down in a flaxen cascade toward Hankey's heaving chest.

After a little while, Jinny got off of Hankey, and she rolled over onto her back on the dirt floor. Hankey crawled over to her, and she took him and cradled him in her arms, his back against her breasts, her big strong powerful womanly giantess arms wrapping him up encircled in her tight snug hold like a hot sweaty papoose.

They lay there cuddled together, quiet and still, for some time. Then Hankey remarked, "Jinny, I've got another hard one on, if you'd like..."

The milkmaid's response was to fasten her big smooth mighty oversized damp warm pale white hand very, very firmly over his mouth and nose, to shut him up so he couldn't talk any more. This time his eyes were just barely able to peer out above the large expanse of her tight stifling hand. "Willy, tha bist zutch a zweet, zweet boy... Jis' shoosh thee, hush tha mouth!..."

"Mmmmmhhh... Mmmmmh, mmmmmmh..."

"No, dear... Ahhhhh luv, shoosh, whist! 'Membr'st the boy in the school, 'Arris was 'is name, an' Mistress Anne done took to keepin' 'un allus shoot up wi' stickin' plasters o'er 'is mouth zo's 'e kinna talk no more? Eh? Mebbe me needs keep thee shoot up like 'Arris then!"

"Mmmmmmmmmhhh...."

"No, shoosh! Thic wur right zevere, ennit? But 'Arris, 'e had to done bin talkin' zumthin' awful, afore the Mistress gone an' done 'un a turn like thic-thar, and GAGGED 'is mouth vor good..."

"Mmmmmhhh, hhmmmmm mmmmm hmmmmmm..." Hankey was twisting and squirming in Jinny's arms, but she kept holding him tight with her hand gripped hard over his mouth.

"Ah, Willy... Lik'st 'avin' m' gurt big pa'm stook zo 'ard an' vast o'er tha mouth, dostn't?"

And you love doing it to me!, Hankey thought. Another several minutes, and Jinny decided to discontinue her punishment, and she took her gigantic soft oak-strong amazon hand away from Hankey's face.

Now -- carefully, so as not to spark in her any new urge to hold his mouth -- Hankey got up, and pulled up his trousers. Jinny was getting up off the ground, still half in a dream. He requested of her the fresh butter and cream for tonight's dinner. And then he bid her au revoir.

"Willy, com'st tha back an' zee me Vroiday a week?" He could directly sense her overpowering thirst to shut him up again with her unnaturally large smooth strong farm girl hands.

Hankey trudged back up the lane from the dairy, carrying his burden. Jinny was a force of nature! He knew she loved him deeply, and Hankey was madly in love with her. She was the only woman he had ever met who shared his secret letch for hand over mouth, the only woman he ever met who knew him for who he was. He had looked after her now for ten years, and he would always look after her and take care of her. Jinny was truly his soul mate.

But Hankey and Jinny's love must ever remain a private affair. He could scarce think of taking her as his wife: a rude and unlettered milkmaid, married to the Earl of Whippet? There had been whispering enough when Hankey's father took to bride an American industrial heiress: "She behaves like a red Indian!" How then if Hankey were to take barbarous rustic Jinny, and she with her towering sturdy height of six feet nine inches? No, it was unthinkable.

Moreover, as Hankey passed his thirtieth year, he had to look toward the prospect of an heir. If Jinny were capable of bearing him progeny, she should have done so by now. Even if per impossibile they could wed, Hankey would die without a legitimate successor.

When Hankey arrived at the manor, he retired to his quarters where he washed up thoroughly and changed into fresh clothing. It was almost teatime. Then there would be a brief respite before company arrived, and dinnertime in the evening.


IV. Lady Eliza

Hankey sat in the drawing room, going over a plethora of last-minute details with Jennings. One of the footmen had suddenly taken ill. The gravy boat from the best china was chipped, and some of the silverware had somehow not been polished. Then there was a problem with the assignment of bedchambers. "Yes, the Duke and Duchess will be staying in the guest house, down by the stables. But their daughter... if a chambermaid could make up the first bedchamber on the right, at the top of the staircase, that room has, I think, by far the best view."

Hankey was thinking to himself that he had also other reasons for assigning the young lady to that bedchamber, right beneath his own; but that was a secret, best left unspoken.

Then Hankey paced to and fro, anxious as always before the arrival of important guests. The sky in the east was coloured a delicate aubergine before he heard the sound of horse hooves, and spied through a window the approaching carriage, a luxurious road coach drawn by a team of Norman horses.

Hankey emerged into the hallway. Before long the front doors opened, and Jennings led the company in to be introduced. "Your Lordship, may I present Their Graces the Duke and Duchess of Folkestone, and Lady Eliza Chapel."

The Duke strode forward and heartily clasped Hankey's hand in his own. "Whippet, it's so good to see you again! It's been much too long. I trust you're doing well."

"Quite well, Duke. And I hope you're well. It's a pleasure to see you again after a span of... could it be five years now?" Edward Chapel, Duke of Folkestone, had been a friend and staunch supporter of Hankey, even through those troubled times which led to Hankey's exile in France.

"And... Duchess? You're as beautiful as ever, I see." Hankey bowed toward her, and she smiled.

"And... Lady Eliza, I've heard so much about you from your father. So glad to make your acquaintance at last!" Hankey bowed low, took Lady Eliza's hand, and brought it toward his lips. A close glimpse revealed that this tall slender beautiful young woman had beauteous hands to match, big long slender elegant silky-smooth feminine hands...

Then, as Hankey kissed the back of Lady Eliza's soft cool hand, he was stunned, almost toppled, by an overpowering direct sensation.

He could read that Lady Eliza was overcome with a raging desire to fasten her long smooth beautiful hand over his mouth.

Hankey fought to maintain his composure as he led his guests into the parlour, where they sat and had conversation over a preprandial glass of sherry. His eyes kept returning to Lady Eliza, her pale slender beauty, her delicate thin face, her hair in long black ringlets... and her amazing hands, so large and long and slender, so smooth and alabaster white... And his secret gift kept on conveying to him her continual obsessive urge to clamp his mouth tight shut in her hands and never let him go.

At eight o'clock Jennings announced that dinner was served. Hankey and his company proceeded to the dining room, where they sat down to eat beneath the candlelit chandelier. A course of savoury fish soup was followed by roast saddle of lamb with glazed fennel and dauphinoise potatoes, with side dishes of carrots and green beans. The footmen carried dishes to and from the table, and Jennings hovered at the Duke's elbow with a bottle of red Northern Rhône, Hermitage, vintage 1857. "More wine, Your Grace?"

A lemon ice was served, and fresh baked dinner rolls with butter from the dairy. Hankey found himself distracted by the unwavering sensation that Lady Eliza was fighting the urge to reach across the table and plaster her palm across his mouth.

The Duke was discoursing on matters which Hankey would like to have attended more closely. "Whippet, you seem to be well settled in, here on this country estate. A most charming habitation, in a most picturesque locale! But you've been keenly missed, and I speak for others as well as myself when I say there are many of us who should like to see you back on the bench in Lords..."

"Well, Duke, you know there were difficulties, and a great deal of unpleasantness."

"Yes, I never understood Gridlington's animosity towards you. He was a power to be reckoned with. But you should know, Gridlington is quite incapacitated these days. It was a fit of apoplexy. Sad, just a shell of a man."

A course of venison pie was served, and then a dessert of florentines and candied apricots. Hankey was pensive. I was a fool as a younger man. 'Twasn't wise to twit Gridlington time and again with a tableau of oranges and a pool of water and a horse's hind quarters. Confronting the man over and over with his most secret perversion whipped him up into a frenzy of fear and hatred, and drove me into exile here...

After dinner there was conversation late into the evening. Then a footman showed the Duke and Duchess by lanthorn light to the guest house, and Lady Eliza retired to her bedchamber up the stairs. As for Hankey, he sat alone with a nightcap before he ascended the stairs, past the door to Lady Eliza's room and up another flight to his own quarters.

Hankey washed up with bracing cold splashes, dabbed himself with Florida water, and donned his best silken robe. Lady Eliza was still awake; from the room beneath him he could sense her phantasising of silencing him with her bare hands.

Very well then... Hankey crossed his bedchamber and entered a storage closet, wherein he drew aside a wall curtain, revealing a hidden spiral staircase. It was close quarters, but Hankey descended the spiral stairs to a storage closet off Lady Eliza's bedchamber. He lifted the latch on the closet door, and silently let himself into her room.

A full moon shone in through the leaded lozenge windows, and a candle was burning on her nightstand. Hankey crept most of the way across the room to her bed before the lady noticed him. When she did, he could feel her sudden shock, her excitement, her sexual arousal at his unexpected apparition in her room.

"Milady," said Hankey, "fancy meeting you here!" He sat down on the edge of her bed. He could sense her excitement mounting.

"Lord Whippet? Is that you?" He felt her jangling fearful joyous nerves as if they were his own.

"Yes, milady. 'Tis I, Whippet, come to pay tribute to your beauty and charm. Though now that I'm here, I find myself... strangely feeling... as if I'm about to yell, and scream..."

At these words, Hankey could feel the fireworks shooting off within Lady Eliza. "Oh no, my Lord, you mustn't! 'Twould wake the entire house!"

"Lady Eliza, unless you stop me, I will most assuredly scream my lungs out." He was going straight for her deepest darkest phantasies. He could feel she was about to explode. He started going, "Ba ba ba ba, ba ba ba ba, BA BA BA BA, BA BA BA BA, BA BA BA BA, BA BA BA BA-- mmmmmmmmmphh! Mmmmmmmhhh, mmmmhh mmmm hhhmmmmmm!"

Lady Eliza Chapel, daughter of the Duke of Folkestone, sat up in bed and clamped her long slender soft beautiful icy-cool left hand TIGHT over Lord Whippet's mouth. "Mmmmmmmh, mmmmm hhmmmmmm mmmm hhmmmm, mmmmhh MMMMMHHH!" He twisted and turned his head, but she wouldn't let him go. He could feel that she was lost, deep within this sudden unexpected acting out of her most primal Urphantasie...

"Mmmmmhh... mmmmhh... mmmmmh..... Mmmmm hhmmmmmm, mmmmhhh! MMMMMMMHHH!!" Lady Eliza was thrilled to be holding this handsome man's mouth tight shut in her long elegant cool hand, and as for Hankey... he was beside himself at the glorious wonder of this young lady shutting him up in her hand, and as much a delight to her as to him! He sensed her sexual excitement as clearly as his own, and the sensation doubled and trebled his own mounting intoxication. "Mmmmmmhh, hhmmm MMMMMHH hmmm, mmm hmmmmm..." Hankey strained to open his mouth beneath her tight grip, but her long cold slender patchouli-scented hand had a wiry strength to it, and he couldn't get his mouth open no matter how he tried. "Mmmmmmmmhhhh..."

"You see, I shan't let you scream." The lady seemed quite pleased with herself. "Or yell. Or talk. Ever again! This is what I do to men who invade my bedchamber. And... Lord Whippet, I will never, ever let go of your mouth! NEVER!" He could feel the animal inside her, slipping the leash.

"Mmmmmmhhh, hmmmm MMMHHHH!" Hankey held up his hands, as if dumbly pleading with Lady Eliza to let him go. But she just kept her large long thin cool smoothbacked hand locked hard over his mouth. He could feel that she had sharp fingernails, pricking into his cheek; he hoped Lady Eliza didn't leave marks in his cheek, which her mother might notice in the morning. "Mmmmmmmhh, gghhhmmmmmm mmmm wwwmmmmm, mmmmmmmmhhh!"

Now Hankey reached up and felt of her cool soft smooth hand gripped so tight, and he was surprised that picking and tugging at her hand was so ineffectual. Her hand was tightly welded in place over his mouth and jaw and cheeks, and it just wouldn't come away.

"No!" Lady Eliza batted his hands down from her cold white marble gag over his mouth. "You mustn't! I shall keep you shut up for good!" With that, she fastened her right hand over her left, and squeezed his mouth even more tightly in a double-handed grip.

"Mmmmmhhh.... mmmmmhhh.... hhmmmmmh...." Hankey was ecstatic at this beautiful young lady who was holding his mouth tight shut with both her long smooth beautiful patchouli hands at once. "Mmmmmmhhhh..." He squirmed some more in her grip, and then she pulled his head down into her lap, where she tightened her mouth hold even more by leaning down on his head with stiff arms. "Mmmmhhhh... mmmmhhhh..." He could tell she was feeling high, as if on opium. He tried to speak to her, but her hands pressed down painfully icy tight over his mouth and cheeks, and he could only make soft whimpering noises. "Mmmmmmmmmmhh!!" The blessed pain of his lips being pressed back into his teeth was excruciating...

"Mmmmhhh! Hmmmmm hmmmmm mmmmm, hhmmmmmh!!" Lady Eliza kept up her tight powerful wiry soft icy-cool mouth-hold for a long time, until the candle guttered and went out. It may have been more than half an hour, and she still wouldn't let his mouth go. Hankey was in heaven.

Finally he reached up and began fondling her through her bed clothes. Again her initial shock was replaced by increasing excitation. Soon Hankey opened the front of his silken robe, undid her hooks and eyes, and got in between her legs. And by the light of the moon they made trembling shuddering furtive love. Lady Eliza kept Hankey locked in one unrelenting tight mouth hold after another, for her own pleasure, and also to ensure that he couldn't awaken the house with his passionate cries.

Afterwards, as Hankey lay with his head on Lady Eliza's shoulder, and her slender strong cool smooth elegant perfumed hand over his mouth, he realized she was softly sobbing. He could see tears glinting on her cheeks. For a moment he wondered, and then his secret gift revealed to him the turmoil within her heart.

Here was a beautiful young woman, probably 23 or 24 years old, approaching the age where she would be thought a spinster; and she had never been affianced, had spurned the attentions of any potential suitor, because she could not bear the prospect of being married to a man who would not afford her free play in all her peculiar mouth holding urges. She had long since abandoned hope; and now here, tonight in her bed, was a man who welcomed her mad secret hand-silencing ways, who hungered to be shut up beneath her hands just as strongly as she desired with her hands to shut him up. It was more than she could take in. She was overcome and undone.

Hankey would've taken her in his arms and tenderly kissed her lips. But he could not possibly kiss her, for she kept her beautiful long smooth strong feminine hand tightclamped over his mouth, and she would not let go of his mouth for an instant.

So he stayed there in bed with her, and twice more that night they made love, and she kept his mouth held tight shut beneath her one hand, or her other hand, or both her hands, all the night long, for seven hours straight.

Then in the rosy light of dawn, Lady Eliza finally released Hankey from her unescapable mouth-holding clutches, and he silently ascended the secret spiral staircase from her chambers up into his own quarters. And he fell into a brief but deep sleep in his own bed, before arising for a late breakfast.


V. A New Day

The birds sang and the morning sun shone bright as Hankey stood on the marble front steps of the manor. The Duke stood below at the bottom of the steps; his coach was being brought around from the carriage house. An excursion into Paris was on plan for the day.

Lady Eliza came out the front door of the manor. She beamed at Hankey, looking radiant in her ankle-length frilly dress. When she came to the steps, she looked unsure of how to descend.

"My dear... let Lord Whippet help you down those steps."

Hankey took Lady Eliza by the hand -- her large long slender smooth pale strong cool white hand, which had spent the night clamped over his mouth -- and he guided her gently down the steps. As he did so, he could directly sense that she too was also thinking of her hand over his mouth.

The Duke smiled as his daughter safely reached the bottom of the steps. "You're a good man, Whippet." Then the Duke laid a confidential hand on Hankey's shoulder, and took him aside. "You know, Whippet, Lady Eliza has taken quite a fancy to you. Quite a fancy!"

The clopping of horse hooves heralded the arrival of the Duke's coach. Hankey's mind turned to their itinerary. Lady Eliza and the Duchess would go hunting for clothes in the finest Parisian shops. Meanwhile Hankey would take the Duke to a bordello where the Madame was skilled in applying the tawse and the birch, as was just to the Duke's liking. Then in the evening the four of them would reunite for dinner at a fine restaurant, and a night at the opera.

Things were looking up for Hankey. Of course his heart would always belong to Jinny; but marriage to Lady Eliza would cement a strong family alliance with the Duke, and secure the power and prestige and posterity of the Earl of Whippet. Hankey could see that his long exile in France was drawing to an end; before long his feet would walk once more "in England's green and pleasant land."

As for his hand-over-mouth letch, there would always be Jinny; and now there would be Eliza too; and there would also be many a chambermaid or brothel tart along the way. On a day like this, William Hankey, Earl of Whippet, felt less like Monsieur Hankey, that awkward fish out of water, that exiled freak of nature; and more like Lord Whippet.