Hence, seeing Marion appear in nominal attire of the fashion would heighten my own excitement, as I could not be too certain as to the embodiment of her delightful curves nor physical charms, save that I had recalled her to have a somewhat slender waist from which-if the bustle’s contours could be faithfully believed-there flared impudently rounded, full and ample hips. She did not have so goodly a girth as Lady Betty Bashe, but she nonetheless gave in every way the prospect of being an absolutely breathtaking morsel of pulchritude when she should finally be stripped down to the indisputable state of helpless nakedness that I meant to exact from her as a part of the expiatory punishment she had earned by flouting my courtship of her sister Alice. There can be no male who finds the opposite sex fascinating and provocative who cannot tremble with hardly suppressed excitement at the anticipation of fulfilling all his most lustful whims. I dare say that in each of us an incipient sadism lingers, product of earlier, less gentle ages when women were slaves and men their lawful masters. Who has not chafed under some haughty girl or woman’s scorn, baffled and raging at the knowledge that no retaliatory move is possible under society’s code that treats the female as the helpless, weak creature that must be protected at all costs from villainy and violence. And when an inconstant female dares to slap a man solely because he seeks to steal a flattering kiss, he is deemed a blackguard if he even yields to the impulse to raise his hand and give her back measure for measure.