Chapter 4: Guests
Serving Guests at Lunch
"Ashley!"
Standing before her mirror in her room, Ashley was startled by the call from downstairs. She reluctantly turned away from the mirror, abandoning her efforts to arrange the clothes she wore so as to be as decent as possible, and made her way down the stairs carefully. The high, black, pointed heeled shoes she had found with her "uniform" required her to descend cautiously, balancing precariously on the elegant, thin-strapped, pumps. At every step she could feel cool air graze against the soft flesh which, when she extended her leg, was exposed between the tops of her white, thigh high stockings, held up by a lacy, transparent, pearl garter belt, and the hem of the too-small, black, front-buttoned maid's uniform. The hem was maddeningly short, she felt, only barely descending below the matching, full-bottomed whisper of a pearl-colored panty which accompanied her uniform.
She'd been alarmed to find that the dress was uncomfortably short in the skirt and tight in the bodice. In front, at least her lap was somewhat protected from view by a lacy, white, semicircular apron which tied daintily at the back of her waist. A matching tiara-like cap in her hair and wrist ruffles completed the traditional French-maid's uniform.
At the landing of the bottom floor, Ashley stopped to gather her breath, before opening the door to the living room tentatively.
"Ah, Ashley! Please come in here, I would like to present you to our luncheon guests!"
She stepped inside the room, in which she had only recently received her first, humiliating punishment. Two gentlemen, both somewhat older than her uncle sat casually in chairs around the room. Both wore impeccably tailored suits.
"Ashley, please say hello to Dr. Foster," said her Uncle, his open hand directing her towards the older of the two men, a moustached, balding, portly but elegant figure who Ashley judged to be in his mid-sixties. She walked over towards him and stood before him. The doctor smiled condescendingly up at the girl and she curtsied slightly. She wasn't sure what impulse guided her to that form of greeting, but it seemed appropriate given her attire, and she was pleased to note that her Uncle seemed satisfied with her servile and silent gesture.
"Mr. Parsons," her Uncle said turning to his other guest, a lean mid-fiftyish taller man with an athletic and debonair demeanor. He stood and Ashley walked towards him and curtsied again, accompanying it with a soft-spoken "Sir."
"Charmed," said Parsons.
"Ashley," explained her Uncle, "has come from my sister in America to receive the kind of proper instruction a young girl requires and which seems to be difficult to obtain there. She has shown herself to be a good learner, but has still many slothful and untidy habits which we are working on with her."
"Isn't that right, Ashley?"
"Yes, sir," she whispered, nervously.
"Sherry before lunch, gentlemen!" announced Edward, and motioned for Ashley to pour it for them.
Opening the cupboard between the dining room and the salon, where the men sat and talked, she gazed in helplessly at the confusion of bottles and glasses. She glanced back at the men deep in conversation. Peering into the cupboard, she looked at the bottles, trying to discern which might be the correct one. All those at mid-height in the cupboard seemed to be wine or Scotch. More bottles stood crowded onto the bottom-most shelf, and Ashley reached down to try to look at them. Her delicate footwear required her to balance herself by spreading her feet slightly and bending at the waist almost straight-legged as she turned the labels to read them.
"Ashley!" She heard the annoyance in her Uncle's voice at the same time as she felt his hand on her shoulder, holding it firmly and preventing her from jumping up as she had been about to.
"What are you doing, girl?" he demanded, angrily, "this, gentlemen, is exactly the lackadaisical and casual attitude which hinders my educating my young niece in the manner of a proper lady!"
She tried to rise to face her accuser, but he held her firmly in place, grasping the back of her neck by her hair. Horrified, she realized that the short skirt of her maid's uniform, in the position her Uncle's commanding hand held her, exposed not only a long expanse of nylon clad leg, but also a good 4 inches of naked upper thigh above her stocking tops. Bent over, the straps of her garter belt were also revealed to the men's gaze.
"Left to her own devices for a minute, you see," lectured her Uncle, "Ashley thinks nothing of immodestly displaying portions of her anatomy to strangers at luncheon!" Her Uncle sighed, and continued, speaking carefully as if to be understood by a naughty child. "Tell me, Doctor Foster, would you say that it is proper for a young lady to display her undergarments and naked thighs as my niece is currently doing, to gentlemen far her senior who she has never before met?"
Ashley, trembled as she saw the paunchy doctor come up to her, an expression of stern skepticism on his face. "No, Weston," said the doctor, "I am shocked at the primitiveness of your charge's manners! She seems to feel no shame at displaying her thighs to us." Ashley, from her bent position, watched him aghast as he reached out, and felt him pinch the naked flesh at top of her leg between his large thumb and fat fingers, squeezing it and using his grip to shake her thighs.
"Nor," he continued, "to show off her undergarments, which she is evidently proud to have us examine!" As he said this, she felt him grab the elastic strap of her garter belt and draw it out, tautening it like a bowstring, before releasing it to snap sharply back against her thigh. She yelped, and a faint red vertical stripe joined the marks the doctor's hand had left on her skin.
"Your American slut no doubt intended to let her inadequate skirt ride up and treat us to a showing of her rear end!"
Edward softly spoke to Ashley, and edge in his serious voice, "Is that right, Ashley? You are eager to show your bottom off to these gentlemen?"