Copyright Oggbashan September 2016
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.
Note: A guinea at the time of this story was a gold coin worth one pound and one shilling (£1.05). An agricultural worker's earnings for a year were about twenty-five guineas in a good year.
I think my staff are holding me prisoner. It could be through love, or for some other reason, but I am unable to escape.
It started when I was laid low by an odd summer fever. My doctor didn't know what it was, or how to treat it, but he pretended knowledge he didn't have. His instructions on treatment confined me, not just to the within the bounds of my estate, but have literally tied me up, helpless. He ought to know more because medicine has improved during Queen Victoria's reign but he is a country doctor who doesn't keep up to date. I think he is still using 18th Century remedies in 1850.
I know I am aged but until the fever struck I was hale and hearty for my age. During the fever I was unconscious most of the time, and when awake I was raving, making no coherent sense. Now I know who I am, where I am and who my attendants are, but they still treat me as if I am insane.
One of the complications of the fever that is still with me is sudden uncontrolled thrashing of my arms and legs. The doctor thought I might injure myself during these fits so he ordered that I should be tightly wrapped at all times except for calls of nature. For those, I should be escorted by at least four people to ensure I do not harm myself. But those four people are women, Anglo-Indian women, Sumitra, Asha, Gita and Meena. They have Christian names such as Anne, Mary etc, but we always use their Indian names.
I am, or was, a Nabob. I had made my fortune in India before I returned to England bringing some of my younger female Anglo-Indian servants with me. Servants? I should be honest with myself. They are not my servants. That may be what they do, but they are really my harem of mistresses. All of them are Christians, at least nominally.
I bought a comfortable estate of several thousand acres and a medium size country house which has forty bedrooms and parts of considerable antiquity. The cost of that estate barely dented my wealth and actually increased it because rent from the tenant farmers is profitable, particularly since I invested money in improving the fields they use.
My wife and new-born son died together several decades ago in India. Since then I have not sought another wife. I had and have many Anglo-Indian mistresses, willing to share my bed whenever I needed them. Now, uninvited, four of them share my bed protecting me from myself.
After the fever I found it difficult to swallow my normal food. The doctor suggested milk-based possets or thin gruel. Even the gruel was too much for me and made me vomit uncontrollably. Sumitra, my senior mistress and effectively my housekeeper, found something I could swallow and retain -- breast milk. At any time at least one of the Indian ladies has given birth recently. I should be ashamed that I have so many half-Indian children but I'm not. They are the joys of my elderly existence -- or they were until this fever struck.
Sumitra arranged a rota of wet nurses for me. Several times a day a leaking breast is pushed into my mouth and held there until I swallow. My protests are ineffectual, ultimately stifled by soft warm flesh. My bondage prevents anything other than a verbal objection. I suppose I could bite, but I wouldn't. I know it is done as gently as possible and with love and affection. I can't repay that love with a bite.
That is my real problem. I am bound by love, restrained by loving hands, silenced by warm breasts or lips, cradled in soft bonds that swamp me.
Take my situation now. I am sitting on a chair in front of my dining table. On the table is a glass of water and a few soft biscuits especially prepared for me by the pastry cook. But I can't reach them. Why not?
My body is inside in a long sleeved nightgown with padded mittens sewn to the end of the sleeves. My legs are bound together with long scarves. My arms are secured to my sides by more long scarves. Around those bonds two sarees are tightly wrapped around me, making me a helpless silk sheathed bundle from beyond my feet up to my neck. That bundle is tied to the chair with more scarves around my ankles, my thighs, my waist, and my chest. Individually the bonds are loose and soft. Together they make me totally confined and restrained no matter how much I struggle. But if I struggle my mistresses will assume I am having a fit. To stop me biting myself they will stuff my mouth with silk before hugging my head between their soft breasts.
If I protest in words, my voice is stifled first with insistent lips or my mouth filled by a naked breast. If I still try to speak, silk fills my mouth and is held there with another long scarf wrapped round and round my head before my face is dragged deep into a cleavage.
I can't write or even dictate this account. I am keeping it in my memory until there comes a time when I am free to write it in my private diary.
The only requests my mistresses do listen to is when I want the toilet. I have to give timely warning. They have to remove the bonds attaching me to the chair, carry me to a commode, loosen the saree around my lower parts, clean me up and then return me to my enforced immobilisation.
I'm being unfair. I did ask to go out of the house into the garden. They loaded me into the Bath Chair, tied me to it, and wheeled me around the formal gardens. Even so, they were afraid that my balding head would catch the sun, so I was wearing a capacious bonnet which blinkered me like a nervous horse. At first all I could see was straight ahead -- the tight saree-clad buttocks of the woman pulling the Bath Chair. While a pleasant sight, I asked for the bonds around my head to be loosened so that I could turn it. Reluctantly Sumitra eased the scarf that was fastening my head to the chair. As I expected, the gardens were well kept but I was unable to talk to the gardeners. The women didn't let me. As soon as a gardener came into sight, the chair was wheeled in a different direction.
I have more freedom in bed at night. My massive four-poster bed is occupied by me and four women directed by Sumitra. One of my ankles is tied to hers while she lies on top of me with a woman closely pressed against each side of me. The third woman is propped against the headboard, her legs splayed wide while my head rests on her body below the waist. If I show any signs of a fit, that woman's legs clamp around my head while the other three stifle any thrashing with their naked bodies.
Sumitra ensures that I am tired. As soon as the four of them are positioned surrounding me she brings me to an erection, stuffs it inside herself and rides me until I'm exhausted. I'm not a tall man and I have become shorter with age. Sumitra's lips cover mine while she makes love to me. If I cry out in the night, as apparently I used to when in the fever, the woman at the headboard will turn around until her lower lips muffle my outburst, sometimes nearly smothering me as Sumitra presses down on her backside.
I have hope that I may be relieved from my bondage. Ultimately the doctor will return and should listen to my protests that the silken confinement is no longer necessary. But he is not intending to visit me again until next week.
Mr Harris, my Steward and only indoor male servant, is away in London negotiating the purchase of some of a deceased neighbour's estate. That land would be a useful addition but the legalities are complex. The trustees of the deceased all have to agree. Mr Harris might be back before the doctor's visit, or perhaps later than that.
My Indian ladies accept the doctor's edict unreservedly. They would not disobey it and release me unless Sumitra orders them to do so. She won't. She's enjoying having me as her helpless victim.
My few English maidservants are unlikely to help. They are usually below stairs and even if they came near me, Sumitra is their superior in the servants' hierarchy. They wouldn't defy Sumitra, particularly as Sumitra is not just my Housekeeper. Sumitra has been my mistress for more than two decades. She is treated not just as the Housekeeper but as the Lady of the Estate.
Now Sumitra has become more than my mistress. She is my dominant mistress and my jailer. I can do nothing, not even speak, without her consent. While I know she is doing everything because she loves me, that love is overpowering, enveloping, smothering and imprisoning me. I am totally helpless even when she is making love to me.
I can understand their concern for my welfare. They are all dependent on me. But why are they, and particularly Sumitra, treating me as if I am insane and need constant protection from myself? I can understand them wanting to stop my uncontrolled thrashing but their soft enveloping bondage is too extreme for that. If they want just to limit my movements when necessary, their arms, bodies, and perhaps a few wraps while the fit lasts would be enough. Four women all of similar size to me are ample to restrain me for the now infrequent episodes.
When I first came back to awareness of my surroundings I would thrash about several times a day. Now? The frequency has reduced to once or twice a day. Within a few days the occurrence might be zero, but my bondage continues unabated.
This morning I had an unexpected opportunity to speak to Sumitra alone. The three other bed companions had briefly left the room for their morning ablutions, but not before leaving my ankles tied to Sumitra's, my hands bagged in mittens, my arms secured to my sides. I couldn't release myself but I could speak unless Sumitra stopped me with her lips or a hand over my mouth.
"Why, Sumitra?" I asked.
She moved her head close to mine.
"Why what, Anthony?" she whispered in my ear.
