Lady Aline had enjoyed the recent ball immensely. The young men had led the young women around the ballroom floor in complicated patterns, occasionally changing partners, to the stately music played all evening by a famous string quartet. The evening had passed for her in a whirl of muscular masculine calves at the level of her head, and shapely feminine buttocks jiggling past her, with the men lightly bantering with one another up above Aline. The servants had kept the bowls along one wall refilled over and over again with delicious sweetmeats and fizzy champagne, which made Aline giggly. It was absolutely delightful.
The only discordant note that evening had been the intrusion of the plump daughter of a rich merchant, foolishly hoping to pass for nobility among her betters. The guards had dragged her out, shrieking "But I only wanted to see what it was like!" and locked her in the stocks in the town square for the three days decreed by the kingdom's extremely strict sumptuary laws, after whipping her thoroughly. Aline had heard that the trollop had eventually staggered home (on two feet), doubtless with at least one bun in her oven thanks to the assiduous attentions of the town's swains while her fat ass protruded behind the stocks, and acquiring along the way yet another coating of rotten fruit and vegetables hurled by jeering townsfolk.
Aline hoped that the fool had learned her lesson, and would remember her station in life from now on. How on earth could she have expected to pass? She had probably practiced for hours in her own garden, but nudity and a cheap dog collar were hardly enough to make an aristocrat. She had moved slowly and clumsily across the floor on all fours, unlike Aline, who had first been collared and leashed by her father at puberty, and had not stood on two feet or worn clothing ever since. Aline's grace and breeding were obvious to all at the merest glance.
The merchant's daughter's body had been a patchwork of tanned arms and shoulders contrasting sharply with her pale breasts and belly; you could see at a glance that she was a commoner who habitually wore clothes. Her being a stranger to this social circle did not help, either. The elevated circles in which Aline moved were small, and she knew by heart every mole and freckle on her peers' rumps. And the girl did not even know the proper etiquette for social greetings between ladies!
Aline's aunt, Countess Marie, had been at the ball too, hugely pregnant and lying on a cushion on the floor in one corner of the ballroom, with her leash tethered to a hook on the wall. Marie was too pregnant to be led through a spritely dance, but she enjoyed listening to the music and watching the young people enjoy themselves. When a servant had led Aline over to pay her respects, she had gracefully turned to show her backside to her aunt, pressed her breasts to the floor, and raised her buttocks as high as she could to present her genitals for sniffing, because everyone knew that the lady of lower status presented herself first.