AKS Books (The Alice Kerr-Sutherland Society:

Curtus contributed to every single issue of The Governess, and illustrated five AKS titles: The House in St. John’s Wood; Linton Abbey; The Lost Breeches; Across My Lady’s Knee; Tales of the Unbreeched and Trouble at Linton Abbey.

One of my favorite Curtus drawings appeared in issue 7 of the Governess in 1994. The illustration was titled, 'Six Faces of the Disciplined Male'. Here it is scanned from the original art.

Curtus did some innovative work for the Governess. I particularly enjoyed 'The (Petticoated) Pilgrim's Progress' from issue 14, 1998.

I have most of the original art for the AKS books he illustrated. Here are a few passages from some of those books:

‘The Lost Breeches’ by Louise Malatesta AKS Books 1997

Pepin, the only son of a peasant’s widow, left home to seek his fortune. After several days walk he approached a town and a passing merchant gave him a silver coin without even asking.

The coin in his pocked and his stomach empty, Pepin entered an inn and ordered dinner and a room for the night.

In the morning he woke and the coin was gone. He explained the loss to the woman innkeeper and said, “I shall be happy to work for you, perhaps with your horses, until the debt is discharged.”

She didn’t believe him. Enraged, she grabbed him, lifted him clear of the ground, ripped off his breeches and began spanking him furiously.

The spanking done, she ordered him into an apron and bonnet and set him to work cleaning pots in the kitchen.

“You will work wherever you are directed for seven days”

“May I have my breeches?”

“In a week’s time.”

“But I cannot serve in just my shirt.”

“Clothes you will have, the same gowns, aprons, stockings and bonnets as all others who work here.”

“I cannot wear a maid’s gown!”

“Then remain in your shirt.”

“But . . . a gown.”

“I’ll find one to fit you.”

Pepin was inclined to be mutinous when shown the undergarments she expected him to wear, but a flourish of her paddle changed his mind. Red with shame, he donned them and the offered dress.

After a few days he was fortunate to be offered a position as a pageboy in the home of the Duchess Jealousy and a fight with another page led to them both being punished.

“For the caning and for the next two days, each page will be dressed in female clothing – maids’ clothing – in all respects.”

Pepin saw in shameful horror the garments held up for his inspection. “Please,” he cried, then sank into futile weeping. “Please,” he moaned again as the awful garments were thrust on top his body.

The other page’s caning began first. When attention was on him, Pepin grabbed his skirt hems and began to run.

People were coming after him – Then he saw a carriage.

He opened the door and jumped in.

“Why child,” said a voice. It was the Baroness. “You would like to enter my employment?”

“Yes, Madame,” Pepin said.

“Your name shall be Inge.”

“But Madame.”

She drew him across her lap, lifted his skirts and lowered his drawers. “What is your name?”

The whipping began and did not end until Pepin agreed that he was now Inge

In her castle she provided him with much finer drawers and dresses and made him her lady’s maid. Any mistakes were immediately punished – Gerda was assigned to do the discipline.

The two finally became great friends and decided to marry. The Baroness approved and gave them a magnificent sum of money as a dowry.

They returned to his mother’s farm and lived happily ever after.

‘Across My Lady’s Knee’ by Louise Malatesta AKS Books 1997

The Lady Lysistaetia Llewellyn-Lynch told her mother, The Countess Cornwallis, that for her sixteenth birthday she wanted her own pageboy. Having received her mother’s permission, she took the unusual step of traveling to a home for bad boys and selecting from boys her own age. There were three and she chose the one who seemed most humiliated by the caning she had the principal give them.

She decided to call him Anni (short for Anniversary) as he was a birthday present

She took pains selecting his wardrobe and was delighted to show them to the boy when he was delivered to her home. Even the pants were humiliatingly feminine and the step-ins, stockings and garter belts were unabashedly feminine.

Twenty awful minutes later he was clad in his new costume. She took him to the great mirror and showed him to himself. He was still ablaze with humiliation.

For nearly two weeks he was not punished at all. But finally he angered Lysis in some small way and found himself summarily across her lap trousers lowered for a spanking. Thereafter he received such a spanking almost every day. To have to bend submissively over the knee of a girl of rather less than his age was galling enough, but to have to take down his trousers made him think that he would die of shame.

He would have been all the more shocked and ashamed if he had overheard his mistress speaking with one of her young friends.

They believed that an acquaintance had dressed one of her pages as a maid.

“I don’t see anything against it,” said Lysis. “After all, they’re our pages, aren’t they? We can dress them how we like.”

“But to dress a boy as a girl!” said Melissa.

They were anxious to see the ‘maid’ and arranged a visit with their pages. Anni was wearing a new ensemble of lemon-yellow satin pants with black embroidery. Underneath he wore the most feminine of his many pairs of underpants. In fact, there has been something very like a mutiny when he had seen the underwear he was intended to put on. And sure enough his mistress found cause to have him lower his pants at the party and he had to endure the laughter of his fellow pages at the sight of his girlie underwear.

The girls decided to create a pageboy tennis challenge. They invited their friends and posted wagering odds

It was decided that the finals would be enhanced by the boys wearing tennis dresses. The boys raised an uproar, but in the end appeared on court looking at once sulky, pretty and ridiculous. Both boys wore pretty tennis dresses, but there the resemblance ended.

With his pale hair tied back in a pink ribbon, and his pale-pink dress (with pale-pink knickers), Ethel looked gorgeous.

Charles looked like what he was: a surly lout who had been shamed by petticoating.

From the point of view of those who had wagered on Charles, the match was a disaster. He did not win a single game.

It was generally concluded that he did not exert himself because he did not want to show his knickers.

At the end, livid with fury, his mistress leapt onto the court, forced him under her arm face down, flipped up his skirt and dragged down his knickers. While the spectators cheered she spanked him until he burst into noisy tears.

The mistresses next attempted to teach their pages to sing. Anni was a poor singer. For his lesson he was obliged to lower his pants before the girls and their pages to that his sissy underwear would be exposed and available for the swats that would inevitably come to him.

“I can’t learn if you spank me all of the time,” he finally said.

“Very well. It is just possible that you might learn more easily without my constantly monitoring your progress. This will be your opportunity to prove it. If you have not improved greatly in one week, from that moment on you will take double lessons, and you will attend them dressed in the frock, petticoat, surplice and mortarboard of a girl chorister.”

The upshot of this was that, beginning one week later, Anni, having failed to satisfy his mistress, henceforth wore the correct costume of a female chorister for his lessons.

In this way began the regime of the petticoat, which Anni’s young mistress was to invoke time and again.

The first time Lysis administered petticoat punishment to her page in the presence of her friends she dressed him as a junior maidservant and called him Annette. The outsiders were Melisa and her page who smirked incredulously at the transformation. ‘Annette’ was wearing a knee length black calico dress, white apron and petticoat and his hair was curled under a white lace cap. His face was as red as a beetroot.

Ivanhoe, the other page, said something under his breath as ‘Annette’ wheeled the trolley by him. Anni struck out at him and soon both boys were being spanked for their poor behavior.

After the spankings Melissa asked, “Do you have another little frock that Ivanhoe might borrow for a few hours.

Ivanhoe set up a howl at this, but Melissa instantly and vigorously applied her birch rod.

They found a simple red gingham with a whole series of pink and white petticoats. Melissa was entranced – Ivanhoe less so. He fell at her feet and begged futily for mercy.

Ivy looked absurdly pretty in the dress. He began sniveling even before they left the house.

Melissa took to this form of punishment that poor Ivanhoe soon found himself petticoated about one day in three.

The mistresses were amused when Faustina decided that Ethel was wearing dresses far too old for him. She demoted him from a provocative ingénue of seventeen to a sulky blonde maidling of twelve or so. His skirts were considerably shorter with plenty of frou-frou and ruffles and large numbers of frothy petticoats to hold it all up. The sophisticated step-ins of the teenager were replaced by heavily frilled knickers long enough to be called bloomers if not actual pantalets.

Soon Melissa decided that the same would be appropriate for Ivy (to his keen shame). Her creativity did not end there. She added a Victorian girl costume, a junior schoolgirl’s gym tunic (once Melissa’s own), a ballerina’s tutu and tights. Worst of all from his point of view was the Christmas Fairy costume and she obliged him to carry a star tipped wand.

One day Anni displayed petulance in a reply he made to his mistress in the Countess’s presence.

“I don’t like that young man’s tone,” her mother remarked.

“Nor do I, mother.”

“I thought he was going to stamp his foot like a rude little girl.”

Excusing herself and pushing Anni ahead of her she set off first to dress Anni as a rude little girl, then to birch him soundly across her lap and finally to parade him before her mother.

She was obstructed in her plans by Anni’s hysterical refusal to put on the red gingham dress. He had endured the choirgirl ensemble and suffered the anguish of the maid’s uniform, but the red gingham dress was too much for him.

Lysysteatia flew at him and hit him across the cheek as hard as she could. He blinked in shock and remained frozen. Quickly she slapped him again and once more Tears flooded down his blotched cheeks. She had won.

She assembled stockings, knickers, garters and shoes, an undershift and the dress. She rang for her housekeeper and told them, “My pageboy is to be put into these clothes without delay. That was the last time for several days she referred to him as a male.

She sat down as the women advanced on Anni and read a journal while her pageboy was smacked, pinched, pushed and otherwise propelled into the knickers, white stockings, garter-belt, shoes, shift, petticoats (three), and finally the red gingham dress itself. He wept silently throughout the entire shameful procedure.

“I want this rude little girl face down across my knees, immediately!”

“Lift her skirts one by one and tuck them above her waist. Do the same with her petticoats. Take the panties to mid-thigh.”

“Yes, milady.”

“Spank him until I tell you to stop.”

Smack after powerful smack fell upon his bottom.

As they landed, she began her commentary. She lavishly complemented the gingham frock – then acidly questioned how elegant it looked rolled above the waist. She admired the quality and workmanship of the petticoats while doubting if they were being worn to best advantage, she asked in honeyed tones whit it felt like to wear such luxurious and charming panties. Her two assistants were invited to lend verbal endorsements and they did with the utmost heartiness.

She had him crawl all the way to her mother’s room with his dress still pinned up.

“A little girl to see you, mother,” she said “she has something she wishes to say to you.”

THE LOLLYPOP LIBRARY:

Several of Curtus' drawings were used to illustrate stories from the (largely) diaper intensive Lollypop library. Here is a selection from 'The Pride and the Punishment' LL # 6 by Keith Hanson

Alan has been observed nearly naked in the girl’s locker room with his girl friend, Annie

Alan removed his dressing gown and slowly began to dress, assisted and directed gleefully by the two men. First the frilly panties, then the blouse, the lace trimmed mini skirt the bodice, and finally the ankle socks and patent 'T' bar shoes. "Doesn't she look wonderful!" squealed Mr. Benson, "a delight to behold! Call Mary to introduce her to her new sister!" Miss Harrington twittered and fussed, hanging on Mr. Benson's every word.

When the six year old bounced into the room, she shrieked with delight. "I've always wanted a big sister! Someone to play with!" said Mary giving Alan a hapless big hug.

"I've had a phone call from your headmaster," lectured Alan's father, "and we've had quite a discussion about you. What you wear now is your school uniform! From now you will dress as a girl and be treated as one!"

Later that night, Alan went to bed, and his parents burnt all of his boy's clothes, and his mother stayed up all night embroidering his name on his new outfit.

At 8:45 Monday morning the three gang members collected in the park to wait for their leader to arrive. There was a buzz of excitement between them as they had heard all kinds of stories about his activities during the weekend, and could not wait to hear what he had to say. Alan was late, so they got bored and started messing about, fencing with each other with their snooker cues. "Time's getting on." said one of them. "Any sign of him yet?"

A second boy climbed a tree stump to get a better view along the pathway. "Nah!" he said, "Just a couple of girls."

"Who are they?" asked the first.

"Dunno," came the reply, "Mind you, one of them looks like Alan's kid sister! I don't know the big one, but she looks a bit tasty!" At this the boys walked along the pathway and soon realized to their amazement that the new "girl" was in fact their mate, Alan!

"What the hell are you meant to be?" one of the boys blurted out. Alan did not reply, he couldn’t. He bit his lip to hold back tears. Of all his recent experiences, this was the worst.

"All this time we’ve been knocking around with a sissy!" stated the largest boy.

"Pansy!" shouted another.

"Nancy boy!" retorted the third. They began following Alan and Mary along the path, prodding him sharply with the tips of their cues. One of them lifted his skirt at the back and wolf whistled, "Love the knickers!" he shouted. Alan’s pace quickened and then he broke into a run, gripping Mary's arm as tightly as he could, they ran out of the park along the road, and into the school playground. The three boys followed, whooping and whistling behind, gathering many heckles and cheers as they went.

In morning assembly, the headmaster called Alan to the front and announced to the school his new change of status. All of the children laughed and sneered, the teachers did their best to suppress sniggers.

Here is the cover of issue #9.

The Muir Academy:

Curtus’ work (old drawings from the 1970's and 1980's) has appeared in the Muir Journal from Miss Prim’s Muir Academy & the Academy Club during the late 1990’s. He also illustrated one book for them:

‘I Shouldn’t Have Dared’ by Glynis Dunnitt the Academy Club 1996

“Take two ordinary boyish boys & two girlie girls. One day the girls turn up with three other girls & dare the boys that they can’t do things the way the girls do them.”

“I bet you couldn’t walk along the wall like we do.”

“Don’t be stupid. We’ve just walked along the wall.”

“Ah, but not like we do.”

“We can do it any way you like.”

“Okay, you daren’t climb the tree and then walk along the wall exactly as we did.”

“Course we dare. Look” I climbed up and started walking.

“No good. Michelle always climbs up first and then helps me on the wall. She has to hold her dress out of the way if the wind’s blowing a bit; like it is now.”

“So?”

“So you and Cyril have to wear dresses and things to do your part of the dare.”

I heaved a sigh and said, “Right, you get us dresses and we’ll go behind the wall and put them on.”

“You just go behind the wall and start getting ready.”

We flung our shirts over the wall and over back came a rolled up dress. Inside was a petticoat and inside that a vest and – knickers.

How could I have been so slow? They wanted to watch us climb on to that wall and then walk along underneath us and make remarks about the view of our knickers, that’s what we always did to them.

“Let’s get on with it,” I said. “It’s only a bit of fun.”

We dressed and discussed our strategy. We got hold of the bottom hems of our dresses and skipped gaily round the end of the wall. We got our reward. There were shrieks of girlish laughter. It was only as we turned towards the girls and tried to do our curtsies that we saw the boys. We shrieked and ran. The little swine, how dare they get boys?

“It’s not fair!” I shouted, “Boys weren’t part of the dare.”

“Oh yes we were.” They were girls in our clothes.

We climbed into the tree and onto the wall. I looked down and say the girls looking up; they were staring up under the dress.

The two girls in our clothes put their hands in their pockets and started strolling off.

“You can’t leave us here – like this.”

“You’ll have to go home like that sometime.”

Nursery Scene:

Curtus drew two covers for 'The Nursery Scene' and some interior art, but I do not think that the magazine was ever published. Here is the cover to issue #1 that was dated 1994.