Lord Elpus corners the scullery maid as she cleans the dining room. With the lady of the house away, he hasn't indulged himself in some days and the maid does look exceedingly attractive! Even though the regulation uniform in his house barely conceals the girls' charms, he has her tied down and stripped naked so he can enjoy her properly!

Hywel's note: Although you won't read this until November, I'm writing this story in September, the day after #piggate set twitter on fire. It is suddenly news again that Britain is ruled by a loose cabal of entitled, establishment posh boys who participate in such distasteful excesses as the Bullingdon club. (And it *IS* boys- the societies are male-only).

I'm not OK with this.

We write these silly little stories for our silly little consensual romantic website because it is fun to play. Sports rivalries can successfully sublimate wars, but feel a bit close to the bone when the countries involved are actually at war.

In the same way, our stories of decadent and debauched louche nobles and put-upon ladies are fine so long as we can fool ourselves that we generally live in a reasonably free and equal society. Ariel and I know that neither of us is a misogynist because she's always the one who gets tied up. We're usually OK to play with class stereotypes because both of us believe in equality and fairness and do our best to live our lives according to those principles. It is disheartening beyond measure to see that our society is growing more and more unequal, more repressive, less free, less liberated. We are against that. These stories should be safe and silly fun because they are safely in the past, beyond living memory. I'm disheartened that they're not.

So please excuse the political tweets in my twitter feed and the occasional posting like this where I feel a bit uncomfortable turning stories of real iniquity and inequality into silly Wodehousian tales of the gent and the serving maid. I'm only OK with it when it is for fun. When it is for real, I want to fight it. That seems to me to be the only morally sound position if one is into BDSM. It's only OK when it is for consensual fun.

Thank you for your patience, and we hope you enjoy our silly romantic fantasies for what they are. They are not an endorsement of misogyny and abuse of privilege. If you are viewing them as an endorsement and shuddering, I apologise. It is not our intention. If you are viewing them as an endorsement of a genuine classist and sexist position and enjoying that, I'd appreciate if you left, right now. Ta.