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From: yo@nofui.com
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories
Subject: The Lovers of Roissy, (or, The Story of O)
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 23:39:23 GMT
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Found this on the web.... The Lovers of Roissy [The Story of O]
by Pauline Reage
Her lover one day takes O for a walk in a section of the city
where they never go--the Montsouris Park,the Monceau Park. After they
have taken a stroll in the park and have sat together side by side on
the edge of a lawn, they notice, at one corner of the park, at an
inter- section where there are never any taxis, a car which, because
of its meter, resembles a taxi.
"Get in," he says. She gets in. It is autumn, and coming up to
dusk. She is dressed as she always is: high heels, a suit with a
pleated skirt, a silk blouse and no hat. But long gloves which come up
over the sleeves of her jacket, and in her leather handbag she has her
identification papers, her compact, and her lipstick.
The taxi moves off slowly, the man still not having said a word to
the driver. But he pulls down the shades of the windows on both sides
of the car, and the shade on the back window. She has taken off her
gloves, thinking he wants to kiss her or that he wants her to caress
him. But instead he says:
"Your bag's in your way; let me have it."
She gives it to him. He puts it out of her reach and adds:
"You also have on too many clothes. Unfasten your stockings and
roll them down to above your knees. Here are some garters."
By now the taxi has picked up speed. and she has some trouble
managing it; she's also afraid the driver may turn around. Finally,
though, the stockings are rolled down, and she's embarrassed to feel
her legs naked and free beneath her silk slip. Besides, the loose
garter-belt suspenders are slipping back and forth.
"Unfasten your garter belt," he says, "and take off your
panties."
That's easy enough, all she has to do is slip her hands behind
her back and raise herself slightly. she takes the garter belt and
panties from her, opens her bag and puts them in, then says:
"You shouldn't sit on your slip and skirt. Pull them up behind you
and sit directly on the seat."
The seat is made of some sort of imitation leather which is
slippery and cold: it's quite an extraordinary sensation to feel it
sticking to your thighs. Then he says:
"Now put your gloves back on." The taxi is still moving along at
a good clip, and she doesn't dare ask why Rene just sits there without
moving or saying another word, nor can she guess what all this means
to him-having her there motionless, silent, so stripped and exposed,
so thoroughly gloved, in a black car going God knows where. lie hasn't
told her what to do or what not to do, but she's afraid either to
cross her legs or press them together. She sits with gloved hands
braced on either side of her seat.
"Here we are," he says suddenly. Here we are: the taxi stops on a
lovely avenue, beneath a tree-they are plane trees-in front of some
sort of small private home which can be seen nestled between the
courtyard and the garden, the type of small private dwelling one finds
along the Faubourg Saint-Germain. The street lamps are some distance
away, and it is still fairly dark inside the car. Outside it is
raining.
"Don't move," Rene says. "Sit perfectly still."
His hand reaches for the collar of her blouse, unties the bow, then
unbuttons the blouse. She leans forward slightly, thinking he wants to
fondle her breasts. No. He is merely groping for the shoulder straps
of her brassiere, which he snips with a small penknife. Then he takes
it off. Now, beneath her blouse, which he has buttoned back up, her
breasts are naked and free, as is the rest of her body, from waist to
knee.
"Listen," he says. "Now you're ready. This is where I leave you.
You're to get out and go ring the doorbell. Follow whoever opens the
door for you, and do whatever you're told. If you hesitate about going
in, they'll come and take you in. If you don't obey immediately,
they'll force you to. Your bag? No, you have no further need for your
bag. You're merely the girl I’m furnishing. Yes, Of course I'll be
there. Now run along:."
Another version of the same beginning was simpler and more
direct: the young O undressed in the same way, was given by her lover
and an unknown friend. The stranger was driving, the lover was seated
next to the young woman, and it was the unknown friend who explained
to the young woman that her lover had been entrusted with the task of
getting her ready, that he was going to tie her hands behind her back,
unfasten her stockings and roll them down, remove her garter belt, her
panties, and her brassiere, and blindfold her. That she would then be
turned over to the chateau, where in due course she would be
instructed as to what she should do. And, in fact, as soon as she had
been thus undressed and bound, they helped her to alight from the car
after a trip that lasted half an hour, guided her up a few steps and,
with her blindfold still on, through one or two doors. Then, when her
blindfold was removed, she found herself standing alone in a dark
r6om, where they left her for half an hour, or an hour, or two hours,
I can't be sure, but it seemed forever. Then, when at last the door
was opened and the light turned on, you could see that she had been
waiting in a very conventional, comfortable yet distinctive room:
there was a thick rug on the floor, but not a stick of furniture, and
all four walls were lined with closets. The door had been opened by
two women, two young and beautiful women dressed in the garb of pretty
eighteenth-century chambermaids: full skirts made out of some light
material, which were long enough to conceal their feet; tight bodices,
laced or hooked in front, which sharply accentuated the bust line;
lace frills around the neck; half-length sleeves. They were wearing
eye shadow and lipstick. Both wore a close-fitting collar and had
tight bracelets on their wrists.
I know it was at this point that they freed O's hands, which were
still tied behind her back, and told her to get undressed, they were
going to bathe her and make her up. They proceeded to strip her till
she hadn't a stitch of clothing left, then put her clothes away neatly
in one of the closets. She was not allowed to bathe herself, and they
did her hair as at the hairdresser's, making her sit in one of those
large chairs which tilts back when they wash your hair and straightens
back up after the hair has been set and you're ready for the dryer.
That always takes at least an hour. Actually it took more than an
hour, but she was seated on this chair, naked, and they kept her from
either crossing her legs or bringing them together. And since the wall
in front of her was covered from floor to ceiling with a large mirror,
which was unbroken by any shelving, she could see herself, thus open,
each time her gaze strayed to the mirror.
When she was properly made up and prepared-- her eyelids penciled
lightly; her lips bright red; the tip and halo of her breasts
highlighted with pink; the edges of her nether lips rouged; her
armpits and pubis generously per- fumed, and perfume also applied to
the furrow between her thighs, the furrow beneath her breasts, and to
the hollows of her hands-she was led into a room where a three-sided
mirror, and another mirror behind, enabled her to examine herself
closely. She was told to sit down on the ottoman, which was set
between the mirrors, and wait. The ottoman was covered with black fur,
which pricked her slightly; the rug was black, the walls red. She was
wearing red mules. Set in one of the walls of the small bedroom was a
large window, which looked out onto a lovely, dark park. The rain had
stopped, the trees were swaying in the wind, the moon raced high among
the clouds.
I have no idea how long she remained in the red bedroom, or
whether she was really alone, as she surmised, or whether someone was
watching her through a peephole camouflaged in the wall. All know is
that when the two women returned, one was carrying a dressmaker's
tape measure and the other a basket. With them came a man dressed in
a long purple robe, the sleeves of which were gathered at the wrists
and full at the shoulders. When he walked the robe flared open, from
the waist down. One could see that beneath his robe he had on some
sort of tights which covered his legs and thighs but left the sex
exposed. It was the sex that O saw first, when he took his first step,
then the whip, made of leather thongs, which lie had stuck in his
belt. Then she saw that the man was masked by a black hood-which
concealed even his eyes behind a network of black gauze and, finally,
that he was also wearing fine black kid gloves.
Using the familiar tu form of address, he told her not to move and
ordered the women to hurry. The woman with the tape then took the
measurements of O's neck and wrists. Though on the small side, her
measurements were in no way out of the ordinary, and it was easy
enough to find the right-sized collar and bracelets, in the basket the
other woman was carrying. Both collar and bracelets were made of
several layers of leather (each layer being fairly thin, so that the
total was no more than the thickness of a finger). They had clasps,
which functioned automatically like a padlock when it closes, and they
could be opened only by means of a small key. Imbedded in the layers
of leather, directly opposite the lock, was a snugly fitting metal
ring, which allowed one to get a grip on the bracelet, if one wanted
to attach it, for both collar and bracelets fit the arms and neck so
snugly although not so tight as to be the least painful-that it was
impossible to slip any bond inside.
So they fastened the collar and bracelets to her neck and wrists,
and the man told her to get up. He took her place on the fur ottoman,
called her over till she was touching his knees, slipped his gloved
hand between her thighs and over her breasts, and explained to her
that she would be presented that same evening, after she had dined
alone.
She did in fact dine by herself, still naked, in a sort of little
cabin where an invisible hand passed the dishes to her through a small
window in the door. Finally, when dinner was over, the two women came
for her. In the bed- room, they fastened the two bracelet rings
together be- hind her back. They attached a long red cape to the ring
of her collar and draped it over her shoulders. It covered her
completely, but opened when she walked, since, with her hands behind
her back, she had no way of keeping it closed. One woman preceded her,
opening the doors, and the other followed, closing them behind her.
They crossed a vestibule, two drawing rooms, and went into the
library, where four men were having coffee. They were wearing the same
long robes as the first, but no masks. And yet O did not have time to
see their faces or ascertain whether her lover was among them (he
was), for one of the men shone a light in her eyes and blinded her.
Everyone remained stock still, the two women flanking her and the men
in front, studying her. Then the light went out; the women left. But O
was blindfolded again. Then they made her walk forward-she stumbled
slightly as she went-until she felt that she was standing in front of
the fire around which the four men were seated: she could feel the
heat, and in the silence she could hear the quiet crackling of the
burning logs. She was facing the fire. Two hands lifted her cape, two
others-after having checked to see that her bracelets were
attached--descended the length of her back and buttocks. The hands
were not gloved, and one of them penetrated her in both places at
once, so abruptly that she cried out. Someone laughed. Someone else
said:
"Turn her around, so we can see the breasts and the belly." They
turned her around, and the heat of the fire was against her back. A
hand seized one of her breasts, a mouth fastened on the tip of the
other. But suddenly she lost her balance and fell backward (supported
by whose arms?), while they opened her legs and gently spread her
lips. Hair grazed the insides of her thighs. She heard them saying
that they would have to make her kneel down. This they did. She was
extremely uncomfortable in this position, especially because they
forbade her to bring her knees together and because her arms pinioned
behind her forced her to lean forward. Then they let her rock back a
bit, so that she was half-sitting on her heels, as nuns are wont to
do.
"You've never tied her up?
"No, never."
"And never whipped her?"
"No, never whipped her either. But as a matter of fact..."
It was her lover speaking.
"As a matter of fact," the other voice went on, "if you do tie her
up from time to time, or whip her just a little, and she begins to
like it, that's no good either. You have to get past the pleasure
stage, until you
reach the stage of tears."
Then they made O get up and were on the verge of untying her,
probably in order to attach her to some pole or wall, when someone
protested that he wanted to take her first, right there on the spot.
So they made her kneel down again, this time with her bust on an
ottoman, her hands still tied behind her, with her hips higher than
her torso. Then one of the men, holding her with both his hands on her
hips, plunged into her belly. He yielded to a second. The third wanted
to force his way into the narrower passage and, driving hard, made her
scream. When he let her go, sobbing and befouled by tears beneath her
blindfold, she slipped to the floor, only to feel someone's knees
against her face, and she realized that her mouth was
not to be spared. Finally they let her go, a captive clothed in tawdry
finery, lying on her back in front of the fire. She could hear glasses
being filled and the sound of the men drinking, and the scraping of
chairs. They put some more wood on the fire. All of a sudden they
removed her blindfold. The large room, the walls of which were lined
with book-cases, was dimly lit by a single wall lamp and by the light
of the fire, which was beginning to burn more brightly. Two of the men
were standing and smoking. Another was
seated, a riding crop on his knees, and the one leaning over her
fondling her breast was her lover. All four of them had taken her, and
she had not been able to distinguish him from the others.
They explained to her that this was how it would always be, as long
as she was in the chateau, that she would see the faces of those who
violated or tormented her, but never at night, and she would never
know which ones had been responsible for the worst. The same would be
true when she was whipped, except that they wanted her to see herself
being whipped, and so this once she would not be blindfolded. They, on
the other hand, would don their masks, and she would no longer be able
to tell them apart.
Her lover had helped her to her feet, still wrapped in her red
cape, made her sit down on the arm of an easy chair near the fire, so
that she could hear what they had to tell her and see what they wanted
to show her. Her hands were still behind her back. They showed her the
riding crop, which was long, black, and delicate, made of thin bamboo
encased in leather, the kind one sees in the windows of better riding
equipment shops; the leather whip, which the first man she had seen
had been carrying in his belt, was long and consisted of six lashes
knotted at the end. There was a third whip of fairly thin cords, each
with several knots at the end: the cords were quite stiff, as though
they had been soaked in water, which in fact they had, as O
discovered, for they caressed her belly with them and nudged open her
thighs, so that she could feel how stiff and damp the cords were
against the tender, inner skin. Then there were the keys and the steel
chains on the console table. Along one entire wall of the library,
halfway between floor and ceiling, ran a gallery which was supported
by two columns. A hook was imbedded in one of them, just high enough
for a man standing on tiptoe, with his arms stretched above his head,
to reach. They told O, whose lover had taken her in his arms, with one
hand supporting her shoulders, and the other in the furrow of her
loins, which burned so she could hardly bear it, they told her that
her hands would be untied, but merely so that they could be fastened
anew, a short while later, to the pole, using these same bracelets and
one of the steel chains. They said that, with the exception of her
hands, which would be held just above her head, she would thus be able
to move and see the blows coming: that in principle she would be
whipped only on the thighs and buttocks, in other words between her
waist and knees, in the same region which had been prepared in the car
that had brought her here, when she had been made to sit naked on the
seat; but that in all likelihood one of the four men present would
want to mark her thighs with the riding crop, which makes lovely long
deep welts which last a long time. She would not have to endure all
this at once; there would be ample time for her to scream, to
struggle, and to cry. They would grant her some respite, but as soon
as she had caught her breath they would start in again, judging the
results not from her screams or tears but from the size and color of
the welts they had raised. They remarked to her that this method of
judging the effectiveness of the whip--besides being equitable--also
made it pointless for the victims to exaggerate their suffering in an
effort to arouse pity, and thus enabled them to resort to the same
measures beyond the chateau wails, outdoors in the park-as was often
done-or in any ordinary apartment or hotel room, assuming a gag was
used (such as the one they produced and
showed her there on the spot), for the gag stifles all screams and
eliminates all but the most violent moans, while allowing tears to
flow without restraint.
There was no question of using it that night. On the contrary, they
wanted to hear her scream; and the sooner the better. The pride she
mustered to resist and remain silent did not long endure: they even
heard her beg them to untie her, to stop for a second, Just for a
second. So frantically did she writhe, trying to escape the bite of
the lashes, that she turned almost completely around, on the near side
of the pole, for the chain which held her was long and, although quite
solid, was fairly slack. As a result, her belly and the front of her
thighs were almost as marked as her backside. They made up their
minds, after in fact having stopped for a moment, to begin again only
after a rope had been attached first to her waist, then to the pole.
Since they tied her tightly, to keep her waist snug to the pole, her
torso was forced slightly to one side, and this in turn caused her
buttocks to protrude in the opposite direction. From then on the blows
landed on their tar-get, unless aimed deliberately elsewhere. Given
the way her lover had handed her over, had delivered her into this
situation, O might have assumed that to beg him for mercy would have
been the surest method for making him redouble his cruelty, so great
was his pleasure in extracting, or having the others extract, from her
this unquestionable proof of his power. And indeed he was the first to
point out that the leather whip, the first they had used on her, left
almost no marks (in contrast to the whip made of water-soaked cords,
which marked almost upon contact, and the riding crop, which raised
immediate welts), and thus allowed them to prolong the agony and
follow their fancies in starting and stopping. He asked them to use
only the leather whip.
Meanwhile, the man who liked women only for what they had in common
with men, seduced by the available Jbehind which was straining at the
bonds knotted just below the waist, a behind made all the more
enticing by its efforts to dodge the blows, called for an intermission
in order to take advantage of it. He spread the two parts, which
burned beneath his hands, and penetrated-not without some
difficulty-remarking as he did that the passage would have to be
rendered more easily accessible. They all agreed that this could, and
would, be done.
When they untied the young woman, she staggered and almost fainted,
draped in her red cape. Before returning her to the cell she was to
occupy, they sat her down in an armchair near the fire and outlined
for her the rules and regulations she was to follow during her stay in
the chateau and later in her daily life after she had left it (which
did not mean regaining her freedom, however). Then they rang. The two
young women who had first received her came in, bearing the clothes
she was to wear during her stay and tokens by which those who had been
hosts at the chateau before her arrival and those who would be after
she had left, might recognize her. Her outfit was similar to theirs: a
long dress with a full skirt, worn over a sturdy whalebone bodice
gathered tightly at the waist, and over a stiffly starched linen
petticoat. The low-cut neck scarcely concealed the breasts which,
raised by the constricting bodice, were only lightly veiled by the
network of lace. The petticoat was white, as was the lace, and the
dress and bodice were a sea-green satin. When O was dressed and
resettled in her chair beside the fire, her pallor accentuated by the
color
of the dress, the two young women, who had not uttered a word,
prepared to leave. One of the four friends seized one of them as she
passed, made a sign for the other to wait, and brought the girl he had
stopped back toward 0. He turned her around and, holding her by the
waist with one hand, lifted her skirt with the other, in order to
demonstrate to 0, he said, the practical advantages of. the costume
and show how well designed it was. He added that all one needed to
keep the skirts raised was a simple belt, which made everything that
lay beneath readily available. In fact, they often had the girls go
about in the chateau or the park either like this, or with their
skirts tucked up in front, waist high. They had the young woman show O
how she would have to keep her skirt: rolled up several turns (like a
lock of hair rolled in a curler) and secured tightly by a belt, either
directly in front, to expose the belly, or in the middle of the back,
to leave the buttocks free. In either case, skirt and petticoat fell
diagonally away in large, cascading folds of intermingled material.
Like O, the young woman's backside bore fresh welts from the riding
crop. She left the room.
Here is the speech they then delivered to )O:
"You are here to serve your masters. During the day, you will
perform whatever domestic duties are assigned you, such as sweeping,
putting back the books, arranging flowers, or waiting on table.
Nothing more difficult than that. Put at the first word or sign from
anyone you will drop whatever you are doing and ready yourself for
what - is really your one and only duty: to lend yourself. Your hands
are not your own, nor are your breasts, nor, most especially, any of
your bodily orifices, which we may explore or penetrate at will. You
will remember at all times--or as constantly as possible--that you
have lost all right to privacy or concealment, and as a reminder of
this fact, in our presence you will never close your lips completely,
or cross your legs, or press your knees together (you may recall you
were forbidden to do this the minute you arrived). This will serve as
a constant reminder, to you as well as to us, that your mouth, your
belly, and your backside are open to us. You will never touch your
breasts in our presence: the bodice raises them toward us, that they
may be ours. During the day you will therefore be dressed, and if
anyone should order you to lift your skirt, you will lift it; if
anyone desires to use you in any manner whatsoever, he will use you,
unmasked, but with this one reservation: the whip. The whip will be
used only between dusk and dawn. But besides the whipping you receive
from whomever may want to whip you, you will also be flogged in the
evening, as punishment for any in-fractions of the rules committed
during the day: for having been slow to oblige, for having raised your
eyes and looked at the person addressing you or taking you-you must
never look any of us in the face. If the costume we wear in the
evening-the one I am now wearing-leaves our sex exposed, it Is not for
the
sake of convenience, for it would be just as convenient the other way,
but
for the sake of insolence, so that your eyes will be directed there
upon it
and nowhere else, so that you may learn that there resides your
master, for
whom, above all else, your lips are intended. During the day, when we
are
dressed in normal attire and you are clothed as you are now, the same
rules
will apply, except that when requested you will open your clothes, and
then
close them again when we have finished with you. Another thing: at
night you
will have only your lips with which to honor us:-and your widespread
thighs-
for your hands will be tied behind your back and you will be naked, as
you
were a short while ago. You will be blindfolded only to be maltreated
and,
now that you have seen how you are whipped, to be flogged. And yes, by
the
way: while it is perfectly all right for you to grow accustomed to
being
whipped-since you are going to be every day throughout your stay-this
is
less for our pleasure than for your enlightenment. How true this is
may be
shown by the fact that on those nights when no one desires you, you
will
wait until the valet whose job it is comes to your solitary cell and
administers what you are due to receive but we are not in the mood to
mete
out. Actually, both this flogging and the chain-- which when attached
to the
ring of your collar keeps you more or less closely confined to your
bed
several hours a day--are intended less to make you suffer, scream, or
shed
tears than to make you feel, through this suffering, that you are not
free
but fettered, and to teach you that you are totally dedicated to
something
outside yourself. When you leave here, you will be wearing on your
third
finger an iron ring, which will identify you. By then you will have
learned
to obey those who wear the same insignia, and when they see it they
will
know that beneath your skirt you are constantly naked, however comely
or
com-monplace your clothes may be, and that this nakedness is for them.
Should anyone find you in the least intractable, he will return you
here.
Now you will be shown to your cell."
While they were talking to O, the two women who had come to dress
her had
been standing on either side of the stake where she had been whipped,
without touching it, as though it terrified them, or as though they
bad been
forbidden to touch it (which was more likely); when the man had
finished,
they came over to O, who realized that she was supposed to get up and
follow
them. She there-fore got up, gathering her skirts in her arms to keep
from
tripping, for she was not used to long dresses and did not feel steady
on
the mules with thick soles and very high heels which only a thick
satin
strap, of the same green as her dress, kept from slipping off her feet
As
she bent down she turned her head. The women were waiting, the men
were no
longer looking at her. Her lover, seated on the floor leaning against
the
ottoman over which she had been thrown at the beginning of the
evening, with
his knees raised and his elbows on his knees, was toying with the
leather
whip. As she took her first step to join the women, her skirt grazed
him. He
raised his head and smiled, calling her by her name, and he too stood
up.
Softly he caressed her hair, smoothed her eyebrows with the tip of his
finger, and softly kissed her on the lips. In a loud voice, he told
her that
he loved her. 0, trembling, was terrified to notice that she answered
"I
love you,,' and that it was true. He pulled her against him and said:
"Darling, sweetheart," kissed her on the neck and the curve of the
cheek;
she had let her head fall on his shoul-der, which was covered by the
purple
robe. Very softly this time he repeated to her that he loved her, and
very
softly added: "You're going to kneel down, caress me, and kiss me,"
and he
pushed her away, signaling to the women to move aside so he could lean
back
against the console. He was tall, but the table was not very high and
his
long legs, sheathed in the same purple as his robe, were bent. The
open robe
stiffened from beneath like drapes, and the top of the console table
slightly raised his heavy sex and the light fleece above it. The three
men
approached. O knelt down on the rug, her green dress in a corolla
around her.
Her bodice squeezed her; her breasts, whose nipples were visible, were
at
the level of her lover's knees. "A little more light," said one of the
men.
As they were adjusting
the lamp so that the beam of light would fall directly on his sex and
on his
mistress's face, which was almost touching it, and on her hands which
were
caressing him from below, Rene suddenly ordered: "Say it again: I love
you."
O repeated "I love you," with such delight that her lips hardly dared
brush
the tip of his sex, which was still protected by its sheath of soft
flesh.
The three men, who were smoking, commented on her ges-tures, on the
movement of her mouth closed and locked on the sex she had seized, as
it
worked its way up and down, on the way tears streamed down her ravaged
face
each time the swollen member struck the back of her throat and made
her gag,
depressing her tongue and caus-ing her to feel nauseous. It was this
same
mouth which, half gagging on the hardened flesh which filled it,
mur-mured
again: "I love you." The two women had taken up positions to the right
and
left of Rene, who had one arm around each of their shoulders. O could
hear
the com-ments made by those present, but through their words she
strained
to hear her lover's moans, caressing him carefully, slowly, and with
infinite respect, the way she knew pleased him. O felt that her mouth
was
beautiful, since her lover condescended to thrust himself into it,
since he
deigned publicly to offer caresses to it, since, finally, he deigned
to
discharge in it. She received it as a god is received, she heard him
cry
out, heard the others laugh, and when she had received it she fell,
her face
against the floor. The two women picked her up, and this time they led
her
away.
The mules banged on the red tiles of the hallway, where doors
succeeded
doors, discreet and clean, with tiny locks,
like the doors of the rooms in big hotels. O was working up the
courage to
ask whether each of these rooms was occupied, and by whom, when one of
her
companions, whose voice she had not yet heard, said to her:
"You're in the red wing, and your valet's name is Pierre.
"What valet?" said 0, struck by the gentleness of the Voice. "And
what's
your name?"
"Andree."
"-Mine is Jeanne," said the second.
"The valet is the one who has the keys," the first one went on, "the
one
who will chain and unchain you, who will whip you when you are to be
punished and when the others have no time for you.
"I was In the red wing last year," Jeanne said. "Pierre was there
already.
He often came in at night. The valets have the keys and the right to
use any
of us in the rooms of their section."
O was about to ask what kind of a person this Pierre was, but she
did not
have time to. As they turned a corner of the hallway, they made her
halt
before a door similar in all respects to the others: on a bench
between this
and the following door she noticed a sort of thick-set, ruddy peasant,
whose
head was practically clean shaved, with small black eyes set deep in
his
skull and rolls of flesh on his neck. He was dressed like the valet in
some
operetta: a shirt whose lace frills peeked out from beneath his black
vest,
which itself was covered by a red jacket of the kind called a spencer
. He
had black breeches, white stockings, and patent-leather pumps. He too
was
carrying a leather-thonged whip in his belt. His hands were covered
with
red hair. He took a master key from his vest pocket, opened the door,
ushered the three women in, and said:
"I'm locking the door. Ring when you've finished."
The cell was quite small, and actually consisted of two -rooms. With
the
hall door closed, they found themselves in an antechamber which opened
into
the cell proper; in this same wall, inside the room itself, was
another door
which opened into the bathroom. Opposite the doors there was the
window.
Against the left wall, between the doors and the window, stood the
head of a
large square bed, which was very low and covered with furs. There was
no
other furniture, no mirror. The walls were bright red, and the rug
black.
Andr6e pointed out to O that the bed was less a bed than a mattressed
platform covered with a black, long-haired imitation fur material. The
pillow, hard and flat like the mattress, was of the same reversible
ma-
terial. The only object on any of the walls was a thick, gleaming
steel ring
which was set at about the same height above the bed as the hook in
the
stake had been above the floor of the library; from it descended a
long
steel chain directly onto the bed, its links forming a little pile,
the
other end being attached at arm's length to a pad-locked hook, like a
drapery pulled back and held in place by a curtain loop.
We have to give you your bath," Jeanne said. "I'll unfasten your
dress."
The only peculiar features of the bathroom were the Turkish-type
toilet,
located in the corner nearest the door, and the fact that every inch
of wall
space was covered with mirrors. Jeanne and Andree did not allow O to
go in
until she was naked. They put her dress away in the closet next to the
washbasin, where her mules and red cape already were, and remained
with her,
so that when she had to squat down over the porcelain pedestal she
found
herself surrounded by a whole host of reflec-tions, as exposed as in
the
library when unknown hands had taken her by force.
"Wait until it's Pierre," said Jeanne, "and you'll see."
"Why Pierre?"
"When he comes to chain you, he may make you squat."
O felt herself turn pale. "But why?" she said.
"Because you have to," Jeanne replied. "But you're lucky."
"Why lucky?"
"Was it your lover who brought you here?"
"Yes," O said.
"They'll be a lot harder with you."
"I don't understand
"You will very soon. I'm ringing for Pierre. We'll come and get you
tomorrow morning."
Andr6e smiled as she left and Jeanne, before following her, caressed
the
tips of O's breasts. O, completely taken aback, remained standing at
the
foot of the bed. With the exception of the collar and leather
bracelets,
which the water had stiffened when she had bathed and were tighter
than
before, O was naked.
"Behold the lovely lady," said the valet as he entered. And he
seized
both her hands. He slipped one of the bracelet hooks into the other,
so that
her wrists were tightly joined, then clipped both these hooks to the
ring of
the necklace. Thus her hands were joined as in an atti-tude of prayer,
at
the level of her neck. All that remained to be done was to chain her
to the
wall with the chain that was lying on the bed and was attached to the
ring
above. He unfastened the hook by which the other end was attached and
pulled
on it in order to shorten it. O was forced to move to the head of the
bed,
where he made her lie down. The chain clicked in the ring, and was so
tight
that the young woman could do no more than move from one side of the
bed to
the other or stand up on either side of the headboard. Since the chain
tended to shorten the collar, that is, pull it backward, and her hands
tended to pull it forward, an equilibrium was established, with her
joined
hands lying on her left shoulder and her head bending in that
direction as
well. The valet pulled the black cover up over 0, but not before he
had
lifted her legs for a moment and pushed them back toward her chest, to
examine the cleft between her thighs. He did not touch her further,
did not
say a word, turned out the light, which was a bracket lamp on the wall
between the two doors, and went out.
Lying on her left side, alone in the darkness and silence, hot
beneath her
two layers of fur, of necessity motionless, o tried to figure out why
there
was so much sweetness mingled with the terror in her, or why her
terror
seemed itself so sweet. She realized that one of the things that most
distressed her was the fact that she had been de-prived of the use of
her
hands; not that her hands could have defended her (and did she really
want
to defend herself?), but had they been free they would at least have
made
the gesture, have made an attempt to repel the hands which seized her,
the
flesh which pierced her, to protect her loins from the whip. 0's hands
had
been taken away from her; her body beneath the fur was inaccessible to
her.
How strange it was not to be able to touch one's own knees, or the
hollow of
one's own belly. The lips between her legs, her burning lips were
forbidden
her, and perhaps they were burning because she knew they were open to
the
first comer: to the valet Pierre, if he cared to enter. She was
surprised
that the whipping she had received had left her so untroubled, so
calm,
whereas the thought that she would probably. never know which of the
four
men had twice taken her from behind, and whether it was the same man
both
times, and whether it had been her lover, quite distressed her. She
turned
over slightly on her stomach, recalling that her lover loved the
furrow between her buttocks which, except for this eve-
ning (if it had been he), he had never penetrated. She
hoped - it had been he; would she ask him? Ah, never!
Again she saw the hand which in the car had taken her
garter belt and panties, and had stretched the garters so
that she could roll her stockings down to above her knees.
`me memory was so vivid that she forgot her hands were
bound and made the chain grate. And why, if she took
the memory of the torture she had gone through so lightly,
why did the very idea, the very word or sight of a whip
make her heart beat wildly and her eyes close with terror? She did
not stop
to consider whether it was only terror; she was overwhelmed with
panic: they
would pull on her chain and haul her to her feet on the bed, and they
would
whip her, with her belly glued to the wall they would whip her, whip
her,
the word kept turning in her head, Pierre would whip her, Jeanne had
said he
would. You're lucky, Jeanne had repeated, they'll be a lot harder on
you.
What had she meant by that? She no longer felt anything but the
collar, the
bracelets, and the chain; her body was drifting away. She fell asleep.
In the wee hours of the night, just before dawn when it is darkest
and
coldest, Pierre reappeared. He turned on the light in the bathroom,
leaving
the door open so that a square of light fell on the middle of the bed,
on
the spot where 0's slender body was curled, making a small mound
beneath the
cover, which silently he pulled back. Since O was sleeping on her left
side,
her face to the window and her legs slightly drawn up, the view she
offered
him was that of her white flanks, which seemed even whiter against the
black
fur. He took the pillow from beneath her head and said politely:
"`Would you please stand up," and when she was on her knees, a
position
she managed by pulling herself up with the' chain, he gave her a hand,
taking her by the elbows so that she could stand up straight with her
face
to the wall. The square of light on the bed, which was faint, since
the bed
was black, illuminated her body, but not his gestures. She guessed,
but
could not see, that he was un-doing the chain to rehook it to another
link,
so that it would remain taut, and she could feel it growing tighter.
Her
feet, which were bare, were solidly planted on the bed. Nor was she
able to
see that he had in his belt not the leather whip but the black riding
crop
similar to the one they had hit her with while she was tied to the
stake,
but they had only used it twice on her and had not hit her hard. She
felt
Pierre's left hand on her waist, the gave a little as, to steady
himself, he
put his right foot on it. At the same time as she heard a whistling
noise in
the semidarkness O felt a terrible burning across her back, and she
screamed.
Pierre fl9gged her with all his might. He did not wait for her screams
to
subside, but struck her again four times, being careful each time to
lash
her above or below the preceding spot, so that the traces would be all
the
clearer. Even after he had stopped she went on screaming, and the
tears
streamed down into her open mouth.
"Please be good enough to turn around," he said, and since she, who
was
completely distracted, failed to obey, he took her by the hips without
letting go of his riding crop, the handle of which brushed against her
waist.
When she was facing him, he moved back slightly and lowered his crop
on the
front of her thighs as hard as he could. The whole thing had lasted
five
minutes. When he had left, after having turned out the light and
closed the
bathroom door, O was left moaning in the darkness, swaying back and
forth
along the wall at the end of her chain. She tried to stop moaning and
to
immobilize herself against the wall, whose gleaming percale was cool
on her
tortured flesh, as day slowly began to break. The tall window toward
which
she was turned, for she was leaning on one hip, was facing the east.
It
extended. from floor to ceiling and, except for the drapes-of the same
red
material as that on the wall-which graced it on either side and split
into
stiff folds below the curtain loops which held it, had no curtains. 0
watched the slow birth of pale dawn, trailing its mist along the
clusters of
asters outside at the foot of her window, until finally a poplar tree
appeared. The yellow leaves from time to time fell in swirls, although
there
was no wind. In front of the window, beyond the bed of purple asters,
there
was a lawn, at the end of which was a pathway. It was broad daylight
by now,
and O had not moved for a long time. A gardener appeared on the path,
pushing a wheelbarrow. The iron wheel could be heard squeaking over
the
gravel. If he had come over to rake the leaves that had fallen in
among the
asters, the window was so tall and the room so small and bright that
he
would have seen O chained and naked, and the marks of the riding crop
on her
thighs. The cuts were swollen, and had formed narrow' swellings much
darker
in color than the red of the walls. Where was her lover sleeping, the
way he
loved to sleep on quiet mornings? In what room, in what bed? Was he
aware of
the pain, the tortures to which he had delivered her? Was he the one
who had
decided what they would be? O recalled the prisoners she had seen in
engravings and in history books, who also had been chained and whipped
many
years ago, centuries ago, and had died. She did not wish to die, but
if
torture was the price she had to pay to keep her love's love, then she
only
hoped he was pleased that she had endured it. All soft and silent she
waited,
waited for them to bring her back to him.
None of the women had the keys to any locks, neither the locks to
the
doors nor the chains, the collars or brace-lets, but every man carried
a
ring of three sets of keys, each of which, in the various categories,
opened
all the doors or all the padlocks, or all the collars. The valets had
them
too. But in the morning the valets who had been on the night shift
were
sleeping, and it was one of the masters or another valet who came to
open
the locks. The man who came into O's cell was dressed in a leather
jacket
and was wearing riding breeches and boots. She did not rec-ognize him.
First he unlocked the chain on the. wall, and O was able to lie down
on the
bed. Before he unlocked her wrists, he ran his hand between her
thighs, the
way the first man with mask and gloves, whom she had seen in the small
red
drawing room, had done. It may have been the same one. His face was
bony and
fleshless, with that piercing look one associates with the portraits
of old
Huguenots, and his hair was gray. O met his gaze for what seemed to be
an
endless time and, suddenly freezing, she remembered it was forbidden
to look
at the masters above, the belt. She closed her eyes, but it was too
late,
and she heard him laugh and say, as he finally freed her hands:
"There will be a punishment for that after dinner."
He said something to Jeanne and Andree, who had come in with him and
were
standing waiting on either side of the bed, after which he left.
Andree
picked up the pillow which was on the floor, and the blanket that
Pierre had
turned down toward the foot of the bed when he had come to whip 0,
while
Jeanne wheeled, toward the head of the bed, a serving table which had
been
brought into
the hallway and on which were coffee, mill;, sugar, bread, croissants,
and
butter.
"Hurry up and eat," said Andree. "It's nine o'clock. Afterward you
can
sleep till noon, and when you. hear the bell it will be time to get
ready
for lunch. You'll bathe and fix your hair. I'll come to make you up
and lace
up your bodice."
"You won't be on duty till afternoon," Jeanne said. "In
the library: you'll serve the coffee and liqueur and tend
the fire."
"And what about you?? O said.
"We're only supposed to take care of you during the first
twenty-four
hours of your stay. After that you're on your own, and will have
dealings
only with the men. We won't be able to talk to you, and you won't be
able to
talk to us either'
"Don't go;' O said. "Stay a while longer and tell me..." Put she
did not
have time to finish her sentence. The door opened: it was her lover,
and he
was not alone. It was her lover, dressed the way he used to when he
had just
gotten out of bed and lighted the first cigarette of the day: in
striped
pajamas and a blue dressing gown, the wool robe with the padded silk
lapels
which they had picked out together a year before. And his slippers
were worn,
she would have to buy him another pair. The two women dis-appeared,
with no
other sound except the rustling of silk as they lifted their skirts
(all the
skirts were a trifle long and trailed on the ground)-on the carpet the
mules
could not be heard.
0, who was holding a cup of coffee in her left hand and a croissant
in the
other, was seated cross-legged, or rather half-cross-legged, on the
edge of
the bed, one of her legs dangling and the other tucked up under her.
She did
not move, but her cup suddenly began to shake in her hand, and she
dropped
the croissant.
"Pick it up, Rene said. They were his first words. . She put the
cup
down on the table, picked up the partly eaten croissant, and put it
beside
the cup. A fat croissant crumb still lay on the rug, beside her bare
foot.
This time Rene bent down and picked it up. Then he sat down near 0,
pulled
her back down onto the bed, and kissed her. She asked him if he loved
her.
He answered: "Yes, I love you!" then got to his feet and made her
stand up
too, softly running the cool palms of his hands, then his lips, over
the
welts.
Since he had come in with her lover, O did not know whether or not
she
could look at the man who had entered with him and who, for the
moment, had
his back to them and was smoking a cigarette near the door. What
followed
was not of a nature to reassure her.
"Come over here so we can see you," her lover said, and having
guided her
to the foot of the bed, he pointed out to his companion that he had
been
right, and he thanked him, adding that it would only be fair for him
to take
0 first if he so desired.
The unknown man, whom she still did not dare to look at, then asked
her,
after having run his hand over her breasts and down her buttocks, to
spread
her legs.
"Do as he says," said Rene, who was holding her up. He too was
standing,
and her back was against him. With his right hand he was caressing one
breast. and his other was on her shoulder. The unknown man had sat
down on
the edge of the bed, he had seized and slowly parted, drawing the
fleece,
the lips which protected the entrance itself. Rene pushed her forward,
as
soon as he realized what was wanted from her, so that she would be
more
accessible, and his right arm Slipped around her waist,
giving him a better grip.
This caress, to which she never submitted without a struggle and
which
always filled her with shame, and from which she escaped as quickly as
she
could, so quickly in fact that she had scarcely had a chance to be
touched,
this caress `which seemed a sacrilege to her, for she deemed it
sacri-lege
for her lover to be on his knees, feeling that she should be on hers,
she
suddenly felt that she would not escape from it now', and she saw
herself
doomed For she moaned when the alien lips, which were pressing upon
the
mound of flesh whence the inner corolla emanates, suddenly inflamed
her,
left her to allow the hot tip of the tongue to inflame her even more;
she
moaned even more when the lips began again: she felt the hidden point
harden
and rise, that point caught in a long, sucking bite between teeth and
lips,
which did not let go, a long, soothing bite which made her gasp for
breath
She lost her footing and found herself again lying on the bed, with
Rene's
mouth on her mouth; his two hands were pinning her shoulders to the
bed,
while two other hands beneath her knees were raising and opening her
legs.
Her own. hands, which were beneath her back (for when Rene had
propelled her
toward the unknown man he had bound her wrists together by clipping
the
wristbands together), were grazed by the sex of the man who was
caressing
himself in the furrow of her buttocks before rising to strike hard
into the
depths of her belly. At the first stroke she cried out, as though it
had
been the lash of a whip, then again at each new stroke, and her lover
bit
her mouth. The man tore himself abruptly away from her and fell back
on the
floor, as though struck by lightning, and he too gave a cry.
Rene freed O's hands, lifted her up, and lay her down beneath the
blanket
on the bed. The man got up, Rene escorted him to the door. In a flash,
O saw
herself released, reduced to nothing, accursed. She had moaned beneath
the
lips of the stranger as never her lover had made her moan, cried out
under
the impact of a stranger's member as never her lover had made her cry
out.
She felt debased and guilty. She could not blame him if he were to
leave her.
But no, the door was closing again, he was staying with her, he was
coming
back, lying down beside her be-neath the cover, he was slipping into
her
moist, hot belly and, still holding her in this embrace, he said to
her:
"I love you. When I'll also have given you to the valets, I'll come
in one
night and have you flogged till you bleed."
The sun had broken through the mist and flooded the room. But only
the
midday bell woke them up.
O was at a loss what to do. Her lover was there, as close, as
tenderly
relaxed and surrendered as he was in the bed in that low-ceilinged
room to
which, almost every night since they had begun living together, he
came to
sleep with her. It was a big, mahogany, English-style four-poster bed,
without the awning, and the posters at the head were taller than those
at
the foot. He always slept on her left, and whenever he awoke, even
were it
in the middle of the night, his hands inevitably reached down for her
legs.
This is why she never wore anything but a nightgown or, if she had on
pajamas never put on the bottoms. He did so now; she took that hand
and
kissed it, without ever daring to ask him for anything. But he spoke.
Holding her by the collar, with two fingers slipped in between the
neck and
collar, lie told her it was his intention that henceforth she should
be
shared by him and those of his choosing, and by those whom he did not
know
who were connected to the society of the chateau, shared as she had
been the
previous evening. That she was dependent on him, and on him alone,
even though
she might receive orders from persons other than
himself, whether he was present or absent, for as a matter of
principle he
was participating in whatever might be demanded of or inflicted on
her, and
that it was he who possessed and enjoyed her through those into whose
hands
she had been given, by the simple fact that he had given her to them.
She
must greet them and submit to them with the same respect with which
she
greeted him, as though they were so many reflections of him. Thus he
would
possess her as a god possesses his creatures, whom he lays hold of in
the
guise of a monster or a bird, of an invisible spirit or a state of
ecstasy.
He did not wish to leave her. The more he surrendered her, the more he
would
hold her dear. The fact that he gave her was to him a proof, and ought
to be
one for her as well, that she belonged to him: one can only give what
belongs to you. He gave her only to reclaim her immediately, to
reclaim her
enriched in his eyes, like some common object which had been used for
some
divine purpose and has thus been consecrated. For a long time he had
wanted
to prostitute her, and he was delighted to feel that the pleas-ure he
was
deriving was even greater than he had hoped, and that it bound him to
her
all the more, as it bound her to him, all the more so because, through
it,
she would be more humiliated and ravaged. Since she loved him, she
could not
help loving whatever derived from him. O lis-tened and trembled with
happiness, because he loved her, all acquiescent she trembled. He
doubtless
guessed it, for he went on:
"It's because it's easy for you to consent that I want from you what
it
will be impossible for you to consent to, even if you agree ahead of
time,
even if you say yes now
and imagine yourself capable of submitting. You won't be able not to
revolt.
Your submission will be obtained in spite of you, not only for the
inimitable pleasure that I and others will derive from it, but also so
that
you will be made aware of what has been done to you.
O was on the verge of saying that she was his slave and that she
bore her
bonds cheerfully. He stopped her.
"Yesterday you were told that as long as you are in the chateau you
are
not to look a man in the face or speak to him. The same applies to me
as
well: with me you shall remain silent and obey. I love you. Now get
up. From
now on the only times you will open your mouth here in the presence of
a man
will be to cry out or to caress.
So O got up. Rene remained lying on the bed. She bathed and arranged
her
hair. The contact of her bruised loins with the tepid water made her
shiver,
and she had to sponge herself without rubbing to keep from re-viving
the
burning pain. She made up her mouth but not her eyes, powdered herself
and,
still naked but with low-ered eyes, came back into the room.
Rene was looking at Jeanne, who had come in and was standing at the
head
of the bed, she too with her head bowed, unspeaking. He told her to
dress 0.
Jeanne took the bodice of green satin, the white petticoat, the dress,
the
green mules and, having hooked up 0's bodice in front, began to lace
it up
tight in the back. The bodice was long and stiff, stoutly whaleboned
as
during the period when wasp waists were in style, with gussets to
support
the breasts. The more the bodice was tightened, the more the breasts
were
lifted, supported as they were by the gussets, and the nipples
displayed
more prominently. At the same time, the constriction of the waist
caused her
stomach to protrude and her backside to arch out sharply. The strange
thing
was that this armor was very comfortable and to a certain extent
restful.
It made you stand up very straight, but it made you realize why, it
was hard to tell unless it
was by contrast-the freedom, or rather the availability, of that part
of the
body left unrestricted. The full skirt and the trapezoid-shaped
neckline
running from the base of the neck to the tips of the breasts and
across the
full length of the bosom, seemed to the girl to be less a protective
outfit
than an instrument designed to provoke or present. When Jeanne had
tied the
laces in a double knot, O took her dress from the bed. It was a
one-piece
dress, with the petticoat attached to the skirt like a de-tachable
lining,
and the bodice, cross-laced in front and tied in the back, was thus
able to
follow more or less the delicate contours of her bosom, depending on
how
tightly the bodice was laced Jeanne had laced it very tight' and
through the
open door O was able to see herself reflected In the bathroom mirror,
slim
and lost in the green satin which bfflowed at her hips, as a hoop
skirt
would have done. The two women were standing side by side. Jeanne
reached
out to smooth a wride in the green dress, and her breasts stirred in
the
lace fringes of her bodice, breasts whose tips were long and the halos
brown.
Her dress was of yellow faille.
Rene, who had come over to the two women, said to 0: `Watch." And to
Jeanne: "lift your dress With both hands she raised the crackling silk
and
the crinoline which lined it, revealing as she did a golden belly,
gleaming
thighs and knees, and a tight black triangle. Rene put his hand on it
and
slowly explored, and with the other excited the nipple of one breast,
Merely so you can see," he said to 0.
O saw. She saw his ironic but attentive face, his eyes carefully
watching
Jeanne's half-open mouth and her neck, which was thrown back, tightly
circled by the leather collar. What pleasure was she giving him, yes
she,
that this girl or any other could not?
"That hadn't occurred to you?" he added.
No, that had not occurred to her. She had collapsed against the
wall,
between the two doors, her arms hanging limp. There was no longer any
need
to tell her to keep quiet. How could she have spoken? Perhaps he was
touched
by her despair. He left Jeanne and took her in his arms, calling her
his
love and his life, saying over and over again that he loved her. The
hand he
was caressing her neck with was moist with the odor of Jeanne. And so?
The
despair which had overwhelmed her slowly ebbed: he loved her, ah he
loved
her. He was free to enjoy him-self with Jeanne, or with others, he
loved
her. "I love you," he had whispered in her ear, "I love you," so
softly it
was scarcely audible. "I love you." He did not leave until he saw that
her
eyes were clear and her expression calm, contented.
Jeanne took O by the hand and led her out into the hallway. Their
mules
again made a resounding noise on the tile floor, and again they found
a
valet seated on a bench between the doors. He was dressed like Pierre,
but
it was not Pierre. This one was tall, dry, and had dark hair. He
preceded
them and showed them into an ante-chamber where, before a wrought iron
door
which stood between two tall green drapes, two other valets were
waiting,
some white dogs with russet spots lying at their feet.
"That's the enclosure," Jeanne murmured. But the valet who was
walking in
front of them heard her and turned around. O was amazed to see Jeanne
turn
deathly pale and let go of her hand, let go of her dress which she was
holding lightly with her other hand, and sink to her knees on the
black tile
floor-for the antechamber was tiled in black marble. The two valets
near the
gate burst out laughing. One of them came over to O and politely
invited her
to follow him, opened a door opposite the one she had just entered,
and
stood aside. She heard laughter and the sound of footsteps, then the
door
closed behind her. She never-no, never-learned what had happened,
whether
Jeanne had been punished for having spoken, and if so what the
punishment
had been, or whether she had simply yielded to a caprice on the part
of the
valet, or whether in throwing herself on her knees she had been
obeying some
rule or trying to move the valet to pity, and whether she had
succeeded.
During her initial stay in the chateau, which lasted two weeks, she
only
noted that, although the rule of silence was absolute, it was rare
that they
did not try and break it while they were alone with the valets, either
being
taken to or from some place in the chateau, or during meals,
especially
during the day.. It was as though clothing gave them a feeling of
assurance
which nakedness and nocturnal chains, and the masters' pres-ence,
destroyed.
She also noticed that, whereas the slight-est gesture which might have
been
construed as an advance toward one of the masters seemed quite
naturally
incon-ceivable, the same was not true for the valets. They never gave
orders, although the courtesy of their requests was as implacable as
an
order. They had apparently been enjoined to punish to the letter
infractions of the rules which occurred in their presence, and to
punish
them on the spot. Thus on three occasions O saw girls who were caught
talking thrown to the floor and whipped once in the hall-way leading
to the
red wing, and twice again in the refectory they had just entered. So
it
was possible to be whipped in broad daylight, despite what they had
told her
the first evening, as though what happened with the valets did not
count and
was left to their discretion.
Daylight made their outfits look strange and menacing. Some valets
wore
black stockings and, in place of the red jacket and the white ruffled
shirt,
a soft, wide-sleeved shirt of red silk, gathered at the neck and with
the
sleeves also gathered at the wrists. It was one of these valets who,
on the
eighth day at noon, his whip already in his hand, made a buxom blonde
named
Madeleine, who was seated not far from 0, get up off her stool.
Madeleine,
whose bosom was all milk and roses, had smiled at him and spoken a few
words
so quickly that O had missed them. Before he had time to touch her she
was
on her knees, her hands, so white against the black silk, lightly
stroking
the still dormant sex, which she took out and brought to her half-open
mouth.
That time she was not whipped. And since he was then the only monitor
in the
refectory, and since he closed his eyes as he accepted the caress, the
other
girls began talking. So it was possible to bribe the valets. Put what
was
the use? If there was one rule to which O had trouble submitting, and
indeed
never really submitted to completely, it was the rule forbidding them
to
look the men in the face-considering that the rule applied to the
valets as
well, O felt herself in constant danger, so compelling was her
curiosity
about faces, and she was in fact whipped by both the valets, not, in
truth,
each time they noticed her doing it (for they took some liberties with
the
instructions, and perhaps cared enough about the fascination they
exercised
not to deprive them-selves, by too strict or efficacious an
application of
the rules, of the gazes which would leave their face or mouth only to
return
to their sex, their whips, and their hands, and then start in all over
again), but only when in all probability they wanted to humiliate her.
No
matter how cruelly they treated her when they had made up their minds
to do
so, she none the less never had the courage, or the cowardice, to
throw
herself at their knees, and though she submitted to them at times she
never
tempted or urged them on. As for the rule of silence, it meant so
little to
her that, except in the case of her lover, she did not once break it,
replying by signals whenever another girl would take advantage of
their
guards' momentary distrac-tion to speak to her. This was generally
during
meals, which. were taken in the room into which they had been ushered,
when
the tall valet accompanying them had turned around to Jeanne. The
walls were
black and the stone floor was black, the long table, of heavy glass,
was
black too, and each girl had a round stool covered with black leather
on
which to sit. They had to lift their skirts to sit down, and in so
doing O
rediscovered, the moment she felt the smooth, cold leather beneath her
thighs, that first moment when her lover had made her take off her
stockings
and panties and sit in the same manner on the back seat of the car.
Conversely, after she had left the chateau and, dressed like everyone
else
except for the fact that beneath her innocuous suit or dress she was
naked,
whenever she had to lift her petticoat and skirt to sit down beside
her
lover, or beside another, were it on the seat of a car or the bench of
a
caf6, it was the chateau she redis-covered, the breasts proffered in
the
silk bodices, the hands and mouths to which nothing was denied, and
the
terrible silence. And yet nothing had been such a comfort to her as
the
silence, unless it was the chains. The chains and the silence, which
should
have bound her deep within herself, which should have smothered her,
strangled her, on the contrary freed her from herself. What would have
become of her if she had been granted the right to speak and the
freedom of
her hands, if she had been free to make
a choice, when her lover prostitute d her before his own eyes? True,
she did
speak as she was being tortured, but can moans and cries be classed as
words? Besides, they often stilled her by gagging. Beneath the gazes,
beneath the hands, beneath the sexes that defiled her, the whips that
rent
her, she lost herself in a delirious absence from herself which
restored her
to love and, perhaps, brought her to the edge of death. She was
anyone,
anyone at all, any one of the other girls, opened and forced like her,
girls
whom she saw being opened and forced, for she did see it, even when
she was
not obliged to have a hand in it.
Thus, less than twenty-four hours after her arrival, dur-ing her
second
day there, she was taken after the meal into the library, there to
serve
coffee and tend the fire. Jeanne, whom the black-haired valet had
brought
back, went with her as did another girl named Monique. It was this
same
valet who took them there and remained in the room, stationed near the
stake
to which O had been at-tached. The library was still empty. The French
doors faced west, and in the vast, almost cloudless sky the autumn sun
slowly pursued its course, its rays lighting, on a chest of drawers,
an
enormous bouquet of sulphur-colored chrysanthemums which smelled of
earth
and dead leaves.
"Did Pierre mark you last night?" the valet asked 0.
She nodded that he had.
"Then you should show it," he said. "Please roll up your dress."
He waited till she had rolled her robe up behind, the Way Jeanne had
done
the evening before, and till Jeanne had helped her fasten it there.
Then he
told her to light the fire. 0's backside up to her waist, her thighs,
her
slender legs, were framed in the cascading folds of green silk and
white
linen. The five welts had turned black The
fire was ready on the hearth, all O had to do was ignite the straw
beneath
the kindling, which leaped into flame. Soon the branches of apple wood
caught, then the oak logs, which burned with tall, crackling, almost
colorless flames which were almost invisible in the daylight, but
which
smelled good. Another valet entered and placed a tray filled with
coffee
cups on the console, from which the lamp had been removed, then left
the
room. O went over near the c6nsole, while Monique and Jeanne remained
standing on either side of the fireplace.
just then two men came in, and the first valet in turn left the
room. O
thought she recognized one of the men from his voice, one of those who
had
forced her the pre-vious evening, the one who had asked that her rear
be
made more easily accessible. As she poured the coffee into the small
black
and gold cups. which Monique handed around with the sugar, she stole a
glance at them. So it was this thin, blond boy, a mere stripling, with
an
English air about him. He was speaking again; now she was certain. The
other
man was also fair, thick set with a heavy face. Both of them were
seated in
the big leather armchairs, their feet near the fire, quietly smoking
and
reading their papers, paying no more heed to the women than if they
had not
been there. Now and then the rustle of a paper was heard, or the sound
of
coals falling on the hearth. From time to time O put another log on
the fire.
She was seated on a cushion on the floor beside the wood basket,
Monique and
Jeanne, also on the floor, across from her. Their flowing skirts
overlapped
one another. Monique's skirt was a dark red. Suddenly, but only after
an
hour had elapsed, the blond boy called Jeanne, then Monique. He told
them to
bring the ottoman (it was the same ottoman on which O had been
spread-eagled
the night before). Monique did not wait for further instruc-
tions, she kneeled down, bent over, her breasts crushed against the
fur and
holding both corners of the ottoman in her hands. When the young man
had
Jeanne lift the red skirt, she did not stir. Jeanne was then obliged
to undo
his clothing-and he gave her the order in the most churlish manner-and
take
between her hands that sword of flesh which had so cruelly pierced O
at
least once. It swelled and stiffened beneath the closed palm, and O
saw
these same hands, Jeanne's tiny hands, spreading Monique's thighs,
into the
hollow of which, slowly and in short spasms which made her moan, the
lad
plunged.
The other man, who was watching in silence, motioned to O to
approach and,
without taking his eyes off the spectacle, toppled her forward over
one arm
of his chair-and her raised skirt gave him an unhindered view of her
backside and seized her womb with his hand.
It was in this position that Rene found her when, a minute later, he
opened the door.
`Please don't let me disturb you," he said, and he sat down on the
floor,
on the same cushion where O had been sitting beside the fire before
she had
been called. He watched her closely, and smiled every time the hand
which
was holding her probed and returned, seizing both front and rear
apertures
at once and working deeper and deeper as they opened further,
wrenching from
her a moan which she could no longer restrain.
Monique had long since gotten back to her feet, Jeanne `was fiddling
with
the fire in place of 0. She brought Rene a glass of whisky, and he
Jassed
her hand as she handed it to him, then drank it down without taking
his eyes
off 0.
The man who was still holding her then said:
"Is she yours?"'
`Yes," Rene replied.
"James is right," the other went on, "she's too narrow. She has to
be
widened."
"Not too much, mind you," said James.
"Whatever you say, Rene said, getting to his feet. "You're a better
judge
than I." And he rang.
For the next eight days, between dusk when her stint in the library
came
to an end and that hour of the night-which was generally eight or ten
o'clock-when she was returned to her cell, in chains and naked beneath
her
red cape, O wore an ebonite shaft simulating an erect male member
which was
inserted behind and held in place by three small chains connected to a
leather belt around her hips, in such a way that the internal
movements of
her muscles could not expel it. One little chain followed the furrow
of her
buttocks, the two others the fold on either side of the belly's
triangle, in
order not to prevent anyone from penetrating that side if need be.
When Rene had rung, it was to have the coffer brought in which
contained,
or one of whose compartments con-tained, an assortment of small chains
and
belts, and whose other held a variety of these shafts, ranging from
the very
thin to the very thick. They all had one feature in com-mon, namely
that
they flared at the base, to make it im-possible for them to slide up
inside
the body, an accident which might have produced the opposite effect
from
that desired, that is it might have allowed the ring of flesh to
tighten up
again, whereas the purpose of the shaft was to distend it. Thus
quartered,
and quartered each day a little more, for James, who made her kneel
down, or
rather lie prone, to watch while Jeanne or Monique, or whichever girl
happened to be there, fastened the shaft that he had chosen, each day
chose
a thicker one. At the evening meal, which the girls took together in
the
same refectory, after their bath, naked and powdered, 0
still wore it, and everyone could see that she was wearing it, because
of
the little chains and the belt. It was only removed, by the valet,
when he
came to chain her to the wall for the night if no one had asked for
her, or,
if some-one had, when he locked her hands behind her if he had to take
her
to the library. Rare were the nights when someone did not appear to
make use
of this passage thus rapidly rendered as easy as, though still
narrower than,
the other. After eight days, there was no longer any need for an
instrument,
and O's lover told her that he was happy she was now doubly open and
that he
would make certain she remained so. At the same time, he warned her
that he
was leaving and that she would not see him dur-ing the last seven days
she
was to spend in the Chateau, before he came back to pick her up and
take her
back to Paris.
"But I love you," he added, "I do love you. Don't for-get me."
Oh, how could she forget him! He was the hand that blindfolded her,
the
whip wielded by the valet Pierre, he was the chain above her head, the
unknown man Who came down on her, and all the voices which gave her
orders
were his voice. Was she growing weary? No. By dint of being defiled
and
desecrated, it seems that she must have grown used to outrages, by
dint of
being caressed, to caresses, if not to the whip by dint of being
whipped. A
terrible surfeit of pain and pleasure should have by slow degrees cast
her
upon benumbing banks, into a state bordering on sleep or somnambulism.
On
the contrary. The bodice which held her straight, the chains which
kept her
submissive, her refuge of silence---these may have been responsible in
part-
as was the constant spectacle of girls being handed over and used as
she was
and, even when they were not, the spectacle of the
constantly available bodies. Also the spectacle and the awareness of
her own
body. Daily and, so to speak, cere-moniously soiled with saliva and
sperm,
she felt herself literally to be the repository of impurity, the sink
men-
tioned in the Scriptures. And yet those parts of her body most
constantly
offended, having become less sensitive, at the same time seemed to her
to
have become more beauti-ful and, as it were, ennobled: her mouth
closed
upon anonymous members, the tips of her breasts constantly fondled by
hands,
and between her quartered thighs the twin, contiguous paths wantonly
ploughed. That she should have been ennobled and gained in dignity
though
being prostituted was a source of surprise, and yet dignity was indeed
the
right term. She was illuminated by it, as though from within, and her
bearing bespoke calm, while on her face could be detected the serenity
and
imper ceptible smile that one surmises rather than actually sees in
the eyes
of hermits.
When Rene had informed her that he was leaving, night had already
fallen.
O was naked in her cell, and was wait-ing for them to come and take
her to
the refectory. As for her lover, he was dressed as usual, in a suit he
wore
every day in town. When he took her in his arms, the rough tweed of
his
clothes irritated the tips of her breasts. He kissed her, lay her down
on
the bed, lay down beside her and, tenderly and slowly and gently, took
her,
alter-nating between the two tracks open to him, before finally
spilling
himself into her mouth, which he then kissed again.
"Before I leave," he said, "I would like to have you whipped, and
this
time I'll ask your permission. Do you agree?"
She agreed to it.
"I love you," he repeated. "Ring for Pierre,"
She rang. Pierre chained her hands above her head, to the chain of
the bed.
When she was thus bound, her lover kissed her again, standing beside
her on
the bed. Again he told her that he loved her, then he got down off the
bed
and nodded for Pierre. He watched her struggle, so fruitlessly; he
listened
to her moans swell and become cries. When her tears flowed, he sent
Pierre
away. She still found the strength to tell him again that she loved
him.
Then he kissed her drenched face, her gasping mouth, undid her bonds,
laid
her down, and left.
To say that O began to await her lover the minute he left her is a
vast
understatement: she was henceforth nothing but vigil and night. During
the
day she was like a painted countenance, whose skin is soft and mouth
is meek
and--this was the only time that she abided by the rule-whose eyes
were
constantly lowered. She made and tended the fire, poured and offered
the
coffee and liqueurs, lighted the cigarettes, she arranged the flowers
and
folded the newspapers like a young girl in her par-ents' living room,
so
limpid with her open neck and leather collar, her tight bodice and
prisoner's bracelets, that all it took for the men whom she was
serving was
to order her to remain by their sides while they were violating
another girl
to make them want to violate her as well; which doubtless explains why
she
was treated even worse than before. Had she sinned? or had her lover
left
her so that the very people to whom he had loaned her would feel freer
to
dispose of her? In any case, the fact remains that on the second day
following his departure as, at nightfall, she had just undressed and
was
looking in the bathroom mirror at the almost vanished welts made by
Pierre's
riding crop on the front of her thighs, Pierre entered. There were
still two
hours before dinner. He told her that she would not dine in the common
room
and said to get ready, pointing to the Turkish toilet in the corner,
over
which she had to squat, as Jeanne had warned her she would m; the
presence
of Pierre. All the while she re-mained there, he stood contemplating
her,
she could see him in the mirrors, and see herself, and was incapable
of
holding back the water which escaped from her body. He waited then
until she
had bathed and powdered her-self. She was going to get her mules and
red
cape when he stopped her and added, fastening her hands behind her
back,
that there was no need to, but that she should wait a moment for him.
She
sat down on a corner of the bed. Outside it was storming, a tempest of
cold
rain and wind, and the poplar tree near the window swayed back and
forth
beneath the gusts. From time to time a pale wet leaf would splatter
against
the windowpanes. It was as dark as in the middle of the night,
although the
hour of seven had not yet struck, for autumn was well advanced and the
days
were growing shorter.
When Pierre returned, he was carrying the same blind-fold with
which he
had blindfolded her the first evening. He also had a long chain, which
made
a clanking noise, a chain similar to the one fastened to the wall. O
had the
impression that he couldn't make up his mind whether to put the
blindfold or
the chain on her first. She was gazing out at the rain, not caring
what they
wanted from her, thinking only that Rene had said he would come back,
that
there were still five days and five nights to go, and that she had no
idea
where he was or whether he was alone and, if he was not alone, who he
was
with. But he would come back. Pierre had laid the chain on the bed
and,
without interrupting 0's daydream, had covered her eyes with the
blindfold
of black velvet. It was slightly rounded below the sockets of the
eyes, and
fitted the cheekbones perfectly, making it impossible to get the
slightest
peek or even to raise the eyelids. Blessed dark-ness like unto her own
night, never had O greeted it with such joy, blessed chains that bore
her
away from herself.
Pierre fastened the chain to the ring in her collar and invited her
to
follow him. She got up, felt herself being pulled forward, and walked.
Her
bare feet were icy cold on the tiles, and she gathered she was
following the
hall-way of the red wing; then the ground, which was still as cold,
became
rough underfoot: she was walking on a stone floor, made of sandstone
or
granite. Twice the valet made her stop, she heard the sound of a key
in a
lock, of a lock being turned and opened, then locked again. "Careful
of the
steps," said Pierre, and she went down a staircase, and once she
stumbled.
Pierre caught her around the waist. He had never touched her except to
chain
or beat her, but here he was now forcing her down onto the cold steps,
which
she tried to grasp with her bound hands to keep from slipping, and he
was
taking her breasts. His mouth moved from one to the other, and as he
pressed
against her, she could feel him slowly rising. He did not help her up
until
he had taken his pleasure with her. Damp and trembling with cold, she
finally descended the last steps and heard another door open, which
she went
through and immediately felt a thick rug beneath her feet. There was
another
slight tug on the chain, then Pierre's hands were loosing her hands
and un-
tying her blindfold: she was in a round, vaulted room, which was very
small
and low: the walls and arches were of unplastered stone, and the
joints n
the masonry were visible. The chain which was attached to her collar
was
fastened to the wall by an eye-bolt opposite the door, which was set
about
three feet above the floor and al-lowed her to move no more than two
steps
forward. There was neither a bed nor anything that might have served
as a
bed, nor was there any blanket, only three or four Moroccan-type
cushions,
but they were out of reach and clearly not intended for her. Within
reach
however, in a niche from which emanated the little light which lighted
the
room, was a wooden tray on which were some water, fruit, and bread.
The heat
from the radiators, which had teen installed along the base of the
walls and
set into the walls themselves to form around the entire room a sort of
turning plintI;,, was none the less insufficient to overcome the odor
of
earth and mud which is the odor of ancient prisons and, in old
chaAteaux, of
uninhabited dungeons. In that hot semi-darkness, into which no sound
intruded, O soon lost all track of time. There was no longer any day
or
night, the light never went out. Pierre, or some other valet-it hardly
mattered which-replaced the water, fruit, and bread on the tray
whenever it
was gone, and took her to bathe in a nearby dungeon. She never saw the
men
who came in, for each time a valet preceded them to blindfold her
eyes, and
removed it only after they had left. She also lost track of them, of
who
they were and how many there were, and neither her soft hands nor her
lips
blindly caressing were ever able to identify who they were touching.
At
times there were several, more often only one, but each time' before
they
came near her, she was made to kneel down facing the wall, the ring of
her
collar fastened to the same eye-bolt to which the chain was attached,
and
whipped. She placed her palms against the wall and pressed her face
against
the back of her hands, to keep from scratching it against the stones;
but
she scraped her knees and her breasts on them. Thus she lost track of
the
tortures and screams which were smoth-ered by the vault, She waited.
Suddenly time no longer stood still. In her velvet night her chain was
unfastened She had been waiting for three months, three days, or ten
days,
or ten years. She felt herself being wrapped in a heavy cloth, and
someone
taking her by the shoulder and knees, lifting and carring her, She
found
herself in her cell, lying under the black fur cover, it was early
afternoon,
her eyes were open, her hands free, and Rene was sitting beside her,
stroking her hair.
`You must get dressed now," he said, "we're leaving."
She took a last bath, he brushed her hair, handed her powder and
lipstick
to her. When she returned to her cell, her suit, her blouse, her slip,
her
stockings, and her shoes were on the foot of the bed, as were her
gloves and
hand-bag. There was even the coat she wore over her suit when the
weather
turned brisk, and a square silk scarf to protect her neck, but no
garter
belt or panties. She dressed slowly, rolling her stockings down to
just
above her knees, and she did not put on her suitcoat because it was
very
warm in her cell Just then, the man who had explained on the first
evening
what would be expected of her, came in. He unlocked the collar and
bracelets
which had held her captive for two weeks. Was she freed of them? or
did she
have the feeling something was missing? She said nothing, scarcely
daring to
run her hands over her wrists, not daring to lift them to her throat
Then he asked her to choose, from among the exactly identical rings
which
he showed to her in a small wooden box, the one which fit her left
ring
finger. They were strange fron rings, banded with gold inside, and the
signet was wide and as massive as that of an actual signet ring, but
it was
convex, and for design bore a three-spoked wheel inlaid in gold, with
each
spoke spiraling back upon itself like the solar wheel of the Celts.
The
second ring she tried, though a trifle snug, fit her exactly. It was
heavy
on her hand, and the gold gleamed as though furtively in the dull gray
of the polished iron.- Why iron, and why gold, and this insignia she
did not understand? It was impossible to talk in this room draped in
red, where the chain was still on the wall above the bed, where the
black, still rumpled cover was lying on the floor, this room into
which the valet Pierre might emerge, was sure to emerge, absurd in his
opera outfit, in the dull light of November.
She was wrong, Pierre did not appear. Rene had her put on the coat
to her suit, and her long gloves which covered the bottom of her
sleeves. She took her scarf, her bag, and carried her coat over her
arm. The heels of her shoes made less noise on the hallway floor than
had her mules, the doors were closed, the antechamber was empty. O was
holding her lover by the hand. The stranger who was accompanying them
opened the wrought-iron gates which Jeanne had said were the
enclosure, which was now no longer guarded either by valets or dogs.
He lifted one of the green velvet curtains and ushered them both
through. The curtains fell back into place. They heard the gate
closing. They were alone in another antechamber - which looked onto
the lawn. All there was left to do was descend the steps leading down
from the stoop, before which O recognized the car.
She sat down next to her lover, who took the wheel and started off:.
After they had left the grounds, through the porte-cochere which was
wide open, he stopped a few hundred meters farther on and kissed her.
It was on the outskirts of a small peaceful town, which they crossed
through as they continued on their route. O was able to read the name
on the road sign: Roissy.
II Sir Stephen
The apartment where O lived was situated on the Ile Saint-Louis,
under the eaves of an old house which faced south and overlooked the
Seine. All the rooms, which were spacious and low, had sloping
ceilings, and the two rooms at the front of the house each opened onto
a balcony set into the sloping roof. One of them was 0's room; the
other, in which bookshelves filled one wall from floor to ceiling on
either side of the fireplace, served as a living room, a study, and
even as a bedroom in case of necessity. Facing the two windows was a
big couch, and there was a large antique table before the fireplace.
It was here that they dined whenever the tiny dining room, which faced
the interior courtyard and was decorated with dark green serge, was
really too small to accommo-date the guests. Another room, which also
looked onto the courtyard, was Rene's, and it was here that he dressed
and kept his clothes. O shared the yellow bathroom with him; the
kitchen, also yellow, was tiny. A cleaning woman came in every day.
The flooring of the rooms overlooking the courtyard was of red tile,
those antique hexagonal tiles which in old Paris hotels are used to
cover the stairs and landings above the second story. Seeing them
again gave O a shock and made her heart beat faster: they were the
same tiles as the ones in the hallways at Roissy. Her room was small,
the pink and black chintz curtains were closed, the fire was glowing
behind the metallic screen, the bed was made, the covers turned back.
"I bought you a nylon night gown" Rene said. "You've never had one
before."
Yes, a white pleated nylon nightgown, tailored and tasteful like the
clothing of Egyptian statuettes, an almost transparent nightgown was
unfolded on the edge of the bed, on the side where O slept. O tied a
thin belt around her waist, over the elastic waistband of the
nightgown itself, and the material of the gown was so light that the
projection of the buttocks colored it a pale pink. Every-thing-save
for the curtains and the panel hung with the same material against
which the head of the bed was set, and the two small armchairs
upholstered with the same chintz-everything in the room was white: the
walls, the fringe around the mahogany four-poster bed, and the
bearskin rug on the floor. Seated before the fire in her white
nightgown, O listened to her lover.
He began by saying that she should not think that she was now free.
With one exception, and that was that she was free not to love him any
longer, and to leave him immediately. But if she did love him, then
she was in no wise free. She listened to him without saying a word,
thinking how happy she was that he wanted to prove to himself-it
mattered little how-that she belonged to him, and thinking too that he
was more than a little naive not to realize that this proprietorship
was beyond any proof. But did he perhaps realize it and want to
emphasize it merely because he derived a certain pleasure from it? She
gazed into the fire as he talked, but he did not, not daring to meet
her eyes. He was standing, pacing back and forth. Suddenly he said to
her that, for a start, he wanted her to listen to him with her knees
unclasped and her arms un-folded, for she was sitting with her knees
together and her arms folded around them. So she lifted her nightgown
and, on her knees, or, rather, squatting on her heels in the manner of
Carmelites or of Japanese women, she waited. The only thing was, since
her knees were spread, she could feel the light, sharp pricking of the
white fur between her half-open thighs; he came back to it again: she
was not opening her legs wide enough. The word "open" and the
expression "opening her legs" were, on her lover's lips, charged with
such uneasiness and power that she could never hear them without
experiencing a kind of internal prostration, a sacred submission, as
though a god, and not he, had spoken to her. So she remained
motionless, and her hands were lying palm upward beside her knees,
between which the material of her nightgown was spread, with the
pleats reforming.
What her lover wanted from her was very simple: that she be
constantly and immediately accessible. It was not enough for him to
know that she was: she was to be so without the slightest obstacle
intervening, and her bearing and clothing both were to bespeak, as it
were, the symbol of that availability to experienced eyes. That, he
went on, meant two things. The first she knew, having been in-formed
of it the evening of her arrival at the chateau: that she must never
cross her knees, as her lips had always to remain open. She doubtless
thought that this was nothing (that was indeed what she did think),
but she would learn that to maintain this discipline would require a
constant effort on her part, an effort which would re-mind her, in the
secret they shared between them and perhaps with a few others, of the
reality of her condition, when she was with those who did not share
the secret, and engaged in ordinary pursuits.
As for her clothes, it was up to her to choose them, or if need be
to invent them, so that this semi-undressing to which he had subjected
her in the car on their way to Roissy would no longer be necessary:
tomorrow she was to go through her closet and sort out her dresses,
and to do the same with her underclothing by going through her dresser
drawers. She would hand over to him absolutely everything she found in
the way of belts and panties; the same for any brassieres like the one
whose straps he had had to cut b6fore he could remove it, any full
slips which covered her breasts, all the blouses and dresses which did
not open up the front, and any skirts too tight to be raised with a
single movement. She was to have other brassieres, other blouses,
other dresses made. Meanwhile, was she supposed to visit her corset
maker with nothing on under her blouse or sweater? Yes, she was to go
with nothing on underneath. If someone should notice, she could
explain it any way she liked, or not explain it at all, whichever she
preferred, but it was her problem, and hers alone. Now, as for the
rest of what he still had to teach her, he preferred to wait for a few
days and wanted her to be dressed prop-erly before hearing it. She
would find all the money she needed in the little drawer of her desk.
When he had finished speaking, she murmured "I love you" without the
slightest gesture. It was he who added some wood to the fire, lighted
the bedside lamp, which was of pink opaline Then he told O to get into
bed and wait for him, that he would sleep with. her. When he came
back, O reached over to turn out the lamp: it was her left hand, and
the last thing she saw before the room was plunged into dark-ness was
the somber glitter of her iron ring. She was lying half on her side:
her lover called her softly by name and, simultaneously, seizing her
with his whole hand, covered the nether part of her belly and drew her
to him.
The next day, 0, In her dressing gown, had just finished lunch
alone in the green dining room-Rene had left early in the morning and
was not due home until evening, to take her out to dinner-when the
phone rang. The phone was in the bedroom, beneath the lamp at the head
of the bed. O sat down on the floor to answer it. It was Rene, who
wanted to know whether the cleaning woman had left. Yes, she had just
left, after having served lunch, and would not be back till the
following morning.
"Have you started to sort out your clothes yet?" Rene said.
"I was just going to start," she answered, "but I got up late, took
a bath, and it was noon before I was ready."'
"Are you dressed?"
"No, I have on my nightgown and my dressing gown." "Put the phone
down, take off your robe and your nightgown."
O obeyed, so startled that the phone slipped from the bed. where she
had placed it down onto the white rug' and she thought she had been
cut off. No, she had lIot been cut off.
"Are you naked?" Rene went on,
`Yes," she said. "But where are you calling from?"' Rene ignored her
question, merely adding:
"Did you keep your ring on?"
She had kept her ring on.
Then he told her to remain as she was until he came home and to
prepare, thus undressed, the suitcase of clothing she was to get rid
of. Then he hung up.
It was past one o'clock, and the weather was lovely. A
small pool of sunlight fell on the rug, lighting the white nightgown
and the corduroy dressing gown, pale green like the shells of fresh
almonds, which O had let slip to the floor when she had taken them
off. She picked them up and went to take them into the bathroom, to
hang them up in a closet. On her way, she suddenly saw her reflection
in one of the mirrors fastened to a door and which, to-gether with
another mirror covering part of the wall and a third on another door,
formed a large three-faced mirror: all she was wearing was a pair of
leather mules the same green as her dressing gown-and only slightly
darker than the mules she wore at Roissy-and her ring. She was no
longer wearing either a collar or leather bracelets, and she was
alone, her own sole spectator. And yet never had she felt herself more
totally committed to a will which was not her own, more totally a
slave, and more content to be so.
When she bent down to open a drawer, she saw her breasts stir gently.
It took her almost two hours to lay out on her bed the clothes which
she then had to pack away in the suitcase. There was no problem about
the panties; she made a little pile of them near one of the bedposts.
The same for her brassieres, not one would stay, for they all had a
strap in the back and fastened on the side. And yet she saw how she
could have the same model made, by shifting the catch to the front, in
the middle, directly be-neath the cleavage of the breasts. The girdles
and garter belts posed no further problems, but she hesitated to add
to the pile the corset of pink satin brocade which laced up in the
back and so closely resembled the bodice she had worn at Roissy. She
put it aside on the dresser. That would be Rene's decision. He would
also decide about the sweaters, all of which went on over the head and
were tight at the neck, therefore could not be opened. But they could
be pulled up from the waist and thus bare the breasts. All the slips,
however, were piled on her bed. In the dresser drawer there still
remained a half-length slip of black faille, hemmed with a pleated
flounce and fine Valenciennes lace, which was made to be worn under a
pleated sun skirt of black wool which was too sheer not to be
transparent. She would need other half-length slips, short,
light-colored ones. She also realized that she would either have to
give up wearing sheath dresses or else pick out the kind of dress that
buttoned all the way down the front, in which case she would also have
to have her slips made in such a way that they would open together
with the dress. As for the petticoats, that was easy, the dresses too,
but what would her dressmaker say about the under-clothes? She would
explain that she wanted a detachable lining because she was
cold-blooded. As a matter of fact, she was sensitive to the cold, and
suddenly she wondered how in the world she would stand the winter cold
when she was dressed so lightly?
When she had finally finished, and had kept from her entire wardrobe
only her blouses, all of which buttoned down the front, her black
pleated skirt, her coats of course, and the suit she had worn home
from Roissy, she went to prepare tea. She turned up the thermostat in
the kitchen; the cleaning woman had not filled the wood basket for the
living-room fire, and O knew that her lover liked to find her in the
living room beside the fire when he arrived home in the evening. She
filled the basket from the wood-pile in the hallway closet, carried it
back to the living-room fireplace, and lighted the fire. Thus she
waited for him, curled up in a big easy chair, the tea tray beside
her, waited for him to come home, but this time she waited, the way he
had ordered her to, naked.
The first difficulty O encountered was in her work. Difficulty is
perhaps an exaggeration. Astonishment would be a better term. O worked
in the fashion department of a photography agency. This meant that it
was she who photographed, in the studios where they had to pose for
hours on end, the most exotic and prettiest girls whom the fashion
designers had chosen to model their creations.
They were surprised that O had postponed her vacation until this
late in the fall and had thus been away at a time of year when the
fashion world was busiest, when the new collections were about to be
presented. But that was nothing. What surprised them most was how
changed she was. At first glance, they found it hard to say exactly
what was changed about her, but none the less they felt it, and the
more they observed her the more convinced they were. She stood and
walked straighter, her eyes were clearer, but what was especially
striking was her perfec-tion when she was in repose, and how measured
her gestures were.
She had always been a conservative dresser, the way girls do whose
work resembles that of men, but she was so skillful that she brought
it off; and because the other girls-who constituted her subjects-were
constantly con-cerned, both professionally and personally, with
clothing and its adornments, they were quick to note what might have
passed unperceived to eyes other than theirs. Sweaters worn right next
to the skin, which gently molded the contours of the breasts-Rene had
finally consented to the sweaters-pleated skirts so prone to swirling
when she turned: O wore them so often it was a little as though they
formed a discreet uniform.
"Very little-girl-like," one of the models said to her one day, a
blond, green-eyed model with high Slavic cheek-bones and the olive
complexion that goes with it. `But you shouldn't wear garters," she
added. "You're going to ruin your legs."
This remark was occasioned by 0, who, without stop-ping to. think,
had sat down somewhat hastily in her presence, and obliquely in front
of her, on the arm of a big leather easy chair, and in so doing had
lifted her skirt. The tall girl had glimpsed a flash of naked thigh
above the rolled stocking, which covered the knee but stopped just
above it.
O had seen her smile, so strangely that she wondered what the girl
had been thinking at the time, or perhaps what she had understood. She
adjusted her stockings, one at a time, pulling them up to tighten
them, for it was not as easy to keep them tight this way as it was
when the stockings ended at mid-thigh and were fastened to a gar-ter
belt, and answered Jacqueline, as though to justify herself:
"It's practical."
"Practical for what?" Jacqueline wanted to know.
"I dislike garter belts," O replied.
But Jacqueline was not listening to her and was looking at the iron
ring.
During the next few days, O took some fifty photo-graphs of
Jacqueline. They were like nothing she had ever taken before. Never,
perhaps, had she had such a model. Anyway, never before had she been
able to extract such meaning and emotion from a face or body. And yet
all she was aiming for was to make the silks, the furs, and the laces
more beautiful by that sudden beauty of an elfin creature surprised by
her reflection in the mirror, which Jacqueline became in the simplest
blouse, as she did in the most elegant mink. She had short, thick,
blond hair, only slightly curly, and at the least excuse she would
cock her head slightly toward her left shoulder and nestle her cheek
against the upturned collar of her fur, if she were wearing fur. O
caught her once in this position, tender and smiling, her hair gently
blown as though by a soft wind, and her smooth, hard cheekbone
snuggled against the gray mink, soft and gray as the freshly fallen
ashes of a wood fire. Her lips were slightly parted, and her eyes
half-closed. Beneath the gleaming, liquid gloss of the photograph she
looked like some blissful girl who had drowned, she was pale, so pale.
O had had the picture printed with as little contrast as possible. She
had taken another picture of Jacqueline which she found even more
stunning: back lighted, it portrayed her bare-shouldered, with her
delicate head, and her face as well, enveloped in a large-meshed black
veil surmounted by an absurd double aigrette whose impalpable tufts
crowned her like wisps of smoke; she was wearing an enormous robe of
heavy brocaded silk, red like the dress of a bride in the Middle Ages,
which came down to below her ankles, flared at the hips and tight at
the waist, and the armature of which traced the outline of her bosom.
It was what the dress designers called a gala gown, the kind na one
ever wears. The spike-heeled sandals were also of red silk. And all
the time Jacqueline was before O dressed in that gown and sandals, and
that veil which was like the premonition of a mask, O, in her mind's
eye, was completing, was in-nerly modifying the model: a trifle here,
a trifle there-- the waist drawn in a little tighter, the breasts
slightly raised-and it was the same dress as at Roissy, the same dress
that Jeanne had worn, the same smooth, heavy, cas-cading silk which
one takes by the handful and raises whenever one is told to. . . . Why
yes, Jacqueline was lifting it in just that way as she descended from
the plat. form on which she had been posing for the past fifteen
minutes. It was the same rustling, the same crackling of dried leaves.
No one wears these gala gowns any longer? But they do. Jacqueline was
also wearing a gold choker around her neck, and on her wrists two gold
bracelets. O caught herself thinking that she would be more beautiful
with a leather collar and leather bracelets. And then she did
something she had never done before: she followed Jacqueline into the
large dressing room adjacent to the studio, where the models dressed
and made up and where they left their clothing and make-up kits after
hours. She remained standing, leaning against the doorjamb, her eyes
glued to the mirror of the dressing table before which Jacqueline,
without removing her gown, had sat down. The mirror was so big-it
covered the entire back wall, and the dressing table itself was a
simple slab of black glass-that she could see Jacqueline's and her own
reflec-tion, as well as the reflection of the costume girl who was
undoing the aigrettes and the tulle netting. Jacqueline re-moved the
choker herself, her bare arms lifted like two handles; a touch of
perspiration gleamed in her armpits, which were shaved (Why? O
wondered, what a pity, she's so fair), and O could smell the sharp,
delicate, slightly plantlike odor and wondered what perfume Jacqueline
ought to wear-what perfume they would make her wear. Then Jacqueline
unclasped her bracelets and put them on the glass slab, where they
made a momentary clanking sound like the sound of chains. Her hair was
so fair that her skin was actually darker than her hair, a grayish
beige like fine-grained sand just after the tide has gone out. On the
photograph, the red silk would be black. Just then, the thick
eyelashes, which Jacqueline was always reluctant to make up, lifted,
and in the mirror O met her gaze, a look so direct and steady that,
without being able to de-tach her own eyes from it, she felt herself
slowly blushing. That was all.
I'm sorry," Jacqueline said, "I have to undress.
"Sorry," O murmured, and closed the door.
The next day she took home with her the proofs of the
shots she had made the day before, not really knowing
whether she wanted, or did not want, to show them to her
lover, with whom she had a dinner date. She looked at
them as she was putting on her make-up at the dressing
table in her room, pausing to trace on the photographs
with her finger the curve of an eyebrow, the suggestion
of a smile. But when she heard the sound of the key in
the front door, she slipped them into the drawer.
For two weeks, O had been completely outfitted and ready for use,
and could not get used to being so, when she discovered one evening
upon returning from the studio a note from her lover asking her to be
ready at eight to join him and one of his friends for dinner. A car
would stop by to pick her up, the chauffeur would come up and ring her
bell. The postscript specified that she was to take her fur jacket,
that she was to dress entirely in black (entirely was underlined), and
was to be at pains to make up and perfume herself as at Roissy.
It was six o'clock. Entirely in black, and for dinner-- and it was
mid-December, the weather was cold, that meant black silk stockings,
black gloves, her pleated fan-shaped skirt, a heavy-knit sweater with
spangles or her short jacket of faille. She decided on the jacket of
faille It was padded and quilted in large stitches, close fitting and
hooked from neck to waist like the tight-fitting doublets that men
used to wear in the sixteenth century, and if it molded the bosom so
perfectly, it was because the brassiere was built into it. It was
lined of the same faille, and its slit tails were hip length. The only
bright foil were the large gold hooks like those on children's snow
boots which made a clicking sound as they were hooked or unhooked from
their broad flat rings.
After she had laid out her clothes on her bed, and at the foot of
the bed her black suede shoes with raised soles and spiked heels,
nothing seemed stranger to O than to see herself, solitary and free in
her bathroom, meticulously making herself up and perfuming herself,
after she had - taken her bath, as she had done at Roissy. The
cosmetics she owned were not the same as those used at Roissy. In the
drawer of her dressing table she found some face rouge--she never used
any--which she utilized to empha-size the halo of her breasts. It was
a rouge which was scarcely visible when first applied, but which
darkened later. At first she thought- she had put on too much and
tried to take a little off with alcohol-it was very hard to remove-and
started all over: a dark peony pink flowered at the tips of her
breasts. Vainly she tried to make up the lips which the fleece of her
loins concealed, but the rouge left no mark. Finally, among the tubes
of lipstick she had in the same drawer, she found one of those
kissproof lip-sticks which she did not like to use because they were
too dry and too hard to remove. There, it worked. She fixed her hair
and freshened her face, then finally put on the perfume. Rene had
given her, in an atomizer which re-leased a heavy spray, a perfume
whose name she didn't know, which had the odor of dry wood and marshy
plants, a pungent, slightly savage odor. On her skin the spray melted,
on the fur of the armpits and belly it ran and formed tiny droplets.
At Roissy O had learned to take her time: she perfumed
herself three times, each time allowing the perfume to
dry. First she put on her stockings and high heels, then
the petticoat and skirt, then the jacket. She put on her
gloves and took her bag. In her bag were her compact, her lipstick, a
comb, her key, and ten francs. Wearing her gloves, she took her fur
coat from the closet and glanced at the time at the head of her bed:
quarter to eight She sat down diagonally on the edge of the bed and,
her eyes riveted to the alarm clock, waited without moving for the
bell to ring. When she heard it at last and rose to leave, she noticed
in the mirror above her dressing table, before tuning out the light,
her bold, gentle, docile expression.
When she pushed open the door of the little Italian restaurant
before which the car had stopped, the first person she saw, at the
bar, was Rene. He smiled at her tenderly, took her by the hand, and
turning toward a sort of grizzled athlete, introduced her in English
to Sir Stephen H. O was offered a stool between the two men, and as
she was about to sit down Rene said to her in a half-whisper to be
careful not to muss her dress. He helped her to slide her skirt out
from under her and down over the edges of the stool, the cold leather
of which she felt against her skin, while the metal rim around it
pressed directly against the furrow of her thighs, for at first she
had dared only half sit down, for fear that if she were to sit down
completely she might yield to the temptation to cross her legs. Her
skirt billowed around her. Her right heel was caught in one of the
rungs of the stool, the tip of her left foot was touching the floor.
The Englishman, who had bowed without uttering a word, had not taken
his eyes off her, she saw that he was looking at her knees, her hands,
and finally at her lips-but so calmy and with such precise attention,
with such self-assurance, that O felt herself being weighed and
measured as the instrument she knew full well she was, and it was as
though com-pelled by his gaze and, so to speak, in spite of herself
that she withdrew her gloves: she knew that he would speak when her
hands were bare--because she had unusual hands, more like those of a
young boy than the hands of a woman, and because she was wearing on
the third finger of her left hand the iron ring with the triple spiral
of gold. But no, he said nothing, he smiled: he had seen the ring.
Rene was drinking a martini, Sir Stephen a whisky. He nursed his
whisky, then waited till Rene had drunk his second martini and O the
grapefruit juice that Rene had ordered for her, meanwhile explaining
that if O would be good enough to concur in their joint opinion, they
would dine in the room downstairs, which was smaller and less noisy
than the one on the first floor, which was simply the extension of the
bar.
"Of course," O said, already gathering up her bag and gloves which
she had placed on the bar.
Then, to help her off the stool, Sir Stephen offered her his right
hand, in which she placed hers, he finally address-ing her directly by
observing that she had hands that were made to wear irons, so becoming
was iron to her. But as he said it in English, there was a trace of
ambiguity in his words, leaving one in some doubt as to whether he was
referring to the metal alone or whether he were not also, and perhaps
even specifically, referring to iron chains.
In the room downstairs, which was a simple white-washed cellar, but
cool and pleasant, there were in fact only four tables, one of which
was occupied by guests who were finishing their meal. On the walls had
been drawn, like a fresco, a gastronomical and tourist map of Italy,
in soft, ice-cream colors: vanilla, raspberry, and pistachio. It
reminded O that she wanted to order ice cream for dessert, with lots
of almonds and whipped cream. For she was feeling light and happy,
Rene's knee was touching her knee beneath the table, and whenever he
spoke she knew he was talking for her ears alone. He too was observing
her lips. They let her have the ice cream, but not the coffee. Sir
Stephen invited O and Rene to have coffee at his place. They had all
dined very lightly, and O realized that they had been careful to drink
very little, and had kept her virtually from drinking at all: half a
liter of Chianti for the three of them. They had also dined very
quickly: it was barely nine o'clock.
"I sent the chauffeur home," said Sir Stephen, "Would you drive,
Rene. The simplest thing would be to go straight to my house."
Rene took the wheel, O sat beside him, and Sir Stephen was next to
her. The car was a big Buick, there was ample room for three people in
the front seat.
After the Alma intersection, the Cours la Reine was visible because
the trees were bare, and the Place de la Concorde sparkling and dry
with, above it, the sort of sky which promises snow, but from which
snow has not yet fallen. O heard a little click and felt the warm air
rising around her legs: Sir Stephen had turned on the heater. Rene was
still keeping to the Right Bank of the Seine, then he turned at the
Pont Royal to cross over to the Left Bank: between its stone yokes,
the water looked as frozen as the stone, and just as black. O thought
of hematites, which are black. When she was fifteen her best friend,
who was then thirty and with whom she was in love, wore a hematite
ring set in a duster of tiny diamonds. O would have liked a necklace
of those black stones, without diamonds, a tight-fitting necklace,
perhaps even a choker. But the necklaces that were given to her
now-no, they were not given to her--would she exchange them for the
necklace of hematites, for the hematites of the dream? She saw again
the wretched room where Marion had taken her, behind the Turbigo
intersection, and remembered how she had untied--she, not Marion--her
two big schoolgirl pigtails when Marion had undressed her and laid her
down on the iron bed. How lovely Marion was when she was being
caressed, and it's true that eyes can resemble stars; hers looked like
quivering blue stars.
Rene stopped the car. O did not recognize the little street, one of
the cross streets which joins the rue de l'Universite and the rue de
Lille.
Sir Stephen's apartment was situated at the far end of a courtyard,
in one wing of an old private mansion, and the rooms were laid out in
a straight line, one opening into the next. The room at the very end
was also the largest, and the most reposing, furnished in dark English
mahogany and pale yellow and gray. silk drapes.
"I shan't ask you to tend the fire," Sir Stephen said to 0, "but
this sofa is for you. Please sit down, Rene will make coffee. I would
be most grateful if you would hear what I have to say.
The large sofa of light-colored Damascus silk was set at right
angles to the fireplace, facing the windows which overlooked the
garden and with its back to those behind, which looked onto the
courtyard. O took off her fur and lay it over the back of the sofa.
When she turned around, she noticed that her lover and her host were
standing, waiting for her to accept Sir Stephen's invitation. She set
her bag down next to her fur and unbuttoned her gloves. When, when
would she ever learn, and would she ever learn, a gesture stealthy
enough so that when she lifted her skirt no one would notice, so that
she herself could forget her nakedness, her submission? Not, in any
case, as long as Rene and that stranger were staring at her in
silence, as they were presently doing. Finally she gave in. Sir
Stephen stirred the fire, Rene suddenly went behind the sofa and,
seizing O by the throat and the hair, pulled her head down against the
back of the couch and kissed her on the mouth, a kiss so prolonged and
profound that she gasped for breath and could feel her loins melting
and burning. He let her go only long enough to tell her that he loved
her, and then immediately took her again. 0's hands, overturned in a
gesture of utter abandon and de-feat, her palms. upward, lay quietly
on her black dress that spread like a corolla around her. Sir Stephen
had come nearer, and when at last Rene' let her go and she opened her
eyes, it was the gray, unflinching gaze of the English-man which she
encountered.
Completely stunned and bewildered, as she still was, and gasping
with joy, she none the less was easily able to see that he was
admiring her, and that he desired her. Who could have resisted her
moist, half-open mouth, with Its full lips, the white stalk of her
arching neck against the black collar of her page-boy jacket, her eyes
large and clear, which refused to be evasive? But the only gesture Sir
Stephen allowed himself was to run his finger softly over her
eyebrows, then over her lips. Then he sat down facing her on the
opposite side of the fireplace, and when Rene had also sat down in an
armchair, he began to speak.
"I don't believe Rene has ever spoken to you about his family," he
said. "Still, perhaps you do know that his mother, before she married
his father, had previously been married to an Englishman, who had a
son from his first marriage. I am that son, and it was she who raised
me, until she left my father. So Rene and I are not actually
relatives, and yet, in a way, we are brothers. That Rene loves you I
have no doubt. I would have known even if he hadn't told me, even ff
he hadn't made a move: all one has to do is to see the way he looks at
you. I know too that you are among those girls who have been to
Roissy, and I imagine you'll be going back again. In principle, the
ring you're wearing gives me the right to do with you what I will, as
it does to all those men who know its mean-ing. But that involves
merely a fleeting assignation, and what we expect from you is more
serious. I say `we' be-cause, as you see, Rene is saying nothing: he
prefers to have me speak for both of us.
"If we are brothers, I am the eldest, ten years older than he. There
is also between us a freedom so absolute. and of such long standing
that what belongs to me has always belonged to him, and what belongs
to him has likewise be-longed to me. Will you agree to join with us? I
beg of you to, and `I ask you to swear to it because it will involve
more than your submission, which I know we can count on. Before you
reply, realize for a moment that I am only, and can only be, another
form of your lover: you will still have only one master. A more
formidable one, I grant you, than the men to whom you were surrendered
at Roissy, because I shall be there every day, and besides I am fond
of habits and rites. ." (This last phrase he uttered in English.)
Sir Stephen's quiet, self-assured voice rose in an abso-lute
silence. Even the flames in the fireplace flickered noiselessly. O was
frozen to the sofa like a butterfly im-paled upon a pin, a long pin
composed of words and looks which pierced the middle of her body and
pressed her naked, attentive loins against the warm silk. She was no
longer mistress of her breasts, her hands, the nape of her neck. But
of this much she was sure: the object of the habits and rites of which
he had spoken were patently going to be the possession of (among other
parts of her body) her long thighs concealed beneath the black skirt,
her already opened thighs.
Both men were sitting across from her. Rene was smok-ing, but before
he had lighted his cigarette he had lighted one of those black-hooded
lamps which consumes the smoke, and the air, already purified by the
wood fire, smelled of the cool odors of the night.
"Will you give me an answer, or would you like to know more?" Sir
Stephen repeated.
"If you give your consent," Rene said, "I'll personally explain to
you Sir Stephen's preferences."
"Demands," Sir Stephen corrected.
The hardest thing, O was thinking' was not the ques-tion of giving
her consent, and she realized that never for a moment--did either of
them dream that she might refuse; nor, for that matter, did she. The
hardest thing was simply to speak. Her lips were burning and her mouth
was dry, all her saliva was gone, an anguish both of fear and desire
constricted her throat, and her new-found hands were cold and moist.
If only she could have closed her eyes. But she could not. Two gazes
stalked her eyes, gazes from which she could not-and did not desire to
escape. They drew her toward something she thought she had left
be-hind far a long time, perhaps forever, at Roissy. For since her
return, Rene had taken her only by caresses, and the symbol signifying
that she belonged to anyone who knew the secret of her ring had been
without consequence: either she had not met anyone who was familiar
with the secret, or else those who had had remained silent-the only
person she suspected was Jacqueline (and if Jacque line had been at
Roissy, why wasn't she also wearing the ring? Besides, what right did
Jacqueline's knowledge of this secret give her over 0, and did it, in
fact, give her any?). In order to speak, did she have to move? But she
could not move of her own free will-an order from them would
immediately have made her get up, but this time what they wanted from
her was not blind obedience, acquiescence to an order, they wanted her
to anticipate orders, to judge herself a slave and surrender herself
as such. This, then, is what they called her consent. She re-membered
that she had never told Rene anything but "I love you" or "I'm yours."
Today it seemed that they wanted her to speak and to agree to,
specifically and in detail, what till now she had ouly tacitly
consented to.
Finally she straightened up and, as though what she was going to say
was stifling her, unfastened the top hooks of her tunic, until the
cleavage of her breasts was visible. Then. she stood up. Her hands and
her knees were shaking.
"I'm yours," she said at length to Rene. "I'll be what-ever you want
me to be."
"No," he broke in, "ours. Repeat after me: I belong to both of you.
I shall be whatever both of you want me to be."
Sir Stephen's piercing gray eyes were fixed firmly upon her, as were
Rene's, and in them she was lost, slowly re-peating after him the
phrases he was dictating to her, but like a lesson of grammar, she was
transposing them into the first person.
"To Sir Stephen and to me you grant the right. . ." The right to
dispose of her body however they wished, in whatever place or manner
they should choose, the right to keep her in chains, the right to whip
her like a slave or prisoner for the slightest failing or infraction,
or simply for their pleasure, the right to pay no heed to her pleas
and cries, if they should make her cry out.
"I believe," said Rene, "that at this point Sir Stephen would like
me to take over, both you and I willing, and have me brief you
concerning his demands."
O was listening to her lover, and the words which he had spoken to
her at Roissy came back to her: they were almost the same words. But
then she had listened snuggled up against him, protected by a feeling
of improbability as though it were all a dream, as though she existed
only in another life and perhaps did not really exist at all. Dream or
nightmare, the prison setting, the lavish party gowns, men in masks:
all this removed her from her own life, even to the point of being
uncertain how long it would last. There, at Roissy, she felt the way
you do at night, lost in a dream you have had before and are now
beginning to dream all over again: certain that it exists and certain
that it will end, and you want it to end be-cause you're not sure
you'll be able to bear it, and you also want it to go on so you'll
know how it comes out. Well, the end was here, where she. least
expected it (or no longer expected it at all) and in the form she
least ex-pected (assuming, she was saying to herself, that this really
was the end, that there was not actually another hiding behind this
one, and perhaps stiI1 another behind the next one). The present end
was toppling her from memory into reality and, besides, what had only
been reality in a closed circle, a private universe, was suddenly
about to contaminate all the customs and circumstances of her daily
life, both on her and within her, now no longer satisfied with signs
and symbols --the bare buttocks, bodices that unhook, the iron
ring--but demanding fulfillment.
It was true that Rene had never whipped her, and the only difference
between the period of their relationship prior to his taking her to
Roissy and the time elapsed since her return was that now he used both
her backside and mouth the way he formerly had used only her womb
(which he continued to use). She had never been able to tell whether
the floggings she had regularly received at Roissy had been
administered, were it only once, by him (whenever there was any
question about it, that is when she herself had been blindfolded or
when those with whom she was dealing were masked), but she tended to
doubt it, The pleasure he derived from the spectacle of her body bound
and surrendered, struggling vainly, and of her cries, was doubtless so
great that he could not bear the idea of lending a hand himself and
thus having his attention dis-tracted from it. It was as though he
were admitting it, since he was now saying to her, so gently, so
tenderly, without moving from the deep arrnchair in which he was half
reclining with his legs crossed,- he was saying how happy he was to be
turning her over to, how happy he was that she was handing herself
over to, the commands and desires of Sir Stephen. Whenever Sir Stephen
would like her to spend the night at his place, or only an hour, or if
he should want her to accompany him outside Paris or, in Paris itself,
to join him at some restaurant or for some show, he would telephone
her and send his car for her-unless Rene' himself came to pick her up.
Today, now, it was her turn to speak. Did she consent? But words
failed her. This willful assent they were suddenly asking her to
express was the agreement to surrender herself, to say yes in advance
to everything to which she most as-suredly wanted to say yes but to
which her body said no, at least insofar as the- whipping was
concerned. As for the rest, if she were honest with herself, she would
have to admit to a feeling of both anxiety and excitement caused by
what she read in Sir Stephen's eyes, a feeling too in-tense for her to
delude herself, and as she was trembling like a leaf, and perhaps for
the very reason that she was trembling, she knew that she was waiting
more impa-tiently than he for the moment when he would place his hand,
and perhaps his lips, upon her. It was probably up to `her to hasten
the moment. Whatever courage, or what-ever surge of overwhelming
desire she may have had, she felt herself suddenly grow so weak as she
was about to reply that she slipped to the floor, her dress in full
bloom around her, and in the silence Sir Stephen's hollow voice
remarked that fear was becoming to her too. His words were not
intended for her, but for Rene. O had the feeling that he was
restraining himself from advancing upon her, and regretted his
restraint. And yet she avoided his gaze, her eyes fixed upon Rene,
terrified lest he should see what was in her eyes and perhaps deem it
a betrayal. And yet it was not a betrayal, for If she were to weigh
her desire to belong to Sir Stephen against her belonging to Rene, she
would not have had a second's hesitation: the only reason she was
yielding to this desire was that Rene had allowed her to and, to a
certain extent, given her to understand that he was ordering her to.
And yet there was still a lingering doubt in her mind as to whether
Rene might not be annoyed to see her acquiesce too quickly or too
well. The slightest sign from him would obliterate it Immediately. But
he made no sign, confining himself to ask her `for the third time for
an answer. She mumbled:
"I consent to whatever you both desire," and lowered her eyes toward
her hands, which were waiting unclasped in the hollows of her knees,
then added in a murmur: I should like to know whether I shall be
whipped...:'
There was a long pause, during which she regretted twenty times
over having asked the question. Then Sir Stephen's voice said slowly:
From time to time."
Then O heard a match being struck and the sound of glasses: both men
were probably helping themselves to another round of whisky. Rene was
leaving O to her own devices. Rene was saying nothing.
"Even if I agree to it now: she said, "even if I promise now, I
couldn't bear it."
"All we ask you to do is submit to it, and, if you scream or moan,
to agree ahead of time that it will be in vain," Sir Stephen went on'
"Oh, please, for pity's sake, not yet!" said 0, for Sir Stephen was
getting to his feet, Rene was following suit, he leaned down and took
her by the shoulders.
"So give us your answer," he said. "Do you consent?"
Finally she said that she did. Gently he helped her up and, having
sat down on the big sofa, made her kneel down alongside him facing the
sofa, on which reclined her outstretched arms, her bust, and her head.
Her eyes were closed, and an image she had seen several years before
flashed across her mind: a strange print portraying a woman kneeling,
as she was, before an armchair. The floor was of tile, and in one
corner a dog and child were play-ing. The woman's skirts were raised,
and standing close beside her was a man brandishing a handful of
switches, ready to whip her. They were all dressed in
sixteenth-century clothes, and the print bore a title which she had
found disgusting: Family Punishment.
With one hand, Rene took her wrists in a viselike grip, and with the
other lifted her skirts so high that she could feel the muslin lining
brush her cheek. He caressed her flanks and drew Sir Stephen's
attention to the two dimples that graced them, and the softness of the
furrow between her thighs. Then with that same hand he pressed her
waist, to accentuate further her buttocks, and ordered her to open her
knees wider. She obeyed without saying a word. The honors Rene was
bestowing upon her body, and Sir Stephen's replies, and the coarseness
of the terms the men were using so overwhelmed her with a shame as
violent as it was unexpected that the desire she had felt to be had by
Sir Stephen vanished and she began to wish for the whip as a
deliverance, for the pain and screams as a justification' But Sir
Stephen's hands pried open her loins, forced the buttocks' portal,
retreated, took her again, caressed her until she moaned. She was
vanquished, undone, and humiliated that she had moaned.
"I leave you to Sir Stephen," Rene then said. `Remain the way you
are, he'll dismiss you when he sees fit."
How often had she remained like this at Roissy, on her knees,
offered to one and all? But then she had always had her hands bound
together by the bracelets, a happy prisoner upon whom everything was
imposed and from whom nothing was asked. Here it was through her own
free will that she remained half-naked, whereas a single gesture, the
same that would have sufficed to bring her back to her feet, would
also have sufficed to cover her. Her promise bound her as much as had
the leather brace-lets and chains. Was it only the promise? And
however humiliated she was, or rather because she had been
hu-miliated, was it not somehow pleasant to be esteemed only for her
humiliation, for the meekness with which she sur-rendered, for the
obedient way in which she opened?
With Rene gone, Sir Stephen having escorted him to the door, she
waited thus alone, motionless, feeling more ex-posed in the solitude
and more prostituted by the wait than she had ever felt before, when
they were there. The gray and yellow silk of the sofa was smooth to
her cheek; through her nylon stockings she felt, below her knees, the
thick wool rug, and along the full length of her left thigh, the
warmth from the fireplace hearth, for Sir Stephen had added three logs
which were blazing noisily. Above a chest of drawers, an antique clock
ticked so quietly that it was only audible when everything around was
silent O listened carefully, thinking how absurd her position was in
this civilized, tasteful living room. Through the Venetian blinds
could be heard the sleepy rumbling of Paris after midnight In the
light of day, tomorrow morning, would she recognize the spot on the
sofa cushion where she had laid her head? Would she ever return, in
broad daylight, to this same living room, would she ever be treated in
the same way here?
Sir Stephen was apparently in no hurry to return, and 0, who had
waited so submissively for the strangers at Roissy to take their
pleasure, now felt a lump rise in her throat at the idea that in one
minute, in ten minutes, he would again put his hands on her. But it
was not exactly as she had imagined it.
She heard him open the door and cross the room. He remained for some
time with his back to the fire, studying 0, then in a near whisper he
told her to get up and then sit back down. Surprised, almost
embarrassed, she obeyed. lie courteously brought her a glass of whisky
and a ciga-rette, both of which she refused. `Then she saw that he was
in a dressing gown, a very conservative dressing gown of gray
homespun-a gray that matched his hair. His hands were long and dry and
his flat fingernails, cut short, were Very white. He caught her
staring, and O blushed: these were indeed the same hands which had
seized her body, the hands she now dreaded, and desired. But he did
not approach her.
"I'd like you to get completely undressed," he said. "But first
simply undo your jacket, without getting up."
O unhooked the large gold hooks and slipped her close-fitting
jacket down over her shoulders; then she put it at the other end of
the sofa, where her fur, her gloves, and her bag were.
"Caress the tips of your breasts, ever so lightly," Sir Stephen said
then, before adding: "You must use a darker rouge, yours is too
light?'
Taken completely aback, O fondled her nipples with her fingertips
and felt them stiffen and rise. She covered them. with her palms.
"Oh, no!" Sir Stephen said.
She withdrew her hands and lay back against the back of the couch:
her breasts were heavy for so slender a torso, and, parting, rose
gently toward her armpits. The nape of her neck was resting against
the back of the sofa, and her hands were lying on either side of her
hips. Why did Sir Stephen not bend over, bring his mouth close to
hers, why did his hands not move toward the nipples which he had seen
stiffen and which she, being absolutely motionless, could feel quiver
whenever she took a breath. But he had drawn near, had sat down across
the arm of the sofa, and was not touching her. He was smoking, and a
movement of his hand-O never knew whether or not it was
volun-tary-flicked some still-warm ashes down between her breasts. She
had the feeling he wanted to insult her, by his disdain, his silence,
by a certain attitude of detachment Yet he had desired her a while
ago, he still did now, she could see it by the tautness beneath the
soft material of his dressing gown. Then let him take her, if only to
wound her! O hated herself for her own desire, and loathed Sir Stephen
for the self control he was displaying. She wanted him to love her,
there, the truth was out: she wanted him to be chafing under the urge
to touch her lips and pene-trate her body, to devastate her if need
be, but not to re-main so calm and self-possessed. At Roissy, she had
not cared in the slightest whether those who used her had had any
feeling whatsoever: they were the instruments by which her lover
derived pleasure from her, by which she became what he wanted her to
be, polished and smooth and gentle as a stone. Their hands were his
hands, their orders his orders. But not here. Rene had turned her over
to Sir Stephen, but it was clear that he wanted to share her with him,
not to obtain anything further from her, nor for the pleasure of
surrendering her, but in order to share with Sir Stephen what today he
loved most, as no doubt In days gone by, when they were young, they
`had shared a trip, a boat, a horse. And today, this sharing derived
its meaning from Rene's relation to Sir Stephen much more than it did
from his relation to her. What each of them would look for in her
would be the other's mark, the trace of the other's passage. Only a
short while before, when she had been kneeling half-naked before Rene,
and Sir Stephen had opened her thighs with both his hands, Rene had
explained to Sir Stephen why 0's buttocks were so easily accessible,
and why he was pleased that they had been thus prepared: it was
because it had occurred to him that Sir Stephen would enjoy having his
preferred path constantly at his disposal. He had even added that, if
Sir Stephen wished, he would grant him the sole use of it.
Why, gladly," Sir Stephen had said, but he had re-marked that, in
spite of everything, there was a risk he might rend O.
"0 is yours, Rene had replied, "0 will be pleased to be rent
And he had leaned down over her and kissed her hands.
The very idea that Rene' could imagine giving up any part of her
left O stunned. She had taken it as the sign that her lover cared more
about Sir Stephen than he did about her. And too, although he had so
often told her that what he loved in her was the object he had made of
her, her absolute availability to him, his freedom with respect to
her, as one is free to dispose of a piece of furniture, which one
enjoys giving as much as, and sometimes even more than, one may enjoy
keeping it for oneself, she re-alized that she had not believed him
completely.
She saw another sign of what could scarcely be termed anything but a
certain deference or respect toward Sir Stephen, in the fact that
Rene, who so passionately loved to see her beneath the bodies or the
blows of others besides himself, whose look was one of constant
tenderness, of unflagging gratitude whenever he saw her mouth open to
moan or scream, her eyes closed over tears, had left her after having
made certain, by exposing her to him, by opening her as one opens a
horse's mouth to prove that it is young enough, that Sir Stephen found
her beautiful enough or, strictly speaking, suitable enough for him,
and vouchsafed to accept her. However offensive and insulting his
conduct may have been, 0's love for Rene' remained unchanged. She
considered herself fortunate to count enough in his eyes for him to
derive pleasure from offend-ing her, as believers give thanks to God
for humbling them.
But, in Sir Stephen, she thought she detected a will of ice and
iron, which would not be swayed by desire, a will in whose judgment,
no matter how moving and submissive she might be, she counted for
absolutely nothing, at least till now. Otherwise why should she have
been so fright-ened? The whip at the valets' belt at Roissy, the
chains borne almost constantly had seemed to her less terrifying .than
the equanimity of Sir Stephen's gaze as it fastened on the breasts he
refrained from touching. She realized to what extent their very
fullness, smooth and distended on her tiny shoulders and slender
torso, rendered them frag-ile. She could not keep them from trembling'
she would have had to stop breathing. To hope that this fragility
would disarm Sir Stephen was futile, and she was fully aware that it
was quite the contrary: her proffered gentle-ness cried for wounds as
much as caresses, fingernails as much as lips. She had a momentary
illusion: Sir Stephen's right hand, which was holding his cigarette,
grazed their tips with the end of his middle finger and, obediently,
they stiffened further. That this, for Sir Stephen, was a game, or the
guise of a game, nothing more, or a check, the way one checks to
ascertain whether a machine is functioning properly, O had no doubt.
Without moving from the arm of his chair, Sir Stephen then told her
to take off her skirt. 0's moist hands made the hooks slippery, and it
took her two tries before she succeeded in undoing the black faille
petticoat under her skirt.
When she was completely naked, her high-heeled patent-leather
sandals and her black nylon stockings rolled down flat above her
knees, accentuating the delicate lines of her legs and the whiteness
of her thighs, Sir Ste-phen, who had also gotten to his feet, seized
her loins with one hand and pushed her toward the sofa. He had her
kneel down, her back against the sofa, and to make her press more
tightly against it with her shoulders than with her waist, he made her
spread her thighs slightly. Her hands were lying on her ankles, thus
forcing her belly ajar, and above her still proffered breasts, her
throat arched back.
She did not dare look Sir Stephen in the face, but she saw his hands
undoing his belt. When he had straddled 0, who was still kneeling, and
had seized her by the nape of the neck, he drove into her mouth. It
was not the caress of her lips the length of him he was looking for,
but the back of her throat. For a long time he probed, and O felt the
suffocating gag of flesh swell and harden, its slow re-peated
hammering finally bringing her to tears. In order to invade her
better, Sir Stephen ended by kneeling on the sofa, one knee on each
side of her face, and there were moments when his buttocks rested on
0,5 breast, and in her heart she felt her womb, useless and scorned,
burning her. Although he delighted and reveled in her for a long time,
Sir Stephen did not bring his pleasure to a climax, but withdrew from
her in silence and rose again to his feet, without closing his
dressing gown.
"You are easy, 0," he said to her. "You love Rene, but you're easy.
Does Rene realize that you covet and long for all the men who desire
you, that by sending you to Roissy or surrendering you to others he is
providing you with a string of alibis to cover your easy virtue?"
"I love Rene'," O replied.
"You love Rene, but you desire me, among others," Sir Stephen went
on.
Yes, she did desire him, but what if Rene, upon learning it, were to
change? All she could do was remain silent and lower her eyes: even to
have looked Sir Stephen directly in the eyes would have been
tantamount to a confession.
Then Sir Stephen bent down over her and, taking her by the
shoulders, made her slide down onto the rug. Again she was on her
back, her legs raised and doubled up against her. Sir Stephen, who had
sat down on that part of the couch against which she had just been
leaning, seized her right knee and pulled her toward him. Since she
was facing the fireplace, the light from the nearby hearth shed a
fierce light upon the double, quartered furrow of her belly and rear.
Without loosing his grip, Sir Stephen abruptly ordered her to caress
herself, without closing her legs. Startled, O meekly stretched her
right hand toward her loins, where her fingers encountered the ridge
of flesh -already emerging from the protective fleece beneath,
al-ready burning-where her belly's fragile lips merged.
But her hand recoiled and she mumbled:
"I can't."
And in fact she could not The only times she had ever caressed
herself furtively had been in the warmth and obscurity of her bed,
when she slept alone, but she had never tried to carry it to a dim ax.
But later she would sometimes come upon it in her sleep and would wake
up disappointed that it had been so intense and yet so fleet-ing.
Sir Stephen's gaze was persistent. She could not bear it, and
repeating "I can't," she closed her eyes.
What, she was seeing in her mind's eye, what she had never been able
to forget, what still filled her with the same sensation of nausea and
disgust that she had felt when she had first witnessed it when she was
fifteen, was the image of Marion slumped in the leather armchair in a
hotel room, Marion with one leg sprawled over one arm of the chair and
her head half hanging over the other, caress-ing herself in her, 0's,
presence, and moaning. Marion had related to her how she had one day
caressed herself this way in her office when she had thought she was
alone,, and her boss had happened to walk in and caught her ln the
act.
O remembered Marion's office, a bare room with pale green walls,
with the north light filtering in through dusty window's. There was
only one easy chair, intended for visitors, facing the table.
Did you run away?" O had asked. -
"No" Marion had answered, "he asked me to begin all over again, but
he locked the door, made me take off my panties, and pushed the chair
over in front of the win-dow."
O had been' overwhelmed with admiration-and with horror-for what she
took to be Marion's courage and had steadfastly refused to fondle
herself in Marion's pres-ence and sworn that she never would, in
anyone's pres-ence. Marion had laughed and said:
`You'll see. Wait till your lover asks you to."
Rene never had asked her to. Would she have obeyed?
Yes, of course she would, but she would also have been
terrified at the thought that she might see Rene's eyes
filling with the sa;me disgust that she had felt for Marion.
Which was absurd. And since it was Sir Stephen, it was
all the more absurd; what did she care whether Sir
Stephen was disgusted? But no, she couldn't, For the
third time she murmured:
"I can't."
Though she uttered the words in almost a whisper, he heard them, let
her go, rose to his feet, closed his dressing gown, and ordered O to
get up.
"Is this your obedience?" he said.
Then he caught both her wrists with his left hand, and with his
right he slapped her on both sides of the face. She staggered, and
would have fallen had he not held her up.
"Kneel down and listen to me," he said. "I'm afraid Ben6's training
leaves a great deal to be desired."
"I always obey Rene," she mumbled.
"You're confusing love and obedience. You'll,, obey me without
loving me, and without my loving you.
With that, she felt a strange inexplicable storm of revolt rising
within her, silently denying in the depths of her being the words she
was hearing, denying her promises of submission and slavery, denying
her own agreement, her own desire, her nakedness, her sweat, her
trembling limbs, the circles under her eyes. She struggled and
clenched her teeth with rage when, having made her bend over, with her
elbows on the floor and her head between her arms, her buttocks
raised, he forced her from behind, to rend her as Rene had said he
would.
The first time she did not cry out. He went at it again, harder now,
and she screamed. She screamed as much out of revolt as of pain, and
lie was fully aware of it, She also knew-which meant that in any event
she was vanquished --that he was pleased to make her cry out. When he
had finished with her, and after he had helped her to her feet, he was
on the point of dismissing her when he remarked to her that what he
had spilled in her was going to seep slowly out tinted with the blood
of the wound he had in-flicted on her, that this wound would burn her
as long as her buttocks were not used to him and he was obliged to
keep on forcing his way. Rene had reserved this particular use of her
to him, and he certainly intended to make full use of it, she had best
have no illusions on that score. He reminded her that she had agreed
to be Rene's slave, and his too, but that it appeared unlikely that
she was. aware-consciously aware of what she had consented to. By the
time she had learned, it would be too late for her to escape.
Listening, O told herself that perhaps it would also be too late for
him to escape becoming enamored of her, for she had no intention of
being quickly tamed, and by the time she was he might have learned to
love her a little. For all her inner resistance, and the timid refusal
she had dared to display, had one object and one object alone: she
wanted to exist for Sir Stephen, in however modest a way, In the same
way she existed for Rene, and wanted him to feel something more than
desire for her. Not that she was in love, but because she clearly saw
that Rene loved Sir Stephen in that passionate way boys love their
elders, and she sensed that he was ready, if need be, to sacrifice her
to any and all of Sir Stephen's whims, in an effort to satisfy him.
She knew with an infallible intuition that Rene would follow Sir
Stephen's example and emulate his attitude, and that if Sir Stephen
were to show contempt for her, Rene would be contaminated by it, no
matter how much he loved her, contaminated in a way he had never
before been, or had dreamed of being, by the opinions and example of
the men at Roissy. This was because at Roissyy, with regard to her, he
was the master, and the opinions of all the men there to whom he gave
her derived from and depended on his own. Here he was not the master
any longer. On the contrary. Sir Stephen was Rene's master, without
Rene's being fully aware of it, which is to say that Rene admired him
and wanted to emulate him, to com-pete with him, and this was why he
was sharing every-thing with him, and why he had given O to him: this
time it was apparent that she had been given with no strings attached.
Rene would probably go on loving her insofar as Sir Stephen deemed
that she was worth the trouble and would Jove her himself. Till then,
it was clear that Sir Stephen would be her master and, regardless of
what Rene might think, her only master, in the precise relation-ship
of master to slave. She did not expect any pity from him; but could
she not hope to wrest some slight feeling of love from him?
Sprawled in the same big armchair, next to the fire which he had
been occupying before Rene's departure' he had left her standing there
naked and told her to await his further orders. She had waited without
saying a word. Then he had got to his feet and told her to follow him.
Still naked, except for her high-heeled sandals and black stockings,
she had followed him up a flight of stairs which went from the
ground-floor landing, and entered a small bedroom, a room so tiny
there was only space enough for a bed in one corner and a dressing
table and chair be-tween the bed and window. This small room
communi-cated with a larger room, which was Sir Stephen's, with a
common bathroom between.
O washed and wiped herself-the towel was faintly stained with
pink-removed her sandals and stockings, and crawled in between the
cold `sheets. The curtains of the window were open, but the night was
dark.
Before he closed the door between their rooms, after O was already
in bed, Sir Stephen came over to her and kissed her fingertips, as he
had done when she had slipped down off her stool in the bar and he had
complimented her on her iron ring. Thus, he had thrust his hands and
sex into her, ransacked and ravaged her' mouth and rear, but
condescended only to place his lips upon her fingertips. O wept, and
did not fall asleep until dawn.
The following day, a little before noon, Sir Stephen's chauffeur
drove O home. She had awakened at ten, an el-derly mulatto servant had
brought her a cup of coffee, prepared her bath, and given, her her
clothes, except for her fur wrap, her gloves, and her bag, which she
had found on the living-room couch when she had gone down-stairs. The
living room was empty, the Venetian blinds were raised, and the
curtains were open. Through the window opposite the couch, she could
see a garden green and narrow as an aquarium, planted in nothing but
ivy, holly and spindle hedges.
As she was putting on her coat, the mulatto servant told her that
Sir Stephen had left, and handed her an envelope on which there was
nothing but her initial; the white sheet inside consisted of two
lines: "Rene phoned that he would come by for you at the studio at six
o'clock," signed with an S and with a postscript: "The riding crop is
for your next visit."
O glanced around her: on the table, between the two chairs in which
Sir Stephen and Rene had been sitting the evening before, there was a
long, slender, leather riding crop near a vase of yellow roses. The
servant was waiting at the door. O put the letter in her bag and left.
So Rene had phoned Sir Stephen, and not her. Back home, after having
taken off her clothes, and having had lunch in her dressing gown, she
still had plenty of time to freshen her make-up and rearrange her
hair, and to get dressed to go to the studio, where she was due at
three o clock. The telephone did not ring; Rene did not call `her.
Why? What had Sir Stephen told him? How had they talked about her? She
remembered the words they both had used in her presence, their casual
remarks concerning the advantages of her body with respect to the
demands of theirs. Perhaps it was merely that she was not used to this
kind of vocabulary in English, but the only French equiva-lents she
could find seemed utterly base and contemptible to her. It was true
that she had been passed from hand to hand as often as were the
prostitutes in brothels, so' why should they treat her otherwise? "I
love you, I love you Rene," she repeated, softly calling to him in the
solitude of her room, "I love you, do whatever you want with me, but
don't leave me, for God's sake don't leave me."
Who pities those who wait? They are easily recognized: by their
gentleness, by their falsely attentive looks-at-tentive, yes, but to
something other than what they are looking at-by their
absent-mindedness. For three long hours, in the studio where a short,
plump red-haired model whom O did not know and who was modeling hats
for her, O was that absent-minded person, withdrawn into herself by
her desire for the minutes to hasten by, and by her own anxiety.
Over a blouse and petticoat of red silk she had put on a plaid skirt
and a short suede jacket. The bright red of her blouse beneath her
partly opened jacket made her already pale face seem even paler, and
the little red-haired model told her that she looked like a femme
fatale. "Fatal for whom?" O said to herself.
Two years earlier, before she had met and fallen in love with Rene,
she would have sworn: "Fatal for Sir Stephen" and have added: "and
he'll know it too." But her love for Rene and Rene's love for her had
stripped her of all her weapons, and instead of providing her with any
new proof of her power, had stripped her of those she had previously
possessed. Once she had been indifferent and fickle, someone who
enjoyed tempting, by a word or ges-ture, the boys who were in love
with her, but without giv-ing them anything, then giving herself
impulsively, for no reason, once and only once,' as a reward, but also
to in-flame them even more and render a passion she did not share even
more cruel. She was sure that they loved her. One of them had tried to
commit suicide; when he had been released from the hospital where they
had taken him' she had gone to his place had stripped naked, and
for-bidding him to touch her, had lain down on his couch. Pale with
pain and passion, he had stared at her silently for two hours,
petrified by the promise he had made. She had never wanted to see him
again. It wasn't that she took lightly the desire she aroused. She
understood it, or thought she understood, all the more so because she
her-self felt a similar desire (or so she thought), for her girl
friends, or for young strangers, girls she encountered by chance. Some
of them yielded to her, and she would take them to some discreet hotel
with its narrow hallways and paper-thin walls, while others,
horrified, spurned her. But what she took or mistook-to be desire was
actually nothing more than the thirst for conquest, and neither her
tough-guy exterior nor the fact that she had had several lovers-if you
could call them lovers-nor her hardness, nor even her courage was of
any help to her when she met Rene In the space of a week she learned
fear, but cer-tainty; anguish, but happiness. Rene threw himself at
her like a pirate at his prisoner, and she reveled in her cap-tivity,
feeling on her wrists, her ankles, feeling on all her members and in
the secret depths of her heart and body', bonds less visible than the
finest strands of hair, more powerful than the cables the Lilliputians
used to tie up Gulliver, bonds her lover loosened or tightened with a
glance. She was no longer free? Yes! thank God, she was no longer
free. But she was light, a nymph on clouds, a fish in water, lost in
happiness. Lost because these fine strands of hair, these cables which
Rene held, without exception, in his hand, were the only network
through which the current of life any longer flowed into her.
This was true to such a degree that when Rene relaxed his grip upon
her-or when she imagined he had-when he seemed distracted, when he
left her in a mood which she took to be indifference or let some time
go by with-out seeing her or replying to her letters and she assumed
that he no longer cared to see her and was on the verge of ceasing to
love her, then everything was choked and smothered within her. The
grass turned black, day was no longer day nor night any longer night,
but both merely Infernal machines which alternately provided, as part
of her torture, periods of light and darkness. Cool water made her
nauseous. She felt as though she were a statue of ashes-bitter,
useless, damned-like the salt statues of Gomorrah. For she was guilty.
Those who love God, and by Him are abandoned in the dark of night, are
guilty, because they are abandoned. They cast back into their
memories, searching for their sins. She looked back, hunt-ing for
hers. All she found were insignificant acts of kind-ness or
self-indulgence, which were not so much acts as an innate part of her
personality, such as arousing the desires of men other than Rene, men
she noticed only to the extent that the love Rene gave her, the
certainty of belonging to Rene, made her happy and filled her cup of
happiness to overflowing, and insofar as her total sub-mission to Rene
rendered her vulnerable, irresponsible, and all her trifling acts-but
what acts? For all she had to reproach herself with were thoughts and
fleeting temp-tations. Yet, he was certain that she was guilty and,
with-out really wanting to, Rene was punishing her for a sin he knew
nothing about (since it remained completely in-ternal), although Sir
Stephen had immediately detected It: her wantonness.
O was happy that Rene had had her whipped and had prostituted her,
because her impassioned submission would furnish her lover with the
proof that she belonged to him, but also because the pain and shame of
the lash, and the outrage inflicted upon her by those who com-pelled
her to pleasure when they took her, and at the same time delighted in
their own without paying the slightest heed to hers, seemed to her the
very redemption of her sins. There had been embraces she had found
foul, hands that had been an intolerable insult on her breasts, mouths
which had sucked in her lips and tongue like so many soft, vile
leeches, and tongues and sexes, viscous beasts which, caressing
themselves at her closed mouth, at the double furrow, before and
behind, which she had squeezed tight with all her might, had stiffened
her with disgust and kept her stiffened so long that it was all the
whip could do to unbend her, but she had finally yielded to the blows
and opened, with disgust and abominable servility. And what if, in
spite of that, Sir Stephen was right? What if she actually enjoyed her
debasement? In that case, the baser she was, the more merciful was
Rene to consent to make O the instrument of his pleasure.
As a child, O had read a Biblical text in red letters on the white
wall of a room in Wales where she had lived for two months, a text
such as the Protestants often inscribe in their houses:
IT IS A FEARFUL THING TO FALL
INTO THE HANDS OF THE LIVING GOD
No, O told herself now, that isn't true. What is fearful is to be
cast out of the hands of the living God. Every time Rene postponed, or
was late to, a rendezvous with her, as he had done today-for six
o'clock had come and gone, as had six-thirty-O was prey to a dual
feeling of madness and despair, but for nothing. Madness for nothing,
despair for nothing, nothing was true. Rene would arrive, he would be
there, nothing was changed, he loved her but had been held up by a
staff meeting or some extra work, he had not had time to let her know;
in a flash, O emerged from her airless chamber, and yet each of these
attacks of terror would leave behind, somewhere deep inside her, a
dull premonition, a warning of woe: for there were also times when
Rene' neglected to let her know when the rea-son for the delay was a
game of golf or a hand of bridge, or perhaps another face, for he
loved O but he was free, sure of her and fickle, so fickle. Would a
day of death and ashes not come, a day in the long string of other
(lays which would give the nod to madness, a day when the gas chamber
would reopen? Oh, let the miracle continue, let me still be touched by
grace, Rene don't leave me! Each day, O did not look, nor did she care
to look, any further than the next day and the day after; nor, each
week, any further than the following week. And for her every night
with Rene was a night which would last forever.
Rene finally arrived at seven, so happy to see her again that he
kissed her in front of the electrician who was re-pairing a
floodlight, in front of the short, red-haired model who was just
coming out of the dressing room, and in front of Jacqueline, whom no
one expected, who had come in suddenly on the heels of the other
model.
"What a lovely sight," Jacqueline said to 0. "I was just passing, I
wanted to ask you for the last shots of me you took, but I gather this
isn't the right moment. I'll be on my way.
"Mademoiselle, please don't go," Rene called after her, without
letting go of 0, whom he was holding around the waist, "please don't
go!"
o introduced them: Jacqueline, Rene; Rene, Jacque-line.
Piqued, the red-haired model had gone back into her dressing room,
the electrician was pretending to be busy. o was looking at Jacqueline
and could feel Rene's eyes following her gaze. Jacqueline was wearing
a ski outfit, the kind that only movie stars who never go skiing wear.
Her black sweater accentuated her small, widely spaced breasts, her
tight-fitting. ski pants did the same for her long, winter-sports-girl
legs. Everything about her looked like snow: the bluish sheen of her
gray sealskin jacket was snow in the shade; the hoar-frost reflection
of her hair and eyelashes, snow in sunlight She had on lipstick whose
deep red shaded almost to purple, and when she smiled and lifted her
eyes till they were :fixed on O, O said to herself that no one could
resist the desire to drink of that green and moving water beneath the
silvery lashes, to rip off her sweater to lay his hands on the fairly
small breasts. There, you see: no sooner had Rene returned than,
com-pletely reassured by his presence, she recovered her taste for
others and for herself, her zest for life itself,
They left together, all three of them. On the rue Royale the snow,
which had been falling in large flakes for two hours, fell now in
eddies of thin little white flies which stung the face. The rock salt
scattered on the sidewalk crunched beneath their feet and melted the
snow, and O felt the icy breath it emitted rising along her legs and
fasten on her naked thighs.
O had a fairly clear idea of what she was looking for in the young
women she pursued. It wasn't that she wanted to give the impression
she was vying with men, nor that she was trying to compensate by her
manifest masculinity for a female inferiority which she in no wise
felt.' It's true that when she was twenty she had caught herself
courting the prettiest of her girl friends by doffing her beret, by
standing aside to let her pass, and by offering a hand to iielp her
out of a taxi. In the same vein, she would not tolerate not paying
whenever they had tea together in some pastry shop. She would kiss her
hand and, if she had a chance, her mouth, if possible in the street.
But these were so many affectations she paraded for the sake of
scandal, displayed much more from childishness than from convic-ton.
On the other hand, her penchant for the sweetness of sweetly made-up'
lips yielding beneath her own, for the porcelain or pearly sparkle of
eyes half-closed in the half-light of couches at five in the
afternoon, when the curtains are drawn and the lamp on the fireplace
mantel lighted, for the voices that say: "Again, oh, please, again..,"
for the marine odor clinging to her fingers: this was a real,
deeply-rooted taste. And she also enjoyed the pursuit just as much.
Probably not for the pursuit itself, however amusing or fascinating it
might be, but for the complete sense of freedom she experienced in the
act of hunting. She, and she alone, set the rules and directed the
proceed-ings (something she never did with men, or only in a most
oblique manner). She initiated the discussions and set the rendezvous,
the kisses came from her too, so much so that she preferred not to
have someone kiss her first, and since she had first had lovers she
almost never allowed the girl whom she was caressing to return her
caresses. As much as she was in a hurry to behold her girl friend
naked, she was equally quick to find excuses why she herself should
not undress. She often looked for excuses to avoid it, say-ing that
she was cold, that it was the wrong time of the month for her. And,
what is more, rare was the woman m whom she failed to detect some
element of beauty. She remembered that, just out of the lycee, she had
tried to seduce an ugly, disagreeable, constantly ill-natured little
girl for the sole reason that she had a wild mop of blond hair which,
by its unevenly cut curls, created a forest of light and shade over a
skin that, while lusterless, had a texture which was soft, smooth, and
totally flat. But the little girl had repelled her advances, and if
one day pleas-ure had ever lighted up the ungrateful wench's face, it
had not been because of 0. For O passionately loved to see faces
enveloped in that mist which makes them so young and smooth, a
timeless youth that does not restore. child-hood but enlarges the
lips, widens the eyes the way make-up does, and renders the iris
sparkling and clear. In this, admiration played a larger part than
pride, for it' was not her handiwork which moved her: at Roissy she
had ex-perienced the same uncomfortable feeling in the presence of the
transfigured face of a girl possessed by a stranger. The nakedness and
surrender of the bodies overwhelmed her, and she had the feeling that
her girl friends, when they simply agreed to `display themselves naked
in a locked room, were giving her a gift which. she could never repay
in kind. For the nakedness of vacations, in the sun and on the
beaches, made no impression on her-not simply because it `was public
but because, being public and not absolute, she was to some extent
protected from It The beauty of other women, which with unfailing
gen-erosity she was inclined to find superior to her own,
never-theless reassured her concerning her own beauty, in which she
saw, whenever she unexpectedly caught a glimpse of herself in a
mirror, a kind of reflection of theirs. The power she acknowledged
that her girl friends held over her was at the same time a guarantee
of her own power over men. And what she asked of women (and never
re-turned, or ever so little), she was happy and found it quite
natural that men should be eager and impatient to ask of her. Thus was
she constantly and simultaneously the ac-complice of both men and
women, having, as it were, her cake and eating it too. There were
times when the game was not all that easy. That O was in love with
Jacqueline, no more and no less than she had been in love with many
others, and assuming that the term "in love" (which was saying a great
deal) was the proper one, there could be no doubt But why did she
conceal it so?
When the buds burst open on the poplar trees along the quays, and
daylight, lingering longer, gave lovers time to sit for a while in the
gardens after work, she thought she had at last found the courage to
face Jacqueline. In winter, Jacqueline had seemed too triumphant to
her be-neath her cool furs, too iridescent, untouchable,
inacces-sible. And Jacqueline knew it. Spring put her back into suits,
flat-heeled shoes, sweaters. With her short Dutch bob, she finally
resembled those fresh school girls whom 0, as a lycée student herself,
used to grab by the wrists and drag silently into an empty cloakroom
and push back against the hanging coats. The coats would tumble from
the hangers. Then O would burst out laughing. They used to wear
uniform blouses of raw cotton, with `their initials embroidered in red
cotton on their breast pockets. Three years later, three kilometers
away, Jacqueline had worn the same blouses in another lycee. It was by
chance that O learned that one day when Jacqueline was modeling some
high-fashion dresses and said with a sigh that, really, if only they
had had as pretty dresses at school, they would have been much happier
there. Or if they had been al-lowed to wear the jumper they gave you,
without any-thing on underneath. "What do you mean, without any-thing
on?" O said. "Without a dress, naturally," Jacqueline replied. To
which O began to blush. She could not get used to being naked beneath
her dress, and any equivocal remark seemed to her to be an allusion to
her condition. It did no good to keep on repeating to herself that one
is always naked beneath one's clothes. No, she felt as naked as that
woman from Verona who went out to offer herself to the chief of the
besieging army in order to free her city: naked beneath a coat, which
only needed to be opened a crack. It also seemed to her that, like the
Italian, her nakedness was meant to redeem something. But what? Since
Jacqueline was sure of herself, she had nothing to redeem; she had no
need to be reassured, all she needed was a mirror. O looked at her
humbly, thinking that the only flowers one could offer her were
magnolias, because their thick, lusterless petals slowly turn to
blister as they fade and wither, or else camellias, because their
waxen whiteness is sometimes infused with a pink glow. As winter
waned, the pale tan that gilded Jacqueline's skin vanished with the
memory of the snow. Soon, only ca-mellias would do. But O was afraid
of making -a fool of herself with these melodramatic flowers. One day
she brought a big bouquet of blue hyacinths, whose odor is
overwhelming, like that of tuberoses: oily, cloying, cling-ing,
exactly the odor camellias ought to have but don't. Jacqueline buried
her Mongolian nose in the warm, stiff-stemmed flowers, her small nose
and her pink lips, for she had been wearing a pink lipstick for the
past two weeks, and not red any longer.
Are they for me?" she said, the way women do who are used to
receiving gifts.
Then she thanked O and asked her if Rene were com-ing for her. Yes,
he was coming, O said. He's coming, she repeated to herself, and it
will be for him that Jacqueline will lift her icy, liquid eyes for a
second, those eyes which never look at anyone squarely, as she stands
there falsely motionless, falsely silent. No one would need to teach
her anything: neither to remain silent nor how to keep her hands
unclenched at her sides, nor indeed how to arch her head half back. O
was dying to seize a handful of that too blond hair at the nape of the
neck, and pull her docile head all the way back, to run at least her
finger over the line of her eyebrows. But Rene would want to do it
too.
She was fully aware why she, once so daring and bold, had become so
shy, why she had wanted Jacqueline for two months without betraying it
by the least word or gesture, and giving herself lame excuses to
explain her timidity. It was not true that Jacqueline was intangible.
The obstacle was not in Jacqueline, it lay deep within O herself, its
roots deeper than anything she had ever before encountered. It was
because Rene was leaving her free, and because she loathed her
freedom. Her freedom was worse than any chains. Her freedom was
separating her from Rene. She, could have taken Jacqueline by the
shoul-ders any number of times and, without saying a word, pinned her
against the wall with her two hands, the way a butterfly is impaled;
Jacqueline would not have moved, and probably not even done so much as
smile. But O was henceforth like those wild animals which have been
taken captive and either serve as decoys for the hunter or, leap-ing
forward only at the hunter's command, head off the game for him.
It was she who sometimes leaned back against a wall, pale and
trembling, stubbornly impaled by her silence, bound there by her
silence, so happy to remain silent. She was waiting for more than
permission,, since she already had permission. She was waiting for an
order. It came to her not from Rene, but from Sir Stephen.
As the months went by since the day Rene had given her to Sir
Stephen, O was terrified o note the growing importance Sir Stephen was
assuming in her lover's eyes. Moreover, she realized at the same time
that, in this mat-ter, she was perhaps mistaken, imagining a
progression in the fact or the feeling where actually the only
progression had been in the acknowledgment of this fact or the
ad-mission of this feeling. Be that as it may, she had been quick to
note that Rene chose to spend with her those nights, and only those
nights, following those she had spent with Sir Stephen (Sir Stephen
keeping her the whole night only when Rene was away from Paris). She
also noticed that when Rene remained for one of those evenings at Sir
Stephen's he would never touch O except to make her more readily
available or an easier offering to Sir. Stephen, if she happened to be
struggling. It was extremely rare for him to stay, and he never did
unless at Sir Stephen's express request Whenever he did, he re-mained
fully dressed, as he had done the first time, keep-ing quiet, lighting
one cigarette after another, adding wood to the fire, serving Sir
Stephen something to drink-but not drinking himself. O felt that he
was watching her the way a lion trainer watches the animal he has
trained, careful to see that it performs with complete obedience and
thus does honor to him, but even more the way a prince's bodyguard or
a bandit's second-in-command keeps an eye on the prostitute he has
gone down to fetch in the street. The proof that he was indeed
yielding to the role of servant or acolyte resided in the fact that he
watched Sir Stephen's face more closely than he did hers -and beneath
his gaze O felt herself stripped of the very voluptuousness in which
her features were immersed: for this sensual pleasure Rene paid
obeisance, expressed ad-miration and even gratitude to Sir Stephen,
who had en-gendered it, pleased that he had deigned to take pleasure
in something he had given him.
Everything would probably have been much simpler if Sir Stephen had
liked boys, and O did not doubt that Rene, who was not so inclined,
still would have readily granted to Sir Stephen both the slightest and
the most demanding of his requests. But Sir Stephen only liked women.
O realized that through the medium of her body, shared between them,
they attained something more mys-terious and perhaps more acute, more
intense than an amorous communion, the very conception of which was
arduous but whose reality and force she could not deny. Still, why was
this division in a way abstract? At Roissy, O had, at the same time
and in the same place, belonged both to Rene and to other men. Why did
Rene, in Sir Stephen's presence, refrain not only from taking her, but
from giving her any orders? (All he ever did was pass on Sir
Stephen's.) She asked him why, certain beforehand of the reply.
"Out of respect," Rene replied.
"But I belong to you," O said.
"You belong to Sir Stephen first.*
And it was true, at least in the sense that when Rene had surrendered
her to his friend the surrender had been absolute, that Sir Stephen's
slightest desires took prece-dence over Rene's decisions as far as she
was concerned, and even over her own. If Rene had decided that they
would dine together and go to the theater, and Sir Stephen happened to
phone an hour before he was to pick up 0, Rene would come by for her
at the studio as agreed, but only to drive her to Sir Stephen's door
and leave her there. Once, and only once, O had asked Rene to please
ask Sir Stephen to change the day, because she so much wanted to go
with Reii6 to a party to which they were both in-vited Rene had
refused.
"My sweet angel," he had said, "you, mean you still haven't
understood that you no longer belong to me, that I'm no longer the
master who's in charge of you?"
Not only had he refused, but he had told Sir Stephen of 0's request
and, in her presence, asked him to punish her harshly enough so that
she would never again dare even to conceive of shirking her duties.
"Certainly," Sir Stephen had replied.
The scene had taken place in the little oval room with the inlaid
floor, in which the only piece of furniture was a table encrusted with
mother-of-pearl, the room adjoining, the yellow and gray living room.
Rene remained only long enough to betray O and hear Sir Stephen's
reply. Then he shook hands with him, smiled at 0, and left. Through
the window, O saw him crossing the courtyard; he did not turn around;
she heard the car door slam shut, the roar of the motor, and in a
little mirror imbedded in the wall she caught a glimpse of her own
image: she was white with fear and despair. Then, mechanically, when
she walked past Sir Stephen, who opened the living-room door for her
and stood back for her to pass, she looked at him: he was as pale as
she. In a flash, she was absolutely certain that he loved her, but it
was a fleeting certainty that vanished as fast as it had come.
Although she did not believe it and chided herself for having thought
of it, she was com-forted by it and undressed meekly, on a mere signal
from him. Then, and for the first time since he had been making her
come two or three times a week, and using her slowly, sometimes making
her wait for an hour naked without coming near her, listening to her
entreaties without ever replying, for there were times when she did
beg and be-seech, enjoining her to do the same things always at the
same moments, as in a ritual, so that she knew when her mouth was
supposed to caress him and when, on her knees, her head buried in the
silken sofa, she should offer him only her back, which he now
possessed without hurt-ing her, for the first time, for in spite of
the fear which convulsed her-or perhaps because of that fear-she
opened to him, in spite of the chagrin she felt at Rene's betrayal,
but perhaps too because of it, she surrendered herself completely. And
for the first time, so gentle were her yielding eyes when they
fastened on Sir Stephen's pale, burning gaze, that he suddenly spoke
to her in French, employing the familiar tu form with her:
"I'm going to put a gag in your mouth, 0, because I'd like to whip
you till I draw blood. Do I have your per-mission?"
"I'm yours," O said.
She was standing in the middle of the drawing room, and her arms,
raised and held together by the Roissy bracelets, which were attached
by a chain to a ring in the ceiling from which a chandelier had
formerly hung, thrust her breasts forward. Sir Stephen caressed them,
then kissed them, then kissed her mouth, once, ten times. (He had
never kissed her.) And when he had put on the gag, which filled her
mouth with the taste of wet canvas pushed her tongue to the back of
her throat, the gag so arranged that she could scarcely clench it in
her teeth, he took her gently by the hair. Held in equilibrium by the
chain, she stumbled on her bare feet
"Excuse me, 0," he murmured (he had never before begged her pardon),
then he let her go, and struck.
When Rene returned to 0's apartment after midnight, after having gone
alone to the party they had intended to go to together, he found her
in bed, trembling in the white nylon of her long nightgown. Sir
Stephen had brought her home and put her to bed himself and kissed her
again. She told Rene that She also told him that she no longer had any
inclination not to obey Sir Stephen, realizing full well that from
this Rene would conclude that she deemed it essential, and even
pleasant, to be beaten (which was true; but this was not the only
reason). What she was also certain of was that it was equally
essential to Rene that she be beaten. He was as horrified at the idea
of striking her--so much so that he had never been able to bring
himself to do it-as he enjoyed seeing her struggle and hearing her
scream. Once, in his presence, Sir Stephen had used the riding crop on
her. Rene had forced O back against the table and held her there,
motionless. Her skirt had slipped down; he had lifted it up. Perhaps
he. needed even more to know that `while he was not with her, while he
was away walking or working, O was writhing, moan-ing, and crying
beneath the whip, was asking for his pity and not obtaining it-and was
aware that this pain and humiliation had been inflicted on her by the
will of the lover whom she loved, and for his pleasure. At Roissy, he
had had her flogged by the valets. In Sir Stephen he had found the
stern master he himself was unable to be. The fact that the man he
most admired, in the world could take a fancy to her and take the
trouble to tame her, only made Rene's passion all the greater, as O
could plainly see. AU the mouths that had probed her mouth, all the
hands that had seized her breasts and her belly, all the members that
had been thrust into her and so perfectly provided the living proof
that she was indeed prostituted, had at the same time provided the
proof that she was worthy of being prostituted and had, so to speak,
sanctified her. But this, in Rene's eyes, was nothing compared to the
proof Sir Stephen provided. Each time she emerged from his arms, Rene'
looked for the mark of a god upon her. O knew full well that if he had
betrayed her a few hours before, it was in order to provoke new, and
more cruel, marks. And she also knew that, though the reasons for
provoking them might disappear, Sir Stephen would not turn back. So,
much the worse. (But to herself she was thinking the exact opposite.)
Rene', impressed and overwhelmed, gazed for a long time at the thin
body marked by thick, purple welts like so many ropes spanning the
shoulders, the back, the buttocks, the belly, and the breasts, welts
which some-times overlapped and crisscrossed. Here and there a little
blood still oozed.
"Oh, how I love you," he murmured.
With trembling hands he took off his clothes, turned out the light,
and lay down next to 0. She moaned in the darkness, all the time he
possessed her.
The welts on 0's body took almost a month to disappear. In places
where the skin had been broken, she still bore the traces of slightly
whiter lines, like very old scars. If ever she were inclined to forget
where they came from, the attitude of Rene and Sir Stephen were there
to remind her.
Rene, of course, had a key to 0's apartment He hadn't thought to give
one to Sir Stephen, probably because, till now, Sir Stephen had not
evinced the desire to visit 0's place. But the fact that he had
brought her home that night suddenly made Rene realize that this door,
which only he and O could open, might be considered by Sir Stephen as
an obstacle, a barrier, or as a restriction de-liberately imposed by
Rene, and that it was ridiculous to give him O if he did not at the
same time give him the freedom to come and go at 0's whenever he
pleased. In short, he had a key made, gave it to Sir Stephen, and told
o only after Sir Stephen had accepted it She did not dream of
protesting, and she soon discovered that, whi1e she was waiting for
Sir Stephen to appear, she felt incom-prehensibly peaceful. She waited
for a long time, wonder-ing whether he would surprise her by coming in
the mid dle of the night, whether he would take advantage of one of
Rene's absences, whether he would come alone, or indeed whether he
would even come at all. She did not dare speak about it to Rene.
One morning when the cleaning woman happened not to be there and O
had gotten up earlier than usual and, at ten o'clock, was already
dressed and ready to go out, she heard a key turning in the lock and
flew to the door shouting: "Rene" (for there were times when Rene did
arrive in this way and at this hour, and she had not dreamed it could
be anyone' but he). It was Sir Stephen, who smiled and said to her:
"All right, why don't we call up Rene."
But Rene, tied up at his office by a business appointment, would be
there only in an hour's time.
0, her heart pounding wildly (and she wondering why), watched Sir
Stephen hang up. He sat her down on the bed, took her head in both his
hands, and forced her mouth open slightly in order to kiss her. She
was so out of breath that she might have slipped and fallen if he had
not held her. But he did hold her, and straightened her up.
She could not understand why her throat was knotted by such a
feeling of anxiety and anguish, for, after all, what did she have to
fear from Sir Stephen that she had not already experienced? -
He bade her remove all her clothes, and watched her, without saying
a word, as she obeyed. Wasn't she, in fact, quite accustomed to being
naked beneath his gaze, as she was accustomed to his silence, as she
was accustomed to waiting for him to decide what his pleasure would
be? She had to admit she had been deceiving herself, and that if she
was taken aback by the time and the place, by the fact that she had
never been naked in this room for any-one except Reu6, the basic
reason for her being upset was actually still the same: her own
self-consciousness. The only difference was that this
self-consciousness was made all the more apparent to her because it
was not taking place in some specific spot to which she had to repair
in order to submit to it, and not at night, thereby partaking of a
dream or of some clandestine existence in relation to the length of
the day, as Roissy had been in relation to the length of her life with
,Rene. The bright light of a May day turned the clandestine into
something public: hence-forth the reality of the night and the reality
of day would be one and the same. Henceforth-and O was thinking' at
last This is doubtless the source of that strange senti-ment of
security, mingled with terror, to which she felt she was surrendering
herself and of which, without under-standing it, she had had a
premonition. Henceforth there were no more hiatuses, no dead time, no
remission, He whom one awaits is, because he is expected, already
pres-ent, already master. Sir Stephen was a far more demand-ing but
also a far surer master than Rene. And however passionately O loved
Rene, and he her, there was between them a kind of equality (were it
only the equality of age) which eliminated in her any feeling of
obedience, the awareness of her submission. Whatever he wanted of her
she wanted too, solely because he was asking it of her. But it was as
though he had instilled in her, insofar as Sir Stephen was concerned,
his own admiration, his own-re-spect She obeyed Sir Stephen's orders
as orders about which there was no question, and was grateful to him
for having given them to her. Whether he addressed her in French or
English, employed the familiar tu or the less personal vous form with
her, she, like a stranger or a servant, never addressed him as
anything but Sir Stephen. She told herself that the term "Lord" would
have been more appropriate, if she had dared utter it, as he, in
re-ferring to her, would have been better advised to employ the word
"slave." She also told herself that all was well, since Rene was happy
loving in her Sir Stephen's slave.
And so, her clothes neatly arranged at the foot of the bed, having
again put on her high-heeled mules, she waited, with lowered eyes,
facing Sir Stephen, who was leaning against the window Bright sunlight
was streaming through the dotted muslin curtains and gently warmed her
hips and thighs. She was not looking for any special effect, but it
immediately occurred to her that she should have put on more perfume,
she realized that she had not made up the tips of her breasts, and
that, luckily, she had on her mules, for the nail polish on her
toenails was begin-ning to peel off. Then she suddenly knew that what
she was in fact waiting for in this silence, and this light, was for
Sir Stephen to make some signal to her, or for him to order her to
kneel down before him, unbutton him, and caress him. But no. Because
she alone had been the one to whom such a thought had occurred, she
turned scarlet, and as she was blushing she was thinking what a fool
she was to blush: such modesty and shame in a whore!
Just then, Sir Stephen asked O to sit down before her dressing
table and hear what he had to say. The dressing table was not,
properly speaking, a dressing table, but next to a low ledge set into
the wall, on which were arranged brushes and bottles, a large
Restoration swing-mirror in which 0, seated in her low-slung chair,
could see herself full length.
Sir Stephen paced back and forth behind her as he talked; from time
to time his reflection crossed the mirror, behind the image of 0, but
his was a reflection which seemed far away, because the silvering of
the mirror was discolored and slightly murky.
0, her hands unclasped and her knees apart, had an urge to seize
the reflection and stop it, in order to reply more easily. For Sir
Stephen, speaking in a clipped Eng-lish, was asking question after
question, the last ques-tions O would ever have dreamed he would ask,
even as-suming he would ask any in the first place. Hardly had he
begun, however, when he broke off to settle O deeper and farther back
in the chair; with her left leg over the arm of the chair and the
other curled up slightly, 0, in that bath of bright light, was then
presented, to her own eyes and to Sir Stephen's, as perfectly open as
though an invisible lover had withdrawn from her and left her slightly
ajar.
Sir Stephen resumed his questioning, with a judgelike resolution and
the skill of a father-confessor. O did not see him speaking, and saw
herself replying. Whether she had, since she had returned from Roissy,
belonged to other men besides Rene' and himself? No. Whether she had
wanted to belong to any other she might have met? No. Whether she
caressed herself at night, when she was alone? No. Whether she had any
girl friends she caressed or who she allowed to caress her? No (the
"no" was more hesitant). Any girl friends she did desire? Well, there
was Jacqueline, but "friend" was stretching the term. Ac-quaintance
would be closer, or even chum, the way well-bred school girls refer to
each other in high-class board-ing schools.
Whereupon Sir Stephen asked her whether she had any photographs of
Jacqueline, and he helped her to her feet so she could go and get
them. It was in the living room that Rene, entering out of breath, for
he had dashed up the four flights of stairs, came upon them: O was
standing in front of the big table on which there shone, black and
white, like' `puddles of water in the night, all of the pic-tures of
Jacqueline. Sir Stephen, half-seated on the table, was taking them one
by one as O handed them to him, and putting them back on the table;
his other hand was holding O's womb. From that moment on, Sir Stephen,
who had greeted Rene' without letting go of her-in fact she felt his
hand probe deeper into her-had ceased ad-dressing her, and ad, dressed
himself to Rene. She thought she knew why: with Rene there, the accord
between Sir Stephen and Rene' concerning her was re-established, but
apart from her, she was only the occasion for it or the object of it,
they no longer had to question her, nor she to reply; what she had to
do, and even what she had to. be, was decided without her.
It was almost noon. The sun, falling directly on the table, curled
the edges of the photographs. O wanted to move them and flatten them
out to keep them from being ruined, but her fingers fumbled,, she was
on the verge of yielding to the burning probe of Sir Stephen's hand
and allowing a moan to escape from her lips. She failed to hold it
back, did in fact moan, and found herself sprawled fiat on her back
among the photographs, where Sir Stephen had rudely shoved her as he
left her, with her legs spread and dangling. Her feet were not
touching the floor; one of her mules slipped from her foot and dropped
noise-lessly onto. the white rug. Her face was flooded with sun-shine:
she closed her eyes.
Later, much later, she must have remembered over-hearing the
conversation between Sir Stephen and Rene, but at the time she was not
struck by it, as though it did not concern her and, simultaneously, as
though she had already experienced It before. And it was true that she
had already experienced a similar scene, since the first time that
Rene had taken her to Sir Stephen's, they had discussed her in the
same way. But on that initial occasion she had been a stranger to Sir
Stephen, and Rene had done most of the talking. Since then, Sir
Stephen had made her submit to all his fantasies, had molded her to
his own taste, had demanded and obtained from her, as some-thing quite
routine, the most outrageous and scurrilous acts. She had nothing more
to give than what he already possessed. At least so she thought
He was speaking, he who generally was silent in her presence, and
his remarks, as well as Rene's, revealed that they were renewing a
conversation they often engaged. in together, with her as the subject.
It was a question of how she could best be utilized, and how the
things each of them had learned from his particular use of her could
best be shared. Sir Stephen readily admitted that O was infinitely
more moving when her body was covered with marks, of whatever kind, if
only because these marks made it impossible for her to cheat and
immediately proclaimed, the moment they were seen, `that anything went
as far as she was concerned. For to know this was one thing, but to
see the proof of it, and to see the proof constantly re-newed, was
quite another. Rene, Sir Stephen said, was perfectly right in wishing
to have her whipped. They de-cided that she would be, irrespective of
the pleasure they might derive from her screams and tears, as often as
neces-sary so that some trace of the flogging could always be seen
upon her.
0, still lying motionless on her back, her loins still aflame, was
listening, and she had the feeling that by some strange substitution
Sir Stephen was speaking for her, in her place. As though he was
somehow in her body and could feel the anxiety, the anguish, and the
shame, but also the secret pride and harrowing pleasure that she was
feeling, especially when she was alone in a crowd of strangers, of
passers-by in the street, or when she got into a bus, or when she was
at the studio with the models and technicians, and she told herself
that any and all of these people she was with, if they should have an
accident and have to be laid down on the ground or if a doctor had to
be called, would keep their secrets, even if they were un-conscious
and naked; but not she: her secret did not de-pend upon her silence
alone, did not depend on her alone. Even if she wanted to, she could
not indulge in the slight-est caprice and that was indeed the meaning
of one of Sir Stephen's questions-without immediately revealing
herself, she could not allow herself to partake of the most innocent
acts, such as playing tennis or swimming. That these things were
forbidden her was a comfort to her, a material comfort, as the bars of
the convent materially prevent the cloistered girls from belonging to
one an-other, and from escaping. For this reason too, how could, she
run the risk that Jacqueline would not spurn her, with-cut at the same
time running the risk of having to explain the truth to Jacqueline, or
at least part of the truth?
The sun had moved and left her face. Her shoulders were sticking to
the glossy surface of the photographs on which she was lying, and
against her knee she could feel the rough edge of Sir Stephen's
suitcoat, for he had come back beside her. He and Rene each took her
by one hand and helped her to her feet Rene picked up one of her
mules. It was time for her to get dressed.
It was during the lunch that followed, at Saint-Cloud on the barks
of the Seine, that Sir Stephen, who had re-mained alone with her,
began to question her once again. The restaurant tables, covered with
white tablecloths, were arranged on a shaded terrace which was
bordered by privet hedges, at the foot of which was a bed of dark red,
scarcely opened peonies.
Even before Sir Stephen could make a sign to her, O had obediently
lifted her skirts as she sat down on the iron chair, and it had taken
her bare thighs a long time to warm the cold iron. They heard the
water slapping against the boats tied up to the wooden jetty at the
end of the terrace. Sir Stephen was seated across from her, and O was
speaking slowly, determined not to say anything that was not true.
What Sir Stephen wanted to know was why she liked Jacqueline. Oh! that
was easy: it was because she was too beautiful for 0, like the
full-sized dolls given to the poor children for Christmas, which
they're afraid to touch. And yet she knew that if she had not spoken
to her, and had not accosted her, it was because she really didn't
want to. As she said this she raised her eyes, which had been lowered,
fixed on the bed of peonies, and she realized that Sir Stephen was
staring at her lips. Was he listening to what she was saying, or was
he merely listen-ing to the sound of her voice or watching the
movement of her lips? Suddenly she stopped speaking, and Sir Stephen's
gaze rose and intercepted her own. What she read in it was so clear
this time, and it was so obvious to him that she had seen it, that now
it was his turn to blanch. If in-deed he did love her, would he ever
forgive her for having noticed it? She could neither avert her gaze
nor smile, nor speak. Had her life depended on it, she would have been
incapable of making a gesture, incapable of fleeing, her legs would
never have carried her. He would probably never want anything from her
save her submission to his desire, as long as he continued to desire
her. But was desire sufficient to explain the fact t4at, from the day
Rene had handed her over to him, he asked for her and kept her more
and more frequently, sometimes merely to have her with him, without
asking anything from her?
There he sat across from her, silent and motionless. Some
businessmen, at a neighboring table, were talking as they drank a
coffee so black and `aromatic that the aroma was wafted all the way to
their own table. Two well-groomed, contemptuous Americans lighted
cigarettes halfway through their meal; the gravel crunched beneath the
waiters' feet-one of them came over to refill Sir Stephen's glass,
which was three-quarters empty, but what was the point of wasting good
wine on a statue, a sleep-walker? The waiter did not belabor the
point.
O was delighted to feel that if his gray, ardent gaze wandered from
her eyes, it was to fasten on her breasts, her hands, before returning
to her eyes. Finally she saw the trace of a smile appear on his lips,
a smile she dared to answer. But utter a single word, impossible! She
could scarcely breathe.
"0 Sir Stephen said,
"Yes," O said, faintly.
`.0, what I'm going to speak to you about I have already discussed
with Rene and we're both in accord on it. But also, I..." He broke
off.
O never knew whether it was because, seized by a sud-den chill, she
had closed her eyes, or whether he too had difficulty catching his
breath. He paused; the waiter was changing the plates, bringing O the
menu so she could choose the dessert. O handed it to Sir Stephen. A
souffle'? Yes, a souffl6. It will take twenty minutes. All right,
twenty minutes. The waiter left.
"I need more than twenty minutes," Sir Stephen said.
And he went on in a steady voice, and what he said quickly convinced
0, that one thing at least was certain, and that was, if' he did love
her, nothing would be changed, unless one considered this curious
respect a change, this ardor with which he was saying to her: "I'd be
most pleased if you would care to . . . ," instead of simply asking
her to accede to his requests. Yet they were still orders, and there
was no question of O's not obeying them. She pointed this out to Sir
Stephen. He admitted as much.
"I still want you to answer," he said.
"I'll do whatever you like," O responded, and the echo of what she
was saying resounded in her memory: "I'll do whatever you like," she
was used to saying to Rene, the only difference being her use of the
tu form with Rene. Almost in a whisper, she murmured: "Rene..,,'
Sir Stephen heard it'
"Rene knows what I want from you. Listen to me."
He was speaking English, but in a low, carefully con-trolled voice
which was inaudible at' the neighboring tables. Whenever the waiters
approached their table, he fell silent, resuming his sentence where he
had left off as soon as they had moved away. What he was saying seemed
strange and out of keeping with this peaceful, public place, and yet
what was strangest of all `was that he could say it, and O hear it, so
naturally.
He began by reminding her that the first evening when she had come
to his apartment he had given her an order she had refused to obey,
and he noted that although he might have slapped her then, he had
never repeated the order since that night Would she grant him now what
she had refused him then? O understood that not only must she
acquiesce, but that he wanted to hear her say it her-self, in her own
words, say that she would caress herself any time he asked her to. She
said it, and again she saw the yellow and gray drawing room, Rene's
departure from: it, her revulsion that first evening, the fire glowing
between her open knees when she was lying naked on the rug. Tonight,
in this same drawing room ... No, Sir Stephen had not specified, and
was going on.
He also pointed out to her that she had never been possessed in his
presence by Rene (or by anyone else), as she had been by him in Rene's
presence (and at Roissy by a whole host of others). From this she
should not con-clude that Rene would be the only one to humiliate her
by handing her over to a man who did not love her-and perhaps derive
pleasure from it-in the presence of a man who did. (He went on at such
length, and with such cruelty-she soon would open her thighs and back,
and her mouth, to those of his friends who, once they had met her,
might desire her-that O suspected that this coarse-ness was aimed as
much at himself as it was at her, and the only thing she remembered
was the end of the sen-tence: in the presence of a man who did love
her. What more did she want in the way of a confession?) What was
more, he would bring her back to Roissy sometime in the course of the
summer. Hadn't it ever struck her as surprising, this isolation in
which first Renee, then he, had kept her? They were the only men she
saw, either to-gether, or one after the other. Whenever Sir Stephen
had invited people to his apartment on the rue de Poitiers, O was
never invited. She had never lunched or dined at his place. Nor had
Rene ever introduced her to any of his friends, except for Sir
Stephen. In all probability he would continue to keep her in the
background, for to Sir Stephen was henceforth reserved the privilege
of doing as he liked with her. But she should not get the idea that
she be-longed to him, that she would be detained more legally on the
contrary. (But what hurt and wounded O most was the realization that
Sir Stephen was going to treat her in exactly the same way Rene had,
in the same, identical way.) The iron and gold ring that she was
wearing on her left hand-and did she recall that the ring had been
chosen so tight-fitting that they had had to force it on her ring
finger? she could not take it off-that ring was the sign that she was
a slave, but one who was common property. It had been merely by chance
that, since this past autumn, she had not met any Roissy members who
might have noticed her irons, or revealed that they had noticed them.
The word irons, used in the plural, which she had taken to be an
equivocal term when Sir Stephen had told her that irons were becoming
to her, had in no wise been equivocal; it had been a mode of
recognition, a password. Sir Stephen had not had to use the second
formula: namely, whose irons was she wearing? But if today this
question were asked of 0, what would she reply? O hesitated.
"Rene's and yours," she said.
"No," Sir Stephen said, "mine. Rene wants you to be answerable first
of all to me.
O was fully cognizant of this, why did she pretend she was not? In a
short while, and in any case prior to her return to Roissy, she would
have to accept a definitive mark, which would not absolve her from the
obligation of being a common-property slave but would, besides, reveal
her to be a personal slave, Sir Stephen's, and the trac6s of the
floggings on her body, or the marks raised by the riding crop, if
indeed they were inflicted again, would be discreet and futile
compared to this ultimate mark. (But what would this mark be, of what
would it consist, in what way would it be definitive? 0, terrified and
fascinated, was dying to know, she had to know immediately. But it was
obvious that Sir Stephen was not yet ready to explain it And it was
true that she had to accept, to con-sent in the real sense of the
term, for nothing would be inflicted upon her by force to which she
had not already previously consented; she could refuse, nothing was
keep ing her enslaved except her love and her sell-enslavement What
prevented her from leaving?) And yet, before this mark was imposed
upon her, even before Sir Stephen became accustomed to flogging her,
as had been decided by Rene and himself, to flogging her in such a way
that the traces were constantly visible, she would be granted a
reprieve-the time required for her to make Jacqueline submit to her.
Stunned, O raised her head and looked at Sir Stephen. Why? Why
Jacqueline? And if Jacqueline interested Sir Stephen, why was it in
relation to 0?
"There are two reasons," Sir Stephen said. "The first, and least
important, is that I would like to see you kiss and caress a woman.
But even assuming she gives in to me,,' cried 0, `how in the world
do you expect me to make her consent to your being present?"
"That's the least of my worries," Sir Stephen said. "If necessary,
by betray, and anyway I'm counting on you for a great deal more than
that, for the second reason why I want you to seduce her is that
you're to be the bait that lures her to Roissy."
O set down the cup of coffee she was holding in her hand, shaking so
violently that she spilled the viscous dregs of coffee and sugar at
the bottom of the cup. Like a soothsayer, she saw unbearable images in
the spreading brown stain on the tablecloth: Jacqueline's glazed eyes
confronting the valet Pierre; her flanks, doubtless as golden as her
breasts, though O had never seen them, exposed to view below the folds
of her long red velvet dress with its tucked-up skirt; her downy
cheeks stained with tears and her painted mouth open and screaming,
and her straight hair, in a Dutch bob along her forehead, straight as
new-mown hay-no, it was impossible, not her, not Jacqueline.
"No, it's out of the question," she said.
"Of course it's not," Sir Stephen retorted. "How do you think girls
are recruited for Roissy? Once you have brought her there, the matter
will be completely out of your hands, and anyway, if she wants to
leave she can leave. Come along now."
He had gotten suddenly to his feet, leaving the money for the bill on
the table. O followed him to the car, climbed in, and sat down.
Scarcely had they entered the Bois de Boulogne when he turned in to a
side road, stopped the car in a narrow lane, and took her in his arms.
III
Anne-Marie and the Rings
O had believed, or wanted to believe, in order to give herself a
good excuse, that Jacqueline would be un-commonly shy. She was
enlightened on this score the mo-ment she decided to open her eyes.
The modest air Jacqueline assumed-closing the door to the mirrored
make-up' room where she dressed and un-dressed-was in fact clearly
intended to inflame 0, to instill in her the desire to force the door
which, had it been left wide open, she would never have made up her
mind to enter. That 0's decision finally came from an au-thority
outside herself, and was not the result of that basic strategy, could
not have been further from Jacqueline's mind. At first O was amused by
it. As she helped Jacque line arrange her hair, for example, after
Jacqueline had taken off the clothes she had posed in and was slipping
into her turtle-neck sweater ,and the turquoise necklace the same
color as her eyes, O found herself amazingly de lighted at the idea
that the very same evening Sir Stephen would be apprised of
Jacqueline's every gesture--- whether she had allowed O to fondle,
through the black sweater, her small, well-spaced breasts, whether she
had lowered her eyelids till those lashes, fairer than her skin, were
touching her cheeks; whether she had sighed or moaned. When O embraced
her, she became heavy, mo-tionless, and seemingly expectant in her
arms, her lips parted slightly and her hair cascaded back. O always
had to be careful to hold her by both her shoulders and lean her up
against the frame of a door or against a table. Otherwise she would
have slipped to the floor, her eyes closed, without a sound. The
minute O let go of her, she `would again turn into ice and snow,
laughing and distant, and would say: "You've got lipstick on me," and
would wipe her mouth. It was this distant stranger that O en-joyed
betraying by carefully noting-so as not to forget anything and be able
to relate everything in detail-the slow flush of her cheeks, the smell
of sage and sweat. Of Jacqueline it was impossible to say that she was
forbearing or that she was on her guard. When she yielded to the
kisses-and all she had so far granted O were kisses, which she
accepted without returning-she yielded abruptly and, it seemed,
totally, as though for ten seconds, or five minutes, she had become
someone else. The rest of the time she was both coquettish and coy,
incredibly clever at parrying an attack, contriving never to lay
her-self open either to a word or gesture, or even a look which would
allow the victor to coincide with the vanquished or give O to believe
that it was all that simple to take possession of her mouth. The only
indication one had as a guide, the only thing that gave one to suspect
troubled waters beneath the calm surface of her look was an
occa-sional, apparently involuntary trace of a smile on her
tri-angular face, similar to the smile of a cat, as fleeting and as
disturbing, and also as uncertain, as a cat's. Yet it did not take O
long to realize that this smile could be pro-voked by two things, and
Jacqueline was totally unaware of either. The first was the gifts that
were given to her, the second, any clear evidence of the desire she
aroused-' providing, however, that the person who desired her was
someone who might be useful to her or who flattered her vanity. In
what way was O useful to her? Or was it simply that O was an exception
and that Jacqueline enjoyed be-ing desired by O both because she took
solace in 0's mani-fest admiration and also because a woman's desire
is harmless and of no consequence? Still in all, O was con-vinced that
if, instead of bringing Jacqueline a mother- of-pearl brooch or the
latest creation of Hermes' scarves, on which I Love You was printed in
every language under the sun, she were to offer Jacqueline the hundred
or two hundred francs she seemed constantly to need, Jacqueline would
have changed her tune about never having the time to have lunch or tea
at 0's place, or would have stopped evading her caresses. But of this
O never had any proof. She had only barely mentioned it to Sir
Stephen, who was chiding her for her slowness, when Rene stepped in.
The five or six times that Rene had come by for 0, when Jac-queline
had happened to be there, the three of them had gone together to the
Weber bar or to one of the English bars in the vicinity of the
Madeleine; on these occasions Rene would contemplate Jacqueline with
precisely the same mixture of interest, self-assurance, and arrogance
with which he would gaze, at Roissy, at the girls who were completely
at his disposal. The arrogance slid harm-lessly off Jacqueline's
solid, gleaming armor, and Jacque-line was not even aware of it. By a
curious contradiction, O was disturbed by it, judging an attitude
which she con-sidered quite natural and normal for herself, insulting
for Jacqueline. Was she taking up cudgels in defense of Jacqueline, or
was it merely that she wanted her all to herself? She would have been
hard put to answer that question, all the more so because she did not
have her all to herself-at least not yet. But if she finally did
succeed, she had to admit that it was thanks to Rene. On three
oc-casions, upon leaving the bar where they had given Jacqueline
considerably more whisky than she should have drunk-her cheeks were
flushed and shining, her eyes hard-he had d1iven her home before
taking O to Sir Stephen's.
Jacqueline lived in one of those lugubrious Passy lodg-ing houses
into which hordes of White Russians had piled immediately following
the Revolution, and from which they had never moved. The entrance hall
was painted in Imitation oak, and on the stairway the spaces between
the banisters were covered with dust, and the green carpeting had been
worn down till it was threadbare in many places. Each time Rene wanted
`to come in-and to date he had never got beyond the front
door-Jacqueline would jump out of the car, cry not tonight" or "thanks
so much," and slam the car door behind her as though she had suddenly
been burned by some tongue of flame. And it was true, O would say to
herself, that she was being pursued by fire. It was admirable that
Jacqueline had sensed it, even though she had no concrete evidence of
it as yet At least she realized that she had to be on her guard with
Rene, whose detachment did not seem to affect her in the' slightest
(or did it? and as far as seeming unaffected, two could play at that
game, and Rene was a worthy opponent for her).
The only time that Jacqueline let O come into the house and follow
her up to her room, O had understood why she had so adamantly refused
Rene' permission to set foot in the house. What would have happened to
her prestige, her black-and-white legend on the slick pages of the
posh fashion magazines, if someone other than a woman like herself had
seen the sordid lair from which the glorious creature issued forth
every day? The bed was never made, at most the bedclothes were more or
less pulled up, and the sheet which was visible was dirty and greasy,
for Jacqueline never went to bed without massaging her face with cold
cream, and she fell asleep too quickly to think of wiping it off.
Sometime in the past a curtain had appar-ently partitioned off the
toilet from the room: all that re-mained, on the triangular shaped
curtain rod were two rings and a few shreds of cloth. The color was
faded from everything: from the rug, from the wallpaper whose pink and
gray flowers were crawling upward like vegetation gone wild and become
petrified on the imitation white trellis. One would have had to throw
everything out and start again from scratch: scrape off the wallpaper,
throw out the rug, sand the floors. But without waiting for that, one
could in any case have cleaned off dirt that, like so many strata,
ringed the enamel of the basin, immediately wiped off and put into
some kind of order the bottles of make-up remover and the jars of
cream, cleaned up the powder box, wiped off the dressing table, thrown
out the dirty cotton, opened the windows. But, straight and cool and
clean and smelling of eau de Cologne and wild flow-ers, dirt-proof and
impeccable, Jacqueline could not have cared less about her filthy
room. What she did care about, however, what caused her no end of
concern, was her family.
It was because of her hovel, which O was frank enough to have
mentioned to Rene-- that Rend made a proposal which was to alter their
lives, but it was because of her family that Jacqueline accepted.
Rene's suggestion was that Jacqueline should come and live with 0.
"Family" was a gross, misunderstatement: it was a clan, or rather a
horde. Grandmother, mother, aunt, and even a maid-four women ranging
in age from fifty to seventy, strident, heavily made up, smothered
beneath their onyx and their black silks, sobbing and wailing at four
in the morning in the faint red light of the icons, with the cigarette
smoke swirling thickly about them, four women drowning in `the
clicking of tea glasses and the harsh hissing of a language'
Jacqueline would gladly have given half her life to forget she was
going out of her mind having to submit to their orders, to listen to
them, merely having to see them. Whenever she saw her mother lifting a
piece of sugar to her mouth before drinking her tea, Jacqueline would
set down her own glass and retreat to her dry' and dusty pigsty,
leaving all three of them behind, her grandmother, her mother, and her
mother's sister, with their hair dyed black, their closely knit
eyebrows, and their wide, doelike, disapproving eyes-there in her
mother's room which doubled as a living room, there where, besides,
the fourth female, the maid, ended by resembling them. She fled,
banging the doors behind her, and they called after her: "Choura,
Choura, little dove," just as in the novels of Tolstoy, for her name
was not Jacqueline. Jacqueline was her professional name, a name
chosen to forget her real name, and with it this sordid but tender
gynaeceum, and to set herself up in the French sun, in a solid world
where there are men who do marry you and not disappear, as had the
father she had never known, into the vast Arctic wastes from which he
had never returned. She took after him completely, she used to tell
herself with a mixture of anger and delight, she had his hair and high
cheekbones, his complexion and his slanting eyes. All she was grateful
for to her mother was having given her this blond devil as a father,
this demon whom the snows had reclaimed as the earth reclaims other
men. What she resented was that her mother had forgotten him quickly
enough to have given birth one fine day to a dark-complexioned little
girl, the issue of a short-lived liaison, her half-sister by an
un-known father whose name was Natalie. Now fifteen, Nat-alie only saw
them during vacation. Her father, never. But he provided for Natalie's
room and board in a lycee not far from Paris, and gave her mother a
monthly stipend on which the three women and the maid-and even
Jacque-line till now-had subsisted, albeit poorly, in an idleness
which to them was paradise. Whatever remained from Jacqueline's
earnings as a model, after she had bought her cosmetics and lingerie,
and her shoes and dresses-all of which came from the top fashion
houses and were, even after the discount she received as a model,
frightfully ex-pensive-was swallowed by the gaping maw of the family
purse and disappeared, God only knows where.
Obviously, Jacqueline could have chosen to have a lover to support
her, and she' had not lacked the opportunity. She had in fact had a
lover or two, less because she liked them-not that she actually
disliked them-than because she wanted to prove to herself that she was
capable of provoking desire and inflaming a man to the point of love.
The only one of the two-the second-who had been wealthy had made her a
`present of a very lovely pearl with a slight pink tint which she wore
on her left hand, but she had refused to live with him, and since he
had refused to marry her, she had left him, with no great re-grets,
merely relieved that she was not pregnant (she had thought she was,
for several days had lived in a state of dread at the idea). No, to
live with a lover was to lose face, to forsake one's chances for the
future, it was to do what her mother had done with Natalie's father,
and that was out of the question.
With 0, however, it was quite another matter. A polite fiction made
it possible to pretend that Jacqueline was simply moving in with a
girlfriend, with whom she was going to share all costs. O would be
setting a dual purpose, both playing the role of the lover who
supports, or helps to support, the girl he loves, and also the
theoretically opposite role of providing a moral guarantee. Rene's
presence was not official enough, really, to compromise the fiction.
But who can say whether, behind Jacqueline's decision, that very
presence might not have been the real motivation for her acceptance?
The fact remained that It was left up to 0, and to O alone, to present
the matter to Jacqueline's mother. Never. had O been more keenly aware
of playing the role of traitor, of. spy, never had she felt so keenly
she was the envoy `of some criminal organization as when she found
herself in the presence of that woman, who thanked her for befriending
her daughter. And at the same time, deep in her heart O was
repudiating her mission and the reasons which had brought her there.
Yes, Jacqueline would move in with her, but never, never would O
acquiesce so completely to Sir Stephen as to deliver her into his
hands.
And yet!... For no sooner had she moved into 0's apartment where she
was
assigned, at Rene's request, the bedroom he sometimes pretended to
occupy
(pre-tended, given that he always slept in 0's big bed), then 0,
contrary
to all expectations, was amazed to find herself obsessed with the
burning
desire to have Jacqueline at any price, even If attaining her goal
meant
handing her over to Sir Stephen. After all, she rationalized to
herself,
Jacque-line's beauty is quite sufficient protection for her, and
besides,
why should I get involved in it anyway? And what if she were to be
reduced
to what I have been re-duced to, is that really so
terrible?--scarecely
addmitting and yet overwhelmed to imagine, how sweet it would be to
see
Jacqueline naked and defenseless beside her, and like her.
The week Jacqueline moved in, her mother having given her full
consent,
Rene proved to be exceedingly zealous, inviting them every other day
to
dinner and tak-ing them to the movies which, curiously enough, he
chose
from among the detective pictures playing, tales of drug traffic and
white
slavery. He would sit down between them, gently hold hands with them
both,
and not utter a word. But whenever there was a scene of violence, O
would
see him studying Jacqueline's face for the slightest trace of emotion.
All
you could see on it was a hint of disgust, revealed by the slight
downward
pout at the cor-ners of her mouth.
Afterward he would drive them home in his convertible, with the top
down,
and in the open car with the windows rolled down, the speed and the
night
wind flattened Jacqueline's generous head of blond hair against her
cheeks
and narrow forehead, and even blew it into her eyes. She would toss
her head
to smooth her hair back into place and would run her hand through it
the way
boys do.
Once she had accepted the fact that she was living with O and that O
was
Rene's mistress, she consequently seemed to find Rene's little
familiarities
quite natural. It did not bother her in the least to have Rene' come
into
her room under the pretense of looking for some piece of paper he had
left
there, and O knew that it was a pretense, for she had personally
emptied the
drawers of the big Dutch writing desk, with its elaborate pattern of
inlay
and its leather-lined leaf, which was always open, a desk so utterly
unlike
Rene. Why did he have it? Who had he gotten it from? Its weighty
elegance,
its light-colored woods were the only touch of wealth in the somewhat
dark
room which faced north and overlooked the court-yard, and the steel
gray of
its walls and the cold, highly waxed surface of the floor provided a
sharp
contrast with the cheerful rooms which faced the river. Well, there
could be
a virtue in that: Jacqueline would not be happy there. It would make
it all
the easier for her to agree. to share the two front rooms with 0, to
sleep
with 0, as on the first day she had agreed to share the bathroom and
kitchen,
the cosmetics, the perfumes, the meals. In this, O was mistaken,
Jacqueline
was profoundly and passionately attached to anything that belonged to
her-to
her pink' pearl, for instance-and completely indifferent to any-thing
that
was not hers. Had she lived in a palace, it would have interested her
only
if someone had told her: the palace is yours, and then proved it by
giving
her a notarized deed. She could not have cared less whether the gray
room
was pleasant or not, and it was not to get away from it that she
climbed
into 0's bed. Nor was it to show her gratitude to 0, for she in fact
did not
feel it though O ascribed the feeling to her and was delighted to
abuse it
or think she was abusing it. Jacqueline enjoyed pleasure, and found it
both
expedient and pleasant to receive it from a woman, in whose hands she
was
running no risks whatever.
Five days after she had unpacked her suitcases, whose contents O
had
helped her sort out and put away, when for the third time Rene had
brought
them home about ten o'clock after having dined with them, and had then
left
(as he had both other times), she simply appeared, naked and still wet
from
her bath, in 0's doorway and said to 0:
You're sure he's not coming back?" and without even waiting for her
answer,
she slipped into the big bed. She allowed herself to be kissed and
caressed,
her eyes closed, not responding by a single caress; at first she
moaned
faintly, hardly more than a whimper, then louder, still louder, until
finally she cried out. She fell asleep sprawled across the bed,. her
knees
apart but her legs fiat again on the bed, the upper part of her body
slightly turned on one side, her hands open, her body bathed in the
bright
light of the pink lamp. Between her breasts a trace of sweat
glistened. 0
covered her and turned out the. light. When, two hours later, she took
her
again, in the dark, Jacque-line did not resist, but murmured:
"Don't wear me out completely, I have to get up early tomorrow."
It was at this same time that Jacqueline, in addition to her
intermittent
assignments as a model, began to engage in a more absorbing but
equally
unpredictable career: she was signed up to play bit parts in the
movies. It
was hard to tell whether she was proud of this or not, whether or not
she
considered this the first step in a career which might lead to her
becoming
famous. In the morning she would drag herself out of bed more in anger
than
with any show of enthusiasm, would take her shower, quickly make
herself up,
for breakfast would accept only the large cup of black coffee that O
barely
had time to make for her, and would let O kiss the tips of her
fingers,
responding with no more than a mechanical smile and an expression full
of
malice: O was soft and warm in her white vicuna dressing gown, her
hair
combed, her face washed, looking for all the world like someone who
plans on
going back to bed. And yet such was not the case. O had not yet found
the
courage to explain why to Jacqueline. The truth of the matter was that
every
day, when Jacqueline left for the film studio at Boulogne where her
picture
was being shot' at the same time as the children left for school and
the
white-collar workers for their offices, 0, who in the past had indeed
whiled
away the morning in her apartment, also got dressed.
"I'm sending you my car," Sir Stephen had said, "to'
drive Jacqueline to Boulogne, then it will come back to pick you up.
Thus O found herself headed for Sir Stephen's place every morning
when
the sun along the way was still striking the eastern facades; the
other
walls were still cool in the shade, but in the gardens the shadows
were
already grow-ing shorter.
At the rue de Poitiers, the housework was still not fin-ished.
Norah,
the mulatto maid, would take O into the small bedroom where, the first
evening, Sir Stephen had left her alone to sleep and cry, wait till O
had
put her gloves, her bag, and her clothes on the bed, and then she
would take
them and put them away, in 0's presence, in a closet to which she
alone had
the key. Then, having given O the patent-leather high-heeled mules
which
made a sharp' clicking sound as she walked, Norah would precede her,
opening
the doors as they went, till they reached Sir Stephen's study, when
she
would stand aside to let O pass.
O never got used to these preparations, and stripping in front of
this
patient old woman, who never said a w6rd to her. and scarcely looked
at her,
seemed to her as dan-gerous and formidable as being naked at Roissy in
the
presence of the valets there. On felt slippers, the old lady slipped
silently by like a nun. As she followed her, O could not take her eyes
off
the twin points of her Madras kerchief and, every time she opened a
door,
off her thin,. swarthy hand on the porcelain handle, a hand that
seemed as
hard as wood.
At the same time, by a feeling diametrically opposed to the terror
she
inspired in her-a contradiction O was un-able to explain-O experienced
a
kind of pride that this servant of Sir Stephen (and just what was her
relation to Sir Stephen, and why had he entrusted her with this task
as
costume and make-up assistant for which she seemed so poorly suited?)
was a
witness to the fact that she too-- like so many others, perhaps, whom
she
had guided in the same way, and why should she think otherwise?-was
worthy
of being used by Sir Stephen. For perhaps Sir Stephen did love her,
without
a doubt he did, and O sensed that the time was not far off when he
would no
longer be content to let her suspect it but would declare it to
her-but to
the very degree that his love and desire for her were increasing, he
was
becoming more completely, more minutely, and more deliberately
exacting with
her. Thus retained by his side for whole mornings, during which he
sometimes
scarcely touched her, wanting only to be caressed by her, she did
whatever
he wanted of her with a sentiment that must be qualified as gratitude,
which
was all the greater whenever his request took the form of a command.
Each
surrender was for her the pledge that an-other surrender would be
demanded
of her, and she ac-quitted herself of each as though of a duty
performed;
it was odd that she should have been completely satisfied by it, and
yet she
was.
Sir Stephen's office, situated directly above the yellow and gray
drawing
room where he held sway in the eve-. fling, was smaller and had a
lower
ceiling. It contained neither settee nor sofa, only two Regency
armchairs
up-holstered in a tapestry with a floral pattern. O sat in one
occasionally,
but Sir Stephen generally preferred to keep her near at hand, at arm's
length, and while he was busy with other things, to none the less have
her
seated on his desk, to his left. The desk was set at right angles to
the
wall, which allowed O to lean back against the shelves which contained
some
dictionaries and leather-bound phone books. The telephone was snug
against
her left thigh, and every time the phone rang she jumped. It was she
who
picked up the receiver and answered, saying:
"May I ask who's calling?" then either repeating the name out loud
and
passing the receiver to Sir Stephen, or, if he signaled to her, making
some
excuse for him. Whenever he had a visitor, old Norah would announce
him, Sir
Stephen would have him wait long enough for Norah to conduct O back to
the
room where she had undressed and where, after Sir Stephen's visitor
had left,
she would come to fetch her again when Sir Stephen rang for her,
Since Norah entered and left the study several times each morning,
either
to bring Sir Stephen his coffee or to bring in the mail, to open or
draw the
blinds or to empty the ash trays, and since she alone had the right to
enter
and had been expressly instructed never to knock, and since, finally,
she
always waited in silence whenever she had something to say, until Sir
Stephen spoke to her to ask her what it was she wanted, it so happened
that
on one occasion when Norah came into the room O was bent over the desk
with
her rear exposed, her head and arms against the leather top, waiting
for Sir
Stephen to impale her. She raised her head. If Norah had not glanced
at her,
and she invariably never did, that would have been the only movement O
would
have made. But this time it was obvious that Norah was trying to catch
0's
eye. Those black, beady eyes fastened on her own-and it was
impos-sible for
0 to tell whether they bespoke indifference or not-those eyes set in a
deeply furrowed, impassive face so bothered O that she made a movement
to
try and get away from Sir Stephen. He gathered what it was all about,
and
with one hand pinned her waist to the table, while prying her open
with the
other. She who was constantly striving to cooperate and do her best
was now,
quite in-voluntarily, tense and contracted, and Sir Stephen was
obliged to
force his way. Even when he had done so, she felt that the ring of her
buttocks was tightening around him, and he had trouble forcing himself
all
the way into her. He withdrew only when he was certain he could come
and go
with ease. Then, as he was on the point of taking her again, he told
Norah
to wait and said that she could help O get dressed when he had
finished with
her. And yet' before he dismissed her, he kissed O tenderly on the
mouth. It
was that kiss which, several days later, gave her the courage to tell
him
that Norah frightened her.
"I should hope so," he retorted. "And when you wear my mark and my
irons,
as I trust you soon will-if you will consent to it-you'll have much
more
reason to be afraid of her."
"Why?" O asked, and what mark and what irons? I'm already wearing
this
ring...
"That's completely up to Anne-Marie, to whom in fact I've promised to
show
you. We're going to pay her a visit after lunch. I trust you don't
mind?
She's a friend of mine, and you may have noted that' till now, I've
refrained from ever introducing you to my friends. When Anne-Marie is
finished with you, I'll gi've you genuine reasons for being afraid of
Norah."
O did not dare to pursue the matter any further. This Anne-Marie
whom
they had threatened her with intrigued her more than Norah. Sir
Stephen had
already mentioned her when they had lunched together at Saint-Cloud.
And it
was quite true that O knew none of Sir Stephen's friends, nor any of
his
acquaintances. In short' she was living in Paris locked in her secret
as
though she had been locked in a brothel; the only persons who had the
key to
her secret' Rene and Sir Stephen, at the same time had the only key to
her
body. She could not help thinking that the ezpression "open oneself to
someone," which meant to give oneself, for her had only one meaning, a
literal, physi-cal, and in fact absolute meaning, for she was in fact
opening every part of her body which was capable of being opened. It
also
seemed to her that this was her raison d'etre and that Sir Stephen,
like
Rene, intended it should be, since whenever he spoke of his friends as
he
had done at Saint-Cloud, it was to tell her that those to whom he
might
introduce her would, needless to say, be free to dispose of her
however they
wished, if indeed they did. But in trying to visualize Anne-Marie and
imagine what it might be that Sir Stephen expected from Anne" Marie as
far
as she, 0, was concerned, O was completely at sea' and not even her
experience at Roissy was of any help to her. Sir Stephen had also
mentioned
that he waited to see her caress another woman; could that be it? (But
he
had specified that he was referring to Jacqueline
..) No, it wasn't that. "To show your he had just said. Indeed. But
after
she left Anne-Marie, O knew no more than before.
Anne-Marie lived not far from the Observatoire in Paris, in an
apartment
flanked by a kind of large studio, on the top floor of a new building
overlooking the treetops. She was a slender woman, the same age more
or less
as Sir Stephen, and her black hair was streaked with gray. Her eyes
were
such a deep blue they looked black. She offered o and Sir Stephen some
coffee, a very strong, bitter coffee which she served steaming hot in
tiny
cups, and which reassured 0. When she had finished her coffee and got
up
from her chair to put down her empty cup on a coffee table, Anne-Marie
seized her by the wrist and, turning to Sir Stephen, said:
"May I?"
"Please do," Sir Stephen said.
Then Anne-Marie, who till then had neither spoken to nor smiled at
0, even
to greet her or to acknowledge Sir Stephen's introduction, said to her
softly, with a smile so tender one would have thought she were giving
her a
present:
"Come, my child, and let me see your belly and back-side. But better
yet'
why don't you take off all your clothes."
While O obeyed, she lighted a cigarette. Sir Stephen had not taken
his eyes
off 0. They left her standing there for perhaps five minutes. There
was no
mirror in the room, but O caught a vague reflection of herself in the
black
lacquer surface of a screen.
`Take off your stockings too,,' Anne-Mario said sud-denly, `you see,"
she
went on, "you shouldn't wear garters, you'll ruin your thighs." And
with the
tip of her finger she pointed to the spot lust above 0's knees where 0
rolled down her stockings around a wide elastic garter. There was in
fact a
faint mark on her leg.
"Who told you to do that?'
Before O had a chance to reply, Sir Stephen said:
"The boy who gave her to me, you know him, Rene." And he added: `But
I'm
sure he'll come around to your opinion."
"I'm glad to hear it"' said Anne-Marie. "I'm going to give you some
long,
dark stockings, 0, and a corset to hold them up. But it will be a
whalebone
corset one that will be snug at the waist."
When Anne-Marie had rung and a young, blond, silent girl had
brought in
some very sheer, black stockings and a tight-fitting corset of black
nylon
taffeta, reinforced and sustained by wide, close-set stays which
curved in
at the lower belly and above the hips. 0, who was still standing,
shifting
her weight from one foot to the other, slipped on the stockings, which
came
to the top of her thighs. The young blonde helped her into the corset,
which
had a row of buckles along one of the busks on one side near the back.
Like
the bodices at Roissy, this one could be laced lip as tightly or
loosely as
desired, the laces being at the back. O fastened her stockings to the
four
garter-belt snaps in front and on the sides, then the girl set about
lac-
ing her up as tight as she could. O felt her waist and belly being
pressed
inward by the pressure of the stays, that m front descended almost to
the
pubis, which they left free, as they did her hips. The corset was
shorter
behind and left her rear completely free.
She'll be much improved," Anne-Marie said, speaking to Sir Stephen,
"when
her waist is a fraction of its present size. And what's more, if
you're too
pressed for time to have her undress, you'll see that the corset is no
incon-venience. Now then, 0, step over this way."
The girl left, O went over to Anne-Marie, who was sitting in a low
chair,
a small easy chair upholstered in bright red velvet. Anne-Marie ran
her hand
lightly over her buttocks and then, toppling her over an ottoman
simi-lar
to the red velvet chair and ordering her not to move, seized both her
nether
lips.
This is how they lift the fish at the market, O was thinking, by the
gills,
and how they pry open the mouths of horses. She also recalled that the
valet
Pierre, during her first evening at Roissy, had done the same to her
after
having fastened her in chains. After all, she was no longer mistress
of her
own fate, and that part of her of which she was least in control was
most
assuredly that half of her body which could, so to speak:, be put to
use
independ-ently of the rest. Why, each time that she realized this, was
she-
surprised was not really the right word--once again persuaded, why was
she
paralyzed each time by the same feeling of profound distress, a
sentiment
which tended to deliver her not so much into the hands of the person
she was
with as into the hands of him who had turned her over to alien hands,
a
sentiment which drew her closer to Rene when others were possessing
her and
which, here, was tending to draw her closer to whom? To Rene or to Sir
Stephen? She no longer knew. . .. But that was because she did not
want to
know, for it was clear that she had belonged to Sir Stephen now for...
how
long had it been?..
Anne-Marie had her stand up and put her clothes back on.
"You can bring her to me whenever you like," she said to Sir Stephen.
,
,`Tll be at Samois (Samois... O had ex-pected: Roissy. But it did not
mean
Roissy; then what did it mean?) in two days' time. That will be
fine."'
(What would be fine?)
"In ten days, if that suits you," Sir Stephen said, "at the beginning
of
July."
In the car which was driving her back home, Sir Stephen having
remained
behind at Anne-Marie's, she remembered the statue she had seen as a
child in
the Luxembourg Gardens: a woman whose waist had been similarly
con-stricted
and seemed so slim between. her full breasts and plump behind-she was
leaning over limpid waters, a spring which, like her, was carefully
sculptured in marble looking at her reflection-so slim and frail that
she
had been afraid the marble waist would snap. But if that was what Sir
Stephen wanted...
As for Jacqueline, she could handle her easily enough merely by
telling
her the corset was one of Rene's whims. Which brought O back to a
train of
thought she had been trying to avoid whenever it occurred to her, one
which
suprised her above all not to find more painful: why, since Jacqueline
had
moved in with her, had he made an effort not so much to leave her
alone with
Jacqueline, which she could understand, but to avoid being al6ne with
o any
more? July was fast approaching, and he would be going away and would
not be
coming to visit her at this Anne-Marie's where Sir Stephen was sending
her;
must she therefore resign herself to the fact that the only times she
would
see him would be those evenings when he was in the mood to invite
Jacqueline
and her, or--and she didn't know which of the two possibilities upset
her
most (since between them, at this point there was something basically
false,
due to the fact that their relationship was so circumscribed) on those
occasional mornings when, she was at Sir Stephen's and Norah ushered
Rene in
after first having announced his arrival? Sir Stephen always re-ceived
him,
invariably Rene kissed 0, caressed the tips of her breasts,
coordinated his
plans with Sir Stephen for the following day-plans which never
included 0-
and left. Had he given her to Sir Stephen so completely that he had
ceased
to love her? The thought threw O into such a state of panic that,
mechanically, she got out of Sir Stephen's car in front of her house,
instead of telling the chauffeur to wait, and after it had pulled away
she
had to dash off in search of a taxi. Taxis are few and far between on
the
quai de Bethune. O had to run all the way to the boule-vard
Saint-Germain,
and still she had to wait. She was all out of breath and in a sweat,
because
her corset made it hard for her to breathe, when a taxi finally slowed
down
at the corner of the rue Cardinal-Lemoine. She signaled to it, gave
the
driver the address of Rene's office, got in with out knowing whether
Rene
would be there, and, if he was, whether he would see her; it was the
first
time she had gone to his office.
She was not suprised by the impressive building on a side street just
off
the Champs-Elysees, or by the Ameri-can-style offices, but what did
disconcert her was Rene's attitude, although he did receive her
immediately.
Not that he was aggressive or full of reproaches. She would have
preferred
reproaches, for he had never given her per-mission to come and disturb
him
at his office, and it was possible that she was creating a
considerable
disturbance for him. He .dismissed his secretary, told her that he did
not
want to see anyone, and asked her to hold all calls. Then he asked O
what
was the matter.
"I was afraid you didn't love' me any longer," O said.
He laughed. "All of a sudden, just like that?"
"Yes, in the car coming back from..
"Coming back from where?"
O remained silent.
Rene laughed again:
"But I know where you were, silly. Coming back froin Anne-Marie's.
And in
ten days you're going to Samois. Sir Stephen just talked to me on the
phone."
Rene was seated in the only comfortable chair in the office, which
was
facing the table, and O had buried her-self in his arms.
"They can do whatever they want with me, I don't care," she murmured.
"But
tell me you still love me."
"Of course I love you, darling," Rene said, "but I want you to obey
me, and
I'm afraid you're not doing a very good job of it. Did you tell
Jacqueline
that you belonged to Sir Stephen, did you talk to her about Roissy?"
O assured him that she had not. Jacqueline acquiesced to her
caresses, but
the day she should learn that ...
Rene stopped her from completing her sentence, lifted her up and laid
her
down in the chair where he had just been sitting, and bunched up her
skirt.
"Ah ha, so you have your corset," lie said. "It's true that you'll
be much
more attractive when you have a smaller waistline."
Then he took her, and it seemed to O that it had been so long since
he had
that, subconsciously, she realized she had begun to doubt whether he
really
desired her any longer, and in his act she saw a proof of love.
"You know," he said afterward, "you're foolish not to talk to
Jacqueline.
We absolutely need her at Roissy, and the simplest way of getting her
there
would be through you. Besides, when you come back from Anne-Marie's
there
won't be any way of concealing your true condition any longer."
O wanted to know why.
"You'll see," Rene went on. "You still have five days, and only five
days,
because Sir Stephen intends to start whip-ping you again daily, five
days
before he sends you to Anne-Marie's, and there will be no way for you
to
hide the marks. How will you ever explain them to Jacqueline?"
O did not reply. What Rene did not know was that Jacqueline was
completely
egotistical as far as O was con-cerned, being interested in her solely
because of 0's mani-fest, and passionate, interest in her, and she
never
looked at 0. If O were covered with welts from the floggings, all she
would
have to do would be to take care not to bathe in Jacqueline's
presence, and
to wear a nightgown. Jacque-line would never notice a thing. She had
never
noticed that O did not wear panties, and there was no danger she would
notice anything else: the fact was that O did not interest her.
"Listen to me," Rene went on, "there's one thing any-way I want you
to
tell her, and tell her right away, and that is that I'm in love with
her."
"Is that true?" O said.
"I want her," Rene said, "and since you can't-or won't --do anything
about
it, I'll take charge of the matter my-self and do what has to be
done."
"You'll never get her to agree to go to Roissy," O said.
"I won't? In that case," Rene retorted, "we'll force her to."
That night, after dark, when Jacqueline was in bed and O had pulled
the'
covers back to gaze at her in the light of the lamp, after having said
to
her: "Rene's in love with you, you know"-for she had delivered the
message
and delivered it without delay-O, who a month before had been
horrified at
the idea of seeing this delicate wisp of a body scored by the lash,
these
narrow loins quartered, the pure mouth screaming, and the fair down on
her
cheeks streaked with tears, O now repeated to herself Rene's final
words,
and was happy.
With Jacqueline gone and not due back until the be-ginning of August,
if
they had finished shooting the film she was making, there was nothing
further to keep O in Paris. July was around the corner, all the
gardens in
Paris were bursting with crimson geraniums, at noon all the shutters
in town
were closed, and Rene was complaining that he would have to make a
trip to
Scotland. For a moment O was hoping that he would take her along. But
apart
from the fact that he never took her anywhere to see his family, she
knew
that he would surrender her to Sir Stephen, if he were to ask for her.
Sir Stephen announced that he would come for her the same day that
Rene'
was flying to London. She was on vacation.
"We're going down to Anne-Marie's," he said, "she's expecting you.
Don't
bother packing a suitcase, you won't need anything."
Their destination was not the apartment near the Ob-servatoire where
0
had first met Anne-Marie, but a low-lying two-story house at the end
of a
large garden, on the edge of the Fontainebleau Forest. Since that
first day,
0 had been wearing the whalebone corset that Anne-Marie had deemed so
essential: each day she had tightened it a little more, until now her
waist
was scarcely larger than the circle formed by her ten fingers;
Anne-Marie
ought to be pleased.
When they arrived it was two o'clock in the afternoon, the whole
house was
asleep, and the dog barked faintly when they rang the bell: a big,
shaggy,
sheepdog that sniffed at 0's knees beneath her skirt. Anne-Marie was
sitting
under a copper beech tree on the edge of the lawn which, in one corner
of
the garden, faced the windows of her bedroom. She did not get up.
"Here's 0," Sir Stephen said. "You know what has to be done with
her.
"When will she be ready?"
Anne-Marie glanced at 0. "You mean you haven't told her? All right,
I'll
begin immediately. You should probably allow ten days after it's over.
I
imagine you'll want to put the rings and monogram on yourself? Come
back in
two weeks. The whole business should be finished two weeks after
that."
O started to ask a question.
"Just a minute, 0," Anne-Marie said, "go into the front bedroom over
there,, get undressed but keep your sandals on, and come back.'
The room, a large white bedroom with heavy purple Jouy print drapes,
was
empty. O put her bag, her gloves, and her clothes on a small chair
near a
closet door. There was no mirror. She went back outside and, dazzled
by the
bright sunlight, walked slowly back over to the shade of the beech
tree. Sir
Stephen was still standing in front of Anne-Marie, the dog at his
feet.
Anne-Marie's black hair, streaked with gray, shone as though she had
used
some kind of cream on it, her blue eyes seemed black. She was dressed
in
white, with a patent-leather belt around her waist, and she was
wearing
patent-leather sandals which revealed the bright red nail polish on
the
toenails of her bare feet, the same color polish she was wearing on
her
fingernails.
"0," she said, "kneel down in front of Sir Stephen."
O obliged, her arms crossed behind her back, the tips of her breasts
quivering. The dog tensed, as though he were about to spring at her.
"Down, Turk," Anne-Marie ordered. Then: "Do you consent, 0, to bear
the
rings and the monogram with which Sir Stephen desires you to be
marked,
without knowing how they will be placed upon you?"
"I do, "O said.
"All right then, I'm going to walk Sir Stephen to his car. Stay
here."
As Anne-Marie got up from her chaise longue, Sir Stephen bent down
and took
0's breasts in his hands. He kissed her on the mouth and murmured:
"Are you mine, 0, are you really mine?" then turned and left her, to
follow Anne-Marie. The gate banged shut, Anne-Marie was coming back.
0, her
legs folded beneath her, was sitting on her heels and had her arms on
her
knees, like an Egyptian statue.
There were three other girls living in the house, all of whom had a
bedroom on the second floor. O was given a small bedroom on the ground
floor,
adjoining Anne-Marie's. Anne-Marie called up to them to come down into
the
garden. Like 0, all three of them were naked. The only persons in this
gynaeceum-which was carefully con-cealed by the high walls and by
closed
shutters over the windows which overlooked a narrow dirt road --the
only
persons who wore clothes were Anne-Marie and the three servants: a
cook and
two maids, all of whom were older than Anne-Marie, three severe, dour
women
in their black alpaca skirts and stiffly starched aprons.
"Her name is 0," said Anne-Marie, who bad sat down again. "Bring her
over
to me so I can get a better look a her. Two of the girls helped O to
her
feet: they were both brunettes, their hair as dark as their fleece
below,
and the nipples of their breasts were large and dark, almost purple.
The
other girl was a short, plump redhead, and the chalky skin of her
bosom was
crisscrossed by a terrifying network of green veins. The two girls
pushed 0
till she was right next to Anne-Marie, who pointed to the three black
stripes that showed on the front of her thighs and were repeated on
her
buttocks.
"Who whipped you?" she asked. "Sir Stephen?"
"Yes," O said.
"When? and with what?"
"Three days ago, with a riding crop."
"Starting tomorrow, and for a month thereafter, you will not be
whipped.
But today you will, to mark your arrival, as soon as I've had a chance
to
examine you. Has Sir Stephen ever whipped you on the inside of your
thighs,
with you legs spread wide? No? It's true, men don't know how to. Well,
we'll
soon see Show me your waist. Yes, it's much better!"
Anne-Marie pressed 0's waist to make it even more wasplike. Then she
sent
the redhead to fetch another cor-set and had them put it on her. It
was
also made of black nylon, but was so stiffly whaleboned and so narrow
that
it looked for all the world like an extremely wide belt. It had no
garter
straps. One of the girls laced it up as tight as. she could, with
Anne-Marie
lending her encouragement as she pulled on the laces as hard as she
could.
"This is dreadful," O said. "I don't know whether I can bear it."
"That's the whole point, Anne-Marie said. "You're much much lovelier
than
you were, but the problem was you didn't lace it tight enough. You're
going
to wear it this way every day. `But tell me now, how did Sir Stephen
prefer
using you? I need to know."
She had seized 0's womb with her whole hand, and O could not reply.
Two of
the girls were seated on the lawn, the third, one of the brunettes,
was
seated on the foot of Anne-Marie's chaise longue.
"Turn her around for me, girls, so I can see her back," Anne-Marie
said.
She was turned around and bent over, and the hands of both girls
vented
her.
"Of course," Anne-Marie went on, "there was no need for you to tell
me.
You'll have to be marked on the rear. Stand up. We're going to put on
your
bracelets. Colette, go get the box, we'll draw lots to see who will
whip you.
. Bring the tokens, Colette, then we'll go to the music room.
Colette was the taller of the two dark-haired girls, the other's
name was
Claire; the short redhead was named Yvonne. O had not noticed till now
that
they were all wearing, as at Roissy, a leather collar and leather
bracelets
on their wrists. They were also wearing similar bracelets around their
ankles.
When Yvonne had chosen some bracelets that fit O and put them on her,
Anne-
Marie handed O four tokens and asked her to give one to each of the
girls,
without looking at the numbers on them. O handed out the tokens. The
three
girls each looked at theirs but said nothing, waiting for Anne-Marie
to
speak.
"I have number two," Anne-Marie said. "Who has num-ber one?"
Colette had number one.
"All right, take O away, she's all yours."
Colette seized 0's arms and joined her hands behind her back; she
fastened
the bracelets together and pushed O ahead of her. On the threshold of
a
French door that opened into a small wing which formed an L with the
front
of the house, Yvonne, who was leading the way, removed her sandals.
The
light entering through the French door revealed `a room the far end of
which
formed a kind of raised rotunda; the ceiling, in the shape of a
shallow
cupola, was supported by two narrow columns set about six feet apart.
This
dais was about four steps high and, in the area between the columns,
projected further into the room in a gentle arc. The floor of the
rotunda,
like that of the rest of the room, was covered with a red felt carpet.
The
walls were white, the curtains on the windows red, and the sofas set
in a
semicircle facing the rotunda were upholstered in the same red felt
material
as the carpet on the floor. In the rectangular portion of the room
there was
a fireplace which was wider than it was deep, and opposite the
fireplace a
large console-type combination record player and radio, with shelves
of
records on both sides. This was why it was called the music room,
which
communicated directly with Anne-Marie's bedroom via a door near the
fireplace. The identical door on the other "side of the fireplace
opened
into a closet. Aside from the record player and the sofas, the room
had no
furniture.
While Colette had O sit down on the edge of the plat-form, which in
this
center portion between the columns made a vertical drop to the
floor-the
steps having been placed to the' left and right of the columns-the two
other
girls, after first having closed the Venetian blinds a trifle, shut
the
French door. O was surprised to note that it was a double door, and
Anne-
Marie, who was laughing, said:
"That's so no one can hear you scream. And the walls are lined with
cork.
Don't worry, no one can hear the slightest thing that goes on in here.
Now
lie down."
She took her by both shoulders and laid her back, then pulled her
slightly
forward. 0's hands were clutching the edge of the platform-Yvonne
having
attached them to a ring set in the platform-and her buttocks were thus
sus-
pended in mid-air. Anne-Marie made her raise her legs toward her
chest, then
0 suddenly felt her legs, still doubled-up above' her, being pulled
taut in
the same direc-tion: straps had been fastened to her ankle bracelets
and
thence to the columns on either side, while she lay thus between them
on
this raised dais exposed in such a way that the only part of her which
was
visible was the double cleft of her womb and her buttocks violently
quartered. Anne-Marie caressed the inside of her thighs.
"It's the most tender spot of the whole body," she said, "be careful
not
to harm it. Not too hard now, Colette."
Colette was standing over her, astride her at the level of her
waist, and
in the bridge formed by her dark legs O could see the tassles of the
whip
she was holding in her hand. As the first blows burned into her loins,
0
moaned. Colette alternated from left to right, paused, then started
again. 0
struggled with all her might, she thought the straps would tear her
limb
from limb. She did not want to grovel, she did not want to beg for
mercy.
And yet that was precisely what Anne-Marie intended wringing from her
lips.
"Faster,' she said to Colette, "and harder."
O braced herself, but it was no use. A minute later she could bear
it no
more, she screamed and burst into tears, while Anne-Marie caressed her
face.
"Just a second longer," she said, "and it will be over. Only five
more
minutes. She can scream for five minutes. It's twenty-five past,
Colette.
Stop when it's half past,
when I tell you to."
But O was screaming:
"No, no, for God's sake don't!" screaming that she couldn't bear it,
no,
she couldn't bear the torture another second. And yet she endured it
to the
bitter end, and after Colette had left the little stage, Anne-Marie
smiled
at her.
"Thank me," she said to 0, and O thanked her.
She knew very well why Anne-Marie had wanted, above all else, to
have her
whipped. That the female of the species was as cruel as, and more
Implacable
than, the male, O had never doubted for a minute. But O suspected -
that
Anne-Marie was less interested' in making a spectacle of her power
than she
was in establishing between O and herself a sense of complicity. O had
never
really under- - stood, but she had finally come to accept as an
undeniable
and important verity, this constant and contradictory jumble of her
emotions: she liked the idea of torture, but when she was being
tortured
herself she would have be-frayed the whole world to escape it, and yet
when
it was over she was happy to have gone through it, happier still if it
had
been especially cruel and prolonged. Anne-Marie had been correct in
her
assumptions both as to 0's acqui-escence and as to her revolt, and
knew
that her pleas for mercy were indeed genuine. There was still a third
reason
for what she had done, which she explained to 0. She was bent on
proving to
every girl who came into her house, and who was fated to live in a
totally
feminine universe, that her condition as a woman should not be
minimized or
denigrated by the fact that she was in contact only with other women,
but
that, on the contrary, it should be heightened and intensified. That
was why
she required that the girls be constantly naked; the way in which O
was
flogged, as well as the position in which she was bound, had no other
purpose. Today it was O who would remain for the rest of the
afternoon-for
three more hours-exposed on the dais, her legs raised and spread.
Tomorrow
it would be Claire, or Colette, or Yvonne, whom O would contemplate in
turn.
It was a technique much too slow and meticulous (as was the way the
whip was
wielded) to be used at Roissy. But O would see how efficient it was.
Apart
from the rings and the letters she would wear when she left, she would
be
returned to Sir Stephen -more open, and more profoundly enslaved, than
she
had ever before thought was possible.
The following morning, after breakfast, Anne-Marie told O and
Yvonne to
follow her into her bedroom. From her writing desk she took a green
leather
coffer which she set on the bed and proceeded to open. Both girls
squatted
on their heels.
"Hasn't Yvonne said anything to you about this?" Anne-Marie asked 0.
O shook her head. What was there for Yvonne to tell her?
"And I know Sir Stephen didn't either. No matter. Any-way, here are
the
rings he wants you to wear."
The rings were of stainless steel, unburnished, the same dull finish
as
the gold-plated iron ring. They were oblong in shape, similar to the
links
of a heavy chain, the rounded metal being approximately as thick as
the
diameter of an oversized coloring pencil. Anne-Marie showed O that
each
ring was composed of two U-shaped halves, one of which fitted into
the
other.
"This is only the test model," she said, "which can be removed after
it's
been inserted. The permanent model, you see, has a spring inside, and
when
you press on it it locks into the female slot of the other half of the
ring
and cannot be removed, except by filing."
Each ring was as long as two joints of the little finger and wide
enough
for the same little finger to slip through it. To each ring was
suspended,
like another ring, Qr as though to the supporting loop of an earring,
a ring
which was meant to hang parallel to the plane of the ear and form its
extension, a round disk made of the same metal, whose diameter was the
same
size as the ring was long. On one of its faces, a triskelion in gold
inlay;
on the oppo. site face, nothing.
"On the blank side will be your name, your title, and Sir Stephen's
family
and given names," Anne-Marie said, "with, below it, a design composed
of a
crossed whip and riding crop. Yvonne is wearing a disk just like it on
her
necklace, but yours will be worn on your loins."
"But . . . ;` O ventured.
"I know," Anne-Marie replied, "That's why I brought Yvonne along.
Show
yours, Yvonne."
The red-haired girl rose to her feet and lay back on the bed.
Anne-Marie
spread her thighs and showed O that one of the nether lobes had been
neatly
pierced, half way down and close to the base. The iron ring would just
fit
into it.
"In a moment I'll pierce you, 0," Anne-Marie said. "It's nothing
really.
What takes the longest is placing the clamps so as to be able to
suture the
outer and inner layers, attach the epidermis to the inner membrane.
It's
much easier to bear than the whip."
"You mean to say you won't put me to sleep?" O cried, trembling.
"Of course not," Anne-Marie replied. "You'll merely be tied a little
more
tightly than you were yesterday. That's really quite sufficient. Now
come
along."
A week later Anne-Marie removed the clamps and slipped on the test
ring.
It was lighter than it looked, for it was hollow, but still O could
feel its
weight. The hard metal, which was visibly piercing the flesh, looked
like an
instrument of torture. What would it be like when the weight of the
second
ring was added to it? This barbaric instrument would be immediately
and
glaringly apparent to the most casual glance. · "Of course it will,"
Anne-
Marie said, when O pointed this out to her. "But aren't you by now
fully
aware of what Sir Stephen wants? Anyone, at Roissy or anywhere else,
Sir
Stephen or any6ne else, even you in front of the mirror, anyone who
lifts
your skirts will immediately see his rings on your loins and, if you
turn
around, his monogram on your buttocks. You may possibly file the rings
off
one day, but the brand on your backside will never come off."
"`I thought it was possible to have tattoos removed," Colette said.
(It
was she who had tattooed, on Yvonne's white skin just above the
triangle of
her belly, the initials of Yvonne's master in ornate blue letters,
like the
letters you find on embroidery.)
"0 will not be tattooed," replied Anne-Marie.
O looked at Anne'-Marie. Colette and Yvonne were stunned, and said
nothing.
Anne-Marie was fumbling for her words.
"Go ahead and say it," O said.
"My poor dear girl, I just couldn't work up the courage to tell you:
you're to be branded. Sir Stephen sent me the branding irons two days
ago.
"Branded?" Yvonne cried, "with a red-hot branding iron?"
From the first day, O had shared in the life of the house.
Idleness,
absolute and deliberate idleness was the order of the day,
interspersed with
dull distractions. The girls were at liberty to walk in the garden, to
read,
draw, play cards, play solitaire. They could sleep' in their rooms or
sunbathe on the lawn. Sometimes two of them would chat, or they would
talk
together in pairs for hours on end, and some-times they would sit at
Anne-
Marie's feet with6ut uttering a word. Mealtimes were always the same,
dinner
was by candlelight, tea was served in the garden, and there was
something
absurd about the matter-of-fact way in which the two servants served
these
naked girls seated around a festive table.
In the evening, Anne-Marie would designate one of them to sleep with
her,
sometimes the same one several nights in succession. She caressed her
chosen
partner and was by her caressed, generally toward dawn, and then she
would
immediately fall asleep, after having sent her part-ner back to her
own
room. The purple drapes, only half closed, tinted the dawning day
mauve, and
Yvonne used to say that Anne-Marie was as beautiful and haughty in
receiving
pleasure as she was unstinting in her demands. None of them had ever
seen
her naked. She would pull up or open slightly her white nylon
nightgown, but
would not take it off. Neither the pleasure she may have tasted the
night
before nor her choice of partner the previous evening had the least
influence on her decision the follow-ing afternoon, which was always
determined by a drawing. At three in the afternoon, beneath the copper
beech
where the garden chairs were grouped about a round, white-marble
table,
Anne-Marie would bring out the token box. Each girl would take a
token.
Whoever drew the lowest number was then taken. to the music room and
arranged on the dais as O had been that first day. She then had to
point to
(save for 0, who was exempted until her departure) Anne-Marie's right
or
left hand, in each of which she was holding a white or black ball. If
she
chose black, she was flogged; white, she was not. Anne-Marie never
resorted
to chicanery, even if chance condemned or spared the same girl several
days
in a row. Thus the tor-ture of little Yvonne, who sobbed and cried out
for
her lover, was repeated four days running. Her thighs, like her
breasts
crisscrossed with a green network of veins, spread to reveal a pink
flesh
which was pierced by the thick iron ring,' which had finally been
inserted,
and the spectacle was all the more striking because Yvonne was
completely
shaved.
"But why?" O wanted to know, and why the ring if you are already
wearing a
disk on your collar?"
"He says I'm more naked when I'm shaved, The ring, I think the ring
is to
fasten me with."
Yvonne's green eyes and her tiny triangular face re-minded O of
Jacqueline
every time she looked at her. What if Jacqueline were to go to Roissy?
Sooner or later, Jacqueline would end up here, would here be strapped
on her
back on this platform.
"I won't," O would say, "I don't want to and I won't `lift a finger
to get
her there. As it is, I've already said too much. Jacqueline's not the
sort
to be flogged and marked."
But how admirably suited to blows and irons was little Yvonne, how
lovely
it was to hear her moans and sighs, how lovely too to witness her body
soaked with per-spiration, `and what a pleasure to wrest the moans and
the
sweat from her. For on two occasions Anne-Marie had handed O the
thonged
whip--both times the victim had been Yvonne--and told her to use it.
The
first time for the first minute, she had hesitated, and at Yvonne's
first
scream O had recoiled and cringed, but as soon as she had started in
again
and Yvonne's cries had echoed anew, she had been overwhelmed with a
terrible
feeling of pleasure, a feeling so intense that she had caught herself
laughing in spite of herself, and she had found it almost impossible
to
restrain herself from striking Yvonne as hard as she could. Afterward
she
had remained next to Yvonne throughout the entire period of time she
was
kept tied up, embracing her from time to time. In some ways, she
probably
re-sembled Yvonne. At least one was led to suspect as much by the way
Anne-
Marie felt about them both. Was it 0's silence, her meekness that
endeared
her to Anne-Marie? Scarcely had 0's wounds healed than Anne-Marie re-
marked:
"How I regret not to be able to whip you! . .. When you come back...
But
let's say no more about it. In any event, I'm going to open you every
day."
And, daily, when the girl who was in the music room had been untied,
0
would replace her until the bell rang for dinner. And Anne-Marie was
right:
it was true that during those two hours all she could think of was the
fact
that she was opened, and of the ring, hanging heavily from her (after
one
had been placed there) which, after they had inserted the second ring,
weighed even more. She could think of nothing save her enslaved
condition,
and of the marks that went with it.
One evening Claire had come in with Colette from the garden, come
over to 0
and examined both sides of the rings.
"when you went to Roissy," she said, "was it Anne-Marie who brought
you
there?"
"No,"O said.
"It was Anne-Marie who brought me, two years ago. I'm going back
there the
day after tomorrow."
"But don't you belong to anyone?" O said.
"Claire belongs to me," said Anne-Marie, appearing from nowhere.
"Your
master's arriving tomorrow, 0. To-night you'll sleep with me."
The short summer night waxed slowly brighter until, toward four
o'clock,
daylight drowned the last stars. 0, who was sleeping with her legs
together,
was awakened by Anne-Marie's hands probing between her thighs. But all
Anne-
Marie wanted was to awaken 0, to have O caress her. Her eyes were
shining in
the half light, and her black hair, with the streaks of gray
interspersed,
was pushed lip behind her on the pillow: only slightly curly, and cut
quite
short, it made her look like some mighty nobleman in exile, like some
brave
libertine. With her lips, O brushed the hard tips of her breasts, and
her
hand ran lightly over the valley of her belly. Anne-Marie was quick to
yield-but not to 0. The pleasure to which she opened her eyes wide,
staring
at the growing daylight, was an anonymous, impersonal pleasure of
which 0
was merely the instrument. It made no difference whatever to
Anne-Marie
that O admired her face, smooth and glowing with renewed youth, her
lovely
panting lips, nor did she care whether O heard her moan when her lips
and
teeth seized the crest of flesh hidden in the furrow of her belly. She
merely seized O by the hair to press her more closely to her, and only
let
her go in order to say to her:
"Again, do it again."
O had loved Jacqueline in the same way, had held her completely
abandoned
in her arms. She had possessed her; or at least so she thought. But
the
similarity of gestures meant nothing. O did not possess Anne-Marie. No
one
possessed. Anne-Marie. Anne-Marie demanded caresses without worrying
about
what the person providing them might feel, and she surrendered herself
with
an arrogant liberty. Yet she was all kindness and gentleness with 0,
kissed
her on the mouth and kissed her breasts, and held her close against
her for
an hour before sending her back to her own room. She had removed her
irons.
"These are your final hours here," she said, "you can sleep without
the
irons. The ones we'll put on you in a little while you'll never be
able to
take off.
She had run her hand softly, and at great length, over 0's rear,
then had
taken her into the room where she,' Anne-Marie, dressed, the only room
in
the house where there was a three-sided mirror. She had opened the
mir-ror
so that O could see herself.
"This is the last time you'll see yourself intact," she said..
"Here, on
this smooth, rounded area is where Sir Stephen's Initials will be
branded,
on either side of the cleft in your behind. The day before you leave
I'll
bring you back here for another look at yourself. You won't recognize
yourself. But Sir Stephen is right. Now go and get some sleep, 0.',
But O was too worried and upset to sleep, and when at ten the next
morning
Yvonne came to fetch her, O was trembling so that she had to help her
bathe,
arrange her hair, and put on her lipstick. She had heard the garden
gate
open; Sir Stephen was there.
"Come along now, 0," Yvonne said, "he's waiting for you."
The sun was already high in the sky, not a breath of air was
stirring in
the leaves of the beech tree, which looked as though it were made out
of
copper. The dog, overcome by the heat, was lying at the foot of the
tree,
and since the sun had not yet disappeared behind the main mass of
foliage,
its rays shot through. the end of the only branch which, at this hour,
cast
a shadow on the table: the marble top was resplendent with bright'
warm
spots of light.
Sir Stephen was standing, motionless, beside the table, Anne-Marie
seated
beside him.
"Here she is," said Anne-Marie, when Yvonne had brought O before
them, "the
rings can be put on whenever you like, she's been pierced."
Without replying, Sir Stephen took O in his arms, kissed her on the
mouth
and, lifting her completely off her feet, lay her down on the table
and bent
over her. Then he kissed her again, caressed her eyebrows and her hair
and,
straightening up, said to Anne-Marie:
"Right now, if it's all right with you."
Anne-Marie took the leather coffer which she had brought Out with
her and
set down on a chair, and handed Sir Stephen the rings, `which were
unhooked,
and on which were inscribed the names of O and Sir Stephen.
"Any time," Sir Stephen said.
Yvonne lifted 0's knees, and O felt the cold metal as Anne-Marie
slipped
it into place. As she was slipping the second half of the ring into
the
first, she was careful to seQ that the side inlaid with gold was
against her
thigh, and the side which bore the inscription facing inward. But the
spring
was so tight that the prongs would not go in all the way. They had to
send
Yvonne to fetch the hammer. Then they made O sit up and lean over,
with her
legs spread, on the edge of the marble slab, which served as an anvil
first
for one then the other of the two links of the chain, while they hit
the
other end with a hammer to drive the prongs home. Sir Stephen looked
on in
silence. When it was over he thanked Anne-Marie and helped O to her
feet. It
was then she realized that these new irons were much heavier than the
ones
she had been wearing tempo-rarily for the past few days. But these
were
permanent.
"And now your monogram, right?" Anne-Marie said to Sir Stephen.
Sir Stephen nodded assent, and held O by the waist, for she was
stumbling
and looked as though she might fall. She was not wearing her black
corset,
but it had so molded her into the desired shape that she looked as
though
she might break, so slim was her waistline now. And, as a result, her
hips
and breasts seemed fuller.
In the music room, into which Sir Stephen carried rather than led
0,
Colette and Claire were seated at the foot of the stage. When the
others
came m, they both got to their feet. On the stage was a big, round
single-
burner stove. Anne-Marie took the straps from the closet and had them
tie 0
tightly around the waist and knees, her belly hard against one of the
columns. They also bound her hands and feet. Consumed by fear and
terror, 0
felt one of Anne-Marie's hands on her buttocks, indicating the exact
spot
for the irons, she heard the hiss of a flame and, in total silence,
heard
the window being closed. She could have turned her head and looked,
but she
did not have the strength to. One single, frightful' stab of pain
coursed
through her, made her go rigid in her bonds and wrenched a scream from
her
lips, and she never knew who it was who had, with both branding irons
at
once, seared the flesh of her buttocks, nor whose voice had counted
slowly
up to five, nor whose hand had given the signal to with-draw the
irons.
When they unfastened her, she collapsed into Anne-Marie's arms and
had
time, before everything turned black around her and she completely
lost
consciousness, to catch a glimpse, between two waves of darkness, of
Sir
Stephen's ghastly pale face.
Ten days before the end of July, Sir Stephen drove O back to Paris.
The
irons attached to the left lobe of her belly's cleft, proclaiming in
bold
letters that she was Sir Stephen's personal property, came about a
third of
the way down her thigh and, at every step, swung back and forth
between her
legs like the clapper of a bell, the in-scribed disk being heavier and
longer than the ring to which it was attached. The marks made by the
branding iron, about three inches in height and half that in width,
had been
burned into the flesh as though by a gouging tool, and were almost
half an
inch deep: the lightest stroke of the finger revealed them. From these
irons
and these marks, O derived a feeling of inordinate pride. Had
Jacqueline
been there, instead of trying to conceal from her the fact that she
bore
them, as she had tried to hide the traces of the welts raised by the
riding
crop which Sir Stephen had wielded during those last days before her
departure, she would have gone running in search of Jacqueline, to
show them
to her. But Jacqueline was not due back for another week. Rene wasn't
there.
During that week, 0, at Sir Stephen's behest, had several summer
dresses
made, and a number of evening gowns of a very light material. He
allowed her
only two models, but let her order variations on both: one with a
zipper all
the way down the front (0 already had several like it), the other a
full
skirt, easy to lift, always with a corselet above, which came up to
below
the breasts and was worn with a high-necked bolero. All one had to do
was
remove the bolero and the shoulders and breasts were bare, or simply
to open
it if one desired to see the breasts. Bathing snits, of course, were
out of
the question; the nether irons would hang below the suit. Sir Stephen
had
told her that this summer she would have to swim naked whenever she
went
swimming. Beach slacks were also out. However, Anne-Marie, who was
responsible for the two basic models of dresses, knowing where Sir
Stephen's
preference lay in using 0, had proposed a type of slacks which would
be
supported in front by the blouse and, on both sides, have long
zippers, thus
allowing the back flap to be lowered without taking off the slacks.
But Sir
Stephen refused. It was true that he used 0, when he did not have
recourse
to her mouth, almost invariably as he would have a boy. But O had had
ample
opportunity to notice that when she was near him, even when he did not
particularly desire her, he loved to take hold of her womb,
mechanically as
it were, take hold of and tug at her fleece with his hand, to pry her
open
and burrow at length within. The pleasure O derived from holding
Jacqueline
in much the same way, moist and burning between her locked fingers,
was
ample evidence and a guarantee of Sir Stephen's pleasure. She
understood
`why he did not want any extraneous obstacles set in. the path of that
pleasure.
Hatless, wearing practically no make-up, her hair com-pletely free,
0
looked like a well-brought-up little girl, dressed as she was in her
twilled
stripe or polka dot, navy blue-and-white or gray-and-white pleated
sun-
skirts and the fitted bolero buttoned at the neck, or in her more con-
servative dresses of black nylon. Everywhere Sir Stephen escorted her
she
was taken for his daughter, or his niece, and this mistake was abetted
by
the fact that he, in ad-dressing her, employed the tu form, whereas
she
employed the vous. Alone together in Paris, strolling through the
streets to
window shop, or walking along the quays, where the paving stones were
dusty
because the weather had been so dry, they evinced no surprise at
seeing the
pass-ers-by smile at them, the way people smile at people who are
happy.
Once in a while Sir Stephen would push her into the recess of a
porte-
cochere, or beneath the archway of a building, which was always
slightly
dark, and from which there rose the musty odor of ancient cellars, and
he
would kiss her and tell her he loved her. O would hook her heels over
the
sill of the porte-cochere out of which the regular pedestrian door bad
been
cut. They caught a glimpse of a courtyard in the rear, with lines of
laundry
drying in the windows. Leaning on one of the balconies, a blond girl
would
be staring fixedly at them. A cat would slip between their legs. Thus
did
they stroll through the Gobelins dis-trict, by Saint-Marcel, along the
rue
Mouffetard, to the area known as the Temple, and to the Bastille.
Once Sir Stephen suddenly steered O into a wretched brothel-like
hotel,
where the desk clerk first wanted them to fill out the forms, but then
said
not to bother if it was only for an hour-. The wallpaper in the room
was
blue, with enormous golden peonies, the window looked out onto a pit
whence
rose the odor of garbage cans. How-ever weak the light bulb at the
head of
the bed, you could' still see streaks of face powder and forgotten
hairpins
on the mantelpiece. On the ceiling above the bed was a large mirror.
Once, but only once, Sir Stephen invited O to lunch with two of his
compatriots who were passing through Paris. He came for her an hour
before
she was ready, and instead of having her driven to his place, he came
to the
quai de Bethune.
O had finished bathing, but she had not done her hair or put on her
rnake-
up, and was not dressed. To her sur-prise, she saw that Sir Stephen
was
carrying a golf bag, though she saw no clubs in it. But she soon got
over
her surprise: Sir Stephen told her to open the bag. Inside were
several
leather riding crops, two fairly thick ones of red leather, two that
were
long and thin of black leather, a scourge with long lashes of green
leather,
each of which was folded back at the end to form a loop, a dog's whip
made
of a thick, single lash whose handle was of braided leather and, last
but
not least, leather bracelets of the sort used at Roissy, plus some
rope. 0
laid them out side by side on the unmade bed, No matter how accustomed
she
became to seeing them, no matter what resolutions she made about them,
she
could not keep from trembling. Sir Stephen took her in his arms.
"Which do you prefer, 0?" he asked her.
But she could hardly speak, and already could feel the sweat running
down
her arms.
"Which do you prefer?" he repeated. "All right," he said, confronted
by
her silence, "first you're going to help me."
He asked her for some nails, and having found a way to arrange them
in a
decorative manner, whips and riding crops crossed, he showed O a panel
of
wainscoting be-tween her mirror and the fireplace, opposite her bed,
which
would be ideal for them. He hammered some nails into the wood. There
were
rings on the ends of the handles of the whips and riding crops, by
which
they could be suspended from the nails, a system which allowed each
whip to
be easily taken down and returned to its place on the wall. Thus,
together
with the bracelets and the rope, O would have, opposite her bed, the
complete array of her instruments of torture. It was a handsome
panoply, as
harmonious as the wheel and spikes in the paintings of Saint Catherine
the
Martyr, as the nails and hammer, the crown of thorns, the spear and
scourges
portrayed in the paintings of the Crucifixion. When Jacqueline came
back
but all this involved Jacqueline, involved her deeply. She would
have to
reply to Sir Stephen's question: O could ;not' he chose the dog whip
himself.
In a tiny private dining room of the La Perouse restau-rant, along
the
quays of the Left Bank, a room on the third floor whose dark walls
were
brightened by Watteau-like figures in pastel colors who resembled
actors of
the puppet theater, O was ensconced alone on the sofa, with one of Sir
Stephen's friends in an armchair to her right, another to her left,
and Sir
Stephen across from her. She remem-bered already having seen one of
the men
at Roissy, but she could not recall having been taken by him. The
other was
a tall, red-haired boy with gray eyes, who could not have been more
than
twenty-five. In two words, Sir Stephen told them why he had invited 0,
and
what she was. Listening to him, O was once again astonished at the
coarseness of his language. But then, how did she expect to be
referred to,
if not as a whore, a girl who, in the pres-ence of three men (not to
mention the restaurant waiters who kept trooping in and out, since
luncheon
was still being served) would open her bodice to bare her breasts, the
tips
of which had been reddened with lipstick, as they could see, as they
could
also see from the purple furrows across her milk-white skin that she
had
been flogged?
The meal went on for a long time, and the two English-men drank a
great
deal. Over coffee, when the liqueurs had been served, Sir Stephen
pushed the
table back against the opposite wall and, after having lifted her
skirt to
show his friends how O was branded and in irons, left her to them.
The man she had met at Roissy wasted no time with her: without
leaving his
armchair, without even touching her with his fingertips, he ordered
her to
kneel down in `front of him, take him and caress his sex until he dis-
charged in her mouth. After which, he made her straighten out his
clothing,
and then he left.
But the red-haired lad, who had been completely over-whelmed by 0's
submissiveness and meek surrender, by her irons and the welts which he
had
glimpsed on her body, took her by the hand instead of throwing himself
upon
her as she had expected, and descended the stairs, paying not the
slightest
heed to the sly smiles of the wait-ers and, after hailing a taxi, took
her
back to his hotel room. He did not let her go till nightfall,. after
having
frantically plowed her fore and aft--both of which he. bruised and be-
labored unmercifully, he being of an uncommon size and rigidity and,
what is
more, being totally intoxicated by the sudden freedom granted him to
penetrate a woman doubly and be embraced by her in the way he had seen
her
ordered to a short while before (something he had never before dared
ask of
anyone).
The' following day, when O arrived at Sir Stephen's at two o'clock
in
answer to his summons, she found him looking older and his face
careworn.
"Eric has fallen head over heels in love with you, 0," he told her.
"This
morning he called on me and begged me to grant you your freedom. He
told me
he wants to marry you. He wants to save you. You see how I treat you
if
you're mine, 0, and if you are mine you have no right to refuse my
commands;
but you also know that you are always free to choose not to be mine. I
told
him so. He's coming back here at three."
O burst out laughing. "Isn't it a little late?" she said. "You're
both
quite mad. If Eric had not come by this morning, what would you have
done
with me this after-noon? We would have gone for a walk, nothing more?
Then
let's go for a walk. Or perhaps you would not have summoned me this
afternoon? In that case I'll leave..."
"No," Sir `Stephen broke in, "I would have called you, but not to go
for a
walk. I wanted..."
"Go on, say it."
"Come, it will be simpler to show you.
He got up and opened a door in the wall opposite the fireplace, a
door
identical to the one into his office.
O had always thought that the door led into a closet which was no
longer
used. She saw a tiny bedroom, newly painted, and hung with dark red
silk.
Half of the room was occupied by a rounded stage flanked by two
columns,
identical to the stage in the music room at Samois.
"The walls and ceiling are lined with cork, are they not?" O said.
"And the
door is padded, and you've had a double window installed?"
Sir Stephen nodded.
"But since when has all this been done?" O said.
"Since you've been back."
"Then why?..."
"Why did I wait until today? Because I first wanted to hand you over
to
other men. Now I shall punish you for it. I 'e never punished you,
0.',
"But I belong to you," O said. "Punish me. When Eric comes..."
An hour later, when he was shown a grotesquely bo'und and
spread-eagled 0
strapped to the two columns, the boy blanched, mumbled something, and
disappeared. O thought she would never see him again. She ran into him
again
at Roissy, at the end of September, and he had her consigned to him
for
three days in a row, during which he savagely abused and mistreated
her.
IV
The Owl
What O failed completely to understand now was why she had ever
been
hesitant to speak to Jacqueline about what Rene rightly called her
true
condition. Anne-Marie had warned her that she would be changed when
she left
Samois, but O had never imagined the change would be so great. With
Jacqueline back, more lovely and radiant than ever, it seemed natural
to her
to be no more reticent about revealing herself when she bathed or
dressed
than she was when she was alone. And yet Jacqueline was so
disinterested in
others, in anything that did not pertain directly to herself, that it
was
not until the second day after Jacqueline arrived back and by chance
came
into the bathroom Just as O was stepping out of the tub, that jingled
her
irons against the porce-lain to draw her attention to the odd noise.
Jacqueline turned her head, and saw both the disk hanging between her
legs
and the black Stripes crisscrossing her thighs and breasts.
"What in the world's the matter?" she said.
"It's Sir Stephen," O replied. And she added, as though it were
something
to be taken completely for granted: "Rene gave me to him, and he's had
me
pierced with his rings. Look." And as she dried herself with the bath
towel
she came over to Jacqueline, who was so staggered she had slumped onto
the
lacquered bathroom stool, close enough so that Jacqueline could take
the
disk in her hand and read the inscription; then, slipping down her
bathrobe
she turned around and pointed to the initials S and H engraved in her
buttocks and said:
"He also had me branded with his monogram. As for the rest, that's
where I
was flogged with a riding crop. He generally whips me himself, but he
also
has a black maid whip me.
Dumbfounded, Jacqueline gazed at 0. O burst out laughing and made as
though to kiss her. Terror-stricken, Jacqueline pushed her away and
fled
into her own room. O leisurely finished drying herself, put on her
perfume,
and combed her hair. She put on her corset, her stockings, her mules,
and
when she opened the bathroom door she encountered Jacqueline's gaze in
the
mirror, before which she was combing her hair, without having the
vaguest
notion what she was doing.
"Lace up my corset, will you?" she said. `You really do look
astonished.
Rene's in love with you, didn't he say anything to you about it?"
"I don't understand," Jacqueline said. And she lost no time
revealing what
surprised her the most. "You look as though you were proud of it, I
don't
understand."
"You will, after Rene takes you to Roissy. By the way, have you
already
slept with him?"
Jacqueline's face turned a bright crimson, and she was shaking her
head in
denial with such little conviction that once again O burst out
laughing.
"You're lying, darling, don't be an ass. You have every right in the
world
to sleep with him. And I might add that that's no reason to reject me.
Come,
let me caress you and I'll tell you all about Roissy."
Had Jacqueline been afraid that 0's jealousy would explode in her
face and
then yield to her out of relief when it did not, or was it curiosity,
did
she want to hear the promised explanations, or was it merely because
she
loved the patience, the slowness, the passion of 0's caresses? In any
event,
yield she did.
"Tell me about it," she later said to 0.
"All right," O said. "But first kiss the tips of my breasts. It's
time you
got used to it, if you're ever to be of any use to Rene."
Jacqueline did as she was bade, so well in fact that she wrested a
moan
from 0.
"Tell me about it," she said.
0's tale, however faithful and clear it may have been, and
notwithstanding
the material proof she herself consti-tuted, seemed completely mad to
Jacqueline.
"You mean you're going back in September?" she said.
"After we've come back from the Midi," O said. 'I'll take you, or
Rene
will."
"To see what it's like, I wouldn't mind that," Jacqueline went on,
"but
only to see what it's like."
"I'm sure that can be arranged," said 0, though she was convinced of
the
contrary. But, she kept telling herself, if she could only persuade
Jacqueline to enter the gates at Roissy, Sir Stephen would be grateful
to
her-and once she was in, there would be enough valets, chains, and
whips to
teach Jacqueline to obey.
She already knew that the summer house that Sir Stephen had rented
near
Cannes on the Riviera, where she was scheduled to spend the month of
August
with Rene, Jacqueline, and him (and with Jacqueline's younger sister,
whom
Jacqueline had asked if she could bring along, not because she cared
especially to have her but because her mother had been hounding her to
obtain 0's permission), she knew that her room, to which she was
certain she
could entice Jacqueline, who would be unable to refuse when Rene was
away,
was separated from Sir Stephen's bedroom by a wall that looked as
though it
was full but actually was not; the wall was decorated with a trompe
d'oeil
latticework which enabled Sir Stephen to raise a blind on his side and
thus
to see and hear as well as if he had been standing beside the bed.
Jacqueline would be surrendered to Sir Stephen's gaze while O was
caressing
her, and by the time she found out it would be too late. O was pleased
to
think that she would deliver Jacqueline by an act of betrayal, because
she
had felt insulted at seeing Jacqueline's contempt for her condition as
a
flogged and branded slave, a condition of which O herself was proud.
O had never been to the south of France before. The clear blue sky,
the
almost mirror-like sea, the motionless pines beneath the burning sun:
everything seemed min-eral and hostile to her. "No real trees," she
remarked sadly to herself as she gazed at the fragrant thickets full
of
shrubs and bushes, where all the stones, and even the lichens, were
warm to
the touch. "The sea doesn't smell like the sea," she thought. She
blamed the
sea for washing up nothing more than an occasional piece of wretched
seaweed
which looked like dung, she blamed it for being too blue and for
always
lapping at the same bit of shore. But in the garden of Sir Stephen's
villa,
which was an old farmhouse that had been restored, they were far from
the
sea. To left and right, high walls protected them from the neighbors;
the
servants' wing faced the entrance court' yard, while the side of the
house
overlooking the garden faced the east; 0's bedroom was on this side,
and
opened directly onto a second-story terrace. The tops of the tall
black
cypress trees were level with the overlapping hol-low tiles which
served as
a parapet for the terrace, which was protected from the noon sun by a
reed
latticework. The floor of the terrace was of red tile, the same as the
tiles
in her bedroom. Aside from the wall which separated 0's bedroom from
Sir
Stephen's-and this was the wall of a large alcove bounded by an
archway and
separated from the rest of the room by a kind of railing similar to
the
rail-ings of stairways, with banisters of hand-carved wood -all the
other
walls were whitewashed. The thick white rug on the tile floor was made
of
cotton, the curtains were of yellow-and-white linen. There were two
armchairs up-holstered in the same material, and some triple-layered
Oriental cushions. The only furniture was a heavy and very handsome
Regency
bureau made of walnut' and a very long, narrow peasant table in light-
colored wood which was waxed till it shone like a mirror. O hung her
clothes
in a closet. For a dressing table, she used the top of the bureau.
Jacqueline's little sister Natalie had been given a room near 0's,
and in
the morning when she knew that O was taking a sunbath on the terrace,
she
came out and lay down beside her. She had snow-white skin, was a shade
plump,
but her features were none the less delicate and, like her sister, she
had
slanting eyes, but hers were black and shining, which made her look
Chinese.
Her black hair was cut in straight bangs across her forehead, just
above her
eyebrows, and in the back was almost cut straight' at the nape of the
neck.
She had firm, tremulous little breasts, and her adolescent hips were
only
beginning to fill out, She too had chanced upon 0, and taken her quite
by
sur-prise, one day when she had dashed out onto the ter-race expecting
to
find her sister but found O instead, lying there alone on her stomach
on the
Oriental pillows. But what had shocked Jacqueline filled Natalie with
envy
and desire. She asked her sister about it. Jacqueline's replies, which
were
intended to shock and revolt young Natalie by repeating to her what O
had
related, in no wise altered Natalie's feelings. If anything, it
accomplished
the con-trary. She had fallen in love with 0. For more than a week she
managed to keep it to herself, then late one Sunday afternoon she
managed to
be alone with 0.
The weather had been cooler than normal. Rene, who had' spent part
of the
morning swimming, was asleep on the sofa of a cool room on the ground
floor.
Nettled at see-ing that he should prefer to take a nap, Jacqueline had
gone
upstairs and joined O in her alcove. The sea and sun had already made
her
more golden than before: her hair, her eyebrows, her eyelashes, her
nether
fleece, her arm-pits, all seemed to be powdered with silver, and since
she
was not wearing any make-up, her mouth was the same color pink as the
pink
flesh between her thighs.
To make sure that Sir Stephen could see Jacqueline in detail-and O
thought
to herself that if she were Jacque-line she would have guessed, or
noticed,
his invisible presence-0 took pains to pull back her legs and keep
them
spread in the light of the bedside lamp which she had turned on. The
shutters were closed, the room almost dark, despite the thin rays of
light
that spilled in where the wood was not snug. For more than an hour
Jacqueline moaned to 0's caresses, and finally, her breasts aroused,
her
arms thrown back behind her head while her hands circled the wooden
bars of
the headboard of 0's Italian-style bed, she began to cry out when 0,
parting the lobes hemmed with pale hair, slowly began to bite the
crest of
flesh at the point between her thighs where the dainty, supple lips
joined.
0 felt her rigid and burning beneath her tongue, and wrested cry after
cry
from her lips, with no respite, until she suddenly relaxed, the
springs
broken, and she lay there moist with pleasure. Then O sent her back to
her
room, where she fell asleep.
Jacqueline was awake and ready, though, when Rene came for her at
five
o'clock to go sailing, with Natalie, in a small sailboat, as they had
grown
accustomed to doing. A slight wind usually came up at the end of the
afternoon.
"Where's Natalie?" Rene said.
Natalie was not in her room, nor was she anywhere in the house. They
went
out to the garden and called her. Rene went as far as the thicket of
scrub
oak at the end of the garden; no one answered.
"Maybe she's already down at the inlet," Rene said, "or in the boat."
They left without calling her any more.
It was at that point that 0, who was lying on the Ori-ental pillows
on her
terrace, glanced through the tile banisters and saw Natalie running
toward
the house. She got up, put on her dressing gown-it was still so warm,
even
this late in the afternoon, that she was naked-and was tying her belt
when
Natalie erupted into the room like one of the Furies and threw herself
at 0.
"She's gone,"' she shouted, "she's finally gone. I heard her, 0, I
heard
you both, I was listening behind the door. You kiss her, you caress
her. Why
don't you caress me, why don't you kiss me? Is it because I'm dark,
because
I'm not pretty? She doesn't love you, 0, but I do, I love you!" And
she
broke down and began to sob.
"All right, fine," O said to herself.
She eased the child into an armchair, took a large hand-kerchief
from her
bureau (it was one of Sir Stephen's), and when Natalie's sobs had
subsided a
little, wiped her tears away. Natalie begged her forgiveness, kissing
0's
hands.
"Even if you don't want to kiss me, 0, keep me with you. Keep me
with you
always. If you had a dog, you'd keep him and take care of him. And
even if
you don't want to kiss me but would enjoy beating me, you can beat me.
But
don't send me away.
"Keep still, Natalie, you don't know what you're saying," O murmured,
almost in a whisper.
The child, slipping down and hugging 0's knees, also replied in a
near-
whisper:
"Oh, yes I do. I saw you the other morning on the ter-race. I saw the
initials, I saw the long black-and-blue marks. And Jacqueline has told
me...
"Told you what?"
"Where you've been, 0, and what they did to you there."
"Did she talk to you about Roissy?"
"She also told me that you had been, that you are...
"That I was what?"
"That you wear iron rings."
"That's right," O said, "and what else?"
"That Sir Stephen whips you every day."
"That's correct, O repeated, "and he'll be here any second. So run
along,
Natalie."
Natalie, without shifting position, raised her head to 0, and 0's
eyes
encountered her adoring gaze.
"Teach me, 0, please teach me," she started in again, "I want to be
like
you. I'll do anything you tell me. Promise me you'll take me with you
when
you go back to that place Jacqueline told me about."
"You're too young," O said.
"No, I'm not too young, I'm fifteen going on sixteen," she cried out
angrily. "I'm not too young. Ask Sir Stephen," she said, for he had
lust
entered the room.
Natalie was granted permission to remain with 0, and extracted the
promise
that she would be taken to Roissy. But Sir Stephen forbade O to teach
her
the least caress, not even a kiss on the lips and also gave strict
instructions that O was not to allow Natalie to kiss her. He had every
intention of having her reach Roissy completely un-touched by hands or
lips.
By way of compensation, what he did demand, since Natalie was loath to
leave
0, was that she not leave her for a single moment, that she wit-ness 0
caressing both Jacqueline and himself, that she be present when O
yielded to
him and when he whipped her, or when she was flogged by old Norah. The
kisses with which O smothered her sister, 0's mouth glued to hers,
made
Natalie quiver with jealousy and hate. But, cowering on the carpet in
the
alcove, at the foot of 0's bed, like little Dinarzade at the foot of
Scheherazade's bed, she watched each time that 0, tied to the wooden
balus-
trade, writhed and squirmed beneath the riding crop, saw O on her
knees
humbly receiving Sir Stephen's massive, upright sex in her mouth, saw
her,
prostrate, spread her own buttocks with both hands to offer him the
after
pas-sage --she witnessed all these things with no other feel-ings but
those of admiration, envy, and impatience.
It was about this same time that a change took place in Jacqueline:
perhaps O had counted too heavily both on Jacqueline's indifference
and her
sensuality, perhaps Jac-queline herself naively felt that surrendering
herself to O was dangerous for her relations with Rene'; but whatever
the
reason, she suddenly ceased coming to 0. At the same time, she seemed
to be
keeping herself aloof from Rene', with whom, however, she was spending
almost every day and every night. She had never acted as though she
were in
love with him. She studied him coldly, and when she smiled at him, her
eyes
remained cold. Even assuming that she was as completely abandoned with
him
as she was with 0, which was quite likely, O could not help thinking
that
this surrender was superficial. Whereas Rene was head over heels in
love
with her, paralyzed by a love such as he had never known before, a
worrisome,
un-certain love, one he was far from sure was requited, a love that
acts
not, for fear of offending. He lived, he slept in the same house as
Sir
Stephen, the same house as 0, he lunched, he dined, he went on walks
with
Sir Stephen, with 0, he conversed with them both: he didn't see them,
he
didn't hear what they said. He saw, he heard, he talked through them,
beyond
them, and, as in a dream when one tries to catch a departing train or
clings
desperately to the parapet of a collapsing bridge, he was forever
trying to
understand the raison d'etre, the truth which must have been lurking
somewhere inside Jacqueline, under that golden skin, like the
mechanism
inside a crying doll.
"Well," thought 0, "the day I was so afraid would arrive is here,
the day
when I'd merely be a shadow in Rene 5 past. And I'm not even sad; the
only
thing I feel for hiiu is pity, and even knowing he doesn't desire me
any
longer, I can see him every day without any trace of bitterness,
without the
least regret, without even feeling hurt. And yet only a few weeks ago
I
dashed all the way across town to his office, to beg him to tell me he
still
loved me. Was that all my love was, all it meant? So light, so easily
gone
and forgotten? Is solace that simple? And solace is not even the right
word:
I'm happy. Do you mean to say it was enough for him to have given me
to Sir
Stephen for me to be detached from him, for me to find a new love so
easily
in the arms of another?"
But then, what was Rene' compared to Sir Stephen? Ropes of straw,
anchors
of cork, paper chains: these were the real symbols of the bonds with
which
he had held her, and which he had been so quick to sever. But what a
de-
light and comfort, this iron ring which pierces the flesh and weighs
one
down forever, this mark eternal, how peaceful and reassuring the hand
of a
master who lays you on a bed of rock, the love of a master who knows
how to
take what he loves ruthlessly, without pity. And O said to herself
that, in
the final analysis, with Rene she had been an apprentice to love, she
had
loved him only to learn how to give herself, enslaved and surfeited,
to Sir
Stephen. But to see Rene', who had been so free with her -and she had
loved
his free ways-walking as though he were hobbled, like someone whose
legs
were ensnarled in the water and reeds of a pond whose surface seems
calm but
which, deeper down, swirls with subterranean cur-rents, to see him
thus,
filled O with hate for Jacqueline. Did Rene' dimly perceive her
feelings?
Did O carelessly reveal how she felt? In any case, O committed an
error.
One afternoon she and Jacqueline had gone to Cannes together to the
hairdresser, alone, then to the Reserve Caf6 for an ice cream on the
terrace.
Jacqueline was superb in her tight-fitting black slacks and sheer
black
sweater, eclipsing even the brilliance of the children around her she
was so
bronzed and sleek, so hard and bright in the burning `sun, so insolent
and
inaccessible. She told O she had made an appointment there with the
director
whose picture she had been playing in in' Paris, to arrange for taking
some
exteriors, probably in the mountains above Saint-Paul-de-Vence. And
there he
was, forthright and determined. He didn't need to open his mouth, it
was
obvious he was in love with Jacqueline. All one had to do was see the
way he
looked at her. What was so surprising about that? Nothing; but what
was
surpris-ing was Jacqueline. Half reclining in one of those adjust-able
beach chairs, Jacqueline listened to him as he talked of dates to be
set,
appointments to be made, of the prob-lems of raising enough money to
finish
the half-completed picture. He used the tu form in addressing
Jacqueline,
who replied with a mere nod or shake of her head, keeping her eyes
half-
closed. O was seated across from Jacqueline, with him between them. It
took
no great act of perception to notice that Jacqueline, whose eyes were
still
lowered, was watching, from beneath the protection of those
mo-tionless
eyelids, the young man's desire, the way she al-ways did when she
thought
no one was looking. But strangest of all was how upset she seemed, her
hands
quiet at her side, her face serious and expressionless, with-out the
trace
of a smile, something she had never dis-played in Rene's presence. A
fleeting, almost impercepti-ble smile on her lips as O leaned forward
to
set her glass of ice water on the table and their eyes met, was all O
needed
to realize that Jacqueline was aware that O knew the game was up. It
didn't
bother her, though; it was rather O who blushed.
"Are you too warm?" Jacqueline said. "We'll be leaving in five
minutes. Red
is becoming to you, by the way."
Then she smiled again, turning her gaze to her inter-locutor, a
smile so
utterly tender that it seemed impossible. he would not hasten to
embrace her.
But he did not. He was too young to know that motionlessness and
silence can
be the lair of immodesty. He allowed Jacqueline to get up, shook hands
with
her, and said good-by. She would phone him. He also said good-by to
the
shadow that O repre-sented for him, and stood on the sidewalk watching
the
black Buick disappear down the avenue between the sun-drenched houses
and
the dark, almost purple sea. The palm trees looked as though they had
been
cut out of metal, the strollers like poorly fashioned wax models,
animated
by some absurd mechanism.
"You really like him all that much?" O said to Jacque-line as the
car
left the city and moved along the upper coast road.
"Is that any business of yours?" Jacqueline responded.
"It's Rene's business," she retorted.
"What is Rene's business, and Sir Stephen's, and, if I understand it
correctly, a number of other people's, is the fact you're badly
seated.
You're going to wrinkle your dress."
O failed to move.
"And I also thought," Jacqueline added, "that you weren't supposed
to
cross your legs."
But O was no longer listening. What did she care about Jacqueline's
threats? If Jacqueline threatened to inform on her for that
peccadillo, what
did she think would keep her from denouncing Jacqueline in turn to
Rene? Not
that O lacked the desire to. But Rene' would not be able to bear the
news
that Jacqueline was lying to him, or that she had plans of her own
which did
not include him. How could she make Jacqueline believe that if she
were to
keep still, it would be to avoid seeing Rene lose face, turning pale
over
someone other than herself, and perhaps revealing himself to be too
weak to
punish her? How could she con-vince her that her silence, even more,
would
be the result of her fear at seeing Rene's wrath turned against her,
the
bearer of ill tidings, the informer? How could she tell Jacqueline
that she
would not say a word, without giving the impression she was making a
mutual
non-betrayal pact with her? For Jacqueline' had the idea that O was
terrified, terrified to death at what would happen to her if she,
Jacqueline,
talked.
From that point on, until they got out of the car in the courtyard of
the
old farm, they did. not exchange another word. Without glancing at 0,
Jacqueline picked a white geranium growing beside the house. O was
following
closely enough behind to catch a whiff of the strong, deli-' cate odor
of
the leaf crumpled between her hands. Did she believe she would thus be
able
to mask the odor of her own sweat, which was making darkening circles
beneath the arms of her sweater and causing the black material to
cling to
her armpits.
In the big whitewashed room with the red-tile floor, Rene was alone.
"You're late," he said when they came in. "Sir Stephen's waiting for
you in
the next room," he added, nodding to 0. "He needs you for something.
He's
not in a very good mood."
Jacqueline burst out laughing, and O looked at her and turned red.
"You could have saved it for another time," said Rene, who
misinterpreted
both Jacqueline's laugh and 0's con-cern.
"That's not the reason," Jacqueline said, "but I might say, Rene',
your
obedient beauty isn't so obedient when you're not around. Look at her
dress,
you see how wrinkled it is?"
O was standing in the middle of the room, facing Rene. He told her
to turn
around; she was rooted to the spot
"She also crosses her legs," Jacqueline added, "but that you won't be
able
to see, of course. As you won't be able to see the way she accosts the
boys."
"That's not true," O shouted, "you're the' one!" and she leaped at
Jacqueline.
Rene grabbed her just as she was about to hit Jacque line, and she
went on
struggling in his arms merely for the sake of feeling weaker than he,
of
being at his mercy, when, lifting her head, she saw Sir Stephen
standing in
the doorway looking at her.
Jacqueline had thrown herself down on the sofa, her tiny face
hardened
with anger and fear, and O could feel that Rene', though he had his
hands
full trying to subdue her, had eyes only for Jacqueline. She ceased
resisting and, crestfallen at the idea of having been found wanting in
the
presence of Sir Stephen, she repeated, this time al-most in a whisper:
"It's not true, I swear it's not true."
Without uttering a word, without so much as a glance at Jacqueline,
Sir
Stephen made a sign to Rene to let O go, and to O to go into the other
room.
But on the other side of the door 0, who was immediately wedged
against the
wall, her belly and breasts seized, her lips forced apart by Sir
Stephen's
insistent tongue, moaned with happiness and deliverance. The points of
her
breasts stiffened beneath his hand's caress, and with his other hand
Sir
Stephen probed her loins so roughly she thought she would faint. Would
she
ever dare tell him that no pleasure, no joy, no figment of her
imagination
could ever compete with the happiness she felt at the way he used her
with
such utter freedom, at the notion that he could do anything with her,
that
there was no limit, no restriction in the manner with which, on her
body, he
might search for pleasure. Her absolute certainty that when he touched
her,
whether it was to fondle or flog her, when he ordered her to do
something it
was solely because he wanted to, her cer-tainty that all he' cared
about
was his own desire, so over-whelmed and gratified O that each time she
saw
a new proof of it, and often even when it merely occurred to her in
thought,
a cape of fire, a burning breastplate extending from the shoulders to
the
knees, descended upon her. As she was there, pinned against the wall,
her
eyes closed, her lips murmuring "I love you" when she could find the
breath
to say them, Sir Stephen's hands, though they were as cool as the
waters of
a bubbling spring on the fire cours-ing through her from head to toe,
made
her burn even hotter. Gently he released her, dropping her skirt down
over
her moist thighs, closing her bolero over her quiver-ing breasts.
"Come, 0," he said, "I need you."
Then, opening her eyes, O noticed that they were not alone. The big,
bare,
whitewashed room, identical in all respects to the living room, also
opened,
through a French door, onto the garden. Seated in a wicker chair on
the te
-race, which lay between the house and garden, an enor-mous man, a
giant of
a creature with a cigarette be-tween his lips, his head shaved and his
vast
belly swelling beneath his open shirt and cloth trousers, was gazing
at O He
rose and moved toward Sir Stephen, who was shoving O ahead of him. It
was
then that O noticed, dangling at the end of his watch chain, the
Roissy
insignia that the man was sporting. Still, Sir Stephen politely
introduced
him to O, simply as "Commander," with no name attached, and much to
0's
surprise she saw that he was kissing her hand, the first time it had
happened since she had been Involved with Roissy members (with the
exception
of Sir Stephen).
All three of them came back into the room, leaving the door open. Sir
Stephen walked over to one end of the fire-place and rang. On the
Chinese
table beside the sofa, O saw a bottle of whisky, some soda water, and
glasses. So he was not ringing for something to drink. At the same
time she
noticed a large cardboard box on the floor beside the fireplace. The
man
from Roissy had sat down on a. wicker chair, Sir Stephen was
half-seated on
the edge of the round table, with one leg dangling. 0, who had been
motioned
over to the sofa, had meekly raised her skirt and could feel the
prickly
cotton of the roughly woven Provencal upholstery.
It was Norah who came in. Sir Stephen ordered her to undress O and
remove
her clothing from the room. O allowed her to take off her bolero, her
dress,
her whale-bone belt which constricted her waist, and her sandals. As
soon
as she had stripped O completely, Norah left, and 0, automatically
reverting
to the rules of Roissy, and certain that all Sir Stephen wanted from
her was
perfect submis-siveness, remained standing in the middle of the room,
her
eyes lowered, so that she sensed rather than saw Natalie slip in
through the
open window, dressed in black like her sister, barefoot and silent.
Sir
Stephen had doubtless ex-plained who she was and why she was there; to
his
visitor he merely mentioned her name, to which the visitor did not
respond,
and asked her to make them a drink. As soon as she had handed them
some
whisky, soda water, and ice cubes (and, in the silence, the clink of
the ice
cubes against the sides of the glasses made a harrowing racket), the
Commander got up from his wicker chair, in which he had been sitting
while 0
was being undressed and, with his glass in his hand, walked over to 0.
0
thought that, with his free hand, he was going to take her breast or
seize
her belly. But he did not touch her, confining himself to scrutinizing
her
closely, from her parted lips to her parted knees. He circled her,
studying
her breasts, her thighs, her hindquarters, inspecting her in detail
but
offering no com-ment, and this careful scrutiny and the presence of
this
gigantic body so close to her so overwhelmed O that she wasn't sure
whether
she wanted to run away or, on the contrary, have him throw her down
and
crush her. So up-set was she that she lost control and raised her eyes
toward Sir Stephen, searching for help. He understood, smiled, came
over to
her, and, taking both her hands, pulled them behind her back, and held
them
in one of his. She leaned back against him, her eyes closed, and it
was in a
dream, or at least in the dusk of a near-sleep born of exhaustion, the
way
she had heard as a child, still half under the influ-ence of ether,
the
nurses talking about her, thinking she was still asleep, of her hair,
her
pallor, her flat belly where only the faint early signs of pubescence
were
showing, it was in a dream that she heard the stranger complimenting
Sir
Stephen on her, paying special due to the pleasant contrast between
her
ample bosom and the narrow waist, the irons which he found longer,
thicker,
and more. visible than usual. At the same time, she learned that Sir
Stephen
had in all probability consented to lend her to him the following
week,
since he was thanking Sir Stephen for something. At which point Sir
Stephen,
taking her by the nape of the neck, gently told her to wake up and,
with
Natalie, to go upstairs and wait in her room.
Had she good reason to be so upset, and to be so an-noyed at Natalie
who,
elated at the prospect of seeing O opened by someone other than Sir
Stephen,
was doing a kind of wild Indian dance around her and shouting:
Do you think he'll go into your mouth too, 0? You should have seen
the way
he was looking at your mouth! Oh, how lucky you are to be desired like
that!
I'm sure that he'll whip you: he came back three times to those marks
where
you can see you've been whipped. At least you won't be thinking about
Jacqueline then!"
`I'm not always thinking about Jacqueline, you silly fool," O
replied.
"No! I'm not silly and I'm not a fool. I know very well you miss
her," the
child said.
It was true, but not completely. What O missed was not, properly
speaking,
Jacqueline, but the use of a girl's body, with no restrictions
attached. If
Natalie had not been declared off-limits to her, she would have taken
Natalie, and the only reason she had not violated the re-striction was
her
certainty that Natalie would be given to her at Roissy in a few weeks'
time,
and that, some time previously, Natalie would be handed over in her
presence,
by her, and thanks to her. She was burning to demolish the wall of
air, of
space, of-to use the only correct term void between Natalie and her,
and yet
at the same time she was enjoying the wait imposed upon her. She said
so to
Natalie, who only shook her head and refused to believe her.
"If Jacqueline were here, and were willing," she said, "you'd caress
her."
`Of course I would," O said with a laugh.
"There, you see," the child broke in.
How could she make her understand-and was it even worth the
effort?-that it
wasn't so much that she was in love with Jacqueline, nor for that
matter
with Natalie or any other girl in particular, but that she was only in
love
with girls as such, girls in general-the way one can be in love with
one's
own image--but in her case she always thought the other girls were
more
lovely and desirable than she found herself to be. The pleasure she
derived
from seeing a girl pant beneath her caresses, seeing her eyes close
and the
tips of her breasts stiffen beneath her lips and teeth, the pleasure
she got
from exploring her fore and aft with her hand-and from feeling her
tighten
around her fingers, then sigh and moan-was more than she could bear;
and if
this pleasure was so intense, it was only because it made her
constantly
aware of the pleasure which she in turn gave when she tightened around
who-
ever was holding her, whenever she sighed or moaned, with this
difference,
that she could not conceive of being given thus to a girl, the way
this girl
was given to her, but only to a man. Moreover, it seemed to her that
the
girls she caressed belonged by right to the man to whom she belonged,
and
that she was only present by proxy. Had Sir Stephen come into her room
during one of those previous afternoons when Jacqueline had been wont
to nap
with her, and found O caressing her, she would have spread her
charge's
thighs and held them apart with both hands, without the slightest
remorse,
and in fact with the greatest of pleasure, if it had pleased Sir
Stephen to
possess her, rather than peering at her through the trellised wall as
he had
done. She was apt at hunting, a naturally trained bird of prey who
would
beat the game and always bring it back to the hunter. And speaking of
the
devil.
It was at this point, just as she was thinking again with beating
heart of
Jacqueline's lips, so pink and dainty beneath her downy fur, of the
even
more delicate and pinker ring between her buttocks, which she had only
dared
force on three occasions, that she heard Sir Stephen moving about in
his
room. She knew that he could see her, although she could not see him,
and
once again she felt that she was fortunate indeed to be constantly
exposed
this way, constantly imprisoned by these all-encompassing eyes. Young
Natalie was seated on the white rug in the middle of the room, like a
fly in
a bowl of milk; while 0, standing `in front of the massive bureau
which also
served as her dressing table, and able to see herself from head to
waist in
a slightly greenish antique mirror which was streaked like the
wrinkles in a
pond, looked for all the world like one of those late
nineteenth-century
prints in which the women are wandering naked through their chambers
in a
subdued light, even though it is mid-sum-mer.
When Sir Stephen pushed open the door, she turned around so abruptly
that
one of the irons between her legs struck one of the bronze knobs of
the
bureau upon which she was leaning, and jingled.
"Natalie," Sir Stephen said, "run downstairs and get the white
cardboard
box in the front living room."
When Natalie came back, she set the box down on the bed, opened it,
and one
by one removed the objects inside, unwrapping the paper in which they
were
packed, and handing them to Sir Stephen. They were masks, a
com-bination
headpiece and mask; it was obvious they had been made to cover the
entire
head, with the exception of the mouth and chin-and of course the slits
for
eyes. Sparrow-hawk, falcon, owl, fox, lion, bull: nothing but animal
masks,
but scaled to the size of the human head, made of real fur and
feathers, the
eye crowned with lashes when the actual animal had lashes (as the
lion), and
with the pelts or feathers descending to the shoulders of the person
wearing
them. To make the mask fit snugly along the upper lips (there was an
orifice
for each nostril) and along both cheeks, all one had to do was adjust
a
fairly loose strap concealed inside this cope-like affair which hung
down
the back. A frame made of molded, hardened cardboard located between
the
outside facing and the inner lining of skin, kept the shape of the
mask
rigid. In front of the full-length mirror, O tried on each of the
masks. The
most striking, and the one she thought transformed her most and was
also
most natural, was one of the owl masks (there were two), no doubt
because it
was composed of tan and tawny feathers whose color blended beautifully
with
her tan; the cope of feathers almost completely con-cealed her
shoulders,
descending half way down her back and, in front, to the nascent curve
of her
breasts. Sir Stephen had her rub the lipstick from her lips, then said
to
her as she took off the mask:
"All right, you'll be an owl for the Commander." But 0, and I hope
you
forgive me, you'll be taken on a leash. Natalie, go look in tile top
drawer
of my desk, you'll find a chain and a pair of pliers."
Natalie came back with the chain and pliers, which Sir Stephen used
to
force open the last link, fastened It to the second ring that O was
wearing
In: her loins, then forced it closed again. The chain, similar to
those used
for dogs-- in fact that was what it was-was between four and five feet
long,
with a leather strap on one end. After O had again donned tile mask,
Sir
Stephen told Natalie to take the end of tile chain and walk around the
room,
ahead of 0. Three times Natalie paraded around the room, trading O
behind
her by the rings, O being naked and masked.
"Well, I must say," Sir Stephen remarked, "the Com. mander was right-
all
the hair will have to be removed. But that can wait till tomorrow.
Meanwhile,
keep your chain on"'
That evening, and for the first time in the company of Jacqueline
and
Natalie, of Rene and Sir Stephen, O dined naked, her chain pulled up
between
her legs and across her buttocks and wrapped around her waist.
Norah-was
alone serving, and O avoided her gaze. Two hours before, Sir Stephen
had
summoned her.
What shocked and upset the girl at the beauty parlor tile following
day,
more than the Irons and the black and blue marks on her lower back,
were the
brand new lacera-tions. O had gone there to have the offending hair re
moved,. and it did no good to explain to her that this wax-type
depilatory,
a method in which tile wax is applied and allowed to harden, then
suddenly
removed, taking the hair with it-was no more painful than being struck
with
the riding crop. No matter how many times she repeated it, or made an
attempt to explain, if not what her fate was, at least that she was
happy,
there was no way of reassur-ing her or allaying her feeling of disgust
and
terror. The only visible result of 0's efforts. to soothe her was
that,
instead of being looked upon with pity, as she had been at first, she
was
beheld with horror. It made no difference how kind and profuse were
her
thanks when she left the little alcove where she had been
spread-eagled as
though for love, nor did it matter how generous a tip she gave as she
left,
when it was all over, she had the feeling that she was being evicted
rather
than leaving of her own free will. What did she care? It was obvious
to her
that there was something shocking about the contrast between the fur
on her
belly and the feathers on her mask, as it was obvious that this air of
an
Egyptian statue which this mask lent her, and which her broad
shoulders,
narrow waist, and long legs only served to emphasize, to demand that
her
flesh be perfectly smooth. Only the effigies of primitive goddesses
portrayed so proudly and openly the cleft of the belly between whose
outer
lips appeared the more deli-cate line of the lower lips. And had any
ever
been seen sporting rings in their nether lips? O recalled - the plump
red-
haired girl at Anne-Marie's who had said that all her master ever used
the
belly ring for was to attach her to the foot of the bed, and she had
also
said that the reason he wanted her shaved was because only in that way
was
she completely naked. O was worried about displeasing Sir Stephen, who
so
enjoyed pulling her over to him by the fleece, but she was mistaken:
Sir
Stephen found her more moving that way, and after she had donned her
mask,
having removed all trace of lipstick above and below, the upper and
nether
lips then being so uncommonly pale, that he caressed her almost
timidly, the
way one does with an animal one wants to tame.
He had told her nothing about the place to which he was taking her,
nor
indicated the time they would have to leave, nor had he said who the
Commander's guests would be. But he came and spent the rest of the
afternoon
sleep-ing beside her, and in the evening had dinner brought up to the'
room,
for the two of them.
They left an hour before midnight, in the Buick, O swathed in a
great
brown mountaineer's cape and wearing wooden clogs on her feet.
Natalie, in a
black sweater and slacks, was holding her chain, the leather strap of
which
was attached to the leather bracelet Natalie was wearing on her right
wrist.
Sir Stephen was driving. The moon was almost full, and illuminated the
road
with large snowlike spots, also illuminating the trees and houses of
the
villages through which they passed, leaving everything else as black
as
India ink. Here and there, groups of people were still clustered, even
at
this hour, on the thresholds of streetside doors, and they could feel
the
people's curiosity aroused by the passage of that closed car (Sir
Stephen
had not lowered the top). Some dogs were barking. On the side of the
road
bathed in moonlight, the olive trees looked like silver clouds
floating six
feet above the ground, and the cypresses like black feathers. There
was
nothing real about this country, which night had turned into
make-believe,
nothing except the smell of sage and lavender. The road continued to
climb,
but the same warm layer of air still lay heavy over the earth. O
slipped her
cape down off her shoulders. She couldn't be seen, there was not a
soul left
in sight.
Ten minutes later, having skirted a forest of green oak on the crest
of a
hill, Sir Stephen slowed down before a long wall into which was cut a
porte-
cochere, which opened at the approach of the car. He parked in some
forecourt as they were closing the gate behind him, then got out and
helped
Natalie and O out, first having ordered O to leave her cape and clogs
in the
car.
The door he pushed open revealed a cloister with Renaissance arcades
on
three sides, the fourth side being an extension of the flagstone court
of
the cloister proper. A dozen couples were dancing on the terrace and
in the
courtyard, a few women with very low-cut dresses and some men in white
dinner Jackets were seated at small tables lighted by candlelight; the
record player was in the left-hand gallery, and a buffet table had
been set
up in the gallery to the right.
The moon provided as much light as the candles, though, and when it
fell
full upon 0, who was being pulled forward by her black little shadow,
Natalie, those who noticed her stopped dancing, and the men got to
their
feet. The boy near the record player, sensing that something was
happening,
turned around and, taken com-pletely aback, stopped the record. O had
come
to a halt; Sir Stephen, motionless two steps behind her, was also
waiting..
The Commander dispersed those who had gathered around O and had
already
called for torches to examine her more closely.
"Who is she," they were saying, "who does she belong to?"
"You, if you like," he replied, and he led O and Natalie over to a
corner
of the terrace where a stone bench cov-ered with cushions was set
against a
low wall.
When O was seated, her back against the wall, her hands lying on her
knees,
with Natalie on the ground to the left of her feet, still holding onto
the
chain, he turned around to them. 0's eyes searched for Sir Stephen,
and at
first could not find him. Then she sensed his presence, re-clining on
a
chaise longue at the other corner of the ter-race. He was able to see
her,
she was reassured. The music had begun again, the dancers were dancing
again.
As they danced, one or two couples moved over in her direction, as
though by
accident at first then one of the couples dropped the pretense and,
with the
woman leading the way, marched boldly over. O stared at them with eyes
that,
beneath her plumage, were darkened with bister, eyes opened wide like
the
eyes of the nocturnal bird she was impersonating, and the illusion was
so
extraordinary that no one thought of questioning her, which would have
been
the most natural thing to do, as though she were a real owl, deaf to
human
language, and dumb.
From midnight till dawn, which began to lighten the eastern sky at
about
five, as the moon waned and de-scended toward the west people came up
to
her several times, and some even touched her, they formed a circle
around
her several times and several times they parted her knees and lifted
the
chain, bringing with them one of those two-branched candlesticks of
Provencal earthenware -and she could feel the flames from the candles
warming the inside of her thighs-to see how she was attached
There was even one drunken American who, laughing grabbed her, but
when he
realized that he had seized a fistful of flesh and the chain which
pierced
her, he sud-denly sobered up, and O saw his face fill with the same
expression of horror and contempt that she had seen on the face of the
girl
who had given her a depilatory; he turned and fled.
There was another girl very young, a girl with bare shoulders and a
choker
of pearls around her neck, wearing one of those white dresses young
girls
wear to their first ball, two tea-scented roses at her waist and a
pair of
golden slippers on her feet, and a boy made her sit down next to 0, on
her
right. Then he took her hand and made her caress 0's breasts, which
quivered
to the touch of the cool, light fingers, and touch her belly, and the
chain,
and the hole through which it passed, the young girl silently. did as
she
was bid, and when the boy said he planned to do the same thing to her,
she
did not seem shocked. But even though they thus made use of 0, and
even
though they used her in this way as a model, or the subject of a
demonstration, not once did anyone ever speak to her directly. Was she
then
of stone or wax, or rather some creature from another world, and did
they
think it point-less to speak to her? Or didn't they dare?
It was only after daybreak, after all the dancers had left' that Sir
Stephen and the Commander, awakening Natalie who was asleep at 0's
feet,
helped O to her feet, led her to the middle of the courtyard,
unfastened her
chain and removed her mask and, laying her back upon a table,
pos-sessed
her one after the other.
In a final chapter, which has been suppressed, O returned to
Roissy,
where she was abandoned by Sir Stephen.
There exists a second ending to the story of 0, accord-ing to which
0,
seeing that Sir Stephen was about to leave her, said she would prefer
to die.
Sir Stephen gave her his consent.