The Lovers of Roissy

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 intersection 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. He 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.

He 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
room, 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 perfumed, 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 bedroom, they fastened the two bracelet rings together behind 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 bookcases, 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 target, 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 behind 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 O. He
turned her around and, holding her by the waist with one hand, lifted her
skirt with the other, in order to demonstrate to O, 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 infractions
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 commonplace
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 therefore 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. O, 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 shoulder, 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 gestures, 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 causing her to feel nauseous. It was this
same mouth which, half gagging on the hardened flesh which filled it,
murmured 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 comments 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 O, 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.

Andree 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
material. 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 reflections, 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."

Andree 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 attitude 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 O, 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 deprived 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. O'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
evening (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.

Her 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 O'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 undoing 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 flogged 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. O 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 bracelets, 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
recognize 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
O, 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
disappeared, 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.

O, 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 O,
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 O 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 sacrilege
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 beneath 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 pleasure 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 listened 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 reviving
the burning pain. She made up her mouth but not her eyes, powdered herself
and, still naked but with lowered 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
O.

Jeanne took the bodice of green satin, the white petticoat, the dress,
the green mules and, having hooked up O'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 detachable 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 billowed at her hips, as a hoop skirt would have done. The two women
were standing side by side. Jeanne reached out to smooth a wrinkle 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 O: "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 O.

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 himself 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 antechamber 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'
presence, destroyed.

She also noticed that, whereas the slightest gesture which might have
been construed as an advance toward one of the masters seemed quite
naturally inconceivable, 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 hallway 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 O, 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 themselves, 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
distraction 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 cafe, it was the chateau she rediscovered, 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, during 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 attached. 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 O. 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. O'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
console, 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 previous 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
instructions, 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 O. She brought Rene a glass of whisky, and he kissed
her hand as she handed it to him, then drank it down without taking his
eyes off O.

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 contained, 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 common,
namely that they flared at the base, to make it impossible 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, O 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 someone 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 during 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 forget 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, ceremoniously soiled with saliva and sperm, she
felt herself literally to be the repository of impurity, the sink mentioned
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 beautiful 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
imperceptible 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 waiting 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, alternating 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 parents' 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 remained 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 herself. 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 blindfold 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 O'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
darkness 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 untying 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
allowed 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
plinth, was none the less insufficient to overcome the odor of earth and
mud which is the odor of ancient prisons and, in old chateaux, 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 eyebolt 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 smothered 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 carrying 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 handbag.
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 suit coat 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 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.

NEXT