The Story Of O: Annemarie And The Rings 4

With Jacqueline gone and not due back until beginning 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 René 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 René 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 Observatoire where O had first met Anne-Marie, but a low-lying two-story house at the end of a large garden, on the edge of the Fontanebleau Forest. Since that first day, O 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 O'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.

"Her's O," Sir Stephen said. "You know what has to be done with her. When will she be ready?"

Anne-Marie glanced at O. "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 in two weeks after that."

O started to ask a question.

"Just a minute, O," 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 in 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.

"O," 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, O, to bear the rings and 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 lounge, Sir Stephen bent down and took O's breasts in his hands. He kissed her on the mouth and murmured:

"Are you mine, O, are you really mine?" then turned and left her, to follow Anne-Marie. The gate banged shut, Anne-Marie was coming back. O, 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 O, all three of them were naked. The only persons in this gynaeceum - which was carefully concealed 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 O," said Anne-Marie, who had sat down again. "Bring her over to me so I can get a better look at 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 O 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 your 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 O's waist to make it even more wasplike. Then she sent the redhead to fetch another corset and had them put it on her. It was also made of black nylon, but it 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 O'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 lounge.

"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, and 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 number one?"

Colette had number one.

"All right, take O away, she's all yours."

Colette seized O'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 platform, 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. O'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 suspended in mid-air. Anne-Marie made her raise her legs toward her chest, then O suddenly felt her legs, still doubled-up above her, being pulled taut in the same direction: 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 tassels of the whip she was holding in her hand. As the first blows burned into her loins, O moaned. Colette alternated from left to right, paused, then started again. O 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 O, 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 understood, 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 betrayed 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 O's acquiescence 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 O. 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 tun. 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 possible.

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