Chapter 5: Summer Interlude

The summer that followed was the most wonderful of her life. She hadn’t known such joy since childhood, that time of life when everything is new and fresh and viewed through wondering eyes that have not yet acquired the dull, jaded look of maturity, and when simple things still have the power to enchant. Like the first time she saw fireworks on the Fourth of July, at summer camp when she was eight years old—watching the night sky explode with colors, it appeared absolutely magical, but seeing one again ten years later she couldn’t recapture the feeling. But now every day she spent with Roger was magical. It wasn’t just the sex. He took her out to fine restaurants, to concerts, to plays, to the opera, to clubs and cabarets, things that her meager means had prevented her from enjoying on anything like the scale and frequency she now was able to. But those enjoyments paled in comparison with those experienced within the confines of his opulent private quarters, where he continued her education in that field of study of which he was the master and she is willing pupil.

His apartment was a spacious one, more so than his bachelor existence seemed to require. In addition to the master bedroom there were three others, one furnished as a guest room, another that he used as a study, while the remaining one, normally kept locked to shield its contents from prying guests, was devoted to his hobby. There in what he called the equipment room he kept his collection of instruments for inflicting corporal punishment of various kinds, paddles, straps, crops, whips and canes, all of which she would come to know, also ropes and collars and cuffs to restrain her.

There were also some interesting items of furniture, such as the St. Andrew’s Cross, an X-shaped object mounted on the wall for the purpose of spread-eagling its victim in a standing position, where she was liable to be flogged with a multi-tailed whip of soft leather, or struck by a riding crop, which instrument he was also fond of using when hogtying her with ropes, as it was useful for penetrating narrow corridors, maneuvering under ropes and tightly bound limbs, a slight flick of the wrist inflicting a painful sting on carefully chosen spots of her naked flesh, often picked at random, the terror of the unpredictable intensifying the exquisite torment.

Then there was what he called the spanking bench. This consisted of a padded footstool, designed for kneeling, like those found in church pews, connected to a chest with a horizontal padded top upon which the victim would recline. It had attachments for binding wrists and ankles, as well as straps that could be applied across the waist or thighs as desired. The device was a work of the finest craftsmanship, elegant in design, with beautiful dark mahogany wood and the padding covered with the finest leather. She marveled at it, and wondered where he had procured it. Somewhere there must be a factory where it was built and other customers to provide a market. That was obvious enough but it reminded her of the existence of a wider world of people with similar interests to theirs, people she always knew existed, but had never thought about before. She wondered how many of them Roger knew and whether she would meet any. Of course there had been other women, he had said as much. She wondered sometimes where and how he had acquired these interests. But she refrained from asking, not only because it would seem to violate the protocols governing their relationship, but also to preserve the sense of mystery. She preferred to indulge for as long as possible in the illusion of having discovered a new world, a private island which she didn’t wish to see crowded with tourists.

In later years Eve would often look back nostalgically on those days. One particularly memorable occasion was a rainy Sunday in June when he had summoned her to his apartment to cook dinner. Eve liked to cook, having been taught her by her mother, who was a fine cook. Earlier she had told him of her interest, and expressed pride in her abilities. She was disappointed when he told her to cook steak and potatoes, as his tastes were usually more sophisticated and she would have liked to attempt something more challenging. She arrived just before six carrying a bag of groceries, water dripping off her yellow rain coat and rain hat. He took one look at her and laughed.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“That hat.” He took the groceries and told her to take off her shoes. After leaving the groceries in the kitchen he led her into the bedroom and had her remove her skirt and panties. She wore a long-sleeved black pullover blouse which he had bought her, and which he had told her to wear, and long black stockings, the same she had worn that day at the gallery. He stood her in front of the mirror to admire the effect—covered in black except for her head, neck, hands and the area between her waist and lower thighs. Then he sent her off to the kitchen.

As she began preparing dinner she reflected on the eroticism of semi-nakedness. In her apartment on hot summer days (and it could get very hot in a fourth floor apartment without air conditioning in a New York summer) she would often go about naked, and the heat wouldn’t stop her from cooking. She would be alone then but it was no different that summer she lived with her first lover Paul in a similar though somewhat better fourth floor walk up. A casual nudity was common in her Village bohemian circles, and though naturally shy and brought up to be modest, she had shed some of her inhibitions, and so when some of their closer friends would drop by while she labored au naturel over a hot stove, she wouldn’t always feel bound to cover up. This though, was not that innocent wholesome nudity, but a lewd display. She reflected that clothes were invented for protection from the weather, a consideration that modern climate controlled buildings rendered moot. Her blouse and long stockings now served no other purpose than to highlight those parts of her body Roger found sexually alluring. Objectification—that was what the feminists called it, one of the things they had talked about in that consciousness raising group she once belonged to. But if it was “bad” thing, it was the kind of bad thing she had learned to enjoy.

In fact she found it positively arousing and in her nervous excitement she broke a glass. Hearing the crash Roger ran into the kitchen and on seeing the fragments on the floor said cheerfully, “That will earn you a spanking after dinner.”

“Gee,” she said, “I didn’t know I had to earn it. I usually get it for free.”

He laughed, and wagging a finger at her warned her not to be impertinent. “And by the way,” he added, “just make one place setting.” When everything was ready he had her bring all the food to the table, then bound her hands behind her with a piece of rope. She knelt by his chair while he ate, from time to time stopping to feed her, cutting up the meat into small pieces and delivering it along with the potatoes to her mouth with a fork. For refreshment she drank from a glass through a straw. He did not neglect dessert, feeding her cake and wiping the crumbs off her chin.

When dinner was over he untied her. After letting her use the bathroom he took her to the hall closet where he told her to put on her shoes. Then handing her a twenty dollar bill he said, “Here. Use this to buy a hairbrush.” His leering smile left no doubt what he wanted it for. After giving her the address of a nearby pharmacy he opened the closet door and told her to put on her raincoat and rain hat, after which he practically pushed her out the front door.

Eve left the apartment, trembling all over, and waited for the elevator. She entered the empty car and pressed the button for the lobby, but it stopped at the fifth floor to admit a prosperous looking middle-aged couple dressed for a night out. Eve cowered in the back, clutching at her raincoat. After they reached the lobby she followed impatiently behind the slow moving couple who were blocking her way, until she reached the awning and was able to speed past them down the street. The rain was still coming down heavily and although it was not yet sunset the overcast sky made it already seem like night. As she walked she felt her wet raincoat rubbing against her naked bottom. It made her tingle with arousal, but every time she passed another pedestrian she felt her face flush as if her yellow raincoat were not opaque but transparent, and everyone could read her mind and knew the reason she was out there.

The drug store was on Lexington Avenue four blocks away, three of them long ones; before every traffic light the wait seemed endless. At last she reached the place and went inside. It was a large store; she walked in and out of several aisles searching for the right section. A middle-aged woman, one of the sales clerks, seeing her wandering as if lost offered her assistance, but she declined and hurried away like a guilty fugitive fearing discovery. In one aisle she spotted a selection of lipstick, along with facial cream, nail polish and other feminine beauty aids until finally she found some hairbrushes. She pulled one off the shelf; it had black bristles and a dark wood base. Running her fingers over the smooth polished surface she felt a premonitory shudder. She took it to the checkout counter where a bored looking young woman in a blue smock was standing and staring at nothing in particular. Nervously Eve laid the brush down on the counter. The girl picked it up, turned it around and examined it, looking for the price sticker; finally she found it, put it down and entered the price at the register.

“That’s eight dollars plus tax comes to eight dollars and sixty-four cents.” Eve handed her the twenty dollar bill. The girl placed the bill by the side of the register and said “That’s a twenty.” From the register she took two five dollar bills and a one dollar bill, and put them one at a time into Eve’s outstretched hand, then turning again to the register took out a quarter, a dime and a penny, and placed them atop the bills. The clerk performed this task with agonizing slowness. Eve quickly pocketed the change and declined the offer of a bag. The girl then handed the item over to her along with the receipt, saying “Nice brush.” Eve thought there was something peculiar about the way she said it. Was she wondering why someone would come out on a night like this just to buy a hairbrush? Perhaps she had even guessed its purpose. Eve felt herself blushing all over. Why hadn’t she bought something else in addition, like a bottle of aspirin? Quickly stuffing the brush and receipt into her pocket she hurried out through the door back into the heavy rain. She continued to walk very fast, once almost slipping on the wet pavement. She stopped; she had the terrifying thought she could have fallen and broken a leg and been lying helpless on the pavement. A helpful pedestrian would come by and try to help her up but she couldn’t stand. He would go to the street and flag down a police car. They would call an ambulance, carry her into the back, the medic would examine her leg, then he would unbutton her raincoat...

Eve walked slowly the rest of the way, the walk back seeming to take twice as long. She finally reached the apartment building, and hurried past the doorman, to the elevator.

It was a relief to finally be back in the warm apartment. She hung up her things, removed her shoes and went into the living room where Roger was seated in an easy chair with his feet propped up on an ottoman, reading the Wall Street Journal. There was a small table on his right on which he had laid out some bondage equipment. After taking the brush he made her kneel in front of the ottoman with her legs spread apart. He cuffed her hands behind her back and also placed cuffs around her ankles, between which he attached a connecting rod that prevented her from closing her legs. Then he told her he was going to play a record, and when it was over spank her with the hairbrush she had just bought.

Roger had a passion for classical music, which was practically the only hobby he had (unless you considered sadomasochism a hobby), and he owned a state of the art hi fi system. He often spent his evenings sitting back in his easy chair listening to music, sometimes while reading a book or examining some papers from the office. He put a recording on the turntable and placed the needle. A plaintive bassoon solo sounded from the speakers and Eve soon recognized the work. It was Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, the famous modernistic ballet which caused a riot at its premiere in Paris in 1913, whose story depicted savage pagan rituals culminating in the sacrifice of a virgin girl. Eve had heard the piece for the first time only a week ago, when Roger took her to see it performed at the New York City Ballet at Lincoln Center. She knew the approximate length of the piece, a little more than half an hour, no longer than two sides of a long playing record.

Roger returned and sank back into the plush arm chair. But he was not content merely to enjoy the music while feasting his eyes on the delectable sight in front of him, of Eve’s lovely round ass and creamy white thighs silhouetted against the surrounding black of her garments. He began to play with her at intervals, first fondling her ass, or stroking the inside of her thighs, sometimes high enough so that the top of his hand grazed the lips of her labia. Then every so often he would insert a finger into her wet pussy, tentatively at first like a bather testing the waters with his toes, then for longer periods. The on-again off-again stimulation drove Eve nearly to distraction. Some fifteen minutes into the second side, after one of the piece’s occasional quiet sections, they came to the finale, the dance sacrale, to which, in the story, a young virgin dances herself to death. It is a piece of incredible violence, surpassing anything in the classical repertoire, characterized by slashing dissonant chords and jagged, irregular rhythms of enormous complexity. He took that moment, with the first violent chords to jam his right thumb up her ass. With his other hand he began stroking her pussy, more and more urgently as the music proceeded. She would have found the music terribly exciting just by itself but the added stimulation drove her wild. As the piece hurtled to its cataclysmic conclusion she feared her heart would burst and she would expire like the young woman in the ballet.

But she didn’t die. As the final dissonant chord struck he removed his hands from her orifices. He untied her and told her to sit up and wait for him while he went to put on still another record. After placing the needle he turned out the living room light so the room became dark with only the light from the kitchen providing some illumination. Then he sat down on the ottoman and told her to lie across his lap.

The music now emanating from the speakers was of a very advanced modernistic sort, even more so than the Stravinsky, though far less violent, but highly atonal and abstract. She found it somewhat abstruse but also colorful and sensuous and rather spooky. It sounded at times like the soundtrack of a horror or a science fiction movie. (She later learned that the music, by Ligeti, had been used in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.) As she lay over his lap and awaited the first blows, the darkness, the music and her extreme state of arousal combined to produce in her a state of near terror. In another minute she thought she would scream—it was then that she felt the flat end of the brush come thudding down on her tender bottom. It was her first ever hairbrush spanking; the polished wood surface was hard and unyielding, so different from the feel of flesh or leather. It was painful, so painful she started to cry, which had never happened before. At first it was a quiet whimper, covered up by the music, then it became louder and she started to kick her legs against the floor; that was when he stopped. How humiliating it was to be spanked so hard it made you cry! Yet when it was over she was more aroused than ever.

He rubbed her ass gently with his hand, kissed her neck, then told her to get up and lie down on the floor. She lay down on the carpet and spread her legs, while in the dim light she watched him undress until he was standing there naked, his erect penis thrust out like a sword. She closed her eyes, her pussy aching with desire, waiting for him to confer the privilege of filling it with his swelling manhood, until at last after all the waiting and teasing and anticipation he was inside her. For the next twenty minutes he fucked her to the sound of space age music, and she felt herself flying past distant galaxies, and she came again and again and again with the force of an exploding supernova, until she collapsed in exhaustion, and floated weightlessly through space like a burnt out star as she awaited his climax, which with exquisite timing came just when the last note had sounded and the phonograph needle had ploughed its last groove.

* * * *

For the remainder of June, July and August, she saw him three or four times a week. She would have liked to see him every day. That would happen only after Labor Day, when she would move in with him. Then she would truly become his slave, subject to his commands and his whims, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty five days a year—she saw no end to it and wanted none. For her part she was ready now but he wanted her to wait; it was not, after all, a step to be entered into lightly. So this became a trial period, as if she were a novitiate in a religious order. It was an image that appealed to her; if it was a religion it was a heretical one, like some underground pagan cult that had persisted over the centuries or millennia, its teachings handed down in secret books, in scrolls buried in caves, its secret rites celebrated in underground grottoes, in hidden forest clearings, or on mountaintops.

She continued to work in the bookstore, going through the day like a sleepwalker, and marveling that no one seemed to notice anything different about her. Afterwards, if she didn’t have a date with Roger, she would go home to her apartment, spending the evenings alone, lying in her bed in a dark room illuminated only by candles, smoking marijuana and listening to music, and reflecting on her strange life.

These were times for her to engage in self-reflection, to wonder what strange morbid impulse it was to seek pleasure in pain and self-abasement. Accustomed to think of life in literary terms, she saw herself as one of Baudelaire’s Damned Women, who “in the dark woods and solitary nights mix the foam of pleasure with tears of pain.” That was from a collection of poems entitled Les Fleurs du Mal, or Flowers of Evil. “Evil be thou my good,” she thought laughingly, because she didn’t think it was evil at all. How could something that gave her such pleasure be evil? But it was fun to think of herself as, at least a bit “wicked.” She recalled how Roger had mocked her for calling herself a “rebel.” Well, at least she was unconventional, which made her a rebel of sorts, if one could be a rebel in the cause of one’s own enslavement.

One weekend in early August they spent at a country estate in New Jersey, near Princeton, that belonged to one of his partners who was on vacation in Europe with his wife, and had lent him the use of the place. On their arrival they toured the house, at the back of which a pair of French doors opened out onto a lawn behind which was a garden. The garden was rectangular in shape and enclosed on three sides by rows of magnolia trees. In the center was a bed of flowers, planted with perennials of many colors, purple, yellow, orange, white and red, a riot of colors and beautiful scents. Eve thought it was the most beautiful garden she had ever seen and it made her think of the Garden of Eden. After completing their tour they went out for lunch. When they came back, Roger had her take off all her clothes, put a dog collar around her neck, attached a leash, and led her on all fours through the living room, out the French doors and into the garden. It was a beautiful day and Eve felt the warm sun on her back. He walked her slowly through the garden, and at eye level the flowers appeared even more beautiful. At the end of the path there was a stone bench; he seated himself on one end, facing to the side, and had her come around and lie over his lap. Playfully he told her he was going to “spank his little bitch.” She lay there facing the flowers and could smell their scent as he spanked her. Once more she was reminded of the Garden of Eden and thought, I have eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge but rather than being expelled from a garden I have been admitted to one, not a garden of innocence but an erotic paradise, an exotic garden planted with sweet smelling flowers that were fleurs du mal, an inverted paradise where pain was pleasure and bondage was freedom. It was her world now and she knew she would be living there for the rest of her life.