Chapter 1

One morning in the spring of 1953, almost all the Paris dailies ran headline stories of the "strange and violent death of Baroness Carla Arvon." It is, of course, part of a newspaper's business to run stories about strange and violent death, and generally all the brutal details are itemized, and blood, rape, murder, catastrophe pour out at us from the unemotional lines of black and white.

In the case of Baroness Arvon, "strange and violent death" remained just that. The nude body of this remarkably beautiful woman had been found in a filthy (but unnamed) hotel in the Paris slum area. The proprietor of the hotel, when questioned by the police, said the woman had rented the room only a few hours before she was discovered dead. She had not filled out registration papers, the proprietor admitted, because she had claimed to be very tired when taking the room and said she would see to all the formalities when she went out for dinner. She never went out to dinner. At midnight, the proprietor knocked at her door and, since there was no answer, turned the knob and found that the door had not been locked from inside. Baroness Arvon lay on the floor, and an alcohol burner still sputtered on the table beside the bed.

I report the story of her death in almost the very words of the newspapers. The rest of the great amount of space devoted to Carla Arvon related the calm, quiet, virtuous events of her life. Born of middle-class parents, she had married at a very young age the formidable Baron Arvon, a man more than thirty years her senior, a man driven by bitterness and hatred because revolution had forced him from his own middle-European country to take up residence in France. Their marriage was a happy one (said the newspapers) but short-lived since the Baroness was made a widow only four years after she had been made a bride. Left with a three-year-old daughter and several billion francs, Carla Arvon spent the second twenty years of her life in nun-like solitude, emerging into society for a rare evening with intimate friends-usually central-European exiles-or, more frequently, for an afternoon devoted to some charitable benefit. Her good works were as great, and as little known, as her superlative beauty. Few indeed (said the newspapers) were those fortunate enough to behold this tall slender woman with ice-blue eyes and ice-blue hair.

In short, nothing in her brief quiet life-curiously enough, she died on her fortieth birthday-would have led anyone to expect her "strange and violent death," although she herself had, in a way, prophesied it. The newspapers reported that several of her intimates had informed the police that during the past year or two Baroness Arvon had often said, but always in jest: "One day, I'll surprise all of you. I know you call me Baroness Nun behind my back"-which, in fact, they did-"but I'm not so sure you always will."

That spring morning in 1933, I was sitting at a cate on Boulevard St. Germain, sipping my coffee and reading, with little interest, the oddly discreet reportage of the Baroness's death. It was not until I'd read the whole length of one column that my eye flicked up to the rather blurry photograph in the middle of the page. I knew the face at once. There was no thrilling, shocking sensation of could it be? or surely it isn't? There was only a moment of terrible and profound grief that I had discovered in this casual, ridiculous way that my long search was over. The image I had carried in my heart, in my mind, in the haunted heat of my loins, had been destroyed in a filthy but unnamed hotel in the Paris slum area. Two decades of memory ended there.

For it was soon after the death of her husband-although I didn't know that he was Baron Arvon-that I meet Carla, ice-eyed, ice-haired Carla, all ice except for the holocaust raging within her. We met by accident, or, to tell the truth, we didn't meet at all: I followed her. She appeared, as I later learned was the only way she could appear, as if from out of nowhere. I turned a street and there she was: only her back at first, but what an incredible back it was. She was made all of one line, one soft curving line that rolled and swelled, spread and narrowed, moved from the curve of her shoulders to the small of her back and there it widened out to a stretch of hips that ran in a perfect curve round the slight swell of her buttocks, these globes that swayed ever so slightly beneath the grip of her all-white summer dress. The dress hung to the middle of her calves, but there the single splendid line of her body reasserted itself in the shape of tanned smooth flesh that blossomed out for a moment as if appealing to a waiting hand and then tapered down to a fine chiseled ankle. Her hair was much longer than most women wore-theirs that year. What would she have done with a mannish cut? She needed it just as it was, lightly waved, softly rippling to her shoulders, incredibly casual despite the strangeness of its color: platinum-silver-blue, like the color of a perfect diamond. Yes, she was all ice like a diamond; but diamonds are born of coal-and coal burns.

For some minutes, I was so caught up in the admiration of her back that I didn't think of increasing my pace. Then, when I decided to catch up with her, she saved me the trouble by turning a comer and sitting down on the terrace of a cafe. It was a large terrace and there was no one else on it, but I was too caught up by the girl to make any pretences. I sat down at the table just beside hers.

It is difficult to describe a beautiful woman, perhaps because beauty exists primarily in harmony. Most women you can describe are only pretty-they have a flaw somewhere. But a beautiful woman, one as beautiful as Carla was, can have no feature better than the next; all features must coordinate. Well, she sat at the next table and her face was expressionless, and she didn't seem to notice me. She was tanned, but still her face was paler than her calves, like a slightly darkened cream, and her long eyelashes curved out black and fine from delicate lids above her eyes-those clear eyes, almost the same color as her hair, which refused to notice me. They stared straight out across the pavement and were made arrogant by the way she kept her chin raised. It was wonderful to see the graceful sweep of that single line again leading from her chin down the length of her straight neck and then outward to form those breasts defying concealment, trying to reveal themselves in every way: I could sense the small warm elasticity of her nipples chafing at the doth of her dress. I wanted to bend over to her and with no more ado than a "Mademoiselle, may I?" pluck the round white softness from her bodice and bring her nipples to my lips.

When the waiter came, she ordered cognac, and so did I.

"On a day like this," I said to her as soon as the waiter had gone, "cognac is the wrong thing to have. It only makes you warmer."

"Is that so?" But she wouldn't look at me.

"Well," I began, wishing I were a brilliant conversationalist. "Well, yes, that's so. Alcohol increases the blood pressure or something and it makes the blood-well, you know. In any case, it makes you warmer."

"Then would you mind telling me why you ordered a cognac?" She looked at me for the first time, her full lips gently parted.

I smiled, but she refused to smile back and merely continued to gaze at me distantly.

"Maybe," I told her, "I want to be warmer."

Not catching any but the most obvious meaning in my statement, she spoke thoughtlessly: "And maybe I do too." She had hardly finished speaking before our conversation took on a new light in her mind and she could not prevent herself from smiling. Then she turned away from me and stared again at the pavement until the waiter brought our drinks. Then I said:

"World you mind if I joined you at your table?"

She sighed deeply, her breasts rising. "I would mind very much. In the first place, I am only very recently a widow. In the second place, even if I didn't think it improper to speak to a strange man, I must confess I have no inclination to."

"Why not?"

"I simply haven't. I find that most men labor under the delusion that they will soon be providing me with a pleasure I find altogether repugnant."

"Most men, you say. But that doesn't mean all men."

"Perhaps not. In all honesty, then, are you going to claim yourself one of the rare men interested in me only as a partner in aimless sociable conversation?"

I hesitated. "In all honesty: no."

"In that case, I think it best to bring our conversation to a close." And she sipped at her cognac.

"By the way, you said a minute ago that most men wanted to provide you with a pleasure you find repugnant. How can a pleasure be repugnant?"

She flushed and stared down at her drink. "I meant that it wasn't a pleasure-I meant that it was their pleasure, not mine. I meant-" She stopped abruptly and I realized she'd begun to cry.

I jumped from my chair and moved to her table.

"Look, I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry. Please forgive me."

"It's all right," she said, her voice calm but tears still coming into her eyes. "Just give me your handkerchief. Thank you."

"I'm really terribly sorry." Sitting down beside her I put my arm round her. My embrace was almost brotherly and she must have sensed this because, as her eyes slowly dried, I could feel that she was grateful for my comfort. It was this curious reversal in both of us-my fraternal affection and her gratitude-that made me understand it was not so much what I'd said that bothered her, but some deeper problem which, when evoked, could easily bring tears from her.

"If there's anything I can do for you," I said, "I'd like you to know you can count on me. You don't know anything about me, of course, but if you take my word, I'm a trustworthy person and-"

"There's nothing anyone can do," she shook her head. "It's all been done. It's finished. In the past."

I was silent because I knew she would say more. After a moment, she continued: "If only I could talk to someone. I see myself choking with my own misery in all the years Ahead, saying nothing."

"You can talk to me. I'm a stranger to you, and I'm even a foreigner in your country."

"You're an American?"

"Yes."

She looked at me suddenly, her blue eyes searching across my face. "Could you meet me tonight?" she asked finally.

"Yes."

"Be here, at this cafe, about midnight."

"I could pick you up somewhere else, if you'd like. I've got a car."

"No, that's impossible. Let's meet here."

She stood up and put a coin on the table.

"Goodbye," she said. "Until tonight." Her voice was husky and thrilling, and in my new role of father-confessor, I tried not to look at her retreating form.

At a quarter to midnight, I was back at that same table. It was a heavy night, warm, damp, with a slice of moon standing like a crescent on the point of the church steeple in the square across the way. I had some misgivings about my rendezvous. Here was a hot wet night, a night when moist flesh ought to be sucking up against other moist flesh, and there was even a bit of moonlight to sift through a bedroom window and glisten on bodies. But this was not for me. I was going to be Mr. Good Samaritan all over the place, listen paternally to the problems of a miserable young girl, and perhaps, at the very most, physical contact would be another fraternal embrace. I oughtn't to bother waiting, I thought But I waited.

By midnight, the cafe had got a bit crowded with people taking a last cool drink after the theater or the movies. There was a great deal of noise, and I knew his wouldn't be the right place for a long solemn talk. Then suddenly, there she was coming across the square as if she'd stepped right out of the darkness.

She was wearing a tight black dress now and it was clamped against all her curves; as she walked it hugged in against her loins and lay hungrily on the inside swell of her thigh. This dress was cut lower than the white one and, except for a short necklace of what appeared to be diamonds, her flesh swooped unbrokenly halfway down the swell of her breasts.

It was going to be hard for her father-confessor; in fact it was already hard, and warmth tingled along my body. When she approached my table, everyone turned to stare. "Let's get away from here," I said.

She nodded, and I stood up, took her arm, and we walked to the comer in silence.

"Look," I told her. "We can go to another cafe if you want. Or else we can just drive around the city. My car's down the street."

She hesitated. "I hope I haven't made a mistake."

"What do you mean?"

"Trusting you."

"You're so damn suspicious. You must think I'm quite a man to be able to drive a car and tangle up with you at the same time."

She laughed. That was the first time I'd seen her laugh. It was a good throaty laugh, and I saw her white even teeth and the brief sudden flicker of a pink pointed tongue.

"All right," she said. "We'll take a ride."

For five minutes we drove without exchanging a word. There was almost no traffic and the breeze was wonderful as it fluttered through the window while we sped along.

"Do you want to begin?" I asked. "I'm trying to. It's so difficult when one has lived in silence for so long."

"So long."

"More than four years. That's a long time. And I was such a talkative jolly girl. My boy friends used to say the only way to shut up was by putting-"

She broke off.

"Go on."

"Yes, I must say it all. All, from the beginning. My boy friends"-she took a deep breath-"used to say the only way to shut me up was putting a tongue or a penis in my mouth. That would keep me quiet all right. I loved things like that in those days. I loved to feel a man's warm body against me and to have his face rub against mine and then to feel dry lips moving over me, pushing to my lips and then a sweet wet tongue. I liked the other thing even better, taking it in my mouth and coaxing at it, smothering it with the warmth of tongue and throat. My whole body would be pulling at it, calling its vital life to flow into my mouth. But I never did anything more-I mean, I didn't make love until I was married.

"I was raised in a town in the center of France. My parents were fairly well-off, but they were very ambitious. You know, if I had a rich boy friend, I knew it was perfectly all right to bring him to my house at night and we could do what we wanted-and my parents knew about it. But if the boy was poor, and they found I was seeing him, they'd call me a whore, a no-good. For me, a boy was a boy; it wasn't his money I liked in my mouth. When I was sixteen, a very rich man came to our town; he had come to spend the summer and it was great news. No one could talk of anything all the time he was there; first they talked of his money, later of his eye for the girls, and-last of all, of him and me. I didn't like him at all. He was almost fifty and had a terrific gray beard, an ugly scowl, and an enormous belly. Some of the girls in the town slept with him and got money for it. I didn't sleep with him, and eventually I got all his money. For, one day, to everyone's astonishment, his big Rolls-Royce stopped in front of our house. My mother almost fainted with the pleasure of seeing the neighborhood come out to watch the fat man walk to our door. Without any explanation, he told my parents he would marry me. The fact is, that since he could not-as he had the other girls-rent me, he decided to buy me. And, of course, no one ever asks a piece of goods if it wants to be bought; and naturally the owner is entitled to do what he wants with the article he owns. My parents received an excellent price for me. I haven't seen them since I left home, but I understand they are now the town's aristocracy with a manor house and a half-dozen servants.

"At the end of the summer, I went to Paris and lived with my fiance's aunt while waiting for the wedding to take place. It was going to be a very elegant affair, and two months went into the preparations of it. I needn't tell you that Boris, my husband-to-be, wanted to anticipate if not the union of our, souls, certainly the union of our bodies. Fortunately, his aunt, a silly old lady who died the day after our wedding, had decided to act as my chaperone and never left me and Boris alone in a room.

"Things were not too bad those two months before the wedding. I had everything a girl could want, and since I was only sixteen, the future, the wedding, the first physical acts with my hideous fiance, seemed too far away to care about. And besides, the silly old aunt had a very handsome young butler who would sneak into my room at night and keep my mouth busy until morning. And he had a great deal to keep me busy with. He even wanted me to run away with him, but I was too much of a fool to go."

We had both become so engrossed in what she was saying that neither of us noticed we had driven out of Paris and into the suburbs. The hesitation with which she had begun her story now turned into a rather intense and distracted calm. She seemed to have forgotten about me and was instead reliving the episodes in her past; and this made me feel odd, as if I were looking into somebody else's window, watching a strange man and woman go through the rites of love.

"Our wedding took place," she was saying, "at the end of November. I felt almost lost in the elegance of the affair, and yet I behaved superbly, for Boris' aunt had been giving me lessons. I knew the right amount of coolness or warmth to show everyone present. And then, after the reception, we went to Boris' house. All the servants had been sent away. The place was silent, and for the first time, I became tense with the expectation of what would take place. 'Come, my dear bride,' Boris said to me. 'I shall carry you to the sacrificial altar."

"He picked me up, and the great folds of my wedding gown billowed up around me. He carried me to the master bedroom. Tremendous candles burned all around the room; heavy draperies hung across the windows and gleamed with the candlelight. There was something terrifying about the large bed. Boris was still carrying me; his arms tightened about my body, and he said: 'When we go out into the world, Carla, you must remember that you are the aloof wife of a great man, that you are the mistress of many manors, that you are in the position to control almost everyone you meet. But when you enter this room you must forget all that, and remember only one thing: that you are my whore. You exist only for my pleasure. You are to be used as I see fit. Do you understand?' And his face bent close to mine.

"I said nothing, but looked away-once more to the terrifying bed.

"'Do you understand?' he repeated, his arms squeezing me so tightly, I could barely breathe. 'Do you understand?'

"I nodded. "Then tell me it,' he said.

"In this room,' I murmured quietly, 'I'm your whore. I exist only for your pleasure. I'll be used as you see fit,'

"He laughed as I spoke, and his beard slid across my face. Then, unexpectedly, his arms relaxed and he flung me to the ground. I was too stunned to move, and even if I hadn't been, I don't think I would have dated to budge. Boris stood over me, an enormous threatening monster. After a moment, he bent down with great effort and put his hands at the neck of my gown-and pulled. I shrieked-more at the thought of the destruction of this expensive and beautiful dress than from any personal fear. He tore the dress down the length of my body, then pulled me to my feet and dragged the shredded cloth from my arms. His eyes widened and flamed to see me in my under things.

Reaching again, he ripped my brassiere from me, and my breasts trembled in their new freedom. He looked at them a long time before he put his finger out and slowly ran it across them!

"'Superb,' he said. 'Almost better than I expected.' His finger moved to my nipple and plucked at it delicately, strumming the small pink protrusion. I must admit there was something exciting in the sensation of his rough finger stroking my teat; then he took it between thumb and forefinger and massaged it gently, then a little more fiercely, beginning to squeeze it, increasing the pressure gradually until pinpoints of flame-like pain licked up into my breasts. He released me, and his hands fell to my hips, to the elastic band of my panties. He rolled them slowly down my hips to the point below my navel. Lifting a finger again, he stroked the roundness of my belly, round and round, until involuntarily, my body began to move with his finger, shimmying slightly round and round. Without warning, he once more grasped my panties, and with one violent gesture tore them from me and flung them across the room. His large hands were again placed on my hips; they moved downwards to my thighs, and continued to move downward, pulling my stockings as they moved. He bent then and took my shoes and stockings off. I was completely naked, and he backed away from me and looked and looked, his eyes moving up and down. 'Excellent! he whispered. 'Excellent. Now turn around.' I turned around and then back and then around again; he made me go on turning, faster and faster, until my breasts rose out before me and I became dizzy as I spun. 'Keep turning,' he said, and as I turned, I saw him begin to remove his own clothing."

I could no longer go on driving. We were now out in the country and, since I couldn't concentrate on the dark roads, I pulled the car into a side lane and shut the motor. Carla didn't even notice. She was involved in her wedding night, half with the terror of what was coming, half with pleasure. She was breathing heavily. How I wished that I could then be looking at what Boris had seen, to see her spinning nakedly before me while I undressed. Hardly knowing what I was doing, I moved close to her, and put my arm round her. She didn't seem to be aware of anything I did.

"I continued to spin," she said. "And each time I faced Boris I saw him tugging at his clothing or dropping an article to the floor. I was so dizzy I could hardly stand, but when I threatened to pause, he roared, "Turn!' and I turned. He was naked to the waist and his chest seemed like a continuation of his thick beard; it was one mass of gray hair. Then suddenly, he was all undressed except for his shorts. 'Stop turning,' he called. I stopped, but had to hold on to a chair to keep from falling.

"'Now,' he said. 'Get on your knees and crawl to me.' I did as he asked, and when I had reached him, he ordered me to pull his shorts down. I did, doing it slowly to please him, and when the garment had reached his loins his massive penis jumped out at me, almost touching my face. 'Did you ever see a bigger one than that?' he asked me.

"'No,' I told him. In fact I never had. Its length and width startled me; I could already feel it breaking me open, splitting me in half. When hi had stepped out of his shorts he pushed the tip of his member against my lips, and slowly I opened my mouth. Its great bulging head moved past my teeth and came to rest at the end of my tongue. The heat radiated into me, exciting me; I felt myself go damp and gluey in my woman, now twitching with the beginning of desire.

He continued to push his penis into my mouth, slowly, slowly. But there was too much of it. I fondled the sack of his testicles, pushing my mouth closer to him, wanting to swallow his tool but finding it too long for me. When there was room for no more, he roared: 'You will take it all into your mouth, as you will take it all into other parts of you. Relax, let it slip into your throat.' He continued to push it in; my throat and tongue ached with the burden of his stiff relentlessness. And somehow, at last, my face was smothered into his bush of hair, my chin lay against his scrotum. I was numb with this enormous invasion, and felt its hot pulsing length throb against my tongue. He edged backwards, sliding it out of my mouth, then back again, down, down. His hands were on my head stroking me.

"He grabbed hold of my shoulders, and pulled me to my feet. 'You suck as if you'd spent your life with your face in a man's crotch,' he said. 'Now get on the bed; we'll see about your other openings."

"I lay down and waited for him. He came to the foot of the bed and, since there was no footboard but only two posts-one on either side of the wide bed-he leaned across and put a hand on each of my ankles. Pulling me toward him, he spread my legs wide, stretching them the width of the bed until each of my legs was held in place by putting my feet outside the bedposts. After the first agony of the wrench, I enjoyed the sensation. I felt my damp woman thrust itself out freely. Boris stood above me looking between my legs. Then he knelt and drew his face down to my loins. His beard swept over my raw flesh, and then his thick lips were pressed against my swampy lips; his tongue shot out, and a shock of delight tore through my body. The tongue lashed hotly in the meat of my crotch; it stopped at my clitoris and his teeth bit at it like blades.

Then his tongue slid the length of my split, went down and under, back up again to the threshold of pleasure and darted in and out. I wanted to scream with delight; I only moaned. His hands rubbed fiercely across my body, gathered my breasts up like warm dough. He seemed to be drinking the slime of my loins, drowning in it, while his tongue sloughed through my meat."

It was driving me crazy to listen to her. Here, just beneath that black dress, lay those oily lips, squeezed together, hidden by thighs whose outline was clear to me. I could not prevent myself from pulling Carla closer to me; she continued to talk and she still seemed unconscious of me-unconscious of me, that is, as myself, but she was aware that a man, some man, sat beside her, for ever so slowly her small hand moved from her side and came to rest upon my fly. I felt myself throbbing under her touch, and then suddenly one of her fingers slid into the space between buttons and I felt the cool fire of her skin touch my flesh. I reached over and put my hand upon her knee, and her thighs moved gently apart. My fingers groped upwards, under her dress, to the darkness, to the dampness. I groped slowly along her thighs; and all the time, she talked.

"He lifted his face from between my legs, and his beard was dripping with my juice. Sliding upward, he threw the whole weight of his body on top of me. I felt crushed by his enormity; I couldn't breathe; every inch of my body was carpeted by his flesh and hair. His wet beard kept rubbing over my mouth, and I was forced to taste the excitement of my own woman. His hands moved constantly: rubbing, stroking, squeezing, pinching. He grabbed my buttocks and squeezed until I shrieked; then his fingers slid between them, and he stroked the tight, dry, little opening. 'Later on,' he said, 'we'll make it larger. But now I want the wet one. He took hold of my thighs and pushed until they were against my belly and my swamp was raised: hot pouting lips, waiting to be split apart. I saw Boris' hand go round his penis; he guided it to the threshold of its home; I felt the magnificent heat pulse against me. The head edged slowly in; my thighs shot wide apart, my legs went round in the air, kicking with impatience. The tip of his member sucked in and out of me gently, until I was so excited my fingernails tore at my husband's shoulders. 'In,' I cried. 'Put it in. All the way in.' His mouth lapped across my breasts, then came to rest on my nipple. He sucked hungrily, always moving his penis. 'Now,' he roared, and with one thrust I felt its length tear into me. Nothing existed but this wild painful lunge; and then it was lodged in me-that tremendous instrument. It beat like drums and affected every part of my body. I began to writhe hungrily round the hot cork while Boris chewed at my nipples, bit at my breasts, pinched all over my body. The hot iron seemed to be inserted not only several inches in my loins, but everywhere-past my belly, into my chest, beside my heart. My heart throbbed with its throbbing."

She had undone my buttons and her hand circled round my rod, and she pulled tenderly. My fingers had come to the warm flesh of upper thigh and continued to move; I brushed over the soft hair-not at all surprised that she was not wearing panties. And then I was wild; I tore at her dripping rawness, my fingers pulling roughly. She moaned, and paused a moment in her story, her eyes closed, head rolled backwards, hair like moonlight tumbling on the back of the seat. Into the trembling moisture of her hole I dug my fingers. The hand that had been round her shoulders now slid into her bodice and circled her breast; holding it tightly, I scooped it free, and in the dimness, I could see its pale perfect shape, its stiff dark tip! My face bent to it; my lips hungered at it; my tongue trembled across its spongy excitement. Then she went on talking again, and I wanted her to shut up. But she wouldn't; she was, I am sure, in a sort of trance-and her excitement was four years old; she was hot with Boris' penis in her. I remembered what she'd said earlier-that the only way to shut her up was to keep her mouth busy. I lifted my head, and our faces met powerfully; our tongues entwined, circling. After a moment, I broke away, and eased her head down until her lips kissed my pounding tool. She began to suck, abruptly, savagely, taking all of it into her mouth as if she wanted to swallow me with it. My fingers were insane in her hole; I wanted her to stop sucking so that our loins could meet, but it was impossible to pull her away. I was almost ready to explode; her soft relaxed lips and tongue manipulated my hard tenseness. Suddenly she stopped, sat up straight, and snapped her thighs together so that my hand was clamped in her; she began to talk.

"He lay on top of me for a moment, very still, as though he'd fallen asleep. Then suddenly he came to life, and began tossing and thumping, lifting his weight from me and dropping it again; his penis thrust deep, moved out, was thrust again. It happened a thousand times, and each thrust seemed to wind me a little tighter. His thrusts became quicker, quicker, until we were scratching crazily at each other and I was bursting into pieces, and Boris' juice was pouring out of him, spilling into me like a fountain into the sky. We lay still for a little while, and then the horrible things began to happen. First I thought his bites were playful, but then the pain was too great to be pleasant. His teeth snapped at my neck and shoulders and breasts, digging into my flesh until blood flowed. I cried and tried to push him from me. 'Remember that you are my whore,' he said, and he slapped my face. He started to rise and withdrew his member from me; moving over me, he seated himself on my belly and began to beat me mercilessly. His hand slammed across my face; his huge buttocks jumped up and down on my stomach. All pleasure and excitement was beaten out of me. It must have gone on for half an hour, and when finally he had finished pounding me with his body, he started with shoes, then with a belt, and last of all he scraped the metal hook of a clothes-hanger across my flesh. I was limp and bloody, weak and faint. I wanted to die, and yet was terrified that Boris would kill me. His erection was more tremendous than ever; it terrified and revolted me. 'Get on all fours,' he said. Every part of my body ached, but with the last resources of my strength I turned on my stomach and dragged myself into the required position. Boris walked across the room and took one of the large candles from the walls; when he returned to me, he spread my soft buttocks apart and gradually moved the candle close to me until I felt a distant warmth at my anus. The warmth increased, and then once, twice, I felt the flame lick up at me. I jumped into the air in agony, then tried to run away from him, but he was too much for me. Once again I was forced into that hideous position, and once again I felt the fire poking at my little hole. This went on interminably-until I was severely burned. Then Boris climbed on top of me and without a moment's hesitation, drove his penis through the burns, through my tight channel. I screamed and screamed; I could hear Boris sighing with a passion he had not known earlier in the evening. His arms went round me; one hand tore at my breasts, pulling them as he would a cow's udder; the other hand circled between my thighs. This intense agony continued almost until dawn. Each time my pain seemed to diminish, he would leave the bed and return with the candle. Just before dawn, I went into a dead faint. When I awoke I was on the chaise-longue; the blood-splattered bed-sheets were on the floor. Boris himself lay like a monstrous mountain on the bare bed. His penis was again-or perhaps still-erect; it was repugnant to me. My body was a tortured wreck; I could move nothing but my head. And that was my life for four years. Boris' ingenuity never failed him; he had new and greater agonies at his beck and call. Sex became the horror of my life-the thought of it nauseated me, whether with him or any man. Many times I wanted with him, to go away; even being a beggar would have been better than that life. But it wasn't possible; he would have found me anywhere I went. And besides I was watched all the time. He hired people to see I never strayed too far.

"During the day I played the part of the respected and cool wife of a great man. And my husband was the perfect gentleman in public. People often told me how surprised they were that my marriage was such a success; after all, they said, Boris was so much older than I. And I smiled, knowing how rapidly they would change their minds could they witness one of our orgies.

"Not many months after our marriage, I became pregnant. Boris was both delighted and infuriated. Delighted, because he had long dreamed of having a son and heir; and infuriated, because his treatment of me had to become less brutal, both for the child's sake and because it would have looked very bad for him to have me visit my doctor with bruises, scars, and welts all over my body. It was then I decided that life would only be tolerable for me if I could keep myself pregnant as often as possible. And when the child was born, and it was a girl, I was delighted because I thought Boris would surely want me to become pregnant again to try once more for a son.

"But I was mistaken. He despised the girl, and to my astonishment decided that I was too much of a fool ever to be able to bear him a male child. And of course he was unwilling to relinquish his more intense sexual pleasures for the minor pleasures of paternity. One morning, two or three months after little Angela was born, Boris came to my bedroom and said:

"'Carla, my dear, a young man will visit you tonight."

"'Who?' I asked.

"'You do not know him yet."

"'I'm afraid I really don't feel up to meeting anyone new, Boris. Can't he be put off?'

"'I don't want any arguments."

"I knew it-Would be safer for me not to argue, for although Boris never discussed our love-making during the day, he remembered when I annoyed him, and would silently take it out on me at night. 'Will he be coming for dinner or for coffee?' I asked.

"'For neither. You may expect him at eleven.

"'At eleven. Isn't that a little late?"

"'Perhaps. Never mind. Go to bed whenever you like-but be sure,' he added fiercely, 'that it's before eleven. 'Do you understand? Be naked in your bed before eleven o'clock. Everything else will be taken care of. You may be certain of that.

"And, of course, I obeyed his instructions. I lay in bed wondering what new agony was in store for me; but where Boris was concerned, one never needed to be long at wondering. And so, soon after eleven, my bedroom door opened and a young man came into the room. He was very handsome and not much older than myself but I no more desired him for a sexual partner than I did my husband.

"'You are the young man my husband told me to expect?' I asked, knowing that he was. But he barely looked at me; he said nothing. He walked to the foot of my bed and began to undress; when he was nude, he came round the side, his penis in his hand and, wordlessly, indicated that I was to manipulate it. I stroked it indifferently and passively allowed him to dart it into my mouth. Then, rather impatiently, he flung me away from him and lay down on the bed, his red penis sticking into the air. The young man made signs for me to sit upon his instrument; I squatted over it, wriggling myself until his tip slid to my opening. As I was about to sink down on it, he jerked his body, and his member glided along my crack like a wheel in a track. I had to begin again; and again he jerked it away; and again I laid its head to my hole. This time he allowed me to drop down, and the bar oozed deeply into me. At this point, he moved his body, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and forcing me to lie down on top of him so that my legs, like his, hung down; his penis slipped out with our motions, and I forced myself down on it, corking its hot length securely into me. He then reached across the bed, took the two pillows there and slid them under his hips so that I was lifted curiously with my behind in the air. It was then I realized that Boris had entered the room. He spread my buttocks and dug that fat limb into my bottom, then dropped over me so that I was sandwiched between the two men; a sandwich loaded with two enormous sausages, one thrusting me up, the other down.

"This young man-whose name I never learned-became a regular visitor in my bedroom. Later Boris added a young woman to our orgies, and I was taught the pleasures or horrors of lesbianism. I don't know how many others joined us during my four years with Boris. There was a dwarf; and for a while there was a tattooed man with a green penis and rose petals painted on his anus; 'Smell my pretty flower,' he used to say. Now and then he would ask one of the other men to water his flower, and I would watch Boris or another go to it with delight.

"But none of these parties pleased Boris as much as the simple pleasure of torturing me. And this he did only when we were alone, and rarely more than once a month. Once he said to me: 'When I have had enough of you, Carla, I will destroy you quite beautifully. I will fuck you until you are screaming with joy-and you know I can make you-and at the moment of your climax I will shove a sizzling hot iron up your ass. Do you think any woman could ask for a better death?'

"My only pleasure lay in my daughter, Angela, and Boris often threatened to make this infant join in our orgies. But I knew he never would, for no matter what infamies he sank to at night, his behavior was impeccable during the day. And I ultimately learned that to save his good name, he would forego even the pleasures of the flesh.

"Then, when we had been married nearly four years-" She broke off suddenly, shuddered, looked at me and seemed for the first time in hours to remember who I was; and then she became aware of my hand still clamped between her thighs, and of her breasts hanging out of her dress.

"What are you doing to me?" she said. "Where are we?"

"We're in the country somewhere. And as for what I'm doing-I'm doing what you want."

"No no no." And she drove my hand away.

"This is no time to be coy," I said. "Less than half an hour ago you were sucking me savagely."

"That isn't true."

"No? Look here." And in the pale darkness, blurs of her lipstick could be seen on my penis. "Let's go through with it now. The night's been leading to this."

"No. You're out of your mind. I'm through with filth, with men."

"Are you?" And I forced myself against her, pushed my mouth to her tight tense lips. At first they refused to part, but gradually, as my tongue flickered against them, they relaxed, softened, and finally spread for my kiss. My hand went once more to her thighs, and once more my fingers caressed her rawness and her mound. When we broke apart, passion made her eyes glow. We undressed hurriedly, left the car, and walked into the meadow beside the road. The first tremor of dawn showed in the sky and I turned to look at Carla and saw all that Boris had seen. Almost all. And as we tumbled into the grass, I saw the rest, parting gently, smiling oilily, empty and lonely for it was waiting to be filled with the tongue that jutted from my loins.

We were lovers for only three months. And we always met after midnight and drove' out to the scene of our first mating. Our coupling was always violent, and each of us was insatiable. We could neither of us have enough. But we would have to leave off before the sun rose.

"I've got to get home," she'd say. "It wouldn't do for Angela to know I'd been out. It's difficult enough to keep the servants from missing me although I've changed all their rooms around so that it's practically impossible for them to know I've gone. I don't want them gossiping: the child might pick it up."

It was always Angela. I grew jealous of the child. It was because of her I couldn't come to Carla's house. It was because of her that Car la refused to meet me during the day.

"I want her to know she can depend on me every moment of the day," Carla told me. "She must always know where I am. She must trust me completely."

"You'd left her the day we met, hadn't you?"

"That was an exception. It had to do with Boris' will. I've told you he wasn't French. On that particular day I had to see his ambassador. In fact, darling, if we hadn't met at that time, we probably never would have met."

"We were fated to meet."

"Yes," she sighed. "We were."

These were always night-time conversations, while we lay against each other in the dewy meadow. When the nights became cooler we had to seek out barns, and night after night I pumped away at Carla while cows watched us curiously. Finally, I asked her to marry me.

"Impossible."

"Why?"

"Because of-"

"Angela." I finished the sentence for her.

"Yes."

"Angela. Angela. Why don't you get her to fuck you-and then you wouldn't need anyone else at all."

Carla laughed. "She wouldn't be as good at it as you."

"Look, Carla, we can't go on like this-meadows and barns. Meeting only at these crazy hours. Sometimes I want you at noon, and then I have to think: twelve more hours."

"And don't you think that happens to me? But we have to go on like this."

"What do you mean-go on? How long? All our lives?"

"Our lives aren't that long. Think of being lovers just as we are for another twenty years."

"It won't be fun in the winters."

"We'll think of something."

But we never thought of anything. Or, that is, I was full of ideas, but she wasn't having any of it. "But Angela-" she'd say.

During our last two weeks we spent more time fighting than making love.

"Something's got to be figured out or-" I began.

She interrupted me. "Or what?"

"Or we'll have to stop seeing each other."

"No." I could see she was frightened.

"I'm serious, Carla."

"I'll go crazy if you leave me."

Now and then I'd try to take her home or, after leaving her at dawn at the cafe where we met at midnight, I'd try to follow her. It was impossible. She'd change taxis three or four times.

Throughout the last week, we didn't sleep together. I'd meet her at the cafe ask her if she'd changed her mind.

"No," and she was in tears. "Can't we go on like this?"

And I'd walk away, get in my car, and drive around the city, returning three or four times during the night. She stayed there all night, even after that cafe had closed, walking miserably on the pavement.

The last night I was sure she was going to change her mind.

"You don't know what will become of me," she said. "You'll be all right," I said. "You'll nave to be all right for Angela."

And I left and drove round the city. When I returned she was gone. She wasn't there the next night, nor the next; for a month I went to that cafe every night, then out to the freezing autumn meadows, then to the barns where the cows looked at me and seemed to low-no, sucker, she's not here.

There was no way to find her. I didn't know any name for her but Carla, and when I hired a detective I was amazed to learn that there were hundreds of women in Paris with silver-blue hair. I knew it was useless; and I knew that the mistake had been mine-that Carla in barns and meadows was better than no Carla at all. I stayed on in Paris, waiting for that summer day to return-to mark one year from the day we met. And for two weeks before and after the day I went to that cafe, thinking perhaps she'd forgotten the exact date. She was never there.

Since that time, except for the war years, I'd come back to Paris every year or so, and I always tried to extend my visit until after the day on which we'd met. But she seemed to have vanished completely; and not until that spring day in 1953 did I hear of her again. We might have gone on, as she had reasoned, for twenty years. How quickly those twenty years had gone; how empty they'd been; how full they might have been.

I was a man in his middle forties whose chase was over.

But no. These chase wasn't over. Perhaps now, knowing who she was, I could find out what the last twenty years of her life had consisted of.

I waited a day or two, watching the papers for more news of Carla's death. There was nothing. The story of her death vanished, much as she had vanished, and as in fact almost as mysterious as she.

Three days after the story first appeared, I noticed a small item in the obituary column of one newspaper. It merely said that the Baroness was to be buried that day at the family's private burial grounds, and that she was mourned by her only daughter.

Early the next morning, I phoned Angela Arvon.