Chapter 8
Robert came to dine with the family on the night before Joan's departure for her finishing-school in Germany.
Elisabeth contrived to come into the living room twice while they were drinking sherry before dinner. She looked at Robert now with a different gaze. She had whipped him, she had drunk his semen, and now she felt possessive.
Robert tried not to look at her, but he felt her eyes on him. He was greatly embarrassed and fidgety until she left the room. Only then did he relax.
Clive Lyveden noticed this with some puzzlement. What has happened? he wondered. The last time he was here she fairly ate him up with her gaze and he noticed nothing. This time she's looking at him with a funny look in her eyes — and he's as jumpy as though he's committed some crime. There's something very odd going on in this house. I'd very much like to find out what it is.
After dinner, Robert and Joan went out for a breath of air, as they called it. In fact, they went to the garage, climbed into the back of the Bentley and made love. They were tense and nervous, and the love-making was not very successful.
"Never mind," said Joan philosophically. "We'll make up for it when I come home again."
"Oh God," said Robert. "I can't stand the thought of all this time without you."
"It'll pass," said Joan. "You have your studies. They'll take your mind off me."
"They won't," said Robert gloomily.
"You'll write to me?"
"Every day."
"I'll write to you."
"You do love me, Joan?"
"Of course."
"Then why don't you agree to marry me — when I finish with the university and get a job and so on? Why can't we be engaged? Privately, I mean."
"All right," she said. "Let's be engaged. Privately, though. It's going to be a long engagement, I'm afraid. We can't just get married as soon as you get a job. You'll have to wait a bit longer before you can get Daddy's consent."
"Why ? I inherit as soon as I graduate."
"Inherit? Inherit what?"
"About twenty thousand. From an uncle. I thought you knew. Eric does."
"No," she said, in surprise. "I had no idea. Well, well! You'll be enough of a man of substance to ask Daddy's consent the day after you graduate."
"So," he said, taking her in his arms in the darkness, "so we're engaged at last."
"Yes, darling, we're engaged. But keep it dark for the time being."
"All right."
She stroked his hair. "I've resisted giving you an answer all this time for a completely different reason, you know."
"I know."
"What do you know?"
He chuckled. "You wanted to be sure that I'd obey you whenever you want to get sadistic with me. You wouldn't want to marry me unless you were sure of that."
"Yes," she said, in a small voice. "But after that afternoon with Elisabeth I began to be more sure."
"That was quite an afternoon!" he said lightly.
"You didn't like it, did you, poor darling?"
"Not much."
She had been on the point of suggesting that they should have Elizabeth as their own maid after they were married, but she thought she had better wait. Instead, she said: "Poor darling! But she did have us in a very difficult situation, didn't she? I know I rather liked the idea of having her as an assistant, but even if I hadn't, we couldn't have done anything. It would be too terrible if she went to Daddy with her story."
"Would it?" he asked quietly. He was thinking of the coming Saturday afternoon, when he was to report to Elisabeth for another whipping. He had several times been on the point of telling Joan about it, and asking her to agree to tell Elisabeth to do whatever she wanted with her story and be damned to her.
Joan sat up in the darkness. "Would it?" she repeated incredulously. "Do you doubt it? It would be the most terrible thing that could possibly happen. It would break his heart."
"Why?" he asked practically.
"Darling don't be silly. What would you think if you were told that your daughter was an active sadist, thrashing men backwards and forwards across her bedroom floor — with a maid watching everything from under the bed ? I'd never be able to look him in the face again. I'd never be able to live here again, for that matter. It would break his heart, and I would want to die of shame. Oh no, no, no! I love my father very much. He must never know about that."
"All right," he said very seriously. "I see your point." And that means, he thought, that I'll simply have to take the whippings every Saturday afternoon. Perhaps, though, they won't be every Saturday. Perhaps she'll get fed up after the first one — or two. I suppose I can put up with one or two for Joan's sake. But I wish I could tell her about it. I can't, though. She'd be torn between saving me and saving her father. No, I'd better say nothing at all. Just have to grin and bear it.
He said: "You must have been very worried."
"I was. But you co-operated beautifully. And everything is all right now."
"What about when you come home? She may want to go on with it."
"Let's bother about that when the time comes," she said at once. Privately she hoped very much that Elisabeth would want to go on being her assistant, even after her marriage. She could easily persuade her father to let her have a maid as an extra wedding present.
In the aircraft the following day, Joan projected her thoughts into the immediate future. It made her sad and homesick to think of Robert.
The finishing-school to which she was going had been carefully selected by her father, after searching enquiries. It was in Munich, and was run by a Fraulein Kaltenbrunner, a spinster of thirty-six years of age.
Frau Kaltenbrunner, Clive had learned, had an unimpeachable reputation in Munich. The only daughter of a rich industrialist, who had died when she was in her twenties, she had no need to work. She was possessed, however, of two urges: the first was to teach; the second was to give her money to deserving charities. She had satisfied the first of these urges by founding her finishing-school, in which thirty young ladies were taught the social graces and accomplishments. She had satisfied the second urge by founding a number of charitable trusts, of which she was herself the chairman.
She was unmarried because she preferred to be unmarried. She could have married at any time since she was old enough, both by reason of her wealth and by reason of her beauty. In Munich she was still, in fact, one of the great matrimonial catches for fortune hunters of birth and breeding. But she had never deceived herself about what her suitors principally wanted of her, and it was part of her pride that she would no compromise. She would not be driven into marriage for any incidental reason — loneliness, the shame of spinsterhood, the desire for children. Love alone would induce her. And love, moreover, that was given to her. She had never felt any need to give it herself to another. When she considered marriage, it was always in terms of being considered it as a possible reality. Even as a young girl, even as a child, Lili Kaltenbrunner had had a fateful conviction that no one would want her for herself. Her wealth stood as a barrier.
Had she been a Catholic, she might have entered the church. Had she been a poor woman, she would certainly have trained herself for some dedicated profession. But she was the Kaltenbrunner heiress. As one who accepts and fulfills an obvious destiny, she gave her wealth to charity and her love to her thirty young ladies.
All this Clive Lyveden had learned, after his searching enquiries, and he was content to entrust Joan to the care of this woman. He had been more than usually careful with his selection of a finishing-school for her because he did not want history to be repeated. Her mother had gone, at about the same age — and six years before Clive had met her — to a finishing-school in Switzerland. This had been run by a woman who today would be called a schizophrenic: one part of her mind had led her into what the Church refers to as "good works", with a kind, benevolent, tolerant, wise personality; the other part of her mind had led her into nymphomania, lesbianism and sadism. She had quickly sensed the underlying streak of cruelty in Joan's mother, and had set out to develop it with all her knowledge and all her skill. She had succeeded beyond her own expectations. Joan's mother had developed into a schizophrenic, with her sadism carefully hidden. It had not been revealed to Clive until the day after the end of their honeymoon. But when it was revealed, the revelation had come with the force of a hurricane.
For several years now, Clive had been alternating between the tormenting near-certainty that Joan would grow up with the same schizophrenic sadism, and the supplicating hope that it would pass her by. In her childhood, her partiality for tying people up — Eric and his friends, particularly — and then indulging herself in the fantasy of inflicting dreadful tortures on them had caused him many anguished moments. Recently, however, he had seen no ominous signs. He was not at rest, however. It could be that she was as clever as her mother had been at hiding her sadism, it could be that it was still only incipient, and perhaps — just perhaps — it could be that it was going to pass her by. He prayed nightly that she had taken after him, and not after her mother. But he remained very anxious.
And so he had been extremely careful with his choice of a finishing-school for her. There should be no danger at the one to which she was now going.
Fraulein Kaltenbrunner herself met Joan at the Munich Airport.
"I'm very glad to welcome you, Joan," she said in German. "Your father tells me that you speak German. You do, I hope?"
"Well," said Joan, in German, "I learned it at school. I took special lessons, I mean. But I don't know how good I am."
"You seem very good," smiled the older woman. "And you have a good accent. Come. Let us finish with this tiresome police and customs control."
The police and customs formalities were finished very quickly. Fraulein Kaltenbrunner was an important personage in Munich.
"My car is in the front," she told the porter. "Will you please take the bags and give them to my chauffeur?"
She took Joan's arm and steered her through the throng of people. "The journey must have tired you. Let us go home at once, and you can rest."
In the car, she said: "I have put you with a very nice girl from Sweden. But if you would prefer to have a separate room to yourself, you must tell me."
"Oh no," said Joan. "It'll be great fun to share a room. A Swedish girl, you say. Does she speak English?"
"No," said the other gently. "Only Swedish and German. That's why I put you with her. It will be better for you to practice your German, won't it?"
Joan laughed. "You're quite right. It's my natural English shyness with a foreign language that made me ask that."
"You shouldn't have any shyness. Your German is excellent. You must have had a very good teacher. Was he a man?"
"Yes."
"Men are always better teachers than women, I have to admit. That is why we have more men than women on the staff at the school."
That's good news, thought Joan. Unless they are all ancient. Oh dear, poor Robert! That thought was a bit disloyal, wasn't it? Dear, beloved Robert.
The older woman smiled at her. "I think you are pleased. You prefer to be taught by men, don't you?"
"Well, yes," admitted Joan, slowly. "I think I do."
"And our men-teachers are not ancient, I'm glad to say."
Joan turned her head sharply. It was uncanny how the other had read her thoughts.
There was silence for a moment or two. Then: "Your room-mate has been with us for two terms already," said the older woman. "I'll leave it to her to tell you all about the routine of the school. She will take you in charge for a little while, as it were."
"What is her name?" asked Joan.
"Kristina Oley. And she is about your own age. You are nineteen, aren't you?"
"Yes, Fraulein Kaltenbrunner."
"Are you in love? Have you left some of your heart behind you?"
Joan stared at her, uncertain how to reply.
"Most of my girls have. And I'm always rather relieved. It removes some of the danger of their falling in love with the not-so-ancient mentachers." There was a humorous twinkle in her eye.
Joan laughed. "Well, as a matter of fact, there is someone."
"A serious matter?"
"Rather serious."
"You're engaged?"
"Unofficially. But don't tell Daddy. It's very secret. We have to wait till he finishes with the university."
"No, I won't tell anyone. But I am relieved. It is a great responsibility, you know, having someone of you age and beauty under one's care and — er — protection. And you are extremely beautiful, my dear."
"Thank you very much," said Joan, and added impulsively. "And so are you."
Fraulein Kaltenbrunner patted her hand. "You are very sweet."
Kristina Oley, Joan's room-mate, was another beautiful girl. Blonde and tall, with a lissome figure and lovely legs, she had already turned a good many male heads in Munich.
"Let me help you unpack," she said, after Fraulein Kaltenbrunner had left them alone together in their room.
"Oh, never mind," said Joan. "I'll do it later on. But thank you all the same." She did not want anyone else opening her bags. Impulsively, at the last moment before leaving home, she had put her handcuffs into one of her cases. She wanted to have them with her as a souvenir of what passed between Robert and herself, and as a reminder of what was to happen again. It would be too terrible for words if this Swedish girl should see them. She had perhaps been unwise to bring them with her, but she had imagined that she would be having a room to herself. She was not at all displeased to find that she would be sharing a room with this attractive girl, but she realized she would have to hide those handcuffs somewhere. She would slip up to the room alone later on and do her unpacking in privacy.
She said: "Fraulein Kaltenbrunner said I was in your charge for a while — "
"We call her Kalt. Fraulein Kaltenbrunner is too much of a mouthful."
Joan laughed. "Kalt is a lot easier. Well, she said so. Would you like to show me around? Or would you like to wait till later?"
"Let's go now."
They went downstairs and began a tour of the house, room by room.
It was, in fact, a schloss. It had been built in the sixteenth century and was very beautiful. Fraulein Kaltenbrunner had spent a great deal of money in modernizing its interior, installing central heating, bathrooms, lavatories, and many other modern conveniences.
"We live very well here," said Kristina. "The food is good — very good, and Kalt is a sweetie. And, what is more, we're free to go down into Munich whenever we like."
"There's a locking-up time, I suppose?"
"Yes, theoretically. Midnight. But we've only to ask Kalt and we can get an extension."
"Just like that? No questions?"
"Oh, we have to tell her where we're going and who with, but she never checks up."
"On the drive here she seemed to be rather worried by her responsibilities — responsibilities for us, I mean."
"That's only on the surface," said Kristina, with satisfaction in her voice. "In fact, she lets us do pretty well as we like."
"Sounds very nice indeed," said Joan. "I was a bit afraid of having to return to a sort of boarding school atmosphere,"
"Good heavens, no! There's nothing at all like that here, thank the good Lord."
"What are the teachers like? She told me that some of the men are not ancient. She gave me quite a shock, too, when she said it. I'd just been wondering about it."
"Yes," said Kristina seriously. "Kalt has a gift that is a bit uncanny sometimes. She seems to be able to read anyone's thoughts — even the most private. If you want to keep anything secret from her, it's best not to look at her."
"I wasn't looking at her."
"She must have tuned in on your wave-length then," said Kristina lightly. "You'd better be careful with her, if you have any secrets."
"Yes," said Joan seriously. "I'd better. But tell me about the teachers. What are they like?"
"These are two women and four men — or rather, three men and a pansy."
"A pansy? You don't say so!"
Kristina laughed gaily. "Yes, and some of us have great fun with him."
"What sort of fun?"
"Oh, we torment him a bit. And he can't do anything about it because Kalt doesn't know he's a pansy. If she did he'd be out on his ear in a second."
Joan was fascinated. "How do you know about it? I mean, do you actually know, or do you just suppose he's one?"
"Oh, we know all right," said Kristina with relish. "One of the girls caught him on the job last year with a stable-boy."
"Here?"
"Yes, here."
Joan burned to ask in what ways they tormented him, but she thought she had better not be too curious. She would find out in good time — and the torment certainly would not be of the sort that had just crossed her mind. It would probably be a lot of girlish ragging, but nothing more. She said: "And the others?"
"They're all right. One of them is a bit of a wolf and wants watching, but he's rather nice and terribly good-looking. And — oh, here comes Kalt."
Fraulein Kaltenbrunner came up to them. "So you've seen the house, Joan. Do you like it?"
"Oh yes," said Joan warmly. "It's wonderful. I'm so glad to be here."
"I'm very pleased to hear that. Could you give me a minute or two? I have various things to discuss with you about your studies?"
"Certainly, Fraulein Kaltenbrunner."
"Come along to my room then. You'll excuse us, please, Kristina?"
"Of course, Fraulein." Kristina went off with a wave of her hand. "I'll get your unpacking done for you," she called to Joan.
Joan opened her mouth to shout "Don't!", and then closed it with a snap. It would gave her away at once. As it was, the handcuffs would raise Kristina's eyebrows a bit. She would have to think of some excuse for having them in her bag.
When she had finished with Fraulein Kaltenbrunner, she went up to her room and found all her clothes neatly put away in the drawers and ward-robe. The handcuffs had been placed beside her pile of handkerchiefs. A deep blush mounted to her cheeks.
There was a note propped up on her dressing-table: "Dear Joan, I forgot to tell you I have a date this evening. I hope I have put your clothes away in the way you like. (What lovely things you have. I'm so jealous!) See you later. Kristina."
Well, thought Joan, the damage is done. I'd better think up some good excuse for when she mentions them. I shan't mention them myself, of course. Qui s'excuse, s'accure! But I'd better have a good excuse ready.
She began to rack her brain for an excuse. She could not find one that would deceive even a child. And she began to be worried.
She need not have worried, for when Kristina returned that night she was fast asleep, and no mention of handcuffs was made the following morning.
Three days went by, in fact, and still Kristina did not ask her why she carried handcuffs around with her Joan at last found herself able to relax.
Perhaps, she thought to herself, she just hasn't got an enquiring mind. My goodness, though, if I had seen handcuffs in someone's bag, nothing would have been able to stop me asking about them.
At breakfast on her fourth day at school, Kristina said: "Shall we go to the cinema tonight, Joan?"
"I'd love to," said Joan. "It seems ages since I went to a film. What's on?"
"Oh, quite of lot of good things. We'll have a look at the paper. And after the cinema I thought we might stay downtown and have dinner. What do you say?"
"A wonderful idea."
They went to see a comedy and later went on to a beer-garden restaurant where Kristina said it was perfectly all right for two unescorted girls to dine.
A quarter of an hour through the meal, Kristina said quietly: "Would you do me a favour, Joan?"
"Certainly," said Joan at once. "If I can."
"I want you to lend me something."
Oh dear, thought Joan.
"Not money," said Kristina, looking up suddenly.
Joan laughed her relief. "Have you picked up Kalt's gift of thought reading?"
"No," grinned Kristina. "But I wish I could. It would come in useful at times."
"What do you want me to lend you?"
"Your handcuffs, if you will."
Joan felt the blood draining from her face. "Of course," she said, as easily as she could. "With pleasure." Oh, the cunning of it! she thought. She takes the war into my own country now. She refuses to ask me why I have them, and now puts me in the position of asking her why she wants them. Well, I'll be damned if I will. "Just take them," she said, "whenever you want them. They're still where you put them when you unpacked for me." She reached for her bag and took out her key-ring. "You'll want the key too, though. They are not much good without that."
The thirty girls at the school were separated into three classes of ten for most of the lessons and lectures. Kristina, senior to Joan in time at the school, was in a different class.
In her first lesson on Deportment, the following day, Joan did not, however, need Kristina to point out that the Deportment Professor was the homosexual teacher she had spoken of. It was obvious the moment he walked into the classroom.
In her class, there was no attempt to torment him in any way. Apart from a few titters and giggles at his more pronounced femininities, there was not even any attempt to rag him. Joan wondered curiously what Kristina's class did to him.
In the interval, Kristina said casually: "I've taken your handcuffs. Many thanks."
"Not at all," said Joan, equally casually.
"I've got an extension tonight. I'll be late. Try not to wake up when I come in. I'll be as quiet as I can."
"Have a good time," said Joan, her curiosity burning her like an acetylene lamp.
"I'll return the handcuffs tomorrow morning," said Kristina, with no expression at all in her voice.
For the rest of the day and all through the evening, Joan's curiosity continued to burn inside her. She determined stubbornly, however, to ask no questions — though it was now quite obvious that Kristina was trying to provoke her into asking.
When she went to bed she lay awake wondering what Kristina was doing with the handcuffs. Was it possible that she had the same desires? Was she whipping somebody? Or had she contrived the whole situation of borrowing the handcuffs, without really wanting them — simply in order to make Joan open the subject.
Joan at last fell into a troubled sleep without having come to a choice between the two possibilities.
The next morning, when they awoke, Joan waited for Kristina to return the handcuffs and, she hoped, say something about them. Kristina however, chatted happily, with her usual early-morning good humour, about all sorts of different matters, but did not once mention handcuffs. She left the room earlier than Joan, and raced off downstairs to breakfast.
With considerable irascibility, Joan opened her drawer to take a clean handkerchief. Lying beside the pile were the handcuffs, with an envelope on top of them.
Joan stared at the envelope for a long moment. Then, with a hand that shook slightly, she picked it up and opened it. Inside was the key and a brief note: "Darling Joan; Thank you very much. They were just right size! And as I told you a little while ago, you have the loveliest things! Kristina."
"Damn!" said Joan aloud. "Damn and bloody hell! Where do we go from here?"
Three days later, Kristina suggested to Joan that they should go to the cinema again.
"Yes, let's," said Joan at once. "And let's stay down again for dinner. That place we went to the other night was really rather good."
Tonight, she told herself grimly, one of us is going to break. I'd rather it isn't myself, but if it has to be, it just has to be. I can't go on like this.
In the end it was Kristina who broke, but not until they had reached the coffee.
"All right," she said suddenly. "You win! I've simply got to know. What do you carry handcuffs around for?"
A surge of relief went through Joan. She had herself been on the point of breaking. And now she didn't have to make any excuses. "What did you borrow them for?" she countered pleasantly.
Kristina glared at her. "Yes, that is the question that quite obviously follows the first. That's why I haven't asked you before. But I've simply got to know. Why do you have them with you?"
Joan smiled. "Why do you borrow them?"
Kristina signaled to a passing waiter. "Two brandies, please."
"I know," said Joan. "But you asked the first question — and you borrowed the handcuffs the other night."
"I might have borrowed them just to make you curious — just to make you ask me why I wanted them."
"I know. I've thought of that. And then you'd be able very reasonably to ask me — oh, so casually — why I carry them around with me. Yes, my dear, I've thought of that. But I don't think that's why you borrowed them."
"Why do you think I borrowed them?"
"You tell me, Kristina."
"No, help me a bit. Give a guess."
"A guess?" said Joan lightly. "Oh — probably to put some man in your power and give him a good flogging." She watched the other carefully.
Kristina, looked her full in the eyes. "Would that shock you — if it were true?"
Joan returned her look. "Not at all. Not in the slightest least."
Kristina sighed. "At last we're getting somewhere."
The waiter arrived with their brandies. They both took a big gulp.
"Let's come clean with each other," said Kristina. "All right, I admit it. I did borrow them to put a man in my power and flog him. I like to flog men." She looked into her glass as she spoke.
"So do I," said Joan quietly.
Kristina looked up with shining eyes. "I thought so. I sensed it! What fools we have been, fencing with each other like this."
"Oh, I don't know," said Joan. "One ought to be careful — particularly with anything like this."
"Whom do you flog, Joan?"
"Well, I don't know that I've ever actually flogged anyone. Doesn't that mean using whips and things?"
"Yes," said Kristina. "Whips and birches and nine-tiled knouts, and things like that. What have you used?"
"You'll probably think it awfully childish," said Joan demurely, "but only a cane and a riding-switch."
"Well, that's a beginning, anyway. And whom have you caned?"
"My — my fiance."
"Oh, you're engaged!" Kristina's tone was suddenly disappointed. "I didn't know that."
"Oh, not officially." Joan suddenly felt she was giving away too much and getting nothing, in return. "And whom do you flog, Kristina?"
"The pansy teacher, principally. But there are others."
"So that's what you meant when you said you torment him!"
"But you said "we", not "I". Do the others in your class flog him?"
"Three of the others. There's a quartette of us. If you want to join us we'll make it a quintette. But you're engaged. You won't want to."
"Of course I want to," said Joan explosively. "What has my engagement got to do with this sort of thing?"
"Good," said Kristina with relief. "And I'm glad this cat and mouse stuff is over."
"Did you tell the others about the handcuffs?"
"I'm afraid I did. Anyway, they wanted to know where I'd got them from." She paused. "No, that's a lie. I'd told them before. It was their idea that I should borrow them. They've all been studying you very carefully."
Joan laughed with all her heart. "Have they indeed? And what did they decide?"
"Nothing. You hide it very well. Usually a sadist gives some indication of it, but you don't."
"I can't say I'm sorry," said Joan, thinking of her father. "Where do you give these floggings?"
"At his flat. He lives alone."
"And he submits to whatever you do to him? Just like that?"
"He has to," said Kristina grimly, "if he wants to keep his job. And because Kalt pays him so well, he very much wants to keep it." She took a drink from her brandy and looked up at Joan. "Our next meeting is the day after tomorrow. You'd better think up some respectable person who wants to dine you, and ask Kalt for an extension."