Chapter 5
MARIE HERSELF OPENED THE DOOR to welcome us. She led us from the entryway to a high-ceilinged, old-fashioned formal library where the girls who worked for her were gathered.
After brief introductions all around, she led the way from the library to the rest of the house, giving Kathy and Joanna a conducted tour. She showed them each of the six luxuriously appointed suites, then led them into the secret passageways behind the walls of each. They were amazed to discover that what had appeared to be huge wall mirrors actually were heavy panes of one-way glass which served as windows to anyone in the secret passageway behind them, as well as to the closed-circuit TV camera mounted for remote control behind each such window pane.
"More a safety-first feature for the girls' protection than for snooping just for the sake of snooping," Marie explained. "I can keep an eye on any new client I don't feel certain about and interrupt him mighty quickly if it looks to me like he has ideas about ignoring the rules I've explained to him and creating his own rules." She gave the two girls a pointed look as she added, "Some apparently very cultured and highly civilized men are lower than animals in their treatment of females. And no woman can tell which man is which, just by looking at him."
"What about the fruits who've become conditioned to enjoy pain themselves?" Kathy asked.
"Unless they're very, very wealthy and willing to pay a minimum fee of three thousand dollars, I won't be bothered with them," Marie declared matter-of-factly. "But we do have facilities in the dungeon to accommodate them. I'll show you."
She led the way through more secret passageways to a long stairway far below the main floor. The musty smell of constant dampness rose to greet us from the lower level. And the rear wall of the secret passageways down there were the native stone out of which that sprawling cellar had been carved.
We had walked some distance from the foot of the secret stairway when Marie paused, pressed something in the wall, and released a panel which opened to provide a doorway through which we could enter the main chambers down there. As I followed the girls through the opening, Marie was explaining to them, "Clients arrive down here on a small elevator, or fall through a trapdoor into a place that stinks like a cesspool and which they think actually is one, but really isn't. You'd be amazed how some human beings love to feel they've been degraded and how much they're willing to pay for it."
"What happens to them after they fall into it?" Joanna asked, looking big-eyed and sounding awed.
"They're fished out on the end of a rope through a pully on the end of an arm that swings out over the place," Marie explained. "While they're still dangling out there above it, with its stench rising in their face, they're hosed off with a fire hose. The girl aiming the nozzle wears a black hood like a medieval executioner's hood, and is dressed in tight, shiny black and very brief leather clothing. I'll show you."
She led the way through a room outfitted like a medieval torture chamber, complete with rack, to a large walk-in closet. All the distinctly feminine clothing in that closet was leather, most of it black patent leather. Leather corsets. Mini skirts. Wide belts. Capes. And near the floor a rack full of an assortment of bizarre boots, all of which featured high spike heels and were at least knee-high. A few pairs looked almost like thigh-high fishing waders. A high rack featured their counterparts in gloves.
Marie told the girls, "These are what are known as punishment costumes. For some strange, sick reason they're terribly exciting to some men who seem entirely impotent without that kind of stimulation."
Then she turned, directing their attention to the other wall from which hung a great assortment of leather straps set with cruel-looking metal studs, heavy riding quirts and crops. "The kind who find such weird costumes erotic usually want to be whipped, too. When I get that kind of a client, I have to bring in an outside girl. None of my girls can stand giving the creeps the pain they seem to need in order to enjoy themselves."
She led the way from the closet back into the main room. She paused at an alcove on one side of the room. A massive bed stood in it. A heavy, ornately carved pillar rose from each of its four corners. "Some of them want to be spread-eagled helplessly, arms and legs securely tied or chained to the corner posts, then beaten and finally assaulted as if they were being raped," Marie explained. "Some want things done to them that I won't allow done to anyone in this house, male or female, for any amount of money."
Then she turned, pointing to a huge chandelier fashioned from a polished wagon wheel which hung from the high ceiling by chains which came together on a ring in the end of a larger chain. That chain was threaded through a massive block secured to a massive ceiling beam, then extended to one wall where a matching block hung from the ceiling. After threading through that second block the chain hung down the wall toward the floor and the ring in the end was secured in a hook fastened in the stone wall. A series of other hooks provided for adjustments in the height of the chandelier, as did other rings in the chain itself. "Some like to be handcuffed to that wheel, then stretched out to some indescribable length."
Marie shook her head wonderingly. "I never cease to be amazed at how many different fool ideas various humans come up with for making something monstrous out of something I'm certain was intended to be only very good and sweet and pleasurable." She glanced at Kathy and Joanna, declaring, "But I had a better reason for bringing you down here than just to exhibit a freak show. I thought you might draw a lesson out of it."
"A lesson?" Joanna asked, frowning, then glanced at Kathy. She received only a headshake.
"Then I'll spell it out," Marie told them. "For every nut who wants a woman to help him get his kicks by beating him and torturing him ... there's another nut, or maybe two, who get their kicks by handing out the beating and torture to some unlucky woman. That's why I have the TV surveillance of each girl's layout upstairs. A woman is always better off to make certain she's safe, than to take chances on being sorry, whenever a strange man's involved. When she takes chances, she's taking chances on winding up crippled for life or even dead. like I said before, many are worse than animals ever are with their females, and no woman is ever wise enough or experienced enough to be able to tell which man is which kind, just by looking at him. So you can turn into a man hater ... become a lesbian. Or you can learn to be wary and find the lovers who make up for the louses."
"It's all a little frightening, though," Kathy murmured.
"Good!" Marie exclaimed. "Maybe I haven't just been wasting my time. A little fear can be a good thing. The beginning of wisdom, I seem to remember having read somewhere."
Joanna said, "Suspicion has dawned upon me that our good friend Dore has told you about the tour of Europe older girls at the university have invited Kathy and me along on this summer."
"Yes, he's told me," Marie admitted without the slightest hesitation, "and asked me to acquaint you with the worst aspects of sex, as well as with the best. A complete education in any subject requires investigation into all aspects, doesn't it?"
Both girls nodded slowly.
"He didn't ask me to scare you," Marie continued quietly, "and to prove it, I'll show you another room I have down here where things go on that I myself enjoy occasionally."
That caused the eyebrows of both her lovely young guests to rise in surprise.
Marie went on, turning as she did to gesture to the furnishings of the torture chamber, "This represents an extreme. And as most of us gain experience in this life; we discover that extremes usually are not good. But very often we also discover that the very same thing done in a more moderate way can become very good, very pleasureful."
"I'm not sure I follow you," Kathy said.
"Very simple," Marie told her. "This room is for people I consider sick, people who seek to be whipped severely enough to produce real pain and real bleeding. But in the other room I mentioned, a kind of whipping takes place with very light instruments that never break the skin, never cause bleeding, but do produce greatly increased circulation of blood producing rosy glows in the skin and greatly heightened sensitivity and capacity for sensation. Another way of saying, capacity for pleasure."
I broke in, declaring, "It's similar to the result produced by a Scandinavian type sweat bath, only in that instance intense heat and steam draw blood to the surface, creating a rosy hue all over the entire body. Then you jump into icy cold water, which makes the skin over the entire body tingle with heightened sensitivity. Then you return to the steaming interior of the bathhouse to be massaged, which further stimulates the flow of blood through the flesh near the body surfaces. And finally they finish the massage by flailing your entire body with bundles of tender branches too weak and yielding to bruise or hurt but strong enough to smart, to create a further heightening of skin sensitivity.".
Marie nodded. "That's a good comparison." Then she returned her attention to the girls as she told them, "There's one catch, you might call it, about that other room."
"What's that?" they asked in eager unison.
Marie smiled at their eagerness. She warned, "Think carefully about what I'm about to tell you. The catch is, no one is allowed to simply visit that room like a sightseer, then walk away. It's a house rule that no one may visit that room unless they are ready to receive the special treatment for which that room was created."
"If we go into that room, we have to experience the pleasure whipping given there, in contrast to the pain whipping administered in this room. Is that it?" Joanna repeated, to make sure. Marie nodded. "Exactly."
"I'm game," Joanna declared instantly. She glanced at Kathy.
"Me too!" Kathy exclaimed. "Lead the way."
So Marie conducted us into another large underground room which was an almost startling contrast to the bleakness of the torture chamber. Here there was a profusion of purple velvet. Even the surface covering of an overstuffed "horse" was purple velvet, as was the covering of the room's very special armchair, a luxurious, large sofa, and an otherwise plain bench. All, however, were fitted with heavy straps and buckles to secure wrists and ankles. When the two girls noticed those, I caught the first little frowns of sudden worry.
Matter-of-factly Marie asked, "Which one of you is going to volunteer to go first?"
Suddenly both girls glanced at me, then glanced away. Both, I realized, were blushing. I wasn't forced to wonder about the mystery long. Joanna protested, "Does Dore have to stay and watch? Making a fool of yourself isn't quite as bad if it's only other-" She broke off.
"Of course he has to stay," Marie murmured, smiling. "The rule applies to him, too. He walked in here of his own free will; he may not leave until he has tasted the special sensations this room was designed to produce. And you two will be in command then."
Both girls glanced at me brightly, eyes wide with anticipation, exclaiming, "We will?"
Marie nodded.
Joanna chuckled, then murmured, "Like they say, I guess ... there's a price for everything. But I'm ready to risk it. I'll go first."