P
Pia
Guest
Oblivion. I thought it would be a nice appropriate title for this little episode. And I get to choose of course, not some amanuensis or editor. And I like oblivion. It sounds soft, swallowing. A sort of Greek ending to my little history I suppose. Like a river falling over a cliff into a bottomless chasm. Oblivion. It doesn’t end, it just becomes darker and darker.
So, our journey was coming to an end, by degrees. We did stop briefly in Hamburg. Just for a glass of beer and a curry-wurst at the station and that’s when Romy got a bit angry with me and started telling me I couldn’t and that I was being cruel to everyone and especially my mum and her of course. I didn’t really want to answer, because it’s true. I am selfish. It’s just that sometimes you have to be. I wiped the tear from her cheek and closed my hand over hers and smiled and squeezed. Sometimes that’s better than words. I’m not claiming that this is a journey determined by logic after all.
And then the bus journeys into the country and the fluttering green leaves over the gentle hills and ponds. And one village and another, all so perfectly peaceful. And then the one I knew from before and the woods and the slope to the left with the hint of a lake beyond the trees and the turn to the right and the long curving drive. The last time had been in the bleakness of winter.
He was there to meet us. He said his greetings and led us into the great house and gestured us to sit in the room with the long table and the stone fireplace and the clock that ticked. He left us alone watching the birds outside in the sunny warm afternoon, while we waited in the cool within. I could hear Romy breathing, her hand tracing a pattern on the polished wood.
We may have been there fifteen minutes; we may have been there an hour. I have no idea. The door at the other end of the room, the one with the polished brass handles, clicked open and she walked in, her heels clicking on the floor. I remembered her from before. She smiled and asked us to follow her upstairs. Our rooms were next to each others, connected by a shared doorway that led to a bathroom without a window. She pushed open the shutters and let the dappled light in. The bed was large and so perfectly white. Opposite its foot was a mirrored dressing table with a mother-of-pearl hairbrush. She told us that we should rest from our journey and that dinner would be at six-thirty. We would meet the other guests then. She said that she would return later with our dresses for the evening, but for now we should rest, then bathe, perhaps. And be ready for her an hour before the ring of dinner bell. And then she left, locking the doors behind her.
I undressed slowly, then sat on the edge of the bed. It was an old bed and my feet barely touched the floor, my toes just dusting the old parquet blocks as they swung to and fro. I listened to the birds in the sky outside. Then Romy came, wearing a light cotton gown that had she had taken from the bathroom. It hung softly over her shoulders, but open to her waist. She came to me slowly and knelt before me, parting my legs, pushing the hair from her eyes, and, with just one gaze and a touch of her fingers on my belly, lowering her face to kiss me.
She tapped at the door, then, without waiting for a reply, turned the key, coming towards me as I lay, half-sleeping. She lifted a lock of hair that had fallen over my mouth and kissed me softly on my brow, then lay down the garments she had brought for me. It was time, she indicated, to bathe and prepare. Her hand stroked me just once and then she went through the dividing room to wake Romy and to give her the dress that she would wear.
Once I had bathed in the deep old-fashioned bath she came to me again and gently wiped me dry with the soft towels that had been warming over a radiator, taking care to smooth my skin under my breasts and between my legs, but without a word. Then she beckoned me to try the clothes that she had laid out on the bed. I looked at them and in a sense I was not surprised. They were lavish, of beautiful materials, but designed to display in every way. First she helped me into a tightly-boned corset that she pulled firmly tight around my waist, allowing it to push my breasts up and tight together. She seemed satisfied with her work. Then a gown of heavy grey crepe that fastened beneath my arms and shoulders, again tied tight with laces, but leaving my breasts free, and cut in the front from the floor to my waist. She turned me towards the mirror and raised my chin until I was gazing at my own reflection. Next she opened a small box she had taken from the dressing table and with infinite care applied kohl to my eyes and paint of the deepest red to my lips. And to my nipples. And to my lips below my waist. She stood back and looked and smiled contentedly.
Romy came into my room, she led her in. She was dressed in the most beautiful silk dress, a pale green-blue, tight around her. Over it a flock of brilliantly-coloured birds flew. Her perfume was heady and her hair pushed back, just very slightly, from her ears. I had never seen her look more beautiful. We said nothing.
She came to me and asked me to hold out my wrists, which I did. She took two dark brown leather bracelets from the dressing table, although I had not noticed them before, and clicked them shut on my wrists, then fixed them together with tiny steel links, to which she attached a length of chain. I saw Romy shiver when this was done. Next she beckoned us to follow her along the corridor and down the stairs. At the foot she indicated that Romy should go to the large dining room, the door of which was open and from which the sound of conversation came. Romy looked once and me then turned and did as she was asked. She then led me, holding the length of chain, along a narrow paneled passageway and then into a small ante-room that I supposed would lead into the dining room. In it stood another girl, about the same age as myself I judged, and dressed in similar fashion, her breasts bare above her basque, her nipples painted and her hair pinned up above the nape of her neck. She asked us both to sit and then left.
I imagined the room beyond the second door. The guests in dinner suits and coutured dresses and jewels. Rich and influential and talking politics and business and the latest movies and the arts. Drinking from their champagne flutes. We sat, silent. Waiting. Eventually the other girl, she had black hair and blue eyes I recall, turned to me and told me her name was Anna. She asked me my name and I told her who I was. She had come here from Hungary she told me. She was a little frightened but the advertisement had seemed interesting. It was a way of earning a lot of money very quickly she said. She told me about her interview and what they had told her and she said she was a little frightened because it was bound to be painful, because that is what they wanted, and that they had promised that there would be good medical care and so in the end she had agreed because it would pay for her university degree and she needed the money and, partly, because she was intrigued. And the whole idea excited her a bit. And it would be over quite quickly and, she said, it was better than working in the private house that her friends spent the afternoons in.
I asked her if she had ever been whipped before and she said she had not and then I understood what the advertisement had been for, because she was to be the hors d’oeuvers, the first course. The little appetiser of an ingenue in chains before the meat dish. I smiled and told her not to worry and that she’d be fine, and that it would hurt a lot, but she might find it an interesting experience and that they would look after her and I told her that I knew them and they were honest and so she would get the money she had been promised. And she seemed happy about that. And then she asked me about myself and what I was there for. I told her and explained that they would probably want her to watch too and that she shouldn’t be too upset about it all, because I wanted this, and it was entirely my own choice.
Then the door opened and we were led inside. The room was lit by chandeliers and the walls glowed and the windows were great black spaces and the crowd applauded as we were brought to the head of the main table. I enjoyed the sense that every pair of eyes, male and female, were gazing at me, and at her too. At our faces and our naked breasts and our chained wrists.
He stood up and introduced us to and explained who we were and what would be happening the next day. He said that we were very special and that tomorrow’s event would be unique and that everyone at the gathering should consider themselves privileged. He stressed the rules. That there were to be no cameras or mobile phones and that everyone who attended was pledged to secrecy. He explained that in the event of rain the occasion would take place in the indoor riding school, but that the weather forecast appeared fair, with sun and a temperature in the high twenties, which was ideal and that therefore it was probable that we would be able to use the outdoors ménage as intended, which would of course be much preferable. There would, He told the assembled group, be a film made which would be available to the attendees online, for a limited period. But for the rest they would have to rely on their eyes and their memories and remember that this was a unique opportunity. He said that the bar would remain open until two, and that we would remain in the room until then also. It was quite permisable for anyone to touch us on our faces or breasts or between our legs, but not to kiss us or to ask us any questions at all. We were to remain silent throughout. Finally He told the group that breakfast would be taken late, at nine in the morning. And that they should be ready to assemble in the hallway for the short journey to the ménage at ten thirty.
I could see Romy in the crowd. She was talking to a man with blonde hair waxed back on his head and a heavy, expensive watch on his wrist. He had a girls with dark curls in one arm, his hand over her shoulder, playing with her cheek, and his other arm was soon wrapped around Romy’s waist and he pulled them to his mouth, first one and then the other, and eventually he drew them away from the front row, having grown bored with looking at us two, and took them to the bar and then through the large double doors into the hallway beyond and I supposed to his room on one of the upper floors.
When the clock struck two she came back and led us away from the prying hands. Not to my room this time, the one with the connecting door to Romy’s. Instead along the long corridor that I remembered from before, and down a stone staircase to a stone passageway off which were a number of iron-gated chambers. The other girl was taken into the first, where she was asked to undress and where she was then chained by wrists and ankles to an iron hoop in the wall, which allowed her to sit and lie down but little else. She closed the iron-barred door and led me to the next cell where in the same way I was prepared for the night. And then the door closed and the lock was turned and there was no light but the flicker of a candle that cast its shadow long the passageway.
So, our journey was coming to an end, by degrees. We did stop briefly in Hamburg. Just for a glass of beer and a curry-wurst at the station and that’s when Romy got a bit angry with me and started telling me I couldn’t and that I was being cruel to everyone and especially my mum and her of course. I didn’t really want to answer, because it’s true. I am selfish. It’s just that sometimes you have to be. I wiped the tear from her cheek and closed my hand over hers and smiled and squeezed. Sometimes that’s better than words. I’m not claiming that this is a journey determined by logic after all.
And then the bus journeys into the country and the fluttering green leaves over the gentle hills and ponds. And one village and another, all so perfectly peaceful. And then the one I knew from before and the woods and the slope to the left with the hint of a lake beyond the trees and the turn to the right and the long curving drive. The last time had been in the bleakness of winter.
He was there to meet us. He said his greetings and led us into the great house and gestured us to sit in the room with the long table and the stone fireplace and the clock that ticked. He left us alone watching the birds outside in the sunny warm afternoon, while we waited in the cool within. I could hear Romy breathing, her hand tracing a pattern on the polished wood.
We may have been there fifteen minutes; we may have been there an hour. I have no idea. The door at the other end of the room, the one with the polished brass handles, clicked open and she walked in, her heels clicking on the floor. I remembered her from before. She smiled and asked us to follow her upstairs. Our rooms were next to each others, connected by a shared doorway that led to a bathroom without a window. She pushed open the shutters and let the dappled light in. The bed was large and so perfectly white. Opposite its foot was a mirrored dressing table with a mother-of-pearl hairbrush. She told us that we should rest from our journey and that dinner would be at six-thirty. We would meet the other guests then. She said that she would return later with our dresses for the evening, but for now we should rest, then bathe, perhaps. And be ready for her an hour before the ring of dinner bell. And then she left, locking the doors behind her.
I undressed slowly, then sat on the edge of the bed. It was an old bed and my feet barely touched the floor, my toes just dusting the old parquet blocks as they swung to and fro. I listened to the birds in the sky outside. Then Romy came, wearing a light cotton gown that had she had taken from the bathroom. It hung softly over her shoulders, but open to her waist. She came to me slowly and knelt before me, parting my legs, pushing the hair from her eyes, and, with just one gaze and a touch of her fingers on my belly, lowering her face to kiss me.
She tapped at the door, then, without waiting for a reply, turned the key, coming towards me as I lay, half-sleeping. She lifted a lock of hair that had fallen over my mouth and kissed me softly on my brow, then lay down the garments she had brought for me. It was time, she indicated, to bathe and prepare. Her hand stroked me just once and then she went through the dividing room to wake Romy and to give her the dress that she would wear.
Once I had bathed in the deep old-fashioned bath she came to me again and gently wiped me dry with the soft towels that had been warming over a radiator, taking care to smooth my skin under my breasts and between my legs, but without a word. Then she beckoned me to try the clothes that she had laid out on the bed. I looked at them and in a sense I was not surprised. They were lavish, of beautiful materials, but designed to display in every way. First she helped me into a tightly-boned corset that she pulled firmly tight around my waist, allowing it to push my breasts up and tight together. She seemed satisfied with her work. Then a gown of heavy grey crepe that fastened beneath my arms and shoulders, again tied tight with laces, but leaving my breasts free, and cut in the front from the floor to my waist. She turned me towards the mirror and raised my chin until I was gazing at my own reflection. Next she opened a small box she had taken from the dressing table and with infinite care applied kohl to my eyes and paint of the deepest red to my lips. And to my nipples. And to my lips below my waist. She stood back and looked and smiled contentedly.
Romy came into my room, she led her in. She was dressed in the most beautiful silk dress, a pale green-blue, tight around her. Over it a flock of brilliantly-coloured birds flew. Her perfume was heady and her hair pushed back, just very slightly, from her ears. I had never seen her look more beautiful. We said nothing.
She came to me and asked me to hold out my wrists, which I did. She took two dark brown leather bracelets from the dressing table, although I had not noticed them before, and clicked them shut on my wrists, then fixed them together with tiny steel links, to which she attached a length of chain. I saw Romy shiver when this was done. Next she beckoned us to follow her along the corridor and down the stairs. At the foot she indicated that Romy should go to the large dining room, the door of which was open and from which the sound of conversation came. Romy looked once and me then turned and did as she was asked. She then led me, holding the length of chain, along a narrow paneled passageway and then into a small ante-room that I supposed would lead into the dining room. In it stood another girl, about the same age as myself I judged, and dressed in similar fashion, her breasts bare above her basque, her nipples painted and her hair pinned up above the nape of her neck. She asked us both to sit and then left.
I imagined the room beyond the second door. The guests in dinner suits and coutured dresses and jewels. Rich and influential and talking politics and business and the latest movies and the arts. Drinking from their champagne flutes. We sat, silent. Waiting. Eventually the other girl, she had black hair and blue eyes I recall, turned to me and told me her name was Anna. She asked me my name and I told her who I was. She had come here from Hungary she told me. She was a little frightened but the advertisement had seemed interesting. It was a way of earning a lot of money very quickly she said. She told me about her interview and what they had told her and she said she was a little frightened because it was bound to be painful, because that is what they wanted, and that they had promised that there would be good medical care and so in the end she had agreed because it would pay for her university degree and she needed the money and, partly, because she was intrigued. And the whole idea excited her a bit. And it would be over quite quickly and, she said, it was better than working in the private house that her friends spent the afternoons in.
I asked her if she had ever been whipped before and she said she had not and then I understood what the advertisement had been for, because she was to be the hors d’oeuvers, the first course. The little appetiser of an ingenue in chains before the meat dish. I smiled and told her not to worry and that she’d be fine, and that it would hurt a lot, but she might find it an interesting experience and that they would look after her and I told her that I knew them and they were honest and so she would get the money she had been promised. And she seemed happy about that. And then she asked me about myself and what I was there for. I told her and explained that they would probably want her to watch too and that she shouldn’t be too upset about it all, because I wanted this, and it was entirely my own choice.
Then the door opened and we were led inside. The room was lit by chandeliers and the walls glowed and the windows were great black spaces and the crowd applauded as we were brought to the head of the main table. I enjoyed the sense that every pair of eyes, male and female, were gazing at me, and at her too. At our faces and our naked breasts and our chained wrists.
He stood up and introduced us to and explained who we were and what would be happening the next day. He said that we were very special and that tomorrow’s event would be unique and that everyone at the gathering should consider themselves privileged. He stressed the rules. That there were to be no cameras or mobile phones and that everyone who attended was pledged to secrecy. He explained that in the event of rain the occasion would take place in the indoor riding school, but that the weather forecast appeared fair, with sun and a temperature in the high twenties, which was ideal and that therefore it was probable that we would be able to use the outdoors ménage as intended, which would of course be much preferable. There would, He told the assembled group, be a film made which would be available to the attendees online, for a limited period. But for the rest they would have to rely on their eyes and their memories and remember that this was a unique opportunity. He said that the bar would remain open until two, and that we would remain in the room until then also. It was quite permisable for anyone to touch us on our faces or breasts or between our legs, but not to kiss us or to ask us any questions at all. We were to remain silent throughout. Finally He told the group that breakfast would be taken late, at nine in the morning. And that they should be ready to assemble in the hallway for the short journey to the ménage at ten thirty.
I could see Romy in the crowd. She was talking to a man with blonde hair waxed back on his head and a heavy, expensive watch on his wrist. He had a girls with dark curls in one arm, his hand over her shoulder, playing with her cheek, and his other arm was soon wrapped around Romy’s waist and he pulled them to his mouth, first one and then the other, and eventually he drew them away from the front row, having grown bored with looking at us two, and took them to the bar and then through the large double doors into the hallway beyond and I supposed to his room on one of the upper floors.
When the clock struck two she came back and led us away from the prying hands. Not to my room this time, the one with the connecting door to Romy’s. Instead along the long corridor that I remembered from before, and down a stone staircase to a stone passageway off which were a number of iron-gated chambers. The other girl was taken into the first, where she was asked to undress and where she was then chained by wrists and ankles to an iron hoop in the wall, which allowed her to sit and lie down but little else. She closed the iron-barred door and led me to the next cell where in the same way I was prepared for the night. And then the door closed and the lock was turned and there was no light but the flicker of a candle that cast its shadow long the passageway.