The Image

by Jean de Berg

  In addition to the usual fixtures, in pale blue porcelain, I was struck at once by the presence of a couch, full-sized, in one of the corners. The bath tub was nearby, at right angles to the couch, against the far wall. It was an enormous bathtub, also pale blue, decorated like the walls with white ceramic tiles.

  Anne was standing up in the bathtub facing the door, busy soaping her body with both hands. Instinctively her hands, fingers spread, flew to her crotch and her breasts to cover them as much as possible. But a look from her mistress made her abandon this attempt at modesty. She took her little hands away, one after the other, with a fright ened, constrained look, and finally stood with her arms at her sides, palms out, her head bent.

  Her pink and blonde flesh was glistening with soapsuds which had run together in places, form ing trails of white bubbles.

  The delicate fullness of her body and her limbs cried out so to be touched that I could almost feel what that warm, wet, slippery embrace would be like, my hands sliding freely over the supple curves.

  Claire gestured toward the couch where I stretched out, leaning on one elbow. Claire sat down across the opposite corner of the bathtub and said to her friend, who hadn’t moved a muscle:

  “Well, go ahead!”

  The young girl began soaping herself again. But Claire, judging that she no longer had her heart in it, took charge of directing the action, indicating which areas should be scrubbed, which positions should be assumed (supposedly to make the job easier), and the whole scope and rhythm of the slightest movement.

  The entire body was gone over, meticulously. From in front and behind, straight and bent over, one leg raised and the thighs opened wide, the hands at the back of the head caressing the neck, massaging the breasts, and lingering between the buttocks, all the motions of the bath had to be per formed in front of us.

  Claire, of course, delighted in going back over the most intimate ones, the most indiscreet.

  Two or three times, even, on the pretext of try ing to make her directions clearer, Claire offered the assistance of her own expert fingers. She acquitted herself of this function with implacable gravity and preciseness which partly hid her mounting excitement. I had no trouble noticing, however, that she spoke and handled her pupil with more and more brutality.

  As for the poor girl, she proved to be a model of docility even when forced to endure long, uncomfortable poses, excessive probings, or spectacular contortions.

  When she was finally allowed to sink into the water for good, Claire, her sleeves rolled up, bent over the tub again to wash away, herself, the last traces of soap from the most secret recesses of the body. She took her time. Lying in the water, the body of her friend responded to her slightest touch, letting itself be rolled over and back, stretched out and bent up, opened and closed, with perfect flexibility and ease.

  I edged up closer to the tub myself, without getting up from the couch. Anne’s head happened to be at my end. Her mistress had ended up with both hands around her neck, squeezing it tighter and tighter, pretending to want to push her head under the water...

  Claire was smiling; but in the girl’s green eyes a flicker of fear was growing which could only be real.

  Nevertheless she obeyed the order to close her eyes, then to hide her hands behind her back in order to illustrate more clearly her role of the defenseless prey...

  And Claire, very slowly, went on drowning her.

  Anne gave herself up with complete abandon.

  At that particular moment Claire’s arms caught my attention. They were strong and well shaped, as I had imagined they would be. I wasn’t prepared, however, to find them so graceful.

  But Claire quickly realized that I was looking at her instead of at her victim. She stared back at me, pointedly, meaning to make me lower my eyes.

  I smiled at her... I told her that she had very attractive arms.

  She let go her hold and stood up. As one might have guessed, her confusion only increased her violence toward little Anne.

  “Get up!” she commanded.

  As soon as the girl was on her feet she brutally made her open her legs and put her hands again behind her back.

  “Don’t move!”

  Her lovely body was dripping, as well as her hair, which fell in sinuous strands over half her face and her neck.

  Claire said, like a challenge:

  “Would you like me to turn on the little fountain?”

  “Why not?” I answered.

  “All right, watch!”

  She seized the dripping wet pubic hair in her hand and parted the lips to poke her fingers in side. In her haste she must have hurt the young woman, who winced. Claire ordered her to stand still, on pain of being further mistreated, then she said:

  “Show the gentleman the pretty fountain.”

  However, her menacing tone did not suit the childish turn of the phrase at all.

  The girl didn’t have to be persuaded. She bent her knees slightly and threw out her chest. She closed her eyes. She steadied her arms in their position behind her back. The colorless liquid gushed out between Claire’s fingers falling to the surface of the bath below with the sound of a rushing brook.

  Claire played for an instant with the lips of the cunt, and then with the stream itself, letting it land on her open hand which made it run down one of the thighs.

  And I was, I admit, rather surprised at the charm of such a scene whose simple and wonderful sweetness filled me, even me, with pleasure.

  IX : THE GOTHIC CHAMBER

  Having washed the soiled body of her friend under a warm shower at great length, Claire, now full of little kindnesses and attentions, helped her get out of the bath. She dried herself, rubbing, patting, polishing.

  She brushed and combed the small triangle of pubic hair.

  Then she perfumed it with a vaporizer, also the breasts, the armpits, the neck, the under side of the buttocks and the groove between them.

  While the girl’s hair was drying, very quickly, thanks to a little electric dryer, she carefully applied a bright pink rouge to her mouth and the nipples of her breasts.

  She seemed to be overflowing with tenderness, wondering what to think up next to further adorn the young woman, to set her off, pamper her. She didn’t seem to mind kneeling in front of her, on the pale-blue, foam rubber rug, or kissing the favorite parts of her body whenever she wanted to.

  As she accomplished these various jobs with the gestures of a mother, or a lady in waiting, or a child playing with a doll, she kept up a running commentary for my benefit, even asking my advice about which perfume to choose, or which shade of lipstick.

  When all these things were finally finished she slipped on a pair of stockings with embroidered tops, and the white garter belt and bra that I had bought the day before. She made her masterpiece turn around for her, to give it one last final inspection, then she pushed it toward the couch:

  “Go and kiss your master, who loves you.”

  The girl came and placed herself next to me, almost lying down, and kissed me for some time, with all the patience and gentleness I already knew were hers. I pressed my arm against her waist to hold her closer to me.

  Then my hand crept up her back to her neck where it paused so that I could control the contact of our lips, their pressure, their timing, without having to move my own head.

  Unconsciously, the girl had begun to move her hips, a slow undulation that spread the length of her body, and of mine.

  I suddenly wanted to look at Claire. I pushed away the blonde head and laid the girl’s face against my shoulder.

  Claire’s eyes went back and forth, from the pulsing hips to my hand, holding the neck in place, then to my eyes. Little Anne was now kissing me at the base of my neck.

  I saw that her mistress was hurt by our embrace in which, suddenly, she had no part. I let her ordeal go on for a time...

  I let it go on, all the while looking at Claire, until she reached the end of her endurance. She was standing near the sof
a, a few feet away, not know ing whether to separate us, or to join us.

  When I finally freed myself, pushing the girl backward, Claire made her get up so that she could sit beside me herself:

  “Come on, you little bitch, what do you think you’re doing? Jean is here to watch you being tortured. You can kiss him later, if he feels like it, after we’ve made you suffer.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” I said calmly, “what are we waiting for, anyhow?”

  As was customary, the victim had to kneel before her tormentors on the tiled floor to hear the particulars of the torture she would undergo.

  She would be tied to one of the columns in the execution chamber. She would be whipped on the front of her thighs and on her lower belly. Then she would be burned with red-hot needles in the most sensitive parts of her body. And finally, her breasts would be whipped until they bled.

  In a voice that was straining to sound natural, Claire asked me if I had ever used a certain kind of needle to torture a woman:

  “You’ll see,” she said, “it’s most amusing. It hardly leaves a trace, and it’s not at all dangerous since the point has been sterilized by the flame. But above all, it hurts terribly – isn’t that right, little one? – and you can keep it up in the same place, without deadening the effect, indefinitely...”

  The Gothic chamber was exactly as it had been in the photographs: the iron bed, the paving stones in a black and white checkerboard pattern, the two stone pillars which supported a high vaulted ceiling above the narrow recessed window, covered now by red velvet curtains. The indirect lighting was diffused by brackets on the wall, and by three adjustable fixtures which threw their beams toward the ceiling. The whole thing, at once austere and intimate, reminded one vaguely of a chapel. This curious room certainly was not the most unexpected thing in the whole curious apartment.

  There were also two leather armchairs in which we sat down, Claire and I.

  Claire was thirsty. Obviously it was Anne who was sent to get the refreshments. She still wore the same things: the embroidered stockings (with out shoes), the white nylon garter belt and bra whose styling obligingly left naked all that one would wish to see.

  While we were drinking, the girl, who had had to serve us on her knees, was made to stay in that position until we had finished.

  Her posture was the same one I had already had occasion to enjoy: thighs open, body very straight, arms raised, lips apart.

  Her large green eyes shone with a deep, almost supernatural brilliance that carried us back several centuries to the time of the ecstasies of the Christian martyrs.

  We were aware, all three of us, that the tortures scheduled for the evening were by no means imaginary. The thought that they would, in a mo ment, wrench from this tender young girl the most voluptuous spasms of pain gave her flesh, which was desirable anyway, an incomparable allure. I made her come closer so that I could run my fingers over the curves and hollows which we were about to wound, with abandon, as long as it seemed entertaining.

  Her cunt was still moist, probably from our embrace in the bathroom; unless her humiliating posture, the immodesty that was required of her, or perhaps the anticipation of the torture, as Claire led one to believe, was enough to arouse her.

  I felt like exciting her more by touching certain parts of her, but then I thought that it would be fun, in such a cruel situation, to make her do it herself.

  “Supposing we made her play with herself first?” I said to Claire.

  Claire, naturally, agreed. But she first wanted to put the black band over the girl’s eyes. Anne, at the command, stood up to go and get the band, and also the whip, which were put away in a small chest in a corner of the room. After presenting them to her mistress, she resumed her former posture.

  Claire showed the things to me. The whip was not the same one we had used the other day: in stead of being braided it had a plain leather lash, more supple and cutting. Claire tried it out right away, on the girl’s thighs. She winced, and turned her head to one side. A thin red line appeared on the smooth flesh.

  “The little bitch chose a good one,” Claire said. “She went and bought it herself, this morning.” With the help of a black velvet elastic ribbon Claire then masked her eyes, a charming finishing touch to her costume.

  Still on her knees, one of the lights aimed at her, we made her caress herself: the upper parts of her breasts first, and their little rouged tips left ex posed by her bra; then the interior of her cunt under the arch of white nylon. She was made to use both hands, to open herself wide, at the same time hiding as little as possible from us with her fingers.

  While this was going on we quietly finished our orangeade.

  As though we had planned it, Claire and I turned to each other at the same moment. I was thinking of the last photograph, the one for which Anne had not been the model, which portrayed a similar scene.

  I realized that Claire was thinking the same thing . . , and knew that I was thinking it... Her face was in the shadows, but I could make out that same troubled expression, once again.

  Anne couldn’t see anything through her blind fold. I got up silently and leaned down over my neighbor’s armchair. Her startled face was turned up to mine and I kissed it, scarcely brushing her lips, then covering her whole mouth, which began to soften...

  “Leave me alone,” she suddenly cried out, standing up herself.

  As an outlet for this emotion, which hadn’t figured in her program, she turned on the kneeling girl. She seized the whip and began lashing her thighs, from in front, still not letting her interrupt her activities.

  “Play with yourself, you whore!” Claire said, whipping her.

  Under the blows the girl instead stopped. Claire hit her again:

  “Go on, play with yourself!” The terrified girl began again at once. “Better than that!” Claire said, landing a sharp blow on her thighs.

  Beyond endurance, Claire finally threw her to the floor and began furiously caressing her her self.

  The girl was lying on her back, knees bent, arms flat on the floor on either side of her head. Claire was on one knee, leaning over her prey.

  Almost immediately the girl began moaning. Soon she lost complete control, crying out continuously from deep inside her throat, her mouth wide open, her face thrown back.

  “Look,” Claire murmured, “how beautiful she is when she’s coming, the little slut...”

  In effect, I saw the girl moving rhythmically, turning her head from one side to the other, clutch ing the floor with her fingers. Then, all in one motion, she stretched her legs out and rolled over on her side, bent double, motionless on the black and white floor.

  Claire, standing over her, pushed her with the toe of her shoe, as though she were a corpse.

  However, Claire still wasn’t satisfied. She had to tear off the young woman’s bra, her garter belt and her stockings, leaving only the black band across her eyes.

  With strokes of the whip she made her get back on her knees in front of my chair. She gave the order to begin caressing herself again, adding one little refinement, humiliating, yet pleasurable:

  “You’re to play with your little asshole too, at the same time!”

  Obediently, one of her hands went behind her back. This region must have been very sensitive, for she got excited at once.

  But this time, instead of bringing her work to its conclusion, Claire grabbed hold of the girl and dragged her over to one of the columns where she stood her, back against the stone. In a twinkling she had been tied up, arms and legs spread wide, hands and feet pulled backward.

  I turned the lights in her direction and went closer. Her wrists and ankles were attached to two pairs of rings, diametrically opposed, by means of those flat leather bracelets that are sold in Parisian knick-knack stores and affected by wives whose hus bands love them. The upper rings were just at the right height (about six feet) to stretch the body as much as possible without hurting it.

  Claire had begun her caresses aga
in, savagely, penetrating her victim with such passion that one could no longer tell whether her cries were cries of pain or of pleasure.

  There was no longer any doubt when Claire took up the flagellation again, striking the wide opened thighs and the lower belly. The growing violence of her well-aimed blows, their accuracy and regularity, made the girl writhe in every direction in spite of the tightness of her bonds. Her body was so beautiful like this that my amazement grew as the sacrifice continued.

  Exhausted, finally, Claire gave herself a rest and took a moment to place a gag over her prisoner’s mouth so that her screams wouldn’t rouse the whole neighborhood.

  Then she moved up within easy reach a little alcohol lamp which had been mounted on an iron stand so that it could be used conveniently. Once the flame was lit she propped her various instruments in it, which had special supports for this purpose.

  I admired the long needles, sharpened to a fine point at one end and at the other fitted with wooden handles so that one could hold them with out burning oneself. When the steel was red-hot, Claire undertook the skillful torture of first one breast, and then the other; then she operated on the inside of the thighs, at the very top where the whip hadn’t reached.

  She worked slowly, lovingly meting out the pun ishment: she began by a light touch on the surface of the skin, then, pressing harder and harder, ended up sinking the point about an eighth of an inch into the flesh.

  The girl’s desperate contortions interfered somewhat with her progress, but the groans of agony that could be heard even with the gag more than rewarded her efforts.

  The victim’s tears now flowed freely from under the blindfold down her cheeks. Her panting grew harsher. When Claire came back to the breasts, concentrating on the swelling near the armpit and the rouged area around the nipples, I thought the girl would break her arms and legs from pulling against the rings that held her spread eagled on the column.