Perhaps men never pose themselves any questions which have not already been answered. Perhaps it would be enough to get them together to wrest them from their solitude (as though it were not some purely visionary, human desire). Well, here at least is the cage, and here is this young woman in the cage. All we have to do now is listen to her.
III.—Strange love letter
She says: “You shouldn’t be surprised. Take a closer look at your love. It would be terrified if it realized for one moment that I’m a woman, and alive. And it is not by ignoring the fiery wellsprings of the blood that you will dry them up.
“Your jealousy does not deceive you. It is true that you make me healthy and happy and a thousand times more alive. Yet there is nothing I can do to prevent this happiness from turning against you. The stone also sings more loudly when the blood flows free and the body is at rest. Keep me rather in this cage, and feed me sparingly, if you dare. Anything that brings me closer to illness and the edge of death makes me more faithful. It is only when you make me suffer that I feel safe and secure. You should never have agreed to be a god for me if you were afraid to assume the duties of a god, and we all know that they are not as tender as all that. You have already seen me cry. Now you must learn to relish my tears. And my neck: is it not charming when, filled with a moan I am striving to stifle, it grows tense and contorted in spite of my attempts to control it? It is all too true that when you come to call on us, you should bring a whip along. And, for more than one among us, a cat-o’-nine-tails.”
She hastens to add: “That joke is in such poor taste! But the fact is you’ve missed the whole point. And if I were not so madly in love with you, do you think I would dare to speak to you in this way? and betray my peers?”
She adds: “What constantly betrays you is my imagination, my vague dreams. Then weaken me. Rid me of these dreams. Deliver me. Take whatever steps are required, so that I won’t even have time enough to dream of being unfaithful to you. (And reality, in any case, is less absorbing.) But first make sure to brand me with your mark. If I sport the mark of your riding crop or your chains, or if I am still wearing those rings in my lips, let the whole world know I am yours. As long as I am beaten and ravished on your behalf, I am naught but the thought of you, the desire of you, the obsession of you. That, I believe, is what you wanted. Well, I love you, and that is what I want too.
“If I have ceased, once and for all, to be my own mistress, if my mouth and loins and breasts no longer belong to me, then I become a creature of another world, a world in which everything has a new meaning. Perhaps one day I shall have lost all knowledge about myself. Then what will pleasure matter to me, what will the caresses of so many men—your envoys, whom I am incapable of telling one from the other—mean to me, when I can no longer compare them to you?”
This is the way she speaks. I listen to her, and I can see that she isn’t lying. I try to follow her (what bothered me for a long time was her prostitution). Perhaps, after all, the burning mantle of mythology is not a simple allegory, and sacred prostitution no mere historical curiosity. It may be that the chains in naive folk songs, and the “I would die for love of thee” are not mere metaphors, and that when streetwalkers tell their pimps: “I’ve got you under my skin; do whatever you like with me,” this too is no simple figure of speech. (It is strange how, when we are intent upon ridding ourselves of some feeling which baffles us, we ascribe it to hoodlums and whores.) It may be that when Héloïse wrote to Abelard: “I shall be thy whore,” she was not merely turning a pretty phrase. Without doubt, Story of O is the most ardent love letter any man has ever received.
I am reminded of the Dutchman who was fated to sail the seven seas as long as he failed to find a girl ready to give up her life to save him; and of the knight Guiguemar who, to be healed of his wounds, awaited a woman who would suffer for him “what no woman has ever suffered.” To be sure, the story of O is longer than a lay or a legend, and far more detailed than a simple letter. Perhaps it also had to rise from greater depths. Perhaps it has never been more difficult than it is today to understand what boys and girls are saying in the streets—much the same thing, I suspect, that the Barbados slaves were saying. We live in a time when the simplest truths have no choice but to come back to us naked (like O), clothed in the mask of an owl.
For today we hear seemingly normal people, even those with a level head on their shoulders, blithely speaking of love as though it were some frothy feeling of no real consequence. They say it offers many pleasures, and that this contact of two epidermises is not completely devoid of charm. They go on to say that charm or pleasure is most rewarding for the person who is capable of keeping love imaginative, capricious, and above all natural and free. Far be it from me to object, and if it’s all that simple for two people of the opposite sex (or even of the same sex) to give each other a good time, then indeed they should, they would be crazy not to. There are only one or two words in all this which disturb me: the word love, and also the word free. Needless to say, it is quite the opposite. Love implies dependence—not only in its pleasure but by its very existence and in what precedes its existence: in our very desire to exist—dependence on half a hundred odd little things: on two lips (and the smile or grimace they make), on a shoulder (and the special way it has of rising or falling), on two eyes (and their expression, a little more flirtatious or forbidding), or, when you come down to it, on the whole foreign body, with the mind and soul enclosed therein—a body which is capable at any moment of becoming more dazzling than the sun, more freezing than a tract of snowy waste. To undergo the experience is no fun, you make me laugh with your entreaties. When this body stoops down to fasten the buckle of her dainty shoe, you tremble, and you have the feeling the whole world is watching you. Rather the whip, the rings in the flesh! As for freedom … any man, or any woman, who has been through the experience will rather be inclined to rant and rave against freedom, in the vilest, most horrible language possible. No, there is no dearth of abominations in Story of O. But it sometimes seems to me that it is an idea, or a complex of ideas, an opinion rather than a young woman we see being subjected to these tortures.
The Truth about the Revolt
Strange, that the notion of happiness in slavery should today seem so novel. There is virtually nothing left of the ancient law which gives the family the power of life and death over their children; corporal punishment and hazing have practically been eliminated from the schools, and the old prerogative of wife-beating banished from the home. Men who in past centuries were proudly decapitated on public squares are now left cheerlessly to rot in dank cellars. The only tortures we inflict these days are undeserved and anonymous ones. Therefore, they are a thousand times more terrible, and wars today manage to roast, in a single, searing blast, the population of an entire city. The excessive kindness of father, teacher, or lover is paid for by blankets of napalm bombs and the atomic explosion. Everything happens as though there exists in the world a mysterious equilibrium of violence, for which we have lost all taste, and even our understanding of the term. And, personally, I am not displeased that it is a woman who has found them again. I am not even surprised.
To tell the truth, I do not have as many preconceived ideas about women as most men do. I am surprised there are any (women). More than surprised: somewhat amazed and filled with admiration. This perhaps explains why they seem so marvelous to me, and why I can’t stop envying them. What is it precisely that I envy?
There are times when I regret my lost childhood. What I regret, though, are not the surprises and the revelations of which the poets speak. No. I remember a time when I thought I was responsible for the whole world. I was by turns a champion boxer or a cook, an orator-politician (yes), a general, a thief, even a redskin, a tree, or a rock. I shall be told that this was only a game. Yes, for you adults it may have been, but not for me, not in the least. This was when I bore the whole weight of the world on my shoulders, with all the cares and dangers it comprised: this is whe
n I was universal. What I am trying to say is this:
Women at least are fated to resemble, throughout their lives, the children we once were. A woman understands a thousand things which totally escape me. She generally knows how to sew. She knows how to cook. She knows how to decorate an apartment and can tell which styles clash (I’m not saying she knows how to do all these things perfectly, but then I wasn’t a perfect little redskin either). And she knows a lot more besides. She’s comfortable with dogs and cats; she’s able to converse with those half-mad creatures we allow among us, children: she teaches them cosmology and how to behave, to wash their hands and brush their teeth and other basics of hygiene, and she tells them fairy tales; and she has even been known to go so far as to teach them the piano. In short, from earliest childhood we are constantly dreaming of a man who would be all men at once. But it would appear that to each woman is given the capacity to be all women (and all men) at once. And there is something even more curious.
We hear it said nowadays that to understand fully is to forgive fully. Now, it has always seemed to me that with women—however universal they may be—it is just the opposite. I’ve had a fair number of friends who have always accepted me for what I am, and I in turn have taken them for what they are—without the slightest desire on my part or on theirs to change one another. I might even say that I was delighted—as were they—that each of us was so unique, so unlike the others. But there is not a woman alive who isn’t interested in changing the man she loves, and at the same time changing herself. As though the proverb were lying, and the truth of the matter is that to understand fully is to forgive nothing at all.
No, Pauline Réage does not forgive very much. And I even wonder, to pursue this thought to its conclusion, whether she does not exaggerate slightly, whether her fellow-females, her peers, are actually as much alike as she assumes. But this is what more than one man is all too willing to grant her.
Should we regret the loss of the notebook compiled by the Barbados slaves? I fear, I must confess, that the worthy Anabaptist who drew it up may have cluttered it, in the section dedicated to apologetics, with a fair number of platitudes: for instance, that there will always be slaves (which, in any case, seems to be borne out by the evidence); that they will always be the same (which is open to question); that one must resign oneself to one’s condition and not waste in recriminations a time that might better be spent in games, meditation, and customary pleasures. And so on and so forth. But I suspect that he was not telling the truth, which is that Glenelg’s slaves were in love with their master, that they could not bear to be without him. The same truth, after all, which lends Story of O its resolute quality, its incredible decency, and that strong, fanatic wind which never ceases to blow.
Introduction
I have always wondered why stories so often touted as great romances end tragically. Story of O is no exception. Considered a classic work of erotic literature, it seeks not to arouse the reader, but to caution against desire, a divergence of purpose that perfectly reflects the splintering of body and mind experienced by O.
A story has a beginning, middle, and end. Yet O’s narrative is the tale of an ending. It is with helpless fascination that we watch O be violated and humiliated to please her lover. The anonymous narrator is detached from the proceedings, relating events and reactions with broad strokes and selective insight. This aloofness does not spare the reader. Instead, it serves as a naked light bulb in the room, casting an unforgiving glare on O’s vulnerable flesh.
In this way, we take the journey from individual to object with O. It is a difficult and troubling road to travel. We are warned at the beginning. “If she begins to like it … get past the pleasure stage. Until you reach the stage of tears.”
And flow they do. O surrenders totally to the men who own her and use her. As proxy to Sir Stephen and René, she is free to do all that she cannot grant herself permission to do alone.
By divorcing her body and will, O finds peace. As an ephemeral supplicant, seen only when her lover wishes to look at her and invisible when he does not, she finds purpose. A slave for innumerable men to penetrate at will without regard for her pleasure, O feels “ennobled” by her submission to the primal desires of others. The twisted spiral of sensual pain is her prison and her pride, triggering a sexual and spiritual transformation through shockingly intense sexual discipline, rather than abstinence and chastity. It is one reason why a novel overflowing with sex enthralls rather than titillates. Is O a victim or a martyr? In any case, she is willing and oftentimes eager.
In the end, I see Story of O as a fable. Be careful what you wish for. René desires a woman who will withhold nothing from him, yet he falls truly in love with Jacqueline, a selfish lover who withholds everything. Sir Stephen desires the perfect submissive, yet after branding and shackling O as his personal property, he finds that O is not the one. And O, who desires to be desired and to perfectly satisfy her lovers’ every dark need, finds herself without a lover at all. She becomes a common vessel without anything meaningful to fill it, an object to be used but not treasured.
We are left asking the question: Did O sacrifice herself for love, or did love make a sacrifice of O?
Sylvia Day
I
The Lovers of Roissy
Her lover one day takes O for a walk in a section of the city where they never go—the Montsouris Park, the Monceau Park. After they have taken a stroll in the park and have sat together side by side on the edge of a lawn, they notice, at one corner of the park, at an intersection where there are never any taxis, a car which, because of its meter, resembles a taxi.
“Get in,” he says.
She gets in. It is autumn, and coming up to dusk. She is dressed as she always is: high heels, a suit with a pleated skirt, a silk blouse, and no hat. But long gloves which come up over the sleeves of her jacket, and in her leather handbag she has her identification papers, her compact, and her lipstick.
The taxi moves off slowly, the man still not having said a word to the driver. But he pulls down the shades of the windows on both sides of the car, and the shade on the back window. She has taken off her gloves, thinking he wants to kiss her or that he wants her to caress him. But instead he says:
“Your bag’s in your way; let me have it.”
She gives it to him. He puts it out of her reach and adds:
“You also have on too many clothes. Unfasten your stockings and roll them down to above your knees. Here are some garters.”
By now the taxi has picked up speed, and she has some trouble managing it; she’s also afraid the driver may turn around. Finally, though, the stockings are rolled down, and she’s embarrassed to feel her legs naked and free beneath her silk slip. Besides, the loose garter-belt suspenders are slipping back and forth.
“Unfasten your garter belt,” he says, “and take off your panties.”
That’s easy enough, all she has to do is slip her hands behind her back and raise herself slightly. He takes the garter belt and panties from her, opens her bag and puts them in, then says:
“You shouldn’t sit on your slip and skirt. Pull them up behind you and sit directly on the seat.”
The seat is made of some sort of imitation leather which is slippery and cold: it’s quite an extraordinary sensation to feel it sticking to your thighs. Then he says:
“Now put your gloves back on.”
The taxi is still moving along at a good clip, and she doesn’t dare ask why René just sits there without moving or saying another word, nor can she guess what all this means to him—having her there motionless, silent, so stripped and exposed, so thoroughly gloved, in a black car going God knows where. He hasn’t told her what to do or what not to do, but she’s afraid either to cross her legs or press them together. She sits with gloved hands braced on either side of her seat.
“Here we are,” he says suddenly. Here we are: the taxi stops on a lovely avenue, beneath a tree—they are plane trees—in front of some sort of smal
l private home which can be seen nestled between the courtyard and the garden, the type of small private dwelling one finds along the Faubourg Saint-Germain. The street lamps are some distance away, and it is still fairly dark inside the car. Outside it is raining.
“Don’t move,” René says. “Sit perfectly still.”
His hand reaches for the collar of her blouse, unties the bow, then unbuttons the blouse. She leans forward slightly, thinking he wants to fondle her breasts. No. He is merely groping for the shoulder straps of her brassiere, which he snips with a small penknife. Then he takes it off. Now, beneath her blouse, which he has buttoned back up, her breasts are naked and free, as is the rest of her body, from waist to knee.
“Listen,” he says. “Now you’re ready. This is where I leave you. You’re to get out and go ring the doorbell. Follow whoever opens the door for you, and do whatever you’re told. If you hesitate about going in, they’ll come and take you in. If you don’t obey immediately, they’ll force you to. Your bag? No, you have no further need for your bag. You’re merely the girl I’m furnishing. Yes, of course I’ll be there. Now run along.”
Another version of the same beginning was simpler and more direct: the young woman, dressed in the same way, was driven by her lover and an unknown friend. The stranger was driving, the lover was seated next to the young woman, and it was the unknown friend who explained to the young woman that her lover had been entrusted with the task of getting her ready, that he was going to tie her hands behind her back, unfasten her stockings and roll them down, remove her garter belt, her panties, and her brassiere, and blindfold her. That she would then be turned over to the château, where in due course she would be instructed as to what she should do. And, in fact, as soon as she had been thus undressed and bound, they helped her to alight from the car after a trip that lasted half an hour, guided her up a few steps and, with her blindfold still on, through one or two doors. Then, when her blindfold was removed, she found herself standing alone in a dark room, where they left her for half an hour, or an hour, or two hours, I can’t be sure, but it seemed forever. Then, when at last the door was opened and the light turned on, you could see that she had been waiting in a very conventional, comfortable, yet distinctive room: there was a thick rug on the floor, but not a stick of furniture, and all four walls were lined with closets. The door had been opened by two women, two young and beautiful women dressed in the garb of pretty eighteenth-century chambermaids: full skirts made out of some light material, which were long enough to conceal their feet; tight bodices, laced or hooked in front, which sharply accentuated the bust line; lace frills around the neck; half-length sleeves. They were wearing eye shadow and lipstick. Both wore a close-fitting collar and had tight bracelets on their wrists.
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