The apricot fell from her trembling fingers, rolled from the wooden table and dropped silently on to the tiled floor.
‘Gretchen,’ Frau Kitzler cried, scurrying towards them through the noise and steam of the busy kitchen. Her laced boot stamped on the escaped apricot viciously, splitting it wide apart. ‘Wicked girl. Get a fresh apron on and come and wait on your Austrian masters.’
Gretchen, her dark Magyar eyes clouding with shame, ran out of the kitchen, head bowed.
‘Table forty. The private booth. Here, take their order and no mistakes, slut. You’ve earned one whipping already. Do not give me reason to double your stripes, understand?’
Gretchen approached the private booth. Her heart sank. In the seclusion of high, velvet-padded screens, two notorious female pianists from the Vienna Conservatoire smoked small cheroots in languid silence. Gretchen had overheard the girls in the kitchen speak of these two mannishly attired young musicians – and of the scandal their intimate friendship had created. They lived together, Gretchen understood the rumours to say, as man and wife.
‘What is your pleasure?’ Gretchen murmured shyly, pencil poised.
The severely dressed woman, wearing a man’s tie and waistcoat, ordered Turkish coffee and strudels for two. Gretchen’s nervous pencil scribbled the order down hurriedly.
‘Pretty little piece, just as Frau Kitzler promised us,’ the second musician remarked, scrutinising Gretchen as if she were a cake on a tray.
Gretchen curtsied, flinching under the sparkle of the woman’s monocled eye.
‘Little village wench,’ her partner murmured, fingering her tie. ‘Fresh as a newly stringed violin.’
‘Unplucked,’ whispered the other, raking Gretchen’s bosom and thighs with her monocle.
Frau Kitzler approached, rubbing her hands. ‘Everything to your satisfaction?’ she purred.
‘Quite delicious,’ the mannish musician replied, palming several schillings across the white linen towards the patissier’s wife.
‘Thank you.’ Frau Kitzler pocketed the coins, then rested her thumbtips inside the tight stretch of her leather belt. ‘She is yours, from now on. She will serve you with whatever you wish.’
Gretchen, burning with shame at the cool hands stroking her buttocks and thighs, departed, returning to serve the Turkish coffee and strudels faultlessly, despite her hammering heart.
‘No. Don’t scuttle off, girl. Sit,’ the waistcoated woman commanded, patting the upholstered banquette firmly. ‘Sit here, next to me.’
‘No, girl. Come and sit next to me,’ her partner snarled, grasping Gretchen’s wrist and tugging her. ‘I want you.’
Gretchen struggled, whimpering softly as she tried to escape the pawing hands at her breasts and waist. Lurching and toppling, she lost her balance briefly, her hip bumping the table. The coffee pot wobbled and crashed down, its dark stain rapidly covering the spotless linen; the burning liquid trickling down on to the monocled woman’s unprotected lap. She screeched, drawing Frau Kitzler to the private booth almost immediately.
‘The stupid girl,’ the scalded woman spluttered. ‘I’m soaked, and my clothes quite ruined –’
‘Please, madam, come with me at once,’ Frau Kitzler soothed, dabbing at the woman’s pubic mound with a napkin. ‘I will see to it personally that you have complete satisfaction.’
‘Satisfaction?’
‘First, your clothes. To save them, we must retire and apply cold water to them at once. There is a private room where you can undress.’
‘Complete satisfaction?’ the monocled woman prompted.
‘I will send Gretchen to you for punishment. You may have this,’ the master patissier’s wife purred, unbuckling her leather belt, ‘to whip her bare bottom.’
At nine, Gretchen stole away into the darkness of the night. Her whipped cheeks still burned, and the tight calico cami-knickers stretched across her punished flesh rekindled the fierce heat of the leather belt’s merciless lash.
At the Prater, a uniformed military band was playing a spirited ‘Trennugswaltz’. The crowd paused, their breath smoking the lamplit air, and swayed gently to the music. Gretchen hated the helmeted bandsman and the martial music they blared. She blundered on through the Prater, tears stinging her large, dark eyes. Then she heard the faint sounds from her childhood. A Magyar tune. She followed the thin, reedy notes to their source – an accordion player beside a carousel. The roundabout was painted red and yellow. On it, large black cockerels waited patiently for the next ride, their shining black wooden forms gleaming under the bright naptha flares. The accordionist played another Magyar tune. Its sweet pathos brought tears of pleasurable remembrance to Gretchen’s frost-pinched cheeks.
She would have one ride. Fishing out five groschen from her frayed pocket, she held them out to the gypsy. Seeing her dark, tear-brimmed Magyar eyes, he smiled, waved away the proffered money and bodily hoisted Gretchen aloft, planting her astride a handsome black cock. A hiss of steam warned that the ride was about to commence. Chains groaned and pulleys whirred as organ music bellowed out – and the turning carousel gathered speed.
Gretchen closed her eyes tightly and gripped on to the red-and-yellow striped pole. Faster. The organ music grew more frantic. Faster. The cold night air stung her upturned face. Clinging on to the pole, and gasping as she took in painful lungfuls of the freezing night air, Gretchen squeezed her thighs together as she rode the huge cock between them.
The ride slowed and came to a graceful stop. Gretchen, panting and exhilarated, allowed the courteous gypsy to help her alight. He squeezed her playfully; she kissed him shyly and scampered away into the throng.
There were other rides, other attractions, but she was very tired after her long day drudging for the Kitzlers. A pang of hunger stabbed her empty belly. She pondered the wisdom of buying a baked potato, or a blue twist of paper overflowing with roasted chestnuts.
A single trumpet note rose above the tumult. Gretchen followed the surging crowd and found herself at the roped-off perimeter of a sawdust-strewn arena. In it, naked to the waist and sporting tight red-and-yellow breeches, a handsome Bohemian was conducting two magnificent Leipzig whites through their curvetting paces. Under his command, the horses pranced, pirouetted and reared up, pawing the air with their gold-painted hooves. Austrian horses, obedient to the snapping whip and curt command of her fellow countryman.
Peering into the arena from the outer gloom, Gretchen watched admiringly as the horseman coached his spirited pair into absolute submission. She glowed with fierce pride as the Leipzig whites rolled over on to their backs, scattering sawdust everywhere.
Gretchen felt quite exhausted. She closed her eyes, swaying gently as her knees trembled. She suddenly had the violent fancy that she was inside the arena, ankle-deep in the soft sawdust. Whip in hand, she was in control of the Kitzlers. Pale, shivering and naked, she made them prance obediently under her flickering lash.
Gretchen grinned, amazed at the enormity of her rebellious impulse – but emboldened by her overwhelming contempt. Frau Kitzler would drop her hands down from her breasts to shield her pubis. Snap. The whip would curl and kiss her knuckles with its stinging lash. The seared hands would fly up to crush the breasts above, exposing the pattissier’s wife to shame and disgrace. Gretchen giggled. Yes. Another flick of the whip would stripe the naked woman’s buttocks. Screaming softly and driven by the lash, the tamed Frau would stumble round the arena, puffs of sawdust rising from her stamping feet.
Then it would be the turn of the naked, flabby cake-maker. Gretchen sighed softly, wondering if it would hurt – enough – to be whipped up between the thighs. Yes. That was how she would make him prance to her stern command. Behind closed eyes, Gretchen pictured the fat Otto Kitzler loping around the arena, cradling his cock and balls, his buttocks criss-crossed with the searing slice of her controlling whip.
Gretchen opened her eyes and sighed once more. It was time to leave the Prater and get back to her attic in Kapellstra
sse. She turned her back on the noise and lights – and froze. There, over by the booth selling slices of fried knackwurst, was her master. Gretchen blinked her disbelief. Moments ago, she had imagined herself conducting him around the arena, naked beneath the threat of her stinging whip. Now, there he was, parleying and haggling with a masked prostitute. Showing her a fistful of schillings. Gretchen hid herself in the shadows and watched. The schillings were refused, as were his advances. The prostitute had scorned him. Otto Kitzler cursed her loudly as she stalked away back towards the bandstand. Gretchen, shivering, kept to the shadows as she scuttled back to her lodgings.
Outside her house, a fiacre stood, a steaming mare stamping impatiently in her jingling harness. The cabman was loading the small, four-wheeled carriage with a large trunk and two leather valises. Stepping out from the front door, after pressing a gold coin into the upturned palm of the hovering concierge, was the prostitute from the room below Gretchen’s attic.
‘I will be back in twelve days. Be sure not to let my apartment out in my absence.’
The concierge nodded, spat on her sovereign and shuffled back inside. The pieces of luggage safely aboard, the cabman assisted the prostitute into her seat. The whip cracked and the mare responded, the clatter of her hooves echoing along the cobbles of Kapellstrasse.
Gretchen listened to Otto Kitzler as he conducted a group of admiring Viennese worthies around his establishment.
‘Planning and timing, my friends, are the most important ingredients in the creation of a medal-winning sachertorte. Bringing the necessary parts all together in the right sequence and at the appropriate time. That is the secret of my –’
‘Success,’ they chorused, raising their schnapps.
Otto Kitzler made no modest protest, but bowed smugly as he accepted their salute.
Planning and timing. Gretchen took note of her master’s words, as every good apprentice should.
She needed kümmel and a whole sachertorte. To steal a mere slice of the delicious cake would be too dangerous. She would be suspected, closely questioned by the bullying Kitzlers and soundly thrashed. To steal an entire cake would be too monstrous a crime for them to credit her with – she trusted in their contempt for the abilities of mere Magyars. Carefully choosing her moment, Gretchen stole both the kümmel and the cake and smuggled them back to her lodgings.
She needed the prostitute’s mask and dark cloak. She needed a willing young messenger boy in attendance. And, to be successful, Gretchen needed to plan and prepare – arranging all these parts to her plan in the correct sequence.
The Prater. Not too early. That would attract the attention of the other prostitutes. Sisters in sin, they would grow inquisitive – resentful of her intrusion, perhaps. But not too late, either. She must time everything carefully. Giving the stolen kümmel to the concierge would only ensure a couple of hours to complete her task.
The next night, she saw Herr Kitzler at the bandstand. Despite the protection of her mask and cloak, she trembled as he approached. A whispered exchange, a brief glimpse of her breasts. Minutes later, Gretchen was leading him by the hand through the crowded amusement park. They left the Prater by the west gate, taking a short cut through the ghostly white stones of the Hundstrum graveyard. She became playful, blindfolding him with a black velvet band before taking his cock in her hand and leading him back to her lodgings. Otto Kitzler followed, his lust and vanity blinding him more thoroughly than the velvet at his eyes.
Halfway through her kümmel, the concierge surrendered the prostitute’s key once more without objection. Up in the room beneath her attic, Gretchen remained silent, masked and cloaked. The master patissier raised his fat fingers up to his blindfold. Gretchen moved quickly, undressing him and tantalising him until his erection strained. She pushed her blindfolded captive gently down on to the sensual zebra skin rug, then straddled his nakedness, rubbing her buttocks at his groin.
‘Smell,’ she whispered, disguising her voice as she brought a slice of sachertorte to his nostrils.
Otto’s cock twitched excitedly, raking her cleft with its fierce heat. He sniffed greedily then, exposing his yellow teeth in a wide grin, bit into the dark chocolate confection.
‘But this is excellent,’ he cried, spitting moist crumbs. ‘Where did you buy it?’
Gretchen could not resist tormenting the patissier, now utterly in her thrall. She whispered the name of Kitzler’s deadly rival, grinning as she watched his face purple and contort in jealous fury. She fed him another slice, but he refused – until she clutched and squeezed his balls. Kitzler promptly opened wide, choking on the sachertorte. He struggled, but Gretchen became dominant.
Naked and blindfolded, he knelt down in obedience to her sternly whispered command. She took a thick slice of the chocolate cake and pressed it into his groin, impaling it upon his engorged erection. He grunted inquisitively, trying to make sense of the strange sensation. Kneeling down before him, Gretchen, now naked except for her mask, deftly twisted the wedge of sachertorte between her controlling hands, then slowly dragged it gently back and forth.
Otto Kitzler’s pale face prickled with sweat. His knuckles whitened as he clenched his fists. Nodding his approval at this unusual pleasuring, he knelt before her helplessly as she pumped him with increasing vigour. He slumped and groaned; she caught the spurt of his hot seed moments later in the rich, soft cake.
She fed him again, open-mouthed with silent glee as he frowned at – but obediently swallowed – his own creation.
‘Nice?’ she mocked.
‘Not bad,’ he conceded, ‘but I knew it was his,’ he added, managing to name his deadly rival without swearing. ‘It was a little sour. The cream was off.’
Getting him into the stocks was a piece of cake. He bellowed, once the wooden yokes had snapped into place, but gagging the helpless, blindfolded man was even easier. The apprentice had listened well to her master. She was bringing all the elements together, in the correct sequence and with perfect timing.
Otto Kitzler tensed at the sound of the cane. Its eerie, spine-tingling swish filled the ornate room as Gretchen executed several practice strokes. She watched with satisfaction as he cowered in the stocks, his hands writhing as the veins at his temples throbbed. She thrummed the bamboo once more, slicing the whippy wood down with a note of pure venom. The master patissier jerked in his bondage, his fear now a palpable frenzy.
Bending down over her captive, the pretty young apprentice positioned the yellow cane between the pale buttocks of her quivering master. Retreating to where she had tossed his discarded clothing down, she plucked up his black frock coat and returned to the stocks.
She extracted his wallet and poured out all his gold. He rattled the wooden stocks in renewed rage, his fierce curses muffled by the tight gag at his lips. Despite being blindfolded by the velvet, he knew what was happening. He was being robbed. Gretchen took a silver schilling from the heap of gold and, removing the cane from his cleft, planted the cold coin between his cheeks. He squeezed them tightly, denying her. Three crisp strokes of the cane later, he parted his buttocks for the humiliation, shuddering as the schilling rasped his anal whorl.
That is what I think of your Austrian schillings, pig, she laughed silently to herself. The gold I will keep. Gold knows no frontiers. It will be of equal value back in Bohemia.
Then she searched for his secret recipe book. It was no bigger than a cigarette case, bound in green leather and securely locked. A search of all his clothing for the minute key proved fruitless. Gretchen returned to the stocks. There, around his creased neck, she saw the fine silver chain. On it, dangling down at his chest, was the small silver key. She snatched it free and unlocked the recipe book.
The master patissier threshed wildly as Gretchen pretended to tear out each page and destroy his livelihood – secretly adding the famous recipes for sachertorte and strudels to her stolen gold coins. Carefully setting each page down for later safe-keeping – and use back in her native village – she co
ntinued to deliberately rip and shred a page of newspaper she had prepared for the purpose of fooling him. Otto Kitzler almost broke free from his bondage, such was his wrath and fury.
All was going sweetly to plan. Having humiliated him, robbed him and then maddened him into a rage, Gretchen reached the next stage of her carefully planned enterprise exactly on time. Punishment. Rising, she plucked out the silver schilling from his cleft and threw it away. Gathering up the bamboo cane, and stroking the cool length of wood affectionately, she tapped his cheeks twice before raising her supple wood aloft.
Whipping him was a delicious sensation. Gretchen quickly found that, just as sachertorte made her mouth water, the pleasure of lashing him juiced her prickling pussy. Each slicing stroke left painful reddening lines that quickly turned to a purplish blue across his jerking buttocks. After administering thirteen cuts – the traditional baker’s dozen – Gretchen could contain her intense excitement no longer. Kneeling astride, then behind, his whipped cheeks, she kissed them with her wet pussy-lips twice then savagely raked her wet heat against the punished flesh. He writhed beneath her total domination but the stocks held him securely, allowing Gretchen to ride Kitzler mercilessly. She hammered herself with supreme contempt as she started coming violently, smearing his reddened, striped buttocks with her wet sheen – just as he would glaze a framboise tart.
Another thirteen strokes followed in crisp succession. Gretchen’s arm ached heavily as she dutifully honoured the baker’s dozen once more. The bamboo began to sing its cruel song more slowly after the seventh cut. The next three were slowly delivered: slow, searching measured strokes – just as the prostitute had flayed the Austrian army captain. Gretchen paused, suddenly remembering. What had the prostitute done? Her eyes sparkled as she sliced the whippy wood down for the concluding stripes, eager for the final humiliation.
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