A Bestiary of Unnatural Women

by Ashley Zacharias

  It began when Gene took me shopping. This time, he made me wear black stockings and the garter belt underneath my duffel coat and winter boots. Nothing else, of course. And this time he drove rather than sending me out on my own. That meant that I had to pull the bottom of my coat out from under me when I got in the car. It wasn't as cold out as on Tuesday, just below freezing, but the car seat was still so cold beneath my bare butt that I was shivering so hard that my teeth were rattling before we got halfway downtown and the car warmed up enough.

  Gene sent me into a sex shop with a shopping list. He didn't know that it was the same shop where I bought the collar and cuffs and whips and I didn't tell him. He made me buy a vibrator, a realistic-looking dildo, and three porn magazines, one about bondage, one about anal sex, and one with pictures of Betty Page taken by Irving Klaw. I think he was specific about that because he wanted to force me to spend a long time looking through all the magazines to find the right ones. I wasn’t allowed to just rush in, grab a few things at random and rush out.

  Buying the items was humiliating enough but it was worse than Gene knew because the clerk recognized me and he recognized the collar that was locked around my neck. He had another one in the display case right beneath his fingers. Two days ago, the clerk in the drug store only hoped that I was naked underneath the coat; today, this guy in the sex shop was certain. I was sweating when I bought the stuff so he grinned and told me that if I was too hot, I could take my coat off. He said that the windows were blacked out so it would be all right by him.

  I got out of there as soon as I could. In the car, Gene made me tell him what happened before he would drive away. I was afraid that he was going to send me back into the store and take my coat off for the clerk, but I forced myself to tell him everything anyway. Gene didn't send me back inside; he just laughed and drove me to a drugstore. It was a different one than I had shopped at last time. He sent me in to buy a box of condoms and another jar of Vaseline. Then, he took me to a hardware store and sent me inside to buy four ten-foot lengths of steel chain, sixty feet of medium polyester rope, and six new padlocks.

  The next stop was a camera store. He made me buy a Polaroid camera, a dozen film packs, and a dozen packages of flash bulbs. I was worried that he was thinking that I'd let him take pictures of me naked and was going to tell him that he's got another think coming. Even O has limits. Actually O doesn't, but Emily does and there aren't going to be any pictures that might still exist when O disappears and Emily comes back.

  Little did I guess what he really had in mind. Letting him take a few lewd pictures of me and then destroying them right away would have been an easier way to spend the day.

  The naked-but-for-the-coat shopping never got any easier, though. I got so tired of seeing clerks all over the city leering at me. It's like they're raping me with their eyes. And, just to make sure that I was experiencing the humiliation fully, every time I got back into the car, Gene made me tell him exactly what happened in the store. What the clerk said; what I said; how the clerk looked at me. If he was that interested, he should have come inside with me and watched for himself. I think the main reason that he didn't was because he was embarrassed that he might be seen walking across the parking lot with a woman who's obviously naked under her winter coat.

  Next, he took me to the bank and told me to take five hundred dollars out of our savings account. By chance, the teller was the first woman who served me today; all the other clerks had been men. She was years younger than me but she knew what I wasn't wearing and looked at me with plain disgust.

  It was easier to tolerate the men’s leers.

  The final stop was the capper. Gene drove me back down to the part of town where they kept the porn shops and strip clubs, I guess you'd call it the red light district, and explained to me exactly what I had to do. I had to go into the strip clubs until I found a woman who would agree to be a photographic model for us for the rest of the afternoon. I had to make she that she understood exactly what she was agreeing to do. I had to show her the magazines and tell her that we would want her to pose like the models in the pictures, except that there wouldn't be any men posing with her. She would use a dildo on herself instead of letting a man penetrate her. I could tell her that she wouldn't have to sign a release because the pictures were for our private enjoyment alone. We would pay her a hundred dollars an hour for her services.

  Gene told me not to come back to the car until I had a woman who would model for me.

  I thought that I was going to die.

  When I got out of the car, I told myself that I would go inside just to make it look good, and then come back after a half hour and tell him that it was hopeless, that no one would pose for us. But I was astounded to find out how easy it was. As soon as I went inside the first club, a woman asked what I wanted and I told her that I was looking for a women to model for some nude photographs and she told me to talk to another woman named Purty who was standing by the bar. Purty, I think that was a stage name but I didn't ask.

  Purty looked at me and asked right out if I was naked under my coat.

  I told her that I was, that my husband was doing this to humiliate me. Then I told her what we wanted and showed her the magazines. I blushed when she looked through them but she didn't even look surprised. She just asked if she would be safe around my husband and me. I showed her my driver's license – I had it in my pocket in case I needed to drive – so she told her friend who she would be around for the rest of the afternoon and came back to the car with me.

  I can't believe how some women would let themselves be used. Don't they have any self-respect?

  Gene let me go to the bedroom and put on a blouse and skirt. He didn't make me be naked in front of Purty even though Purty had to be naked in front of us all afternoon.

  I spent the rest of the day selecting pictures from the magazines, posing Purty in the same way as the models, and taking pictures with the Polaroid camera. All Gene did was sit in his chair and watch. He said almost nothing and never tried to touch Purty.

  I was more grateful than you could know because Purty was such a sport. She didn’t mind even when she had to coat the dildo with Vaseline and work it up into her backside. She even helped tie herself up and lock on the chains in the bondage shots. It took a little less than four hours to use up all the film, but I gave her the whole five hundred anyway. She deserved the tip.

  Gene let me drive her back downtown by myself. This time he let me keep wearing the blouse and skirt underneath the coat. He's such a peach. But, of course, I still don't have any underwear in the house – that's still locked in the shed in the back and Gene still has the key.

  When I dropped her off, Purty offered to model again but I said that I think this was a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. She laughed and said it wasn't once-in-a-lifetime for her. She told me that I was lucky; that Gene seems like a nice guy. She's right.

  This has been the weirdest day yet. We're getting a long way from my original offer to do, within limits, what O did and– My God! I just got it. I'm so dumb. This isn't getting away from the book at all. This is exactly right for a slightly-twisted interpretation of O. In the book she was a photographer. And she was forced to bring one of her models, Jacqueline, to Roissy. It was different, of course. O was a fashion photographer and Jacqueline was her lover and she never took photographs at Roissy. But this was how Gene could fit that aspect of “The Story of O” into our Cleveland version of Roissy. He made me be a photographer and made me recruit another woman to come here.

  I should have expected something like this when I offered to act as O for a week.

  Tomorrow is the last day. Gene has to release me at 9:00 tomorrow night, just about exactly twenty-four hours from now. I can't imagine what he has planned but I'll be relieved when it's all over.

  I'm not just physically sore, I'm emotionally raw. At first, I was going to offer to serve as O from Saturday until the following Sunday, eight days. I'm glad that I decided to cut it d
own to just the five weekdays. I don't know if I could have lasted for any longer. This experience has been far more intense than I anticipated.

  Gene's Diary

  Friday, 9 February 1973

  Last night was the last night of Roissy and today's the last day. So I had to take care of unfinished business early this morning.

  I set an alarm to wake me up just before dawn so that I could wake O, stand her in the middle of the room with her arms chained over her head, whip her butt and thighs, front and back, and leave her there to watch the sunrise. She started whimpering as soon as I turned the lamp on and she saw me standing over her with the riding crop in my hand. She knew exactly what was coming from having read it in the book. She knew that this was going to be the most brutal whipping of all.

  It didn't take long to give her the whipping. I didn't hold back much, this was her last whipping as O so she deserved a full measure. She screamed after every stroke and was sobbing most piteously when I turned out the light and left her standing naked in the dark, her arms still chained over her head, waiting for dawn.

  I wasn't able to get back to sleep after that so now I'm tired from having to get up so early. Taking care of O properly is tough work.

  For the rest of the day, she'll serve me with her Roissy dress tied up both in the front and back so that all her marks are displayed.

  All we are going to do today is have sex. Lots and lots of sex of all kinds. Because she was clear in her original letter that she considers that sex was the most salient feature of Roissy – that O was constantly available for use – her tenure as O should end that way.

  Emily's Diary

  Friday, 9 February 1973

  It's over. Gene gave me the key to the shed at 9:00 tonight and sent me out naked into the snow to bring back everything that I'd put in storage last Sunday night: the keys to the cuffs and my underwear and most of my clothing. Going outside naked was his final humiliation. That was as close as he could get to the part at the end of the book where O was taken naked to a party where everyone else was clothed. He made the analogy clear because he said pretty much exactly that.

  It was dark enough and we have big hedges so I'm sure that the neighbors didn't see anything, but it was cold out there so I ran back and forth as fast as I could. It took three trips. I had a lot of clothes in storage. He turned the outside lights on when I was out there so I felt like I was on display for the whole world.

  I should say something about the main part of the day. He woke me up before dawn. As soon as I saw him standing there fully clothed with the riding crop in his hand and it still dark outside, I knew exactly what he was going to do because it was one of the things that was described clearly in the book and I had installed a hook in the bedroom ceiling in exactly the right place for the event.

  But I had expected it at the beginning of the week because the event occurred near the beginning of the book. By now, I thought that he had decided not to do it.

  As soon as I saw him, I knew that I was wrong.

  He stood me in front of the bedroom window, chained me with my arms stretched high over my head, and then whipped my butt and thighs as hard as he could with the riding crop from my waist to my knees behind and my crotch to knees in front. He had not been using his full strength before. I know that now. I screamed bloody murder and I don't apologize for that. It hurt like hell. It still does. I suffered a lot more beatings this week than I expected. And none of them were symbolic. I didn't like it when it was happening and don't like it now.

  But now that it's over, I can forgive Gene. I allowed him to do it and I can't blame him for taking advantage of an opportunity when he had it. He won’t get it again. It hurt something awful, but it didn't kill me.

  Now I’m one of the few women in Cleveland to know what it’s like to be really whipped. That’s something.

  Soon, it'll be a memory that I'll be putting behind me but he'll be holding the same memory close to his heart for a long time to come. He told me so tonight, after I was no longer O. He held me tenderly and looked into my eyes and told me that he loved me and that he'd treasure what I had done for him for the rest of his life.

  He looked so grateful. I guess it was worth it.

  Not much happened in the morning between an early breakfast and an earlier lunch, I mostly had to stand in the middle living room with my hands chained to the ceiling wearing my Roissy dress with the back and front tied up, turning around whenever Gene asked me to. He tried to pretend that he was mostly reading the newspaper, but I could see that he spent most of the time staring at my breasts and butt and crotch. He was looking at me like he was afraid that he was never going to see me naked again.

  We had a late morning snack at ten thirty, then Gene said that we were going to play a game for the rest of the day. He told me to get the vibrator that I bought yesterday. His 'game' wasn't much of a game. He told me that I was going to be flipping a quarter and when it came up heads, I had to make myself have an orgasm with the vibrator. When it came up tails, I had to give him an orgasm any way I could using my hands, mouth, pussy or ass. Every time one of us came, I had to set a kitchen timer for an hour. When it dinged, I had to flip the coin again and make either myself or him come again depending on whether it fell heads or tails. He said that I had to keep playing the 'game' until one of us had come five times.

  It's harder than it sounds.

  I got the vibrator with the first flip. I've never had to make myself come in front of anyone before and felt more humiliated than I had ever felt before in my life. It was more degrading than anything else that I had been made to do this week. In the book, even O wouldn't play with herself when someone was watching, no matter how much they whipped her.

  I guess I'm more obedient than O because I did it. I did it with Gene staring at me throughout. It was bad enough that he watched what I was doing between my legs, but when I came, he kept staring at my face like I was some kind of freak.

  As soon as I finished, Gene told me to set the timer for an hour.

  When it dinged again, I flipped the coin and got the vibrator again. It was a little harder to come the second time, but I didn't feel quite so self-conscious. Gene was looking a little left out, but he made up the game, so tough.

  After another hour, I flipped tails and I got Gene. I sucked him for a few minutes until he came in my mouth. It didn't take long. After setting the timer, I had time to fix us both a mid afternoon snack before it dinged again.

  This time, I got Gene again. It was harder to get him to come a second time, but I got him hard with my fingers and mouth and then lay on my back and put him inside me. He came after about ten minutes and I set the timer again.

  After another hour, I got the vibrator again. I was feeling rather sore between my legs but managed to come a third time after working on myself for a few minutes. I was tempted to fake it, but I've never faked it in my life and I have too much pride to do it now. The vibrator really helped; I don't think I could have done it with just my hands.

  Just after five, I flipped again and got the vibrator for the fourth time. Now I was quite sore between my legs. It took a long time to come and my orgasm was barely strong enough to qualify, but it was an honest orgasm. Finally getting there was such a relief, you can't imagine.

  At half past six, I got Gene for the third time. I made my hands slippery with a gob of Vaseline and worked on him for a minute to get him hard, then put him on his back and rode him hard. He didn't come for the longest time and I was almost exhausted when he finally did it. I was so sore between my legs that I could barely climb off him.

  It was almost eight when I flipped tails and got him for the fourth time. I was too sore to want him the normal way again, so I took him up my butt. A week ago, I never dreamed that a time would come when I’d rather have a man in my butt than in my pussy, but there you go. Life is unpredictable. He likes my butt and came after only a few minutes even though he was almost exhausted.

  We never managed to fi
nish his game because there was less than an hour to go until nine and my week as O was over. But we both got off four times in one day and that's a lot. I don't think either one of us could have made it a fifth time.

  Instead of continuing his game for the last forty-five minutes, Gene cuffed my hands behind my back one last time and spent the time playing with my naked breasts. I never knew that a man could spend that long enjoying my breasts without getting bored, especially after all the sex we’d had. But there you go – a woman never really knows a man until she lets him do anything he wants to her for a few days.

  My breasts were a little sore when he finally finished but not nearly as sore as my crotch, or my butt that was bruised and welted almost to the point of bleeding. He unclipped my hands, and gave me the key and sent me out to the shed where I had put most of my clothes, as well as the keys to my collar and cuffs.

  It was a mean trick, making me go out to the shed in the back yard through the snow naked and barefoot to retrieve my clothes and keys but I understand the reason for it.

  When I got back, he was already running a hot bath for me. He bathed me, even washing my hair, and then dressed me in my thickest flannel pajamas and put me to bed.

  He told me that he loved me more than he had known he could love anyone.

  I told him that I felt the same way. That is the honest truth. My body is sore, I’m exhausted, but my heart feels full to the brim tonight.

  Sophia's Diary

  Tuesday, 2 December 2008

  That's it. I've read the rest of my parents' diaries and there's no other mention of O or Roissy, no looking back or drawing conclusions about the effect of their adventure on the rest of their lives. And there's no indication that they every tried such a thing again. The last word that either wrote about it was my mother being put to bed in her thickest flannel pajamas after five days of suffering and loving my father more deeply than ever.