I began to wonder what Maryska’s cell was like; my curiosity was aroused. But first I returned to my quarters and, after sorting out my papers in my usual meticulous manner, wrote this interminable letter to you, to whom, since I have no one civilized here to confide in, I send my blessings and love.
Your uncle in God, Huldrych
Letter The Seventh
In my tours of duty the next day, I was shocked at the poverty, destitution and profligacy that abound here. The numbers of beggars and of desperate women and young girls deprived of their menfolk, offering themselves openly, even on the streets and byways, sometimes persuades me to understand the Margravine’s personal crusade; but her correctives do not leave much choice to a vagrant, starving female: it is simple and coercive - the brothel or the whip.
Despite her questionable sense of justice - and her lusts, which do not concern me as a visitor and guest - Eliska is a remarkably able person; not only is she a widow but has inherited a benighted realm. She carries out frequent personal visits of inspection as far as the Palatinate border and so maintains contact with her domains, devoting attention to both the ecclesiastical and secular arms. With regard to the first, she pays lip service to the Bishop, abbots and priesthood, including monasteries and nunneries - where, I am told, she looks with envy on some of the younger and more attractive nuns who could just as well be working for her at the castle.
Here one dwells in a world of fear, of angels and devils, of cunning recompense and crude retribution, all wrapped up in mystical terror; but then, as we all well know, Luther himself became a monk after being scared by a bolt of lightning. ‘Good works’ in the name of God are popular - and beating these naked women is among them.
I could not plead overwork the next evening when invited to attend the ceremony in the dungeon. It would have been blunt discourtesy. I had to don a cowl, like those worn by the bailiffs, and a robe, and descend the steps after Jakub who had been sent to escort me.
The dungeon consists of a vast windowless space paved with flagstones and spanned by heavy oak beams. The place is heated somehow. In fact it is rather stifling, especially when one wears these heavy clothes. At one end is a raised dais covered with a rich carpet on which stand several chairs, and candles burn incessantly, giving off a strange perfume. Chains and rings hang everywhere between the numerous pillars supporting the roof. By the left wall presides a long rough table ladened with a huge array of whips, greased and ready for use.
Before the dais lies a massive cross of hewn timber, its head resting on blocks. To the right rears a sort of gallows, bolted to a platform, with crossbars at its head and halfway down. Further to the right, wedged into the ground, a stake stands, rising to about the height of a man’s belly, its tip rounded off; a stout chain hangs above it. There are several other appliances but I had not the time to study them. Perhaps just as well...
The Margravine entered with her lovers, who took their places on the dais. Eliska looked very striking in her flowing velvet robe, high boots and coif, her breasts standing out bare from the tight bodice. The men were, like me, shrouded in hood and cloak. We all stood in an eerie silence. And then Eliska rang a little silver bell in her gloved and jewelled hand. I was to learn that each act of the ceremony is governed by this silver bell.
From the entry at the head of the stairway Sebastian appeared with Maryska before him. Both were naked and Maryska was loaded with ceremonial chains as she felt her way blindly down the steps. Very slowly the couple entered the dungeon where the girl was now to suffer - for the good of her soul!
They halted in front of the dais. There Maryska was thrust to her knees, made to bow to the ground and then, after having her lower chains removed, bent backwards to reveal her marvellous body to the company. My hosts now rose and approached the blindfolded victim while Eliska quite unashamedly caressed her lovers’ sexes between the folds of their cloaks. Ladislav - to judge from the voice - unrolled a parchment and read out what I realized was the sentence.
The terms were in the local tongue, but I gathered the gist only too well. After a tedious preamble citing the Margravine’s acute sense of justice and a passing reference to the Emperor (probably for my benefit), the list of tortures - or rather cleansing flagellations - followed. Takenin flagrante delicto , fornicating illicitly in the principal Zatoransky brothel, property of the gracious Gr”fin Eliska Helena, the whore was condemned to be flagellated naked in a ritual of three sessions, each session having three sequences.
The precise postures, number of lashes and specific instruments of flagellation were stipulated. I could not follow the detail, but Maryska’s open mouth and blanched complexion under her blindfold showed that she understood only too well. Certain items I did grasp, such as crucifixion, impalements, breast gallows, suspensions.
Certain sequences were to be performed by the Margravine herself, others by her counsellors, the rest by the official flogger.
Ladislav’s colourless reading finally concluded and Brother Ignatius was ushered in. In a faint voice he blessed the instruments of flagellation on the table, as well as most of the appliances, and finally sprinkled holy water over the trembling Maryska, before he hurriedly left.
The silver bell sounded and we took our seats, I feeling less like an Imperial envoy than ever before in my life, and hoping I could escape future sessions.
While Eliska played openly and lasciviously with her lovers, Maryska was bound to the cross, stretched out so erotically that it cut my breath - the oiled body with its curves and muscles yielded to her master’s gestures and I sensed that she had been thoroughly excited prior to her entry.
Sebastian hooked a spiked Morgenstern sphere to each genital ring and left them on the floor between the lower arms of the cross. At a further tinkle of the bell, the cross was raised upright by means of chains and ratchets until the girl hung helplessly stretched. She clenched her teeth as the man began to bind her breasts by the rings. It was almost overpowering to watch the man, with his enormous erection pulsing and dragging over Maryska’s flesh, working on the nude in silence.
Once the body had been fully harnessed to the cross, Eliska herself advanced, a slender leather whip in hand. She took her stance and began to whip. She scourged from the breasts to the upper thighs. I did not count the stokes nor Maryska’s groans. I do not think that the body was much hurt; rather it was the suspension and the shock of exposure in this aura of frightening ceremony that combined with the scourging to paralyse the girl.
Then Maryska was left to hang, her flesh bearing the pattern of the whip. She seemed to have had the breath taken out of her, as she sagged in her bondage.
It had been an extraordinary sight - the imperious, lustful, avenging countess whipping her naked whore-slave whose glittering body writhed and twisted on the rough timber under the smart of the lash. What had surprised me above all was the stamina of the girl, her fortitude under the whip, refusing to cry out, accepting her fate. But for how long would her pluck last?
At a further ring of the bell, the cross was lowered and the body released only to be dragged across to two heavy chains that hung menacingly from a beam. Immediately, allowing the girl no respite, Sebastian made her lie belly down on the flagstones while her ankle straps were attached to the dangling links. Slowly and with the help of another ratchet, Sebastian raised the body until it hung, head down, swinging from the beam, legs parted wide.
The wrists were now chained outwards as Eliska approached to relish her victim for the second sequence. She examined the open sex, tugging in the rings with her gloved fingers and at the same time sliding her other hand up and down her man’s magnificent straining penis, now streaming with trails of liquid. Satisfied with the girl’s posture, Eliska returned to her seat and sounded her bell.
I was now to see Sebastian at work. He came forward with a stout length of leather in his hand, which he greased anew befor
e taking his place to the side of the nude. He brought the lash down across the offered rump.
Maryska heaved in her chains with a long groan as the leather curled round the bulge of the buttock and bit into the sex. At each stroke the man snatched the tip away from the crotch so that the terminal fang sliced into the slit. After some dozen strokes, the man changed sides and whipped from the right. Now the rump was receiving the main force of the stroke. The girl moaned at each lash but little more and I had to acknowledge this peasant resistance again. She was fighting her persecutors in her own silent way.
While the flogging rose to its crescendo, Eliska offered herself to her lovers, swaying between them as they caressed her sex and clitoris and she, turning her jewelled rings inwards on her fingers to enhance her grip on their pricks, masturbated them rapidly. One by one they orgasmed, she first, crying out with her head thrown back while the lovers ejaculated their heavy loads of sperm over the chairs and floor.
Finally Maryska’s whipping was over. She was lowered and lay sprawling before Sebastian, his erection still hard and dripping freely. My hostess and her lovers stumbled back to their seats to recover their spirits. They drank deeply from wine offered by almost naked serving girls who had entered just at the end of the second flagellation. While refreshing ourselves and discussing the sequence - an exchange that I tried hard to avoid - Maryska was being prepared for the third and last episode of punishment.
She was chained between two columns, her ankles bound tightly together and the arms outflung above until she was on the utmost reach of her toes, presenting her entire nudity to the scourge. Sebastian caressed the taut body for a while, holding his long plaited whip ready until the silver bell commanded him to commence. He lifted the scourge and with the other hand began to frig the bursting shaft of flesh, veins and gristle that reared from his crotch.
Then the scourge fell.
Sebastian devoted great attention as to where his thong struck, working down from the breasts and ribs, over the concave belly to the loins. He concentrated this time on the upper thighs, ensuring that the blows landed across the lower belly and pubic mound. The rump received many new lashes that only served to increase the damage already inflicted. Maryska jerked and twisted her body to ride the scourge but her chains allowed her little latitude. The leather thudded into her ever more viciously as she began to cry out, her resistance conquered. Then she broke down in a long, anguished shriek and sank from the wrists. Sebastian cleaned off his scourge carefully and replaced it among the others on the instrument table. He turned towards his Mistress who nodded.
The exhausted whipped body was lowered as Eliska began to move to the stairway with her lovers. Maryska, sobbing silently, passed her hands, free for once, over the welts on her loins and waited, trembling, gently soothing her erect clitoris as if the whipping had so excited her that her body demanded relief. Could this be so?
For the first time during the session, Eliska addressed her faithful whipmaster.
“You have performed well. Before returning the whore to her cell, you may use her as you wish as your usual recompense. See to it that the slut cleans up the flagstones.” Then she turned to me. “My dear lord, feel free to continue with my man, if that is your wish. If you will excuse me and my friends, we will retire.”
With a delicious smile, she left the dungeon, anxious no doubt to share her bed after the excitement, and I found myself alone with the naked pair.
Sebastian seized the girl, pulling her to where the group had stood during the sequence, and thrust her to her knees, pressing her head down and guiding her mouth to the still glittering traces of sperm. In the presence of the dumb man, Maryska seemed to understand all his orders readily and she had heard the Margravine’s imperious command. Obediently she began to lick the semen from the stone floor, searching blindly and desperately for the viscous remains with her freed hands. After cleaning up one area, she was dragged by the man to another spot and he stood beside her to ensure that every trace was collected. Now and then he brought the lash down over the raised buttocks to hasten the task since his dripping erection, straining from the root, sorely needed attention, particularly as it was further stimulated by the sight of the heavy folds of the girl’s sex with its dangling rings.
Finally the man was satisfied and drew Maryska to her feet. To my surprise, I saw the two bodies cleave to each other, fondling each other’s genitals and kissing greedily. The girl moved as if she was about to kneel before the great erection and take it into her mouth, but Sebastian pushed her over to a wooden platform on the far side of the dungeon. This was equipped with a pair of posts bolted to it and a low bench.
With deliberate movements, the man laid the girl down over the plank, her buttocks firmly upon it, and opened the legs one by one, attaching the ankle straps to chains at the summit of each post. This done, he secured the wrists tightly to a bar on the platform beyond the girl’s head. The body was totally stretched. Throughout the preparation, Maryska had seemed to cooperate with her torturer, proffering not the least resistance.
Still very deliberately, which was strange, considering his need, the man pulled the labia rings to each side, chaining them to pegs in the bench, designed obviously for just this purpose. In this way, the vagina was opened to its maximum reach ready to receive the coming thrust of a man who could barely restrain himself longer.
Then commenced one of the most penetrating, hungriest and violent copulations it is possible to imagine. The man entered the crimson slit, gleaming with liquids, with one lunge, and then battered the woman’s crotch with a rage of primitive lust. The coupling lasted for far longer than I had anticipated and the woman seemed to enjoy it with every sinew and nerve in her body, despite - or, the thought crossed my mind, because of - the stringent bondage wrenching her limbs.
I decided to leave them alone with their recompenses and had begun to mount the steps when a long, high-pitched cry, as if from someone being knifed, filled the dungeon. Maryska orgasmed in utter abandonment, thrashing her body in its chains, her muscles quivering while she tugged at the restraining posts. She screamed as if her life was being torn from her entrails; she seemed to come in several successive avalanches of fulfilment, each fiercer than the last, and then slumped back as if dead.
Sebastian continued to enjoy the drenched sex and was still pounding when I left them. Once he had filled her, he would certainly play with her body and then, probably reluctantly but according to orders, return her to her cell and to the care of the bailiffs who, in turn, would...
But no. Enough, Nephew, of this, the first session. It was clear to me my hosts had derived immense lascivious pleasure in watching a naked female being whipped in chains. But what was more intriguing for me was the clear impression that, despite the obvious pain of the lash, Maryska had not been averse to the session.
Or I imagining?
I am sorry to have tried your patience with this long letter, Nephew, but I want you to understand the behaviour of these people. These letters are naturally only for your eyes. It would never do to let them be seen by your parents - my sister would not forgive me for sharing such enormities with you! So destroy them when read.
Huldrych
Letter The Eighth
I have to admit, Nephew, that it took me some time to get over the effect Maryska’s flagellation had on me: the vision of her oiled curves flashing in the candlelight as her nude body writhed, jerked and stretched with each slash of the whip, the rump clenching into hard muscle as it defended itself, the pelvis thrusting forward, parting the sex, the breasts swinging, the flesh sweating, the inner thighs awash with liquids, and the throat dry from her groans and muted cries - all this eroticism is new for me.
What troubles me a little is the contradiction in these hosts of mine - I almost said hypocrisy, but this would not be just. They claim they are meting out punishment to profligate females, illegal pros
titutes, lesbians and so on, in order to ‘cleanse’ them. And yet at the same time they enjoy it thoroughly. Young serving girls are put to the whip in front of them, even in the Gr”fin’s own bedchamber, for the least misdemeanour; if a culprit is not readily available, a girl is sent for, stripped by the bailiffs and put to the whip before them for nothing. This, in my opinion, makes a mockery of justice. But I cannot say so.
Further, I am told that showing mercy for what they call ‘lecherous flesh’ is a weakness and an insult to the community. In fact Eliska has all her own domestics - handmaidens, serving girls, kitchen slaves and occasionally even overseers - whipped before her at some time or other in the firm conviction that she is thereby protecting them from temptation, carnal lusts and the wiles of Satan who works within them. Hence the belief that such purgation (especially with a tough leather lash) can ‘save’ a female and restore her to a state of virginal grace. Like the Virgin. Except that there are no virgins here.
The contradiction lies in the erotic excitement my hosts derive from the process, a process in which a docile female is flogged naked in the seclusion of private vaults and dungeons. All reserved for the privileged. No one appears to acknowledge...
(Here there is a break of two lost pages in the MS, after which the text continues)
...and my work has not suffered from the disturbances in the area. These sometimes require the presence of all the armed guards and Landsknechte of the castle to help in quelling local risings and carry out some hangings at the town gibbet.
Among recent news is the fact that the Bishop is indolent and fornicates freely, keeping three or four mistresses in his residence. Less and less do I desire to meet with him, particularly since Premsyl divulged to me one evening that the holy man regularly entrusts his female servants and mistresses to the Margravine for severe correction. The two discuss precisely how the females are to be given the whip or some specific sex-torture and when. It is then performed here at the castle in something called the Red Cellar by Sebastian in the exclusive presence of the Margravine and the Bishop, the latter insisting on attending his servants’ mortifications. Much, you see, Nephew, goes on here.
Eliska Page 4