Per Petersen woke late. He was a little surprised, when consciousness came to him, to find that he was lying on his stomach. Memory quickly came back to him and he lay inert, his head buried in the crack between two pillows, thinking of what had happened to him the night before.
As she had promised, Margarete had given him a very severe thrashing with Peter the Punisher, as she called her cane, immediately he finished making love to her. It was a very painful thrashing because he was again drained of any sexual feeling, and he again felt he had been unwise to start these flagellatory activities with a girl who was so very much a sadist. In his former trips to London, when he felt that his masochism had to be satisfied or he would go mad, he had always been able to stop the hand of the whipper when he had had enough, and the whipper, who was paid to give him just the amount of pleasure that he wanted, had always obeyed. With Margarete as his whipper-who whipped because she wanted to do so, and not because she was paid- there was no possibility of his cries "Stop! Stop! Stop/" receiving the slightest attention. She would stop when she wanted to, and not because he felt that he had had enough. When she finally threw down Peter the Punisher he had decided that this thrashing should be the last he would accept from her: her pain was too awful for anyone to endure. He was a little sulky with her, too. He did not repeat his suggestion that she should sleep the night in his bed. He wanted only to be left alone, to stretch himself out on his stomach and let sleep remove the pain that the least movement of his legs now gave him.
He fell asleep almost at once. Sometime during the night he had what would have been a nightmare for any ordinary, normal man. For him, it was a dream of great excitement. He dreamed that she took him to a torture chamber, deep beneath the ground, and strung him up to some rings that were set in the ceiling. She flogged him unmercifully, back and front, with a cat-o'-nine-tails made of wire, and then she branded her name across his buttocks with a red-hot branding-iron. Next she took a large pair of scissors and snipped off his nipples. Finally she brought a long, heavy sabre, put it to his lips, and made him kiss it. She knelt before him, put his penis in her mouth, and brought back his erection. Then she rose, stood to one side and lifted the sabre. With a strong downwards slash, she lopped off his penis. As he saw it drop, still erected, to the floor in front of him, he woke up, shuddering with terror and pleasure. He drew a deep breath when he realised it had been no more than a dream, tried to turn over, abruptly changed his mind, and went back to sleep.
Now, with daylight forcing its way through the cracks of the curtains, he lay still and considered his circumstances. His decision of the previous night to accept no further thrashings from Margarete had, of course, disappeared with his night's sleep. He looked forward to what the day, and future days, would bring. He was sure that he would be thrashed again during the coming day, and his nerves began to tingle with delighted anticipation. The only thing which did not please him so much was the realisation that he would always be thrashed after he had had any sexual fulfilment, when his body was so drained of sexual feeling that the thrashing could not give him the least pleasure. It was this type of thrashing that had made him decide, the previous night, to put a stop altogether to these new activities with his children's governess. Now, however, the idea of putting a stop to the activities was quite out of the question. He had his own private sadist under his roof-and there was no further need for his periodic trips to London. And what a sadist she was! The very fact of her insisting on thrashing him after his sexual fulfilments showed it more than anything else. In a way, he thought, it was the most exciting thing about her. It was murderous when it was happening, but-well, it was terribly exciting to think about. Perhaps he would submit willingly even to these quite murderous thrashings, too. They were part and parcel of the whole range of exciting activities. If he refused this part, she might refuse the rest of the game. She had, indeed, threatened to walk straight out of the house if he refused her anything at all. He wondered whether she had been really serious about that. He decided that he didn't dare to put it to any test. He would simply do whatever she ordered him to do.
He put a hand behind him and lifted the bedclothes away. He got out of bed slowly. He went to a mirror and looked at his weals. He was quite surprised at what he saw. Never, in all his trips to London, had he been given such weals as these.
His nerves began to tingle again.