Per Petersen sat reading the evening newspaper in the study of his house in Kiel. He sat upright in his chair, quite motionless, and the hand that held his cigarette had been arrested in mid-air as he was raising it to his mouth.
"Great God!" he murmured.
He was reading the front-page story of the hold-up, robbery and flogging of the Baron Franz-Ruller of Koburg-See. He came to the end of the report and read it all over again. "Great God!" he said again. He sat still for several moments and then rose from his chair. He went to the fireplace and pressed a bell-button beside it.
A manservant entered the room almost immediately.
"Is Miss Hansen upstairs?"
"Yes, sir. She is with the children."
"Ask her to be good enough to come here for moment."
He lit a cigarette while he waited, and looked again at the report.
There was a light tap on the door and his children's governess came into the room. "You wanted me, sir?"
"Good evening, Miss Hansen. Do come and sit down. Will you have a glass of sherry with me?" He had been educated at Oxford and had acquired a number of English tastes.
Margarete Hansen sat down in the armchair facing his. She crossed her shapely legs. "Thank you very much. I'd love one." She wondered what her employer wanted this time. He frequently asked her to come to his study and he always offered her a sherry, but his reasons for asking her to come were vague. She suspected that he did so because he wanted to flirt with her. He had not, however, done so yet. His manner to her was always courteous and above reproach.
He picked up the newspaper. "Do you remember Willie Franz-Ruller?"
"Yes," she said, after a moment's thought. "Baron Franz- Ruller. He dined with you last week. I had coffee with you after dinner and met him then.
"Read this," he said, and gave her the paper, folded back to show the story. "He seems to have been in the wars."
He went to a side-table in which stood the sherry decanter. He poured the wine slowly, watching her closely out of the corner of his eyes. He particularly watched her eyes, hoping to see some flicker in them that was more than an expression of ordinary interest and surprise. But there was no flicker. She read intently, with a slight frown on her face.
He sighed. He was a masochist, and for six months had been trying to convince himself that this girl a sadist. From time to time he had been sure that she must be, and had been on the point of saying something which would compel her either to admit it-or deny it, and leave his employment at once. It was this thought that always stopped him. She was a very good governess, and she would be very hard to replace.
He thought now of the day he interviewed her, six months ago. After his wife's death he had advertised for a governess for his children, two girls aged nine and eleven, and a boy aged thirteen who was now at day-school and would soon be going away to boarding-school. He really wanted a Frenchwoman, so that the children could perfect their French. He had many applicants, for he was rich and well-known, and his household was luxurious and well-staffed with servants. Among the applicants was a fellow Swede, a very lovely girl of about twenty-eight, who attracted him, physically, at once. He forced himself to think of his children, however, and interviewed her with the same objectivity as he gave to all the other applicants. It was when she began to speak of punishment that he lost his objectivity.
"I should want a completely free hand," she said. "I have rather old-fashioned ideas."
"What do you mean?" he asked, his heart giving a little leap.
"The cane and the birch," she said, crisply. "A good thrashing whenever necessary."
"But my boy is thirteen."
"What has that to do with it? If he needs it, a good thrashing will do him a power of good. Toughen him up. And with his trousers down, too. I d want a completely free hand."
He stared at her without speaking, his heart racing.
"Don't you believe in corporal punishment for children?" she asked.
"I do indeed," he said quickly. "It's just that it's a little- er-unusual for a girl of your age to thrash a boy of thirteen. One usually associates that with governesses of over fifty."
She laughed. "Yes, but I don't know why. I'm probably stronger."
"You probably are," he said, feeling his penis begin to rise in his trousers. "Have you done it very often?"
"Thrashed a boy of thirteen?"
"Yes."
"Well, not of thirteen. But in my last household there was a boy of sixteen, and I had to thrash him now and again."
"With his trousers down?"
"Oh yes, of course."
He opened his mouth to ask "Why of course?" and then shut it quickly. There would be time enough to ask that, and other questions, when she was in his employment. He engaged her there and then. He asked her only one other relevant question. "Do you want me to provide the cane and the birch?"
"Oh no," she said, with a sweet smile that made him tremble, "I have everything that's necessary."
She moved in the next day and, he later learned, gave all three children an immediate thrashing with a cane "just to establish matters of discipline". It was probably not a very hard thrashing because they fell in love with her at once. On her second day he had come home early from his factory and had heard the sound of the second thrashing through the open windows of his study. He had stood listening, quivering with frustrated longing, and imaging himself in the place of whichever child was be ing thrashed. He wondered how she would do it to him. Would she bend him over? Or make him lie over the arms of an armchair? Or-and he caught his breath-would she make him lie face-downwards on a bed? When the sounds stopped he sent for her on some flimsy pretext, offered her a sherry, and talked to her for as long as he could, his hand in his trouser pocket squeezing his erection as often as it was decently possible to do so. And every subsequent day he returned from the factory earlier, to stand at his window and listen to the sounds of her evening thrashings. She gave them at exactly the same time each evening. She counted up the children's misdemeanours during the day, and gave a number of strokes-ranging between six and twenty-at the end of the day. He had learned to distinguish between the sound of the cane and the sound of the birch. But he had not yet seen either.
He gazed at her now, as she sat reading the story about Franz-Ruller. If she was a sadist she would surely show something. The man had been flogged terribly. The report would surely have some effect on her…
He carried the two glasses back to the armchairs.
She looked up at him, wondering whether he had called her down especially to show her this report, and, if so, why. The baron was not a friend of hers. She had met him only once, and then only, as it were, in the line of duty. "Poor Baron Franz-Ruller," she said.
"Yes," he said, giving her her glass, and sitting down again in his chair. "They seem to have given him a terrible thrashing."
"I wonder why."
"They were probably sadists."
"Would you think so? They probably had some grudge against him."
"Grudge? But they were robbers."
"They didn't steal his car. And it's a Rolls-Royce, it says here.
Oh dear, he thought, we're not getting anywhere. "I imagine," he said slowly, "that they were both robbers and sadists. They took what they could-and were wise enough not to take a car like that-and then gave themselves some sexual satisfaction with a whip."
"But are there people like that?" she said, and his heart sank. "I mean, aren't people usually sadistic towards the opposite sex?"
His heart lifted again at once. "Go on."
"These were men whipping a man. If they'd been women, I could… No, I'm talking nonsense."
"I'm sure you're not. Do go on." We're getting somewhere at last, he told himself. But I must be careful not to show I'm excited. "You said that if they had been women, you could… You could what?"
"Oh, nothing. Nothing at all."
He drew a breath. "Were you going to say that you could understand it?"
She glanced at him sharply. I must be very careful, she told herself. If only I could be sure that you are a masochist it would be very different. I think you are. You've given so many signs… but perhaps that's only your manner. And I don't want to lose this job.
"Well," she said, "perhaps it would be easier to understand." She watched closely to see his reaction to this remark.
His nerves gave a jump, but he covered it by putting his glass quickly to his lips. "That's most interesting," he said. "Would you tell me why it would be easier?"
"Why do you ask:
"Oh, no special reason," he said airily. "It's an interesting point of view, that's all."
Is it? she thought. I wonder how you'd take it if I really opened my mouth. If you are a masochist as I think, you'd grovel at my feet. But if I'm wrong-oh dear, oh dear, I'd be out of the house in an instant. And this is the best job I've ever had.
"Have you ever read anything of abnormal psychology?" he asked suddenly. "Havelock Ellis, Hirschfeld, and so on?"
"No."
"They're quite interesting about this sort of thing."
"Floggings?"
"Yes."
She hesitated. "I've read some of Sade and the letters of Sacher-Masoch." She said it and regretted it. She was going a good deal too far.
Oh, he thought happily, you have, have you! Now we're really getting somewhere. "Yes," he said, to give her as much as she had given him, "so have I." And to give her a little more, he added, "And I found them disturbingly interesting."
"Disturbingly?"
"Yes, rather." He thought he had better not elaborate any more on that point yet.
She looked at him with quickened interest. Every word he was now saying was almost an open admission. But she forced herself to go on being careful. She waited expectantly for his next remark. AВe whole conversation was becoming quite exciting.
Shall I, he asked himself-shall I come right out into the open? You must be a sadist. Would you, could you, have read Sade and Sacher-Masoch otherwise? Yes, I suppose you could… But would y ou want to take the trousers off a sixteen- year-old boy if you weren't at least something of a sadist? And would you travel around from job to job with cane and a birch in your bags if you weren't? Shall I plunge? Yes, I will. To hell with it! I've got to know, one way or another.
"Do tell me something," he began, and stopped.
"Yes?" she said, quickly.
He got to his feet. "Let's have another sherry." He took the glass from her hand and went to the side-table again.
I think, she said to herself, that you were on the point of committing yourself then. I wonder what stopped you?
He handed her her refilled glass.
There was a silence.
She sipped her sherry and then said: "You asked me a moment ago to tell you something."
"Yes."
"What was it?"
He frowned at his glass. "You use a cane and a birch on my children, don't you?"
"Yes.",
"Never a whip?"
"Of course not."
"No, of course not." Why the devil had he had to say that? It threw the thing out of balance. She would be on the defensive now. He must repair it somehow.
He forced a smile. "It might do Hans a world of good."
"A whip?"
"Yes."
"Oh no! Poor little Hans!"
Damn, he said to himself, damn and blast! That's made it worse. What shall I say now? This hedging is stupid. Let me say what I want and to hell with it.
"I wish, she said to herself, that you'd have some courage and say what you want to say. This is rather too nerve- racking. Have I dropped the ball now? Should I have agreed that a whip would do Hans a world of good? It wouldn't really. Poor little Hans! A whip might do you a world of good, and I'd love to take one to you, you great big handsome man. But how is a girl to know whether you're a masochist or just a fellow-sadist? There's no doubt now that you are one or the other. But which, for God's sake? My job depends on my knowing that.
"Yes," he said, "poor little Hans. A whip might be too much for him at his age." He suddenly looked at her and said, slowly and deliberately: "But there's something clean and almost poetic about a whip, isn't there?"
Nearer and nearer we go, she thought. But that could have been said equally by a sadist and a masochist. Which, for the love of God, are you? She said: "I agree with you. Very clean and very, very poetic."
"I know what a cane looks like, of course," he said, realising that at last he was plunging, "but I don't know what a birch looks like. Would you please show me the one you use?"
She rose from her chair at once. "Of course. I'll go and get it."
'"I'm sorry to be a trouble," he said lamely.
She gave him a dazzling smile. "It's no trouble at all." She almost ran out of the room.
As the door closed behind her, he drank his glass in a gulp. He went to the side-table and poured himself a large whisky. His heart was racing fast, his penis was very stiff. He pressed it against the corner of the side-table. What, he asked himself shall I say when she comes hack with the birch? How shall I go on? But I must go on. I'll never again be so close to finding out. And if she is sadist, what heaven it will be! A sadist of my own in my own household. I shan't have to wait for the rare visits of Marlene Reitter, and I shan't have to go off to London every few weeks to find a flagellating prostitute.
Margarete came back into the room.
She had a cane and a birch in one hand. She shut the door with the other. She turned slowly to him, with a curious look in her eyes. She stood at the door, motionlessly, staring at him.
He threw the last vestige of caution to the winds. "Are you a sadist?"
"Are you a masochist?" she answered quietly.
"Yes." It simply had to be said. But he held his breath all the same.
"Good. I thought you were. And yes, I am a sadist."
He let out his breath. "Thank God. I thought you were, but I could never be sure."
"I've been certain-without being really certain-that you're a masochist." She came towards him, holding out the birch. "You wanted to see what this looks like."
He took it in his hands. It was made of a dozen or so strips of heavy pliable plastic. "I always thought a birch was made of willow branches.
"They get dry and break."
"I see."
She held out the cane. "And this is Peter."
"Peter?"
"Peter the punisher. My favourite."
He took it in his hands. It was a slender cane nearly a metre in length. He swished it experimentally through the air, wondering what to say.
She said it for him. "Which shall I use first?" His penis gave a great throb and became even harder.
"On me?"
"Yes."
"Now?"
"Yes."
"What about the servants?"
"We can go to your bedroom."
"We can, indeed."
"So which shall I use first?"
"Are you going to use them both?"
"Yes."
He looked again at the birch, and then at the cane. "Which gives more pain?"
"I don't know. I've never been thrashed with either of them."
He laughed nervously. "You must know. How do the children react to them?"
"They seem to be more afraid of the birch, but I never know whether they're pretending or not."
"You're teasing me now. You must know yourself."
She smiled. "Yes, I'm teasing you a little. The birch is the worse."
"Then let's start with the cane."
"All right. You're the employer-but once I start, I'm the boss. You must know that."
He hesitated.
She said quickly: "Let's have a statement of the situation. You are my employer, and I am the governess of your children. You are my boss, that is to say. I shall never forget it. But you are also a masochist and I am a sadist, and whenever we nave any games of flagellation together, I am the Boss-and you will not forget it. How about that? Do you agree?"
"I agree most willingly," he said, feeling a deep peace within him. "Let us say this. If you have not a cane or a birch or something in your hand I am your employer and your boss. But the moment I see a cane or something in your hand I shall know that you are my boss."
"And you will obey me?"
"Yes."
"In everything I say?"
"Yes, everything."
She reached out for the cane and the birch which he was still holding. "Then take down your trousers."
"Now?"
"Now, this second."
"What about the servants?"
"Tell them you're not to be disturbed."
He smiled. "With my trousers down?"
She smiled back. "No. Do that first."
"But I thought you said we'd go to my bedroom."'
"We shall, don't you worry. I just want to give you six of the best here in your own study first. Ring the bell."
He went to the fireplace and pressed the bell-button. She hid the cane and the birch under the newspaper on the armchair in which she had been sitting.
Within a minute the manservant entered the room.
Per Petersen looked at him. "I don't want to be disturbed for anything."
Margarete moved towards the door. "I'll say goodnight, sir."
"Goodnight, Miss Hansen." He watched the manservant hold open the door for her, nodded to them both, and sank down into his chair, his heart pounding furiously.
She was back in three minutes. "Did you think I'd gone for good?"
"No, I didn't think that. I knew you'd wait till the coast was clear."
She went to her chair and pulled aside the newspaper. She picked up the cane. "You'd be surprised if you knew how often I've wanted to beat you with this."
"Have you indeed? And you'd be surprised to know how many times I've stood at that window listening to you doing it to the children, and wishing I could be in their place."
"I wonder whether you'll say that in five minutes' time. Go and lock the door."
He got to his feet and went to the door. He turned the key.
She waved the cane like a flag as he turned back to her. "It's nice being the boss for a change. Take off your trousers."
"Off? Not down?"
"Off." She had meant to say "down", but she had to assert herself. "Take them right off, and your pants too. That'll do for now. Upstairs I'll have you completely naked, and I'll give you such a beating!"
Every word she was saying was like a sexual symphony to him. He undid his trousers, pushed them down to his ankles, pushed his pants after them, and kicked his legs free. His great erection stood out from under his shirt.
"Goodness!" she said, and took it in her hands. "What a mighty thing this is. But I'm going to knock it out of you with my cane and my birch."
"I doubt whether you can."
"We'll see. Lie down over the arms of your chair."
He turned to his chair and placed himself carefully and comfortably over its arms. She lifted his jacket and the tail of his shirt free from his bottom She noticed some marks on his skin. "These are old weals," she said. "Who gave you them?" She had begun already to feel possessive about him.
"Oh, nobody who lives here," he said, sensing her feeling and thinking how quaint it was that she should so soon be jealous. "A German girl who lives far, far away."
"Not that publishing woman from Munich?"
"Yes," he said, marvelling at female perception. "However did you guess?"
"I knew she was a sadist the first time I met her here."
"How?"
"I don't know how. I just knew." She ran her hand lightly over his bottom. "So she gave you these, did she? When was it?"
"About three months ago."
"It must have been quite a thrashing for the weals to be showing still. What did she use?" She put a hand beneath him and played with his penis and testicles.
"A switch," he said, stiffening at her touch. "A whalebone riding switch."
"Did you enjoy it?"
"So and so."
"I'll get a whalebone riding switch tomorrow," she said, determinedly. "I'll show you. When is she coming again?"
"The day after tomorrow, I think."
"Oh!" She opened her mouth to say more, but shut it abruptly. She had no right yet to be so possessive. She would have to wait a little. "Oh, is she indeed?"
"Yes, but you mustn't be angry about it. If I'd known about you being a sadist I wouldn't have asked her to come."
"Is she coming especially to thrash you?"
"Dear me, no. She's coming on business to see Franz- Ruller-of all people!"
She laughed. "Is she really? That's rather rich." She gave another tweak to his penis and stood erect. "And now for six of the best. Six of my own best, at any rate. But I must have something to thrash you for. I always like to have a reason. Let me see." She stood for a moment with her lovely head on one side. "Of course! I shall thrash you for taking so long to tell me that you are a masochist. You've made me wait so long! Most of your thrashings in the next few days will be for that."
"The next few days! Are you going to thrash me every day, then?"
"Of course. As soon as I've thrashed the children every evening I shall thrash their father. And at any other time of the day that I can find the chance."
A warm flood of pleasure flowed through him. Life was going to be rather pleasant. If, that was to say, he could find the strength to endure the actual thrashings. It was always the same with him. He ached for them to start, and when they were over he ached for them to happen again. While they were actually happening, however, he usually screamed for them to stop. Marlene Reitter from Munich always gagged him and took no notice. He wondered what this girl would do.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw her lift the cane.
It flashed down across his buttocks and bit into the flesh. She had hit with a good deal of strength. He gave a sharp strangled cry.
"Ssshh!" she said. "You mustn't make any noise." She lifted the cane again, and brought it down once more with all her force. He forced himself to make no sound, but the stroke hurt him very much.
She delivered the next four strokes very quickly and as hard as she could. She threw down the cane and sank into her chair. "Oooh, that was nice," she breathed. "It's a long time since I was able to let myself go."
He let out his breath gradually. Waves of pain coursed through him. "You don't hit the children like that?"
"Of course not. What do you think I am?"
"A sadist."
"Yes, but not that sort of sadist. Not with children. Only with big, grown-up men like you." She put her hand beneath him again and took hold of his penis. It had lost some of its stiffness during the thrashing but now, at her touch, it re- erected at once. "Turn over on your back," she said.
"You're not going to thrash my front, are you?" He sounded nervous.
She laughed. "I most certainly am, but not now. Now, I want to put this nice hard piece of bone in my mouth. Would you like me to?"
"Yes!" he said. "Yes, please." He turned over on the arms of the chair and pulled up his shirt. His penis towered upwards.
She knelt beside the chair and put the cane on the floor. She took the birch in her right hand. "Perhaps, after all, I might warm you up a little at the same time." She laid the birch lightly over his legs, a little above his knees. "Wouldn't you like that?"
"I doubt it."
"We'll see." She leaned forward and put her hips to his penis. She put out her tongue and licked delicately at the central vein. He stiffened with pleasure. She raised her birch hand and brought the plastic strips down across his legs. He flinched, although the stroke had not been hard. She opened her mouth and took the knob of his penis between her teeth. She struck again with her birch. He flinched again, with both pleasure and pain. She slid the penis into her mouth, playing with her tongue at the vein.
He began to gasp and moan with delight. The plastic strips continued to lash across his legs, harder now but he found the pain a blissful stimulant.
She lifted her head. "If you come now," she said, "will you be able to come again when we get upstairs?"
"Yes, I think so. After half an hour, anyway."
"Good. Let yourself come then." She put her mouth over the penis again.
When his crisis arrived, thirty seconds later, she began to lash very hard. He strained and stretched, his head bent far back towards the floor. He seized a handful of her hair with both his hands and twisted it around his fingers.
She felt the sperm ejaculate from his penis and spurt towards the back of her mouth. She swallowed slowly, savouring each drop of the bitter-sweet liquid as it travelled over the back of her tongue and down her throat. As he began to finish, and the ejaculations became less violent, she lifted her mouth a little so that she could suck the slit. She sucked strongly until no further sperm was there. Then she raised her head and sat back on her heels. She put the birch down beside the cane.
He lifted his own head and looked at her. "That was marvellous," he said. "Thank you very much indeed."
"Not at all," she smiled. "I enjoyed it myself."
"Didn't you spit out my stuff?"
She shook her head.
"You mean you swallowed it?"
"Yes," she said. "I like swallowing it. I'll do that to you anytime you want it."
He closed his eyes. "What a lot of time we've wasted."
"Yes, haven't we?" She took the cane into her hand and stood up. "And now another six of the best. Turn over again."
"Not now, for God's sake! Wait until I get a bit of sex back."
She held the cane in front of his eyes. "I have this in my hand. And we agreed that whenever I have it in my hand you will obey me in everything I tell you to do. We agreed that, didn't we?"
"Yes," he said reluctantly.
"Turn over then."
"But it'll be murder now. I haven't any sex left in me at all."
"That's why I want to do it. That's where my pure sadism shows itself. I don't mind at all that you get some pleasure when I thrash you. I don't mind because I know that most of it is pain. But from time to time I like to know that it is all pain. No pleasure at all. And that is why I shall always thrash you-and thrash you very hard indeed-immediately after you have come and, as you say, have no sex in you. So, come along. Turn over."
"You are a sadist, aren't you!"
"Yes. And if you want me to be relatively merciful to you now, you'll turn over at once and stop wasting time."
"Oh, all right." He turned over again on to his stomach.
She laid the cane on his legs just below his buttocks. "I'm going to hit you here," she said, beginning to breathe fast. "This first time I'm to give you only six. Other times there will be many more. Tonight I'm going to be relatively merciful.
"It's going to hurt terribly there. It's the tenderest part of the legs."
"Exactly. That's why I'm going to hit you there. They are going to be a very scientific six, too. They will all be one on top of the other. I'm a pretty good shot. I've had a lot of practice." She paused and looked at him. "You mustn't make any noise. Do you think you can control yourself, or shall I gag you?"
"No, I'll be quiet. I don't want the servants running here any more than you do."
She looked about the room. "You'd better have something to bite on." She went to his desk and picked up a round ebony ruler. She brought it to him and put it in his hands. "You'd better bite on that. It may help."
He twisted his head and looked at her admiringly. "You know a great deal, don't you?"
"Yes. And one more thing. If you want us to go on with our new relationship, you must remember that you've promised to obey me. That means, now, that you must not get up until I tell you that you can. The six strokes are going to hurt you so much that you'll want to jump up and stop me. If you do that, I'll walk out of the house tonight." She watched him closely to see how he would take this empty threat. If he called her bluff she would lose the game, because she would never walk out on this job now. "Do you understand?" She put a note of authority into her voice.
'Yes," he said quietly. "I understand. I'll obey you, don't worry."
"Good," she said, with a feeling of relief. "Start biting that ruler now. Here they come."
She half closed her eyes as she took aim. Then her cane flashed down with terrible force. It cut into the soft flesh and drew blood at once.
His impulse, with the dreadful agony, was to jump off the chair and stop her going on. The pain was far too great for anyone to bear. Even if he had had his loins full of sexual urges, he would not have been able to stand it. Now, with his loins drained it was intolerable. At the back of his mind, however' was the memory of her last words. If he disobeyed her it would be the end of everything-just as everything was at its exciting beginning. She seemed to be more of a sadist than he had bargained for, but that had to be accepted. It was certainly worth a great deal to have his own private sadist under his roof, in his employment. He had better bite this ruler and endure the agony.
The cane hit him again as all these thoughts raced through his mind. It hit exactly on the bleeding weal of the first stroke. Blood splashed up into the air and fell on the floor and carpet.
His senses swam. He could not, not, not endure another four of these! He heard her voice and focussed his brain on to what she was saying.
"-what the servants will say when they see all this blood! Damn and damn and damn! Why didn't I bring something to put on the floor? Oh well, next time. I'll finish you off now across your buttocks. You're lucky." She changed her aim and called on all her strength. She delivered the next four strokes very rapidly, being careful not to hit twice in the same place. Blood immediately filled each weal, but it did not splash.
These last four strokes hurt him very much, too. But in comparison with the first two across the lower, fleshy part of his legs, they were almost caresses.
She took a handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped the blood from the cane. "Be careful as you stand up," she said. "You'll make the chair all bloody otherwise."
He stood up gingerly, and looked at her in awe. "What a sadist!"
She smiled at him warmly. "Yes, I am. Are you sorry?"
He shook his head. As always, now that the thrashing was over, and all that was left was the brutal sting of it, he felt an upliftment-almost a regret that it was over. He looked at her standing there, the cane in one hand, a bloody handkerchief in the other, and reflected that he was very lucky. Gone now was the necessity for his trips to London, whenever he felt that he could not live another moment without being beaten by some woman or other. Now he would be beaten by this one, and if the beatings were rather more agonising than he liked he would gladly suffer them. And what a woman this one was! A lovely face, a wonderful figure, and very, very shapely legs. He wondered what she would look like without any clothes on, and suddenly realised that he would know very soon.
"Shall we go up to my bedroom?" he asked.
"Are you virile again already? What a man!"
"No, but I shall be very soon. And I want to see what you look like without your clothes."
"Speaking of clothes, we must do something about all this blood on your legs before you put your trousers on again. Have you a clean handkerchief?"
"Yes. In my trouser pocket."
She picked up the trousers and found the handkerchief. "Bend over."
He bent over, resting his hands on his knees.
She dabbed at his legs and buttocks. "It's begin-to thicken a bit. It'll stop bleeding soon."
"Until you start again upstairs. Are you going to start again?"
"Of course. I haven't really used the birch yet." She went on dabbing at the weals. "But we'll have to put something down on your bed. Some sort of waterproof stuff. Plastic or something. Have you got anything?"
"Don't tell me that you don't travel with that, too."
She laughed. "I don't, as a matter of fact. I don't expect to bring blood when I thrash children. And I didn't expect to be able to thrash you-much as I've wanted to do so, many a time."
"Have you indeed? If only I'd known!"
"Never mind. We can make up for lost time now. It's wonderful to think I have a permanent victim under the same roof."
Her words were beginning to excite him again. He felt the stirrings of sex deep down in his loins. "Let's go upstairs."
"I'll go on first. I want to look in on the children for a moment."
"Have you given the evening thrashings yet?"
"No. That's why I want to look in on them. It's only your son and heir to be thrashed tonight, though."
"What for?"-
"Dirty fingernails at lunch."
"How many strokes?"
"Ten."
"Does he enjoy it? Is he a masochist, too?"
"I shouldn't be at all surprised. He seems to go out of his way to earn a thrashing." She gave a final dab with the handkerchief. "This has stopped now. You can put your trousers on again." She held out the handkerchief to him, and then changed her mind. She put it in her pocket. "I'll wash this for you." She gave the cane a final wipe with her own handkerchief and put that in her pocket too. "But what about something waterproof for your bed?"
"There's a large car-cover in the garage. I think it's made of rubber. It's certainly waterproof."
"Good. That'll do wonderfully. Will you get it and bring it upstairs? I wonder, though, whether we should go to your bedroom or to mine."
"Mine has double doors."
"That settles it. I'll meet you there in about a quarter of an hour." She picked up the birch and, holding both cane and birch close against her body, went to the door. She quietly unlocked it, peered outside, turned her head quickly to give him a dazzling smile, and disappeared.
As the door closed behind her, he picked up his pants and put them on quickly. It wouldn't do for anyone to enter the study now and find him in this condition. He pulled on his trousers, tucked his shirt into place, zipped the flies shut, straightened his jacket.
He gave a great sigh of fulfilment and pleasurable anticipation. He went to the side-table and poured another whisky. He sipped it, remembering the agony of the last six strokes. He found the memory very exciting. They had hurt him very terribly, but-well, he wouldn't mind receiving them again. He grinned suddenly, reflecting that he would do quite soon now. If she had such extra-sadistic pleasure from whipping him when he was in a drained condition, it probably meant that she would do so always. Indeed, she had said so, he now remembered. What had been her words? "I shall always thrash you-and thrash you very hard indeed-after you have come and you have no sex in you. From time to time I like to know that it is all pain." She had added that she was going to be relatively merciful the first time. He shivered. What would she be like when she was not relatively merciful? He would very soon find out…
He put down his glass and went out of the room. He left the house by the front door and went into the garage. His legs hurt him a good deal as he walked. He took a rolled-up car-cover from a shelf. He ran his hand over the material. Yes, it was waterproof all right; it was a sort of rubberised cotton.
He thought of Marlene Reitter. She always wore something of rubber when she whipped him. She said she didn't like to let anybody's blood splash over her skin. But she had never thought of his carpets, as Margarete Hansen had. His heart warmed as he thought of her, his new boss. How wonderful it would be to live under her power, always to watch whether she had a cane or a birch in her hand!
He returned to the house, and went straight upstairs to his bedroom, the car-cover under his arm. He threw it on the bed, and quickly took off all his clothes. He went into the bathroom and had a quick shower. He was towelling himself when he heard her knock. "Come in," he called. "It's open." He heard her enter the room and turn the key in the lock of the outer door. She closed the inner door and locked that too.
"Where are you?" she called, throwing her cane and birch on the bed.
"Here. In the bathroom."
She came to the bathroom door. He caught his breath. She was wearing a black chiffon negligee that gave a tantalising glimpse of her nakedness beneath. "I was terrified I'd run into one of the servants in the passage," she said.
He gazed at her. "You are very lovely."
She smiled. "You said you want to see what I look like without clothes. This negligee gives you an idea."
"It certainly does."
"That's why I was afraid of running into a servant. I ought to have put something on the top of it."
"You're here now. And perhaps you'll stay."
"All night?"
"Yes."
She shook her head. "You say that now. But when you've made love to me you'll want to sleep alone."
"I doubt it."
"I don't." She had decided, in the last quarter of an hour, that she must play all her cards well. If she played them well enough there was just a possibility that she might become more than merely the governess of his children. "We'll see, anyway."
He finished towelling himself and came close to her. He put his arms around her waist, his hands on her buttocks, and pulled her closely to him.
She felt his penis like a piece of wood against her mound. She began to feel very sexy. She wanted to be put down on the bed and used roughly. But, before that, she wanted to thrash him again-thrash him, this time, really hard. She wanted to lay her birch across his broad, muscular shoulders, and make him cry out. To make a man cry out under her cane or birch-or any other instrument-was a very great pleasure to her. She exulted in the feeling of power that such a cry proved she possessed-and she lashed harder in order to hear it repeated.
"Come on," she said. "Come and be thrashed again." She pulled herself away from him and turned into the bedroom. She went to the bed and looked at the car-cover. She ran her hand over its surface. "This'll do beautifully," she said. "You'd better keep it here permanently."
"Shall I spread it over the bed?"
"I will." She threw it open over the bed. It was very large and fell to the floor on all three sides. She draped some of it over the bed-head. "It may be a bit cold at first to lie on. I've put the rubber side upwards. It will be easier to wipe your blood off the rubber side."
"Are you going to be as brutal as that?" He was well aware that this was a silly question, since he had brought the car- cover from the garage for that specific purpose. He simply wanted the thrill of hearing her answer.
She herself well understood why he had asked the silly question. She gave him the answer she knew he wanted to hear. "I'm going to thrash you into strips. I'm going to make your blood run like water." She saw his eyes flash, and then half-close. I see, she said to herself. So you're more of a mental masochist than a physical one, are you? All right. I'll play along with you as much as you like. But you'll have to take a good deal of physical pain, too. I'm not a mental sadist-as you'll very soon find out! Aloud, she said: "That's another reason why you'll want to sleep alone tonight." He opened his eyes. "Why?"
"You won't be able to lie on your back. You'll probably have a rather bad night-on your stomach. And you'll want to feel free to fidget."
He looked seriously at her and wondered whether things might go too far, after all. This preliminary excitement was very, very stimulating-but there seemed to be no doubt that she would do what she said she was going to do. Her delivery of six strokes downstairs, immediately after he had been drained of sex, proved it conclusively. He knew, however, that no power on earth could now stop him; no fear, however great, could prevent him from going forward. He would submit to whatever pain she had to give him-and the knowledge that, as a sadist, she had to give the pain increased his own present mental excitement. He would submit to it willingly, if not gladly, in order to relive it in his mind after it was over, to luxuriate in the pain of sitting down-and to dream of it happening again.
"You frighten me quite a lot," he said.
She nodded. "Yes, I know. And you are right to be frightened. I am a person to be frightened of-when I have a cane in my hand. Or a birch or a switch. I'm going to buy a switch tomorrow, as I said. I can't have that German girl giving me competition."
"She doesn't, you know," he said at once.
She moved closer to him and took his great penis in her hands. "She'd better not!" she murmured. "But seriously, I'd like to thrash you with a switch. A very swishy cutting one with whalebone inside it. It could be better even than Peter the Punisher. It would cut more."
He caught his breath. "I am afraid of you!"
"And I think," she went on slowly, "that I'll buy a whip too. What was it that you said downstairs? 'There's something clean and almost poetic about a whip.' Wasn't that it?"
"It was. But I wonder whether I meant it."
"I'll give you an opportunity of finding out. I'll make you dance around your study like a performing bear. And I'll make you do all sorts of humiliating things-and if you hesitate as much as a second I'll flog you till you're unconscious."
He drew her close to him. His heart was beating hard. "What sort of humiliating things?"
"I'll make you wear my underclothes. I'll make you put on my stockings and panties. And I'll make you put on a sanitary towel and pretend you're a woman with a period."
"Go on."
"And I'll put a padded brassiere on you-one of the things the Americans call falsies."
"What else?" He was straining against her, his whole being quivering with longing.
"I'll paint your lips and your eyes. And I'll rouge your cheeks. And-and I'll do all sorts of awful things to you. And when you're like that-in that humiliated condition, I mean- I'll thrash you till you can't stand, never mind sit. You'll wish you'd never met me."
"Oooh!" He drew a great breath and quivered again from head to foot.
She drew away from him. "It's time to give you another thrashing now. Lie down on the bed." She released his penis and gave him a small push.
He turned immediately and flopped down on his stomach on the rubber car-cover. It felt very cold against his skin.
"I'm not going to tie you down now," she said, reaching for her birch. "You know the conditions, don't you? You give me complete obedience, or I leave your employment immediately." She felt quite safe now in threatening this. He had not called her bluff downstairs. That meant that he would do anything at all that she ordered him to do-on the threat of her walking out of the house. She sensed that her being a sadist, and, what was more, a sadist under his roof, in his employment, was an excitingly important thing to him-so excitingly important that she had him from now on in her total power.
"Yes," he said, "I know the conditions very well.' "What are they now at this moment?"
"I suppose they are"-he twisted his head and grinned up at her ruefully-"that I must not get up and stop you thrashing me."
"Exactly. Otherwise-?"
"Otherwise you'll leave my employment." He frowned and said slowly: "I don't think you would, you know. You've found a masochist who is very convenient to you."
How right you are, she thought. But you mustn't be allowed to know it. She said: "You are very foolish. I can find a dozen masochists within an hour."
"Oh, can you?" he said lamely, and turned his head back into the pillows. "Anyway, I agree to your conditions, so there's no point in arguing about it."
"No," she said, and hit him hard across his shoulder-blades with the birch. "No, there's no point in arguing about it." She hit him again.
He gasped with the pain of her first lash, and cried out when the second cut into him.
The sound of his cry was sweet music to her ears. She hit again, very hard. "But that is not to say"-another lash-"that I shall never tie you down." Another vicious lash, this time across the small of his back.
The agony was such that he threw himself over on to his back, and held up his hands to her in supplication. "Please! Not so hard!"
"Oh, you are foolish!" she said silkily, and lashed him across his nipples. "If you prefer to be whipped across your chest it's all the same with me. Ah! I see you don't!"
He had thrown himself over on to his stomach again. "But please!" His voice was muffled by the folds of the car-cover. "Please… "
"Please nothing!" she answered, lashing him more quickly now. "You are going to be properly thrashed tonight, and every night, and perhaps every day too." She alternated her lashes between his shoulder-blades and the small of his back. "Your life is going to be one long thrashing from now on."
She paused, panting, to catch her breath. "I was saying that I may tie you down one day. And do you know how?" She put down the birch and took the cane in her hand. "One day when you do not have to go to your office-" she raised the cane and brought it down hard across the fleshy lower part of his buttocks, and felt a surge of sexual bliss as he cried out-"I shall tie you down to this bed in the early morning"-lash! lash! lash!-"and I shall give you a terrible whipping with the whip I'm going to buy"-lash! lash! lash! lash!-"the whip that is so clean and poetic as you said"- lash! lash! lash!-"and then I shall leave you for an hour or so tied down over the bed. Oh, God!" The thought of doing this to him sent the blood to her head.
She stopped speaking and put all her strength into her lashes. She delivered about twenty before she stopped, and sat down on the side of the bed, exhausted and panting hard. When she regained her breath she stood up and began to cane him again, hitting very hard with every third or fourth word she spoke. "And then, after an hour or so, I shall come back and give you another terrible thrashing. And then I shall leave you again for another hour or so. And then I shall come back once more with my whip. And I shall whip you and whip you and whip you and whip you!" She felt the blood rising again to her head, and again thrashed for several moments without speaking. Then she went on: "And you'll stay tied down all day long. You won't have anything to eat, you won't have anything to drink, you won't have anything to read or smoke or do-except watch the clock, which I'll leave beside you. and wait for the whipping which you'll receive every hour. And oh God! oh God! oh God! Ooooh!" She felt her senses swimming with the thought of doing all this to him, and she lashed like a girl possessed, drinking, sucking, enveloping the piteous cries which he was giving whenever he could find the breath for them.
He was in such total agony now that he could not have got up from the bed to stop her if he had wanted to. The truth was that no such thought was in his mind. He wanted to scream for her to stop, but he had no breath. The awful pain had paralysed, it seemed, even his power to speak. He could only whimper piteously. This was not the sort of pain that he enjoyed. There was nothing of sexual stimulation in these lashes. There was only breathtaking-literally breathtaking- agony. At the back of his mind he bitterly regretted having given her the newspaper story to read. That had begun it. He had given it deliberately, with the hope that it might begin something. He now saw that it had begun far too much. This would be the last time he would submit to her. Nobody, could stand sadism such as this-nobody, nobody, nobody… When, for God's own sweet sake, would she stop?
She did stop, at this moment. She stopped in sheer exhaustion, and sank down again on the side of the bed, panting convulsively. She turned her head and looked at his back and bottom, drenched in blood. She had told him that she was going to cut him into strips but she had said it more to excite him than as a serious promise. She now saw that she had indeed cut him into more strips than she had intended. She gazed at the welter of bleeding weals and sucked in her breath with satisfaction.
"Yes," she said, leaning forward and ruffling his hair from behind, "that was quite a good thrashing. I enjoyed it very much. Did you?"
He turned his head slowly. He opened his mouth, tried to speak, failed, swallowed, and tried again. His voice came in a croak. "Have you finished?"
"Yes. Was it nice?" She knew it could not possibly have been. He was not sufficiently masochistic-except in his mind. But she could not resist the temptation to tease him. "Did you enjoy it?"
"Don't be damned silly! Of course I didn't enjoy it."
"What a pity. I wonder why. You wanted me to thrash you, didn't you?" A quick stab of fear crossed her heart. Perhaps she had really gone too far. "Didn't you?" she repeated, ruffling his hair again.
"Yes," he said grumpily. "But not like that. Not so hard as that." He twisted himself over on his side. "Good Christ!" he said, as he saw the state of the car-cover. "Look at all this blood!" The rubber of the cover was covered with hundreds of large and small spots of blood, which had risen into the air with the lashes, and had fallen in an arc on either side of him.
"Yes," she said silkily. "Your blood. I wonder how much you've lost."
He frowned. "But seriously, you really did let yourself go, didn't you?"
She smiled. "Yes, I did. Do you mind very much? I mean, do you want to cancel our arrangement-and not do it again?"
"No," he said at once. "I don't want to cancel our arrangement." Now that the thrashing, and its immediate insufferable agony, had ended, he started to enjoy the thought and the memory of it. His penis began to stiffen. She had given him a tremendous thrashing-and he had been strong enough, tough enough, to take it. "You can do it again whenever you want."
She breathed an inward sigh of relief. "That will be very often."
He lifted himself up a little and looked at what he could see of his bleeding bottom and legs. "Good Christ!" he repeated. "Tell me. what do you get out of this? You're a sadist, I know. But why? What do you get out of it?"
She put her elbows on her knees, and her head on her hands. "I'm not sure." she said slowly. "But I think it is the idea that I, a mere girl, can subjugate a member of the strong, superior sex. The lords of creation! Isn't that what men are called? Well, I have just thrashed one of them. I ordered him to lie down on his bed. I told him not to get up. I didn't have to tie him down to the bed because I knew he would obey me. You see? He, a lord of creation, would obey me, a mere girl. And he did obey me, didn't he? He lay there and took a thrashing-quite a severe thrashing-from my hand. He cried out for me to stop, but naturally I took no notice." She was silent for a moment "Yes, I think that that is the principal thing I get out of it. Power. Of course, though, I love the idea that I'm giving pain. That's why I can get a thrill out of thrashing a girl or a woman. I am giving them pain. And pain is really something clean and poetic. You said that a whip is. You are right. But it is clean and poetic because it gives such clean and poetic pain. But it is never so pleasant, so thrilling with a woman. The really great thrill comes from the total subjugation of one of the lords of creation. And when he happens to be big and strong-like you-it's quite the most sublime thrill in the world."
"I see," she said. "Yes, I think I see. But do you get anything out of ordinary sex?"
"Goodness, yes," she said. "A tremendous amount. Much more than a woman does who is not a sadist. You are going to make love to me now. And because I have thrashed you I am going to enjoy it twenty times-a hundred times-more than I would if I hadn't thrashed you. I'm all a-tingle because of what I've done to you." She put a hand to his half-erected penis. "I hope this will not let me down, though. Oh no"-it stiffened immediately at her touch-"I see it won't. Good. Move over. I'm coming." She stood up and slipped out of her negligee. She stood, naked, looking down at him.
"You're going to lie in all this blood?"
"Of course. I brought it, didn't I? I love it. It belongs to me." She lay down beside him, shivering a little at the coldness of the rubber. "I want to roll over and over in it. I want to cover my body with it." She threw herself over his back and legs, pressing him down on to his stomach and face again. She wriggled and squirmed against his lacerated flesh, pressing her mound into the blood of the weals on his bottom. She put her mouth to the weals of his shoulder-blades. She put out her tongue and ran it lightly along one of the weals. "I want to drink it," she said, taking her tongue back into her mouth and savouring the taste of the blood that had gathered at its tip. She swallowed what she could, and put out her tongue again. She ran it along another weal. "Does this hurt?" she asked, as she felt him flinch beneath her.
"Yes."
"Very much?"
"Yes."
"Good." She swallowed again. "Does it hurt as much as what caused it?"
"No, not as much as that."
"No, I suppose not. I must bring some salt up next time and rub it into you. But for now-what shall I do to give you some more pain? Oh yes, I know." She slid her hands under his chest and took hold of his nipples with her fingertips. She squeezed them hard.
He cried out at once.
His cry made her feel weak with sexual longing. She rolled off his back and lay flat. She seized his penis. "Come on," she said, pulling it roughly. "Turn over and make love to me."
He turned on to his side again and crawled on top of her. "For God's sake don't pull it like that. You'll pull it off. And then how shall I make love to you?"
She released his penis and took hold of his testicle bag. "Shall I give this a little squeeze?"
"If you do," he said seriously, "I certainly shan't be able to make love to you tonight."
She sighed, and sank her fingernails lightly into its flesh. "What a pity. All right, I won't squeeze it tonight. But I promise I'll give it such a squeezing one of these days-when I don't want you to make love to me. I'll do it the day I tie you down for the whole of the day." She guided the knob of his penis to her vagina, which was very wet. She agitated it backwards and forwards against the vagina-lips. "Don't hurry. Don't go in yet. Let me do this for a little while."
He lowered his head and took one of her nipples in his teeth. He bit it lightly. She gave a small moan of pleasure. He did the same thing to the other nipple. Then he raised his head. "Don't you want me to put something on myself? You don't want to have a baby."
"I'm quite all right," she said. "The safe period."
"I hope so."
"So do I. But we can't stop now." She gave a deep shuddering sigh and pushed his penis inside her. She put her hands up to his shoulders and gripped them hard, her nails sinking into his flesh. "Come on now. Be rough with me. Be violent. Take me."
He rammed his penis home as hard, and as far, as he could. He took hold of her hair and twisted it round his fingers, pulling her head roughly from side to side. "All right," he said between his teeth, "I'm one of the lords of creation again, eh? You need me for this sort of thing, don't you?"
He withdrew his penis and rammed again, withdrew and rammed, withdrew and rammed. He began to breathe in spasms. The memory of her thrashing filled his brain and inflamed him beyond control.
"You're going to pay for this," she gasped, in delighted satisfaction. "I'm going to give you such a thrashing when this is over, when you haven't any sex left in you at all. It will be all, all, all, all pain." Her juices gathered, and mounted. She gave a long-drawn moan of ecstasy and began, as her culmination reached its peak, to murmur: "Pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain… "
He rammed, withdrew, and rammed… His own culmination rose and seized him. As though from a long way off, he heard her continuing murmurs, blissful and utterly abandoned: "Pain, pain, sweet pain, delicious pain, oh pain, pain, pain… "