Return to the Chateau (6 page)

“Come on, answer me, child’ he said tenderly.

“I don’t know,” O said. “Both, I guess. But with Norah it was always the whip.”

“Who’s Norah?”

He spoke so unreservedly, in such a candid and trusting manner, he gave such an impression that it was perfectly natural for her to be answering him, that it was as though she were answering herself, as though she were talking to herself out loud, that O replied without even giving it a second thought.

“His maid,” she said.

“So I did well to have Jos=E9 whip you.”

“Yes,” O said.

“And what about him,” the young man went on. “What does he prefer to have you do to him?”

He waited, but this time O failed to respond to his question.

“I know,” he said. “I want you to do the same to me, O: caress me with your mouth.”

And he raised himself till he was over her, and she caressed him. Then with both hands he took her by the waist, to help her to her feet, saying: “Slender, how very slender!” then kissed her breasts and laced up her corset. O let him do whatever he wanted without even thanking him, overwhelmed with a feeling of gentleness and comfort, like some tamed creature. He was talking to her about Sir Stephen. When he said to her, before he rang for a servant to take her back to her quarters, after she had put her dress back on: “Tomorrow I’ll send for you again, O, but next time I’ll whip you myself she smiled because he added: “I’ll whip you the way he does.”

O was later to learn from Noelle, that evening in fact, that if the valets were forbidden to touch the girls in any of the common rooms, with the exception of the refectory where their word was law, they were free to do with them as they pleased wherever their duties called them (but only there): in the girls’ quarters when they were there alone, in the dressing rooms, and even in the hallways and lobbies. As chance would have it, the person who answered Frank’s ring was Jos=E9. He was young, tall, and very well built. The naturally arrogant air of Spanish men was becoming to his Moorish face. Once again O was overwhelmed with a feeling of shame as she followed him, with her mules clacking noisily, down the long hallway. It was not because he had flogged her, but because she was sure he had believed what Frank had said to him, and that he was firmly convinced that O desired him. And she could not rid herself of the memory of what some colonial officer had said to her about the Spanish soldiers of North African descent: whenever they could, they spent the entire day in the saddle.

Jos=E9 had not taken ten steps when he indeed turned around and, having come abreast of the first bench along the hallway, which he pushed against the wall to make things easier, grabbed O and threw her down on it. He took her slowly, leisurely, and O, furious with herself, but being worked over by an iron bar as a field by a persistent plow, was unable to prevent herself from moaning with pleasure.

“You enjoying it?” he asked her. “You like it?” the second “it” not referring to the act itself but to the instrument he was wielding.

His white teeth gleamed in his swarthy face. O closed her eyes so that she would not have to see his smile. But he bent down over her and took her tongue. Why was O so afraid she could feel herself trembling at the idea that Frank’s door might open?

In the ground floor bathroom, where Jos=E9 then took her, O found Noelle, who was holding her skirts up while another girl in uniform, with the crossed scarf, was douching her. O squatted down in like fashion over the Turkish-style toilet next to the one Noelle was using. When she had eliminated the last drops of water from her body, the same girl who had been administering to Noelle soaped her for a moment, then rinsed her with a spray, activated by the pressure of her finger, that spouted from a round metal tube topped by an ebonite nozzle. The spray was gentle, but the water was cold, colder still, it seemed to her, than when she had felt it running into the depths of her bowels, then her vagina. Was it really necessary to douche her so meticulously and at such great length a second time, this time concentrating on the loins, the inside of the thighs, and the opening of her vagina? During her first stay at Roissy she had not even been aware that these bathrooms existed. It is also true that then she had never been in any room other than her own.

“The rule is, O,” Noelle explained to her when she later had a chance to ask her about it, “that each time we go upstairs we’re sent down for a douche afterward.”

“But why for such a long time,” said O, “and why so cold?”

“Personally, I like it’ Noelle said. “You feel so cool and fresh afterward, and so nicely contracted.”

The girl on duty then gave them both some lipstick and perfume. They made themselves up and both brushed their hair. The perfume warmed O slightly. Noelle took her by the hand. She was lovely, with that Irish type of beauty you also find in certain parts of Brittany, with black hair, very white skin, and blue eyes. She was no taller than O, but she had narrow shoulders, a relatively small head, tiny pointed breasts, and generous, well-rounded hips. Her small pert nose and full lips, which were always half-parted, gave her a saucy, laughing air. But it was also a fact that she was generally good humored: whenever she entered a room, one always had the impression that she was coming to a party. There was something disarming about her cheerfulness. She lent herself to anyone’s conunand or desire with such a charming smile, she lifted her skirts so readily, revealing the lovely expanse of her white buttocks, that it was rare indeed that she was seriously whipped. “Just enough, no more and no less,” she used to say to O, “but the fact of the matter is I don’t look good all marked up.”

When they entered the main salon, O had a chance to admire Noelle’s gracefulness, and the success that she garnered as a result of that charm. The three men seated in the big leather armchairs, two of whom had a fair-haired girl seated at their feet, while Monique was seated at the feet of the third, paid no attention to any of the three-one of the blondes was a girl named Madeleine whom O recognized from her visit to Roissy the year before-but turned their heads and greeted Noelle. One of them called to her immediately, saying:

“Come over here and give me your pretty breasts.”

Noelle complied, leaning over the chair with her hands on the arms, her breasts at the level of the man’s mouth; she did so without the slightest hesitation, obviously happy to please him. He was a man of about forty, bald and ruddy complexioned-O could see his red neck which formed two little folds of fat just above the collar of his jacket-who reminded her of the pseudoGerman to whom Sir Stephen had given her the evening before; he did in fact resemble him.

The man who was with Monique moved over until he was behind Noelle, and ran one of his hands over her buttocks.

“Do you mind, Pierre?” he asked the first man.

“Don’t ask me, ask Noelle for permission,” he responded, then added: “But that really isn’t necessary, is it Noelle?”

“No,” Noelle said.

O looked at her: she was ravishing, with her neck and head thrown back the better to offer her breasts, and arching her back the better to offer her buttocks. Was it her own pleasure, the obvious pleasure that she herself derived at seeing herself the object of their eyes and their caresses, that aroused desire in others? Monique’s companion had made a sign to her to unbutton him, and O watched him grow erect between Noelle’s thighs. Finally, all three men possessed her one after the other, rose and black in the hollow of her thighs, all blooming and white as snow in her swirling red dress.

And it was she, immediately thereafter, and O-the latter because, as Pierre put it, “Let’s send the child, since she’s with her”-whom they unanimously picked out when a valet arrived to ask whether they could spare two girls who were needed in the bar.

“If she doesn’t get cracking soon’ said Pierre, “she’ll be rusty from lack of practice.”

At Roissy, there were three gates. The part of the building to which one could not gain access without passing through one of these three gates constituted what was called, not without some degree of childish playfulness, the main enclosure. The only ones who were permitted access to it were the associates or, more simply, the members of the Club. This closed-in area consisted of-on the ground floor, to the right of a large vestibule (onto which one of the gates, the largest, opened)-the library a sitting room, a smoking room, a dressing room-bathroom; and to the left, the girls’ refectory and an adjoining room which served as the valets’ dormitory. A few rooms on the ground floor were occupied by the girls that members of the Club brought there, as O had been brought the previous year by Ren=E9. The other rooms on the floors above were occupied by Club members who were spending a short or longer period of time at Roissy. Within the confines of the restricted area the girls were only allowed to come and go accompanied by someone else; they were absolutely bound to the rule of silence, even among themselves, and to keeping their eyes lowered at all times; at all times, too, they were obliged to be bare-breasted, and more often than not to keep their skirts hoisted either in front or behind. One could do with them as one desired. No matter what a member did with them, no matter what demands he made upon them, the price was the same. A member could come three times a year or three times a week, stay for an hour or for a fortnight, simply have a girl strip for him or flog her till she was bleeding, the cost of the annual membership was exactly the same. The cost of a member’s stay at Roissy was calculated the way it would have been at any hotel.

The second gate separated this central part of the building from a wing they called the little enclosure. It was in the extension of this wing that Anne-Marie lived, and it was here, too, that the girls who actually lived in the community had their quarters. These girls, who belonged as it were to Roissy, were lodged in double rooms, in that each room was divided by a semi-partition against which, on either side, the beds were placed back to back. They were ordinary beds, and not the fur-covered sofa which had graced the room where O had stayed on her first visit. The girls shared a bathroom, as they did a closet. The doors to their rooms could not be locked, and the members of the Club could enter them any time in the course of the night, during which the girls were chained. But aside from this rule by which they were obliged to spend the night in chains, there was no other basic restriction.

=46inally, on the other side of the third gate, which, as you faced the main gate, was to the left, the second gate being situated to the right, was located the free and as it were quasi-public area of Roissy: a restaurant, a bar, small sitting rooms on the ground floor, with, on the floors above, the bedrooms. The members of the Club were free to invite guests to the restaurant and bar without having to pay any entrance fee. But anyone, or virtually anyone, could purchase a “temporary membership” which was very expensive but gave him the right to two visits. The only rights it gave him, in effect, as guests of members were allowed to use the bar, were to have lunch or dinner in the restaurant, to rent a room, and to use it with a girl of his choice. Each of the above items was payable separately. For the bar and restaurant there were a maitre d’h=F3tel and a few waiters-the kitchens were in the basement-but it was the girls who waited on table. In the restaurant they were in uniform. In the bar, dressed in long silk dresses, with a lace mantilla similar to the uniform scarf covering their hair, their shoulders, and their breasts, they were there waiting to be picked by a member or a guest. The restaurant and bar, as well as the hotel, were financially independent, their income covering their costs. The money earned by the girls was divided according to fixed percentages: so much for Roissy, so much for the girl. Nor were all the girls paid on an equal basis: O learned that she would be paid double the base rate because she officially belonged to a member of the Club, and because she wore irons and bore a brand. Two other girls were in the same category as she, one of whom was the buxom, ivory-complexioned redhead she had seen in Anne-Marie’s quarters. If anyone chose to whip a girl, or have her whipped by one of the valets, there was a supplementary payment. The checks were paid at the hotel office; the tips were given directly to the personnel involved.

Its close proximity to Paris, its princely yet discreet atmosphere, the impressive buildings and park, the comfort of the installation, the excellence of the restaurant, the theatrical aspect which the costumed girls and the omnipresent valets gave to the place, the combination of freedom and security in any and all relationships, and last but not least the clear knowledge of what took place behind the gates, within the confines of the enclosure, provided Roissy with a large clientele, made up primarily of businessmen, a goodly percentage of whom, at least half were foreigners. The public part of Roissy had no more official existence than did the clandestine part. The term “Country Club” fooled no one, but it often happened that the grizzled man who was thought to be the Master of Roissy, but who in reality was only the administrator, questioned one or the other girl about some short-time customer-not to mention the fact that, in order to receive one of the temporary membership cards, the applicant had to show his passport or some other identification (it being made clear to him that no record was kept at Roissy of any such papers used by the customer); in short, Roissy was officially ignored and unofficially tolerated. One of the reasons for this, in addition to the above-named precautions that the establishment itself took, was doubtless that there had never been any complaints from Roissy about venereal disease, nor had there been any scandal relative to pregnancies or abortions. O had always wondered how it was possible for girls who sometimes slept with as many as ten men a day-men who were extremely demanding and would put up with no show of reluctance or embarrassment-how it was possible for them to avoid getting pregnant. They couldn’t all be lucky, as was O; she had a physical anomaly that practically eliminated any possibility of pregnancy.