We’d been at the Opera, Hamilton and I. He’d bought me the dress, and insisted I wear it, scandalous as it was — barely more than lingerie, it seemed to me.
It had been wonderful — a light and very expensive seafood dinner by the lake beforehand, champagne, him as sweet and funny and flattering as he had been in the early days, and I’d remembered how in love with him I had been — not just in thrall to him.
Of course, I had known it was just him having fun with me, keeping me uncertain, never letting me be sure just where I stood — but I had accepted that that was all I would ever get from him months ago, and so I covered up my turmoil and enjoyed myself as best I could — blinking away the tears which came whenever I found myself wondering how my life could have come to this.
We bumped into Andrew in the interval. A stranger to me, he seemed to know Hamilton well — possibly from University, I guessed — they were talking like old friends. Andrew was looking me over rather obviously — I was a bit surprised — but he was Hamilton’s friend, and rather handsome, and, well, I was wearing that dress — and so I tried to make it worth his while, not knowing what else to do.
Hamilton hadn’t introduced me, though, and I was feeling more and more conflicted about the whole thing when he finally looked at me and laughed;
“Aren’t you the little tart, eh? Flaunting yourself for a strange man? Andrew, this is a girl I’ve been fucking for a year or so. Tasty, isn’t she? I’ve been bringing her along steadily — haven’t I pretty? — and she’s getting quite good at it — quite sweetly compliant, too, mostly. And as you can see, still clinging to some pretence about her status — look at those cute blushes, over a rather PG-rated version of how it really is with her. You’ll have to come over and try her out some day.”
And my evening had come crashing down. I’d known it would, of course, but somehow this hadn’t lessened the pain, or the shame. He hadn’t even introduced me by name - I was nothing more than a girl I’ve been fucking. I’d flushed bright crimson, my eyes had filled with tears, and I had to blink fiercely, plaster a weak and pathetic smile on my face — for some reason desperate to keep up an appearance of normality.
They had let me, too, grinning a little, but going back into their impenetrable business chatter, Hamilton ignoring me again.
But Andrew’s eyes had become bolder, and I was burning with shame. Shame not only at the way Hamilton had laid open my abject position (and it was true, he had indeed kept it on the mild side of the truth), but also shame at the way my busy brain was imagining just how Andrew might ‘try me out’, what it might be like to be fucked in Hamilton’s apartment by one of his friends — a man I hardly knew, with Hamilton looking on.
And then Hamilton’s ‘phone went, shockingly loud in the hushed little bar that exclusively catered to those occupying private boxes. It had to be urgent, I knew — he’d silenced his calls, so this must be his boss — whose calls always came through. A few words, hushed, and then Hamilton looked up, grinning;
“Excellent news — a deal we’ve been working on has meshed. It means I have to go, though — right now.”
He paused, looked at me, my face betraying me — utterly crestfallen then, fighting to hold back tears.
His brows pulled together for a second, and then he was grinning again;
“Andrew — I’ve an excellent idea — you take her! Do what you want with her; don’t stand for any nonsense — be as rough as you like — she loves to be forced, in any case. Try out her deep-throat technique for me.”
And he was gone, leaving me, chest heaving, fighting off a panic attack, tinglingly aware of Andrew’s eyes on me the whole time, of the amusement in his face, his complete lack of sympathy. I struggled for control, desperately, while he simply watched, sipping at his whisky. I was shivering, despite the warmth.
The interval bell sounded, and I startled — there was no way I could face the rest of the opera in this state!
And now he acted, decisively, as the Andrew I came to know always did; stepping closer, taking my upper arm in a large hand, softly, but with the promise of a strong restraining grip clearly communicated.
“Well, since you’ve quite ruined my evening, let’s see if you can make it up to me, shall we?”
He didn’t speak — and I simply couldn’t, so we walked in silence, him holding my hand — as if we were a couple, strangely comforting — walked me out of the Opera House, and into the City, seemingly walking at random through the elegant streets, not speaking (although he turned his head to mine occasionally, and looked at me, calmly, almost kindly, but also with great underlying intent) until, in the arcade of a small, pretty square, he stopped, turned to face me and said, in a calm and conversational tone;
“Time for you to go down, now, cunt, and show me this deep-throat technique of yours.”
My heart was thumping in me so hard the sound of it seemed to fill the square. I couldn’t imagine it being possible that he could say that, that he could use that awful word to me so casually, that I might do as he wanted. He hadn’t even asked my name. It just wasn’t real.
But then, after a few seconds — him smiling at me, relaxed, interested, watching — putting no pressure on me at all, his hand lightly clasping mine as if he were a lover, I realised that neither could I imagine not doing what he’d asked me to. Hamilton — Hamilton had promised me to Andrew, had offered me, told Andrew he could do as he wished with me, force me…
And I — what did I want?
Ah — there — there was the problem; I had no idea. No idea at all. And so I simply gave myself to Andrew’s will — as I had given myself countless times to Hamilton’s. It resolved all problems — even if it brought shame and pain. Often, too, it brought sexual delirium unlike anything I had ever experienced.
Briefly, I looked up into Andrew’s eyes. There was no doubt in them at all. He meant it.
And, just like that, it was ordained.
I looked around, briefly — not really checking whether or not there were any strangers to observe my shame, although I suppose I was doing that, too; but really what I later realised I wanted was to take a look — a last look, as it were — at the world, before I let something change. Before I accepted that what Hamilton had done — was doing — to me was not simply dominant, borderline abusive boyfriend stuff, but actually debasing me; turning me into a slut. I needed to see the world, one last time, as a girl who was not, fully, a whore.
For after that moment, I could never again not be a self-acknowledged slut. That anonymous part of the City, so characterless, so empty, would be where I gave up on myself.
And that was it; I was finished; I went down, bending my knees, my belly suddenly fluttering like crazy. I was going to let this virtual stranger face-fuck me in the public street, and I was going to make it good for him; I could hear myself, helpless, making pathetic little noises; soft gasping moans, my breath catching as the enormity of it all bore in upon me. I looked at his groin, getting ready to give myself to him, as I had learned was necessary, if I was to be able to serve like this.
He spoke, then, almost kind;
“No, pretty; don’t kneel, the cobbles will be hard on your knees — squat, that’s it — open your legs — pull the dress back. Show me.”
And I did, just as instantly as if I had been controlled by him through some machine, just as meekly as if I was his lover; throat tight with embarrassment, knowing what he was seeing — my sex naked, no panties, the thin gold ring through my clit, Hamilton’s’s initials on the disc dangling from it, the tightly trimmed patch of pussy hair, the telltale marks of the dog-whip still on my inner thighs from the other night.
I couldn’t understand why my heart didn’t burst with the shame of it, but at the same time I was aware of a ridiculous glow of pride. This was me, Hamilton’s creation, a trained and controlled slut, and as breathlessly excited to be so, as I was ashamed and horrified.
I could feel his grin expanding;
“Very nice. How long did he say he’s had you?”
“Not … not quite a year.” My voice was small, but at least it was clear; I could still speak, it seemed.
“And before Hamilton, you were …?”
I knew what he meant. More shame;
“I was a normal girl.”
Yes, I had been turned by his friend in such a short time.
“And when did you last wear knickers?”
He knew! He knew something about how Hamilton operated with me — what else did he know? I was in an agony, exposed so, in a public street, under this relentless questioning.
And yet … and yet it was also somehow wonderful, wonderful to be held like this — like a moth on a pin, exposed, all my secrets opened. I felt faint.
“Three … no … four mo … months ago.”
Now I was stammering. To be so weak, so helpless, so vulnerable, so dirty… All I could do was to await his next demand — I had no will, no capacity, nothing meant anything but him; his requirements;
“And he ringed you when?”
“F … four weeks ago.”
“So you’re still not used to it — being a tagged piece of cunt?”
I couldn’t help but let out a little wail of emotion then — just what emotion, I couldn’t tell you, exactly — but it had to to be expressed. Full of desperate intensity and stress, it just made him laugh, softly;
“I’m waiting for an answer, girly.”
“No … no I’m … I’m not used to it.”
More laughter. He stroked my cheek, gently, with a finger, put it between my lips, pushed into me; I opened, helplessly;
“You might not be used to it, pretty, but your body knows the score, doesn’t it?”
I couldn’t answer — he had three fingers pushing deep into my mouth by then, and I was trying desperately to remain soft for him, as I had been taught by Hamilton was required of me.
But it seemed he has no expectation of an answer, for, as he withdrew from my mouth, wiping his fingers on my dress, he asked the most devastating question of all;
“And how often does he whip you, pretty?”
I couldn’t speak — my throat wouldn’t behave, so intense was the emotional turmoil this question evoked. He waited, patiently;
“Take your time, girl. I know. I know that this is hard. Don’t worry; I won’t let you off the hook. You’ll do everything I want you to, and more. There is nothing you can do that is wrong; you’re safe. You can’t fail — and you can be confident of this, for the simple and immovable fact that I will never permit you to fail me.”
His hand was cupping the side of my head, large dry, warm, powerful, and I found myself leaning into it a little, tears dripping from my eyes, slow, soft, weak. He had me, had me utterly. How could he have done this so quickly, so thoroughly? Was I so easy, so far gone?
“Tell me, now.”
There was no disobeying that casual mastery, and suddenly, it became easy — almost welcome, almost delightful; the stammer was gone, my voice was clearer, steadier, half an octave lower; he had lent me some of his certainty;
“Once … maybe twice in a week … Sir”
Hamilton had me calling him Sir, and somehow it seemed necessary to give this man the same respect.
“Soft. Too soft, for such a one as you. You need to be beaten, hard, shamefully — destructively; every day, for some while — taken past your limits each time. You know this yourself, in your heart of hearts, don’t you? Tell me — be honest now — do you think that would be the right thing for Hamilton to do with you? Whip you harshly, each and every day? Do you see that this is the treatment that will bring you to where you ought to be?”
I wanted to hide, to crawl, to fall through a crack in the pavement, to be whisked away by a condor, to die of heart failure on the spot; anything other than have to say what he knew I must say, what was the unavoidable truth of things, only now made clear by his harsh, blunt words, but obviously, inescapably, the truth about me.
The terrible, stone-hard truth, that instantly made sense of me. However impossible, however terrifying, however unacceptable it might have been, my soul heard it, recognised it and claimed it as truth — however dangerous. Claimed it as the central fact of my existence. Never mind that it burned, that it made me feel sick with horror, that I couldn’t see for staring, fixedly, at some random pebble in the road. Never mind that my heart had apparently stopped.
He knew me. He understood me better than I did myself. And so, so much better than Hamilton.
His truth explained it — that weird feeling I got when waking, not having been whipped the day before — no hot stings on my flesh, no sharp memory of the destructive intensity that only the whip can bring — a feeling of weakness, of dissolution, of uncertainty, of worry, even, that I never felt after I had been whipped (whatever else I did feel), or when I knew a whipping was imminent. That need, sometimes, to provoke Hamilton; be a cow, be stubborn and stupid — so unlike me. That rage at him that sometimes boiled up out of nowhere. It made sense: Hamilton was not doing me right. He was not destroying me.
I had thought that I knew what I felt about the whip — that I hated it; purely and simply and completely. But this stranger had, in a few minutes, made me see a harsh truth — that although I hated being whipped, that nevertheless my relationship with the whip was the cusp of everything that meant anything to me; that in my free time, I found myself mostly thinking about the whip, about being whipped, about how it was when he whipped me last, when it would be that he would whip me next, looking at the marks the whip had made on my flesh (and I had much free time then, since Hamilton had me hang around his place so that I was always available when he had a desire for me). That the impossibility that I had become a girl who allowed her man to whip her was a constant torment — one that was not being resolved. Because Hamilton himself seemed uncertain about it — almost negotiated with me each time — as if asking for permission, seemed to need to gather his nerve for days before doing it again.
And I saw that Andrew was right; one way or the other, I needed to find out if I was — if I was a girl who could be whipped at will, or if I had the strength to walk away. That the only way to get to the answer was to be whipped — whipped more, whipped more methodically, without being given a choice. At least, if Hamilton was going to do this to me at all, he needed to do it fully. I needed to be broken, or find myself unbreakable.
There; I’d never said it before — although the words had been around in my head.
I said it to myself again, slow, in my mind;
I. Need. To. Be. Broken.
It was like a painful loose tooth — unbearable, yet irresistible.
The words come from me easily then, without my choosing to speak;
“Yes. Yes sir, you’re right. I need to be whipped every day. I need to be properly broken.”
And then my sex was hot and wet, and when he unzipped his fly and released his cock, I pushed myself, softly, steadily onto him, without reserve, all the way; past my gag reflex, overriding it, giving myself to him utterly; pleased with myself, grateful to him, happy to be his slut.
He was violent with me — not rough at all, not cruel; he had no need; I was putty in his hands — but forcefully violent, utterly relentless, taking every little thing he wanted from me, without the slightest consideration of anything beyond his own raw desire.
Quickly, he had my head against the wall and one foot over my splayed knee, meaning he could push hard without needing to thrust, and he simply pile-drivered my throat, steadily, going deeper into me than seemed possible, occupying me, utterly uninterested in my wellbeing, just using me, powerful, without reserve, staying deep in me until I started to shake with the convulsions, uncaring, perhaps, if I should live or die — I didn’t know him, after all — perhaps this was to be the end of me. But somehow I got just enough breath to say on the edge of consciousness, and spent all my energy making myself as accommmodating as I could manage to be for his desires. I don’t think I cared if he killed me either, at that moment, so far gone was I.
When at last he started to come in me, pumping hard, pounding me, my jaw wrenched with the force of him, his fingers suddenly vice-like on my poor tits — I had bruises for a week — I gloried in the tight, harsh noises that came from him — that I had been at least a part of him getting beyond his own iron control was a like a sacrament, and the tears became tears of pleasure, and mingled with the tears of suffering (in the end, who can tell them apart?).
Andrew — Sir — called Hamilton the next morning, after he’d whipped my breasts with a pony whip — the first time I’d ever experienced that terrifying, spirit smashing ordeal, driven into a hysteria that was like temporary insanity as my whole body rebelled against the implacable savagery of the way it bit into my poor tenderised flesh. I was kneeling, humbled beyond thinking, folded up, acting as his footstool, mind empty of anything but the lingering aftershocks of the slow crescendo of the ass-fucking that had followed the whipping, as he arranged to take me over.
The taking over was complete, without so much as a single questioning look of consultation toward me — a casual but total annexation, carried out without a second thought. As if I had been a motorbike or something; something useful, but entirely ordinary; ultimately of no real significance — simply requiring some organisation.
He resigned me from my job the day after that, sold all my possessions to a house clearer the day after that, took me to see his lawyer the day after that (whip-marked, naked but for high heels and a short, button-fronted cloak that hung from iron rings on my new leather collar), where I witnessed a Swiss secret account opened in my name with 500,000 in it, asked the lawyer if he would like to whip me before or after he fucked me and left me there all afternoon — I was delivered home by taxi, having been fucked and thrashed by half the office, crying softly and sticky with the mingled come of unknown men, men whose faces I had not even seen. Whipped again as soon as I returned until I screamed, hysterical, wild with despair, I was then taken directly to the cold cellar and chained there, naked and hungry, as every night for a month, available for any kind of use or abuse by the household staff.
He never asked my my name, never used my name — I suppose he must have got any information he needed from Hamilton, at the start — but from then on I was effectively a nameless sex object.
If I spoke without it being demanded of me, I was beaten; if I failed to give my utmost in the service of the pleasure of the man who was using me, I was beaten; if a man thought it would be entertaining, I was beaten. If I was especially prettily willing, or particularly successful at submissively signalling my eagerness to be used, I might get a pat on the head, a brief smile, a short caress. I lived for those little moments — they became my entire value system.
He broke me within four months — utterly, gratefully, desperately broken; happy — so happy — to be his pathetic, grovelling, eager, needy slut, racked by shame still, but unable to resist any requirement he made of me, the meaning of my life to serve his slightest whim.
The intensity couldn’t last — it became boring for him, and I was on the brink of leaning-in to behaviour that was seriously risky.
Then, after less than a year, he did the most terrible thing. He made me go cold turkey.
He got me a flat, a job, a new wardrobe (underwear!), removed my piercings; I was required to report by text every hour to an underling of his, to confirm that I had kept to my instructions;
“Live a life of work; dedicated work. No sex, no masturbation, thoughts of sex to be allowed to wash across the mind, but not to take root. You will achieve several qualifications: in psychology, neurology and business, learn a language and a musical instrument. You will attend exercise, yoga and dance classes, cycle to work, jog, swim. You will rebuild yourself.”
“You will never — not once — complain about any of this to anyone. You will become stoic, self contained, immovable. I require this of you. You will achieve it.”
I didn’t hear from him once but it was clear that he was watching from several subtle signs, and that gave me strength through what was, without any question, the hardest year of my life.
All the anguish of being suborned, degraded, repeatedly whipped, whored out, fucked and raped, finally broken completely; brainwashed, enslaved, turned into a helplessly eager fuckdolly — all that had at least served someone’s pleasure; my destruction meant something to Him, if nothing else — and thus gave meaning to my suffering, context for my shameful ecstasy.
This year, though, this year from hell, meant nothing except obedience to his will. That was my only meaning.
Which came with a terrible paradox, as follows; the command to rebuild myself required that, at some point, I must achieve the capacity to look at his will, his instruction, and reject it, reject his power over me; I had to get to this point to be on the road to fulfilling his command, and yet from that point onward I no longer had to follow it.
This was the hardest period — it lasted weeks; the sea-change between being his creature, obeying him, hard road as it was that he had set me to, and becoming my own creature, without any clue as to what sort of creature I might be — because the old me was gone (the wispy, insubstantial, laughable me from the time before Hamilton), an empty husk, an old skin, split and shed.
This realisation was, eventually, what got me through — the understanding, agonisingly slow to dawn, almost impossible to comprehend — that I had indeed grown. That having plumbed the utter depths of submission, of having had my self all but erased from my body — having become the willing and dedicated creature of another’s greedy and perverse desire; having survived that; having rebuilt myself thus — albeit in fulfilment of his order — I had become indomitable.
As this awareness grew, something came with it — desire; I had not felt desire on my own behalf for so long; only need. And what was it that I desired? Dominion. The exercise of my own power over such as myself.
Men? Men I had little time for, with few exceptions — Andrew being of course pre-eminent. Even the most clear-eyed of the others seemed to me as soft and easily satisfied fools, where I had been with a diamond, a diamond which had effortlessly and ruthlessly made of me what he willed, and had had me glory in his achievement, too.
No, it was not men I wanted dominion over, but women.
I told Andrew this when, a little after my year was up, he invited me to dinner — at the Opera restaurant. He probed me hard, testing me, asking me to re-tell wrenching episodes from my time with him, tell him what I had thought at the time, what I saw now, looking deep into me for signs of anger, of unresolved tensions, of incomprehension.
I must have passed muster, for at some point he grinned, and began to ask other questions — which is when I told him of my desires. He grinned more then, and said he might have something for me, but that I would have to be patient.
We ended by having an almost normal, at times slightly flirtatious conversation — just as if we were two old lovers, not quite done with each other yet. But when he asked if I wanted sex, I answered, quite truthfully, no. Not with a man again, probably. That I had tried it — gone to a professional dominant as soon as the year was up — been spanked, whipped, humiliated, made to lick his arsehole, suck his cock. It had done nothing for me.
He grinned again, and said I was a marvel of engineering — that he was proud of himself.
And I? I thanked him, and told him that I owed him my life — that it was still his to command, should he ever need it, and meant it; even though I now had a life that I would fight for, that this was still true for him and me — always would be. That if he wanted me — ever — I was his to command.
He smiled again, soft now, and told me that he must go — he had a sweet little redhead whom he had put into the shed at the bottom of his garden the night before, with a rough stick wedged into her pussy.
He wanted to see if she had decided that she was ready to offer herself to his poker club as a gang-bang entertainment. Not that his friends would ever be truly satisfied since he had sent me away, he was gracious enough to tell me.
Five weeks later, I was invited to a late-night meeting in a hotel suite, and interviewed by six older men — Andrew wasn’t there. They were the board — ‘The Great Table’, they called themselves — of a gentleman’s club, they told me — long established, and very private. There might be an opening for me there.
They asked me deep questions about my relationship with Hamilton, and with Andrew. I was very honest — didn’t blush once.
They asked if I would strip, then and there, and allow myself to be fucked and whipped. I said no, not at that point. That of course, if the job involved me allowing such things, I would need to know more. But that if they hoped to engage my emotions in this way, they would fail — that my only emotional interest was in the cruel sexual subjugation of young women.
There was a long silence then, before other, more general questions. It was clear that something of significance had occurred — I just had no idea what. I didn’t much care, to be honest — they were not a terribly impressive bunch — old, gouty and some of them a bit silly. But they were clearly rich, clearly influential, well established, and Andrew thought there was something here for me, so I said I would be interested to hear from them again.
Three weeks later I was working as an assistant manager at The Castle.
I was 25.
All of them fucked me, many times — I made sure of it. Half of them were more or less infatuated with me after a year. All sex between us was void of domination games, at my stipulation, and any of them that tried it got laughed at — I just fucked their brains out.
Two years after that I began to wean them off sex with me, and to demand that I be empowered to choose one of the pretties as my own personal toy. There was resistance, but not much, to be honest. Andrew’s redhead was my first, but I rotate them fairly rapidly — it won’t do to let them think there is any personal relationship beyond their entertainment value, and this, too, keeps them very much up to the mark, knowing that their few privileges will be lost as soon as I grow tired of them. I have not had sex with a man since.
By the time I was 28 I was the manager of the ‘stable’, and my power has grown since then. Andrew is now Chair of the Great Table, and between us we have made the Paris Castle what it is today.
My name is Anne-Marie.
Anne-Marie is the ‘through’ character in a set of stories here all set around an establishment called simply ‘the Castle’. This is an hommage to / re-imagining of the club at Roissy that is central to ‘the Story of O’ — and Anne-Marie’s name and role are directly analogous in both settings. The stories are only loosely linked, but many of them include insights into the workings of the whole. Some stories are stand-alone, a couple are multi-part and developing. You can find all the ‘Castle’ stories — selected via their tag — here.
