You will find that this makes more sense if you have read the previous part of Odile’s Story.
You can find all the episodes here.
When the van stopped, the engine turned off, silence, the noise of the parking brake, Odile was once again surprised by a transition, gripped by— what? — yes— it was fear; fear not immediately recognised because it was formless.
In a normal life, unknowns are few, so that fear is typically embedded in some expectation— meeting new people, surprised by a violent outburst, starting a new job— all fears with context, which can be thought about, measured, engaged with, shared with others.
But for Odile, at that moment, the feeling was— and she recognised it had been with her before, un-named, but increasingly part of her base condition— it was, simply, nakedly, fear. Plain, featureless fear— all the more awful for its lack of context.
Because she was nothing, nothing to anyone, because she was never given any information, because, as usual, she had been too occupied with the business of her own subjugation to have paid attention to the journey, because, as was becoming usual, she was near naked, had no phone, no keys, no money, because she was with people who casually abused her in the most intimate of ways …
… because I have given myself, without reserve, to a cruel and powerful sadist.
Because of all this, nameless but insistent fear was appropriate, would be constant, albeit lessening during periods like the ride, when things could settle down, but abruptly spiking in her when such periods ended, when she had no information at all about what might next be imposed on her.
Save in a few respects— each of which justifies more fear; that my consent will not be sought; that I will be expected to do everything I can to encourage violent sexual abuse; that I will be degraded.
It was bizarre and almost magical to be thinking such thoughts, still on her knees, face flattened by Nadia’s shoe, her view comprising nothing more than the fabric lining of the van siding, only centimetres from her face; her buttocks as high as she can get them, her knees spread wide, her nipples just touching the carpet, sensitised now, almost painful from the friction— and above all that, the thing in her sex.
There was a small but bizarre interlude, then— the van stopping signified change, Odile’s belly churned with nameless fear, but nothing actually happened. Nadia kept tapping at her laptop, there was no sign or sound of movement from Claude.
A random shock from the thing hit her, and she heard herself gasp, soft and despairing, accepting the pain; almost willing it to continue, rather than have to face whatever will be imposed upon her, demanded of her, taken from her next.
When change did at last occur, it was all rather banal; van door noises, the sliding door opening, everything got brighter. Claude’s voice;
“Bag and cuff her, please.”
Then Nadia, businesslike;
“Kneel up, now, eyes on the floor, shoulders back— present those tits. Keep your bum in the air, pretty; hands out, or I’ll hurt your pussy.”
It was shaming, but almost reassuring to be talked to like that.
That’s how people talk to cunt.
Nadia produced a black bag— heavy silk— dropped it over Odile’s head, then turned it until something hit against her lips. Without words, Nadia shoved the obtrusion hard against Odile’s mouth, until the understood what it was— a rubber ring, stiff but flexible. When Nadia succeeded in pushing it behind Odile’s front teeth, it sprang back into its original shape, forcing Odile’s jaws apart, the taste of fresh air making it obvious that there was a hole in the hood at that point, and that Odile’s mouth was being held open to invite face fucking.
Nadia then tucked the open end of the hood through Odile’s choker, before lifting Odile’s wrists, one at a time, pulling them behind her back and then somehow linking the bangles, each to the opposite side of the choker, so that her wrists were crossed behind her back, then pulled upward until her shoulders felt the strain, and the weight of her arms was felt at her neck.
Odile found herself meekly compliant, mild and accepting, almost happy, as she was manipulated, and when Claude, behind her, said;
“Let me lift you, now; keep your thighs up, knees out, legs bent;” she let that happen too, as he grasped the back of her choker in one hand, and put the other directly onto her sex. He first pulled, then lifted her bodily, she straining to maintain her pose as he turned, only whimpering as the fear spiked again.
It’s like being a child; ignorant of everything, controlled by elders who don’t bother to explain anything, blindly trusting (having no other option), thoughtlessly accepting. I’m being infantilised.
Again, Odile was shocked at how acceptable this new insight was to her, and then, as before, found herself seeing in it a new pathway, a new requirement.
I must become childlike. Like a small child— simple, accepting, trusting, respectful, open. Take everything at face value; never question anything; let myself be controlled, completely.
And she recalled Monseigneur telling her that she need never feel guilt again— that all that was his responsibility, and this too, fit the idea of letting herself be infantilised;
Children are innocents. They know nothing, are not expected to think for themselves or make judgements. They cannot be held responsible for crimes.
This thought, this realisation, then sandbagged Odile; acceptance became easy no longer, but terrible.
For a young French woman, educated in the modern era, to accept the idea that her adulthood must be lost, abandoned, that she must once again be as a child— that was a blow to the solar plexus, a paralysing shock.
Attainment of ‘womanhood’ is an unspoken but immensely powerful expectation of an adolescent girl in France; failure to achieve it guarantees dismissal by one’s peers, social confusion and exclusion. Processing this, Odile was only dimly aware of what was being done with her for a while as the powerful emotional reaction to this new concept of her demotion sank into her like a cold and heavy stone.
This, too … this, too.
It was bitter, and hard, and twisting in her, but it seemed the time for even token resistance was past, as the certainty, the inevitability of this defeat, this tragedy built itself into her; as she worked to make herself understand that this was an inescapable part of her submission, and Odile was trembling with it, only dimly felt it as Claude placed her on some trolley table, still in her display position, on her knees.
She was on automatic, too as Claude matter-of-factly fished for, then removed the thing from inside her, then amused himself with three fingers in her sex, hurting and stretching her as Nadia (presumably, she could not be sure, with the bag blinding her completely) pushed the device into her mouth, and she understood she was to clean it again.
Once again, both her mouth and sex had been casually invaded; unthinkable insults upon her dignity taken for granted, without resistance from Odile, who had no capacity even to respond, so lost was she in the dread realisation that she was to lose even her womanhood.
Some words were exchanged, but Odile did not even try to make sense of them, and she was then wheeled on the trolley over some rough paving. The air was cold, and did not get noticeably warmer as they went through some door which closed behind them, the brightness of daylight gone.
If … WHEN … I do this, there is … there is no way back.
It was strange, so strange for that realisation, for that aspect of everything that Monseigneur had done to her, that she had encouraged Him to do to her, for it to be something— that loss of womanhood— so apparently distinct from sex, from perversion, from violence, from shame, which hit with the most force.
No. No It’s the opposite; it makes perfect sense. It is that— my womanhood— which He; Andrew (somehow, it made sense, in the context of the power, the import of this new understanding, to recall him as Andrew again, as a man, not a monster, a real person, rather than an idol) … the man I am giving myself to; it is what He wants, so that He can destroy me; it is my womanhood which is the real target of all of this. He will take it from me; I will give it, let it go, relinquish it, without Him even asking for it; for I must; I will let it go; it’s too late for anything else now. And once that is gone, He will have me; I will have been reduced; I will, truly, be nothing other than helpless, eager cunt, a ridiculous nymphomaniac, always dreaming of being raped, fearful always of being hurt; certain always that she will be hurt, knowing always that she has given herself to the hurt, that she gave away that which she had spent years earning, all to the first man who gave her sexual fulfilment. A slut, whatever He calls me.
Claude began manhandling her then— not roughly, but without kindness or gentleness either. Her attention was dragged away from her despair, and to her body, by the fear. Something new was happening.
He had stripped her of her slip, leaving her naked. Some frame, quite cold— hard, polished leather? — was at the small of her back; it rested there, quite lightly; perhaps, from its odd movements, suspended by a chain? And Claude was strapping something around her thigh— with a soft lining, but hard and stiff— like a solid garter, and it was attached to something, somehow, for it held her thigh out at a wide angle from her hip. When he had done the same with the other thigh, Odile found herself not really kneeling, any more, but half suspended from her thighs, her knees all there was to prevent her from being tipped forward, but taking less weight, her thighs spread painfully wide.
His hands at her wrists, then, releasing them from her neck, and fixing new cuffs, like those at her thighs, just above her elbows, pulled together behind her back, and down toward her waist as well, making her arch her back a little, to relieve strain at her shoulders.
He stood back, then; there was a rattling, then a tighter sound of chain in motion, and Odile felt herself lifted, by her thighs, then strain at her elbows and shoulders, pressure from something at the small of her back, too; she was almost horizontal, face down, her thighs wide, arms behind her back— hands free but useless as always.
A noise— the trolley, moving away, and then, making her stomach lurch, Odile found herself smoothly somersaulting in mid air, her head moving down and forwards, her buttocks up and backward, the strains and weight at her thighs, elbows, back shifting continuously in relation to each other as she moved, head coming up again, eerily smooth, until she was once more horizontal, but now face up (although her unsupported head dangled backwards once she realised she had stopped, and knew she would not be able to hold her neck stiff for long).
She felt bizarrely safe— her legs and arms tightly held, weight on the bar at the small of her back, all movements smooth and steady, no sharp jolts— and at the same time horridly vulnerable— suspended in mid air, naked, her arms lock behind her, thighs mechanically held open— much wider that they had been the day before in the gynaecology seat, her head unsupported.
Her feet, too, swayed free, but not for long, as Claude lifted her ankles, one by one, and folded her legs back, so that it became as if she were kneeling in mid air, her ankles held— linked somewhere to the bar at the small of her back.
Casually, then, though deliberately enough, Claude made it clear just how the frame she was held in made her accessible, straddling her head as it hung backward, the bulge of his cock pressed hard against the open hole at her mouth, while reaching forward to maul at her spread pussy with his hand, then, easily and smoothly somersaulted her in mid air until the hand that had been inside her pussy was in her mouth, pushing into her gag reflex again, while his hardness was against her sex lips.
Her heart was hammering, whether with sexual arousal or fear or shame she could no longer tell; perhaps never again would she be able to separate those out. She heard herself whimpering, judged herself, was sickened at how weak, how helpless she sounded, imagined what she must look like; hooded, fixed into a frame that seemed purpose made to offer her body up for penetration, for rape, for abuse; how dehumanised her body had been, so efficiently, so simply.
He had then made her understand another feature of the frame as, by some adjustments at her hips, he compelled her thighs to bend in towards her torso, as if she were bent double, than reversed the action until her legs were bent far enough behind her to make her moan with pain— as if she were bent over backwards, all while hanging in mid-air.
He had left her, then, without a word; only a parting slap to her opened and defenseless sex which made her cry out, weakly; pathetic again.
Nothing but a body with holes for fucking.
Waiting to be used. Or hurt. Or shamed. All three.
She could not imagine how it could be that she would strip herself of, be stripped of, her womanhood; it had been so hard won, over such formative years; it was so embedded in the notion of what being a Frenchwoman was, that she could not imagine herself without it, without the certainty of it at her core.
And yet, it will happen; I feel sure of it. I am lost.
And the fear was back, destroying all peace.
