We met Natalie in nOelle’s Story— a Castle girl, Anne Marie’s favourite at that time. Her story was promised, but not heard before now. Here is the beginning. A different kind of girl, perhaps; at the beginning. This is their tragedy— that they will all end up as interchangeable sex-toys; commodities. Cunt.

Anne-Marie had only one relationship ever with a slavegirl which had engaged her heart.

It was with Natalie, and it would end in tragedy.

A lifetime chattel volunteer is a rare creature at the Castle; rare, in the first instance, to encounter a girl who would countenance such a thing, since the license attendant on such a contract is so much broader, essentially removing all limits on treatment of the girl (The Castle generally imposes careful limits on damage inflicted— nothing requiring hospitalisation or permanent disfigurement without specific agreement; piercings heal, in general, but are still only carried out with express consent (albeit consent which is, admittedly, often obtained under duress), no bestiality, nothing scatological. Of course, the range of cruelties within these boundaries is large, and one-off treatments, like brandings or cosmetic surgeries, can be specifically consented).

Although the term ‘chattel slave’ is used, The Castle’s ‘Chattel’ contract is in fact simply a more onerous form of indenture, of a kind that allows two particularly significant freedoms to the holder: the right to reassign the contract— meaning that the girl may be effectively bought and sold, or rented out / leased without her consent or even knowledge, coupled with perhaps the most frightening aspect for the girl contemplating such an arrangement— the destruction of her legal identity. This is achieved through arrangements with corrupt officials around the world; the girl’s identity is associated with a convenient death of an unknown, inquests held, all the bureaucracy satisfied, so that the girl becomes a non-person, her body no longer connected with any legal identity (her body remains identifiable, an inventory item— she will be micro-chipped like a pet animal, and tattooed with a bar-code, too). These days, using CRISPR and stem cell technologies, even her DNA signature can be confused; there are labs in Brazil which specialise in this.

Once her contract indenture term is complete— and provided she has neither been coerced into agreeing a term extension (not hard to achieve with girls who have so deeply lost themselves), nor ended up as the valued mistress or even wife of her owner (perhaps surprisingly, this is common: even truly loving relationships are not shocking)— she will be provided with a new (fake) identity, sourced from the best in the business.

The ’lifetime’ contract though, takes all this one step further, with the removal of the period term to the indenture— the agreement persists for as long as the subject lives— and it is indeed a rare girl who volunteers for such a thing. Anne-Marie is extraordinarily careful in these cases to be sure that there is no extreme coercion involved.

This is at least in part because The Castle itself is not generally interested by the idea of lifetime ownership of a girl. The Castle’s members’ interests lie particularly in the use and abuse of younger women. Of course tastes vary, and The Castle makes no judgements as to taste, so that there are members who bemoan this, speaking of the charms of maturer bodies, experienced sensibilities. But given the relatively small size of a ‘stable’— very rarely are there more than 20 girls in residence— there is a limit to the number of minority interests that can be catered for. The outcome being that rarely is there a long-term girl in a Castle stable who is older than her late 20’s.

What then, would a Castle do with a lifetime slave? The answer, of course, is— sell her. After all, a lifetime slave needs no large cash reward at the end of her time— for that time will end only with her death. Occasionally, a girl will ask for a sum to be sent anonymously to family, or donated to a charity— but this is not the problem; there is another, more serious difficulty— the buyer of a girl is usually a man, almost inevitably older than the girl (there have been girls bought as 21st birthday presents for the sons of the super-rich, but these arrangements rarely end well and are resisted unless the sums of money involved are very large, and the girl extremely eager). In most cases, indeed, the buyer will be significantly older.

The likelihood is, then— in simple actuarial terms— that a lifetime chattel girl will be pre-deceased by her owner. In which case, what will happen to her? It can be surprising— shocking, distressing— to family members to discover that the recently departed owned a young sex slave, and even if not a surprise, it is rarely considered convenient. If the death is sudden, or accidental, all sorts of complications can arise. The Castle is well connected, and well protected, but the Great Table are always alive to the risk of unwanted publicity, which is the most uncontrollable and damaging risk in the register they keep and regularly review.

Natalie’s earnest and unforced request to be fully enslaved— in effect, to terminate her existence as a person— did not arise from any wish to be used as a sex toy, to be whipped, raped and degraded, to be humiliated, demeaned and ultimately dehumanised— not at all— but for the simple reason that Anne-Marie had told her that it would make her happy to see Natalie beg for it.

Natalie had cried, had pleaded, but not in resistance, just out of a desperate wish for mercy— not to have this be the only way she can express her devotion. She had been harshly whipped in punishment for crying about this, too, since a girl who cannot stop weeping is a turn-off for most members, and strong measures are applied in forceful deterrence.

Anne-Marie, caressing the girl after these increasingly extreme punishments, stroking her softly, kissing her intimately, showing her how her sexual triggers have been sensitised, not dulled, by the careful application of pain and by the psychological trappings of theatrical cruelty, had listened with endless, gentle patience to the pleading, the begging, listened carefully through the sobs and the wailing, accepted the babbled litany of desperate explanations, the reasonings, the justifications, the appeals as to why, despite the girl’s deeply sincere devotion to Anne-Marie, it was just impossible, unthinkable that she, Natalie, could be subjected to the Castle regime for even a week more, let alone for a lifetime.

Beyond even that, Anne-Marie had listend, had asked careful and sensitive questions, had thoughtfully and carefully validated Natalie’s arguments, her reasoning, her depth of emotional conviction— restating these in her own words, so that it was very clear to the girl that Anne-Marie understood her despair, her desperation, her deep horror at the thought of such an arrangement, making her position, her arguments seem even more cogent, even more obviously unshakeable in their moral, practical and psychological import.

Such understanding, paradoxically, gave Natalie to lean in to Anne-Marie’s body for comfort, for embraces, for security, as Anne-Marie told her, very clearly, that she was right in her earnest wish not to be irretrievably enslaved.

Anne-Marie had made it clear to Natalie that she saw just how terribly destructive The Castle had been for her, what it had done to her even over the few months she had been confined for; how obvious the changes were, how deeply the sadness, the shame, the sadism, the pain had eaten into her, how the violations and the beatings had harmed her psychologically as well as physically. Anne-Marie was so detailed, so insightful in her descriptions that Natalie wept and wailed, all over again, at the recollection of the events Anne-Marie so accurately retold, her cataloguing of the gross insults which had been inflicted upon Natalie’s blameless and vulnerable person, upon her psyche.

Anne-Marie had further told Natalie that she, Anne-Marie, understanding what it had already cost the poor girl to be treated thus, that she fully understood, fully sympathised, that it was indeed unconscionable, insane, unthinkable that Natalie— such a young and lovely girl, with so much waiting for her in the world outside, with her whole life ahead of her, with her astonishing artistic talent, her grace, her beauty, her humour, her wonderful friends, loving family, her intelligence, her vibrant personality, should be asked to give up all this— that such things simply could not be weighed in the balance against the grim cruelties of a life as a castle fucktoy, subjected constantly to the crude lusts of strange and greedy men, to their violence, their sexual aggression, to the punches, the floggings, to their spittle and their piss, to their sneering, their contempt, their name-calling, their rapes and their tortures. That any attempt at such a balancing would be a farce, an insult, a cruel joke— ridiculous if it were not so serious— for clearly anyone could see that a girl such as Natalie needed to be free, to be wild, to play and love and sing and make her art and laugh without such terrible fear, such cruel impositions, such random violations.

Further, that when even the thought of a girl such as Natalie giving herself over to this for the normal year or two would be indefensible, the idea that she should be asked to give away her whole life to the service of this monstrosity is beyond cruel.

Of course, Anne-Marie is sincere and honest in this. As we know, as a girl, she herself ha been subjected to such extremes, accepted them utterly, lived through them, before becoming the Anne-Marie she is now.

That to do this to Natalie would be to break a butterfly upon a wheel.

And she would sit, Anne-Marie, with Natalie, while the girl calmed herself— sometimes for hours, so deep and terrifying was her distress. Sit with her, calming her, stroking her, telling her again and again how lovely she was, how gorgeous it had been to know her before she came to The Castle, how wild and free her life had been, how exuberant, how delicious, how full of savour. That on this basis it was easy to understand how surely rich her prospective future as a free woman might be.

Until, at last, it would be the time.

Time for Anne-Marie to tell the girl, in a soft but clear voice; a voice holding— despite the softness— the unmistakable, unswerving core of iron at the heart of Anne-Marie’s gleaming force of will, to tell her that, despite all the force and obvious correctness of her reasoning, all the emotional truth behind her pleading, despite the fact that it would be a terrible, evil tragedy to enslave a creature like herself— despite all this, that she, Anne-Marie, would nevertheless be very disappointed if Natalie would not make her appointment with the Great Table, to beg them, naked, on her knees, opening her nakedness to them, carefully and earnestly displaying herself to maximise their desire for her (a girl who got herself raped at a Great Table gathering was considered to have achieved something notable), if they would do her the signal honour of taking her as a lifetime chattel of the Castle— to beg them to erase all her potential— save that which might be captured by the term lifetime sex-slave, that is. To break her upon a wheel.

Time to hold Natalie tight, then, for she would begin to thrash (this scene was repeated several times), to moan, to cry again; to command her, in a voice which brooked no argument, no dissent, despite its calmness, to be quiet, to listen, to understand.

To be reminded that she is free, free to do what she thinks is for the best. That there remain only a few more days until she will be automatically freed— escorted from the Castle, blindfold of course, cared for in a small, friendly hostel peopled only by women who would understand, from first-hand experience, her suffering, until she chose to go back to her old life— carrying always, of course the bearer bond for that insanely large sum she had been promised— to go back to find her greatness, with the blessings of all.

But also to be reminded that, nevertheless, in spite of everything, Anne-Marie is asking her not to leave, but to give herself up; almost, in effect, to die, since the sacrifice will be of a whole life in exchange for a mere existence as a puppet, a sex doll, a piece of used cunt; beaten, demeaned, degraded, broken.

With each replaying of this scene over the couple of weeks before the date of her enforced release, Natalie became calmer— not changed by the beatings, the cruelties, not at all— she had a will that could withstand any such that would not also render her useless as a sex slave.

No, it was those long, agonised sessions with Anne-Marie which had changed her. She didn’t understand how it could be, but after each of them her performances in the club-room, in the dungeon, became more beautiful, more compelling— and, as an inevitable consequence, resulted in usage that was more intense, more abusive, more perverse. All of which she found herself accepting with growing sweetness, even encouragement, both overt and implicit. Not to mention— when permitted— an almost animalistically intense sexual responsiveness— matched by an increase in her desire, in her eagerness for sexual intensity, for extreme treatment.

Still, though, in the afternoon tea conversations in Anne-Marie’s drawing room, she would politely, quietly, but also adamantly and determinedly insist that she would not give herself over, that she could not, that she should not be asked to, and Anne Marie would agree with her again that she was certainly making the correct decision.

Excepting only this, that she must understand that this was not the choice Anne-Marie wanted her to make.

“My dear, if I can understand your position, listen to it, take care and time to empathise with your feelings, to validate them, it would be polite and decent, surely, to pay some little attention to how I feel about this choice you are to make?”

The final time Natalie became so distressed that she was subjected to a punishment flogging, during the last intense conversation between the two of them before her time of final decision, Anne-Marie had said something new;

“I tell most girls that they may be giving some things up to become a Castle Girl, but that in many ways they will be gaining something— gaining intensity, gaining a life less ordinary, a life of wild extremes, wild excess, such as few get to experience.”

“With you, dear Natalie, it is entirely the other way around. For you, nothing can compare to the bright possibility of your life as an extraordinary individual, perhaps even an extraordinary artist, a wild and free spirit, untameable. Compared to this, the intensity of the castle is as of one of those cold, lifeless little LED lamps against the blazing sun. This is what we have been exploring, these nights together, we two— this contrast— the insanity of choosing a life as a small, meaningless thing, so limited, so constrained, so cruelly degraded, against the gorgeous and remarkable wild freeness that is your nature.”

“Of the insanity of even considering that there might be a choice.”

“And yet I have persisted in asking you to choose my way, to choose the intolerable clamp which will ruin your wildness forever, which will break you, tame you, make you small, helpless, only able to achieve any sort of release by promoting cruel and abusive behaviour from sadistic strangers.”

“I have not, so far, given you any reason, save that it would please me.”

“Because, of course, there is no possible reason. It would be an atrocity to do this to you— for you to do this to yourself.”

“Still, still, though, I persist. And you— you, my dove, grow quieter, and more lovely, and more excitingly submissive each day.”

“So that it seems, today, tonight, to be time to give you my reason.”

But we have started— if not at the end, at least at the threshold of the major crisis of this story.

To truly understand the character of that crisis, its tragedy, its beauty, perhaps, you need to understand this butterfly, this Natalie, a little better.

We shall meet her then, six months ealier, just as spring touches Paris, and brings it alive again after a cold, grey winter.

Natalie is a wild and free art student, away from her family in America, studying hard and partying harder, already noticed by dealers, considered as ‘one to watch’. She has had several torrid and notorious affairs with older artists (three men and a woman)— all lightweight, none serious; she is a free spirit.

One day, on the way to an illegal party, they had been been acting crazy, she and her friends— as they were wont to do (many of them, living in the rough, free way that they did, with little money or time for bourgeois notions of respectability or decency, were in fact the tearaway children of wealthy families). A large and beautiful vintage limousine had had to swerve, brakes squealing, to avoid them, horn blaring, and brought to a dead halt. They’d laughed and shouted, to have upset a rich old man.

Hilarious!

Natalie, a little high, had climbed onto the bonnet, spread her legs to rest her pussy on the hood ornament, and grinning, bared her breasts, lifting her ripped T-shirt, before leaning forward and deliberately, slowy, pulling a deep scratch with her doorkey into the glossy coachwork, before she and her friends had run off, screeching with laughter.

Much later, outside the party, at 4am, Natalie is drunk, tired, cold and wet; her friends have variously disappeared. Natalie staggers out into the alley— her high has ended badly, she has a terrible headache and cramps, and the terrors threaten.

For Natalie’s wildness is born of emptiness, of need, of uncertainty, of guilt. Despite her wealthy family, despite her effortless artistic talent, despite her beauty, her youth, her ability to talk to anyone, to charm, to seduce— to frighten, if need be— she knows that she is hollow, and she is desperate.

She has run out of drugs, tonight, run out of money, run out of people to riff off, to build wildness with, and she’s tired.

So tired.

And then, serene, there is the beautiful limousine from before.

Taken as itself, it is indeed, beautiful, remarkable, gorgeous, inimitable; she feels a pang of terror at the remembrance of violating such an artefact, with such a stupid, weak motive.

Leaning against the hood, in the straightest, most business-man suit and overcoat, is an older man— grey hair, quite ugly, but in a characterful way.

He’s holding something;

Her keys.

She stares, then makes an effort to dredge up some flippant, rude, sarcastic … something.

And fails.

His expression suggests he is almost disappointed, but is also tinged with amusement.

She gives up. He has her keys. She needs them, she is tired. Just, deal.

She walks over to him, her last energy spent making herself raunch a little— just a little, just to set up the power dynamic between them; she young, gorgeous, desirable, wild; him, old boring, not a hope in hell of having her…

Its cold and raining, and she’s starting to shiver.

“These are yours, I believe.”

She’s tired, but she has to keep up her front, be defiant, refusing to feel bad about her behaviour earlier, even though his kindness in returning her keys is tugging at her conscience, even though, up close, she can feel his warmth, his solidity, the allure of his heavy coat;

“YEAH?”

She is not convincing herself, and it seems not him, either.

He drops them. Drops her keys, directly into a drainage grid. They are gone.

He’s planned this.

She stares, she screams.

Wild as she is, she is not a violent person, but she can yell, using all the gutter French she has been greedily learning.

It takes a while before she runs out of breath. He is unmoved; again, if anything, he appears to be amused;

“I have another set— I had them cut.”

“If you’ll allow me to drive you home, I’ll give them to you. Otherwise, I’ll be going. I think you’ll be able to lift the grid, if you can find something— or wait for a passing man to help you?”

He is amused, and, actually, amusing, she decides, in one of her lightning turns of mood— energised by her anger— also, she suddenly thinks that she recognises him - he’s someone… someone important, anyhow…

And it’s cold and wet and she feels rotten.

But she can’t just give in. She needs to punish him another way. She pulls up her T-shirt, shifts her shoulders to show him how her firm breasts sway, the nipples hard and pointy in the chill and drizzle;

“Liked the look of these earlier, did you? Don’t get your hopes up!”

Again, he is unmoved, apart from an upturn at one corner of his mouth, his eyes do not move from hers;

“Very well, we have a deal. You get a lift, I don’t have to fuck you.”

And again, she experiences a sudden change, has to acknowledge defeat, feels the pain and despair well up, tears cloud her eyes, and she lets herself submit, if momentarily;

“OK, OK, I’m sorry, I’m a stupid, mean cunt and I deserve to be punished and you are a gentleman and I will be so terribly, terribly grateful if you take me home and give me my keys.”

When he takes off his coat and wraps it around her shivering shoulders, she crumples against him, wanting him to hold her, and he does as he helps her into the car, and her heart goes all soft and the tears come and she’s sobbing in the back of his car.

Even in her despair, some part of her is on guard— she’s had nice-seeming rich old men turn into agressive near-rapists before— but he does nothing— does not try to comfort her, or speak to her even, let alone touch her.

She calms, quickly, mercurial as ever, and as she does, she feels his eyes on her; he is watching, and again her protective persona reasserts itself— along with a need in her, to have this night go somewhere.

She sits up, lets the coat fall open— not displaying, but uncovering herself; her tiny, wet T-shirt, her equally tiny microkilt, her long naked legs, her dog collar. Again, she is hoping for a response, but gets none; it’s OK, she has something to say;

“You could, you know.”

His smile tilts again, just a little; she wipes the tears away, grins at him, sticks her tongue out— not aggressively, but suggestively;

“Fuck me. Put your cock in me. It’d be fun. Warm me up, too. I’m a good fuck. Very … attentive, the guys say.”

And she is, too; has put a fair bit of time into thinking about what guys really like, then a lots of attention during sex as to what the guy is doing, what he responds to, honestly to the detriment of her own pleasure, but she really, really likes getting guys off, seeing their faces go slack, hearing them come undone as they nut inside her, and she’s never had great orgasms anyway. For her, sex is all about playing with guys, making it good for them, yes, but also about being in control.

And, as they say, she’s not been hearing any complaints.

But there is something else on his mind, even, it seems, when she opens her legs, to make it clear that she has ‘gone commando’ that night.

“Actually, I would like to see your work. I thought I recognised you earlier— looked you up. Some people think you might have a little talent, a little something; I’m not so sure— but it’s cheap to look.”

And now his eyes did move to her pussy, and it is her who feels uncomfortable. Yet again, he has turned the tables on her, playing her at her own game.

She finds herself very desirous indeed, of closing her legs, ending the show, reclaiming herself, but somehow she cannot— it would be another defeat. And yet she cannot go the other way, either, as she normally would— double down, lift one foot onto the seat, splay herself obscenely, put one hand down and spread her sex lips, be vulgar; just can’t do it, so finds herself still showing her pussy, very obviously, but not feeling powerful— feeling nothing but vulnerable in fact— the opposite of her intention.

“Just so,” he says, and is looking at her face again, that cool, mild amusement just hinted at. She is released, but now, in some stupid rejection of the defeat he has just imposed on her, she still cannot close her legs.

And then it happens— as it rarely does for her; she experiences a rush of hot desire, of sexual arousal, a neediness, and all her fake sauciness dissolves; everything dissolves, and now her legs do open— not aggressively, but softly, offering herself honestly this time;

“I’d … I’d like you to look; I’d like that” she says, letting the double entendre go, without cleverness, offering him both her body, should he want to fuck her, and her paintings; opening herself to him as she has hardly ever done to a man, feeling it as both a fear and a balm, at war with herself, too tired to even try to resolve it, giving the problem to him; fuck or art, or fuck and art? She was in his hands, and, weirdly, she felt safe there.

And it came to her then, who he is; he’s an art dealer— a big one, and she starts, blushing (she hasn’t blushed in years, not like this)— how can she be being so lewd with a prestigious art-dealer— a man who could destroy her chances of ever selling anything with a few damning asides in the course of a morning. How could she have let this happen? I keyed his fancy-ass fucking car, fucked the hood ornament, flashed my tits, flashed my pussy, taunted him! Fu-u-u-u-c-c-K!

She sits up, legs closing tight, coat wrapped tight, all automatic, regrouping, shutting down, pulling in in the face of this realisation. She can feel him watching her, still smiling, feel her heart thumping. Fu-u-u-u-c-c-king HELL!

“You … you’re Jean-Marc Signoret-Gregoire. I know who you are.”

“And I know who you are, Natalie Kleinwerther. I saw your little ’evènement’ last month.”

Natalie and friends had staged an ‘outrage’, stripping naked before throwing fish guts and blood at each other while wearing massive army boots and tin helmets— they’d thrown fish guts at some of the paintings, too— the artist a man who’d been accused of raping some of his models, abusing others.

She is staring at him, betraying her agitation, while he is imperturbable, calm and almost smiling, as always. She can’t tell whether he is disdainful of her behaviour, or interested, or just wants to fuck her, or if he’s genuinely interested in whether she has talent, or … or just likes to watch her being put through her paces.

Because that’s what she feels like— as if he has had her trot out every single mode in her repertoire, and reacted with the same bland, mild but unimpressed amusement to it all, so that she feels drained, emptied, useless. Except for one thing; that he is still looking at her, still paying attention.

And at that moment (and for the following many months, it turns out), she would do anything to have him still paying attention to her. Anything.

He has me. Jesus. No man has ever had me like this. I’ve shown him my tits, my pussy, I’ve scratched his car, I’ve insulted him, I’ve offered to fuck him, and nothing lands. I’m gone; lost. Fuck. I hope I wake up better tomorrow, and this has just been a shitty night.