Primula Bond - The Unbreakable Trilogy

‘Remind you of anything, Serena? These sounds? That white skin, scored across with punishment?’

As a third stroke comes down and the thwack resounds round the panelled room we’re standing in, I could swear that instead of moaning or cringing in fear, Crystal actually lifts her bottom, as if inviting the stroke instead of recoiling from it. She moves slightly from side to side, kneeling up to lift her bottom higher into the air. As I glimpse the softness tucked between her legs, the quick slash of bright red as she wiggles her bottom, a spike of desire flashes through me and at last I recognise it for what it is. Clear, urgent, sexual desire.

I was aroused when I watched little Perpetua and her secret sisters. But this is like a hand reaching inside and physically shaking me. It’s not Crystal I want, surely?

The dominatrix creature kicks at the back of Crystal’s knees, so that she rises higher, thrusting her bottom, decorated now with three pink stripes, into the air. The dominatrix places the whip on the crack and for a moment I freeze. Is she going to shove the whip in there? Hasn’t Crystal suffered enough? My own body clenches tighter still. I’m so close to feeling it for myself. I wriggle restlessly as the whip strokes Crystal’s bottom almost tenderly. Yes, it would be tender as well as cruel. Sweet, as well as sour.

I wish I could see the dominatrix’s face. Who is she?

The whip is in the air, swiping down once more onto the butt cheek. I sway along with the teasing of the whip. Four pink stripes on her bottom and now an audible groan escapes from Crystal, but she’s unashamedly showing her pleasure now. She’s fidgeting from side to side like a mare scratching herself on a fence. The blows have raised her beaten flesh into weals. One hand has come up brazenly between her legs and she is touching herself, just as I’m desperate to do, she’s moaning as she waits for her mistress to strike her, her fingers sweeping up and down, her face tilted heavenwards as she sways, one long white finger going up inside, pushing in.

I can feel heat on my bottom, the thrust of the finger’s invasion. It will hurt, I know it, but although I can feel the fear I want to be in the film now. I want to be in there with these people, I want to push Crystal aside, take my place in front of the mistress, feel those blows on my own soft skin and the heat and pain they will conjure up.

Her black eyes blaze and I read clearly what’s going on behind them. She isn’t cowed, or humiliated. Or if she is, she’s loving the belittling. Being paid to reveal it. She’s euphoric. She’s loving those red, sore stripes on her. This is more than a job to her. They’re battle scars. They’ve brought her to life.

My mouth drops open as she tips her head back, her eyes and mouth alight with pleasure. She lifts her bottom for more. I push mine back against the wall. It’s like a foreign language being translated for me. It’s all so clear now. It’s not Crystal I want. I want to be playing her part.

Suddenly the picture freezes.

‘Have you seen enough, Serena?’

For the first time since we met I’ve forgotten about Gustav. I can see my face superimposed onto Crystal’s. She was tense and stiff when she lay down on that bed. Now she’s liberated. Crazy Crystal. Surrendered Serena. No illusion. That was real. Every blow, every flinch and tremor felt real to me.

I press my hand against the frozen image on the screen. ‘I could quite happily go right back to the beginning and see it all again. But then I might never leave! So no. Let’s get out of here.’

I saw the nuns doing it, and now I’ve seen Crystal submitting to it. I won’t be still, won’t rest, until I’ve tried this for myself, and surely that’s why Gustav brought me here today? To show me these films, these scenes, these people writhing with pleasure. To tease me, then invite me to try it. My own photographs, the little nuns hanging brazenly in the other gallery, have told him I have this twisted urge to watch and then to be tried and punished. He understood it before I’d even admitted it to myself. But I’m ready for it now. In fact, I’m practically ready to come. Euphoria rushes through me, heats my body, lifts my feet. I want to run as fast as I can. Jump as high as I can. I have to get him home, persuade him to do all those things to me.

Gustav has done what he set out to do. He’s shown me what I need, what I want him to do next.

I jerk the silver chain tight, lead him quickly through the dark, panelled rooms. The twisting, groaning, gyrating bodies will continue silently writhing inside their fantasies, imprisoned joyously inside those frames forever.

At the front door Gustav lets me push past him.

‘I don’t want to talk. I just want to get home before these images fade. They’ve done something to me, Gustav.’ I jump down the entire flight of steps, tipping my head back to the twilight. ‘I’ve got this terrible itch I need to scratch. You can help me. That’s why you brought me here, isn’t it?’

He plays the silver chain through his hands like a fishing line, then gives it a playful tug. I jerk exaggeratedly back towards him, making jazz hands like a puppet. I’m grinning like the Cheshire Cat. I can’t identify this new exuberance. I’m fizzing with a deep, dark energy.

His eyes burn with the tenderness I saw at the private view the other night. I’m the cat on a hot tin roof. As he starts to descend the steps it’s my turn to yank on the chain.

‘Remember your place, young lady.’

Still grinning at me he dances me right up to him with the chain. Our faces are so close. His mouth opening to speak, to smile, perchance to kiss?

His big silver car purrs alongside and he opens the door for me.

I climb into the back seat first, and then tug the silver chain again, urging Gustav to hurry up as he gets into the car after me.

‘Take me home, Mr Levi.’

‘Dickson? This girl has something pressing on her mind,’ Gustav murmurs, rapping smartly on the window then sitting back, dangling the chain loosely in his lap. I challenge myself not to touch him, the whole way home.

‘Yeah, Dickson?’ I call out. ‘Step on it.’

We’re back in the tall dark house in the quiet garden square. Dickson has brought my bags in, taken them upstairs. Lit candles and fires around the house. Set out a meal of rare steak and roasted vegetables dripping in olive oil, and tells us chocolate pudding is in the fridge. Two bottles of red wine are breathing on the white counter in the kitchen. And then he’s gone, and we’re alone.

I’m wearing another dress that magically was waiting for me on the bed in the attic room. A vibrant purple number, velvet and medieval, very low at the sequinned bodice and cut on the bias so that it flares out from my hips and swishes round my bare ankles when I come back downstairs. I don’t put on any underwear. Whatever I put on will be wet in no time. I’m still on fire and I’ve got to get this over with.

I eat the dinner as quickly as I can. We race at it like a couple of cavemen, tearing at the meat, tossing the vegetables into our mouths, wiping oil off our chins with the white napkins but then glugging red wine down our necks as if we’re in the desert.

‘Let the pudding wait,’ I say, getting up from the table and leading him, with the silver chain, into the drawing room. ‘I know why you showed me that collection today, Gustav. I know why you showed me Crystal being slapped by that woman. I didn’t get it at first. But it turned me on, just as you predicted. And now I want you to do that to me.’

He stands in the doorway as I pace agitatedly around the room. He’s brushed his black hair back and has changed into a soft cashmere sweater in the same deep purple as my dress with a white T-shirt underneath. His black jeans accentuate his long legs and the hips I long to feel grinding against me.