The Image (5 page)

I noted that this photograph was not taken on the same day as the others, or as some of the others. The paint which had spotted the breast could, of course, have been washed off since the previous shot; but missing entirely were the whip marks on the buttocks which do not, naturally, disappear that fast. Perhaps, then, the pictures had been taken in a different order? Or perhaps those charm ing stripes across the skin had just been make-up, like the rest of it?

I was about to ask Claire when, turning to her, I noticed that she was holding still another photo graph she must have taken from her folder just when I thought the series was finished.

She handed it to me. Right away I could tell that it was different from the others. The way it was taken, in the first place, was not at all the same, but there were other things. The body was partially cut off by the camera, while before it had always been shown in its entirety. The setting, moreover, was no longer the austere Gothic room but the very room that we were sitting in.

Thrown back in one of the little armchairs a woman, her nightgown raised to her waist, is caressing the in terior of her cunt.

Because of the blurred folds of the nightgown one can only distinguish the naked parts: the two arms, the hands, the lower belly, and the opening of the thighs. The legs from the knees down, as well as the head, are not in the picture.

In the gaping crevice of the thighs the index and the middle fingers of the left hand part the lips on one side, on the other the thumb and little finger of the right hand perform the same function. The fourth finger of this hand is bent back; the index finger touches the tip of the clearly erect clitoris; and, lower, the middle finger readily penetrates the opening up to the middle joint.

Under the intense lighting the surface of the mucous membranes glistens from its secretions.

What gave me the final proof were the dark, polished fingernails of those two hands. I remembered that Anne left her fingernails natural. And then something about the whole position, the curve of the arms, every detail of the pose, seemed less abandoned, less pleasurable, and the pubic hair a little darker. I glanced at Claire to ask her if I knew the model she had used this time.

Her face was no longer the same: somewhat flushed, less cold, visibly troubled. The general effect made her seem infinitely more desirable than she had ever been before. She was wearing a black sweater and fitted pants; thrown back in her chair, as in the photograph, she let her hand wander in the hollow of her thighs.

The polish on her fingernails was an intense red.

I realized at once it was a picture of herself that she had shown me. She had probably used an automatic time release to take it. The voluminous nightgown, the absence of the face: it was all calculated so that she could add this shot to the others without anyone suspecting it was of a different person.

I put the photograph down on the table without taking my eyes off Claire, wondering if I should approach her.

But Claire got hold of herself immediately. She sat up abruptly in her chair and wheeled around, once again looking like her usual self: severe, rigid, flawlessly beautiful.

She didn't say a word. She just stared at me, straight in the eyes, rather haughtily, to see if I was going to say anything.

I said, gesturing toward the table: “That last photograph there, is that still Anne?”

“Who else could it be?” she answered dryly, in a tone that did not invite me to pursue the matter.

Claire put the photographs back in their folder. She seemed dissatisfied. I couldn't figure out how to bring her back to that brief wordless scene that had taken place over the picture of her body (that it was her body I was by now absolutely certain). The state she had been thrown into, for a moment, by the idea that a man saw her in such a posture, seemed to suggest new possibilities that would have been unthinkable judging from her usual behavior.

But when she asked me, with condescending politeness, what I thought of her talents as an executioner I felt once more how incapable I was of seducing her, or of even wanting to.

Little Anne was enough to satisfy her need to humiliate someone. She offered her to others as a beast of prey might share its kill, instead of offering herself.

I answered that I thought her talents as an executioner were on a level with her talents as a photographer, and that was a great compliment.

“Thank you,” she said, bowing to me with an ironical little smile.

But all this lacked gaiety or spontaneity. Having recovered from an inexplicable moment of weakness Claire was on the defensive, ready to bite. I had the impression that she was now looking for a chance to demonstrate her strength, or her hard-heartedness.

“And my model, aren't you going to compliment me about her?”

I decided to answer referring only to Anne, and assured Claire that in Anne she indeed possessed the most delectable of victims.

“You ran into her the other day, didn't you?” she then asked me.

“Yes, in Montmartre. Only she wasn't being delectable at all!”

“Oh? What do you mean?”

I thought for a second, trying to make out what Claire knew of our encounter.

“She probably just didn't feel like talking,” I said evasively.

“Did she, by any chance, show a lack of respect for you?”

“I didn't know she owed me any.”

And I smiled, amused by this idea.

“She owes it to you, if I so desire,” said Claire.

That's just what the situation proved to be, from then on.

There was only one problem: to guess exactly what it was that Claire desired. Many things, no doubt, provided they were carried out in her presence.

As for me, it was mostly curiosity that kept me there, at that particular point. But as soon as Anne came into the room, summoned by her friend in a Voice full of menaces, or perhaps promises, I was aware of the reawakening of certain other feelings.

We had sat back down, Claire and I, in the two little comfortable armchairs facing the middle of the rug. The low table, of no use now, had been pushed into a corner.

Anne therefore had to appear before us, according to the custom: standing up, arms at her sides, eyelids lowered. She was dressed in a pleated skirt and a blouse; not wearing shoes, she walked in her stocking feet. She had been called in to straighten out the incident at the bookstore and to be pun ished on the spot if she deserved it.

Naturally, it wasn't a question of knowing whether the girl deserved a punishment or not, but of finding an excuse to torture her as we pleased while seeming to punish her. Claire, more over, was speaking with a vehemence that seemed to bode no good for her victim.

It only took a few seconds to convince her that there was evidence of grave insubordination on Anne's part. And her immediate punishment was decided before she could even open her mouth to defend herself.

“Get undressed!” Claire ordered.

Little Anne seemed to know her role by heart, and needed no directing. She got to her knees in front of her mistress, on the thick wool carpet, and took off her clothes one by one. To all appearances she was observing a sort of ritual.

Since it was very hot she wasn't wearing much of anything anyhow. She started with her skirt which she unhooked at the waist, opened at the hip, and pulled up over her head.

She wore no panties that day either, and her garter belt was of pale blue satin with a little lace flounce. She unbuttoned her short blouse and left it that way, partly open, so that one could already glimpse her breasts under the light material.

Then she undid her stockings and removed them, one after the other, lifting first one knee and then the other. Then she unhooked her garter belt in the back and placed it, along with the skirt and the two stockings, beside her on the rug. Having finally removed her blouse, the last piece of clothing, she raised her arms in the air to hide the upper part of her face behind them.

She stayed in this position, kneeling, thighs spread apart, very straight, entirely exposed for us to contemplate.

Her body was soft and full, still childishly thin but nicely rounded and dimpled, more touching than I had ever seen it. The fair skin was very smooth all over, a little paler on the belly and the breasts whose pink tips seemed to have been lightly rouged. Even though I was looking at the young woman from the front, I was reminded of the picture that showed her from the back, chained to the iron bed in a similar position, the buttocks streaked by the lashes of the whip. The memory of those photographs and their tortures gave full significance to the attitude of waiting in which the victim held herself.

Claire seemed ready for any sort of violence. But she confined herself, at first, to several comments on the charms of that docile body, the perfection its shape, the gracefulness of the attitude, lingering over eulogies for the firm breasts and the plump little cunt, extolling that soft flesh offered up for her amusement, the fragile skin that she already savored mutilating.

Far from softening during these preliminary rem arks, her voice grew more violent and more enraged as she proceeded with the program of the coming tortures. As far as I was concerned, even the most fantastic of tortures sounded perfectly ordinary compared to those I had just seen such lifelike reproductions of in the photographs.

Claire interspersed her speech with specific, obscene words, with insults, and with degrading intimate references. At the height of her passion she suddenly stopped...

After quite a long silence she said, more calmly:

“Get up, you little slut! Go and get me the whip!” The girl stood up, keeping one arm over her eyes. She turned and crossed the rug to the door. She moved with a child-like grace that was rather disconcerting, considering her utter nakedness. The two round shapes of her buttocks, as yet un harmed, undulating as she walked, held out promise of the most ruthless pleasures.

Anne came back right away, one of her forearms still hiding the upper part of her face. In her free hand she held a leather object. She knelt again before Claire, close enough to hand it to her.

It was the same braided whip as in the photograph. Claire seized it by the handle and made the victim turn a little more sideways, in front of her chair, so that I could get a front view of her myself.

Without having to be told anything further, the girl once more spread her knees wide and raised her arms, this time above her head so that we could also watch her lovely frightened face and her pretty, half-opened mouth during the torture.

But Claire, instead of striking, seemed now to grow gentler. She spoke in a softer voice. Although her remarks still dealt with various atrocities in some detail, one might have mistaken them for words of love.

The girl was within easy reach. Claire leaned forward and held out her left hand to run her fingers several times over her breasts. The little pink nipples stood up, erect. Claire began to play with them, to make them even stiffer, then she stroked the hollow of the armpit nearest her.

Her hand came back to the breast again, then descended the length of the hip to come and stroke the insides of the thighs.

Her voice was syrupy, as though she were talking to a little child.

“She's adorable like that, the little girl. She loves it when we put her on her knees so we can whip her, doesn't she?... It gets her all excited... She is all wet already, isn't she?...” The inquisitive hand went up again until it reached the cunt. The fingertips stroked the crevice two or three times, moving from front to back. At the same time the other hand, which held the whip, caressed the buttocks from behind.

Then abruptly the index finger of the left hand penetrated between the lips, below the curly hairs of the crotch. The finger entered with a single thrust into the ardent depths. Anne closed her eyes entirely and opened her mouth a little wider.

Claire gave me a triumphant look. The ease of penetration proved, in effect, that the girl was nice and moist, aroused, ready for love.

“You see,” Claire said to me, “how well she has been broken in: when one is about to beat her, she gets all set for her orgasm.

It's a question of training, just like with a dog! I only had to fondle her often enough in this position, and now she can no longer keep herself from wanting to be satisfied... Isn't that so, you little whore?”

At this, without taking her left hand out from between the thighs in front, Claire, with her right hand, administered a violent stroke of the whip across the girl's buttocks. Her skill in wielding the lash indicated long hours of practice.

The girl jumped, her arms instinctively drop ping a little.

But she quickly raised them again. Claire struck a second time.

“Look at Jean,” she ordered. “It's at his request that you're being punished.”

Anne raised her eyelids, even holding them wide open in order to be able to bear the pain more easily. She also concentrated on keeping her mouth open.

To be able to hit harder and more conveniently, Claire was obliged to remove her left hand from the girl's cunt. The blows, better aimed, fell with regularity across the small of the back. Now the girl gave a little groan each time the whip landed, an “Oh!” of pain that sounded like a gasp of love.

Claire went on beating her, faster and faster. The rhythm of the victim's cries mounted: “Oh... Oh... Oh... Oh...” Then, unable to bear it any longer, she dropped one arm until it touched the floor and sank back, half sitting on her legs.

Claire stopped the beating. The girl, seized with terror, straightened up again, correcting the position of her knees, and raised her arm once more above her head.

“It might be better to tie her up,” I said. “Yes, if you like,” Claire answered.

Then, very quietly, the girl began to cry. The tears formed in the corners of her eyes and rolled down her flushed cheeks. A shudder ran through her body from time to time. Then she tried to sniffle, as inconspicuously as possible.