'Why, what do you mean?'
'I mean that I was happy there. I still dreamed of normal pleasures. That night when the guests arrived I was even star-struck. I did not know that one of the guests was going to be Anna Bertini.'
'Who is Anna Bertini?'
'You wouldn't know her, but in Italy she is a very famous actress. She came with a female friend, a much younger girl who couldn't have been much more than my age. Anna Bertini looked so beautiful. She wore this incredibly elegant evening gown, white lace and very low cut, and her friend wore a short, lemon yellow dress and tan stockings. They both looked like movie stars. The thought of Anna Bertini eating the food that I had prepared was unbelievable. She was a heroine of mine.' Sonia paused, a bitter smile twisting on her lips before she continued.
'The evening started normally enough. I served my spaghetti and then the lamb. Later I served dessert and then coffee.
'The conversation at the dining table seemed light. Every time I entered, the room seemed to be filled with laughter. My English wasn't so good then, but I could tell by the way that everybody watched him and by how they responded to him that Willingham was being very entertaining. Well it is not true that everybody was laughing. The friend - her name was Sabrina I was later to discover - didn't look happy at all, she looked worried as if something bad was going to happen to her, her eyes met mine at one stage but she looked away. There seemed to be real pain in those eyes.
'Anyway, I thought that my job for the evening was over, until Willingham rang for me, asking me to bring him some
grappa
. Thirty minutes had passed since they had drunk their coffees.
'I could not believe the sight that greeted me. My heroine, Anna Bertini was standing over Sabrina with a large riding crop. The poor girl! She was tied to the dining chair. Everton and Willingham stood staring at her. Sabrina's legs and her arms had been fastened to the chair so that she could not move. She still had on the yellow dress, but her legs were splayed and I could see that they had already removed her panties. Her mound was shaved and she wore a little gold ring in her clitoris. I could not understand at all what was going on. I had never seen anything like it in my life. Willingham told me to put the drinks on the table.
'My hand was shaking but I did as I was told to do. The glasses tinkled against one another I was shaking so much. I was curious about why this girl had been tied to the chair in this way. I mean, I wasn't that naive, I knew it was something sexual, but I had no idea that this sort of thing went on. I certainly didn't want any part of it. I just wanted to get out of there as quickly as I could, but as soon as I had placed the tray on the table Willingham caught my eyes. I looked away straight away, but it wasn't enough. Maybe he had thought about it before I had come in the room, or maybe he thought about it then as I put the tray of drinks down he stared at me in a certain way, and... I don't know, but I always thought that somehow that stare was decisive.'
'In what way?' Lillian asked.
'I always felt that if Willingham hadn't looked at me like that he wouldn't have asked me to stay. He turned to me and said just that: "Don't go Sonia, I want you to stay".'
'Do you think it was some sort of test?'
'I am sure it was.'
'So what did you do?'
'What could I do? I had only been there for three days. And on top of that I had gone home the day before and on the strength of enjoying my new job so much and knowing how well I was going to be paid, I had told my stepfather what a son-of-a-bitch he was. I had burned my bridges. All those initial fears I'd had about Everton and Willingham's insistence on privacy had been repressed. Maybe I had been fooling myself, I don't know. I felt like I couldn't do anything else. There was also something else.' Sonia looked into Lillian's eyes, half-smiling, half-ashamed.
'What was that?'
'It was that it excited me to see Sabrina like that, tied up, wondering what they were going to do with her. It was a shock to see a girl like that and to find it exciting. I told you I was naive. I'd had sex with a boy from the village a couple of times, but it had been nothing special, although I thought it wasn't bad at the time. But to see Sabrina like that, her yellow dress all askew, that little gold ring in her sex lips. Everton was blindfolding her as well, but I could see that she was nervous, how she bit on her lower lip.
'I looked at Willingham. "I want you to see everything, my dear," he said, lightly placing his hand on my shoulder. "Absolutely everything." He smiled at me. His eyes looked so kind, but his mouth twisted in a mischievous way.
'After he had spoken he walked up to the girl, tilted her head upwards, and kissed her on the lips. I could tell that Sabrina didn't like being kissed by him by the way her mouth twisted. Her dress was buttoned at the front. He undid the first three buttons. She was wearing a cream-coloured bra.'
'The girl didn't say anything?'
'No, that was what I found most surprising. She didn't say anything at all. She just sat there. I noticed though how her arms tensed; her whole body seemed to become rigid as Willingham unbuttoned her dress. Willingham had unbuttoned her all the way to her waist. She had a beautiful complexion this girl, very dark, like lots of girls from Rome. She had firm round breasts as well. I saw their beautiful round shape when Willingham pulled down her bra cups and ran his fingers along the surface of her brown skin, his fingers settling on her nipples. He took them between his fingers and pulled on them hard. The girl winced with the pressure, gasped, but did not cry out. That surprised me too, because if a man had tweaked me so hard I am sure that I would have cried out. He did it again and again, before turning to Anna Bertini. "Right my dear, I think that it is your turn. You brought this lovely filly here; it is up to you what we do with her".'
'It must have been a great shock for you, all this,' Lillian said, thinking more about her own experiences over the recent couple of hours.
'Yes it was, especially when I looked over at Anna Bertini. I told you how innocent I was. Well Anna Bertini had been my heroine precisely because she was so expert at playing such very innocent, romantic roles. She had a voluptuous figure and long auburn hair and she had recently been voted the most beautiful woman in Rome. I think that part of her attraction was that she looked so innocent. To see her there caressing the riding crop in her hand, the most knowing and evil smiles on her face was the thing that I found most disturbing. She seemed completely different. She walked up to the girl, pulled her head downward by the hair and kissed her so passionately at the same time as she trailed the whip along the exposed skin of her chest.
'It was like an explosion when it happened. She pulled back a couple of paces, arched her arm behind her, and brought the whip down over Sabrina's exposed breasts. I felt the lash. It wasn't terribly hard, but hard enough for the girl to rear against the contact. It went right through me. The girl could not help but scream. The tawse had caught her right over her nipples. I had never witnessed anything like it before. And then to my amazement she did it again. Sabrina's body jerked back with the force of her lash.'
'What was Willingham doing all this time?'
'Oh, Willingham brought his hands together in a loud clap and exclaimed a bravo. I remember catching Everton's eyes, but there seemed to be no life in them. He was sitting on a chair watching the scene intensely but there was no emotion in him whatsoever.'
'What happened next?'
'Anna looked at her work, watched how the white of the girl's breasts turned red with the effect of the lash. She was smiling in a cruel demonic way. "On the table," she said to Everton. Everton rose from his seat and began to untie Sabrina from the chair. Even though the girl seemed shocked by the blows that her supposed friend had landed on her, she seemed relieved to be unfettered from the ropes that had bound her to the chair. Everton picked her up and pushed her onto the dining room table.'
All the time that Sonia had spoken she had continued to caress Lillian's cheek. She suddenly stopped and sat up in the bed, her delightfully full breasts swelling as she rested her back against the wooden headboard. Lillian as naturally rested her head on Sonia's breasts.
'It was then that she walked over to me.'
'Who?'
'Anna of course. Her eyes smiled at me. She reached over and grabbed my hand. My heart was beating frantically. I had no idea what she was going to do or what she wanted to do. Part of me thought I should escape from the madhouse that I seemed to have found myself in. The other half was tremendously excited to be there, to watch another woman have such pain inflicted on her, and by somebody that I had previously thought of as being so innocent. Anna Bertini held me by the hand, then she took my fingers in her own and slowly and calmly placed the handle of the whip in my palm.
'"Everton," she commanded, "spread her legs!" The girl had been lying in a prone position, her head resting against the wood of the table, her bottom arched over its edge. She lay as still as she possibly could, although I could see how heavily she was breathing. Everton pulled up the bottom of her skirt as if he was doing some daily chore. He pulled up her dress so that it lay crumpled at her waist. She had a beautifully firm young bottom, this girl. Everton spread her legs apart and I could see everything, the full buttocks, her dark sex between, the golden stud on her engorged sex lips, the little fleshy jut of her bottom hole.
'It was then that Anna turned to me. "You know what to do, my dear. Don't be so shy." I held the riding crop in my hand. I was shaking. I knew that Anna Bertini wanted me to whip the girl, but I could not understand why. I looked at Everton but his gaze remained as impassive as ever. Then I looked at Willingham who looked at me encouragingly. I really didn't know what to do. I thought about Sabrina. I didn't know such terms as dominant and submissive then. From what I know I can tell you that Sabrina was a classic submissive, that she was enjoying going through this ordeal, but I did not know then. I looked at her exposed bottom before me, the arch of her buttocks, the heavy heaving of her upper torso, her beautiful flowing hair.
'"Well, don't just stand there my dear, lash her!" Willingham commanded, his eyes smiling at me, his tone deceptively warm and friendly.
'I didn't know what to do. I stood there transfixed, watching Sabrina's beautiful body quivering before me. I felt a rush of adrenaline pulse through me. I was blushing. I felt a hot, sick tension rising in my chest. I lifted the riding crop up to shoulder level. "No, not like that. Straighten your arm," Willingham instructed me. "Everton, show her what to do!"
'Everton stood behind me. I could feel the heat of his body pressing against mine as he took my arm and pulled it further back, straightened it, then pulled my body straight. "Now hit her," Willingham shouted.
'Lillian, I had never known anything like it in my life. It excited me and I felt so sinful feeling so excited. I brought the whip down on Sabrina's bare bottom, listened to the leather as it whirred through the air and came down on the beautiful tawny flesh of Sabrina's bottom. "Bravo, again," Willingham said, squeezing the girl's flesh between his wrinkled hands. Everton had resumed standing on her other side, holding Sabrina's other leg so that it was futile for her to try and escape.
'I could see how jealous Anna Bertini looked as I lashed the girl for a second time. I caught her greedy stare from the corner of my eye. The second lash caught Sabrina just below her bottom at the top of her thighs. I saw her body jolt up with the force of the blow.
'"Do you like it my dear?" Willingham asked me. I didn't know how to respond, what the expected answer was. Whipping Sabrina like that caused such a mixture of tumultuous emotions in me it would be difficult to say whether I liked it or not. It was terribly exciting. It made me feel dizzy. I had never even known that I would derive any pleasure from such activity. It came as a shock to me to discover that I did. Tentatively, I nodded my head.
'"Splendid," Willingham replied, "well don't stop then. Tan the girl!" I lashed Sabrina again and again, heard her moan with the heavy infliction of each lash, a brittle, grating noise that seemed only to add to Willingham's pleasure. I could see how Sabrina's buttocks rippled with each stroke. I could see the glee in Willingham's eyes, the envy in Anna Bertini's, the cold, implacable indifference in Everton's posture that seemed to add to rather than detract from the intense erotic atmosphere that seemed to have swept through the room.
'"I want her," Anna Bertini said, her voice cool but demanding. "You want who, Anna?" Willingham asked, his eyes momentarily distracted from the beating I was giving to Sabrina to Anna's lustful gaze. "Why her of course, the maid. She's very beautiful, Lance. Can I have her? Please can I have her?" Her lips at full pout, the voice childish and whiny, her eyes flicking from Willingham to me, her new object of desire. "Everton can finish her off. She's too professional for me. You know I like the fresh, the amateur." "This is my new girl you are talking about." "Come on Lance, I only want to borrow her." Willingham looked pensive. The situation was too fantastic for me to take in. Nobody had ever talked about me in that way before, as if I was merely a pleasure, an object, even a sexual toy for a rich girl's pleasure. I couldn't believe it.'
'But why didn't you go?' Lillian asked. 'Surely you could have just walked out if you wanted to.'
'You're right, Lillian. Of course you are right. I could have done. But I was excited. I was discovering my true identity. I had enjoyed lashing Sabrina, but part of me also wished that the tables had been reversed and it was me who was outstretched on the table and somebody like Sabrina who was lashing me with the whip. As I stroked her beautiful bottom time after time with the riding crop, I imagined that the lash had been descending on me, how it would feel, what pleasure I might have felt with all the mingling of that pleasure and pain. I am a clever woman, Lillian. Maybe I could have done many other things in my life, but I realized there and then why I had become something as mundane as a maid. It must have been that there was something in my soul that made me want to be subservient, that enjoyed taking orders, that in my sexuality there was something terribly submissive about me.