"Touch Yourself!"

Then Sir Stephen approached and, taking her by the shoulders, made her lie down on the rug: she found herself on her back, her legs drawn up, her knees flexed. Sir Stephen had seated himself on the same spot on the sofa where, a moment ago, she had been leaning; he seized her right knee and pulled her to him. As she was facing the fireplace, the nearby fire shed an intense fight upon the two wefl-opened furrows of her womb and buttocks. Without letting go of her, Sir Stephen curtly ordered her to caress herself, but not to close her legs. Startled, she obediently stretched her right hand toward her sex and her fingers encountered, between the parted fleece, the already burning morsel of flesh placed above where the fragile lips came together.

She touched that flesh, then abruptly removed her hand and stammered:

'I can't.'

And she actually could not. She had never caressed herself except furtively in the warmth and obscurity of her own bed, when she had slept alone; and never had she pursued her pleasure to a climax. She'd gone to sleep and sometimes the climax would come later, in a dream, and she had waked, disappointed that it had been simultaneously so strong and so fleeting.

Sir Stephen's stare was insistent, compelling. She could not bear it and, repeating her 'I can't,' she shut her eyes. For she saw it again, and couldn't get it out of her mind: every time she saw it she had the same sickening sensation she'd had when she had actually witnessed it when she was fifteen years old: Marion slumped down in a leather armchair in a hotel room; Marion, one leg flung over an arm of the chair and her hand half-hanging over the other arm: caressing herself, and moaning, in front of O. Marion had told her that she'd once caressed herself that way in her office, at a time when she thought there was no one else there; and the boss had suddenly walked in and caught her in the act.

O remembered Marion's office: a bare room, pale green walls, north light filtering through dusty windows.

There was one chair in the room, intended for visitors and it was opposite the table.

'Did you run away?' O had asked. 'No,' Marion had replied, 'he asked me to go ahead and start again, but he locked the door and made me take off my panties and he'd moved the chair over by the window.'

O had been overwhelmed with admiration for what she'd considered Marion's courage, and with horror, and had shyly but stubbornly refused to caress herself in front of Marion, and had sworn that she'd never caress herself in front of anyone. Marion had laughed and said: 'You'll see. Wait till your lover asks you to."

René had never asked her to. Would she have done it if had he asked? Of course she would, but she would also have been terrified that she might see in Renés eyes the same look of disgust she had felt while watching Marion. Which was absurd. And since it was Sir Stephen, that was even more absurd; what difference did it make to her if Sir Stephen were disgusted? But no, she couldn't. For the third time, she murmured:

'I can't.' Low as was the voice in which she uttered those two words, he heard it, released her, rose, tied his robe shut, and ordered O to get up.

'Am I to take that for obedience?' he asked.

Then he caught her two wrists in his left hand, and, with his right hand, slapped her hard. She staggered and would have fallen had he not held her up.

'I have something to say to you,' he said.

'I'm afraid René has prepared you very poorly.'

'I always obey René,' she stammered.

'You are confusing love and obedience. You're going to obey me without loving me and without my loving you.'