6 comments/ 8724 views/ 1 favorites The English Cellar By: dora_salonica On the second Friday of August, 2011, I landed at a second-class airport, north of London. That is the airport normally used by the cheap airlines I had chosen. During the flight, air-hostesses, who spoke with heavy Irish, Spanish and Scottish accents, tried to sell us newspapers, orange-juice, sandwiches, even lottery tickets, causing silent panic attacks among the passengers. One cannot help but wonder about the aircraft the cheapskates were using, let alone the kind of pilot who would work for a company like that. Nevertheless, we landed smoothly and the brakes miraculously worked. Personally, I was not scared at all. I was mostly bored. I never worry about the things I am unable to control. I found the railway station underneath the airport. I boarded the first train to Hampstead Heath, the site of the riots just two days before. I got there at 10:00 at night and had to wait for half an hour for the next train. I was practically alone in the underground station. There was an Italian couple sitting near me, probably thinking that my presence would protect them. I was not particularly worried. With the skinhead haircut that the new English Master had made me get, I do not think that any rioting Englishman would ever think about harassing me. At 11:00 at night I arrived at King's Cross, in the center of London. It was full of tastelessly dressed men with pointy shoes that turned upwards like Turkish slippers, pale women with freckles and flimsy cardigans, dark-skinned beggars who were walking about shuffling their feet. I sat at a bench near a handsome black lad and slowly enjoyed a fabulous chicken sandwich by Burger King, which I had missed so much, and drank a lousy black coffee, for which I paid the exorbitant amount of 5 pounds. I used the public toilette for 25 pence, washed my hands and my face and at midnight I boarded the train that would take me to the city in the North, where the English Master, the one whom I called the Elder, because he was well past his prime, was waiting for me. At 2:00 in the morning I arrived at my destination. I called the Elder telling him I was there and took a taxi. The ride lasted for about ten minutes. I got out of the taxi, opened the garden gate and approached the house, dragging my suitcase behind me. I fumbled for the doorbell in the dark, unable to find it, so I waited patiently in the rain for the Elder to open the door for me. Indeed, he soon realized I was there and opened the door. He let me in and we embraced me awkwardly in the hall, next to some shoes scattered on the floor. We said a few formalities, "welcome", "hello" etc. A heavy musty smell soon became apparent. I decided to ignore it. I was too tired after my long journey. This time, the quest for the ultimate pleasure had caused me to travel more than 2000 kilometers! The Elder took my suitcase and carried it upstairs to the first floor. My room was next to his. Nice bed, though I pointed out jokingly that I would prefer a four-poster canopy bed. Of course these little jokes usually turn into boomerangs and hit me on the head, which is something I am bitterly aware of. That is the reason why I always advise submissive girls who are new to all this, to be careful what they say. The Elder showed me where the bathroom was, said goodnight and went to bed, closing his bedroom door behind him. I could not help but notice that the two armchairs decorating my room were very old and torn, so old that personally I would have thrown them away years ago, let alone place them in the guests' room. A wooden dresser with mirror was also in pretty bad shape. Alright, I thought to myself, the guy is just not so well off. So what? Yet I could sense something was wrong. When I went to the bathroom, I realized that my thoughts were not groundless. Next to the toilette stood a very old chair with a hole gaping in the seat, a hole large enough for a hand to fit in. Under the chair a cardboard box was serving as a toilette bin. Perhaps there is not an ΙΚΕΑ in the area, I thought. On the other hand, anyone can buy a proper bin. With an ever-growing suspicion that this was no ordinary house, I decided to get some sleep. In the morning I would figure out how to deal with the situation. I slept pretty well; the bed was soft and did not creak at all. In the morning I was the first to wake up. I went to the bathroom, laughed with the ingenious improvisation of a bin, threw the toilette paper into the box via the chair and then went down to the kitchen to make coffee. The kitchen was in a chaotic state. The sink was filled with dishes and pots and cups, all standing in some filthy water inside a red basin that had gone moldy. On the countertop next to the sink, there was a towering stash of frying pans, cheese graters, Tupperware, bottles of vinegar, cans of food, spices, bills and what not. It was an immense clutter of things, which would have driven me to desperation, if I were one of those women who despair easily. There was no coffee in the house, so I made a cup of tea. I used a cracked teapot, which had probably never been washed, and waited for the Elder to come downstairs. Soon he appeared. He was wearing an old beige robe de chambre. Instead of slippers - I had abandoned the dream for pretty feet in brown leather slippers - he was wearing a pair of very old, torn trainers. They looked very comfortable though, I must admit. His appearance was not bad at all for his age. He possessed a youthful body, notwithstanding the somewhat bloated belly, which I discovered later was due to beer consumption. He had beautiful blue eyes, very much to my liking. I noticed that he liked to suck on his upper lip on the left side, as he was missing a few teeth. When I asked him, in one of the following days, why he did not get a small bridge implanted, he said that he was opposed to all cosmetic interventions. He also said that he would prefer me with my hair in its natural color, half gray and half brown, and with my nails unpolished and cut short, so I cannot accuse him of any hypocrisy. Of course, if I stopped shaving my legs, my armpits and my pubic area, I bet I would score a point. Perhaps I would convince him then to visit the dentist and I do not want to hear anything about topping from the bottom. That is the violence of logic; it works just as well from the bottom upwards as it works from the top downwards. I asked him for permission to clean up a bit in the kitchen and he gave it to me. I noticed he was a little annoyed, because he told me he had already cleaned up for my arrival. I could not imagine what the place looked like before. "What are those black things under the table?" I asked with my little girl's naïveté. "Mousetraps," said the Elder. Ah, indeed. Stay calm my girl, keep cool. There are worse things, aren't there? How about getting fucked by a middle-aged man dressed in a red peignoir? Or being used as a toilette by a young Dom and his buddy? How about being betrayed by the man who you trust with your life? I immediately felt better. This was a piece of cake. I pulled up my sleeves and started cleaning the kitchen. I asked him to get rid of the red basin, which could not possibly be cleaned and though he frowned, he agreed to throw it away. Of course, the next day I noticed that the basin had simply been placed in the garden, next to the dustbins, possibly with the intent of placing it back in its rightful position, as soon as the obsessive-compulsive Greek girl went back to Greece. No matter. I threw away most of the spices and the tins and the sauces and pretty much everything on those kitchen shelves. Most things had expired since 1996! This is no joke, these things had been standing there for fifteen years! It is clear to me that this novel I have been working on, about my quest for the ultimate pleasure, has long since developed into a sociological treatise or a novel of manners about the beginning of the 21st century. I ended my work using bleach on the mosaic floor. My shoes finally stopped sticking to the floor with small squeaky sounds. At last, I was done! What now? Should I stay or should I go? I stayed. I stayed mostly out of curiosity, just to see what else was going to happen. It is really amazing how I go through this life, from day to day, from week to week, from one adventure to the next. I always believed that I do not possess enough imagination to write books. But with this type of life, who needs an imagination? The Elder lived in a village outside the large city of the North. That morning we went shopping to the village. Not to the super market, but to small shops with delicatessen and meat and vegetables, where everyone knew him. He bought the best things, smoked bacon, free range eggs, minced meat, mushrooms, pork pies garnished with apple jelly (this tendency of the English to mix meat with something sweet comes from the Middle Ages, from the exquisite blancmange). He would open his wallet and pull out hundreds of pounds. I could not understand what the hell was going on. He did not seem to be stingy at all. He loaded me with all the shopping like a beast of burden and I carried everything without complaint. The only thing he did not buy was fruit and vegetables. "Ι never eat them," he said, but if I wanted any he would get me some. I said, no, it did not matter. Then he took me to a charity shop, one of those stores that sell second-hand objects, clothes, shoes etc and the proceeds go to charity. "This is where I buy all my clothes," said the Elder. He bought me a pair of pink sandals for 3 pounds - less than the Burger King chicken sandwich. I thanked him and took the shoes. I am not conceited at all. If the Master condescends to wear second-hand clothes, then who am I to complain? They were lovely - still are. Back at home we cooked eggs and mushrooms and bacon. We cooked the meal together and we were a good team. Then we ate together in silence. I could see that he did not like to talk much and that if I did not talk, we simply would remain silent. This did not bother me in the slightest. My thoughts are usually great company. Feeling alone is for people who do not possess a solid self where it should be, standing right in the middle of their being, smiling in the knowledge of near utter ignorance and the acceptance of near utter loneliness. So I did not disturb the blessed silence and I could tell that the Elder really enjoyed the quiet meal. Then we went to the living room to watch some TV. He sat in what was obviously his favourite place on the couch, on a cushion empty of cotton. I thought it was cute, the way he actually seemed to find it very comfortable. The cushion next to him was gutted, with the cotton half-hanging out. The back of the couch had lost its color in patches, but it was difficult to determine if it had gone moldy or if it had been in a fire. The other couch was half-covered with a piece of cloth. I did not have the courage to lift the cloth to see what was hiding underneath. The curtains were hanging limp from the ceiling. One of the windows was supported with a wooden beam. The plaster on the ceiling above the curtains had frayed horribly, in a surrealistic design, having lost the battle with dampness a long time ago. Perhaps this explained the musty smell in the house. In the middle of the living room there was a site for a fireplace and in there stood a gas heater, from which hung a label with a single word on it: "Condemned". "What does this mean?" I asked. "The gas company does not allow me to use it, because it did not come up to standard, the chimney was too narrow or something. So I left it as it was, condemned." Sure, why change anything in our environment? Let it collapse around us, what difference does it make? I could not sit on the couch, I found it quite impossible. I sat on the floor, next to his feet, on some dusty odd pieces of carpet, which seemed preferable. He was watching an indifferent program about a journey to India. I never watch television; I use my own thoughts to amuse myself. So I surrendered myself to my thoughts. I was in a very peculiar house, chilling in my monumental sang-froid, having discovered again the symmetries that move the strings of my life. I did not feel bad anymore. For right above the condemned gas heater, on the two living-room walls, loomed the Garden of Earthly Delights, the fabulous triptych by Hieronymus Bosch. Huge posters, glued to the wallpaper, depicting the pains and pleasures of humanity, in a painting that was incorporated into the house for ever, just as it had been nailed in my heart, with the force of unrequited love, so long ago. And so I found myself at home, everything was fine. Home, sweet home... All the Masters of my life had a screw loose, all of them, not a single one was alright, not one was tout-a-fait normal, as my mother always says, criticizing my choices. Perhaps it was precisely the fault in that vital screw, a different screw in each one, that turned them into sadists. It is possible that sadism is a substitute to the screw, it may be the only thing that keeps them together in a sense, so that they are not given over to absolute madness. That is why it is so important for them to have an object for their sadism. And when they do not have any, they start fretting in their clothes - whether they are second-hand or not... Soon I asked permission to go up to my room, where the musty smell was fainter. Disregarding the summer chill of Northern England, I opened the window to allow in some fresh air. The window overlooked two back gardens. The garden to the right belonged to the house next door. Half of it was paved with large stones and the other half displayed fabulous flower beds and well manicured grass. There were small lanterns along the edges of the garden, wrought iron furniture, wooden bird feeders filled with seed and small ponds with water for the birds. Underneath the window of my room there was "our" garden. This had never been cleaned, the stones were black with slime, the grass was interspersed with weeds. There was something like a chicken coop in one corner but it was full of garbage. Two ponds with stagnant water, covered with moss, were home to a dozen frogs. Three large plastic dustbins were in the middle of the "garden", one of them fallen to the ground, with its top off, as if decapitated. The red basin was standing next to the dustbins, like a silent accusation. In the bookcase in my room (all the rooms had a bookcase, even the kitchen), I found about half of the 40 books written by the Elder. I picked up the most recent and started reading it. It was not bad at all, I soon became engrossed in it. The "bad guys" were truly bad, they were not kidding. They invented the most awful torments for their victims and the most terrible vengeance for their enemies, displaying a complete lack of inhibition. They were what we call sociopaths. I went on reading until I fell asleep. Two hours later, the Elder came into my room and woke me up. "Will you come with me to the pub?" he asked me. Sure I would. But I wanted to take a shower first so I asked him for a towel. I had not brought a towel with me, because the cheap airlines only allowed 15 kilos per passenger. "There are many clean towels, here, in the box," said the Elder and showed me an old cardboard box in a corner, on the bathroom floor. I took a towel with the English flag. I showered, using a cup to rinse off. From one of the taps flowed burning water and from the other tap the water flowed icy cold. Soon I managed to calculate how to use warm water to wash up. I finished the shower and dried myself up, my body starting at once to smell musty too. The towels had not been dried properly after they had been washed. Their being kept in a cardboard box did not help either. I thought of my own fluffy towels that smelled of lavender, folded neatly in the wardrobe back at home and sighed. Accept, I kept saying to myself like a mantra, accept. I dressed somewhat simply to avoid looking out of place next to the Elder. He wore a shirt that had not been ironed and a pair of old jeans. A dusty Panama hat, gone yellow with time, completed the outfit. For myself I chose a black skirt, a black top, a pink corduroy jacket, no stockings and the new old pink sandals. Dressed like that, we finally exited the 19th century residence, which was being allowed to crumble around the Elder. We took the bus, as he did not have a car. He did not have a cell phone either, but nor does my mother, so it is okay. The last time I had gone on a bus was the eighties. I liked it though. We took a double-decker bus and sat upstairs. I enjoyed feeling somehow connected to the rest of humanity. I also liked the fact that at the bus-stop, all the passengers who got off, one after the other, turned and said "thank you" to the driver. They were thanking him because he had given them a ride! It was almost touching. Of course they were all utterly mad but that did not matter. The Elder and I were of course the maddest of the lot. He did not take me to the pub which he usually frequented, because he said he had fallen out with the proprietor, who had sold him flat beer and would not admit it. In a few days, he said, as soon as the incident was forgotten, he would put some glue in the lock of the pub door! That would show him! I realized then that his mind worked with the seductive playfulness of a child. And I could not help but remember what Steve Jobs had said: "Stay hungry, stay foolish." I did not know which one of us was more foolish, but as far as the hunger went, I could easily devour the entire universe and still it would not be enough... He took me to a pub housed in a 1625 mansion, which had been converted to a luxurious hotel. It had a lovely garden, with an immense yew tree, under which the Elder and I took a selfie with my cell phone. We were a very matching couple, I must admit. He looked a bit like Hemingway and I looked a bit like his heroine, Lady Brett, the nymphomaniac who had fallen in love with a sexually impotent man. We sat in the pub, which was in the old stables of the mansion. He ordered warm beer for both of us and it was not bad at all. We ate Yorkshire pudding, the traditional dish of the region, with a few boiled vegetables on the side. He kept quiet throughout the meal but I discovered I was able to draw him into conversation. When he got tired with the pressure of the conversation, he would start talking to himself. He would suddenly burst into an indignant "Jesus", followed by some unintelligible stuff. It seemed that he was angry with someone. The discussions he had with that imaginary person were quite intense and of great interest to me. When I asked him who it was he had these discussions with, he said it was mostly with his mother, who had been dead for years. It was a woman who had never accepted him, had never allowed him to come emotionally close to her, had no real interests, no desires, she was just simply impenetrable, a closed circuit. Perhaps that was the reason he had become a Master, I thought to myself. Perhaps he felt the need to enter the closed circuit of a woman, because he had been unable to do that with his own mother. He did not limit himself to the imaginary discussions but also gesticulated with his right hand. I had noticed he made these movements on the bus and in the street when we walked, though he took care to be as discrete as possible, perhaps so that I would not consider him mad. The movements consisted of making the tips of his fingers dance through the air, in a delicate, circular manner. It was as if he was caressing the past with his hand. I said nothing more about it and let him go on doing it without any reaction on my part. Soon, as the days went by, he became bolder and started having regular conversations, accompanied by large gestures, directed at his dead mother. The English Cellar Some people believe that being a slave has to do with how much pain we concede to, how much humiliation we can withstand, how much we enjoy being used, in a sexual or in a non-sexual way. But this is not it at all. This is but a small part of the mentality of the slave. Our passivity is not only physical, sexual or erotic. This is an existential passivity, a passivity that results in a perfect lack of judgment. We accept the Master just as he is, without any desire to change him in the slightest. A slave is a calm and warm embrace, a fountain of tenderness, an endless compliance, an oasis of understanding, well beyond the unconditional love of a mother, well beyond the passion of a lover, well beyond the tender care of a companion. Gradually increasing the number of selected phrases I uttered in between the sips of warm beer, I managed to begin something that resembled a conversation. Thus I started delving into the thought of that man who appeared to be so hurt, but who kept himself integral, intact, despite all external interference, including that of a crumbling environment. His inability to realize that his furniture was good just for burning, his refusal to sort through the objects around him, to throw away the useless ones and put the rest in order, his reluctance to make any changes in his life in the last twenty years, the circular movements with his hands - his only defense against having lost the object of his love and hate - the bitterness after the long years of loneliness, expressed so clearly in the sucking in of his lips, had already sketched for me an overwhelming portrait, which I could not ignore, nor look down upon. Here was a rock, a man who would not budge an inch. My cosmopolitan outlook on a century that I called my own, as if I had invented it myself, was nothing but the glance of a woman drifting like flotsam, sampling a plethora of experiences, unable to interpret them, unable to put them together into an intelligible puzzle. I needed this intensely eccentric man as much as he needed me and my gusto. And so I brought the discussion to the vital matter, the one for which I had traveled 2000 kilometers: the matter of physical torture. I started enumerating my own vices, the fantasies that arouse me, the ones I have already seen come true and those that I intend to experience in the coming decade, if I am not meanwhile murdered by any of the lunatics I pick up on the Internet. "And what is your favorite fantasy?" I asked him innocently, leaning slightly towards him, in a move which, according to the principles of body language, always predisposes the other person in a positive way. His eyes sparkled all of a sudden, those fabulous blue eyes, like windows of dazzling light, looking out of a body which had just begun the descent into old age, in the delicate way in which men grow old, so that it does not matter at all. He looked at me through the blue ponds of his imagination and said: "I stick a tea towel down your throat and push it all the way down to your stomach, so that the tip remains in your mouth. This is the known process of endoscopy, in which a doctor would examine your stomach, with the difference being that the doctor would use a thin tube. I leave the towel in your stomach until you start to digest it. I believe that one hour would be sufficient. Then I start pulling slowly the towel out. The towel comes up, pulling with it the lining of your stomach." "I see," I said. Did I really want to go down the cellar with this man? We had discussed this before I had started on my journey. He wanted to descend with me to the cellar of his house. He wanted me to be blindfolded, because he said I would never see his cellar, but would only feel things there. He wanted to tie me to a wooden ladder, which he had already bought for 100 pounds, just for that purpose. Then he would cane me. I would be wearing a pair of stretch pants for cycling, soaked in cold water. He said that this would increase the pain, spread it to the entire surface of the buttocks. He had, in fact, asked me to send him the pants by post before I got there. I had done as he had asked me. My pants had arrived safely, two weeks before my buttocks did. Not for a single moment had I wondered why he wanted me to send him the pants. I have my own choreography of masochism and thus I recognize the choreography of sadism, when I see it. "One more question," I said. "The people in Greece to whom I talked about you asked me if you really believe that the mind of a sadist is a perfectly square room bathed in light." I had already taken the liberty of putting things in his mouth, since I knew him and they did not. "It's a sewer," he said, without the slightest hesitation. "Oh," I said. Neither he nor I smiled. We took a sip of warm beer and bowed our heads with respect to the beast. "Listen," he said all of a sudden, "put these in your bag." On the table, between us, there was a white ceramic dish with various sachets of sauces. He made sure no one was looking, then handed me three sachets with ketchup, while he took one with mustard and two green ones with salad sauce. He put them in the pocket of his shirt, with a semblance of secrecy. I remembered then that in the kitchen there was a large plastic tub filled with these things. Now I knew how he had come by them. Oh my God, there I was, stealing ketchup and salad sauce with the Master... That night in the living-room I sat on the floor again, next to his feet and we watched television. He was wearing the horrible trainers again, which he used as slippers. I took his hand into mine and gave him a hand massage. I had learned to give massages with that incredibly good-looking Master, Sir Stephen, in the suites of Park Hotel in Athens. This was my first bodily contact with the Elder, my hand on his hand. "Would you like to play?" I asked suddenly. It just popped out of my mouth, without going through the thinking process. As usual. He said yes. He got up and said he'd bring the strap, something mild to begin with, just so as to show me his style. I sat on all fours, on a thing that looked like a wooden scaffold, which the perverted imagination of the Elder had converted to a table. I, on the other hand, since I am not that perverted, saw it as a scaffold on which to be beaten. He went to the cellar, which he kept locked with a padlock and brought the strap. I was not allowed to see it. I would never see any of the implements he used to inflict pain, he had said. This would make them more fearsome, he explained. I understood perfectly well the trappings of awe. I had received instruction in awe, in the first year of my career in slavery and had passed with honors. So I turned my little blond head in the opposite direction, towards the windows, looking at the tattered curtains, and waited for the first stroke. That was indeed delivered promptly. I shrieked and lost my position. This was nothing like the tentative strokes, reserved for people still exploring each other. This was a proper stroke, a good, hard one. "Just a minute, just a minute," I started to say, "just a minute." I had not expected that he would hit me with all his strength. And where did he find all that strength? Had he been saving it for years, waiting just for me? No matter. We had said I would get five strokes, so five it was. I rubbed my buttocks, trying to disperse the pain everywhere and took my position again. Whoosh! That was even harder. Ouch! I lost my position again, now I lost my breath too. Was that what British BDSM was all about? Do we deliver the strokes with all our might and we do it with the intention of hurting the other as much as possible? Yes. After each stroke he waited for me to catch my breath and after each stroke I repeated the same phrase: "just a minute, just a minute." This had become my consolation, this purchase of a little time out of the entirety of my life. I prepared myself, took my position and accepted the pain. It was very interesting. He took the strap back to the cellar, locked the door with the padlock and said: "Let's go to bed, it is late." We went upstairs and he came with me to my room. He lay down next to me and we fooled around for a bit. I caressed his belly and his nipples and his beard. It was nothing really, I just felt like touching him. I was aroused because of the beating; it always makes me relax enough, so as to allow my nearly constant arousal to come to the surface. "Would you like to come and sleep with me tonight?" he said all of a sudden. "I don't do vanilla," I said. I said it without thinking at all, it just popped out, like before. I cannot sleep together with a man, I rarely manage it. Recently, in Athens, I had slept with a very handsome dominant man but only because I had drunk too much and passed out. He accepted the rejection without saying anything. Of course he did not realize that my objection did not concern sex, but only sleeping together in the same bed. And thus, he did not ask for any sex throughout my stay in England, much to my chagrin, for what happened in the following days caused me great arousal. The following day we took the train and went to York. It is a beautiful medieval city, built on the river Ouse. It is surrounded by a great wall, on which the Elder and I took a stroll. I had my hand in his. The sky was full of gray clouds far in the horizon. Great Britain was stretching to the right and to the left, in the silent magnificence of its nature. Tears welled up in my eyes. I had never thought that the quest for the ultimate pleasure would bring me here one day, on these medieval walls, with the Elder holding me by the hand. The tour began at Micklegate Bar, the formal southern entrance to the city, a gate in the walls, where traditionally the decapitated heads of traitors were displayed on spikes. From that gate starts Micklegate, a street with so many pubs and restaurants to the right and to the left of the street, that it is said that no one can complete the famous pub crawl of York, by entering each and every one of those pubs and having one drink in each, until the end of the street. Well, there is a challenge for me for the future, I thought. The Elder told me that this was the city where Guy Fawkes was born, the hero of the film V for Vendetta. Fawkes was a man who wanted to blow up the House of Lords, at the beginning of the 17th century. The word "guy" derives from him. At first, "guy" was a figure that kids made from old clothes and newspapers, which they burnt in bonfires on November 5, on Guy Fawkes Night. People soon started using the term "guy" for any man dressed a bit oddly. In our days it just means "person" and has no negative connotations. After this small lesson in history and linguistics, we visited the imposing Gothic cathedral, York Minster. The Elder asked at the entrance what time service would be held but eventually he decided that we would not attend. Instead, he took me for a walk along Snickelways, which are narrow medieval passageways between buildings. He also took me for a walk on The Shambles, the main street of York. In the old days there were lots of butchers' shops there. Because the butchers threw the offal from the butchered animals in the middle of the street and the whole place smelled of blood and meat, any ugly mess in our days is called "a shambles". Finally, he took me to the house where Margaret Clitherow lived in the 16th century. That was a Catholic woman who became a martyr for the Roman Catholic Church. She is sometimes referred to as "the Pearl of York". When the Church of England became split from the Roman Catholic Church, in the time of Henry VIII, Margaret, who was the wife of a butcher, started helping the Catholics in the region. She was arrested and she refused to plead to the case, because that would have meant that her children would be summoned to testify and they would have been tortured. She was executed by being crushed to death, which was the usual punishment for those who refused to plead. She was disrobed and made to lie down on a sharp rock, the size of a man's fist. A handkerchief was tied on her face and a heavy door was placed on her body. Then the door was gradually loaded with heavy boulders, causing her death with their weight, in conjunction with the rock under her body, which broke her back. It took her fifteen minutes to die. That same night, when we got back home, the Elder took me upstairs to the attic and showed me the slave quarters which he had prepared for me. The slave's "room" was a small corner in the ante-area of the attic, to the right of the staircase. There he had placed a wooden board on a layer of bricks. He had probably picked up the board from the garbage. On top of the board he had positioned a workout mattress. Next to that improvisation of a bed, there was a large wooden table, "for your things", he said. In that area, above the mattress, there were 4 rows of shelves, full of books. On the slanted roof, a skylight would bring in the first light of day, working thus as a natural alarm clock. I smiled, thinking of the four-poster canopy bed that I had requested...It was no use complaining. I had brought this upon myself. To the left, there were two bookcases full of books, a rolled-up carpet and several other objects that had found their place in that storage area. I discovered a painting there, which I hung above the "table for my things", so as to decorate a bit the place which from now on would be mine. It depicted a tall man dressed in jeans. His face was so bright that he displayed no facial characteristics. I liked the painting a lot, mainly because it was authentic. I love all things that are authentic, such as warm bread with feta cheese, baked aubergines and good BDSM. There were two rooms in the attic. The one to the left of the staircase was the Elder's study, where he wrote his books. He worked approximately 5 hours per day, as much as I usually work too. A series of skylights allowed plenty of sunlight in the attic, which was warm, without any dampness and no trace of mold. The other room to the right was the computer room, also sporting skylights. The attic was beautiful on the whole. In both rooms, the Elder had hung pictures of semi-clad women, all very thin, most of them with very short hair. Annie Lenox was displayed in many of the photos. Now I knew why he had asked me to have my hair cut so short. I conceded with great eagerness to sleeping there. In fact, the idea aroused me. I felt as if I were a dog that had been given shelter, a spot where it would not bother anyone. This change in my position in the house must have spoken to an inner need of mine, deep within, a need I had not been able to acknowledge yet. I knew then how unhappy I felt as a human being, forced to carry the burden of my supposed attractiveness and the choices of an average intelligence with which God had cursed me, and which I used in order to go from one mistake to the next, in a world governed by rules I did not understand. I wanted things to be made simpler, I thirsted for the simplicity of obedience and usefulness, I hungered for the humility of that position in the attic. I would be truly happy there, even if, especially if, I was made to eat the Elder's leftovers, on a newspaper on the floor. Why? I honestly do not know. Does it make any difference? He gave me a pillow, a single duvet and a set of sheets with a pillow cover, new in their package. I noticed that he was very proud that he had been able to overcome his own habits, by buying new things, brand new things, fresh, just for me. He had started understanding me and taking care that I feel as comfortable as possible. I made my bed at once and stood there staring at it. I would be fine there, as if in a nest. He also suggested, if I agreed, that I go about naked in the house, just in my leather collar and my leather wristbands, which I had brought with me from Greece, in my little red case. He said I would feel much better like that. If I felt cold, I could always drape one of his cardigans over my shoulders. I accepted that proposal with the same eagerness. Thus, I started living like a slave in the house of the Elder. My duties were simple: I had to clean up in the kitchen, avoid the rest of the rooms, wash the dishes, cook, do some shopping, refrain from bothering him when he worked, ask for permission in order to masturbate and come to orgasm silently. In the evening I accompanied him to the pub. It wasn't hard at all. I relaxed in that routine and I was happy like a rabbit. I had no worries at all. None except for the descent to the cellar. My first night at slave quarters was rather difficult. I did not manage to sleep more than 3 hours. The board kept creaking and moving, it was not stable at all. Apart from that, it seems I had caught a cold going around stark naked in the house all day long. I woke up with a horribly stiff neck. I could not move easily, I had to turn my entire body in order to turn right. I waited until the break of dawn and went down to the kitchen to make breakfast. When the Elder came down, I told him I would go to the village to buy a heat rub from the chemist's. He advised me to also buy an antiseptic cream, "for the wounds," he said. What wounds, I asked. The ones made by the cane, he said, in case I agreed to go down to the cellar to be caned. I went to the village, found the chemist's and bought the two creams. Then, back at home, I got rid of the board in the attic (he did not allow me to throw it away), placed the bricks next to my mattress (he did not allow me to get rid of those either) and I placed the mattress directly on the floor. It was much more comfortable like that, stable and cosy. I lay down immediately and made up for the sleep I had missed. That night I tasted the infamous cane, in the style used by an Englishman. I asked for it myself. We both were practically case studies. This indulgence in an almost illogical courage always amazes me, this willing surrender to sensations that only masochists consider comprehensible and perfectly natural. It is part of the choreography of pleasure, so essential that sometimes the choreography becomes more important than pleasure itself. And so, I found myself lying face down on my old bed, since we decided that this was the best place for the first stroke with the cane, since I was still too afraid to go down to the cellar. The Elder went to get the cane from its hiding place and I waited with my tender buttocks slightly raised, with two pillows underneath. A third pillow was under my face, so I could bite on it when the time came, because we did not want the neighbours to hear the screaming. When he came upstairs, he did not let me see the cane, but placed it on the table in the hallway, outside the room. In fact, he even went as far as to bring a towel from his own room and cover my head with it so that I could not see what was about to happen. A diligent servant of awe, a man who paid attention to precise and imaginative detail...That is why I like men who are older. They set up the scene in the way a spider weaves its web, letting you wait, bathed in a fearful light. Until the first stroke. I had been hit with a cane before, though not with a veritable English cane. The Elder had explained to me how the stroke is delivered. It was the traditional technique used in schools in the old days, "before this country went to the dogs". We grab the cane firmly in our two hands, the right one a bit further forward than the left one, for that is the hand that will determine the precise spot where the stroke will land. We touch the buttocks with the cane, tapping them twice, lightly, as if caressing them. This prepares the recipient of the strokes, so that she may take care of her psychology as well as her breathing. It also prepares the perpetrator of the beating, so that he will not miss his target. We lift the cane in such a way that it will be suspended for a moment behind our right shoulder, then we bring it down with both hands with all our might, turning our body at the same time from the waist, so that the weight of the body will be added to the force of the hands. The goal is to cause as much pain to the victim as possible. The stroke is painful but does not cause great damage, as it is delivered on flesh devoid of vital organs. It is just tissue and sensory nerves. The English Cellar That was precisely how he did it. I felt two light taps, which would have been almost pleasant if I had not been so afraid. Yet they gave me the time to prepare myself. Indeed, I mustered up all the courage that this hard life demands of us, bit down on the pillow and waited. The stroke ripped through the air and landed forcefully on my buttocks. For a moment I felt nothing. Absence of any kind of sensation, a void. A brief waiting time, on the threshold between surprise and disappointment. Then the pain came, like a knife. I groaned into the pillow and started my dance. I squirmed around like a baby snake whose tail had been crushed. I could not stop it, the move was an act of reflex and animal instinct. I turned and turned and the fire would not go away. The Elder hurried downstairs as soon as he caned me, without indulging in an observation of the vulgar dance of my body, leaving me on my own to deal with the thing I had consented to, the thing that I had asked for, in effect. He went down to the cellar, put the cane back in its place and then came back upstairs. He found me rubbing my buttocks with the palms of my hands. I had already recovered, it does not take longer than a minute after all. I got up and looked at myself in the mirror. A clearly formed black line adorned my buttocks, spreading at the edges like black and red paint on white paper. In the center of that rainbow that had appeared on my body, a few drops of blood had emerged. I immediately applied some of the antiseptic cream I had bought that morning and I felt relieved at once because I had elected to buy a cream containing a little pain killer. I am a very funny masochist.. "Thank you," I said, being the trained girl that I am and the Elder simply nodded, as if he were saying, "I just did what I had to do," which was true, to some extent. "Strokes which are token show contempt for the slave," he said, "they are patronizing. A light stroke would have been condescending. The stroke must be truly painful, if we really respect the slave." I understood only too well. I had already stopped paying attention to details and started focusing on the dynamics of this relationship, which had miraculously started working. There was respect and approval, care and acceptance, understanding and knowledge, even the beginning of a kind tenderness. At night, despite the fact that I was stiff, I slept on the floor again, in the attic. This time I slept much better. I had found my position and I was just fine there, protected. Thus my stay there continued. I quickly got used to the clutter of things, the musty smell, the Elder's silence, the indifferent programs on TV, the pies with sausage or pork, the warm beer, the daily theft of ketchup, the rides on double-decker buses, the offer of thanks to the bus driver. I spent my mornings in the attic, either in the slave quarters, reading the Elder's books, or in the adjacent room, the computer room, working on the BDSM novel the Elder had written, which was a sadistic masterpiece. He wanted me to add the female touch to his book, as well as some sex scenes, which the publisher had requested, so that we would publish it together. I told him I could not accept such a big gift, the book was his and only his, but he insisted, saying we could write a whole series of books of this type and that I could write the greatest part for the next one. So I accepted, thanking him. One day, we went to Knaresborough, a beautiful city built in the 11th century on the river Nidd. We followed the same route by train that had taken us to York, called Harrogate Line. It was a sunny day. I really liked the little shops in the city square, from which I bought some gifts for my children and for my friends and a lovely black velvet vest for me. Then we went down to the river and rented a boat with oars. The Elder would not let me hold the oars even for a second, though I really like rowing. He let me nevertheless take care of the steering. He would not look at the progress of the boat, keeping his back turned to our route and rowing with great confidence that I would not crash the boat on the river banks or on other boats. He was wearing the white Panama hat with the yellow patches and a pair of sunglasses that were really old and very mysterious, with the lettering "made in USA" in the front. The river Nidd was not cold at all; a bit further down the river, some kids were playing in the shallow water with the mud. Ducks were swimming here and there, looking beautiful. I relaxed back, taking photos. "You are like the old man and the sea by Hemingway," I said to the Elder and he laughed. Well, I will be damned, he laughs too, I thought. He had also relaxed, that much was obvious, he was finally having a good time. I don't know why. Everything was as it should be. We went under the bridge looking idly at the numerous cafes and pubs and restaurants on the left bank of the river. When we left the boat, we walked on foot up to the Castle; the view was breathtaking. But we were tired and both very hungry. I suggested we have fish and chips. We went downhill to the center of the town and found a quiet restaurant and had the best fish and chips of our lives, we both said as much. The Elder managed to steal some ketchup and he was very content indeed. That same night we tried for two strokes of the cane. I lay down on the bed again, naked, as I usually went about naked in the house. I had gotten used to my nudity and the Elder did not stare at all, nor did he avoid looking at me, it was just natural to be naked in front of him. First I asked him to warm up my buttocks a little bit, which I soon regretted. This was no warm-up, this was a proper whipping, with the full force of his two hands. Afterwards, however, I was grateful he had given me the whipping, because it had really prepared me. The two strokes of the cane that followed were two extremely forceful strokes that made my heart stop as well as my breath. It was awful. I simply wanted to die. As soon as the squirming stopped, to which I surrendered with the usual desperation of the baby snake, I got up and looked in the mirror. Two perfectly straight black lines had appeared on my buttocks, combined with the first one that had been imprinted on then a few days before. I applied some antiseptic cream and went to sleep. The day of my departure was approaching. I had to take my decisions. Would I return to Greece without doing what I had come to do? Was that possible? Three days before I left, I told him I would like to go down to the cellar with him and that I would try to receive the usual amount of strokes, which was six. He said that we would do it the following day, but it would have to be carried out at lunchtime, while there was still daylight. My heart kept beating a bit too fast for the rest of that day and for the following half, until lunchtime. I am ready to bet that this waiting period of one day and a half was intended to cause precisely that slightly fast heartbeat. The next day, which was Sunday, we had our breakfast a bit late, at about 12 o' clock. It was a brunch, the large Sunday breakfast. The Elder said I had to eat beforehand because I would need my strength, since I would not be able to eat afterwards. He also said that by the time we went down to the cellar I should have already digested, so as not to throw up. I went up to the slave quarters, lay down for a couple of hours and meditated. I thought about who I was, what I was, how I had started on that journey, how I had got there, who had handled me up until then, how much strength some people had given me, how much I had been hurt by others, how some people had wasted my time. I thought of those whom I had hurt inadvertently and those to whom I did not manage to give enough. I though of some who got rid of me after taking what they wanted and some others who still stand by me. I thought of my kids and all the hardship we went through and how we managed to get by. I wondered if I was a good example to them, with all those obsessions of mine and with all my persistence and stubbornness. I decided that yes. I did all my calculations one more time, my accounts came out fine, I smiled and got up. I was ready. I was stronger than my fear. I would do what I could not do. I went downstairs. The Elder was watching a stupid program on TV, as he did at that time every day. He got up as soon as he saw me and started looking through the drawers in the wardrobe in the hallway for the stretch pants that I had mailed to him. He could not find them. He said that probably Timothy had taken them. Who the fuck is Timothy, I asked. Timothy, he said, was the ghost of a little boy who lived in the house. He had brought a psychic once to look through the house and she had told him about the little boy, there could be no doubt. Indeed. Stay calm, I thought, keep cool. I could put on my black overalls, I said. This was accepted. I went back upstairs, to my old room, where I kept my suitcase and put on the black overalls. I took my blindfold out of the red case, as I did not the Elder to use a filthy piece of cloth, which he was capable of doing. I was already wearing the leather wristbands. I went downstairs and saw he had unlocked the cellar door. Let's go. He blindfolded me, tied the wristbands between them with a metal ring and holding me by my tied hands, he led me down the stairs of the cellar. I was afraid I might fall down, the stairs were really steep. I descended awfully slowly, as I could see very little below the blindfold, because I was not wearing my contact lenses. I tried to spot any nasty smells, decomposing bodies and such, but I could smell nothing. It was a very clean cellar and if I judge by the fragments of the floor, which I could see under the blindfold, it was much cleaner than the rest of the house. We descended the staircase and reached a plateau. There we stopped and he pulled me by my hands to the left, leading me to a smaller basement room, where he had placed the ladder for the caning. He had me go up the first three steps, out of a total of five, lean forward, placing my belly on the top of the ladder, which was flat, and for which he provided a cushion to prevent me from getting hurt. The rest of my body was hanging forward. He tied my legs onto the back part of the ladder and my hands to the front part. I could feel in me the waves of fear secreting their adrenaline in floods. Adrenaline is not a bad deal at all, in similar situations. The substate was a certainty, had been a certainty since the previous day, when the waiting period had begun. However, these relationships are much more enjoyable when total trust has already been established. Otherwise, it is like sawing on the branch you are sitting on. With one eye you supervise the sawing and with the other way you look at the ground, where you will shortly land. Total surrender in a state of total trust is completely different. You just float in the pleasure of absolute loss of control. There is no branch, no saw, no tree, nothing. Free fall...the best sensation ever. But I was scared and I was being cautious. I had chosen "red" as a safeword, since I did not yet possess the total trust of a slave and "yellow" as the word which would buy me some time in order to regain my composure, if I lost it. The Elder took a jug of water and spilled it on my bottom, soaking the overalls. I was just hanging there, as if I had pissed in my pants. "Oh, no," I mumbled. Since I was going to hurt anyway, why did he want me to hurt more? I felt him position himself; his hands level with my buttocks. I felt the cane caress me two times, then heard it rising behind his shoulder and ripping the air. It hit me right on the base of the buttocks and the beginning of the hips. The pain came a few seconds later, as always. I did not shriek much. I was taking little breaths, just as I did when I gave birth, many years ago. This was a birth too. I was giving birth to my own pain, I was giving birth to my endurance, to my future, to the relationship. I was giving birth to my new self. Would I be the same afterwards? Certainly not. We are never the same afterwards, not when we have faced our fears, not when we have witnessed our darkest desire in all of its grandeur. There is no going back in these journeys. That is the price we have to pay. We can never go back. He hit me a second time and I continued to be born in unbearable pain. I thought I would stop breathing. Fear was mingling with pain now, the secretion of endorphins had probably begun. Together with the adrenaline, they were forming a strong cocktail in my mind, which paralyzed me. "I can't, I can't," I mumbled. "Yellow?" asked the Elder, who was much more experienced than me in such matters. "Yes, yellow", I said, "yellow. Please, yellow." "I will be back in a minute," he said and he left. I heard him go upstairs and then nothing. I was all alone, tied up on the ladder. I waited until my breathing had found its rhythm. I knew I had calmed down when I stopped listening to that awful panting in the cellar and the perfect stillness had been restored. But the Elder was taking his time. So I had all the time in the world to ponder on my predicament. I was a Greek girl who had traveled 2000 kilometers in order to be tied up on a wooden ladder, in the cellar of a strange Englishman, who was offering her, with spectacular equanimity and ritualistic detail, extremely large quantities of pain. I had done my part, I had come here, I had overcome my hesitation, my doubts, my fear and I had allowed myself to accept his gift of violence. Now he was doing his part. And he was doing it well, he knew how to do it. Nothing else mattered. I heard his steps descending the stairs. I felt him standing next to me. "Are you alright?" I nodded. "Are you ready?" "Yes, Sir," I whimpered and braced myself. The third stroke landed on my buttocks and it was the hardest of them all. I could not hold back the scream. My brain stopped. What was the safeword? What was the fucking safeword? We had just said it, a moment ago. I lost my mind for a second. I was going to die. I was surely going to die. I had forgotten the safeword. Then..."Red, red, red", I blurted. Yes, I said the word. I was done. Three strokes was my limit. "Poor girl," whispered the Elder as he bent over to untie me. I was crushed by the weight of those two words, uttered by a man who had probably never felt pity for any woman. I wanted to turn back time and undo my moment of weakness, take back that pathetic "red". But I could not. The words we had said still echoed in the silence of the cellar; they would remain there, suspended in time, in that moment of human defeat. They would be part of my past for ever. Is your name D? Yes, I am D. And I am so inadequate... He led me upstairs blindfolded, just like before, pulling me by the wristbands. When we got out of the cellar, he removed the blindfold. My hands were shaking and I showed them to him. "See how my hands...," I started. "Sshhh...don't talk," he said. "Go upstairs and lie down in your quarters. Rest as long as you want and come down when it is over." I obeyed and went upstairs. I lay down in my place in the attic and was lost. It was very nice there, very quiet. I wanted to sleep but I could not, my eyes were wide open. I looked around me without seeing anything, I looked at my hands and at the bricks and at the bookshelves and saw nothing. I was looking without seeing, I just lay there. I felt my body burning and I lay on my side to stop it burning so much. When I felt that what had happened to me had nothing more to offer me, I went downstairs. I found the Elder in front of the TV, watching a silly program, with his usual equanimity. "Thank you Sir," I said. He nodded, accepting my expression of gratitude. He had done his part and that was that. He did not need to say anything. We could at last talk without having to talk. Two days later I returned to Greece. On the return flight, as the air-hostesses tried to peddle their merchandise, I thought about everything that had happened in those two weeks. I had made contact with a good man and I had collected some beautiful memories. I had found a place, even if it were so far away, where I would be able to return any time I wanted and recover from the disappointment and bitterness served to me by life. Most importantly, I had found the courage to descend a few more steps into the heart of darkness, the darkness that dwells within. Even if I had not managed to experience British discipline in its entirety. Perhaps next time. Perhaps soon I will manage to stop sawing the branch I am sitting on. Perhaps soon I will find myself in free fall, perhaps soon I will be free. Whether this should happen with the Elder or with someone else, I don't know. I only know I will get there. Why not? Who is going to stop me?