by Leo Barton
There was one more part to the ceremony before we could accept the two girls as acolytes. As we withdrew from the girl, our pleasure was to lift Lucy up so that her sex was at the same level as Amanda's mouth. I removed the gag, and forced Amanda's mouth onto Lucy's sex. Amanda, innocent though she was, seemed to know what was expected of her and lapped at Lucy's quim greedily. June had the delight of sampling JS's not inconsiderably sized cock. She too seemed to take it with relish. I don't know what sight was more delightful, to watch JS come inside the girl's mouth, and for her to take all his seed down her throat, or to watch Lucy in such a wild paroxysm of pleasure.
As they say, a good time is had by all.
After it was all over I asked PCK if he thought that what we did was dangerous, legally I meant, him training to be a lawyer and everything. But he said we were safe. As far as he knew there was no law against it. The sex was consensual. Anyway, none of these girls would go to court if only because they had enjoyed themselves so much. The sensible ones always dropped the religious overtones and went looking for excitement elsewhere, the others hung around a little, and their interest gradually declined, unless we promised them another type of initiation ceremony. So he thinks we are safe. I can't believe my luck. My god, if they only knew.'
Lillian could not believe that Hyde-Lee had written it. It was the nature of the gloatingly inhuman prose that shocked her the most. Hyde-Lee truly was a Janus figure. What a contrast to the kind, considerate prose of his novels!
But this was not what pained her. Willingham had said it, Hyde-Lee had said as much, that her father, Joseph Simpson, or JS as she was sure he had appeared in the diary, was part of a threesome, a pretty terrible threesome at that. What had Hyde-Lee said to her the last time that they had spoken: 'a pretty awful gothic triptych, like one of those confoundable things you found in the National Gallery, not a particularly pleasant sight.'
At first, she had thought he had been referring to some adolescent gaucherie, to youthful indiscretion or pretension, but now she knew.
She felt angry with her father. How could he have participated in these things, and not just that, but how could he have had so little respect for the women he had deflowered? How could they have all been convinced that the women were all willing victims? The nineteen fifties were not the nineteen ninety's. Those girls were innocent and vulnerable, and her father had taken advantage of them for his own perverse pleasure.
There was something even more terrifying at the back of her mind, something which suddenly propelled itself into the forefront of her thoughts. It was the description of the place, the basement with the candles, the large slab of stone, and the metal poles. There were too many similarities for it to be mere coincidence. Of course, her dream! It was like her dream! Not in every detail, but surely over the years! How many details they must have changed, developed new tortures, new punishments?
How could she have dreamt something so similar to what she had just read? Surely not! Surely her father could not have sacrificed his own daughter on this bogus altar of pleasure. It was too inconceivable for her to think. But how else could she explain the dream.
Yes, she would write a book about Hyde-Lee, she decided. She certainly would. She would outline every single barbarous thing he had done in his life, every single crime he had committed. She would research it much more thoroughly than she had researched anything in her life.
Suddenly a thought came to her. She clutched at the last chance to redeem her father. She picked up the second volume of the diaries: they ran from sixty-five to nineteen eighty. No that was too early. She would have been too young. If she had been molested in the way she thought she had, if her own father had somehow abused her or let her be abused then surely Hyde-Lee would have an entry about it and it must be in the last volume.
She started reading the book from the last entry. The entries were briefer, only a few words here and there which must correspond to Hyde-Lee's failing powers and his illness.
She flicked the pages back, then, as she cast her eyes along the top of the book, she noticed something. She opened the book with haste. Three years were missing. Three years of her puberty, between the ages of fourteen and seventeen. They had been ripped out. It made sense. Maybe Hyde-Lee had been defending himself. Maybe Hyde-Lee hadn't wanted her to see. Perversely he was trying to protect her own memory of her father. So it must be true. Her worst fears confirmed. How could he? How could her father have done such a terrible thing? Clutching onto the book, she locked the door behind her and sped back to her room. She tossed the book down and slumped onto the bed. She could fight back her tears no longer.
6: Sonia, the Maid, Tells Her Story
Ten minutes later Sonia knocked on her bedroom door.
'What's wrong, miss?'
'Nothing, Sonia, nothing at all.' She had become quite friendly with Sonia, chatty, informal, but she always felt that Sonia had held something back in reserve.
'Has something upset you?'
It was obvious by Lillian's posture and the red rawness of her eyes that something had indeed disturbed her.
'This place, Sonia, this place upsets me. Things happen here, don't they? Things that don't normally happen. You must know, you must know?'
She couldn't help herself. Everything that she had read, the power of her own recurring dream, everything fused, fixed in her mind.
'What things?' Sonia asked guardedly.
'Hyde-Lee and Willingham they are sadists, aren't they?'
Sonia didn't answer.
'Tell me the truth, please. I need to know for my sanity. Things do happen here?'
Sonia moved over beside her and sat on the bed. 'Yes...'
'They take girls don't they, they beat them...'
'But...'
'But that is terrible!'
Lillian was crying again, strong images from Hyde-Lee's personal diaries flitting through her mind, the horrible sense of her father's betrayal lodged deep inside her. She couldn't stop herself, even though she hated to cry in front of someone who was virtually a stranger to her.
Sonia placed her arms around Lillian and held her in a maternal embrace. Lillian let her head fall onto Sonia's breast.'
'Did that happen to you, Sonia?'
Sonia still did not speak.
'Please Sonia tell me! What did they do to you?'
Sonia still didn't want to speak; she knew that it was forbidden to tell outsiders anything about what happened inside the house, but looking into Lillian's eyes and seeing such pain there melted her heart.
'Please, Sonia, I need to know what goes on here.'
'Why is it so important to you?'
'Because I think they might have done that to me a long time ago.'
Eventually, Sonia began to tell her story.
'The reason I came here is that they were offering three times more money than I would normally receive. Remember I was very young when I came here. Very easily influenced. Hyde-Lee promised me that he would personally teach me English, that I would travel with him, and that when he died he would make me a beneficiary of his will. He knew then that he didn't have long to live. He had an apartment then in Rome.' Sonia spoke in accurate but heavily accented English.
'And why did you stay?'
'I stayed because they took all my innocence away. It is wrong to be too innocent after a time but it is also wrong to have all your innocence taken away too soon.'
'When did you come here, Sonia?'
'About three years ago.' Sonia hesitated, still unsure about whether she should continue with her story.
'Tell me what happened.' Lillian smiled at Sonia through her tears. She felt comfortable resting against her pliant chest, not minding in the least that Sonia had continued to caress her cheek and that their legs were touching.
'I answered an advertisement in the newspaper. Everybody told me not to because there were always rumours about what goes on here, but I had my own reasons for wanting to come here. I wanted to get away fr
om my family, especially my stepfather who I detested.'
'Who interviewed you?'
'Everton and Willingham. They invited me to sit down with them in what they called the drawing room. That is the room at the back of the house where Hyde-Lee used to receive visitors when he was well enough. It's a beautiful room, with dark red walls and antique furniture. I had never seen anywhere quite like it before. It seemed such a wealthy place.'
'What did they ask you?'
'They asked me about my past jobs, whether I could cook or clean, what type of experience I'd had. It was very much the usual type of interview. It was only at the end that things changed, or at least seemed strange. They told me that they had prepared a contract and that I must sign it if I wanted the job. I read the contract. All it really demanded of me was that I was discreet, that I would never tell anybody outside what happened inside the house. It wasn't that that seemed so strange. I'd had to sign a privacy contract before when I had worked as a cleaner in a politician's house. No, it wasn't the contract. It was that they made such a fuss about it. Did I understand what it meant? Did I understand that I was forbidden to report anything that I saw or heard? I told them that I was sure, but they didn't seem convinced. There was also something about the way Willingham looked at me, his eyes staring at me so intently.'
'Weren't you put off?'
'I was a little nervous but the money was fantastic. And they also didn't make me work so hard. I mean the hours were absolutely fantastic. They gave me two days off a week. I also could have two hours a day to study English. Learning English had always been a passion of mine, but lessons were always so expensive. The idea of getting free tuition was fantastic to me. I also knew that I couldn't go back home. Nothing that happened there could have been as bad as living with the pig who had married my mother.'
'Why was he so terrible?'
'He used to lock me up in my room, and leave me for hours. And, at night, when my mother was sleeping, he would sometimes come into the room and take me over his knees, pull up my nightie and beat me on my bare bottom with a slipper until I was all red and swollen and if I made a noise he would beat me harder.'
'That's terrible, Sonia!'
'That is why I was so happy to come here.'
'So what happened when you came here?'
'A couple of days went by and nothing happened. My duties were quite specific then. I had to prepare their meals and was expected to clean the dining room and the kitchen, to buy and prepare the food, but nothing more. Everton was cold but he wasn't intrusive. I mean he never interfered with my work. And everybody seemed to be happy.
'On my first weekend I was told that Willingham expected guests. I was to prepare food for two other people, two women. I knew I would have to do this from time to time so I thought nothing of it. My family are originally from Rome so I made spaghetti con le lumache, followed by abbachio, the special dishes of my region.'
Here Sonia hesitated before continuing. 'Lillian I was so innocent, I never suspected. It doesn't make me feel bitter, not now, it's too late, but I think that that is the point.'
'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.'
