At the usual 11 o'clock I let myself in and enter the house. The kitchen is where I head for first, to drop my handbag and prepare my morning coffee. No sign of Madame. This happens, albeit infrequently. I have my set tasks though - the kitchen, the ground floor bathroom, the hallway, the living room and so on - which keep me downstairs until well after lunch. Until that time I have remained alone. Madame must be out.

In the early afternoon I make my way upstairs to first do the glorious master bathing facilities, next to make Monsieur's bed etc. It is then that I notice something unusual: the door to Madame's room, the one I am never to enter, is ajar. I stand before it, puzzled, and finally decide to close it and go about my business. When I reach for the handle, I start. Do I softly hear my name being called? Madame! Am I to go in, against strict orders? She calls me again and implores me to come in. And I follow the call.

With leaden feet I enter. Inside the darkness is almost perfect. Only after some time the interior gets a degree of definition - through narrow slits between the heavy drapes of this very large room sparse rays of light are able to steal their way in.

I notice that this room is not simply Madame's bedroom. An array of furniture and other objects are scattered about the room, varying in size and shape. The bed, a large circular bed, is located in the centre of the room, some half a dozen meter away. I inch towards it. Before I can make out whether that is where she lies, I again hear her call my name from a far corner of the room, softly like a breeze.

With pain I observe a human shape leaning against the wall. 'Madame,' I whisper, 'why are you there? What are you doing in this pitch-black darkness?'

'Open the curtains...,' she stammers.

I find my way towards the windows, past some of the curious objects I perceived before. A wooden cross, a bench and a trestle of sorts... The curtains are black and heavy, an impregnable barrier to sound and light alike. When I slide them aside, the sunlight thunders into the room.

'Oh ...,' I hear Madame sigh behind me and turn around. I see her in the corner. Her wretched shape leans against - no! - hangs off the wall, eyes closed against the fierce light. I hurry towards her and see short chains holding her wrists high and far apart and two more holding her ankles spread widely. Her contorted posture shows that she is exhausted, yet unable to sit or lie down or support herself in any other proper way. She is naked and cold and her bare skin shows the effects of mistreatment ... much worse in both extent and severity than what I saw in the dressing room. Dear Madame... Outright torture!

To see her fine body harmed, to see her thighs, her hips, belly, her abdomen criss-crossed with purple welts, at one or two of which the skin has broken and dried drops of blood are present; to see chest, her breasts as if they have been carved with knives. A dozen or so small wounds produced so many red rivers of blood, now frozen ... I weep.

'Don't cry... don't cry...,' she gasps, 'I have cried for the both of us... I am dry now.

'You'd better help me. He will return only tonight, an eternity away!

'Hold me for a little while... I am dying standing up any longer...

'No, first fetch me some water...

'Oh, I don't know which need is the strongest...'

I swallow my tears and run off to get her some water. I mustn't be long!

I have trouble concentrating. Oh, he went too far. What a terrible waste, my wasted love. I was utterly his and curse myself thinking this: I don't know if I can continue. Why, oh, why... am I not woman enough? Is he the one at fault? Did he ruthlessly violate my boundaries? I suffer, regardless of who’s to blame.

Ah, mercy, she returns with a glass of water!

'Thank you, thank you.... '

My tongue is like leather.

I gulp down the water. Half of it I spill and it runs down my chin to my chest, where it inflames and cools the burning wounds, and continues down to my belly and down my legs and feet to the ground.

'Now support me, please... I cannot stand up any longer... The keys to the locks that keep me here... damn them... I don't know where they are... Maybe you can hunt for them... later... First stick your arms underneath mine and support me...

'Oh, dear, you don't know what this means to me...'

Here I stand supporting her, body to body. Cheek to cheek, we breathe the same air. I am not sure... We are so close...

We lean together against the wall and speak not a word.

I think she has fallen asleep. Asleep in my arms. I am glad. And proud of helping her this way. She really needs me. "... You don't know what this means to me..." I can only imagine what it means to her. I know that I relieve her suffering. She is in a state! That bastard of a husband and his teachings. I don't know his game, their game, but I know this is far beyond play. There is the physical pain. But she also is bound to feel deserted. I console her. There are fellow creatures after all.

I am running out of variations in which to support her. My watch I cannot see, but I know that I have lasted one or two hours while pushing my endurance limit further and further away. Many times already I have thought I couldn't take it any longer. But then I thought of Madame having to carry on, whether she could take it or not. To abandon her and cast her back into that torturous state was a thought I could bear even less than carrying on supporting her. But now I feel I would die if I carried on. What to do?

It is then that I think I hear sounds. Did the front door just open? Did I hear footsteps? Has he come home? It is silent again. Why did he not come up and see her right away, the bastard?

Now I do hear his footsteps coming up the stairs. I open my eyes and become alert.

I hear him enter the room, but I don't move and keep holding her.

'Who gave you permission to enter this room?', he yells at my back. At the top of his voice, almost hysterically, 'You were instructed never to enter. Never!' And, suddenly reducing his voice to a normal tone, but with a tremor indicating great tension, 'Turn around. Face me.'

To face him would mean letting Madame go... It would break my heart to have to oblige. Seconds go by. I look at her at the short range we find ourselves in. I think she is waking up, but her state of exhaustion denies her the control of her body. I perceive that her eyelids flutter slightly.

Again at the top of his voice, 'Your heard me! I order you to turn around!'

Madame moans and opens her eyes. I look into them. These luminous eyes are faint now, but I see that she pulls herself together, heroically. 'Go on,' she hoarsely forces the words out, 'help me and do as he tells you.'

It must be so then. I will have to. Madame endures my slowly restoring herself to her own devices with closed eyes and clenched teeth - oh, the memory of those recent eternities - and finally looks me in the eyes again and nods.

I turn around.

Monsieur looks at me with a feverish intensity. My heart starts racing. I am certain that he is ready to lose his composure and start hitting me like he must have hit and hit Madame. I brace myself for the impact but none follows. Instead his gaze turns to her. As if to himself he mutters, 'Only I know her needs. She does not know her own. I know why she is in this state. If this has tested her love, so be it. That is the whole point.'

He looks at her for a few moments and suddenly slaps her hard on the cheek. Her heads swings away. She turns it back, slowly. When she looks at him again she remains silent, but her look is defiant.

Madame:

He cannot see that I am clinging to the cliff edge with two slight, slipping, desperate fingers. My act of defiance is paper-thin. His hold is purely physical now - mentally I defy you, Sir! (Oh, is the difference not academic?) I defy him, but I am slipping... I see him raise his hand once more... the look in his eyes... oh!

'Take me!' It is her voice and it breaks his resolve. Hand still raised, he turns his head and looks at her instead.

'Take you?'

Suddenly... no! With all his might he now slaps her cheek in turn.

Her face remains averted and still for a few moments. I see tears travel down her cheeks. Then slowly she turns back to him and whispers, 'Take me, Sir. Look at your wife. Whatever right you may have, please don't take it now. Surely you don’t want to take it now. I beg you to take me instead.'

God! Do I want him to accept her offer? I feel I will perish if he doesn't let me go, let alone if he hits me again. Let him release me, if only for a while.

She is brave to make the offer. If he is a gentleman, he should not accept. She should not be a substitute for me. We had a relationship, for god's sake.

"Had." Past tense. So why should he not take a stranger instead?

Why should she suffer from his frustration? She is innocent.

Oh, these conflicting thoughts...

He laughs and cries, 'Take you and show you what it is really like to be her? Why not take you? Why not have you experience what the object of your pity feels? She herself is failing. It will be good for her to witness this. It will be part of her further education.'

He takes out his pocketknife and holds it in front of her face, holds it with the blade touching her nose. She is terrified, but speaks nor moves.

But he does not harm her. He swiftly lowers the knife to her neck. He grabs her shirt there, rips the knife from her neck all the way down and tears the shirt off her body. He squeezes the knife between the cross of her bra and her chest and severs the bra. Her pale breasts are exposed. A trickle of blood starts in between them. He looks at the blood and is still. Grabbing both breasts in the coarsest of manner, he then proceeds to lick the blood away. How deeply has he fallen! A vulture!

Both bra straps follow and the pieces of her armour fall to the ground. Her shoulders arch sadly forward and her arms droop. She has put herself at his mercy, for my sake. (Not out of trust, like I did when we started out. Oh, those times gone by...)

'Lift your arms above your head! Hold them there, high!'

The waistband of her skirt, the side of the skirt... the knife and the nauseating sound of the destruction... the lifeless garment falls to the ground.

He pulls the waistband of her pantyhose out - her belly and legs are visible through the sheer material, sadly passive, awaiting their exposure - and placing the knife, he cuts down her belly, beneath her crotch and up her behind and severs the hose. He then hastily proceeds to cut the material from each of her legs, a laborious task.

The panties ... two quick cuts at the sides and they fall under the assault of the knife.

She has undergone this ritual with neither resistance nor approval. It only lasted a minute. She is naked. Naked like me.

He then fumbles in his pockets and produces a set of little keys. My tired heart jumps. I think only of myself: he is about to release me. My ankles first, my left wrist, my right. Free!

Freed, back on my legs, I cannot support myself and collapse immediately. Someone catches me - it is she, but this sudden load of me she cannot support. We both fall to the floor. I fall on top of her. He looses not a minute and frees up both of my arms and drags me across the floor to the bed, away from my heroine. Hoisting me up the bed he leaves me there without care, for dead. (Sir, I will be alive.)

My last thought is of gratitude...

He has deposited her - there is no other word - on the bed. She has been freed from that terrible state. I am intensely happy, as that was my aim. Gratitude to him does not enter my mind. I am prepared to take her place, literally, but what kind of man would he be if he’d abuse me like he did her. What kind of man is capable of abusing his own wife, even if she consented? But don't take me wrong: I am prepared, for her sake, mind, no matter how afraid I am.

To separate my mind from my body and not feel any pain! I have failed during the terrible blow he gave me on the cheek. Whatever happens, I will try to think of my cause, to help her in this way.

There he comes back to me...

Without warning, I receive another slap on my cheek. Oh, why! I can't help the tears. Let me bend, but not break!

He then pushes me against the rough wall, where she just stood and takes my left wrist, places it in the cuff and snaps it shut. My body is now fixed and I can no longer escape. (Mistress, watch over me now.)

I refrain from looking at him. Is that wise? Would it help me to look at him or would any display of weakness or of strength - oh, which can I manage?- drive him to further abuse? How can I tell? I will refrain from looking at him. My mind, please distance yourself from my body!

My right wrist is affixed to its cuff. This means that I will be unable to defend myself. My face, my chest and my womanhood are defenceless. My legs, my only devices left - should I use them to keep him at bay? No. He has time on his hands and her, my mistress, at his mercy. Thus I do not resist when he cuffs my left ankle first and next my right ankle. He is done and hope is all I have left. He steps back a little.

Now I dare raise my gaze and look at him. His look back is not immediately threatening. It is sad, tired and nervous. He looks me - my body - over from head to toe, almost as if he were considering a work of art at an exhibition. Then he suddenly steps forward again and I inhale sharply. But he does not touch me. He merely looks at certain details of mine, of this newly acquired piece of art. My feet, my neck, and, inevitably, my breasts and pubic area. I have never been inspected like this, like an object or animal, that is: something that can be owned. My lovers have looked at me, but through the eyes of love I would think. This is denouncing, but let me not be humiliated by this man. That should be below me.

Suddenly, he steps back, turns on his heels and marches out of the room. I hear him descend the stairs. Then all is silent.

On the bed I see the oblivious shape of Madame. She must be fast asleep and she lies very still. The thought fills me with a warm satisfaction. Better still it would be if she were far, far away, out of Monsieur's clutches. And I away with her.

My predicament is sinking in. I am beginning to feel physically uncomfortable. Hints of cramps announce themselves. My arms stretched up high... I standing up for so long... I have tried shifting weight to my arms for a while, but it killed me.

How long will he leave me here? As long he left her? The possibility of torture! How will I bear up to torture? Will he ravage my body like he did hers? I suddenly panic! A cold sweat sets in. Then - oh, horror! - an urge comes on like a flood... I cannot stop it... I surrender dishonourably and feel the shameful trickle down my legs to the ground...

I am reminded of my disgrace for a long time. First the traces on my legs become cold while they dry up. My lips retain their cold wetness much longer and I feel that every so often a drop falls down. I cannot even wipe myself. I feel very dirty. The stench of urine stays with me.

A few hours pass in which I am alone and hear not a sound.

My body is so sore as I have stood, hung or leaned against the wall - I don't know which!- when the sound of his feet ascending the stairs exchange this terrible period of waiting... for what? I will know soon! His gait is heavy and irregular. When he, the dark gentleman, enters the room, his appearance is dishevelled. He has taken off his jacket, his creased shirt is half-undone from his trousers and his tie is loose and askew.

He comes up close to me, his nose touching mine. His breath blows in my face and reeks of alcohol. He stares into my eyes in silence for a while, before he mutters: 'Take you instead, eh? I will teach you to take her place.'

I am stiff with fear. Now that he is drunk, he might loose control altogether and want to dissipate all his frustrations over me. I dare not utter a word against him. Anything I say is likely to upset him. With frozen, blind eyes I look at him.

He groans and steps away again, finds his way towards the blind wall. He reaches for an item on a rack there. I cannot clearly see, but I know. I am about to be chastised. My fear is confirmed when he turns and approaches me. A whip! He looks at me and smirks, ‘I am about to make you regret you ever made this offer. Why should I, eh? I am morally obliged to reward you for your self-sacrifice, no?

'"Whatever right I may have, I cannot take it now?" What do you know of my rights, you bitch? What gives you the right to remove them? Citizen’s arrest, bah! But if you take them away, surely you must give me something in return? The rights to you, then.

'"Take me." I own you now, you know that? That means that my wish is your command. No more contradictory actions and thoughts. I shall root them out. We started off badly when you invaded this space. Badly indeed. I’ll root them out.

‘Consider this object in my hand. I will use it in a moment. Its lashings will hurt you.’

He moves the whip right in front my face, its multiple strands stroking me. Their touch is gentle but makes me shudder in anticipation of the bites that will come. I won’t be up to the pain. I am fighting to keep the tears in. Is he able to see this? I am fighting against a display that will provoke or stimulate him. Lord! Let his perception be blunted by his drunken state. Yet his cruelty will not be any less, nor his self-restraint larger.

Buried in these thoughts, I am shocked by his sudden step back, his raising the whip like a shot and -slash- by its bite cutting across my chest. He almost loses his balance. The impact is as if I am struck by lighting! If I had wanted to appear stoic, there was no stopping the raw cry that escaped or the tears that sprang up in my eyes.

‘There, self-righteous bitch. Now do you still want to be like her? You don’t realise that she likes these hurts, gets off on them. On your part, you don’t exactly radiate satisfaction. Oh, my sweetie, let me look at you and your deeper desires,’ and he drops down on his knees.

He clinches my two labia with his fingers and pulls them hard apart. He laughs and shouts, ‘You are dry, you cunt. You have not reached her peaks yet.’

He probes his index finger inside me, the bastard. He will find me dry, he will!

‘Not like her, indeed, not like her at all. Perhaps I have to set you off?’

And he starts rubbing my clitoris, gently like a lover first, but the pain of the whip make stimulation an alien concept. When he sees no softening of my expression, he rubs my clitoris vigorously and adds torture to torture. Finally, I lose my self-control altogether and cry, and scream my heart out, and struggle like mad in my restraints. Is this where he wants me to be?

I am only vaguely aware that he steps back and raises the whip again... out of control I can neither brace myself nor reinforce myself... I sense his hand commencing its descent... I gasp for air...

‘No!’

This word lifts me back to consciousness and I exhale. Through my tears I look up at his hand and the whip it is holding. I see that another hand holds his wrist - Madame’s!

He is stupified and turns to looks at her. The vision: he, the arrested devil, she, the saving grace, naked, hurt, but not defeated and avenging her torture and mine. They are both motionless, his arm still raised and hers holding his.

Then his eyes darken and he snarls: ‘No? I give you a second to release me and let me submit this bitch. I am your Master! Let go!'

I will never forget how Madame defied him. The look in her eyes, a mixture of pride and sadness. The sadness... it was painful to see. It expressed the weight of a great love's history, a great lost love.

That eternal moment without motion, when these formidable creatures just eyed each other, it had suddenly passed when he started to wrench himself from her grip. He was bound to win this struggle. It ended when he threw Madame on the ground right at my feet and thus restored the balance of power in his favour. Her naked and wounded shape on the floor, defeated physically, we saw him raising the whip once more... Lord... at whom, her or me?

'Monsieur,' her voice declares, still articulate, but urgent, 'your time has passed. I dread saying this, as I have never desired to be anything but yours, but I am yours no longer. Be a man and acknowledge this!

'Get out.'

What would have gone through his mind? I held my breath and read alternately wrath and despair in his eyes. It took a moment before his arm floated down and he finally dropped the whip. He dug in his pocket and dropped a set of keys at her feet. Then his gaze rose and met hers.

Her voice repeated, almost in a whisper, 'Get out.'

He went and almost ran away. Only minutes later we heard the front door bang shut.

What went before - To be continued

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