Aunt Phoebe's Masturbatorium Ch. 11

"Better luck next time guys," I said as I shook my aunt's hand.

"I think you have a wonderful hand technique," my aunt said to Mary Kate. "I'll bet you really love jacking off guys."

"I do," Mary Kate replied. "Ash does too. But your style is something else."

"Years and years of practice," my aunt laughed.

The night ended with another performance from Madonna and then we all shared one last round of drinks before goodbyes had to be said. The party was over. I thanked everybody and gave a short speech. It had been a wonderful evening and I had my aunt to thank for it.

Before they left, Mary Kate and Ashley made plans for me to come visit them on their new movie set, which was going to be filmed in Paris during the winter months. I kissed both of them goodbye and then followed my aunt and Craig as we headed for our limo. I was tired, and all I could think of was falling asleep in my lover's arms.

************

Craig remained with me for the next few weeks before getting a call from his mother telling him that his father was in an automobile accident and was seriously ill. After a tearful goodbye, he took a flight back to Stockholm promising me that he would return as soon as he was able. By this time I was completely immersed in Sisterhood business affairs and was grateful for it because it took my mind off him for a short time. It seemed that there was always something to do—something or other that demanded my constant attention. I rarely put in days that were shorter than nine hours, and I was thankful that Justine, Estelle and the other employees hired by them were competent in their duties. Without such help I don't think I would have lasted too long as Sisterhood leader.

Life went on pretty much as usual. By now my aunt and I had settled into a comfortable routine, with neither of us getting in the other's way. Her mood was most often good, only the memories of her past causing her occasional distress. She had had no word from Angelique since that last awful encounter several month's earlier, and I think she was grateful for it. She rarely talked about her daughter anymore, having suffered enough pain at her hands that she became numb at the mere mention of my cousin's name.

As much as I enjoyed my duties as Sisterhood leader, I always felt that I was attempting to accomplish the impossible. The specter of Lenore loomed large over everything I did, and I felt a constant need to prove myself to everyone at every turn. The truth was that I did not want to make any mistakes. I wanted people like and respect me without making any comparisons to Lenore. Of course, this was impossible. Most of the Sisters did in fact accept me, but there were those who remained aloof and skeptical of my abilities. Justine and Estelle had warned me that this would be the case, and that all I could do was my best. And in doing so, would hopefully win the affections of my cynical counterparts.

During the first week of November, I had been out walking in the vineyard, enjoying the comparatively mild autumn weather. The sun was beginning to dip in the western sky but I continued to walk out beyond the southern enclosure toward the old dilapidated bunker that had long ago fell into disuse and was now overgrown with dense vegetation and almost impassible. To my surprise I saw someone approach me from that direction and he or she seemed to be in great haste. I called out to whoever it was but I got no response. Then, as the figure drew closer, I saw that it was a man, Jacques LaSalle, and he was fighting to make his way though an impenetrable tangle of bushes and weeds. Several times he looked behind him, but never once broke his stride. When he saw me, he smiled and came running up a small knoll upon which I had stood watching his progress. He was sweating profusely.

"What's wrong, Jacques?" I asked, as he doubled over trying to catch his breath. "You look as if someone is chasing you."

"No," he replied, taking a few moments to get air into his lungs. "No one is chasing me."

"Then what's wrong? I inquired further. "Look at you. You're a mess. Look at your clothes!"

Indeed, his pants and shirt had been torn in a few places and there was a touch of red on his left hand.

"It's nothing, mademoiselle," he said, wiping the back of his hand on his pant leg. It was the thorns."

From far off I heard a high-pitched squeal that sounded eerily human. "What is that?"

"The animals," he answered, looking warily behind him. "I was running from them."

"What animals? What are you talking about?"

"Surely you know there are wolves in the forest just beyond the open country. Sometimes they venture close to the chateau looking for food."

I knew this to be a lie. Poachers had long since killed off all the wolves that had once roamed freely in this part of the forest. All that remained were foxes, and they never ventured far beyond their lairs.

"There are no wolves, Jacques," I contradicted him. "They are long gone."

He drew himself closer to me and spoke in a whisper. "That's what most people think, but it's not true. There are still a few of them around. We must go."

Not waiting for a reply, he took my hand in his and pulled me in the direction of the chateau.

"What are you doing?" I exclaimed, as I fought to break free of his grasp. "Let go of me!"

He dragged me forward several feet and I lost my balance, causing me to fall onto my knees. "Let go!" I demanded. He tried to pull me up. I dug my fingernails into his hand, cursing him. He promptly released me.

"You should not be out here after dark," he warned, clutching his hand. "Please Holly, for your own sake!"

The insistent quality of his voice disturbed me. He did not seem to me to be the kind of man who startled easily. And even if there were a lone wolf or two meandering nearby, they would never attack a grown man unless they had been part of a pack. I had seen fear in his eyes, and I couldn't account for it.

Once again I heard a shrill, but muted, cry coming from the direction in which Jacques had just come. It sounded as if an animal were in pain.

"We must leave here now!" he demanded. "They are coming closer. Please mademoiselle. Come with me."

I simply could not buy his story. And the more he tried to convince me, the less I believed him. "Stop lying to me about the wolves, Jacques. Tell me the truth. What are you running from?"

"I told you the truth," he insisted. "Please!"

"No," I replied firmly. "You go ahead. I'll be along in a little while."

He looked dismayed. "But the wolves…"

"Go!" I yelled at him.

"As you wish," he said, resignedly. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small flashlight and handed it to me. "It gets dark quickly so close to the forest. Don't tarry mademoiselle."

I took the flashlight and thanked him. Giving me one last disconcerted look, he hurriedly ran off in the direction of the chateau.

The sky had become a grayish-blue swash of muted half-light, and behind a low-lying cloud I could make out the somber outline of a full moon waiting to break out from behind the gray pallor into a blaze of silver radiance. Even without the flashlight, I would have had little trouble finding my way to the bunker in such luminosity. But I was glad to have it nonetheless.

The bunker was not far off. I estimated it to be less than a few hundred yards. I stepped gingerly amongst the thickets, using my flashlight to illuminate the path before me. Presently the moon burst forth from behind the veil of shadowy grayness and bathed the entire landscape in rich, iridescent tones. It gave everything an otherworldly quality, as if I were walking in a fairytale world.

As I neared my destination I noticed that the vegetation grew less dense. It seemed that great swaths of plant life had been swept aside to make way for a rudimentary path. And here and there were scattered pieces of desiccated metal and scrap iron, on top of which laid a pile of ancient timber that clearly must have once been part of the bunker's inner structure. I wondered who had performed this seemingly Herculean task and when. Did my aunt know about it?

I don't know what internal mechanism or outward agency was compelling me toward that ancient edifice. Perhaps it was Jacques's disingenuousness, or perhaps it was my own latent curiosity. Charlotte had once told me that the levels of the Masturbatorium ran deep. And there was conjecture, even until the present day, as to whether or not actual treasure had been buried in the chateau's labyrinthine depths. Was it possible that Jacques was involved in some furtive expedition to uncover the riches waiting within? But how could one man accomplish such a feat—a feat that would take a vast array of men and machinery to accomplish?

Coming upon the bunker, I found that the trees and bushes that had once obliterated it from view, even from the relatively nearby distance of the road leading to the chateau, had been thinned out. The vegetation still enshrouded the squat building but its former obscured outline had now become somewhat more pronounced. Even in the moonlight I could tell that some human agency had been hard at work removing over a half-centuries' growth of unyielding, creeping flora. But the biggest surprise was finding one of the huge metal doors completely off its hinges, lying on a slight incline and flanking the concrete buttress behind it. No man, or group of men, could have budged such an enormous weight without the use of some kind of powerful machinery. Each door itself must have weighed at least a ton or more, and it would have been quite impossible to open using traditional methods. Yet there was no sight of a giant winch or pulley, or any other kind of machine, which could have accomplished such a task.

I walked slowly up onto the concrete platform upon which the twin doors stood and shined my flashlight into the void between the two metal behemoths. At first all I could make out were the darting forms of myriad flying insects and the dim outline of some kind of steel-reinforced supporting beams that ran at regular intervals up into an ascending, rock-strewn cavity. Beyond that I could see nothing but inky blackness.

I stood there for a long time contemplating whether or not I should proceed into the structure. What if there were people inside? Bad people like fortune hunters. Those ruthless, desperate men who would not think twice about killing an innocent girl to keep the knowledge of their treasure from the outside world. Or maybe there was a wild animal trapped somewhere in its mysterious depths—possibly wounded and no doubt very hungry. It was possible a lone wolf could have found its way into the subterranean complex that lay before me. I had no weapons at hand. How would I defend myself against such a threat? I had been a fool to let my curiosity get the better of me. Suddenly, I felt very afraid. And as I turned to walk away, I was greeted with the most abysmal cry that I had ever heard.

There was no mistaking the sound of it. It was definitely not that of a wounded animal. Yet the cry did sound somehow like the guttural bellowing of a beast—a piteous, agonizing outburst of sheer desperation that did not originate from the valley beyond but from the depths of the bunker itself. With a shaking hand I once again held up my flashlight into the eerie blackness that lie beyond the entrance and stepped through.

I told myself that I must have been mad to have made such a foolhardy decision. Yet, the vocal nuances sounded hauntingly familiar. Even through the pain I could hear vague, indistinct mutterings that rose in volume and then faded away again with each new outcry. And those mutterings were coming from a voice I recognized! Good God! Why couldn't I place the voice? Again, another outburst of agony and then the sound of something sharp and whip-like reverberating in the dank air before ending in utter silence. I plodded ahead as quickly as I could upon the black, impacted earth, shining my flashlight in all directions to help ascertain my surroundings.

I soon discovered that I was in an old, earthen tunnel that had recently been restored with heavy wooden timber frames and steel support beams. I seemed to be walking up a slight incline and felt the air grow decidedly cooler as I ascended. When I reached the top of the incline the ground leveled off and opened up into a circular chamber upon which large wooden planks had been placed side by side to form a rudimentary floor. There was a generator whirring away in the far corner and all about the room were groups of fluorescent lights that bathed everything in a harsh, white glow.

I moved as quietly as I could, turning off my flashlight but holding it firmly in my hand if I should need it as a weapon. What the artificial light revealed was something that made me wish I had been less curious.

Strewn about the room in no particular fashion were an assortment of power generators, batteries, baffles, foodstuffs, tools of various sizes, dollies, barrels of oil, candles, clothing, and most disconcerting of all, a wide variety of implements employed for corporeal punishment: whips, cat-o-nine tails, metal cages, a portable rack, surgical tools, handcuffs, rope, and other strange devices of unknown origin. Particularly insidious looking was a machine that stood some eight or nine feet high, rudely anthropomorphic in form with metal appendages that resembled human arms and legs. It appeared to me that a person could easily fit into the device, but for what purpose I could not ascertain.

"Dungeons and dragons," I said aloud as my eyes slowly scanned the room.

It was disturbing enough to know that this ancient tunnel had actually been made functional once again, but to find that it had become nothing more than a modern-day chamber of horrors truly chilled my heart. What kind of person or persons would do such a thing? And how had this renovation escaped the notice of my otherwise astute aunt Phoebe?

I soon realized that it would have been impossible to discern the bunker from the road because of the thick and overgrown vegetation. Even from the vantage point of my bedroom window, which overlooked the entire southern end of the estate and the open meadow and forest beyond, the bunker was well hidden under a maze of overgrown trees and brush. Add to that the fact that my aunt had no reason whatsoever to believe that anything was amiss since she believed the tunnel to be unusable and very dangerous. The only thing I could think of was that, at some point in the recent past, someone had cleared a path leading in from the road to the bunker and then artfully concealed the opening with a makeshift wall of vegetation. It must have taken many people working many hours to accomplish this arduous task, and would imply a system of networks employed to maintain the utter secrecy of the operation. That it went completely unnoticed by my aunt, her staff, me, Jake and other visitors to the chateau, meant that the work must have commenced in the early morning hours and concluded before sunrise. The very fact that it existed at all was a testament to the ingenuity and craftiness of its creator.

For a few moments I amused myself with the thought that this sadomasochistic universe might indeed be the creation of my aunt Phoebe herself. Possibly representing a darker side of her nature that had remained hitherto concealed from the world. But as soon as I had thought it, I laughed it off, knowing that, like me, she could not abide cruelty in any form. I simply could not picture her clad in black leather, swinging a cat-o-nine tails at some cringing, naked man. It just didn't add up.

The more I thought about it, the more I came to the realization that whoever was behind this enterprise was not only extremely clever, but possessed of an extremely cruel nature. As I continued my cursory examination of the room this was further confirmed when I found a pile of CDs carefully stacked in a corner labeled with such titles as "Making Him Cry," "Crush," "Suffocation 101," "Ball Busting Fun," "Cement Mix," and other equally disturbing offerings. There was a small black and white television and DVD player nearby but I resisted the urge to play any of the CDs, curious as I was.

On the opposite side of the door from which I had entered was another door—heavy, metallic, imposing looking. I now had to make a choice. Do I enter through it or do I turn around and go home and tell my aunt? Any normal person would have, at this point, turned back. But I simply had to find out what was going on.

As I turned the doorknob I was suddenly greeted by the sound of an intense howl—the same sound I had heard earlier when I was walking in the vineyard. This time there was no mistaking it. It was a human voice. I drew back for a moment in alarm, but my compassionate nature gave me courage, and I slowly pried the door open and walked through.

What greeted me on the other side was something that my rational mind found quite difficult to accept. For there, before me, was a long, wooden walkway whose gradient extended outward by minute degrees onto a causeway constructed entirely of concrete. And this area then expanded out into a vast circular chamber supported by thick steel beams and crossbeams, circumventing the entire space from the mouth of the causeway to the barren rock and earth barrier beyond. I stood there with my mouth wide open, taking in the incredible sight. It was only due to the sound of another wail of pain that I realized I was exposed to view, and I quickly hid amongst a pile of wooden crates that were stacked end upon end on the balcony to my right overlooking the vista below.

From my new vantage point, I was afforded a panoramic view of the immense enclosure. Below me and to my right stood two huge power generators, busily whirring away in their efforts to supply both air conditioning and light to the cavernous area. Next to them stood the air conditioning system itself, a metallic behemoth that dwarfed everything around it.

In the center of the enclave and dotting the periphery were all manner of wooden or mechanical devices that I perceived to be instruments of torture. I saw a rack, a gallows, a coffin studded with nails, and another of those machines that looked like it could fit a human being inside. It stood, in all its eerie malevolence, in the exact center of the room—a silent but terrifying sentinel.

The entire area was awash in a harsh grayish light provided by lighting trees containing fluorescent bulbs. These trees were positioned at measured distances around the room to provide effective illumination. It seemed like something out of a horror movie. Suddenly, I cringed in terror.

A short distance away from the generators were several large metal cages, some of which were suspended from the ceiling. I had found out the source of the wailing: one of them was occupied by a naked man, his body appearing broken and bruised. I let out a cry. It was Mr. Villon!

What madness was this? Immediately, I forced myself to crouch down further amongst the crates, hoping that no one had heard me. What was I going to do? Should I make an effort to help him or should I run? I quickly scanned the area and found no one else in sight. If I could hide behind the generators I might be able to get to him without being seen. But I would be taking a great risk. God knows what would happen to me if I were caught!

And then, as my mind sought to come to terms with what my eyes were seeing, I heard a rumble of voices approaching from the far right-hand section of the chamber. They were female voices and they did not sound in the least bit friendly.

Even before they came into view I could hear Mr. Villon screaming at them in French. He was obviously in great pain.