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.