The Story Of O: Annemarie And The Rings 2

It was at this time that Jacqueline, in addition to her intermittent assignments as a model, began to engage in a more absorbing but equally unpredictable career: she was signed up to play bit parts in the movies. It was hard to tell whether she was proud of this or not, whether or not she considered this the first step in a career which might lead to her becoming famous. In the morning she would drag herself out of bed more in anger than with any show of enthusiasm, would take her shower, quickly make herself up, for breakfast would accept only the large cup of black coffee that O barely had time to make for her, and would let O kiss the tips of her fingers, responding with no more than a mechanical smile and an expression full of malice: O was soft and warm in her white vicuña dressing gown, her hair combed, her face washed, looking for all the world like someone who plans on going back to bed. And yet such was not the case. O had not yet found the courage to explain why to Jacqueline. The truth of the matter was that every day, when Jacqueline left for the film studio at Boulogne where her picture was being shot, at the same time as the children left for school and the white-collar workers for their offices, O, who in the past had indeed whiled away the morning in her apartment, also got dressed.

"I'm sending you my car," Sir Stephen had said, "to drive Jacqueline to Boulogne, then it will come back to pick you up."

Thus O found herself headed for Sir Stephen's place every morning when the sun along the way was still striking the eastern faces; the other walls were still cool in the shade, but in the gardens the shadows were already growing shorter.

At the rue de Poitiers, the housework was still not finished. Norah, the mulatto maid, would take O into the small bedroom where, the first evening, Sir Stephen had left her alone to sleep and cry, wait till O had put her gloves, her bag, and her clothes on the bed, and then she would take them and put them away, in O's presence, in a closet to which she alone had the key. Then, having given O the patent-leather high-heeled mules which made a sharp clicking sound as she walked, Norah would precede her, opening the doors as they went, till they reached Sir Stephen's study, when she would stand aside to let O pass.

O never got used to these preparations, and stripping in front of this patient old woman, who never said a word to her and scarcely looked at her, seemed to her as dangerous and formidable as being naked at Roissy in the presence of the valets there. On felt slippers, the old lady slipped silently by like a nun. As she followed her, O could not take her eyes off the twin points of her Madras kerchief and, every time she opened a door, off her thin, swarthy hand on the porcelain handle, a hand that seemed as hard as wood.

At the same time, by a feeling diametrically opposed to the terror she inspired in her - a contradiction O was unable to explain - O experienced a kind of pride that this servant of Sir Stephen (and just what was her relation to Sir Stephen, and why had he entrusted her with this task as costume and make-up assistant for which she assumed so poorly suited?) was a witness to the fact that she too - like so many others, perhaps, whom she had guided in the same way, and why should she think otherwise? - was worthy of being used by Sir Stephen. For perhaps Sir Stephen did love her, without a doubt he did, and O sensed that the time was not far off when he would no longer be content to let her suspect it but would declare it to her - but to the very degree that his love and desire for her were increasing, he was becoming more completely, more minutely, and more deliberately exacting with her. Thus retained by his side for whole mornings, during which he sometimes scarcely touched her, waiting only to be caressed by her, she did whatever he wanted of her with a sentiment that must be qualified as gratitude, which was all the greater whenever his request took the form of a command. Each surrender was for her the pledge that another surrender would be demanded of her, and she acquitted herself of each as though of a duty performed; it was odd that she would have been completely satisfied by it, and yet she was.

Sir Stephen's office, situated directly above the yellow and gray drawing room where he held sway in the evening, was smaller and had a lower ceiling. It contained neither settee nor sofa, only two regency armchairs upholstered in a tapestry with a floral pattern. O sat in one occasionally, but Sir Stephen generally preferred to keep her near at hand, at arm's length, and while he was busy with other things, to none the less have her seated on his desk, to his left. The desk was set at right angles to the wall, which allowed O to lean back against the shelves which contained some dictionaries and leather-bound phone books. The telephone was snug against her left thigh, and every time the phone rang she jumped it. It was she who picked up the receiver and answered, saying: "May I ask who's calling?" then either repeating the name out loud and passing the receiver to Sir Stephen, or, if he signaled to her, making some excuse for him. Whenever had a visitor, old Norah would announce him, Sir Stephen would have him wait long enough for Norah to conduct O back to the room where she had undressed and where, after Sir Stephen's visitor had left, she would come to fetch her again when Sir Stephen rang for her.

Since Norah entered and left the study several times each morning, either to bring Sir Stephen his coffee or to bring in the mail, to open or draw the blinds or to empty the ashtrays, and since she alone had the right to enter and had been expressly instructed never to knock, and since, finally, she always waited in silence whenever she had something to say, until Sir Stephen spoke to her to ask her what it was she wanted, it so happened that on one occasion when Norah came into the room O was bent over the desk with her rear exposed, her head and arms against the leather top, waiting for Sir Stephen to impale her. She raised her head. If Norah had not glanced at her, and she invariably never did, that would have been the only movement O would have made. But this time it was obvious that Norah was trying to catch O's eye. Those black, beady eyes fastened on her own - and it was impossible for O to tell whether they bespoke indifference or not - those eyes set in a deeply furrowed, impassive face so bothered O that she made a movement to try and get away from Sir Stephen. He gathered what it was all about, and with one hand pinned her waist to the table, while prying her open with the other. She who was constantly striving to cooperate and do her best was now, quite involuntarily, tense and contracted, and Sir Stephen was obliged to force his way. Even when he had done so, she felt that the ring of her buttocks was tightening around him, and he had trouble forcing himself all the way into her. He withdrew only when he was certain he could come and go with ease. Then as he was on the point of taking her again, he told Norah to wait, and said that she could help O get dressed when he had finished with her. And yet, before he dismissed her, he kissed O tenderly on the mouth. It was that kiss which, several days later, gave her the courage to tell him that Norah frightened her.

"I should hope so," he retorted. "And when you wear my mark and my irons, as I trust you soon will - if you will consent to it - you'll have much more reason to be afraid of her."

"Why?" O asked, "and what mark and what irons? I'm already wearing this ring...."

"That's completely up to Anne-Marie, to whom in fact I've promised to show you. We're going to pay her a visit after lunch. I trust you don't mind? She's a friend of mine, and you may have noted that, till now, I've refrained from ever introducing you to my friends. When Anne-Marie is finished with you, I'll give you genuine reasons for being afraid of Norah."

O did not dare to pursue the matter any further. This Anne-Marie whom they had threatened her with intrigued her more than Norah. Sir Stephen had already mentioned her when they had lunched together at Saint-Cloud. And it was quite true that O knew none of Sir Stephen's friends, nor any of his acquaintances. In short, she was living in Paris, locked in her secret as though she had been locked in a brothel; the only persons who had the key to her secret, René and Sir Stephen, at the same time had the only key to her body. She could not help thinking that the expression "open oneself to someone," which meant to give oneself, for her had only this meaning, for she was in fact opening every part of her body which was capable of being opened. It also seemed to her that this was her raison d'être and that Sir Stephen, like René, intended it should be, since whenever he spoke of his friends as he had done at Saint-Cloud, it was to tell her that those to whom he might introduce her would, needless to say, be free to dispose of her however they wished, if indeed they did. But in trying to visualize Anne-Marie and imagine what it might be that Sir Stephen expected from Anne-Marie as far as she, O, was concerned, O was completely at sea, and not even her experience at Roissy was of any help to her. Sir Stephen had also mentioned that he wanted to see her caress another woman: could that be it? (But he had specified that he was referring to Jacqueline....) No, it wasn't that. "To show you," he had just said. Indeed. But after she left Anne-Marie, O knew no more than before.

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