The Dungeon

This is an experiment. It began with a description of a fantasy I had with a man and a woman in an old castle. I sent this descripton to a friend who suggested I should add the woman's voice to it, what she felt and thought. Then he added the man's voice. So this is a cooperation between me and this friend from the other side of the pond (you may notice the strange spelling of it certain words...).

This piece has three voices. The first one is the narrator who casually tells about a fantasy. This part is in basic, ordinary text. Then there is the woman's voice, in italics. The third voice is the man and his text is in bolds (what else?).

A man and a woman. He is older than her, middle age to a little older, perhaps. He is dressed in dinner jacket or something of that kind, very elegantly anyway. He is the perfect gentleman. She is younger than him, smaller, more delicate in everything. She is dressed in a short, black dress, the kind that hugs her body, low cut, revealing but not vulgar, short but not without style. She is lightly dressed, shows a lot of skin but she is not tarty.

She is everything I hoped for. Wide-eyed, seeing everything. Wanting everything. She wears her clothes as if they are new. She wobbles a bit on her heels. Do I disappoint? I must play the wizened courtier, I think.

I am too lightly dressed, I am too naked compared to his elegance. I am too tarty, too revealing, to vulnerable. He must think I am such a vulgar girl.

But I thought I was dressing up, thought that I was trying to look nice. He must see how impressed I am by him...how attracted I am. He is older and so much a stranger but there is something.

Maybe it is all wrong. I am impressed and he is such a very special person but I have no reason to think that he is interested. Am I interested? He is too old. He is such a strange man. He must think I am interested. Maybe I am and maybe I am showing him that. But if I am not. I should have dressed more conservatively.

She blushes exquisitely. At what? At something she wishes, something she sees, or senses? Is she embarrassed by her charming naivete, or sorry for me? But there are three paths to seduction: make her laugh, make her blush, make her feel her desirability. She has blushed. She is on the path. It is up to me to lead her on…

They are at his castle (and for this fantasy it has to be a real, great, old castle). He has treated her to dinner and he has dismissed the servants and now he is showing her his castle. They walk from room to room and he tells her about his ancestors and the history of the castle. She is amused and interested but he is not sure if she is polite, attracted to him or just impressed. After all, she is far younger than him.

Her eyes glitter. She is like a lucid sleepwalker. So delicate… She takes my lead, like a sensitive dance partner. Such attentiveness to my every word. But am I her gallant cavalier, or just a garrulous old fossil? Does she even notice how we descend, floor under floor? How the passages meander, how many doors are closed behind her? Does she sense how lost she will be, how lost she already is?

This castle is like a dream. It is like something from a horror film, so sinister, so old and haunted, so magical. It is a magical castle and he is such an elegant man. He is far too old for me but he is such a gentleman. He is proud of his castle and arrogant but I am not put off. Why is that? He is not handsome, he is too old but I feel like a princess in a fairytale. I am impressed. I am overwhelmed. He overwhelms me and why shouldn't I allow myself to be swept away. I am walking in a dream but why can't I have it?

The tour takes them to the dungeon and this is a real dungeon, the castle prison with heavy pillars and heavy doors of oak and iron. A really grim place and she is really out of place there, too lightly dressed, too exposed and too vulnerable.

Surely she is beginning to see. And yet she takes my arm all the more firmly. But will she, seeing, shy away? How to reassure her, despite appearances, that she is safe in a dream, a fairytale.

She is intrigued, flattered. She is intent, intense. Her questions are genuine. Is this bravado, courage. or ...is she elect ?

The tingle, that strange tingling in my body. How come I am so excited by this. It is like walking into a nightmare but a hauntingly beautiful nightmare. I am like a tiny mouse, like a kitten or something soft and vulnerable here in his castle, in his domain, in his home of power and strength. A strength that goes back beyond anything I can imagine and he just stands there, inviting me, asks me to be a part of it. And this strange tingling sensation. He is such a man. He is old and not handsome but there is something that is older, stronger than anything I have ever felt before.

The dungeon is grim but well kept, no mildew or mould Everything is clean but, still, there are stone walls and heavy doors and well trodden stairs.

It is so old but this is not a neglected part of the castle. It is almost as if it was still in use. As if people still were held here, prisoners of that hideous strength, that iron hard will that seem to glow in his eyes. That strength that overwhelms me and makes me feel very small, very tiny, very vulnerable. But still I am invited, still I am here by his will. I am entering into his domain and I have no power here. But do I want power?

No battering ram could breach these iron doors. And no cries can escape these walls. Rather, in these hard walls, the cries, shrieks, groans reverberated. Sometimes I think they echo still.

They reach the cells of the prison and he shows her the walls where heavy chains and shackles are hanging. She walks through the cells in silence, stops to touch the chains, the shackles.

She is either bold, or trying successfully to appear casual. Does she not understand, can she not feel, the meaning of these artifacts? Is she deaf to the cries of despair? Cannot she feel the palpable pain, the agony of anticipation, the hopelessness? Doesn't she – doesn't she KNOW?

Look how tiny her hands are, her wrists. The contrast -- does she feel it, as I do? The weight, the size, the strength. Once in these chains, she would be like a hare in a bear trap...

The irons are heavy, rough but well kept. They are heavy and grim but not rusty. He looks at her and sees the contrast between her soft person and the grim surroundings and thinks about how she is kept in the heavy iron.

She blushes as he looks at her and maybe she is thinking the same.

How pretty she is when she blushes. Such a privilege to have even this small window into her mind. What voluptuous pleasure would it be to see other her responses: her eyes widen, her first precious tear, her trembling, her words of entreaty -- and these would be appetizers, the cold soup... The main course, the game, to follow.

So here he keeps his prisoners. Here are they kept, his maidens and virgins. The girls he carries off on his raids to the villages around his castle. I can see his ancestors carrying the screaming girls to this cell, chaining them, ripping their clothes off, leaving them naked and exposed, scared and vulnerable. There are no raids and no captures any more and he is a civilised man. There is only a girl who enters of her own free will.

I can feel the iron collar around my neck, its cold and hard surface. How heavy it would be, how completely helpless I would be. I feel naked, standing here. I am just a silly girl, dressing up and showing how weak I am. And he seems so self assured, so confident. I am entering into his old age dream of capture and imprisonment, of dark cruel lust and power and being overpowered and I am just a silly girl impressed by his power.

I no longer hear the screams, but rather, I hear the calm, commanding voice, giving the order that elicits the screams.

They reach the torture chamber and this is the real thing. It is kept like a museum but the pieces are real and well kept, functioning. There is nothing of the toys and gadgets of a toy dungeon. These are real devices.

He shows her the rack, a device capable of tearing a man in two. He shows her the iron that may be heated white for branding and torture. He shows her the horse with a sharp back where the victim may be sat.

I know what he is thinking. I know why he is doing this. I know he is talking about me. I know that I am thinking what he is thinking. How painful that rack would be. How helpless I would be in its clutches. I can see it now, how the torches flicker, how I am strapped to the rack, helpless and, perhaps, naked. How he stands there, his hand on the lever, how he can make me scream by just pulling it.

The man explains every device in detail and watches her reactions. She is affected, blushes and trembles.

She reacts as she imagines she should react, or rather, she responds automatically but superficially. Will she ask more questions? Does she understand there is only one way to truly answer them?

Oh the bliss, the possibility... must not frighten the dove. And must not
break her too soon .. patience ... patience is the hardest part.

The rack fascinates her. I wonder, if I suggested she lie on it, just to experience more vividly – what would she do? Laugh it off? Take offense? Or ... once bound, I would turn the ratchet ever so slowly, slightly. Then inspect her, from her coiffure to her toes. Reality might come to her then. Or not? How long could I keep up the charade of providing an "educational" experience -- if a naughty one? Such bliss to bind her, then to kiss her fears away – temporarily.

....

But even as she lies, helpless but expecting release, I heat the brazier. So many opportunities. A small, glowing tip, waved close -- she becomes keenly aware, as never before, of the potential for agony in her delicate whorled ear lobe, her underarm, the hollow of her knee, her delicate arch. How long might she harbor the hope these teasing are merely jokes in bad taste?

He tells her how the pain is created and how the different parts of the devices are applied to the body.

The hot iron is too horrible. I can't think of that. His eyes are glimmering. I hope he is not thinking about the iron. The horse is magnificent. I can almost feel how it would be, sitting on it.

I would save the horse ... must not break her too quickly … but she must be well subdued before I could place her there. But, once on, hands tied behind her, weights on her ankles... a charcoal brazier, perhaps, heated, smoking, directly under the saddle? I will pretend to leave. Watch from the chink in the wall. How voluptuous...

He puts me there, naked, my exposed sex touching the harsh sharp edge, biting into my flesh. The tingling sensation, the warmth, the horrible excitement. It is a dark and dangerous dream but he enjoys it, he enjoys telling me about it. How could I ever have mistaken him, his intentions? But I am not someone he respects. I am not a woman to love and to care for. I am just a girl impressed by his power, his castle and his devices.

I am impressed and I do not care. This dream is too powerful.

His words become more explicit and he talks about the prospective victim as 'she' and 'her body'. She shivers as if cold and looks at him and his devices with awe. He becomes more and more agitated and his eyes are shining. He is like a child.

She is like a bird hypnotized by a snake. If she runs now, how far will I let her run before I catch her? Should we pretend to leave, be almost out the door -- be out the door -- before I drag her back? Or might she willingly place her hands in the cuffs of the flogging frame, just for the experience? To tell her friends how brave she was? How odd, if harmless, was that old man?

He is like a child. This is his dream, his fascination, and I am just a part of it. I know he wants to do this to me. I know he wants to use his devices on me. I am just one of the girls that his robber baron ancestors have captured. I am just some stupid young person who walks into his dream.

This tingling, this strange excitement. His words touches my ears like vinegar on a wound, like something bitter and yet sweet touches your tongue. It is his play, his dream and I have a part in it. How sweet is not that part. How sensational is not my surrender to his childish delight.

She walks around, touches the devices, almost caresses them, thinking that it is her body that will be fastened and tortured there. It is still a tour and he is just talking about his castle but both of them know that they are talking about her being tortured by him.

I shudder to think of her in this place. Yet I exalt. I see that she, too, feels the unspeakable horror and irresistible attraction of this place, of these instruments that have been waiting, so many centuries, to taste her.

They both know it and they both know that he will do it to her. She knows but she does not run.

Perhaps this iron will hold my body. How will it be to be held, to be captured by unyielding iron? Iron that won't let me go. I will lose my freedom and I will be just a captive. I will have to trust him. I will have to hope that he will not harm me, that he will not injure me.

I have always done what I want but lying on that rack or sitting on that chair, in iron I will no longer be free. I will change, have to trust, have to be where I am put. I will have to endure.

I know that he will not just keep me there. I know he will make me suffer. I know I will suffer. I know he will grant me pain.

What will it be like? Will I endure? Is there, really, room for my tingling sex in his dream. Will I enjoy it?

Her destiny and my ancestry intersect here. Such a lovely girl, such a beautiful doom. I shall relish every sigh, groan I wring from her. I shall cherish her, even as… I shall honor her, as she honors me.

He sees her affect, her fear and her fascination. She sees his immense pleasure, his childish enthusiasm, his joy at the prospect of torturing her.

Should I ever hesitate I have only to look at his face. How could I deny him that pleasure. I am privileged to be allowed to enter his dream to, enter his dungeon. Come what may!

What is this?

Is it possible?

All things are possible....