"My God!" said Erika softly. "One of his reasons for not helping me to find an abortionist was that he didn't trust them. He said they were never safe."
"He evidently thought he was safer-with Elise Fuchs, at any rate."
"But the doctor? The certificate showing peritonitis?"
"The doctor is a close friend. They were at the university together."
Erika took a deep breath. "And how did you find out about it?"
"Elise Fuchs sent for me. I was her employer, she had no family. She didn't die at once, you see. She told me all about it. Like you, she was very angry with Gunther. He didn't go anywhere near her after he'd done the abortion. She told me a lot of details and facts which give me now a total power over him. The infection set in soon after I saw her, and when she died I had Herr Gunther up to my office for a little talk."
"I wish I could have seen his face."
"Yes," said Marlene. "It was quite a study." She paused, and then said gently: "You see, I was born a sadist. And this gave me a new victim-a new and absolutely helpless victim." She got up and reached out her hand for Erika's glass. "Let me get you another drink." She went to the bar-cabinet and took her time pouring the brandy. She wanted to give the girl a moment or two to digest this last item of information.
Erika digested it with a blend of surprise and pleasure. She herself had felt the stirrings of sexual sadism from time to time but had done nothing about it; opportunities had been lacking. She had envied other women who, according to vague rumours, had no lack of opportunities; women like her employer: beautiful, worldly, and wealthy enough to do what they wanted. With excitement she realised that a curtain was going to be lifted for her. She was about to hear some definite facts, not vague rumours.
She said: "How wonderful, Fraulein Reitter! How marvellous! Do please tell me more. Do you whip him very often?"
"Once a week."
"Once a week! So often? Do you really? And he has to submit to it!"
"Exactly." Marlene gave her the glass of brandy and sat down again.
"Do you only whip him-or do you do other things? Tortures and so on?"
"Oh, many other things." Marlene laughed. "I'm a thorough-going sadist, you see. I just like to give pain.
"To men only? Or to women, too?"
"I haven't either tortured or whipped a woman yet but I don't see why I shouldn't. I prefer men, though.
"Oh, naturally." Erika was thinking again, however, that she would not at all object to being whipped, or even tortured in other ways, by this lovely woman-provided she wore one of her rubber garments while she was doing the whipping or the torturing.
She's taking this very well, thought Marlene. She seems to be quite excited by the whole situation. I wonder whether she's a sadist herself. She could very easily be. It will be very nice if she is. I can take her with me on my trips. She said: "You seemed to get quite a pleasure from whipping Gunther just now. Was it simply revenge, or anything else? Are you, by any chance, a little sadistic yourself?"
"I don't know," said Erika, running her hand again over the shimmery rubber that covered her knees. "I think I could be. I've often thought about it, anyway. And I've read a lot of books about it. De Sade and so on."
"And you've felt that you'd like to do it?"
"Oh yes. Certainly I've felt that. It's just that I haven't seemed to find the way to it."
So Gunther is the first man you've whipped, is he?"
"Yes, he's the first."
Would you like to do it to someone else-for pure sex, I mean; not for punishment?"
"I'd like to, very much indeed," said Erika simply.
So that's that, thought Marlene, and thank God! If I play my cards carefully, she'll not only be safe she'll also be a very nice little assistant. "Would you like," she said, "to come with me tomorrow on my foreign trip?"
Erika stared at her. "To Paris?"
"To Paris, and then back into Germany. I have to see Baron Franz-Ruller in Kiel on some business but it'll be quite interesting in Kiel too. There's a Swede there called Per Petersen who is quite a masochist. And after that, London."
"Oh, Fraulein Reitter"-Erika's eyes were shining-"are you really serious?"
"Yes, very serious. I'd have taken you on other trips if I'd known you felt like this. I've always gone alone because I need privacy for what I want to do."
Erika gazed at her with awed devotion. "Do you whip and torture people when you go on your trips?"
Marlene laughed. "Of course. I can't do it here in Munich- except to our mutual friend Herr Gunther."
"How do you find them? They're men, of course. You said you haven't whipped or tortured a woman yet. Are foreign men as masochistic as German men?"
"English, American and Scandinavian men are-or perhaps not so much. No one is quite so masochistic as a German man; no one loves so much to be disciplined. But the English and the Americans run a pretty close second. And the Scandinavians aren't far behind."
"What about the French? And the Italians?"
"They're hopeless, really. One can find a masochist here and there, but it's difficult."
"How do you find them? They don't just simply announce that they're masochists, of course. So how do you find your- your victims, as you called them a moment ago?"
Marlene sipped her drink. "There are all sorts of ways. In England, for instance-and in America and Scandinavia-they do announce it, in one way or another. All we've got to do is to put the idea into their minds."
"But how do you do that? If I'd known how to do it, I would have whipped every man who's ever made love to me."
"They've been Germans?"
"Yes."
Marlene laughed. "You poor innocent chicken! All you had to do was to show them a whip or a cane or something, and tell them to bend over."
"I wouldn't have dared. They looked so serious."
"So pompous, you mean. Dear Erika, our menfolk are very pompous in sex. But just take a whip to them and you'll see how unpompous they become. They fall over themselves to kiss our feet."
"Good heavens! Life is going to be more interesting in the future, I can see. But foreign men-Englishmen and so on- aren't so easy, you say? What happens with them? You put the idea into their minds, you say. But how do you do that?"
"I'll show you in the next week or so."
"And do they submit to everything you want to do to them?
"Oh, no. Not by any means. You have to make sure they're quite helpless-tied up and gagged and so on."
"Don't they make a fuss afterwards?"
A fuss? You mean with the police or something?"
"Yea."
"Good heavens, no! Their ego! Think of their ego. Would they like it to be splashed over the front of a newspaper that they've been whipped and tortured by a member of the weaker-.the so-called weaker-sex?"
"No, I suppose not."
"But the best thing of all is to get someone really under your thumb, and let him know what is going to happen to him before it happens."
"How do you do that?"
"I'll show you that, too. There are a number of ways."
Erika took a deep breath. "Oh, life is wonderful! Thank you for taking me, Fraulein Reitter."
"You'd better call me Marlene from now on-when we're off duty, at any rate."
Erika looked at her gratefully. "All right. Thank you- Marlene."
"Good. Now I have something to ask you."
"Do, please. Anything."
"Why did you want me to keep this cape on?"
Erika hesitated for only the merest second. "Because I love rubber. I love any clothing that's made of rubber."