"O-oh!" Erika sucked in her breath. She was listening with her eyes wide open and her lips parted. "O-oh, I'd love to do that."
"You have to be careful with the balls," said Marlene judiciously. "But you can get a lot of pleasure from other parts of the body, too. Just about the only place you mustn't whip is the spot above the kidneys. Some people say the back of the neck, too, but I've never taken any notice of it.
Erika was silent and thoughtful for a moment. "Life is going to be utterly wonderful," she said. "The way my heart is racing means that I must be a lot more sadistic than I ever dreamed."
"Most women are," said Marlene. "Nearly all of us have it inside us, but not many of us do anything about it."
Except, thought Erika, women of your sort and your class, who have a better opportunity. Aloud, she said: "I'm so glad I'm your secretary, Fraulein Reitter."
"Marlene," said the other. "We're not on duty."
"All right-Marlene. Thank you. It takes a bit of getting used to."
The taxi slowed down for some lights.
Marlene leaned forward and spoke to the driver through the glass opening. "There is a large rubber store a little way up on the left. Stop there for a few moments, please." Her French was fluent but had a gutteral German note in it.
"A rubber store?" said Erika, with a quickening of her heart. "What are you going to buy?"
"Nothing that would excite you," said Marlene, smiling. "I want to get a length of solid, thick, rubber tubing. It doesn't make so much noise as a whip or the other things, and our Englishman lives in a flat with rather thin walls."
"Oh, we're not going to whip him in the hotel? You said he'll come within twenty minutes of your call. It won't be for a whipping?"
'No. The hotel knows me too well. I daren't take any chances. The walls are probably very solid, but one never knows. It's better to do it in his flat this evening."
Erika felt disappointed. She had been looking forward to a more immediate pleasure. "I see." A thought struck her. "What if he's not in Paris? Do you know that he is?"
"No."
"What if he's not?"
"We'll just have to find someone else."
The taxi stopped.
"May I come with you?" said Erika.
"By all means."
They got out of the taxi and crossed the pavement. Several men turned their heads and watched them going through the glass doors of the store.
Marlene stopped beside a floor-walker. "Rubber tubing, please?"
"In the basement, madame. The stairs are just here."
Erika breathed in the smell of rubber that pervaded the shop. Though it was the heavy smell of goods rather than the light, sweeter smell of garments, she found it pleasantly exciting.
Marlene read her thoughts as they walked down the stairs. "It's a pleasant smell, isn't it? There's none of the almondy smell that a raincoat has, but I like it all the same." She wondered why she bothered to tell this lie. Rubber meant nothing to her. She had put up a pretence the previous night when it was necessary to secure the silence, and therefore the devotion, of her secretary, but now there was no necessity at all.
"Oh, so do I," Erika said. "There's no smell in the world to equal rubber-particularly when it's mixed with perfume. I often wonder why the big perfumiers don't put it into a bottle."
"I doubt if they'd have much of a market."
"Oh, they would, Marlene! Hundreds of people-thousands, in fact-are like us."
A salesman approached them.
"I want some rubber thing," said Marlene. "Solid."
"Certainly, madame. May I ask for what purpose?"
"Certainly, monsieur. It is to whip people with."
The salesman looked sharply at her, opened his mouth to laugh, and slowly closed it. "Of course, madame," he said nervously. "Will you come this way, please?"
"He's no masochist," said Marlene in German, as they followed him. "He doesn't know whether to take me seriously or not, but he wouldn't trust himself alone with me for anything in the world."
The salesman put a coil of tubing on the counter.
"No," said Marlene. "Thicker, please. About as thick as my thumb." And she held up her hand in front of his face.
The man recoiled a little, and then stooped to take another coil from beneath the counter.
"This is better," said Marlene, fingering it. "Cut me two lengths, please, of seventy centimetres."
"Seventy centimetres, madame?" he said, looking at her blankly.
"Yes. The right length for a whipping."
He gave a nervous giggle and looked away from her. After that he avoided her eyes altogether. He busied himself with the cutting and the wrapping of the tubing.
"Is one length for me?" asked Erika, as they went back upstairs.
"Of course."
The taxi took no more than another ten minutes to deposit them at their hotel in the Champs Elysees.
"What a great pleasure, Mademoiselle Reitter," said the chief reception clerk. "Welcome back to Paris. I trust you are well?"
"Very well, thank you, Monsieur Laure," said Marlene. She had a very good memory for names, and always endeared subordinates to her by making them feel they had been especially remembered.
"You have your usual suite, of course, and as soon as we had your telegram this morning we freed the room opposite for your secretary. Will you follow me, please?"
He took them up in the lift and led the way first to Erika's room. He presented it for Marlene's inspection rather than Erika's. Then he opened the door of the suite opposite. A great bowl of roses stood on the table of the sitting-room.
"How nice," said Marlene, putting her nose to them. "Thank you so much."
"It is a great pleasure to have Mademoiselle Reitter with us again," said the reception clerk, and began to fuss around the suite, opening windows, patting cushions.
At last he left them alone.
Erika looked down at the parcel she had been carrying since they left the rubber store. "May I open it?"
"Do."
She slipped the string off the corners of the paper and took out the two lengths of rubber tubing. She straightened them in her hands. They felt heavy. She put one on the seat of a chair and swung the other experimentally through the air. She felt her heart begin to race again. "It'll be terribly painful, won't it?"
"Yes. In a different way from a whip, of course. That gives a sharper pain. This gives a heavier, more bruising sort. I far prefer a whip or any of the other things but they do make so much noise. We don't want the neighbours sending for the police."
Erika swung it backwards and forwards. "It will be wonderful! I just can't wait."
Marlene lit a cigarette and went to the telephone. She asked for a number and waited. Then she began to speak in fluent English.
"Hugh?… This is Marlene Reitter… Oh, very well, thank you. And you?… About an hour ago. Yes, I'm looking forward to seeing you, too. Why don't you come along and have a drink?… Yes, the same hotel, the same suite. You'll find two of us here. I've brought an assistant… Yes, an assistant. A very pretty girl… Of course an assistant for that. She's quite a sadist. I hope you're in a strong condition. You'll need to be, with two of us… She's my secretary… You ask too many questions, my dear Hugh. Just come on over and have a drink… All right. 'Bye." She put down the telephone and looked at her watch. "Two-thirty," she said, in German. "He'll be here in twenty minutes, you'll see."
"I knew that you could speak English," said Erika, "but I never knew you were so fluent."