were taut in a sort of smile. Her body thrilled under the birch and she fell in an all pervading volupty. She no longer squirmed or wriggled. She lay on Ghislaine's bed, legs thrown wide apart, her little cunt offered up to the blows, her quivering breasts standing out in a perverted holocaust to that new pleasure.
Nicolas was clutching at the floor, kneeling, his eyes riveted on that hungry piece of cunt; Mrs. Cornavin once or twice made a vicious lash at the wet crotch, and, as the birch drew upwards as it were, Myriam raised herself to follow, to take in the divine, disappointing pain.
Kozincko was on the rack, he was tortured with a demented desire to fuck that girl to death and as long as the flagellation lasted he stayed there panting, in the agony of his cravings.
— After that flogging, given much more to please Kozincko's taste than to punish real fault, Mrs. Cornavin thought Myriam would quickly reconsider her conduct on a new basis… As a matter of fact she thought the girl had been quite right to let him starve till then, a fact that allowed Mrs. Cornavin to make herself useful now… By thrashing Myriam she intended to please her employer to, win his gratefulness and profit by it. She thought that by now Myriam would be reconciled with the necessities of her position which after all was not utterly without advantages…
Yet Mrs. Cornavin was wrong.
Myriam was stubbornly determined to do exactly the contrary of what she was expected to do. She had decided to rebel against everything and everybody in the place, she brooded on dark schemes of revenge. She spent her whole night planning out every conceivable mischief, wondering too what her aunt was driving at…
She found out that soon enough.
Mrs. Cornavin came back in the morning with a huge flat box in her arms. She opened it with loving care and drew out a dazzling evening dress, yards of white organdie, gold clasps at the shoulders and a slim belt to match. A dress out of a fairy tale! Myriam couldn't help smiling at this marvel.
«A fine present is it not..? smirked the aunt as she caught Myriam's smile.
«A present? wondered the girl.
«Yes. You're invited to a party to-night.
«Oh, am I..?
«Yes, a wonderful party will be given at the Chateau Vert to night.»
Myriam understood everything. Her aunt's thrashing, the present, Ghislaine's trick, her cousins', the whole scheme that had been put up against her. And her aunt was the head of the conspiracy. She understood why she had been sent down here, locked up, abused and flogged. She was to understand any further resistance to Kozincko's brutish cravings was useless, she was to yield to the master's whims…
«I suppose it is that dear Monsieur Nicolas of yours who's been generous enough to invite me?
«Yes, and you're going to accept…
«Shall I accept to be forced by that old fogey?
«Don't try to be witty. You'll do what I tell you.
«What if I do not?
«You'll do it! cut her aunt. It would cost you a damned lot if you didn't. I'll leave you with your dress, you have the whole day to think it out. When you are decided, you'll ring, then you'll get everything you need to repair your energies…
«Which means I'll badly need them afterwards..?»
Her aunt went out without answering, locking the door as usual.
Myriam was much mortified at having been thus imposed upon. She could well expect it from her aunt, from the little bitches her cousins, but from Ghislaine! from her one friend! Ghislaine knew her father was at the Chateau Vert, she had hidden that from her, but did she know too what his intentions were, did she know what was the purpose of the snare?
Then Myriam thought of Jerome and resolved once more she would never yield to Kozincko. The day dragged on, then she thought, may be, she could go to the party, she would manage to escape him… The dress was so beautiful… she was hungry, thirsty, she rang the bell…
CHAPTER X
This wasn't the first «party» Kozincko gave at the Chateau Vert. He had grown into the habit as much to entertain his friends — and very special friends they were — as to surfeit his own morbidly depraved tastes.
Generally the victims of these Bacchanals were poor girls lured away from their modest surroundings, and who after the fiesta were but a few more human wrecks in Kozincko's and his friends' trade.
On that night, half a dozen of these men were present, men on whose faces the very treponemes seemed to crawl about, men who no longer cared for games they knew too well, and had to be soaked with alcohol to get some sort of fun… A German, a Roumanion Jew, two Spaniards, a sleek-haired Argentine, and Freddy who was Kozincko's manager in France.
They had brought their women with them, ex-shop assistants or «demi-rep» encased for this one night in magnificent evening dresses and obviously ill-at-ease.
Nicolas Kozincko insisted upon this gorgeous dresses, finding a morbid, refined, pleasure, in treating those cunts as women of the world to sully them all the better when fucking them at the end of the evening.
All these were very pretty girls, but most of them with sheepish, submissive look, were ready to gratify any whim of their present master. They seemed to be on fatigue duty, this was no party for them, no feast, no treat, they had been paid to look lovely and happy.
That was why Kozincko had asked Mrs. Cornavin to get few untamed samples of rustic cunts for that night. As to him, he had got Myriam and he got awfully horny at the mere thought of it.
The party had been going on for some time already when Myriam came. In her resplendent white, clinging, dress she looked like a fairy. Kozincko though he knew her well couldn't help saying:
«You look like the loveliest Cinderella in her ball dress!»
And he introduced her to his friends.
They greeted her without being chary of their praises. They didn't forget the last discovery of the boss was at least for the time being taboo, yet this didn't hinder them from taking stock of her from head to foot… shamelessly. Kozincko was flattered to see in his friends' eyes their boundless of indiscreet admiration.
It didn't take Myriam long to find out the party wasn't what she expected, the men had been drinking, the women were informally offering their goods… All the faces were weary, sad, Myriam was sorry she had come. She wanted to escape.
Kozincko must have guessed it, for he handed her a glass of champagne:
«Drink it little dove, you'll see how fine life is at the bottom of a glass!»
Myriam drank, and drank again and again.
Little by little her first impression dwindled away. She thought Kozincko kinder, his friends she thought droll, their girls looked happier. After the fifth glass she let him kiss her lips and hardly balked when he slid his hairy hand into her snowy bosom.
Round about twelve they began to dance. Myriam followed all of them one after the other. Freddy held her so tight she felt guilty but dared not say a word. The Argentine always managed to let his hand sneak along her thighs and pinched her buttocks with a vengeance.
Once he cornered her and slipping his hand under the flimsy material tried to caress her thighs. Myriam pushed him away just as her aunt came in.
Her aunt looked very puritan and grave as she entered..! She had come to tell Kozincko the country girls were there. She introducted them one after the other.
How had she prevailed upon them to come was a mystery to any living soul? Three ruddy country lasses… very young at that.
They giggled foolishly, nudging each other.
Very simply dressed, fresh, rather pretty, they had the charm of extreme youth, the charm of unripe fruit… They had been probably drinking for their eyes glistened strangely and they were very red in the face.
Kozincko called his friends. While the girls were rushed into the fiesta, Mrs. Cornavin drew close to Myriam
