Fifty Shades of Submission by Loris James

idea of the unfaithfulness of a beautiful woman. And I cannot imagine such a pitiless woman except in fur."
    "It gives a dominant and imposing quality to a heartless woman?"
    "No t only that," I continued. "I suppose I have always had a very vivid imagination. At the age of ten I was already fascinated by the legends of martyrs. I remember reading with a kind of enraptured horror of how, throughout the beginning of time, these unfortunates have been chained in prisons, tortured in dungeons, scarred with knives, stretched on the rack, boiled in tar, thrown to wild animals to be ripped apart and devoured; nailed to the cross - and suffered the most horrible torment almost with a kind of noble joy. To suffer and endure cruel torture has always seemed to me to be a kind of exquisite ecstasy, especially when inflicted by a beautiful woman. Then the ecstasy becomes all the sweeter and infinitely, passionately sexual.
    "I have studied some of the men in history who have been abused, maltreated, betrayed and broken by women - King Gunther whom the mighty Brunhilde tied to their bed on their bridal night, and the Knight Ctirad whom the daring Amazon Scharka craftily ensnared in a forest near Prague and then took to her castle where, after having amused herself with him, had him brutally tortured and broken on the rack—"
    " Disgusting ," Saskia said, alarmed. "I can promise you that if you had the misfortune of falling into the hands of a heartless woman like that you would soon lose your taste for ‘poetic sexual ecstasy’."
    I looked at her steadily. "Do you think so? I don’t. I think I would be aroused all the more."
    " I think you might actually have lost your senses, Julian," she said alarmed, but even so, the ghost of a look of excitement flared briefly in those hypnotic green eyes.
    I shrugged. "Perhaps due to my circumstances, a s a boy I developed the passion for reading stories in which the extremist cruelties were described. I loved especially to look at pictures and prints which represented them. The tyrants who occupied thrones; the inquisitors who tortured the heretics, burning and butchering them at will; all the woman whom the pages of history have recorded as lustful, beautiful, and violent. Women like Lucretia Borgia, Agnes of Hungary, the Sultana Roxolane, and the Russian Czarinas of 19 th century— all these cruel women were dressed in rich furs or robes trimmed with ermine."
    "And so fur arouses these depraved imaginings within you," Saskia said, and absently drew her magnificent fur coat closer about her, so that the dark shining sable cascaded luxuriantly around her pale neck and full breasts.  Her large piercing green eyes rested on me with a peculiar mocking satisfaction.
    Overcome by desire, I flung my arms around her and drew her close. "Something in you has awakened my most sacred fantasies," I said hoarsely.
    She put her hand on my cheek. "What fantasies?"
    I was seized with a sweet intoxication at the touch of her long fingers against my skin and emboldened by the tender look she gave me through half-closed lids. "To be the slave of a beautiful woman,” I said excitedly. “A beautiful woman whom I love, worship and adore."
    "And who maltreats you?" She laughed.
    I looked deep ly into those mesmerizing green eyes. “Yes,” I said earnestly. “A beautiful woman who shackles me and whips me and treats me badly, while we engage in indescribable sexual pleasure. That is my fantasy."
    She stared at me, lips slightly parted , eyes gleaming. "Be careful what you wish for, my young stallion. When you find this woman who will gratify all your darkest fantasies you may find that she will treat you more cruelly than you could ever imagine."
    "I am sure that I have already found this woman of my dreams," I said softly. “You.” I buried my burning face against the luxuriant fur at her breasts.
    She pushed me away violently and stood up irritably. " Me ?" she exclaimed. “You think of me as someone