Interlude: By the time that Carrie was back in her clothes and ready to leave the gym, she was so physically depleted that I decided to bring her home in a taxi, and, after we arrived home, she needed my help undressing and getting into bed.
When she woke the following morning, every muscle in her body lodged a complaint. Not only did her abdominal muscles cry out each time she rose or bent, her legs, especially her left one, found it difficult to bear her weight. A long, soothing, hot bath helped but did not restore her completely. Further, it was not just her body which was exhausted, her session with Olga had left her emotionally drained as well. Each time she recalled what Olga been done to her, the memory would send a tremor down her spine. In particular, she was unable to forgot how, in Olga's hands, she had achieved a level of sexual excitement at which she had lost her capacity to distinguish pleasure from pain or even determine whether such a distinction really exists when sexual gratification is the goal.
These memories both disturbed and thrilled her. Disturbing for her was the extent to which she had relinquished control over her whole self, mind as well as body, to another person. At the same time, she was thrilled whenever she remembered how, with Olga's guidance, she had entered an extra-corporeal state in which her conscious and physical selves had become separated so that her mind was able to look dispassionately at the body it had left and appreciate the beauty which Olga's skilled hands had won from that body.
A related issue for Carrie was the question of her submitting to a second session with Olga. Knowing, as she did now, exactly how arduous such a visit would be and still suffering the residual pain from the previous one, she was more than a little ambivalent about putting her body again at Olga's disposal. Did the pleasure sufficiently compensate for the pain? Why had she given another person, particularly another woman, such complete mastery over her body? For that matter, why was she, by wearing Olga's belt around her middle, still implicitly accepting Olga's domination? For several days, Carrie was unable to find a satisfactory answer to any of these questions. However, as time passed, it became increasingly clear to Carrie that she, in spite of her reservations, still craved what Olga had to offer and that, in the end, she knew that, inevitably, she would put her body back into Olga's hands.
Having reached this conclusion, Carrie had to confront the problems posed by Olga's demands. She knew that the reduction of her waistline could be accomplished by combining a change in her diet with a more rigorous exercise program. With this in mind, Carrie carefully monitored her calorie consumption and increased the time she spent exercising her abdomen. At first, she was disconcerted by the discovery that Olga's belt would dig into her tummy each time she called on her stomach muscles. As a result, she taught herself how to keep her stomach flat even when she was working it. For example, she would take care to tuck her tummy in rather than let it bulge when doing her sit-ups. Similarly, when I massaged her belly, she concentrated on keeping her waist as small as possible while rounding her lower belly so that it could accommodate the penetration of my fingers. Further, she was gratified to find that, after a few of weeks, her waist had shrunk sufficiently that the belt was no longer a source of serious discomfort.