I am ashamed to admit this, even now as I think back to that night when I visited her dinky home. Me, Severin, the man who worshipped women with a fervor raised my hand to strike at you. The whore, for that was what she was, took it with grace, not uttering a whimper at the pain she must have felt. The look that was on her face was not one of fear, but of resignation, as if she had been through this before and wanted to get it over with. Even before I struck her, my mind had regained itself and though I tried, I could not stop the blow from landing. Tears sprung to my eyes as I fell to my knees and desperately clutched at her hands as I once did yours, begging for her forgiveness.
She stood there in shock, for never before had a man gotten down on his knees for her. I laid bare my soul, crying like a babe for his mother's teats as she tenderly caressed my hair. Perchance, do you remember when you said to me, "I shall take a lover, otherwise things will only be half-accomplished, and in the end you will yet reproach me with not having treated you cruelly enough, my dear beautiful slave." And then you treated me tenderly like a child, kissing and caressing me, as if I were the only thing you loved. That was the last time I felt like Severin the man. Now, held by the whore, I once again felt like a man, for in my mind it was you who held me in her arms.
Soon after leaving Florence with tears still wet upon my cheeks, a strange sense of melancholy took hold of me as I perused over my life and the decisions that led up to your betrayal. I found myself lacking as a man and vowed to become one that would have been worthy of you. In my heart and mind, I yet believed that the prince would get bored and move on, and you would run back into my waiting arms. Reality disabused me of the notion as the days passed and there was no sign of you. A hundred letters lie crumpled in the floor of my room.
My father having grown old and ill, needed me, so I returned to help look after the estate. Two years later, my father passed away, and so too did my memories of you, dulled by the visage of time. I often wondered if it were but a dream for I had nothing of you to remind me that you truly existed.
The radical cure that was your whip left in me a hatred of women. I myself now keep several such implements to use on the maids who fail at their duties. There is strange sort of pleasure at applying the whip after having been at the end of it so many times. Do not feel so disheartened of the man you have created. I am not so cruel as to lose myself in the whip. While tears and screams for forgiveness come out of their mouths, they do not mean so, or why else would their nether regions excrete that slimy substance.
I find women are more willing after being broken in, and once the initiation is completed, they lose any sense of modesty and cease their protests. There are times when I believe they fail on purpose, simply to feel the caress of my whip, that sting which is so painful, yet pleasurable. Perhaps that is what you desired as well. The Greek was your master and though he was brutal, you loved him so much that you forsook me. There is no resentment left in me after all these years, but an acceptance. After all, whoever desires to be whipped, deserves to be whipped.
