17 April 1922, Berlin
Three riding crops were lined up in a row. Two cat o' nine tails next to them. A leather mask and bustier. Cuffs lined with mink. On a raised dais was a daybed draped in red velvet. Candles flickered in sconces on the walls. Fierce heat from the fireplace. It wasn't your typical showroom, but then Ingrid was a master--or rather, mistress--of the hard sell. "Atmosphere is so very important, darling," she had said to me the first time we were introduced. Of course, her business--the supply of leather "goods" to the sexually daring--was booming, and selling hard or soft would have produced the same profit margins. Though, truth be told, her clients preferred it hard. As Ingrid had also said to me once, "Behind every bourgeois facade lie a thousand dark fantasies." And it was true. I'd come to Berlin at the behest of my own list of clients.
Ingrid entered the room with a young assistant in tow. The assistant, a blonde, wore a red leather choker with a large loop at the front for attaching chains and the like. Ingrid had a new assistant every time I came to visit. They were all artist's models looking to earn a few extra sous, and given the nature of the work, all adventurous young things. For Ingrid's "sales assistants" didn't merely display her merchandise; they demonstrated it, on their own bodies.
The assistant's robe fell from her shoulders. I saw at once she was a natural blonde, her body covered in fine golden hairs that glinted in the firelight. Her backside was heart-shaped and firm, her belly taut. Her breasts were tear-shaped and pert, their size exaggerated by her petite frame. Of particular interest were her inverted nipples (a feature I have always found alluring in women).
"This is Nico," Ingrid said by way of introduction, picking up the smallest riding crop and inserting it through the ring in Nico's choker. In this way she dragged her to the bed. Before I could say another word, she extracted the crop and gave Nico two smart thwacks on the tips of her breasts.
"Just waking them up," she explained.
And those two shy nipples did indeed arise, swollen and cherry red, from hiding.
Ingrid then snatched up the mask and bustier and tossed them to Nico.