03

Dear reader,

This is a very slow and long story. I am grateful I had the great help of RandyD1369 to make this. He has been very patient with me and showed me all kind of mistakes I made. I hope you like the result.

Just to set the mood I added to each chapter an advise for some music to go along. You can find the playlist on Spotify. As the story is not finished yet music will be added to this playlist: Juanita 'n Dito

I hope you enjoy it.

D.

--

01 In charge

While you read this part of the story, listen to the album:

All Saints by David Bowie

The first time I noticed something familiar about her was not long ago.

Earlier this year, she returned to us, working in our office. When she'd been here before, she left to have a child; caring for it kept her out for four years.

I had not known her before. Last year, when the company I worked for had merged with this office, I got the opportunity to work here. I did not want to pass it up, because as a woman in her mid fifties, it is difficult to find an employer who wants you.

In a small hamlet not far from my house, I worked with my previous boss in the archive. Due to the merger and the acquisition of a large number of customers it was essential to integrate the two archives. It was a challenging job that I had gladly accepted.

When she was willing to come back, Carlos had been delighted. Juanita had been young, well dressed, carefree, and outgoing when she left and fortunately she still was, he told us when he briefed us about her returning to the office. Time and caring for her young one had had no effect on her personality, it seemed.

With her cheerful chat, Juanita was really well suited to her place in sales. She knew how to keep customers' loyalty and when I walked past the sales unit, it was always her cheerful voice that I heard laughing. Tranquillity ruled the archive's peaceful environment of things from the past. That was where I felt at home.

In the corridors, as we passed, Juanita always greeted me with a broad smile. Sometimes it happened that she needed an old order and when she entered the archive it seemed like everything brightened up.

A few weeks ago I was in the archive with a stack of orders from a major customer in front of me. I was surprised by the carelessness with which they had been assembled by the sales unit. There was no logic in it. The customer was both a client of our old office and the new one and that complicated the puzzle.

My office was in a corner of the room away from the door that was always open. Everyone had direct access to the archived orders. It saved me from a lot of unnecessary questions. Usually it was someone from administration or sales. Occasionally one of the directors was able to find their way in the rows of filing cabinets themselves.

Only new staff members walked up to my desk to ask for what they needed. The noise from outside the archive, which penetrated to where I sat, was reduced to a soft murmur, enhanced occasionally because colleagues were walking along, talking.

I just had an old order in my hand and was wondering why the former archivist had not adopted a clear system when I heard a noise. I looked up and there stood Juanita. A coy smile came across her lips.

"Dito, Sorry, I did not want to disturb you. I was waiting for you to notice me, but I need to get back."

Apparently I had reacted badly to her interruption because her looks changed color. I corrected myself and asked gently: "What I can do for you ... ehhh ... Juanita was it?"

She nodded. "How nice that you remember my name. I'm looking for old orders ..."

I looked at her face and still the blush was on her cheeks. Involuntarily a thought came to me. Here on "my" terrain she did not seem as if in her own environment.

Who was the real Juanita? Where did she put up a façade? Was she the exuberant frivolous type I knew from the selling unit or was she the timid girlish woman that stood here in front of me? I pushed my chair back and stood up. The difference in our heights was clear when I walked over to her. I had never noticed it before, probably because we never stood so close together. My tall figure towered definitely a head above her.

"Walk along with me" I told her, "so you can find it yourself next time." She looked at me and nodded. I showed her the way and let her walk in front of me. In the narrow corridor formed by two rows of filing cabinets her graceful pace was even more visible. She spread a pleasant smell that seemed to me somewhat familiar, but I could not place it. It had to be a perfume that I had tried once myself. She went too far up the path before I could stop her.

"We are there," she came back while I pulled the orders out of the cabinet.

"Well, well, here you have everything in one folder" I handed her the thick folder. When she took it from me, her hand touched mine. Her touch was soft and lasted very briefly, but was I wrong, had her hand intentionally brushed mine? I looked at her but her eyes revealed nothing. She thanked me kindly and walked with the file in the direction of the door.

"Uh, I think the file might be incomplete," I invented to keep her here for a while. When she turned around I was already heading for my desk. "I'll see if there have been other orders with later dates. Can you just see what the final order is in the folder? It's the latest behind the first tab."

I checked the computer to see if there were more and asked her to have a look as well. I sat down and she came to me and leaned over to look at the screen. In addition, she held on to my chair. Although I was sure there had been no newer orders, I scrolled through the pages. I leaned back so she could look more easily, her fingers were curled around the chair. I felt a thrill when my back touched her fingers. She didn't take her hands from the chair. That smell again!

She wore a white blouse and blue skirt which probably was completed with a jacket she must have left at her desk at sales. The fan above my desk kept the temperature slightly cool and spread a gentle breeze. Her long dark locks, moved gently in the wind. Did I have the nerve to ask her what perfume she used?

"Well it looks like I have everything, thank you Dito." She wanted to leave, but my back held her fingers imprisoned at the chair. I looked at her, not understanding when I felt her fingers moving on my back.

"Oh sorry, Juanita, I was distracted." I pulled my back forward. She blushed.

"It doesn't matter Dito, thanks." She nodded and walked the narrow corridor again.

I watched her and whispered, "Come back when you need something or even when you need nothing."

She turned a moment to deal with a mischievous smile to say "I will surely do, bye Dito". She left me flabbergasted. What happened?

--

02 In the mansion

While you read this part of the story, listen to:

Gnossiennes (Eric Satie), performed by Reinbert de Leeuw.

The Sycamore trees that flanked the winding driveway obscured the old mansion until you were close to it.

My old Toyota Starlet formed a strange contrast with this stately home. I always placed it in front of the entrance, as if to give my father the finger. He hadn't understood at the time.

For my twentieth birthday he had given me the key to his 1976 Eldorado Convertible and said it was mine now. I had accepted the key and whispered thank you. You didn't go against my father, Colonel Delgado. I was raised that way.

My parents were already middle-aged when I was born. Father almost retired and mom was in her early forties when I entered the big house. From my early childhood I only remember Carlotta the housekeeper and cook. She was the one who showered me with kisses and always had a cookie for me in her apron pocket.

There was also a gardener / driver, but Mama didn't let me talk to him. In my memory he also took care of the rolling stock that consisted of an, in my eyes antique, Packard Twelve sport Pheaton and a precursor of the Eldorado that I would later receive from father The Eldorado Seville. And in a corner of the garage an open Landauer collected dust because we had no horses, at least not as long as I can remember. In the library hung a black and white photo of father and mama in the carriage with two beautiful Andalusians in front and the then young gardener on the coachman's bench, but that must have been before the war.

I opened the door and felt like that little girl again for a moment because father could sit in the library. The library was immediately to the right of the vestibule next to the entrance. Father always kept the door open when he was reading behind his desk. He looked upset to see who took him from his book.

When I was a toddler, from time to time I was allowed to play when father was in the library, as long as I didn't bother him. That stopped when I could read and my curiosity about all those beautiful books was overwhelming. Father didn't like it and the library was declared a forbidden area.

Years passed and even while the door was always open, never ever did the thought occur to me to disobey my father. But always, when I passed that open door, on my way out, or when I came in from school, my eyes were drawn to all those treasures. But it was as if there was an invisible wall that kept me from entering. When father called me, he stood in the doorway. He was very consistent about that. But throughout the years, seeing I was an obedient child he slowly let his guard down. And I became more curious and bolder. Not that I entered but sometimes I took the courage to stay in the doorstep for a little longer to have a good look. But only when father wasn't in there.

One morning shortly after my eighteenth birthday, my curiosity won. I dared to go inside, grab the ladder and read the imprints along a row of ridges. Most of the books were in foreign languages and I couldn't tell much from the titles. I did not dare to take any of the books off of the shelves. One book caught my eye with elegant golden letters on a black back: "Histoire d'O, Pauline Réage." From the worn out grayish back I could see that father must have read it often.

Without being seen, I managed to escape from the library, to be called in by father that same afternoon. Why had I broken his prohibition, what did I think he would not notice if I had been to the library? "To prevent you from doing this again, I will have to punish you," he said, keeping his back to me.

"Bare your bottom, child!" I pulled my skirt above my waist. If I had been naughty or had been mischievous, he would punish me this way with his riding crop, which was always in a corner of the library, tapping my buttocks.

"Take off your underpants!" He turned and looked at me sadly. In his hand he did not have the crop, but a leather belt that I had never seen before. I looked at him not understanding. What did he want? "Should I lend a hand?" His tone was bleak. I shook my head and took off my panties.

Father sat down at his desk and pushed his chair against the bookcase behind him. "Come here and lean over the desk." I obeyed reluctantly. I was just bending over when I heard a whistling sound and then felt a sharp pain on my thighs. I screamed it out.

"HUSH, or this will take a very long time." Father had stood up. The next hit was higher and hit my left buttock. I held my teeth together and tears filled my eyes. "You ..." The whistling sound and the blow now hit my right buttock faster. "Will ..." again he touched my thighs. "Never ..." left buttock. "Ever ..." right buttock. "Do ..." Aaaaww, he hit me on the inside of my thigh. "This..." Higher now. I moaned and gritted my teeth, but I didn't want to admit it. "Again ..." Oooohh, he hit me with a flat hand on my left buttock. "Do ..." on the right. "You ..." left. "Understand ..." on the right.

That day I was punished differently from when I was young. Father had used a belt on my bare butt, while he forbade me to ever come into the library again. It hurt me so much that I couldn't sit straight for more than a week.

When he finished he had turned me around. "Dito look at me"

Through my tears I saw that he was crying. It was the first and only time I saw my father cry.

Mama, who apparently had been there all the time, pulled me away from the desk and led me out of the library and brought me upstairs to my room.

"Don't try this again Dito, father will have to punish you even harder if you do such a thing again. Come now and I'll take care of your wounds." She brought me to my bathroom and took a jar of soothing cream from one of the cupboards. I could not walk well for a week. The belt had left deep marks on my body. The traces of humiliation were etched indelibly in my soul.

--

03 In the library

While you read this part of the story, listen to:

Dance Macabre (Camille Saint-Saens) performed by Gerhard & Beatrice Marie Weinberger

Father and Mama were killed in March, 1990 in a head on collision while driving in the Eldorado when they hit a truck. On a sunny September morning, I finally overcame my reluctance to enter the library for the first time since Father had declared it forbidden terrain for me.

The library appeared unchanged though 20 years had passed. The chairs were jaded; there was a smell of cigar smoke even though Father had abandoned smoking when he became seventy-five. The sunlight fell through the large windows on the desk that was on the left of the entrance. It was placed in the middle of the room, in front of the bookcases. An open book with father's glasses on top lay in front of his chair. Softly, as not to wake the dead, I walked past the desk, shifted father's chair and sat down. Relieved, because no one came, nothing happened, I breathed. I gently pushed father's glasses from the book. It was an old book, possibly a facsimile. I kept my finger on the page that would never be read by him again and closed the book. "Justine or the Misfortunes of Virtue by Marquis de Sade" I read aloud.

I had heard of de Sade before. Male classmates used that name when they had been playing perverted games with less wealthy girls. They boasted that they had imitated de Sade, or could tell that a particular prostitute could match with any of the concubines of the Marquis. Often they were just loud to make their female classmates blush. For me personally it didn't do much. None of the guys I found were interesting enough to share my bed with.

There was a girl I often dreamed of and very occasionally, when I masturbated, her body came to my mind. Several times, I had seen her while she was undressing in the locker room of the pool. Especially her buttocks with red welts from the tight bathing suit she often wore. In my dreams they were always marks caused by a leather strap.

I opened the book back to the page where father's glasses were and put his glasses back again. Affected by my discovery, I got up and walked out of the library towards the kitchen. From the wine cellar under the stairs, I took a bottle of Burgundy and uncorked it in the kitchen. I grabbed a wine glass and walked with glass and bottle back to the library. My head was spinning with all the thoughts I had. The first thing I had to do was to get a good picture from all the "treasures" that were concealed in the library. I filled the glass and put the bottle on a mat on the desk. With the glass I walked back to the entrance where to the right of the door, there was a small antique cabinet.

On top of the cabinet was an Art Deco-like table lamp with a naked, kneeling woman's figure in bronze whose head was hidden under a lampshade. Behind the polished glass doors of the cabinet stood three rows of books and some stacks of paper. The doors were locked and the key was missing. A disappointment. I was not put off, although for a moment I doubted if I would smash the glass, I abandoned this idea because I didn't want to damage it. I took a sip of wine. While I was still looking at the cabinet, a thought occurred that I might first have to read the book. I walked towards the desk, meanwhile looking around to see if I remembered anything of this impressive space.

Sunlight reflected on the desk, and suddenly I was hit by a brief glint in my peripheral vision. I looked in the direction where I had seen the brilliance and could not see at first what had caused the glare. I hesitated and started walking towards where I supposed I would find it. Near the right window, behind one of the chairs was a small side table, which had a thick leather belt with a large silver buckle on it. I picked up the band. This was not the belt that my father used on me so many years ago. It was too short for a belt but too long for a wristband. Attached in the middle of the band was a ring. A strange thing, maybe a dog collar, although I could not remember that we had dogs. I put it back on the table and returned to the desk.

In front of it, I stopped, and I looked at my hand where the empty wineglass looked back at me. I grabbed the bottle and shaking, I poured more wine in. My feet felt heavy when I sat down on the chair behind the desk. Very carefully, I took father's glasses off the page and picked up the book. I read the last page that father had read:

In a word, one was brutal by taste, the other by refinement. Jerome, the eldest of the four recluses, was also the most debauched; every taste, every passion, every one of the most bestial irregularities were combined in this monk's soul; to the caprices rampant in the others, he joined that of loving to receive what his comrades distributed amongst the girls, and if he gave (which frequently happened), it was always upon condition of being treated likewise in his turn: all the temples of Venus were, what was more, as one to him, but his powers were beginning to decline and for several years he had preferred that which, requiring no effort of the agent, left to the patient the task of arousing the sensations and of producing the ecstasy.

The mouth was his favorite temple, the shrine where he liked best to offer, and while he was in the pursuit of those choice pleasures, he would keep a second woman active: she warmed him with the lash. This man's character was quite as cunning, quite as wicked as that of the others; in whatever shape or aspect vice could exhibit itself, certain it was immediately to find a spectator in this infernal household.

What was this about? What was this book? Intrigued and fearful of what I might find out I closed the book, opened it again on the first page and began to read. When it began to get dark in the room, I looked up and picked up my glass. It was empty. The bottle also proved to be empty. I caught myself after a few seconds or it might have been minutes staring at the belt on the table. Suddenly it dawned on me that I knew the band, I had seen it before worn by someone ... but by whom and why?