THE
CASTLE
A FANTASY FEATURING THEMES OF
ENFORCED, LONG-TERM NUDITY, SERVITUDE, BONDAGE, CP, AMBITION, LOVE,
SACRIFICE, PURITY,MARITAL INFIDELITY etc.
The sore, remorselessly
chastised and weary servant girl raised herself wearily up to
peer longingly, and for the thousandth time, out of the
window of her tiny room. She needed to stand right up on the very most
extreme tips of those cold, bare, roughened, work-hardened
toes, to be able see out of that narrow, high up aperture. The
much belaboured Girl gazed , longingly and wistfully, down
once again at the quintessentially English countryside, spread
entrancingly out in the darkness below the grim old castle in
which she had worked so hard and where she had
endured beatings and insults every long miserable day for
such an unbearably long time now. How long had it been, she
asked herself? As if this splendid girl needed to ask herself
such a silly question, on this day, of all days!
Somewhat too long, thought the Girl! That was for certain, for certain
bloody sure! As the suffering Girl gazed out of her window,
she knew, with a burning and feverish excitement, that she had by
this time endured exactly a year’s slavery in this
grim old fortress! She was a Slave and addressed as such by the
Mistress and the other servants. And to think that this was
well into the second half of the Twentieth Century! Things
like this - the wanton abuse of the innocent, were surely a thing of
the past? !
It was, surely , impossible that a modern world could allow slavery!
But even in the modern world, dark forces were at work.
She knew, of course, that there was a noble purpose in all
her suffering and this purpose was all that had kept her going during
all this horror. The Girl had spent almost a year as a drudge - an ever
naked slave. For all this time, she had been forced to endure the
lusting , contemptuous and cruelly mocking stares of so many unkind
people as she worked every day until she was ready to drop from
exhaustion, never getting a word of thanks - only curses and beatings,.
Her last and most terrible beating had had marked her young body in the
most ghastly fashion, possibly for the rest of her life.
After surveying the scene below, with the twinkling lights of many a
humble, happy dwelling shining up at her to remind her of a normal
world where sweet young girls did not endure cruel and constant
abuse, she left the window and lay face down on her hard
bed and tried to get some sleep. She would have to be up and about all
too soon. Ahead of her was her last day of drudgery in this place.
And finally there was tomorrow at the stroke of midnight! - the
vital moment of the vital day. The great hour that all her misery had
been leading up to! She must be ready for that! She WOULD be
ready. When had she ever failed in anything she set her heart
on? Never - and certainly not in this. She smiled and felt
the inner peace of one who has run a hard race and fought a worthy
fight. Tomorrow could not come a second too soon and she was good and
ready for it!
………………………………................................................................................................
It was Mrs Bottomley who had started the whole thing. She, on one of
her tiresome impulses, had set the ball rolling - so to
speak. Without Mrs Bottomley it is entirely possible this story
would never have been written - certainly it would not have been
written in its present form. How an ordinary middle-aged woman -
albeit a rather nagging and tiresome middle-aged woman with a very much
fuller figure and a lot more wrinkles than she had possessed twenty
years previously, could have set in train the remarkable series
of events I am about to outline is something you will be able to see
for yourselves.
One Spring day, several years ago, Mrs Bottomley was being
driven by her husband through the pleasant county of Hereford. The
chauffeur had been given a few days off and Mr Fred Bottomley, a plain
and homely man, was happily reliving the simple joys of motoring
that had been taken away from him by his status-conscious wife. Mrs B
had insisted that her husband employ a uniformed driver - a Chauffeur,
now that her husband’s business was doing so marvellously well.
As the worthy Frederick J Bottomley guided the Rolls along the winding
lanes, the afternoon peace was shattered by a sudden shriek from
his stout and over indulged lady.
“Fred! Just look at that divine castle up there. How utterly romantic!
Have you ever seen such a magnificent place in all your life? And what
a fantastic view they must have from such a dizzy height! That’s why it
was built there, I suppose to control the countryside below. The
defenders would be able to see an attacking army from miles and
miles away. Let’s try to get up there and have a look! Oh - how I would
LOVE to live in a fabulous location like that! I wonder if it’s for
sale? You could easily afford a place like that, Fred my love,
now that you have done so well!”
Mr Bottomley drove into the side of the road and stopped the car. He
was used to his wife’s sudden effusions by now. Together, the pair
gazed up at the afore-mentioned fastness, perched dizzily on top
of an escarpment and overlooking the wooded valleys and gently rolling
plains below. It most certainly did occupy a most dramatic
position. In whatever far gone time that this fortress had
first been constructed, it must have been an impregnable bastion,
dominating the surrounding area for miles around - as his dear wife had
said.
A more imaginative man than the wealthy, hard-headed nouveau riche,
self made multi-millionaire Fred Bottomley might have speculated
a little concerning the all encompassing aura of fear that must once
have emanated from that place, dominating the humble peasantry of an
earlier age and reminding them constantly of their irrevocably inferior
status, owing eternal fealty to their dread liege lord. All Fred
Bottomley could say, though, was “Make a good site for one of those
Vampire pictures! You know, the kind Hammer used to make a few
years back. I can just imagine Christopher Lee, Boris Karloff, Peter
Cushing and Co. up there!”
Knowing that Dorothy would not rest until she had seen the place at
close quarters, he drove up the steep series of roads and lanes until
they were finally at the castle gates. They looked through the massive
wrought iron gates, old and uncared for, with peeling paint and rusted
ironwork. The drive leading up to the building was un-weeded and
overgrown. Trees shielded the main building from view and Mrs B’s face
sank with disappointment. Fred shivered, despite the fact that it was a
warm day.
Something about the place did not appeal to him, coarse and
insensitive fellow though he usually was. He knew little and
cared less about “atmosphere” but this time he felt a “presence“. The
place was full of something that he knew to be menacing and hostile to
him and even more so to his darling wife.
Dorothy, though, was more enraptured by the whole concept of living in
such a home than ever. Having satisfied themselves that it was
impossible to get inside the grounds to inspect the building,
they made for the nearest town and called in at the local estate agents.
The sole member of staff on duty that day was very helpful. It
had not been a busy day and the chance of a sale and its attendant
commission perked him up as soon as the couple entered. He was a
slim and vibrant young man with a toothbrush moustache, receding
chin and a very sharp suit.
“Fortescue Castle? Yes, it’s been empty for a couple of years, now. The
last tenants went back to America. They were only over here for a short
while. Used it for a weekend retreat. I know for a fact that the owner
has no wish to live there himself. I don’t doubt he’d be happy to sell
if the price were right. I’ll contact him and get back to you, if
you would like.”
Dorothy would very much like and it was agreed that the owner
would be contacted. The couple went back to London and to their large
house in Bishop’s Avenue. Fred was a little disturbed that his
wife’s impulsiveness had got them this far, but was still very hopeful
that the sale would fall through. The idea of spending any time at all
in that forbidding pile was becoming more displeasing to him by the
minute. He forgot all about it as he returned to work. Managing that
still growing chain of supermarkets which had originated only thirty
years ago as a dingy shop in Shoreditch was a full time job. Alas -a
fateful series of events was already well in train, unknown to him and
his wife.
It was two weeks after their little trip in the country that the phone
rang. It was a Mr Walter B Hanspacker, who, it seemed, was
the present owner of Fortescue Castle. An appointment was arranged for
later in the week at the Savoy Grill.
Over an unaccustomedly generous lunch (Mrs Bottomley did by far
the better part of the eating in this marriage!), Mr Hanspacker,
who, judging from his accent hailed from somewhere in the American
South West, explained his feelings about the castle.
“I won’t fool around, Fred. I can’t stand the place. Never could. Gives
me the screaming willies. I rented it to some business associates for a
couple of years and they loved it - simply loved it, and you can check
with them if you like. But as for me - I won’t go within miles of it!
Worst investment I ever made.!”
Fred indicated that he personally had no more inclination to live there
than the present owner. He hastened to explain why he was
nevertheless still interested.
“The thing is, the wife was really taken with the place. I won’t get a
minute’s peace unless I take her to see it. I hope very much she won’t
want to buy it, but if she does…..!”
Mr Hanspacker sighed and raised his eyes emotionally to the ceiling.
“I know the situation, my friend! My own late darling lady wife, God
rest her soul, would always have her way. I would work eighteen hours a
day seven days a week every single god dam day of the year and
every last cent of the money I made she would spend on all manner of
mad stupid nonsense. I miss the dear lady very much even now , after
five years, but I am beginning to realise that freedom does have its
compensations! And she was a terrible cook, too!”
“Why did you leave the States to come here?” asked the interested and
sympathetic Fred.
“Got sweet Damn all to do with the delights of your God awful country!”
he replied with alarming candour . “Problems with the IRS! Very
unpleasant attitude to wealth creation, those parasitic bastards.”
“Same with our Board of Inland Revenue.” sighed a regretful Mr
Bottomley. “I employ an army of accountants and still those
bloodsucking Jacks-in-Office can’t be kept at bay! And to think
that it‘s people like us that create the money that pays their
salaries! There’s no justice - none at all! And what little
of my hard won income Her Majesty‘s Inspector of Taxes allows me to
keep, my bloody wife wants me to shell out on purchasing some awful
heap of a crumbling and most likely haunted castle in the back of
bloody beyond! Let‘s have another brandy - I need it, even if you
don‘t!”
And so it came to pass that the three of them, Mr Hanspacker and the
two Bottomleys drove down to the ancient and picturesque rural borough
of Great Spalding by the Stour and met up with that sleekest of sleek
estate agents Mr Ivor C. Richards. Soon, they all found themselves
inspecting the castle.
Alas for the poor long-suffering Fred, a closer inspection of
this venerable pile only served to increase Mrs Bottomley’s infatuation
with it. Every new room and each new vista from the battlements over
the surrounding countryside only served to inflame her passion and
increase her determination to spend as much as need be of her
long-suffering husband’s money in order to acquire Fortescue Castle.
Poor old Fred knew with an ever sinking heart that the battle was lost
and that he would know no peace until his wife’s latest fad was
appeased!