Chapter 1: How Helen’s life changed.

Tired, Helen switched off her laptop and closed the lid. Like most days, she had worked until about 9pm, and there was no one left in the office; everyone had gone home, especially on a Friday. As the Head of Major Accounts for the biggest advertising company in the country, Helen felt that her working day was limitless and that she had to work harder than anyone else to prove to everyone that she was better than them and to prove that a woman could be equal to a man. In the company, she was seen by some as a dedicated worker, by others as someone very ambitious, seeking promotion at any cost, and by others as a ‘workholic’. Perhaps they were all partly right.

Some time ago, Helen had argued about feminism with a friend: Helen felt that being equal meant being equal in everything, without nuance, while her friend said that being equal in rights and duties did not mean being equal in behaviour, that women had a less aggressive or competitive way of working and more of a collaborative and negotiating one. But this did not apply to Helen. She had a competitive way of being, and to get what she wanted, she would do ‘whatever it took’, so she had left many ‘road kills’ in her professional life and had caused a lot of animosity, both among colleagues and competitors.

Helen grabbed her things and drove home. She wasn’t married, so no one was expecting her for dinner. Looking at her, anyone could be surprised that she didn’t have a boyfriend or husband. She was tall, with beautiful curly brown hair, lovely light grey-green eyes, sensuous lips, and a model’s body, with firm breasts, big nipples, and a tight ass. Frequent jogging in the park and gymnastics in a room she had set up in her basement kept her body fit and agile. However, despite her beauty, her intelligence, and her successful career, Helen was still single. She had had a few occasional partners, but some of them, who were intelligent, cultured people with whom she could converse and relate, were then bland in bed, like a plate of boiled, unsalted vegetables. Others, who she had enjoyed in bed, with good sex, were then not up to her standards; they were boring and dull, and Helen thought that they were not worth living with, that they were like some spicy and garlicky dishes, fantastic to eat, but then the taste was repeated all day long in the mouth, and it was not worth a moment of pleasure in exchange for enduring a whole annoying day.

When she got home, she took a shower, defrosted and heated a pre-cooked dish, which she ate in the kitchen, and lay down on the bed to read for a while. When she finished reading the book, she turned off the light and took out her vibrator from a drawer in the bedside table, one of those with a big ball to act on the clitoris. For her, sex had become a kind of gymnastics she practiced on Friday nights, arranged, like everything else in her life. She preferred such a vibrator to others that were inserted into the vagina; it was more ‘practical’ and less sexual or sensual. It wasn’t about having sex; it was about letting off steam and taking care of some physiological needs.

She turned it on and began to run it over her labia and clitoris. Gradually, she began to feel aroused, and with her left hand, she began to fondle her breasts over the silk pyjamas she used to sleep in.

She closed her eyes and kept moving the vibrator over her clitoris while stroking her breasts with her other hand. After a while, she finally climaxed, a mild but relaxing orgasm that loosened her body and released the tension that had built up during the week at her stressful job.

After a while, she finally fell asleep.

The next morning, she got up, and like every Saturday, she went for a run in the park. She liked to run fast and long, pushing herself until her muscles and lungs ached. It was a way of challenging herself and proving to herself how much control she had over her body, just as she had over all aspects of her life. After doing her usual circuit, on her way home, it started to rain. She passed a woman who had just gotten up from a bench, and when she reached the height of the bench, she saw that, in a paper bag, there were some books. She thought they would quickly get wet and become unusable, so she picked them up and, thinking they belonged to the woman, stepped back to give them to her.

“Excuse me, you forgot these books,” Helen said, handing her the bag.

“Thank you, but they’re not mine; they were there when I arrived long ago,” the woman replied.

“I can’t leave them on the bench; they’ll get soaked.”

“Take them home. We don’t know whose they are, and if you leave them on the bench, they’ll spoil and be of no use to anyone.”

“Well, I’ve just finished the book I was reading; I’ll take them. Goodbye,” said Helen, resuming her run home.

When she got home, Helen showered, ate breakfast, and changed into comfortable clothes. During the week, she always dressed stylishly, in expensive clothes that her salary as a company director allowed her to wear. She had many internal meetings as well as meetings with clients, and she liked to look impeccable. Only on weekends did she allow herself some relaxation in this respect and wore more casual clothes, though always of quality. She took the books out of the bag. Although the bag was wet and no longer usable, the water had not reached the books; they were only a little damp on the cover. She put them on the table and looked at the titles. They were ‘Story of O’ by Pauline Réage, ‘The Slave of Gor’ by John Norman, and ‘The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty’ by Anne Rice.

She hadn’t read any of them, nor had she heard of them, so she hesitated and decided to start with Pauline Réage’s book, as it was written by a woman, and French was one of several languages Helen spoke and a culture that appealed to her.

She started to read it, and when she read that the main character was given away by her boyfriend to be fucked and used by multiple men, she almost gave up reading it, as it seemed degrading for a woman, but curiosity made her read on.

Little by little the reading absorbed her more and more deeply. The scenes she was reading provoked a deep rejection; she did not understand how a woman could humiliate herself like that, how she could let strangers fuck her, even in the ass, something that Helen considered very degrading, but at the same time, she found it all exciting, with the attraction of something forbidden, somehow dark, repulsive, and attractive at the same time, something sick. By the time Helen was halfway through the book, she had one hand slipped under her panties, and two fingers slipped inside her dripping vagina, while she massaged her clitoris with the palm of her hand. Occasionally her hand would slip inside her blouse, and she would squeeze and pinch her nipples hard.

When it came to the moment in the novel where O is being displayed and used by men during a meal in a restaurant private room, Helen could no longer contain herself. She imagined herself during one of the business meals she had with clients, naked and on her knees, giving a blowjob to one of her clients, her mouth full of a thick, erect cock, and all the excitement she had been building up during the reading, masturbating more and more intensely, exploded in a gigantic, overwhelming orgasm that left her sweaty and exhausted. She had never felt so much pleasure or such intense sensations in her entire life.

When her breathing and pulse returned to normal, she wondered what had happened to her. How could she be aroused by seeing a woman treated like that? Worse, how could she herself, a strong, independent, powerful woman, imagine herself degraded and humiliated in front of men? Where did that sick excitement come from? Helen got up determined to forget this moment of weakness and never touch the book again. She made herself something light to eat and sat down to watch television for a while. But the book was still on the table, attracting her gaze from time to time like a magnet, with the attraction of the vertigo that calls us to the abyss.

Finally, she picked up the book to continue reading, telling herself that it was just to see how it would end, to see if the woman would finally free herself.

Again, unaware, concentrating on the story, she began to masturbate to another immensely powerful orgasm. It was not comparable to the soft orgasms she reached when she masturbated with the ball vibrator; these were orgasms that swept her whole body from end to end, that almost made her lose her senses; her whole body was shaking with pleasure, her skin sensitive to any touch, her nipples hard as stones almost hurt, her vagina soaked, with her fluids wetting the sofa where she was lying.

When she finished the book, she picked up the next one, almost without looking. It was Anne Rice’s book, and, once again, the story captured her. She read it non-stop until, after having masturbated several times, exhausted and satisfied, she fell asleep on the sofa.

That night she dreamt that the president of the company came into her office and ordered her to undress. She obeyed without saying a word. She got up, took off her jacket, and then took off her blouse. She then took off her skirt and shoes, keeping her panties, bra, and stockings. The president sat down in her desk chair and motioned for her to continue. Next, she removed her stockings and then her bra, exposing her sensitive breasts and her nipples, which by now were hard and erect. Finally, she removed her panties and stood stark naked in front of the president.

He pointed to a spot in front of him, and she knelt between his legs, unzipped his fly, and pulled out his cock. He grabbed her head and pulled her close until the tip of his cock was touching her lips. In the dream, Helen felt forced to act like this, and that impossibility of refusing something she disliked and didn’t want to do somehow turned her on. The president pushed her further, and she opened her lips and accepted his cock in her mouth. He grabbed her hair tightly and began to move her head back and forth, driving his cock deep into her mouth, making her gag. He kept it up until he pushed it all the way in and began to ejaculate almost directly into her throat, an ejaculation that wouldn’t stop, like a hose filling her mouth and throat with a white, viscous liquid that was choking her. The flow wouldn’t stop, and Helen thought she would drown. At that moment, agitated, she woke up, drenched in sweat. She had three fingers in her vagina while the other hand fondled her breasts hard. She was on the verge of cumming. She continued to masturbate, gradually with more force and speed, mauling her breasts with her hand squeezes, until she climaxed again, another spectacular orgasm, like all the ones she had been having since morning. Exhausted, she fell asleep again. She didn’t even bother to change her clothes or go to bed.