“Venus in Furs,” I whisper, while she draws me to her breast and threatens to stifle me with her kisses. Then I no longer speak and neither do I think; everything is drowned out in an ocean of unimagined bliss.

“Do you still love me?” she asks, her eye softening in passionate tenderness.

“You ask!” I exclaimed.

“You still remember your oath,” she continued with an alluring smile, “now that everything is prepared, everything in readiness, I ask you once more, is it still your serious wish to become my slave?”

“Am I not ready?” I asked in surprise.

“You have not yet signed the papers.”

“Papers—what papers?”

“Oh, I see, you want to give it up,” she said, “well then, we will let it go.”

“But Wanda,” I said, “you know that nothing gives me greater happiness than to serve you, to be your slave. I would give everything for the sake of feeling myself wholly in your power, even unto death—”

“How beautiful you are,” she whispered, “when you speak so enthusiastically, so passionately. I am more in love with you than ever and you want me to be dominant, stern, and cruel. I am afraid, it will be impossible for me to be so.”