Story of O: A Novel

by Pauline Réage

Beneath the gazes, beneath the hands, beneath the sexes that defiled her, the whips that rent her, she lost herself in a delirious absence from herself which restored her to love and, perhaps, brought her to the edge of death.

Thus was she constantly and simultaneously the accomplice of both men and women, having, as it were, her cake and eating it too.

He whom one awaits is, because he is expected, already present, already master.