“Keep me rather in this cage, and feed me sparingly, if you dare. Anything that brings me closer to illness and the edge of death makes me more faithful. It is only when you make me suffer that I feel safe and secure. You should never have agreed to be a god for me if you were afraid to assume the duties of a god, and we all know that they are not as tender as that. You have already seen me cry. Now you must learn to relish my tears.”
The Story of O is supposedly Reage’s (pen name of Anne Desclos) response to a challenge raised that women cannot write in the fashion of Marquis de Sade. I have been looking for this book for sometime after I have seen it repeatedly quoted by Erica Jong, Anne Rice, and Wei Hui. It also appears in the list of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.
The Story of O is not for the squeamish and the faint of heart. It shows love from a perspective that the only possible proof thereof is the willingness to undergo pain, suffering, and humiliation and total submission to the wishes of the beloved. And if need be, to offer one’s life.
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