After her dirty weekend in Chicago, Suzanne returned to Purdue to continue her studies. A few days later at Starbucks, she was talking with her friend Josie, a history graduate student. Josie was from Martinique, about 5’8” tall with 32B breasts, long dark hair, and smooth dark skin the color of molten milk chocolate. She was telling Suzanne about her research into the suppressed history of carnal relations between Africans and Europeans before the colonization of America, and the aftermath during the period of African slavery in the colonies. Among other reasons, she had come to Purdue to investigate their manuscript archive of slave narratives and abolitionists’ journals.
“Between the fall of Rome and the start of colonization in the early 16th century,” Josie explained, “there were many free blacks in Europe, mostly Moorish servants, but also black merchants and even itinerant mountebanks, from as far away as Mali or Abyssinia. The African slave trade existed already, but it did not get into high gear until the colonial genocide of Native Americans, which required another source for plantation labor. The Church looked upon the free blacks with suspicion, either as covert Muslims or, worse, as being in league with the devil (as evidenced by their skin color). However, behind the walls of their remote castles, many white noblemen and women saw them as exotic. I found excellent European historical sources in confessors’ handbooks and, especially, the archives of the Inquisition.
“In private rooms of rural castles, the Provençal nobility, already depraved by the Cathars and Waldensians, encouraged forbidden rituals between limber black men and women, involving bondage and illicit sex. According to some sources, dissolute noblemen would join them, fornicating with bound black women or even allowing black women to restrain them and perform oral acts considered unnatural by the Church.
“There is one account, found in the archives of the Holy Inquisition, of a small orgy that occurred across the Pyrenees in Asturias, far from royal control by Moorish or Catholic princes. Apparently, around 1360, the lord of the castle hired six black itinerant acrobats, three of each sex, for a private Carnival entertainment. The lord, his younger brother, their wives, and a like-minded couple from a nearby demesne joined them in the main hall, after the castle’s servants had been dismissed so they might prepare for Lent in the village.”
Josie’s voice dropped as she continued her story and Suzanne sipped her coffee. “Illuminated only by candles and fireplace, all twelve participants disrobed, ignoring propriety, sex, rank, and race. The black acrobats performed three, four, and even six-way couplings in imaginative positions to start the evening. The lord of the castle then selected one comely wench, had two of her companions tie her spread-eagled to the table, and then made intricate patterns in white candle wax across the front of her body, totally covering her nipples, filling her navel, and bordering her womanhood. When satisfied with the contrasting decoration, he roughly entered her and proceeded to ravish her, while his own wife whipped his backside with the flagellation whip intended for use during Lent. Thereafter, his brother chose another black woman and violated her with the handle on his dagger, up to the hilt, holding it by the sheath.
“In turn, his wife submitted to two of the black men: the Latin euphemisms in the official transcript are hard to decode, but apparently they took her simultaneously vaginally and orally. Other mixed deviant sexual activity followed, which the Inquisition’s scribe refused to describe at all, except to report the sentence passed upon the nobles by the Holy Congregation. By the time of the interrogation, the blacks had fled, presumably to Portugal, but the Christians were sentenced to public penance: all six men and women were suspended nude by their wrists from a large oak tree in front of the cathedral and lashed thoroughly by Dominican monks in full view of the peasantry.”
“Fascinating!” replied Suzanne, “in my physics classes I’m now studying ‘strange interactions’, but in the mid-20th-century scientific meaning.”
Josie continued, “I’m just now finding similar reports from centuries later, in the French, Spanish, and English colonies of the New World, where white masters and black slaves crossed the color line, defying custom and statute, for immoral purposes.
“As a young girl, I had heard dark rumors of such things in the 17th and early 18th centuries. Apparently, back home in Martinique, no French lady of standing was completely equipped unless she had a small stable of black ‘special’ servants, of both sexes, to gratify her perverted tastes. Since there was no question of marriage or inheritance, this activity was not considered adulterous, and any embarrassing issue from such liaisons could be disposed of quickly in slave commerce. By the standards of that benighted era, this was not particularly evilcertainly not when compared with the customary treatment of field slaves, who literally were worked to death without penalty to the slave-owner.”
Josie started teasing: “But meanwhile, back here in the boring American Midwest, we seem to have our own scandals. I have heard whispers about your pet geezer and your activities at the conference and in Chicago. What gives?”
“Don’t call him a geezer!” Suzanne blushed admitting her crush on the mature gentleman, “he prefers ‘coot’ or ‘curmudgeon’, but answers to ‘sir’.”
She told Josie the basics of her trip to Chicago, omitting details of the post-show activity back at the hotel. Suzanne narrated a reasonably full description of the activity at the club, including her own participation in the ladies’ competition and Henry’s participation in the gentlemen’s punishment of the two women.
“Hmmm,” Josie replied, “both the competition and the punishment ritual bear some resemblance to activities related in my sources, absent the racial issue. Anyway, why don’t you wheedle an invitation for both of us? I bet he would appreciate mixed company.”
A week later, Suzanne proudly informed Josie of their invitation to Chicago. “As you predicted, he liked the idea of two guests. He sent me the electronic paperwork for two Amtrak round trips to Chicago, and I’m going over to Lafayette this afternoon to pick up the tickets. Henry’s e-mail repeated the instructions for ladies’ attire at the club.”
“Yeah, you told me all about it. I can handle that to his satisfaction: I have a skimpy Brazilian bikini that never comes out in Indiana.”
Meanwhile, Suzanne was already finishing her own new handmade outfit, an open-work crocheted bikini in dark brown. She had been planning this since she returned from Chicago, hoping for another invitation. Two one-inch-diameter stainless-steel rings were worked into the top to frame her nipples, and a flesh-colored gusset panel was sewn into the bottom for comfort and some degree of modesty. Suzanne blushed to think of the effect when Henry saw the top, congratulating herself for her courage in not only wearing, but designing such a garment.
“Between the fall of Rome and the start of colonization in the early 16th century,” Josie explained, “there were many free blacks in Europe, mostly Moorish servants, but also black merchants and even itinerant mountebanks, from as far away as Mali or Abyssinia. The African slave trade existed already, but it did not get into high gear until the colonial genocide of Native Americans, which required another source for plantation labor. The Church looked upon the free blacks with suspicion, either as covert Muslims or, worse, as being in league with the devil (as evidenced by their skin color). However, behind the walls of their remote castles, many white noblemen and women saw them as exotic. I found excellent European historical sources in confessors’ handbooks and, especially, the archives of the Inquisition.
“In private rooms of rural castles, the Provençal nobility, already depraved by the Cathars and Waldensians, encouraged forbidden rituals between limber black men and women, involving bondage and illicit sex. According to some sources, dissolute noblemen would join them, fornicating with bound black women or even allowing black women to restrain them and perform oral acts considered unnatural by the Church.
“There is one account, found in the archives of the Holy Inquisition, of a small orgy that occurred across the Pyrenees in Asturias, far from royal control by Moorish or Catholic princes. Apparently, around 1360, the lord of the castle hired six black itinerant acrobats, three of each sex, for a private Carnival entertainment. The lord, his younger brother, their wives, and a like-minded couple from a nearby demesne joined them in the main hall, after the castle’s servants had been dismissed so they might prepare for Lent in the village.”
Josie’s voice dropped as she continued her story and Suzanne sipped her coffee. “Illuminated only by candles and fireplace, all twelve participants disrobed, ignoring propriety, sex, rank, and race. The black acrobats performed three, four, and even six-way couplings in imaginative positions to start the evening. The lord of the castle then selected one comely wench, had two of her companions tie her spread-eagled to the table, and then made intricate patterns in white candle wax across the front of her body, totally covering her nipples, filling her navel, and bordering her womanhood. When satisfied with the contrasting decoration, he roughly entered her and proceeded to ravish her, while his own wife whipped his backside with the flagellation whip intended for use during Lent. Thereafter, his brother chose another black woman and violated her with the handle on his dagger, up to the hilt, holding it by the sheath.
“In turn, his wife submitted to two of the black men: the Latin euphemisms in the official transcript are hard to decode, but apparently they took her simultaneously vaginally and orally. Other mixed deviant sexual activity followed, which the Inquisition’s scribe refused to describe at all, except to report the sentence passed upon the nobles by the Holy Congregation. By the time of the interrogation, the blacks had fled, presumably to Portugal, but the Christians were sentenced to public penance: all six men and women were suspended nude by their wrists from a large oak tree in front of the cathedral and lashed thoroughly by Dominican monks in full view of the peasantry.”
“Fascinating!” replied Suzanne, “in my physics classes I’m now studying ‘strange interactions’, but in the mid-20th-century scientific meaning.”
Josie continued, “I’m just now finding similar reports from centuries later, in the French, Spanish, and English colonies of the New World, where white masters and black slaves crossed the color line, defying custom and statute, for immoral purposes.
“As a young girl, I had heard dark rumors of such things in the 17th and early 18th centuries. Apparently, back home in Martinique, no French lady of standing was completely equipped unless she had a small stable of black ‘special’ servants, of both sexes, to gratify her perverted tastes. Since there was no question of marriage or inheritance, this activity was not considered adulterous, and any embarrassing issue from such liaisons could be disposed of quickly in slave commerce. By the standards of that benighted era, this was not particularly evilcertainly not when compared with the customary treatment of field slaves, who literally were worked to death without penalty to the slave-owner.”
Josie started teasing: “But meanwhile, back here in the boring American Midwest, we seem to have our own scandals. I have heard whispers about your pet geezer and your activities at the conference and in Chicago. What gives?”
“Don’t call him a geezer!” Suzanne blushed admitting her crush on the mature gentleman, “he prefers ‘coot’ or ‘curmudgeon’, but answers to ‘sir’.”
She told Josie the basics of her trip to Chicago, omitting details of the post-show activity back at the hotel. Suzanne narrated a reasonably full description of the activity at the club, including her own participation in the ladies’ competition and Henry’s participation in the gentlemen’s punishment of the two women.
“Hmmm,” Josie replied, “both the competition and the punishment ritual bear some resemblance to activities related in my sources, absent the racial issue. Anyway, why don’t you wheedle an invitation for both of us? I bet he would appreciate mixed company.”
A week later, Suzanne proudly informed Josie of their invitation to Chicago. “As you predicted, he liked the idea of two guests. He sent me the electronic paperwork for two Amtrak round trips to Chicago, and I’m going over to Lafayette this afternoon to pick up the tickets. Henry’s e-mail repeated the instructions for ladies’ attire at the club.”
“Yeah, you told me all about it. I can handle that to his satisfaction: I have a skimpy Brazilian bikini that never comes out in Indiana.”
Meanwhile, Suzanne was already finishing her own new handmade outfit, an open-work crocheted bikini in dark brown. She had been planning this since she returned from Chicago, hoping for another invitation. Two one-inch-diameter stainless-steel rings were worked into the top to frame her nipples, and a flesh-colored gusset panel was sewn into the bottom for comfort and some degree of modesty. Suzanne blushed to think of the effect when Henry saw the top, congratulating herself for her courage in not only wearing, but designing such a garment.