The Introduction

You know my alter ego, TDS (TheDeSade).  He lives in the deepest and darkest recesses of my consciousness.  He is always there, a dark presence that influences me constantly.  You might say he is the dark little devil sitting on my shoulder. Not that I mind him.  In fact, I am quite attached to him.  He is that part of me that I have to keep securely in check lest I be deemed a danger to society.  In him I have sequestered all of the worst, and some might say the best, of my traits.

If my mind were a castle, which is where I have always wanted to really live, TDS would usually be relegated to the deepest and most secure parts of the lowest levels of the castle.  Here he is kept safely away from unsuspecting "normal" people who would neither understand him nor know how to react to him.

I know you are curious about TDS and his lair.  Let me take you on a quick tour.

The lowest portions of my castle are accessed via a rather well disguised opening.  If you enter my library, you will not suspect that another egress was to be found from this room.  To the unsuspecting eye, the entire room is wall to wall bookcases, filled with a wildly divergent collection of publications.  However, if you know the secret, you could approach one of the bookcases in the far corner of the room, and. by removing one special book and replacing it to its place spine first, you will trigger the latch.

Once the latch is triggered, the entire bookcase swings silently and almost effortlessly inward.  Behind this bookcase you can enter a small antechamber which gives you enough room to push the bookcase closed, again hiding this passage from anyone inside the library.  This would, of course, leave you in total darkness.  Immediately to the left is a light switch.  If you feel along the wall, you will find it.  Flipping it on fills the small room with dim recessed lights.  You can then see another opening straight ahead.

Moving toward the opening, you will find a spiral stairway made of heavy cast iron.  It is cold to the touch.  You will find that the further you go down the staircase, the colder it gets. The stairway is lit along its way by the same dim recessed lighting as the antechamber.  I should warn you that the trip down the stairway is long.  The shaft in which the stairway rests is almost 90 feet deep.  The lowest portions of the castle lie several feet beneath the lowest basement levels.  This stairway is the only way in or out of those areas.

If you feel up to it, we will go down and I will show you the rest of the depths beneath the castle.  As we descend, it takes several minutes.  We finally arrive at a landing with another antechamber off to one side.  This is the first level of the depths of these parts of the castle.  At one time this was used as a dungeon where the original builder of the castle imprisoned his political enemies, held other persons for ransom, or simply put his opponents where they were seldom heard from or seen again. 

As we walk down the hallway, you see small heavy wooden doors on each side.  Each door is only about four feet tall and has a small window closed with an iron grate.  A heavy iron bolt secures the door and has a ring through which a padlock can be attached for greater security.  At the bottom of each door is a slot through which plates or bowls of food could be passed.

We return to the staircase and proceed down once again.  Another landing soon appears.  This was another level of dungeon cells, much the same as the one we just visited.  I lead you down the stairs once more to the very bottom.  We are now between 90 and 100 feet below the castle.  This area is a natural cavern that the builder of the castle discovered as they tunneled out the corridors above.  It remained unfinished for hundreds of years until I needed a place to keep TDS.

Unlike the other passages that opened into the antechamber at the foot of the staircase, the area beyond here is blocked by a wide, heavy, wooden door, reinforced with wide iron bands.  A barred window graces the door and two large iron bolts at the top and bottom of the door engage with the rock of the floor and ceiling to keep the door securely shut.

Beyond this door is where TDS spends his time.  I don't want you to think he is kept in a musty damp hole underground.  The area beyond is finished as comfortably and as elegantly as any of the rooms in the castle up above.  TDS enjoys all of the modern amenities.  However, he has come to like the dark.  I think it fits his personality.  He keeps most of this area dimly lit, in deep shadow, and sparsely furnished.  Some areas are left natural, with the rock walls of the cavern still unfinished.  He has done much of the work himself over the years rather than let outside workers enter his domain.

I have not even seen all of his handiwork.  When I visit occasionally, I stay in the first few rooms.  I do invite TDS upstairs under certain circumstances.  You have been present several times when he has been in the castle, free to roam and to enjoy his personal pursuits.  We won't go any further.  If you want to see the rest of his accommodation, you must ask him to take you on a tour.  I will warn you that entering those chambers is at your own risk.  What happens beyond that heavy barred door is beyond my control.  Once you are inside, I will not come in until I am invited in by TDS.

I unlock the heavy door, pull the bolts free. The do

or swings silently inward.  Inside all you can see is darkness.  There is less light than even the small antechamber at the foot of the spiral stairway in which we stand.  I step to one side.

"Just remember that once you enter, you are his domain.  He knows my rules.  He will abide by those but from there he makes his own rules.  I won't come in unless he invites me, and I won't unlock the door for you unless he tells me he is through with you.  Understand?"

You nod your assent and step through the door into the darkness.  You jump slightly as I pull the door shut behind you.  You hear the two bolts slide into place and the click of the lock as it is turned.  What little light comes through the small, barred window is quickly swallowed by the darkness.  You aren't sure what to do or which way to go.  Suddenly a voice comes to you from out of the darkness.

"Welcome to my home.  Before anything else, I am sure you would like a tour to see how and where I spend my time."

You realize the voice is coming from the other side of the room, which is larger than you first thought.  As your eyes adjust to the darkness you can barely discern a figure sitting in a chair directly across from the door.  The figure rises and steps toward you.  As it nears, you experience a bit of Deja Vu.  The man walking toward you is an exact duplicate physically of the man who just locked the door behind you and presumably is making his way back up the long spiral staircase.

You can soon see that the figure is wearing a white button-down shirt, dark slacks, and comfortable casual shoes.  The trousers turn out to be jeans.  This is a far cry from what your imagination had created.  You half expected a sinister figure dressed all in leather.  This version of your Daddy looks altogether normal.  He is relaxed as he stops in front of you, a smile on his face. 

"Come.  Let me show you my home.  In this chamber there are two doors.  One to the right and one to the left.  The one to the right will take us to my residential quarters.  We will leave the other door for later."

Offering you his arm, he leads you toward the door to your right.  As he opens the door, light floods into the antechamber from inside.  Ushering you through, he closes the door behind you and you notice a distinct difference in the atmosphere and temperature in the room.

"That door seals us off from the rest of the cavern.  In this area I have installed temperature and humidity control equipment.  Fresh air is brought in from up above, heated, and dehumidified.  In the other parts of the cavern, the temperature stays at a constant 54 degrees with a humidity of about 70 percent.  Here I can keep the temperature a balmier 69 degrees and the humidity near 20 percent.  It is much more comfortable.

He stops to sweep his arm around the room.

"This is my main living area.  Through the door to the left is my kitchen and dining area.  Straight through the door at the far end are my bedroom, bathroom, fitness area, and some storage areas.  That door to your right leads down a corridor to my library and my office."

The room you are in doesn't convey the feeling of a cavern at all.  The walls are finished with fine plaster work and the floors are stone tile.  Lights make the space bright.  Several couches, oversized chairs, and tables are scattered around arranged in conversation groups.  On one side a huge fireplace has been cut into the bare rock of the cavern wall and a fire crackles in the hearth.  All in all, it might be a room in any home on the surface.

"All of the lights are on an automated system.  If I am not in the room, they will dim and when I enter, they come up to full brightness.  It is all controlled by my voice. Let me demonstrate."

"Beatrice, dim the lights 50 percent."

A beautiful contralto voice comes from somewhere you can't locate.

"Yes Sir."

Immediately the lights lower.  The atmosphere in the room is now much darker and much more seductive than the bright white lights of a few moments ago.

"Come.  Let me show you my library and office."

He leads you down the hallway.  Opening a door, the lights come up, and you find yourself in a room much like the one where you entered the stairwell coming down into the cavern.  Literally thousands of books line the shelves on the walls.  A desk sits in the center in the room and several large wing back leather chairs cluster around a table.  There are lamps at each chair for reading.

"I spend a lot of time here.  Books are my best companions."

You wander around the room perusing the volumes on the shelf.  You find all of the great classics of literature as well as many academic tomes.  There are some obscure and obviously very old books as well as the latest new releases.  There is fiction, non-fiction, biographies, treatises on philosophy, law, medicine, and almost every other genre you can imagine.

"You have read all of these?"

"Yes.  Many of them several times.  Come, let me show you my office."

You follow him back into the corridor. He opens the second door and leads you into a spacious area that you might find in any professional building.  While the library was filled with dark wood, heavy carpets and leather furniture, the office is the epitome of modern efficiency.  A large wrap around desk with what appears to be a state-of-the-art computer system and an ergonomic desk chair dominate the room.  To one side is a round conference table with four chairs facing a huge wall mounted television.  Along the wall behind the desk is a floor to ceiling and wall to wall aquarium swarming with a dazzling array of colorful fish.

"Yes.  I have all the amenities.  I have full high-speed internet access and cable television.  The only thing lacking is a huge window overlooking the cityscape.  In light of my location, I chose the aquarium.  It gives me a sense of looking out into the ocean."

He allows you time to look around and explore.  While the room is somewhat spartan, it is well designed, and you can see that it is efficient.  It would suit the needs of any professional working up above.

“So you work?”

“Of course.  Someone has to pay for all of this.”

You follow him out of the office and back down the corridor. He leads you toward the kitchen and dining area off the left of the living area.  You find one large open area that serves as the kitchen and dining room.  Along one wall you can see a high-end gourmet kitchen with a huge island. Eight bar height chairs along the side of the island face the cooking area. On the other side of the room, a large dining table with 12 chairs sits. It is obviously a space designed for entertainment which raises questions.

"Do you have a lot of guests?"

You watch as he smiles.

"No.  However, I like to keep everything else about my life as normal as possible.  Perhaps someday I will entertain a bit more than I do now."

As he talks, he leads you back to the living area and through the door into the corridor leading to his private chambers.  You find yourself in a large room.  Unlike the other areas, the walls are still the natural stone of the cavern.  The room is huge.  To one side is a large, canopied bed.  It looks traditional to all appearances until you walk closer.  You can see that the bed is made of steel.  Beneath the bed is a caged area.  Each of the four posts that support the canopy are fitted with a variety of attachment points and you can see rings and hooks at various places.  The footboard is padded and upholstered with black leather.  The headboard, like the supports, is a maze of metal with places where it is easy to attach chain, ropes or other paraphernalia.  Glancing upwards, you see that beneath the canopy is a web of steel supports that appear strong enough to support many times the weight of the average human.

A sitting area occupies one corner of the room.  Two large wingback leather chairs, several tables, and ottomans create a comfortable place to relax.  The floor is carpeted, and many oversized cushions are scattered about the area.  You have noticed the large cushions in almost every other room. Doorways lead to what you assume are storage areas.  Across the room another doorway leads into the bathroom suite.  Another doorway, which stands open, allows you to glimpse a fully equipped gym.

You walk into the area and the lights come up automatically.  In contrast to the bedroom, the bathroom is the epitome of modern convenience.  A large tub dominates the space at the far end of the space.  It is easily large enough for three people, more of a hot tub than a bathtub.  A walk-in shower is carved into the rock next to the tub and you can see that it has all of the latest and greatest in shower amenities. 

A double sink vanity and a separate toilet space, with a bidet are set into another niche in the rock.  It is apparent that he enjoys his comforts.  You turn to face him.

"This is amazing."

"Thank you.  Even though I am confined to a hole in the ground, I have tried to make it a comfortable hole."

"Don't you want to escape?"

"Not really.  I rather like solitude and privacy.  Let's go back to the kitchen.  Would you like something to eat or drink."

"I would take some water.  By the way, how do you get groceries and other supplies?"

"Before the days of the internet, someone would shop for me, send it down and leave it outside the door.  Now, I can order anything on the internet.  I had a shaft drilled into the pantry.  A dumbwaiter delivers anything I order to me."

"That is convenient."

"If it will fit in the lift.  Sometimes someone still has to make the trip down the stairs.  That can be a challenge.  Take that double door refrigerator in the kitchen.  To get that down here, we had to remove the stairway, lower the refrigerator and then reinstall the stairs.  It took almost a week."

She looked at him amazed.

Back in the kitchen he opened her a bottle of water and took one for himself.

"Do you have any questions?"

"I'm just amazed.  I can't understand why he keeps you locked up down here."

"I think that a tour of the other side of my domain might help answer that question.”

He leads you back to the entryway antechamber, across the space to the other door.  Here he takes a ring of keys from his pocket, unlocks the heavy padlock the secures the bolt on the door and swings it inward to open.  The space beyond is pitch black.  However, as soon as he steps through the door, the same sort of dim indirect lighting comes up. 

"Come on.  You must see this part of my world as well."

As you enter, he swings the heavy door shut.  He throws a bolt on the inside, effectively preventing anyone from coming onto the space from the other side.  You look around and find that you are in a long corridor that stretches off into the distance.  Spaced evenly along both sides of the corridor are doors, all closed. 

"Come.  I'll show you what keeps me down here."

You follow him to the first door.  As it opens, the lights come up as well and you step into the room.  In this chamber the walls and ceilings are bare rock.  You can see along one side that the rock looks natural.  On the other walls and the ceiling, you can still see the drill marks where these chambers were enlarged.  The floor is smooth natural stone.   The only other thing in the room is a very large heavy table with different apparatus attached to it.  You look at the table and then back at him quizzically.

"It is a medieval rack.  In fact, it is an original.  I took it out of one of the rooms in the upper chambers that you passed as you came down the staircase. Of course, it was in very bad repair.  However, I restored it to full working order and as nearly as I could ascertain to it original state."

He guides you over closer to the table.  Up close you can see that the wood is heavily aged. The mechanical parts that are visible are made of heavy cast iron.  Only the ropes and leather parts look new.  You walk along the edge of the table running your hand over the dark wood worn smooth by use.

"This was really used in medieval times?"

"Yes.  If you look closely there are some dark stains on the top.  I assume those are blood stains.  They were there when I found and moved the table.  I left them.  I sort of like the connotation that people have bled and suffered on this piece of equipment."

You look and as he described you can see the dark splotches on the wood.

"Have you used this on people?"

"Of course.  I wouldn't have it here if I didn't use it."

You turn to exam the heavy table more closely. You can see the heavy leather straps at the foot of the table which you assume are where the ankles of the victim would be attached.  The table is long, probably close to 10 or 12 feet.  At the other end is the windlass mechanism.  From the windlass drum, two heavy ropes stretch toward the other end of the table.  Each rope has a smaller leather manacle attached.  You notice a slot in the center of the table."

"What does the slot do?"

Without speaking he pulls a lever at the side of the table and a narrow wooden board rises from the slot.  When it is fully extended, it is almost 18 inches above the level of the table.

"Once you have someone stretched sufficiently on the rack, you can begin to raise this.  Position them with their hips over the board and it forces them upward into an inverted V.  Move them a bit and put their lower back on the board and the pain can be excruciating as their spine is bent backward."

You look at the rack for a while, considering the possibilities.

"Are you ready to go on?"

You nod and follow him as he takes you further down the corridor to the next room, opens the door and steps aside for you to enter.  You are surprised at what you find in this room.  Instead of the bare rock walls and rough unfinished walls, you find yourself in what appears to be a very modern medical clinic examination room.  The walls are tile as is the ceiling and floor.  Along one wall are cabinets with granite counter tops and a handwashing sink.  There is a curtained area in the corner that seems to be a dressing area.  Several metal chairs sit along one wall, and a rolling stool sits at the end of an examination table, complete with gynecological equipment.   A large light fixture on an articulated arm hangs from the ceiling. 

"To answer the obvious question.  I am not a doctor, but sometimes I like to play at being one.  And this sort of equipment opens up all kinds of possibilities, not to mention it is handy when someone needs a piercing."

"Ready to see the next room?"

You nod again and follow him further down the corridor.  This room is different.  Instead of a heavy wooden door, this room has a barred door.  As the light comes on you immediately understand.  Beyond the barred door is a shorter corridor.  The front of the area is a sort of office with a desk, several chairs, filing cabinets and other furnishings.   Extending further back you can see two rows of jail cells flanking a central corridor.  There appear to be 7 cells, three on each side and one at the very back. 

I think this one is pretty self-explanatory.  Shall we proceed?"

The next door is some distance down from the jail cell door.  This door opens into a much bigger space.  With the lights on you can see that spaced around the room are various pieces of apparatus, equipment, and furniture.  You recognize a kneeling bench, a spanking frame, a St. Andrews Cross, several large posts that run from the floor to the ceiling as well as chains and hooks hanging from the ceiling at various locations.

"I call this my playroom.  You can spend hours in here letting your imagination run wild."

After you spend several minutes looking at the different equipment and the vast collection of whips, floggers, and other implements hanging from the walls, you follow him back into the corridor.  He leads you onward.  The corridor veers off to the right. You can see that the corridor follows the natural cavern. 

The next door opens into a smaller space.  Inside, you find a circular room.  Around the walls are 5 smaller wooden doors.   One stands open and you look in to see a small space, no more than 4 ft square and not higher than 4 ft tall.  A rough wool blanket lies folded neatly on the floor in the corner and a wooden bucket sits in the other corner.

"This is my dungeon.  Look at the cells.  They aren't long enough to stretch out if you lay down.  They are not tall enough to stand upright.  There is no furniture.  That bucket is your toilet.  Typically, you get fed once a day and your bucket gets changed every three days."

Looking back into the small space, you shudder visibly.

"You are right.  It’s a miserable existence."

"How much further does this area go?"

"One more room."

He leads you to the last doorway.  Onside, the walls are bare rough rock.  Several large wooden chairs are arranged along one wall.   Near the center of the room stands a heavy block of wood with a semi-circular cutout on one side.  Leaning in the corner are several large axes.

"Last of course is the execution room."

You look at him eyes wide.

"You haven’t . . .?

"No.  But this is part of the original equipment I found in the castle.  I am almost sure that more than a few people met their demise kneeling in front of the piece of wood.  Care to kneel and put your head on the block to find out what it feels like to be in that position?"

You shake your head vehemently.

"I don't think so.  So, this is why you are kept here?"

"The things I like to do make me . . . socially unacceptable.  My counterpart upstairs is kind enough to keep me here, allowing me to occasionally indulge in my passions.  In return, I don't cause problems in public, I keep my activities within some sort of reason, and we exist together in harmony."

Turning to you, he speaks lightly. . .

"You are the first person I have ever given a tour such as this. Normally, anyone I bring down here stays for a while and enjoys a different sort of hospitality. You are free to leave without that expectation.  Shall I call upstairs to have the door unlocked so you can leave?  I promised him that I would give you that option. Of course, if you wish to return, the invitation stands as long as you understand that the circumstances, the expectations, and the rules will be completely different."

You exercise the option and, true to his word, he calls upstairs through the intercom in the kitchen. In a few minutes, you hear the bolts open on the door.  He walks with you to the antechamber and waits just inside as you walk toward the door that is now open.  You stop and look at him where he stands, in the deep shadows.

"Thank you for the tour.  I will consider your invitation."

In reply, he nods and turns to go back into his private chambers as you exit through the door.  I close the door, throw the bolts home, and turn the key in the lock.

"Well, did you have a pleasant visit?"

"Actually, yes.  He is quite pleasant.  Fascinating as well.  But, after seeing his "playrooms" I have a better understanding of why you keep him sequestered and controlled.

"That's good.   I assume he invited you back."

"Yes.  With the understanding it would be under entirely different circumstances."

I chuckle.

"You can be assured of that."