A Visit From Saint Michael

WARNING! All of my writing is intended for adults over the age of 18 ONLY. Stories may contain strong or even extreme sexual content. All people and events depicted are fictional and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Actions, situations, and responses are fictional ONLY and should not be attempted in real life.

If you are under the age or 18 or do not understand the difference between fantasy and reality or if you reside in any state, province, nation, or tribal territory that prohibits the reading of acts depicted in these stories, please stop reading immediately and move to somewhere that exists in the twenty-first century.

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I sent the request through his publicist and spokesperson like I did every year figuring that the worst that could happen was that he would once again say "No!"

Much to my surprise, however, this year when the publicist called back, rather than a polite refusal, he instead said, "Mr. Summerfield has agreed to see you."

I had first asked Marvin Summerfield to meet with me six years ago for what I hoped would be a thirty-fifth anniversary article about the events which caused him to become a recluse. He said, "No." I asked again the next year, and the next, and the next... and he said "No" each time. It is now 41 years since that infamous Halloween party which forced him into seclusion. For some reason, this year, he said, "Yes."

I got it! I couldn't believe my luck. This was going to be the interview that would make my career and establish me as a serious journalist. Marvin H. Summerfield hadn't spoken to the press in over forty years, and I was going to get a private interview with him!

Before disappearing from the public eye, M. H. Summerfield had been the editor, publisher, and owner of

The Modern Hedonist

magazine. While Hefner had pushed the boundaries of social acceptability with

Playboy's

artistic sexuality, and Guccione had pushed the boundaries of taste with

Penthouse's

outright sex, Summerfield had gone beyond either of them and pushed the societal limits of acceptability, taste, and legality with graphic depictions of bondage, discipline, and all-out sado-masochism.

The cries to shut him down came not only from the expected sources-- the offended Bible-thumpers and nervous law enforcement officials-- but also from some of the more liberal voices of society who felt that Summerfield's excesses would create a severe back-lash of public opinion that would undo everything that had been gained in the previous decade.

And Summerfield's excesses were not limited to the pages of his magazine. Rumors of what went on at his mansion, which was also his center of operations, swirled through the tabloids.

The New York Times

, in a scathing editorial about the parties and events held there, called the mansion a "Dungeon of Hedonism."

It was intended as a rebuke, but Marvin had so liked that description that he replaced the large M. H. S. which was worked into the filigreed iron arch above the mansion's ornate gates with those exact words.

In smaller letters beneath "Dungeon of Hedonism," he also added, "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate", which is what Dante said was the inscription over the gates of Hell. "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

It was behind those wrought iron gates that Marvin Summerfield held his final party on Halloween night, forty-one years ago. No one is quite sure what happened on that night. There were only twelve people present and none of them has ever spoken with the press. There were rumors. And there was speculation. But there were no facts. Now all that was going to change. I was going to talk to the man himself, and I was going to be the first person

ever

to be able to tell the world what really happened.

Some facts were already known. Initial reports had indicated that during the early afternoon on Halloween day, Mr. Summerfield had released all of the servants and grounds keepers for the evening. He instructed them and their families not to return to their residences on the grounds until morning, but to stay in the hotel rooms which he had especially booked for them in one of the downtown luxury hotels.

They, of course, did as instructed and stayed away until the next morning. When they arrived back at the mansion, there were still five cars parked in the circular driveway. From the bright windows shining behind the shrubbery, they could see that the lights were still on in the basement "play area."

Upon entering the house, they discovered Jane Woodman lying on the floor near the door. She was dressed in thigh-high boots, long, black leather gloves, a black leather bustier, and a black cowl mask. She was obviously dead.

The servants went no further into the house, but instead went to their own quarters and called the police. The police carefully entered and searched the mansion but found no one else until they reached the basement play room. Harold Overton was also dead. Marie Donald, Frank Wilson, and Sharon Wood, close associates of Marvin Summerfield who shared his twisted interests, were on the floor in the center of the room... alive, but catatonic and totally insane. Marvin was sitting in a leather overstuffed chair staring at the back wall of the dungeon. Shackled to that wall, three facing it, three facing out into the room, were six young Hispanic women.

All of the girls were naked. They had been severely beaten and apparently sexually abused in horrific ways. All six of them were crying and babbling in a mixture of an odd Spanish and strange Indio-Mexican that none of the officers could understand.

When the officers cut them loose and began to cover them with blankets, however, the women seemed to understand that they were being rescued. Since the concern was for their health and well-being, they were immediately taken to the hospital... along with Marie, Frank, Sharon, and, of course, Marvin Summerfield himself.

By the time the police were able to find an interpreter who could comprehend the dialect the girls were speaking, lawyers for

The Modern Hedonist

had stepped in and no one was saying anything to anyone about what had happened. There was a great deal of speculation in the news media about what

might

have happened at the Halloween party, but the

true

nature of the events of that night could never be proven.

The next morning, the girls were returned to their villages somewhere in the depths of rural southern Mexico. Requests to the Mexican authorities to locate the women were met with polite refusals. Finally one Mexican official explained that in those remote areas, even the drug lords have a very tenuous hold over local tribes and villages. No government official would risk going back into those mountains for something as trivial as a request for information from Estados Unidos.

The official coroner's report said that both deaths were due to heart failure, but could not explain why the hearts of two apparently very healthy, middle-aged people had suddenly stopped. There were no drugs other than alcohol in either person's system, so the cause of death remained unexplained. Nor was there any explanation as to why the other three were completely deranged. The final result was an "open verdict," meaning that something was suspicious in the deaths, but there was no way to establish cause of death or definitively decide for or against foul play.

The magazine published one final issue-- it was already at the printers a the time of the party-- and then the great Marvin Summerfield empire faded back into the muck and mire from which it had arisen. Shortly thereafter, all Modern Hedonist clubs were also closed, and Marvin himself retired completely from public life, refusing all requests for interviews or public appearances... that is, until tonight.

Tonight, I was going to interview the great Marvin H. Summerfield and tell the world the true story of the Halloween party that was held behind the gates of Hell.

***

I arrived at the mansion at 9:00 pm on Halloween. He had been specific. It had to be 9:00 pm on this night or not at all. I knew from an invitation which had been found at the scene that 9:00 pm was the time the party was supposed to start that night.

When I arrived, I was ushered into a rather dimly-lit study by a silent, morose man who merely nodded at me when I said who I was. He directed me to an overstuffed chair that was drawn up to a small coffee table. Across from me was a divan, and on the divan sat the frail husk of what had once been one of the most feared-- and loathed-- men in publishing.

Marvin looked around the room as if to make sure that we were alone. Then he whispered quietly, "Shut the door."

When I had done so and returned to my chair he said in a slightly louder, but still very subdued voice, "Put your recorder on the desk and take out the battery. Same with your cellphone."

I was more than a little confused, but I complied. Then he said, "I am going to tell you the truth, but you can never publish it... not while I'm alive. One, no one will believe you. And two..." He paused to laugh. It was the kind of laugh that causes your blood to run cold; the kind of laugh that you normally do not hear anywhere but behind the locked doors of a psychiatric ward. Then he looked directly at me and continued, "... and two, you

don't

want a visit from Saint Michael."

He grinned at me. It was not a normal grin. It was as if he were holding tenuously onto the very edge of sanity. "I've never told anyone this story," he said. "You can tell it after I'm dead. Maybe it will be a warning to others."

He settled back slightly into his chair and began, "It was supposed to be a snuff party."

His eyes widened at my reaction to what he had said. "You look surprised and shocked," he said. "But where do you go when you have already gone beyond everything? It was time for us to experience the ultimate depravity, fatal Sado-masochism."

He exhaled in a short burst through his nose that was almost a snort. "Or, at least, that is what was eventually supposed to happen that night. I had procured six virgins from deep in the rural areas of southern Mexico. It was easy to entice them to come north. They were offered jobs as maids and promised that they would receive citizenship within a year."

He laughed and then smiled at me. "People can be so trusting and naive when they don't really know what is going to happen to them... can't they?"

The fear that comment caused to rise within me was not assuaged as he grinned crazily at me as if expecting an answer. I had no idea what he had meant or what he possibly expected as an answer, so I remained silent.

"Their first realizations that things were not what they expected were when Frank, Harold, and I overpowered them and shackled them to the wall of the dungeon. There were six of them and six of us, but it wasn't going to be a one-on-one evening. Where is the terror and helplessness of that? No, acting all together we tormented each of them in turn."

He made snipping motions with his hands as if cutting something with a pair of scissors. "Even the simple act of cutting off someone's clothing can be so exhilarating if done slowly and by overwhelming force."

That smile again. "Oh, I don't mean that we weren't very gentle about it. This was early in the evening. Nothing touched their skin except the cold feel of the little scissors we each held. We were the overwhelming force. The scissors were gentle little mice, slowly gnawing away at their modesty.

"The girls were all blindfolded at this point, so the others did not know what was happening until it began to happen to them. Imagine, standing shackled hand and foot to a wall hearing your childhood friends scream and cry out and beg for mercy."

He stared at me for a moment. His eyes were wild. "Heh... heh... heh..." That insane laugh began to bubble from within him and he fought to hold it back. Finally regaining control, he set his hands on his lap like a prim old lady at tea and continued. "These girls were absolute virgins... virgin to nakedness... virgin to humiliation... virgin to pain... virgin front, back, and mouth... and, of course, virgin to death. Our plan was to take each of their virginities from them one at a time."

He gave a deep sigh. "I don't know if we actually would have been able to take that last virginity from them. I often wonder if we would have truly done it even if he had not stopped us." Again he gave me that crazy smile. His mouth was held tightly shut, but the edges of his mouth seemed to curve up almost to his ears, distorting his face into a clownish grimace. Each time I witnessed that smile, the image burned deeper into my memory.

"But I am getting ahead of myself," he said calmly. "We were still at that first virginity... nakedness. We took our time, slowly cutting their clothing from their bodies. For someone who came from an almost tropical area, they wore a surprising number of layers of clothing. All of their clothing was hand made. There was no elastic or metal in anything. And everything, even their crude brasiers, was tied with homemade soft rope or strips of fabric.

"We experimented with what brought the most screams. The first girl we stripped layer by layer until she was wearing nothing but her fabric brasier and what looked like thin baggy swim shorts. She screamed and thrashed when we cut the straps holding her bra in place, and then screamed even more when we cut the tie on those shorts and let them slide down her legs revealing her sex. She continued to scream as we cut them from her body."

Time for another crazy smile. "None of us could understand what they were saying, but there was enough true Spanish to know that she was begging for mercy. She was also calling upon someone to help her. It sounded something like 'Mickey Choo Choo,' but none of us could really make out the name.

"With the second girl we changed the order and cut the boxy underwear away before we removed the bra. The effect was the same, so it was apparently total nakedness that was most terrifying. I had thought that we should have left two of them unblindfolded to see if being blindfolded increased the terror of being stripped naked. But Harold and Jane both convinced me that they had enough experience with humiliation and forced nakedness to know that not being able to tell when eyes were actually looking at you, or how many eyes, heightened the sense of absolute, helpless, nakedness.

"With the third girl, we cut away everything from the waist up before beginning below the waist. Surprisingly, that led to a double peak of terror. When the thin material of the bra was cut away, she screamed as loudly and thrashed as violently-- or more so-- as had the first two. And then her screams and cries for mercy continued to mount as we snipped away at her lower clothing. She, too, was crying out that 'Mickey Choo Choo' name, but also was calling for 'Santa Morty.'"

We repeated that same sequence on the fourth girl. She also screamed and cried out for both 'Choo Choo' and 'Morty', but I noticed that her nipples were engorging and starting to stand out stiff from her breasts. I kept the dungeon room quite warm so that I could be comfortable without clothing, so it wasn't the cold that was causing her nipples to become erect. Despite her terror, or perhaps because of it, she was becoming sexually aroused. That was confirmed when we finally dropped her drawers and cut them from her legs. The hair of her crotch was glistening with moisture, and the smell of hot cunt was evident in the room."

He stopped and with closed eyes tilted his head slightly upward as if he were savoring that particular image or memory. Then he continued. "The other two were just as enjoyable to watch and listen to, but neither of them became aroused. By the time we got to the last girl, she was chanting continuously, 'Mickey Choo Choo, Mickey Choo Choo, Mickey Choo Choo...'"

He remained silent and stared at me with the ghost of that crazy smile still on his face. It was obvious that he was waiting for a response. I asked, "So, I assume that you next took their virginity of pain?"

"Ah," he responded, "you are forgetting humiliation."

He folded his hands in his lap once again and continued, "Being naked is humiliating, but true humiliation is being naked and having to face those who have stripped you. Next we took off their blindfolds-- again one by one. Frank would untie the cloth carefully, holding it tight against their faces until that moment when he could suddenly whip it away and leave them blinking in the light."

That crazy smile was starting to irritate-- no, unnerve me.

"We were still dressed in our formal attire at that point," he said. "The contrast between full regalia and full nakedness was thus even greater. We let them tremble for a bit, and then stroked their skin and tweaked their nipples and ran our hands between their legs. They couldn't move away from us, but oh, they tried. Yes, they tried... except number four. She pulled away at first, but then stood there with tears running down her face and let us feel her up. She even pushed back slightly against my hand as I slid it between her legs. For some reason that caused her to burst into tears of shame."

Again he savored the moment before saying suddenly and quickly,"Then we introduced them to pain. Their screams were to be the entr'acte as we changed our clothing in preparation for the next act. Jane had been wearing a long, formal, opera dress over her dominatrix attire, so she stepped out of the room for but a second to strip off and immediately returned.

"None of the girls knew what to expect when this masked woman appeared suddenly before them with her bullwhip in her hands. She chose number five as her first intended for this intermission interlude of screams and the whip began to dance over the young girl's flesh."

A deep sigh and closed eyes indicated that once again he was relishing a memory of that night. "Jane was a master of the whip. I had once watched her strike a victim a dozen times and touch nothing but the naked woman's clit and nipples. That night, she extended her record. It wasn't until the thirtieth lash that the tip of the whip touched anything but the unfortunate girl's most tender spots. 'Merde,' she said. 'I was hoping to be able to make it to an even three dozen.'"

By the time she had finished, we were all changed. Marie was also in a dom's outfit, but less elaborate than Jane's. Sharon was nude... well as nude as you can be with a full body tattoo that covers your entire torso from knees to elbows. Her horimona was done in the traditional Japanese fashion, but it depicted Dante's nine circles of Hell. The face of the akuma himself covered her entire abdomen with the lower portion of the face placed so that her cunt formed the devil's mouth."

He laughed. This time it was almost a normal laugh, but it was still tinged with a touch of hysteria. "They all knew what that meant. Half of them were crying 'Ahh-pook, Ahh-pook.' The others were screaming 'Il Diabla.' Number six returned to her chant of 'Mickey-choo-choo' just as Sharon's flogger began to strike. Something about that chant must have angered Sharon because she seemed to lose control and slashed wildly until the girl was finally hanging limp in her chains."