majestically, of course, behind a decisive “No!” to everything mediocre, banal, and sentimental (under present circumstance a suicidal line to draw)—and majestically unconcerned with the damage he does to himself thereby (as well as via hard liquor and pills)—

What he’s looking for in Whores’ Alley is a manuscript. Another of Gisela’s customers left it with her by accident. He doesn’t know him, hasn’t seen the manuscript either, but only knows about it from the account of the man he fetched out of here after having seen to it that the latter’s three-day absence from home and workplace did not result in a missing-person bulletin. The manuscript is supposedly a film script and apparently extraordinarily brilliant and inventive. As an editor in a publishing house, he works with manuscripts professionally, and the man he led away from here, the discoverer of the manuscript, is a publisher. How the latter was able to get a look at it in the midst of a seventy-five-hour frenzy of torment and lust, an organ symphony of alcohol and drugs, can only be understood as an unbounded déformation professionelle.

Gisela’s “treatment” is symbolically organized. She begins by undressing the john and putting him naked into a crib as if recently weaned. Gisela kisses and hugs him like a good mommy, fondles his member, but punishes him—still laughing and joking—when it gets stiff. That’s cute and all, but not allowed yet. And then things get stricter: he’s gone pee-pee in bed, bad boy! He gets it—whack, whack—on his bare bottom. Then more tenderness and a treat—don’t ask about its pharmacological ingredients. Now the little guy is wide awake. He’s reached school age, wears short pants, little socks, a school shirt, and a big polka-dot bow under his chin. She sits him down at a little desk and gives him assignments. But the bad boy has blotted his paper. That’s going to cost him a caning. At his age, there’s plenty of lesser and greater offenses he’s guilty of. The day passes, full of praise and punishment. Mommy Gisela is strict. Fair, but strict. The punishments are more elaborate than the rewards, but the latter are also excitingly painful. Now he’s in puberty. Gisela temporarily plays a new role. As his fellow pupil, she introduces him to the anatomical differences between boys and girls. But alas! He goes too far during the inspection. His playmate is insulted, angry, and uncommonly inventive in the half-kidding, half-malicious infliction of pain; she pinches and jabs and scratches and bites. Then Gisela, once more in the role of governess, catches him at the vice of self-abuse and exposes him publically as a masturbator. She invites in a group of her girlfriends and puts him on display. The girls mock and scold him appropriately and make cruel jokes about the size of his member. They try pulling it to make it longer. More blows rain down since no erection is forthcoming; then even more when it finally begins. His back is striped with bloody welts. That night, he’s permitted to chat with Gisela and sleep a bit.