A long time ago, I promised Mija a story. You may have noticed it hasn’t appeared. This, I assure you, is entirely the fault of the story itself and no fault whatsoever of mine. I started this story soon after promising it to Mija, inspired in part by her forays into calligraphy and in part by an old story idea about a girl educated both as a boy and as a girl. So far so good, but this story quickly developed ideas above its station. Before we knew where we were, this story began whispering of its ambition to be a novel.
I told the story to get a grip. Stories were just that, short prose compositions to be read in a single sitting with a beginning, middle and end. The story listened patiently, but then gave me that look–the look that said But I really really long to be a novel. It is my heart’s desire. I am passionate about my novel-hood and long only to develop myself over a hundred thousand words. Anything less will stifle my glorious potential.
Even though the story was looking at me in cliches, I realized I had a rebellion on my hands. Fear gripped me.
I consulted the twittisphere and received wise counsel from the likes of Adele Haze, who advised me to force it into a short form and then lie to it and say it might grow up to be a novel one day. I tried this. My story pretended cooperation, but I think it saw through my ruse and decided to persist secretly in its ambition. And so we contended, this story and I, on an off over the months between The Promise and now.
Procrastination and incomplete projects weigh heavily on my conscience. They inspire me to hate myself, and they suck my energy like vampires. I’m old enough to realize that the to-do list will never be empty, but I am nevertheless trying to clear the decks for NaNoWriMo, which begins Monday. Yes, I am doing it again. Yes, once again I propose to be a NaNo Rebel (don’t faint from surprise). I’m planning to continue and try to finish my current novel, roughly from the point I left it after last year’s NaNo. If you check back in a few days, hopefully the Nano widgets will be working and you’ll be able to monitor my progress.
All of which is a long way of arriving at this confession: I am not currently capable of making Mija’s story into a proper story. So instead of hang on to it indefinitely, I have decided to give it in its current fragmentary form. Naturally, this feels awful, but TL says it is salutary to submit to human limitations, and good preparation for a month of daily humiliation in pursuit of 50,000 crappy words.
Right, navel gazing over. National Novel Writing ahead. Non-novel below. Mija, sorry it isn’t quite as promised.
Georgie/George
© Casey Morgan 2010
The Baron poured out the brandy for himself and his visitor, drawing his own chair closer to the fire against the bitter winter evening.
“I suppose,” the visitor said after tasting the brandy with approval, “this is when we ought to discuss what we have so assiduously avoided discussing.”
A tension left the Baron, one only palpable in its departure. Delahay had not changed after all. “You’ve always been ruthless in the face of delicacy,” the Baron said.
“And you’ve always appreciated it,” Delahay replied. “Well, almost always.”
They shared a smile over the memory of their encounters, many years before, at school. The Baron (then known simply as Merlingham, or Basil to his intimates) had first encountered Paul Delahay at their Public School in Hampshire. Delahay was some five years the junior, and their relationship had its roots in that of prefect and “difficult” junior. Many years had passed since then, many experiences on both sides. Delahay’s physique displayed those years less plainly than the Baron’s. His ash-blond hair showed no signs of the gray which streaked through the Baron’s. Both men were fit, but Delahay’s figure cut the sportsman. While fate had been kinder to Delahay in looks, it had smiled more warmly on the Baron in fortune. Delahay’s ascendancy at university had not been followed by material success. He now found himself nearly forty, childless, widowed, and between appointments as a tutor. It had taken little to persuade him to accept an invitation to the Baron’s chateau in Switzerland to offer consultation on what the Baron termed “an awkward project,” no further explanation forthcoming.
“You remember my sister, Miranda?” the Baron essayed.
“How could I forget the delicious harpy?” Delahay revealed a smirk at the reference to one summer holiday spent at Merlingham Hall. The Baron had only been present for a week of it, but he was fairly confident Delahay had seduced Miranda (a year Delahay’s senior) as well as their brother, Tom (two years Delahay’s junior and his close associate at school).
Over three brandies, the Baron recounted Tom’s death on the autobahn; Miranda’s marriage, estrangement from the family, and disappearance at the hands of South American dictators; and, finally, the existence of a niece, whose sole relation the Baron had proved to be. This niece was in fact the awkward project. Orphaned for all intents and purposes, mis-educated, difficult, thirteen years of age.
Delahay’s eyes betrayed curiosity . “Mis-educated how?”
The Baron summarized the month since his niece had arrived. She was the product of ludicrous parents. They had carted her around the globe on a feverish career of Jellybyism, educating her (if indeed their methods merited the term, which he doubted) in a way that made the Baron want to fall upon them with fisticuffs, if they had been within thrashing distance. She spouted a disconnected jumble of history, politics, and folklore; she read voraciously and uncritically; she knew little of mathematics, something of modern languages, nothing of Latin or Greek, and while she cut a figure in verbal debate, her skills with pen and paper could most generously be described as primitive.
“She can’t write?”
“Not that one can decipher.”
Delahay’s face assumed the expression of a professional who knew his work: “In short, she is intelligent but undisciplined.”
“Quite.”
Delahay’s gaze drifted to the fire. “It does sound a desperate case,” he said. “Unfortunately, I am a tutor of boys.”
“Exclusively?”
Delahay hesitated. “She’s thirteen, you say?” The Baron nodded. “Girls that age belong with other girls, with schoolmistresses, or at least governesses. Not with tutors who specialize in preparing boys for Public School.”
“That’s the thing of it,” the Baron said. “The child has had a most unconventional upbringing. Conventional strategies are, I fear, useless.”
“Nevertheless,” Delahay began, but the Baron interrupted him in the blunt manner he once employed in the face of Delahay’s thirteen-year-old cheek:
“Do you imagine I haven’t tried all that?” the Baron demanded. He went on to narrate the disaster of his niece’s two-day attendance at the nearby school for young ladies, as well as the rapid departures of the governesses he had subsequently engaged. In the Baron’s untutored opinion, his niece was yet too uncivilized for female society. It was as much as he could do to keep her in a frock. He had come to the conclusion that nature ought not to be fought as much as engaged. And it was his fervent hope—his only hope—that Delahay might accept that engagement.
Delahay finished his brandy in silence, contemplating the Baron’s account. “My methods,” he said at last.
“Are quite traditional,” the Baron rejoined, “as my correspondents attest.”
“Correspondents?”
“You don’t imagine I’d attempt to engage a tutor I hadn’t thoroughly researched?”
“Ah.”
“I’d have thought, Delahay, that you would recall my thoroughness, if nothing else.”
Delahay had the grace to blush at the memory.
“I grant you a free hand,” the Baron continued. “If you’ve any qualms dealing directly with my niece, perhaps you will feel freer addressing yourself to my nephew.”
Delahay blinked, and continued to blush. “There’s a nephew as well?”
The Baron rang for a servant, who quickly appeared. “Bring Georgie here, please.” The servant bobbed and departed. The Baron refreshed their drinks. He said nothing further, but shortly the library door banged open, admitting a child flushed from the outdoors. The child looked to Delahay in the neighborhood of eleven. It wore wool trousers, layers of wool jumper, wet boots, as well as muffler, cap, and mittens covered in snow.
“Gracious, child, what do you call—”
“Rose said you wanted me at once,” the child interrupted.
“Have you only just returned?” the Baron asked, concerned. “I thought I made it clear you weren’t to be skiing in the dark.”
“It’s only just got dark,” the child retorted.
This was not quite true, but the Baron declined to pursue the matter. Instead he drew the dripping child over to the fire. “Say good evening, please, to Mr. Delahay.”
The child removed a snow-caked mitten and extended a cold, pink hand. “How do you do?” it inquired, with almost repugnant self-confidence.
“Quite well—”
“Delahay,” the Baron interrupted, “please meet my niece, Georgiana.”
read the rest of the story
If I did that, I’d have to explain further. Well, Mom, the book is called The Spanking Collection, and it’s an anthology of spanking stories written by 20 of the best spanking writers around. It’s edited by my friends Abel and Haron (some of the “writing friends” I’ve visited in the UK), and the stories in it are diverse and fun and moving and hot and–and, no, Mom, these people aren’t strange. They are some of the nicest, normalest people you could meet, and guess what? This whole book is for Cancer Research UK. That’s right. The contributors all gave their stories (or introduction or artwork) without pay (yes, me too, I know, Mom, but seriously, no one is getting rich writing short stories), Abel and Haron covered all the publishing costs as well as doing the editing, layout, Kindle-creation, and the rest of it, and all the profits are going to help people find cures for cancer. Yes, I know that cancer isn’t just one big disease like polio, but the point is that the people at Cancer Research UK surely know this too, and once they get the windfall from this book, they will know so so much more! Ok, but, Mom, you get the point, right? And, yes actually, I think you could tell everyone in your therapy group that your widowed, church-going daughter is also a published author of kink. They would cheer you on. This is New York, right? Please, I’m sure you’ve heard much more unsavory things from them. Right? Exactly.
