Today is a very exciting day, but unfortunately, it isn’t the kind of thing I can celebrate with my mom. I’m telling you, it’s very hard to stop myself calling her up to say, Hey, Mom, a story I wrote is being published today!

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.

Well, if you want to buy the book, you can get it in paperback here, and on Kindle here (oh, right, your Kindle died within the first month when your water bottle leaked in your purse, never mind), and for more links there is Haron and Abel’s blog here. I love how you always buy copies of my books, Mom. Thanks for buying this!

But, Mom? Even if you buy a couple of copies, ok ten, please will you do me a favor and just not read my story? No, it’s not shocking or anything, and, no, I am not the lead girl, Charlie, and no one in the story is you; it’s just that I’d rather you didn’t read it. Like, there’s nothing the matter with either one of us having sex, but it’s just better if we don’t share that with each other. No, Mom, there’s no sex in my story. There’s kissing, but that’s it. And, well, it’s a spanking book, so, well, but, the point is that my story is called “The Library”, so avoid pp. 110-122, and yes, I am Casey Morgan, and no, please don’t Google that, ever. Yes, that is the name I use for the blog I don’t let you read, and please, can we keep it that way?

No, this story isn’t on my blog, and as a matter of fact this book is the only place it will appear because all of us writers agreed to write something special and original just for this anthology and let it appear only there. So, there is nothing for you to see on my blog, nothing at all. And the point about my story is that I got the idea for it after taking a trip with my friend Emma Jane to the Trinity College Library in Dublin. (The Motherland, right? Top o’the morning to ya, my darling mother!) Emma blogged about it here, and that is another link I would like you please not to follow, but you can give it to the people in your group and they can see how much of the story is indebted to Emma’s imagination and not really mine at all.

Ok, look, if you have to tell them something, just say my story is about an English schoolboy and an English schoolgirl who kiss and get in trouble, and there is a library in it.

I am sure you are right that my story is the best one even if you never read it. Let’s just agree that it is, and you can order copies and give them to your friends from therapy and from the Village and never read mine and support Cancer Research UK and all will be right with the world. Great! Love you, Mom!!!

Dinner to celebrate? Sure! xxxxxxx me

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

When I write the phrase little chat, it is usually in upper case, Little Chat. I think you already know what that means. It is probably time I attribute the phrase to its originator. Mark first used, upper case, early in our correspondence, but I incorrectly remember hearing it first in a vignette he wrote for me.

Our email correspondence (until he moved to Gotham) stretches to almost a thousand emails each, almost all of them saved individually in txt files with names like “fmark232.txt” [the 232nd email from Mark to me] or “tomark33″ [my 33rd email to Mark]. As you can imagine, it’s hard to find a reference amongst all that, especially 15 years after the fact.

Tonight I was searching for the text of this Little Chat vignette, which I did using the Search function on my PC. It turned up many emails, and the first one I opened turned out to be the one in which he confessed that he loved me. I barely remember this email, but encountering it again absolutely slayed me. I won’t quote it. My eyes are still swollen.

I did eventually find Mark’s vignette and have posted it below as well as under the Stories tab. The scenario was Mark and Casey at the Lewises. This was an alternate reality to Home School, one we only played a few times. The idea was that Mark and Casey had run away from the Orphanage and had been found and adopted by the Perfect People (Dr. & Mrs. Lewis). I later (or was it earlier?) wrote a companion piece to his vignette, which I also posted under the Stories tab. After reading them both, I feel his is much better: more direct, less fussy and complicated, more spontaneous and full of heart. Looking at both scenarios from far away, I would say that we never lived or much played the letter of them, but the mood and heart of them were a constant feature of our life together, especially Mr. Prior’s life with Casey.

Without further ado, then, here is Mark’s piece, Wednesdays.

Wednesdays

by Mark Hastings

Sundays are for Regulars, for weekly cleaning.  Sundays are always spent together, at the Lewises.  Casey and Mark go to bed sore and peaceful and clean and warm.  Whole.  Sundays are a deep rich blue, the smell of dark polished wood, a full stomach and a feeling of belonging.

By Wednesday, that’s worn off a little.  Mr. Lewis is fond of saying, as he shaves on Wednesday morning, that Wednesday is the worst day of the week. Equidistant from the comfort of weekend.  Neither the residual freshness of Tuesday, or the slight anticipation of Thursday.  Nothing but acres of dullness.  Mrs. Lewis has Commitments on Wednesdays, so supper is usually something cold.  Mark and Casey both have School things that they hate. For Mark, it’s morning gym, ninety minutes of effort with the school Sergeant’s swagger stick flailing its response to slackness, and the inevitability of at least one vault-horse caning, ‘poer incurriger les otters’.   For Casey, double Latin in the afternoon with the psychotically sarcastic Mr. Whitworth, whose greatest pleasure is to decline irregular verbs in time with his strap-strokes, and who makes a virtue of leathering girls just as hard as boys.  Out in front of the class, but facing towards your peers so they are spared the worst witness of unprotected strapping, and can better concentrate on construe.

Mark has learned to avoid the Wednesday vault-horse, and Casey the mid-week strap, because on Wednesday evenings they have their “Little Chat”.

The children do the dishes after supper, while Mr. Lewis goes to his study, and Mrs. Lewis rests up.  There is a sense of anticipation, although it isn’t the edginess of Sunday, before the Regulars, because often a Little Chat is just that.  Even so, the dishes get done well, and quietly, on the whole, on Wednesdays.  Mark and Casey smarten themselves up, and jaunt carefully along the downstairs corridor to the study.  Sometimes Mrs. Lewis joins them, sometimes not.

Little Chats are lucky-dippy.  In the months since Casey’s arrival they have ranged from a particularly uncomfortable interview over a broken ornament (Casey), cleverly replaced on its shelf (Mark) and not discovered broken for some time afterwards (Mrs. Lewis), to a riotous game of Racing Demon in which Mr. Lewis was heard to swear when Casey stole his Ace of Spades, was sent to the corner by his family and threatened with a very hard whacking by Mark if he ever did it again.  On average, one or both of the Lewises feel that one or both of the children would benefit from a little additional discipline perhaps one week in two.

Little Chat discipline is always the same – slipper, paddle or hand, administered in traditional manner, across the knee of the parent in the clock-ticky quiet of Mr. Lewis’s study.  It’s very different from Regulars. Canes, birches, crops and straps are banned.  Punishments are measured in minutes, rather than strokes.  Usually either a Quin, being–as Casey might explain–five minutes, or a Dix, being ten.  Mark hates Dixes, with a passion, especially when they’re paddle, and administered by Mrs. Lewis. Casey has mixed feelings about the whacking, but she loves the closeness and warmth of Little Chats, the fire glowing orange while the wind blows white outside on winter Wednesdays.

So, Wednesdays are made red, a smell of incense, a little adventure, and fun.

Think you?

Here is a story from the archives, as a Lol Day prize. On many levels it is cringe-inducing for me, but I think, towards the end, it gets at the huge force that had me and M in its grips. Keep in mind we had been corresponding for just about three weeks when I wrote it. I had no idea I was in love with him, or he with me; and I don’t think I was able to see it even after writing this story. Now, our fates appear glaringly obvious to me, as if writing can tell us things we can’t see with our minds.

I wrote Vice as revenge for the first story Mark wrote me, The Benefit of the Doubt here. Also mentioned is Mark’s story The Fishing Trip, discussed here. Dixon and Tremlett are his friends in The Fishing Trip, Mr. “Big Tim” Harrison is Housemaster in question, and Dr. Malcolm Headmaster.

This is yet another story written before I had ever experienced the cane or any RL play. Trivia: it appears that this is where I acquire my middle name, ha ha!

Vice

© Casey Morgan 1995

1.

MI6 was getting good. After months of failure, they’d finally begun to crack the Finnish anonymous remailer and thus zero in on some chief offenders in their own green and pleasant. A stray pervo in Birmingham, a hoard of terrorists in London, some Wilde imitators at Oxford. But even Morley, who headed the investigation, was surprised to unearth a user at the School. He was familiar with the place. And he knew the master in charge of its computer systems. So, rather than file the appropriate reports, he got on the train and paid a personal visit, in hopes of resolving the situation on the qt.

Mr. Harrison–housemaster and English scholar–was a man of many talents. After his former student had left him, he went directly to the Media Centre. In no time he had traced the account in question: Mark Hastings. Well, who else would it be? So it was that after Vth form English, Big Tim loped across the playing fields to Dr. Malcolm’s house.

“I might have know it.”

“It would seem he’s quite an accomplished documentarian,” Tim added. “I took the liberty of photocopying one or two examples.”

He dropped on the desk something called ‘The Fishing Trip.’

“And this particularly vulgar waste of good paper…”

‘The Benefit of the Doubt’ fell beside its sibling. The remainder had been tucked away in Mr. Harrison’s very secure filing cabinets.

“I suppose he must be summoned, formal interview and the rest of it.” Dr. Malcolm sounded weary. Ever since booking his summer holiday to Tangier, this all too human headmaster had been having difficulty concentrating. In particular, he was fed up with Mark Hastings and was running out of resources to meet him creatively.

“Ever since Hastings came here, he’s done nothing, it seems, but try to get himself beaten.” Tim looked at his friend obliquely.

“Hmm.” Dr. Malcolm stuffed his pipe between his teeth and bit hard. “Perhaps he hasn’t received a sufficiently strong dose.”

“Hmm.” Irony and understatement seethed on the carpet between them, though to an eavesdropper, the words would have fallen flat. These two men understood one another perfectly.

“I believe,” Dr. Malcolm murmured at last, “I know just the thing. Something to ensure he won’t be rushing back for more.”

read the rest of the story here

A story for Natty – sorry it has taken so long

Miss Blue-frock and Mr. Stripy-blazer approached the summerhouse from opposite directions. Natty wiped the lenses of opera glasses and focused them on the gap in the hedge that gave on to the summerhouse. Mr. Stripy-blazer had attended many of Uncle A’s house parties and never failed to provide entertainment, at least from Natty’s vantage. She was never permitted to meet any of Uncle A’s guests, but she listened to the servants’ gossip. Mr. Stripy-blazer had recently Come Down from Oxford, where he had rowed. He was well-connected, well-mannered, a sportsman, a Good Catch, and a Cad. Whenever Uncle A held a house party, Natty watched for Mr. Stripy-blazer’s diverting antics in the summerhouse. Just now, in fact, he and Miss Blue-frock were moving rapidly on from their first, abrupt kiss. Natty shifted on the windowsill for a steadier view as Mr. Stripy-blazer disappeared beneath Miss Blue-frock’s skirt.

“Natalie!”

She jumped, heart pounding. The opera glasses clattered to the floor.

“Come down from there, child.”

Trembling, Natty climbed down from the windowsill and stared at the woman who had just discovered her hiding spot.

“What are you doing in here?” the woman asked. Natty picked up the opera glasses and tucked them into her pocket. “What were you spying on up there?”

“Nothing.”

The woman frowned. “Come with me.”

Natty crossed her arms. “Who are you?”

“Miss Bea.” Then, seeing the puzzlement on Natty’s face, “Miss Bea’s sister.”

“But you’re old!” Natty’s nurse was not yet twenty, she had said. This woman’s hair was turning gray around the edges. How could she be Miss Bea’s sister? How could she be called Miss Bea too? And, where was her Miss Bea?

“We’re a large family,” said the woman. “Carrie is our youngest.”

“You mean my Miss Bea?”

“My sister has been called away on urgent business, and I’ve come to take her place for the time being.” Natty’s face fell. She’d liked her Miss Bea. Old Miss Bea wrinkled her brow as if she knew more than she was saying. “And not a moment too soon, I think.”

She took Natty by the wrist and led her out of the linen cupboard and back to the nursery. Her hand was soft but strong in a way that made Natty uneasy. Why would she say not a moment too soon? Old Miss Bea sat on the window-seat and drew Natty in front of her.

“You were supposed to be resting, I thought.”

“I was. I –“

“Leaving the nursery and spying out of cupboard windows is not resting,” Old Miss Bea said firmly. Natty’s stomach churned. “Your fever is back, I think.”

“It isn’t!” Natty protested. “And I don’t need to rest!”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Miss Bea put a hand on the back of Natty’s neck and led her into the little bathroom. She rattled through the cupboard and emerged with a jar. From her apron she produced a thermometer, then she sat down in the straight backed chair. “Come here,” she said.

Natty opened her mouth, confident in her ability to move the thermometer discreetly from underneath her tongue.

Miss Bea took her by the elbow. “Don’t be silly.” Before Natty knew what was happening, she had been tipped across Miss Bea’s knee.

She struggled, panic setting in. “I never have my temperature taken that way! I’m too old!”

“Nonsense,” said Miss Bea, lifting her dress and unceremoniously whisking down her knickers. “It’s the most reliable method. Hold still.”

Natty felt a sharp smack on her bottom, then something wet on Miss Bea’s finger, then the cold glass of the thermometer going into her bottom.

“I’m too old!” she cried.

“Apparently,” said Miss Bea, “you aren’t. Now, stop fussing. No one’s hurting you.”

Natty felt another slap, less hard this time, on the top of her thigh. She stopped squirming and closed her eyes.

It wasn’t really happening. She wasn’t a baby. She wasn’t really having her temperature taken this way. In a minute this Miss Bea would disappear and her Miss Bea would be back, the nice Miss Bea Natty could fool without much trouble. Nice Miss Bea who never did more than scold her. Nice Miss Bea who felt sorry for her, being orphaned and being sick so much of the time. Nice Miss Bea who brought her nice things to eat and then disappeared conveniently for hours at a time with the gardener’s boy. Nice Miss Bea who always said how clever she was, clever beyond her years. Nice Miss Bea who—

The thermometer moved as Mean Miss Bea took it out of her bottom.

“Hmm,” she said disapprovingly. “Your fever most certainly is back, young Natalie, and you most certainly haven’t been resting as you were told.” Abruptly, she pulled Natty to her feet. Natty reached down to pull up her knickers, but Miss Bea slapped her hands away. “We’ll have those off, I think.”

“What!”

But they were already at her ankles and Miss Bea was taking them off her.

“I need them!”

“Little girls who aren’t well belong in bed and do not need pants.”

“I am well! And I don’t need to rest.” Miss Bea just looked at her. Natty could tell she didn’t believe her. “All I do is rest. I hate resting! I’m so sick and tired of resting I could jump out the window and smash up my brains on the pavement!”

Without warning, she burst into tears. Then, equally without warning, Miss Bea pulled Natty into her arms. “I know,” she said.

“You don’t know!” Natty sobbed. “No one knows.”

“Perhaps not,” said Miss Bea, “but I know what it’s like to be unwell for a long time.”

Natty’s tears ebbed. “You do?”

“Yes. But that is neither here nor there. When I was young, I had no Nurse Bea to look after me.”

“You’re a nurse?”

“Certainly. And who knows how much quicker I would have got well if I had.”

“What was the matter with you?”

“Again, neither here nor there. The point, young Natalie, is that you do have Nurse Bea to look after you, for the moment. And in the time we have together, you can rely on me to do what’s best for you in every possible way.”

It sounded luckier than finding a penny under the rug. Natty wondered why it made her tummy feel funny. Nurse Bea proceeded to examine her, feeling her throat, looking in her eyes, at her tongue, then turning her around to unbutton her dress.

“Oh!” Natty protested.

“Yes, yes,” Nurse Bea replied. “Let’s take all that as read, shall we?”

Natty wasn’t sure what she meant, exactly, but she had an uneasy feeling that Nurse Bea knew her entirely too well. Already. She removed Natty’s dress and then sat her on a stool. “Right, you get those shoes and stockings off and fold your things up neatly.”

Without a glance to ensure her orders were being followed, Nurse Bea adjourned into the big bathroom, the one with the lead-lined tub, the water closet, the fireplace, and the windows overlooking the rose garden. Natty untied her shoes and heard water running in the basin, then the grate being lit. Presumably Nurse Bea had drawn the bath earlier. Natty didn’t like being watched in the bath, unless there were bubbles to hide under. She hoped Nurse Bea would understand, and she hoped there would be no new and horrible medicine to take.

Nurse Bea appeared at the door, a bath towel draped over her arm. “I don’t call that folded neatly,” she said, glancing at Natty’s things. Sighing pointedly, Natty refolded them. It didn’t matter if her things were folded neatly or not. It wasn’t as though she was ever allowed out to see people. “Neatness is always worth the trouble,” Nurse Bea said, as if reading her mind. “Now, come here.” She took Natty by the wrist again, unnecessarily, Natty thought, and led her into the big bathroom.

A fire was burning in the grate, but the bath had not been drawn. The armless upholstered chair that Miss Bea always sat in while Natty had her bath had been moved into the middle of the room. Next to it stood the side-table, and on the table a white, enameled bowl full of soapy water.

“I don’t like sponge baths,” Natty protested as Nurse Bea sat down in the chair. “Why can’t I have a regular bath?”

“Oh, you shall, when we’re done here.” Nurse Bea spread the towel over her lap and then patted it. “Over you get.”

Natty’s face burned. “What! Why? I haven’t done anything!”

Nurse Bea gripped her wrist and pulled her firmly across her knee. “Don’t be silly. You’re not well enough to have a spanking.” Natty struggled to get up. Nurse Bea tightened her grip. “However, if you insist on misbehaving…” Natty heard something being taken out of a container behind her. Something swished through the air, spraying her with water. Then that something fell with a light thwick on her bottom.

“Oh!”

“I can’t imagine that hurt very much,” said Nurse Bea, bringing the light twigs down again. It didn’t actually hurt, but Natty was incensed by the indignity. “However,” Nurse Bea continued, “a nursery willow switch can grow quite stingy without doing the slightest bit of damage.” She brought it down ten more times, building the sensation from a tingle to a sting, so much that Natty was quite glad when she stopped. “If I’ve made my point, perhaps we can begin.”

“What are you going to do to me?” Natty asked, employing her most suspicious and pitiable voice, the one she reserved for doctors she hoped to cow into mercy.

“You can drop that tone,” Nurse Bea said with a light laugh. “It doesn’t impress me. And I’m not going to do anything to you. You’re clearly in need of a wash-out. You’ll feel much better afterwards and entirely ready for sleep.”

Natty froze, dread engulfing her. “Castor oil makes me throw up,” she protested.

“I entirely disapprove of castor oil,” Nurse Bea said. She reached for the jar on the table. Natty felt something being smeared on her bottom. “Now hold still!” Nurse Bea admonished.

“You just took my temperature!”

“Stop being silly.” The switch came down again, quickly and sharply, twelve times, until Natty lay still. “Thank you.” Natty’s eyes stung. She wasn’t a little girl. She didn’t like being held across Nurse Bea’s lap as if she were. She was about to say as much when Nurse Bea took something from behind the enamel bowl and put it into the soapy water.

“What’s that?”

“Gracious, child, don’t tell me you’ve never had an enema this way.”

The burning in Natty’s face spread to every inch of her skin. Nurses had threatened her with that word before, but she wasn’t precisely sure what it meant. All she knew was that it was something embarrassing that happened to you when you were very bad.

“I’m not that bad! I’ve never been that bad!”

“Whatever are you on about, Natalie? Don’t tell me you’ve never had an enema?”

“No!”

“Heavens!” Nurse Bea sounded shocked. “Well, that explains quite a bit. No, don’t move. You’re having one now, and not a moment too soon.” Natty felt something cold against her bottom. It slid slowly inside, like the thermometer had. Then, a faint gurgling sound, and a warm and peculiar feeling inside her.

“Let me go!” Natty cried.

Slowly, the thing was pulled out of her, dripping some warm water, which Nurse Bea wiped off with a cloth.

“I’m not a baby!” Natty shouted, wriggling while keenly aware of the water in her bottom.

“You’re certainly behaving like one,” said Nurse Bea dryly. “Now hold still.” The switch fell again. “No one’s harming you.” Thwick. Thwick. “You’re simply getting an enema.” Thwick. Thwick. Natty held still. “Now just you concentrate on holding that until it’s time to sit on the toilet.”

Natty’s face burned at the mention of such unmentionable things. But the switch had resumed and was stinging again. Just as it got too stingy, it stopped, and she felt that thing pressing into her bottom. Slowly, Nurse Bea squeezed the water out. Her tummy started to hurt.

“I need to go now!”

“Nonsense. You only think you do.” Nurse Bea set down what Natty now saw was a kind of bulb and took up the switch. She used it lightly, but firmly enough to make Natty lie still. Just as the sting was building, she stopped and exchanged it for the bulb. “This is doing you a lot of good, I see. A lot of good.”

Natty simply did not know what to say. The idea that such a mortifying thing could be doing her good was simply outrageous. And it was very strange indeed the way Nurse Bea kept trading the just-stingy switch for the just-achy bulb. It was even stranger how she felt comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time held across Nurse Bea’s lap, the big white towel beneath her, wearing only her vest, her fingertips toying with the fringe of the rug.

She wasn’t counting how many times Nurse Bea used the bulb thing, but her tummy was hurting again, strongly, and she didn’t know how long she could wait. She held her breath.

“Is that cramping?” Nurse Bea asked. Natty nodded. “Don’t hold your breath, Natalie.” She put one hand on Natty’s bottom and with the other hand rubbed her back until the cramping subsided. “Right,” she said, lifting Natty to her feet. “Time to let that water out.”

Natty’s face was burning with embarrassment, hotter than any fever she could remember, as Nurse Bea took her by the wrist and led her to the toilet. Natty sat down, scowling, and looked away while Nurse Bea left the room.

Only Nurse Bea did not leave the room. “Come along, now, let’s have that water out.”

“I can’t go with you here!”

Nurse Bea pursed her lips. “You can and you will. You’re certainly not being left alone during your first enema, child.”

And Nurse Bea was right. The water was coming out, and Natty couldn’t stop it even if she wanted to. Nurse Bea watched her the whole time, not even looking away in consideration for her feelings. She didn’t even look away when it made horrible, embarrassing noises. Natty wanted to cry, but she was too focused on the pain in her tummy and the way it waxed and waned. Nurse Bea stood by her side, and at one point when Natty thought she was done, Nurse Bea told her to turn and look over her right shoulder. There was nothing there, but the turning made the water start again. Eventually, Nurse Bea agreed that she was indeed done. Natty felt very tired. Tired, and somewhat lighter. She reached for the toilet paper, but it wasn’t in its place.

“Up you get,” said Nurse Bea.

“I need the paper!”

But Nurse Bea was having none of that. Natty wasn’t sure if it was more embarrassing to have Nurse Bea wipe her bottom for her, as if she were a baby, or to have Nurse Bea look into the toilet bowl and declare that she certainly had needed that enema, more seriously than expected.

Then Nurse Bea was taking her to the chaise longue by the window and making her lie down and covering her with the towel. “Twenty minutes rest,” she announced, adjusting the watch on her lapel. She produced a book from her pocket. “Would you like reading to?”

Natty didn’t want to say yes. She didn’t want to cooperate in any way with Nurse Bea’s hideous regime. But she did like being read to. Not knowing what do say, she scowled.

“Right then,” Nurse Bea replied, opening the book, “Three Men in a Boat, by Jerome K. Jerome.”

They’d just gotten to the bit about housemaid’s knee, or something anyhow to do with a dog, or a seal that stole things and was naughty, and Natty had turned into the seal, a gray seal with no clothes that swam in the sea and climbed up onto the beach and onto the lap of someone who loved it, and the seal never had to rest, in fact never did rest, it just swam and swam through the whole of the sea, down in the dark and up on the pebbles, a little animal exploring a vast, wild world…

Casey was turning nine, and at each birthday, memory grew fuzzy. If she had once been fifteen, or thirteen, or ten, recollections carried no more authority than a dream. Even if she protested (I’m eleven!), Mr. Prior dismissed such wishful thinking: Don’t be ridiculous. Casey is nine, full stop.

Now that she was nine, Mr. Prior said, she would be old enough for the cane. Only the junior cane, and only if she was very naughty.

I’m not naughty. I’m good! But I don’t care. And anyway, at least I’m too old —

She was not too old, he’d interrupt, for anything. Not too old to have her temperature taken that way, not too old for That Thing, not too old to be put across his knee, and not too old to sit on it afterwards.

Mr. Prior would never be in league with her false maturity, he told her, any more than he would condone her false modesty, false niceness, false anything.

She didn’t see why he bothered so much. He had his real kid to care about, his real kid to buy birthday presents for. Not her.

This notion made its way down the pike almost as often as I’m-too-old, and Mr. Prior afforded it about the same respect. You are my real kid; I love you as if you were my own. He would hold her, at times wiggling, until she gave up, gave out, gave in. Surrendered to a birthday, again nine, again his, still loved.

Read other folks writing this week:

• the marvellous Rafi
• the marvellous PapaTomLA
• the marvellous Nettagyrl
• a warm welcome to the marvellous Graham Grey

Thursday’s Child’s piece for Microfantasy Monday inspired me. MM seems to be the brainchild of Sweltering Celt. The theme this week was skin. Here you are, then – a dialogue:

Skin

–It’s getting to her.

–How can you tell, with her face behind the screen?

–The flush, there.

–Oh. Yes.

–And the goose-bumps.

–And that?

–Ah, yes. That.

–How long, do you think, until she can’t help herself?

–Up to us, isn’t it? I could make her in… shortly.

–Don’t, though.

–Wouldn’t dream of it.

–We’ve only just started.

–We’ve got all night.

–Try there, with… not so fast. You’ve got to be patient.

–Sorry.

–Try again… Better. See the skin there, how the hairs are…?

–Oh! Yes. So you think she’s…?

–She’s trying to hide it, trying to resist, but it’s useless. See there?

–You’re very good at this, aren’t you?

–I have a lot of practice.

–What about her?

–None whatsoever. That’s what makes it so charming, how she thinks she can -

–Is that significant? There.

–No. But this is.

–She’s going to -

–No, she isn’t. Not until we make her, deliberately.

–Do things ever happen that you don’t expect?

–I live for the unexpected.

–I’m starting to feel quite… my… see, it looks almost like hers, there.

–Lovely. Take this, don’t rush, and try it there.

–There?

–There.

I was looking through the archives, as you do when you wish there was something new to read, and I thought it was probably time to re-post this story. It is the first tgi story I ever wrote, penned before I met M, and before I had ever played. Thus, although I had done plenty of scenes in the theater, I had never done a scene like this, and never felt a whack since childhood. Even though this story is overwritten and naive in many ways, I like it as a portrait of who I was in the summer of 1995, weeks before I met the man who would become my husband. It has all the markers of a new-at-this 26-year-old: the over-intellectualization, the bravado, the over-estimation of how much it might hurt, etc.

Some bio for those who like that kind of thing: I did do summer stock in Boston, and during college I had a roommate with a wild sex life and a predilection for TMI (which at the time I wistfully considered liberated). Andrew is loosely based on a guy I knew in college, but we never roomed together and nothing ever happened between us. In fact, once, just before he graduated, he asked if he could kiss me. I froze in terror because I had never actually kissed anyone [can you believe it??]. “Er, I don’t really do kisses,” I lamely said. He accepted this, sadly. He probably went away thinking I hated him or was a lesbian. LOL! Poor guy!

When I first started emailing with M, there was such an instant connection that I thought we already knew each other. I accused him of being the guy who had inspired Andrew. Not true, of course. But in role-play he wound up sounding a lot like Andrew sounds here.

I started acting at the age of six. I did a lot of directing in college. The acting stuff here is all taken from experience. It was one of the ways I was able to get my head around role-play then, and in retrospect, I find it still true, maybe more true than I knew when I wrote this piece.

A last remark – it’s odd for me to read this story and see “Casey” as this adult character, basically me with a pseudonym, whereas for most of her existence, Casey has been a kid. I suppose that’s because when I wrote this story, she was still evolving.

Equity Day Off

© Casey Morgan 1995

1.

It was ten o’clock at night in early June and the air felt like breath for the first time that year. When you went outside and walked around, it smelled like Florida. I had spent my first Equity day-off getting high with my roommate Judy. We took blankets out to Walden Pond and lay around in the sun from about ten a.m. until three thirty, at which time Judy had gone home and packed for her great-aunt’s funeral. I’d smoked pot before but never got high until that day. I’m not generally into drugs. Maybe I’m a goodie-goodie, but I was always afraid they’d fry my brain cells or make me do something I regret. On this occasion, though, Judy talked me into it.

“You can’t expect me to spend two days in Fairfield County Connecticut and not get stoned first,” she told me. I agreed because I knew going home was horrible for her. Though there might have been something else working in the decision. It was the first summer I’d had an apartment (albeit with my college roommate and her cousin). We were all part of a summer stock company. Judy was the designer, I was a director, and our third roommate, Andrew, was one of the actors. My play was up first, and after a week of eight-hour rehearsals I could barely think. Still, the legitimacy, the sense of adulthood intoxicated me. Maybe that’s why I agreed to get high. I don’t know. The point is I had.

And I was regretting it by ten o’clock. After Walden Pond, I’d gone to Quincy Market and gorged on chocolate ice-cream smush-ins. By the time the pot wore off, my stomach ache had set in. When I got home, Judy had left, and Andrew was nowhere to be found, so I crashed on the couch. When I awoke, I remembered what I’d done. That was when my stomach really started to hurt. I thought the best remedy would be work, so I sat down at my desk and got out my script. The play was Cloud 9, and I had to finish blocking the first act the next day. The harder I concentrated, though, the more I heard in my head awful snatches of my conversation with Judy.

“How was it seeing Klaus again?” I had asked her. Her German boyfriend had just arrived in Boston for a three-week visit, and I knew she’d missed him.

“It was…different,” she said.

“Different?”

“Fantastic, but different.” She took another drag on the joint, and so did I.

“What do you mean?” Judy usually took no prompting to go into the most intimate details of her sex life. She simply refused to be ashamed of anything she did. I admired this and hoped I might someday become as liberated as she was. Today, though, she turned over onto her stomach and squinted at me, as if I’d irritated her.

“You’re a real piece of work,” she told me. “You’ve been listening to me tell about my lovers for two years and you’ve never once told anything in return.”

“There’s nothing to tell. You heard all about my aborted kiss with Justin.” My virginity and pathetic lack of experience was something Judy accepted, even if she did vigorously encourage me to Go For It.

“I don’t believe you,” she said. “There’s always something to tell. You must have fantasies.”

“I dream about making out with Hugh Grant, if that’s what you mean.”

“That is not what I mean.” Judy seemed pissed off at me. “You are my best friend, Casey, but I’ve got to say I’m sick and tired of being your tutor or your erotica supplier or your voyeurism satisfier, or whatever it is I am to you!” At first I’d thought she was joking, but now I thought she was weirded out on a combination of pot, funerals, and Klaus, and was taking it out on me.

“I know you’re not as pure and naive as you make yourself out to be,” she said. “It’s not possible. And I take your Nothing To Tell line as an insult to my intelligence. You must have fantasies that are a little bit smutty.”

“Well, sure.”

“So let’s hear one.”

“No way, Judy.”

“What do you mean, no way? Think of all the embarrassing stuff I’ve told you!”

“Look, it’s nothing personal, and I know I shouldn’t be ashamed of fantasies, but I am.” I saw her cock her guns for another attack against Shame. Words came from my chest, not my brain: “I hate myself. As much for the fantasies as for being ashamed of them.”

She shut up. We finished the joint, then went swimming. Afterwards we lit up another (the third, I think), and I asked Judy to reapply the sunscreen to my back. I was wearing a black, one-piece in the style of a 1930′s bathing suit, the kind that fit like Calvin Klein Boxer Briefs. It had a big scoop back. Judy’s hands were always soft and squeezy, and when she rubbed the lotion on my back she also gave me a little massage.

“That’s great,” I said. “A little higher.”

“Casey, I’ve been thinking about what you said.”

“Uh-huh.” I felt deliciously relaxed as Judy kneaded my back in the frying sun.

“I hate to think of you hating yourself.”

“I don’t usually,” I said, feeling a little dizzy.

“The thing is, I feel strange talking about what Klaus and I did last night. I mean embarrassed strange.”

“But you’re never embarrassed.” I couldn’t tell if it was the massage or the pot or what, but my body felt heavy and buzzing all over, like I was floating in humming water.

“Well, this particular incident embarrasses me. So here’s what I propose: I’ll tell you what Klaus and I did last night if you tell me your most embarrassing fantasy.”

“Come on Judy, I said I didn’t want to tell.”

“Please, Casey. It would mean a lot to me. See, it’s going to drive me crazy if I can’t talk to someone about last night, but if you don’t tell me something equally embarrassing then I’ll feel gross.”

“Oh I don’t know…” It was all starting to feel really dreamy. She was my best friend. She was genuinely asking for my help. “I’m afraid you’ll hate me, or think I’m sick.”

Judy burst out laughing. “That, I think, is impossible given my experiences. Please, Case. What good is it getting stoned if you don’t tell embarrassing secrets while doing it? Don’t be a Puritan.”

“I’m not a Puritan!” I’m as broad-minded as they come. I was directing Cloud 9!

“Prove it.”

“All right,” I told her. “If you promise not to think less of me.”

“Less of you? The smuttier it is the more highly I’ll think of you.”

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