supplicium post mortem

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?

My first and only encounter with a hostile authority (in scene) came during my first visit to Englandland. I stayed with M for three weeks. It was our third visit, in the sixth month of knowing each other. We played a lot that trip in the voracious way that you do when you are just starting to play. The setting was still “College” (standard issue English Public School, co-ed), and RP was making inroads with his relationship to Casey, as TL was with Mark. There was an exploration of implements, and even, sometime during the visit, experimentation with That Thing (a first for both of us, and a whole other story). M was living in a small, rented flat and working his corporate job during the day. I was mooching around, attempting to write (mostly unsuccessfully), and pretty much waiting for him to get home in the evenings so we could be together.

The scene in question arose out of some joint story-telling about a certain unpleasant prefect in the House by the name of Martin Halstead. Arrogant, sadistic, scornful, he was not to be trifled with. Via some confusion on my part about the way the hot-water storage worked in that flat, Casey managed to get on the wrong side of Halstead by using up all the hot water one morning before he got to have his bath. More out-of-scene storytelling floated the idea of being “sprung” into a scene first thing in the morning. I wasn’t sure how I’d react to this, but I wasn’t against trying. I think I didn’t know if he’d actually go through with it.

But he did.

Early morning, I found myself awakened by a very nasty specimen in College school uniform. Martin Halstead demanded that I report to the Houseroom in full uniform in five minutes. Exit.

I hauled myself from sleep, feeling 1) a combination of scared/excited that this scene was actually happening, and 2) violated, because I’d been descended on when I was asleep, wholly unprotected. At any rate, I put on Casey’s preferred uniform (gray trousers, blazer, tie) and reported to the Houseroom.

There Halstead lit into me.

MH (with profound scorn): Just what do you imagine you’re wearing, girl?

cdm: My uniform.

MH (with even greater scorn): Girls at this school wear skirts.

cdm: We’re allowed to wear the boys’ uniform, too!

MH (witheringly): Go and change. Now. And be quick about it unless you want more than you’re already getting.

I/she went off and changed, feeling uneasy and slightly gross. Not only did a skirt afford only one layer of protection, but it also made it much easier for a creep like Martin Halstead to… I wasn’t sure what. I/she was also incensed at the injustice of it. Girls were allowed to wear the boys’ uniform. It was perfectly legal, and here he was saying I couldn’t do it! I have a tendency to get overwrought about injustice I am powerless to affect. This is why torture films, like the spate of political dramas that came out in the 1980s about South Africa and South America, squicked me. Here was Martin Halstead already demonstrating his unjust authority, and the scene had not even properly begun. I felt desperate.

I returned to the Houseroom, feeling under-dressed in skirt and gray knee-socks. Halstead delivered a searingly condescending ticking-off about my insolence at having used his bath water (as if water were reserved). I needed taking down a peg, he declared. And, he informed me, that was precisely what he intended to do.

I should say that this was in most respects an authentic prefectorial scene. School literature was full of these kinds of despots, as was M’s actual Public School. By Kipling’s standards, Martin Halstead was a pussycat. Up until this moment, I had loved reading stories like this, chapters like “The Moral Reformers” in Stalky, or even the war with Flashman in Tom Brown. Now that it was happening, however, it was having a very different effect. It was pushing my powerless/injustice buttons and winding me up dangerously.

Then the sentence: Halstead announced I would be receiving 18 strokes of the cane. I can’t remember the arithmetic, but this chilled me to the bone. I had never before taken that much in one go. The most I’d ever taken was nine (I think, though possibly 12). But what really filled me with dread was the character I was facing. Martin Halstead was going to hit as hard as he could. He cared nothing for my feelings. Nothing would make him back off. He hated me and wanted to see me suffer. He intended to break me.

I removed my jacket as instructed and stood before the Houseroom table. I don’t remember now whether he announced the protection then or half-way through, but I was to get nine over underpants and nine unprotected. It was unheard-of in severity. Also, the lack of protection struck me as obscene. Here I was a 5th form girl with this Upper 6th form boy, and he proposed to cane me unprotected, without witnesses? There was no arguing with him, however; and perhaps I was beyond arguing. I was moving rapidly into survival mode.

I bent over, and the first stroke confirmed my suspicion that there would be no holds barred. It was uncompromisingly hard, and it was delivered with complete hostility. It was by far the hardest whacking I had ever received.

I don’t remember the stroke-by-stroke details (this was almost 15 years ago now), but I remember that I stayed in place; and I remember that my body was yelping involuntarily through most of the second half. What I remember most is what happened to me mentally. Pushed to my limit, I found myself very calm, and very cold. I was a million miles away from crying, breaking, or even actually caring. Under attack, I retreated into a concentration-camp-like deadness. I could never win in this situation; I could only hope to survive it intact. And the only way to keep myself intact was to hide that self very far away. My body might have been yelling, but the real me—the real Casey—was not there. This was happening to someone else, someone not-us. Martin Halstead got his licks, but he didn’t get us. He would never touch  us.

When it was over and I stood up, I think he was disappointed. I was utterly dry-eyed, neutral, and stony faced. Robotically, I gave the replies he wanted. I only pretended to look him in the eye when he demanded it. He did his best at a devastating after-jaw, but eventually he dismissed me.

Unperturbed, I left the Houseroom. And Casey, wearing her entire uniform—blazer, shoes, and all—got back into bed and crawled under the covers, where she stayed most of the morning in a kind of suspended animation.

I think M kissed me goodbye before leaving for work, and I think I faked it enough to reassure him. I can’t remember very well.

Later in the morning, Casey got up, and I say Casey because the adult me was nowhere to be found. She had taken charge and no amount of pulling myself together could have ejected her. Casey, still stony, got up and wrote a long and measured letter to Dr. Malcolm (the Headmaster) registering a formal complaint about what had happened that morning. She was well aware that complaining wasn’t Done. She did not care. At this point, she took a perverse pleasure in violating School Practice.

The thrust of her complaint was that it had been unseemly for Halstead to have caned her unprotected without any witnesses. She also argued that, while she may have deserved punishment, the punishment given was out of proportion to the crime, and that a common understanding of uniform had been contradicted. She appealed to Dr. Malcolm to uphold justice.

She and I went out later, around the time M was due home, so that he could find her letter and figure out what to do about it. I seem to remember later that evening (right after we got back, or later?) Casey being summoned to see Mr. Prior. She went, still dead-in-heart, figuring he, too, could do whatever he wanted to her. She was beyond caring.

But Mr. Prior was no Martin Halstead. He was distressed to have learned what had happened. In fact, he informed her, Martin Halstead had been stripped of his prefect status. He would not be tormenting anyone else. Casey, gobsmacked. Furthermore, Mr. Prior wanted to apologize personally to Casey, for having failed to keep a sufficient eye on her. It shouldn’t have happened, he told her. It wouldn’t again.

This was not the end of the trip, and we played many more scenes, though none that hostile or that severe—not then, and not, that I recall, ever (at least with me bottoming). There wasn’t any blame on either side for this scene, but we both learned something about me, and about the ice-cold survival instinct I appeared to possess.

I have read a lot, then and today, from people who achieve a kind of release or catharsis from very hard scenes, from being taken beyond their limits. It always sounds appealing in theory, but M and I both learned in that early scene that it would never work that way with me. He, as a bottom, had cravings to be pushed like that, but as a top, he concluded that a) I would never respond that way; I would merely go dead; and b) if by some extraordinary action I ever was pushed that far, the results would be utterly destructive.

I know many people are different from me in this regard, but knowing this about myself has saved me from thinking I might enjoy playing with hostile authority. Despite having organized myself around it as a child, it was, and still is, a place with nothing but damage to offer me.

And connected with this—in my retrospective mind—is RP’s instinct, sharpened over time, generally to give Casey less than she asked for. She had, and has, an enormously provocative streak, and in the beginning he sometimes mistook it for a request for lots of whacking. As previously discussed, there were times in that first year when she would bring home a pile of dockets from an absolute train-wreck of a day. Pretty soon, he cottoned on to the fact that this was an expression of anger, a self-destructive impulse, like her impulse to break things or tear up her punishment book. Pretty soon he got to the point where he would leaf through her pile of dockets, chuck them aside, and proceed to deal moderately but non-legalistically with her, giving her just enough to stop the downward spiral and not a touch more. Sometimes he refused altogether to whack her and would simply grab her and hug her against her angry will.

Where, dear Lord, is another man like this?

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…

It’s been a grueling week. First, a close colleague of M’s died suddenly and young, like M did. Same church, same requiem mass, even the same weather. So, last Friday I re-lived my husband’s funeral.

Then, my family came to town for my birthday. I love them. I’m hugely grateful for them and for the way they show up for me. But it all just made me want M and miss him even more. I have so many wonderful friends and kind, loving people in my life, yet I don’t feel any more attached to life than I did a year ago, for the most part.

The sermon on my birthday spoke of many things, but the one that struck me was the Rector’s exegesis on Take up your cross and follow me. Crucifixion is no longer a form of capital punishment, he declared. So what, he asked, is this cross? His answer: the cross is this mortal flesh, this mortal life. We are none of us getting out of this world alive, he said. And yet we are tasked with taking up this mortal life and living it, fully, faithfully, despite every attendant suffering. I want to do that. I want to be capable of doing that. I am always comforted and somehow excited—is that the word?—by the emphasis, at least at my church, that this life we are given is fundamentally and indispensably physical. We are not designed as ethereal, purely spiritual or purely mental beings. (Natty wrote a moving and theologically astute post about this a while back.) So on my forty-first birthday, I heard this instruction: take up your cross, your humanity, your mortality, your body, your sexuality, and your broken, empty, amputated heart, take it all up and follow me. I have ears to hear, at least.

In other news, my father was in a reminiscing mood, and for part of the weekend I was treated to stories of his wild 1950s boarding school days, when he would go with his roommate—Holden-Caulfield-like—down to Greenwich Village on the weekends, stay out all night hearing Beat poets and jazz singers, then repair back to the roommate’s family home in New England to sleep it off before returning to the dorm Sunday night. Needless to say, folks back in the industrial Midwest had no clue about his exploits, nor could they have understood them, probably.

Then today I hear from my brother that Dad had been reminiscing an entirely different chapter to my sister. This chapter plainly titillated and appalled the siblings, the gist of it being that my maternal grandmother apparently gave herself daily enemas for most of her adult life. The revelation that prim-and-proper grandma was perhaps a closet klismaphiliac caused quite a stir amongst my un-kinky sibs. I asked, bulb or bag? Bro didn’t really know the difference. They looked things up on the internet. I’m thinking, Yeah, I know that site but there are better ones I’d recommend…

And if that wasn’t enough, apparently grandma also gave enemas to her children (ahem, our mom) at times, and our late aunt was supposed to have done some paintings on the subject, including one of grandma self-administering. I’m thinking, Where the hell are these paintings?! but I say, That might be too much information, lucky they’re lost. Sis informs us that the DSM has Things To Say about giving children enemas. It can be a form of sexual abuse, she says. Anal violation. One track of my 8-track mind is thinking, Anal violation? Yes, please! Track 2 is thinking: What a big fucking deal social workers make of a simple home remedy. Track 3: Oh, bless grandma. That’s where I get it from. Track 4: You guys had better not look too far into the bathroom cupboards upstairs. Track 5: Maybe the DSM is right because it’s fucking hot. Track 6: Oh, but it can also be very calming, I can attest. Track 7: Have either of you ever had anything in your ass? Track 8: You really do not know me at all, do you?

My interest in That Thing was adult onset. It was not employed in our house, except once (not to me) on doctor’s orders. I had scarcely heard of it in those years when my mind was glomming onto spanking and then to English schoolboys getting the cane. I must have been corrupted when I found the internet; on second thought, I think it could have been Anne Rice’s Beauty series. I believe that series is also what introduced me to the idea of anal play generally. I’m glad she didn’t return to the church before she finished writing those. Not—NB!—that a return to the church should necessarily preclude writing such awesome erotica, but in her case, I think it probably would have.

I am dying to know more about my grandmother. How did she self-administer That Thing? Was it really every day? Why? Did she enjoy it? How much did she take? What started her out? Unfortunately, I think it would be way too embarrassing for me to ask either of my parents for elaboration. I do know from my grandmother’s diaries (which I possess) that she had a very sensitive digestion and often had trouble eating. If she was having That Thing daily, though, I’m not surprised. That can’t be good for you. I do wonder if there is a genetic component, though. I am positive that there is one for spanking. Anyway, amazing what you can hear if you listen when family are feeling loquacious.

—First time?

—Not the first time feeling like hell, thanks.

—Mind you don’t let Matron hear you talk that way, or she’ll wash out your mouth as well.

—What do you mean, as well?

—Oh, dear. You haven’t heard of Matron’s soapy water, then?

—What about it?

—Ha. You’ll see. She’ll be getting it ready right now. That’s why she makes you wear a nightshirt.

—For a sponge bath?

—Are you green as a newt in absolutely everything? No, don’t answer. Just prepare yourself for a thorough, and I mean thorough washout.

—I don’t know what you mean, but it’s low to rag someone in the San.

—Who’s ragging? It’s her favorite remedy, for more or less everyth—Shh, back to bed! See what she’s got on the trolley?

—What’s that tube for?

—Oh, you’ll see. Will you see. Good luck, newt.

---

Microfantasy Monday is the brainchild of Sweltering Celt. The theme this week was cleaning. I’m running for the airport, but I really couldn’t resist.

TGI has always meant something else to me. It’s a term that developed early in my correspondence with M, short for “the topic of greatest interest”. It became an all-purpose noun. (Now the tgi category maybe makes more sense to you.) So here, on this Friday, let us talk of tgi.

What is my tgi? Broadly speaking, an interest in corporal punishment, so tgi can be synonymous with whacking. Thus its verb form, used in the negative: de-tgi. As in, de-tgi the apartment – my dad is coming to stay! (i.e. put all implements well out of sight).

So what kind of tgi do I like, mainly?

• domestic cp of a semi-con nature [by semi-con I mean that the recipient doesn't like it, but basically accepts it]
• English school cp (semi-con)
• enemas

I could get very tedious laying out what appeals to me in what contexts, suffice to say that things I’m interested in doing RL (or have done) are only a subset of things that appeal to me in fantasy or in well-written stories. There are lots of things that turn me FW that I would never want to do RL. [If I'm abbreviating too much, try the glossary page.]

It is massively distressing to admit this, but here it is: I can’t clearly remember the last whacking I gave or the last I got. The last I got was in RP’s study, across his knee on the couch, unprotected, hand spanking, which was usual. I don’t exactly remember when it was (other than between New Year’s 07/08 and May 08) or what it was for. There had been a dry spell. We were both wrapped up in work and miscellanea. MISTAKE. As for the last I gave, I’m even less clear. I’m guessing it was an on-the-fly application of the “persuader” or the slipper, given in the kitchen around dinner time to encourage better attitude. Or it might have been otk (him naked) in bed during a commercial break with THBTNFK (the hairbrush that’s not for kids). [pictures another day, kids.] I hate myself that I can’t remember. I really don’t remember the last time Casey got That Thing [enema], except I think the bulb finally was breaking and leaking a lot. We hadn’t got another one yet, but the prospect of going together to the surgical supply store nearby and getting another bulb was both mortifying and a little exciting. Who knew what RP would have said to the man? We’ll never find out.

I was trying to write something fun that would cheer everyone up. FAIL!!

Ok, well, this isn’t strictly tgi, but it made me laff lots, from the Fail Blog: