supplicium post mortem

I’m the same as everyone else: I look at people on the train and think things about them. Most of the people I see on Gotham trains do not inspire me, especially not the men, and most especially not the boys traveling to and from the hip banlieu where I live. Every now and then I’ll see a man who looks promising, someone who has given some care to his presentation, someone tall perhaps. I’ll wonder how he speaks and how he’d sound getting a little severe, how strong he is, and what kind of glimmer can be got out of his eyes.

Few of the boys out my way believe in anything but their uber-evolved and studiously casual lifestyle. These boys turn me off. Sometimes, though, I’ll see one with a certain potential and think: you, young man, can have a wash and a shave and a haircut, put your uniform back on, and report to my study, thank you.

I think they were Camper--these!

Tonight a different kind of boy sat opposite. He was in his twenties, rather slight, and too fastidiously dressed to be straight. In fact he wore a tiny, demure stud in his right ear, but other than that, no visible piercings or tattoos. He was shaven, and his hair had an appearance of brill cream. He would have been at home in a costume out of Downton Abbey. He wore gray flannel trousers, a neat coat, a collared shirt and a brown scarf of British wool. On his feet he wore some dorky yet fashionable blue desert boots that seemed German, possibly Camper. Despite the careful appearance, he was in no way queenish, just rather sensitive and tense. He pored over a slender intellectual book. I fancied the pants off him. But not that way.

It was one of those occasions when you see a boy and you lust after him as if you were a boy yourself. I wanted to seduce him as a slightly older boy at university might seduce a newcomer. I wanted a real cock of my own, so that I could use it on him. I longed to see how he looked when brought near the edge and then–despite his dignity–forced over it. I wanted to see that delicate face seized with animal pleasure. I wanted to see the submissive adoration in those eyes of his, to surprise him with what my cock could and would do, to overwhelm his pleasure, and to make him suffer, a little. I wanted to see him have to put those clothes of his back on again after having spent the evening unclothed; for several hours his body had felt to him sufficient as it was made, but now he would suffer the embarrassment of re-dressing. Those clothes which had seemed so particular and attractive to him now only reminded him of the length and breadth of what he had done without them. I longed to make him want me, to make him adore me, but as a young man wants and loves a mentor a few years his senior. I longed to be that older boy, able in every way to captivate a slender, sensitive, careful boy like him and to blow his mind.

a visit to the head boy’s study

written, directed, etc. by cdm

The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility. The motto of Peter Donne’s confessor when he entered the monastery, thirty-nine years old, hot-headed, clever, bereaved.

The Abbot at Lunsford had taken particular interest in him, as perhaps he ought, Peter being his nephew. He had persuaded Peter to come to Lunsford and then assigned him Barnabas for his confessor.

“He’s tried to harm himself,” the Abbot told Barnabas.

“With intent?”

“I fear.”

Barnabas intertwined his fingers and exhaled. “Will you permit the Norwich Discipline?”

The Abbot hesitated, a qualm for his nephew, but then nodded, recognizing what could be the only hope for his novice.

Days for Peter began an hour before anyone else rose. Barnabas woke him and supervised his milking of the cows. In that bleary-eyed hour, Barnabas exacted a kind of confession as he demanded an account of the night’s dreams. Confession and discernment of spirits, combined with milking—the ultimate monastic efficiency, Barnabas claimed.

“I saw her again,” Peter said one dark morning—his third month? thirteenth? what difference, really?

“Yes?”

“Her body warm and unclothed against me in our bed, soft, so alive…”

“Yes.”

“I knew she was dead, that this was a visit from beyond the grave, but her arms wrapped around me so…”

“Did you make love?”

“Not this time. But…I asked her to use her magic eyes, to… bring something good to me. ‘You can’t want me to live my whole long life without you and alone,’ I said.”

“And now?” Barnabas asked. “Mind the bucket!”

Milk sloshed across the dairy floor. Peter winced, knowing his confessor’s answer to inattention at milking.

“We’ll deal with that later,” Barnabas said dryly. “For now, finish, please. Your report, and your cow.”

“There was a later part, in the refectory here. I had just arrived, with the boys.”

“Your boys, or the boys you used to teach?”

“A blending, I think. I was worried over what they would eat and was bustling about trying to find them what they’d like. Then the Abbot reached over my shoulder and dropped two pieces of toast on my plate. They were hot, hot enough to melt the butter between them, and it was toast with the kind of bread she used to make, the best bread, the best toast.”

“Perfect toast.”

“Yes. And I wanted to blub because of the toast, and because of the fact that he’d been watching me all along, when I’d been busy with the boys, and he’d taken it upon himself to drop on my plate–no word, no fuss–the perfect toast.”

Barnabas nodded but said no more until later that morning–after Matins, after morning work, after Peter’s particular exercises–when Peter stood before him in the confessional cell, struggling as usual with the submission his confessor requested. Barnabas waited, as usual, without speaking, without removing the birch from its bucket until Peter had prepared himself. When the time came, he applied it with the force of radical mercy, until the fight left, and a bit beyond.

After saying the absolution and allowing the novice to rearrange himself, Barnabas fished a tin from his habit, an incongruous, luridly colored object containing ginger pastilles. He opened it and held it out to Peter Donne, who seemed to regard it as a sinister trap.

“Go on,” Barnabas said.

Sweets of all kinds were forbidden at Lunsford, and almost every other indulgence forbidden to Peter under the Norwich Discipline.

“No, thank you.”

“You’re afraid, aren’t you? Afraid of what will happen if you have it.”

Peter braced himself to deny it, but then shrugged.

“You aren’t the author of your life,” his confessor said.

“No,” Peter replied, as if he were only just realizing it.

“Someone else is writing your book.”

Peter frowned as if he had received crushing news.

“Someone who watches you. Someone who, unbeknownst to you, has taken time to prepare perfect toast, from perfect bread, and to drop it on your plate.”

The novice fell back to his knees, tears pouring suddenly from his eyes: “Please, Father, change me. Make me a man who no longer asks to have her back.”

Barnabas rested a hand on Peter’s head. “He is changing you. Your book is being written, even now.”

“And what does it say, this page?”

“This page?” Barnabas placed the open tin on the kneeler. “So I did sit, and eat.”

Note: Bookends will be suspended for the month of November due to NaNoWriMo, as explained here.

Read other folks writing this week:

• PapaTomLA

“If things are good they’re not terrifying, are they?”

Marcus sighed. Vincent may have been his cousin, but he knew nothing about reality. Marcus wanted to fire back a cutting retort—You would say that given the way your parents hover like nervous dragonflies. He said nothing, however. Vincent had received enough jibes of that nature in his first—and last—disastrous term at Public School. His overwrought parents had dispatched him for the holidays to the house Marcus shared with their grandfather. Marcus, though six months younger than his cousin, had quickly deciphered the situation by eavesdropping on the servants: Vincent’s parents were enmeshed in legal difficulties. There was talk of Debt, Divorce.

“The really good things are always terrifying,” Marcus replied. “At least before you have them.”

“I never have terrifying things,” Vincent declared loftily. Marcus recalled his cousin’s obnoxious refusal to sample unfamiliar foods at the dinner table and decided a counter-irritant was in order.

“In that case,” Marcus said, heading for the door of their sitting room, “you’ll have to spend the hols holed up in here.”

“Grandfather told us quite clearly we weren’t to wander.”

Marcus flashed a grin. “Say hello to the ghosts, then. I’m off.”

He felt an immeasurable relief to hear Vincent’s footsteps clattering down the nursery corridor behind him.

Vincent gasped: “Is our room haunted?”

Marcus shrugged. “The most haunted room in the house.” Vincent looked as though he might burst into tears. Marcus ignored his fear and led him up staircases, down corridors, and into and out of shut-up rooms, where they played the rest of the morning.

At lunch, their grandfather questioned them: “Keeping out of trouble?”

“Yes, sir,” Marcus replied confidently.

Their grandfather narrowed his eyes. “You and I have yet to discuss your term reports, boy. I don’t recommend going for extras.”

“No, sir.” Marcus swallowed his soup serenely.

“Do not be under any illusions,” their grandfather said to Vincent. “My daughter may have wrapped you in cotton wool, but I most certainly will not.” Vincent blushed and looked hard-done-by. “There’s to be no more wasted food, for starters,” their grandfather continued. “You’ll eat what you’re given or go hungry the rest of the day.”

This approach was far too direct, Marcus could see, and served only to push Vincent into a stubborn realm of nausea. He ate no more of the lunch, and cloistered himself upstairs at tea-time. The next day Marcus redoubled his efforts, leading Vincent to some of the more thrilling corners of the house, peepholes, for instance, which revealed scullery maids bathing, or the stableboys exercising themselves whilst discussing the scullery maids. Marcus even contrived to position them to observe the stableboys’ punishment by the groom. Marcus hoped their stoicism unter the strap would provide inspiration for his cousin.

The second week they roamed beyond the grounds and into the district where they met with Marcus’s friend, Jasper, and Jasper’s delicious sister Susan. Whenever Vincent showed signs of wanting to stay behind, Marcus embroidered his accounts of ghosts. Vincent’s interest in them never waned, and in fact grew faintly ravenous.

One afternoon pelting rain confined them indoors. Marcus began to recount another imagined other-worldly encounter. Vincent interrupted and pointed to a small cupboard behind the settee.

“That’s where the noises come from. The ghosts.” Vincent reported this information with a good deal more enthusiasm than Marcus previously would have thought possible.

Marcus grinned: “Let’s turf ‘em out, then!” Vincent joined with enthusiasm, and soon they’d coated themselves in dust, emptied the cupboard, and uncovered a hidden door. Vincent wrenched it open and crawled, heedless, inside.

A mighty crash followed. Marcus peered into the darkness and soon found himself flailing down a tin shaft and landing painfully some distance below.

“You, too?” said his grandfather’s voice as Marcus felt his grandfather’s powerful arm hauling him to his feet. He blinked and tried to breathe. They had landed somehow in the library and now stood, filthy, before him. He raised a hand to silence them: “No explanation necessary. If you’ll be so good as to fetch the cane, Marcus, you know where it lives, I shall dust your jackets for you.”

Vincent emerged from his caning considerably more confident than Marcus had seen him. He grew to love their grandfather’s house, and spoke of it enthusiastically at school, where he joined Marcus the following term.

“It was the sort of house that you never seem to come to the end of,” Vincent would recount, “And it was full of unexpected places.”

Sorry about the late posting this week. I’ve been catching up on some sleep…

Also writing this week, PapaTomLA–check out his story.

James, it turned out, was a dirty English schoolboy. He got his hands switched when the housekeeper caught him “being foul” behind the chicken coops. Their tutor had been more than usually annoyed. He’d hauled James in by the ear and shut the door loudly behind them. With the housekeeper in the corridor, Casey had not dared to listen, but James later confessed that Carstairs had made it clear that while “solitary congress” could be overlooked, scandalizing ladies by performing it in public places could not. The switch was sore, James said, exceedingly sore across the palms, applied with force; still, he claimed to have gone straight from the schoolroom to the lavatory to finish his wank. “I’m Ophiuchus, I am,” James bragged. When Casey demanded to see this snake of his, he surprised her by obliging. His willy was attractive, clean if sweaty, and uncut. Friendly.

Sometimes she would sneak into his room at night and stand by the side of his bed. He’d put his willy away, scootch over, raise the covers, and then put his arms around her from behind. Sometimes she cried, but it didn’t stop him hugging her. He wasn’t Marky, but when the hug reservoirs were so catastrophically low, any hug felt like rain after drought. Sometimes in an attempt to cheer her up, he’d whisper bits of The Mikado libretto, to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark, dock, his striped palms around her elbows, knees behind hers, breath on her cheek.

You should have heard the bellyaching this week about the wildcards. All we have to say is: Suck it up, buttercup; hard words will continue until morale improves!

Read other folks tuff enuf to write this week:

• Rafi
• Travis
• Abby
• Nettagyrl

I keep thinking of your face in the rain. Dripping, mud-streaked, flushed on the rugger pitch. Do you remember my hand in the scrum, that afternoon just before I charged you and wound up in the San with my arm in a sling? Everyone knows what goes on when the ref’s not looking, but I’ve always wondered if you knew it was me. I remember how your cock felt inside your shorts. I haven’t been able to stop thinking of it since.

Who was the one to show you what cocks are for? As our changing rooms are worlds apart, you never got to appraise mine. One doesn’t like to boast, but it’s worthwhile I’m told. Some rather incendiary reading material has come my way of late. I can’t seem to stop thinking of it, and you, and what would happen if the two were combined.

I watched you and Rees the afternoon before that night, though you didn’t know it. I still can’t believe it – not what you did, but that you did it with him. I never got to ask you what you saw in him. He’s such a dreary cold shower. The perverseness of it (if you’ll forgive my choice of words) has, since then, driven me slightly mad.

I want to forget your body when they carried you back that morning. I want to forget everything about you. It’s hopeless when I’m asleep, like now. Dreams are the most unforgiving of traitors.

Read other missed connections this week:

• PapaTomLA

He tried to make his muscles un-clench, but it was like moving sandbars with teaspoons: too many muscles, too much tension. His comrades had impressed upon him how much more the cane would hurt if he fought it, just as the prefects waiting for him in the library would slaughter him if, as Antony put it, he brought his infernally awkward self along to the interview. Antony had been right about everything so far. His people were among the Coll’s first, not exactly its founding fathers, but among its founding sons. Antony’s surname could be found on any number of bronze plaques and silver cups in the cases lining Long Corridor. The prefects, Antony explained, itched to demonstrate their power. They would lounge across armchairs in the vaulted-ceiling library, monopolizing the chamber from five o’clock onwards. It was traditional to face prefectorial inquisitions there, the twelve idly flicking through newspapers while you trembled across the vast Persian rug. Whether or not you possessed a valid defense, it would never move a murder of prefects. By the time you received a summons to the library, your arse, as Antony put it, was a fish on their hook, fit only for the fire.

It was tradition, Antony said, for a new band of prefects to make an example of one boy from each form. Their handiwork had been on display in the changing rooms all week. The IIIrd always got it last.

It was going to hurt. He had to relax. Now.

What is Flash Fiction Friday?

Read other folks writing this week:

• Rafi
• PapaTomLA
• Nettagyrl

—There’s something about Rees that gives one pause.

—His tragic inability to take a joke?

—That, too, but I had in mind the way he looks at one.

—Oh. Yes.

—At you, for instance, in the changer after Smokey gave you six.

—Yesterday, you mean, out of the shower?

—Yes. Of course everyone looked—cracking good stripes—but Rees looked.

—I suppose one ought to be flattered.

—And last week he was hovering around outside Smokey’s study window.

—Not peering, surely?

—Listening anyhow, the afternoon you got done for smoking. Then there’s the fact that he’s always first to the changer and last out.

—Now that you mention it, he does have a way of appearing whenever anyone’s showing off marks.

—And he’s always under the showers when you are.

—I hope you’re not implying—

—I imply nothing. I merely observe, and what I observe is that he looks at you in lessons as if you’re not wearing a stitch.

—I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.

—Of course not. Remember when your crib crashed to the ground in the middle of exams last term?

—Do I ever. Radcliffe half killed me. I was an inch from blubbing.

—Remember who was sitting in front of you, whose seat jogged your form?

—You don’t mean to say Rees dropped me in it?

—I can only say he took an uncommon satisfaction in your comeuppance.

—I thought that was ’cause I’d ragged him so hard the night before.

—Perhaps. You were a sight to behold, though, then and yesterday.

—Oh, yes?

—You’ve a nice line in barely-concealed wincing.

—Thanks.

—But Rees, to summarize, is a reprobate. That’s all there is to it.

—Evidently there’s not a soul in the House who keeps closer tabs on me than he does.

—Evidently.

—Indeed.

Microfantasy Monday is the brainchild of the Sweltering Celt. The theme this week is exhibitionism/voyeurism.

R old boy,

I simply cannot convey in words (written or oral) the dyed-in-the-wool beastliness of Firestone in complaining to Pater about last term. He’s the most caddish of Housemasters, and I’ve every intention of making his life hell come Michaelmas. Pater has been to Timbuktu and back over it, declaring me a perverse aberration in the annals of the Howells clan, and plenty more besides. The upshot is he’s gone and engaged my old tutor (you may remember me telling you about Singer-the-stinger?) for the whole of the beastly hols. It’s enough to make one contemplate suicide, if there wasn’t yachting with you and your uncle to look forward to at month’s end.

Singer’s been riding hard as ever, only worse. There’s more than one splinter in the affected area and no-one to lend a palliative hand, with Clara in France and you nowhere near. Days invariably begin over the birching block, as Singer’s a great believer in clearing accounts before work begins. Gives rise to rather a Sisyphus effect, I can tell you, which leaves one mystified re. why to try at all, as the following day will only begin in tears (metaphorically speaking, of course!). I confess to having lost heart once, sitting one day with my proverbial boulder at the foot of the hill and refusing to push, but Singer lived up to his sobriquet and, drawing blood before tea, reinstated my zeal.

Speak of the devil, must dash. Vile Virgil, then birch.

Yours, F

Read other folks writing this week:

• Rafi
• Frenchies
• Rayne
• PapaTomLA
• Nettagyrl

—A word of advice, before we let you loose on the beasts.

—Sir?

—Take the stick to someone the first or second day. Find the leader, and find a reason to cane him. When you do, cane hard.

—How hard?

—Too hard. Gets the message out. And you don’t want him coming back for more.

—What message, sir?

—That you’re not to be trifled with.

—Ah.

—Now then, take that, and that, standard issue. Practice. I recommend a pillow set about yea high.

—Yes, sir.

—When it comes to the act, for Heaven’s sake take your time. Observe all the regular ceremonies.

—Which are?

—Make the boy remove his jacket. Have him stand before you, look him in the eye, and announce the sentence in full.

—I’m giving you six?

—That’s rather prefectorial and brief. Better: Carleton minor, you have been insolent and self-indulgent mucking about in my lesson. You are now going to receive four strokes of the cane. Bend over.

—A bit artificial, isn’t it?

—Not at all. But make sure you hold the boy’s eye the whole time. If he looks away, make him look back.

—Right.

—Take time positioning him. For three or four strokes, you can have the boy touch his toes, but for anything more, it’s better to give him something to hold onto. If he seems overconfident, adjust his posture. Make him feel he’s conforming to your standards, not the other way round.

—Right.

—For the caning itself, you’ll hear every sort of opinion, but it is my long experience that slow is best. Count at least to ten between strokes, preferably twenty. You want him to have the full experience, remember.

—Yes, sir.

—Don’t let him get up until told, and of course observe the standard ceremonies afterwards, handshake, etc. When the boy says Thank you, don’t say You’re welcome. A simple nod is best. Whatever you do, don’t jaw him again.

—I used to hate that.

—Everyone does. Once the punishment’s given, it’s done and dusted. Full stop. And don’t tell him you hope you won’t have to do it again. Refrain from commenting altogether, unless a pithy Well stuck is merited.

—Right.

—You ought to stick to the cane, I think, but if it seems appropriate, you could put a third former across your knee for the slipper. I’d only do this in private, though, and be aware that he will feel the humiliation keenly. I think it’s best to avoid the slipper altogether this term, however.

—If you say so, sir.

—I hope you aren’t humoring me, young man. I know of what I speak! A good caning is one of the most fundamental sizings up there is between men and boys. Respect it.

—Oh, I do. But, sir… I feel I should level with you.

—How so, young man?

—I feel I must tell you that I am opposed to corporal punishment entirely. On grounds of conscience.

—Oh, yes? And how do you intend to maintain order?

—With clear expectations, praise, force of personality, and other non-physical sanctions.

—Right, well, I’m sure that will be a roaring success. But not unless you cane—effectively—at least one boy from every form. Once you’ve done that, you can use any methods you please.

—Is that an order, sir?

—Oh, don’t bristle, young man. I’ve said you won’t be persecuted for those beliefs of yours. Though how a Marlborough prefect wound up a white-feather man is a confounded mystery.

—So I’m told, sir.

—Right, then. To sum up: cane early, cane hard, observe ceremony. Never punish in anger, in haste, or in confusion. Clear?

—Crystal, sir.

—Then kneel, young man. And rise. Your rod and your staff. Go forth and educate.

Microfantasy Monday is the brainchild of the Sweltering Celt. The theme this week is ceremony. Congratulations to Ang & Doc on their wedding!