RIP Computer and Another Inspiring Email Gratefully Received

On Friday my main home computer finally and sadly past away following a long illness. Those of you who have followed this blog since its inception will have heard before how throughout last winter on the coldest days the thing would be reluctant to start and – once persuaded to cooperate through fair means or foul - would then grind along sounding like an old tractor or diesel generator. I traced the fault to a dodgy cooling fan on the power supply, but as the problem rectified itself once warmer weather came and showed no hint of recurrence throughout this last summer, at least until relatively recently, I never got around to doing anything about it. The irony is that on Friday last I had agreed to help an old school mate with a problem on his machine, the idea being that I would ring him up and talk him through the fault-finding process while sitting at my computer and following his progress by duplicating his actions. I duly called him up, then went to boot up my machine...and you can guess the rest. My mate found it hilarious – the joke somehow escaped me! I was forced to adjourn to the pub for the reminder of the day – oh dear!

.....

My magazine scanning project has of course had to be shelved until repairs are carried out – which will probably be in the new year now, as I will be away from home over the Christmas and New-year period (staying in a hotel in Rye, East Sussex). My work on the new book will continue on paper and also using my new portable machine. But it is an annoying development as I only recently rediscovered my enthusiasm - and part of that revolved around my having developed some interesting ideas for the cover design, which I was itching to get started on. The portable machine I have is fine for writing but the screen size is far too small for any serious graphic work, whereas my desktop machine now has two large screens (as of a couple of months ago) across which I can distribute all the various elements I intend to use.

.....

Meanwhile I am still working through my email backlog; which brings me to today's subject. I received the following email around eight to ten days ago. I copied and pasted it to MS Word, intending to compose a answer later, then deleted the message - something that would not ordinarily be a problem, as it can be resurrected from the 'trash' folder...Except it can't! said folder is empty for some unaccountable reason and I have some how managed not to copy the writer's identity; probably because I had intended to double it up as a blog entry and so would have wanted to assure the correspondent's anonymity. Under the circumstances I am left with little option other than to reply as an open letter in any case. But I am incredibly keen to do so as the writer touches on so many points that I plan to address in the new work - it is almost as if he / she has been reading my mind!

“Hi Garth,
I have read both books and am looking forward to reading #3 in the series. Will that be available in early 2010?
If I may be allowed to do so, I would like to offer some constructive criticism and a few ideas. I think you could be a little more graphic in your descriptions of the canings. Reading about the preparation, dress being folded back, knickers being pulled down, the recipient waiting anxiously for the first agonising stroke can be very erotic. I think the lash of a cane is a more erotic description of a stroke than slash. That word conjures up something completely different. And speaking from experience, there is no delay in feeling pain from a cane stroke. It's agonising and instantaneous. When the inmates are using their bedpans, are these on the floor? Or are they placed on a chair? You could describe what a girl feels like to sit doing her ablutions in front of other patients and sneering or laughing nurses.

How about uncomfortable, larger sized suppositories, and ones that cause constipation with hard stools difficult and painful to pass, leading to punishment for irregular habits with strap and cane? You could be a little more descriptive in describing the insertion of these. The embarrassment of bending over legs apart, Knickers pulled down, the nurse slowly pushing them in one after the other. "Take a deep breath sweetheart, here comes the first one" Perhaps making the recipient squirm with the discomfort of being stretched and feeling them inside her bottom. “I know it's uncomfortable dear, but it's for your own good" Perhaps you could enlarge further on the discomfort of wearing plastic bloomers. I'm sure they become very warm and sweaty. Noisy when walking? You didn't enlarge on the fitting of anal and vaginal dilators. Having these fitted would be excruciatingly embarrassing for a girl surely.
But can I congratulate you on these books. As a great fan of Victor Bruno I never thought I would ever again read books so very well written and enjoyably erotic. And I speak as one who is more usually interested in classroom discipline, not 'toilet' sort of things.”

.....

There are some really interesting ideas broached here. I'm not too sure I like the term 'lash', though, as relating to a caning. I understand the eroticism involved - evoking as it does some sort of analogy with the use of the tongue in intimacy - but I feel happier with its association with the tongue-like action of a supple leather strap or tawse applied to the buttocks and thighs, especially with a girl positioned and pinioned over her mistress's lap, or a multi-stranded sauna-whip or martinet applied to the breasts.

.....

The point the writer makes about the potential eroticism inherent in descriptions of the folding back of a girl's skirt or dress and pulling down of her knickers prior to punishment is, I think, very true. In the new volume I expect there to be several instances of what I hope will be sufficiently vivid accounts written in the vein suggested - two such I have already completed and one of which incorporates a carefully worked through and detailed description that includes such attributes as the sound of skin-tight latex bloomers, adhering to the skin through the tackiness of perspiration, being pealed back with the girl lying across a nurse's lap.

.....

The section of the new volume through which we will be brought up to date with Lavinia's continuing tenure in the clinic's 'schoolroom' unit is planned to give ample opportunity to explore, in greater detail than has so far been possible in the series, the deeper feelings of the girls in view of their lack of privacy, though I can say little more for fear of giving too much away - other than it will be quite inventive. Remember that the introduction of bed pans, like so many refinements, has been at the whim of the staff. These are women who, unlike the supervising staff in the original so called Stanford experiment, who were selected at random from within the cohort of volunteers, have been carefully vetted and selected from within a group of psychiatric nurses based on their predisposition toward dominant lesbian tendencies and given free rein to develop the regime and innovate as they see fit.

.....

I have to say that, like the correspondent above, the 'toiletry thing' is not really my 'bag' either, but it lends itself to the medical fetish aspect that I was trying to incorporate and the subject seemed to arise quite naturally given the context of an experimental psychology clinic sited within a psychiatric hospital. I have to say that the use of suppositories to inhibit bowel movement had not occurred to me - a great idea, that - but the use of a steadily increasing size over time has. This is something explored within the new volume and strangely enough very much in the manner described. The insertion of a suppository (or suppositories) is somehow more personal and more of a violation of the person than the administration of an enema and is best given, as I see it, with the girl bent double across the starched-aproned lap of a nurse with an appropriate dialog as above. It is also a treatment I see as more likely to occur in the domestic setting that we explore before we see young Lavinia persuaded to sign up as an inmate of the clinic. Ironically though, despite the kind comments above - comparing my writing favourably with that of Victor Bruno - this particular direction of plot development is as much due to my trying to get away from that style of writing (despite having been so influenced by it) and go beyond the work of the great master as anything else. I should also point out to the uninitiated that despite any impression given by this discussion, the medical fetish aspect per se - i.e, as conventionally perceived - plays only a relatively small part in the story arc of the INSTITUTIONALISED series; it is definitely not obsessed with scatological concerns. Nor are there the long, drawn-out and inhumanly-severe canings that might be encountered elsewhere - the work was never conceived as a series of hard-core S and M novels. But then again, from a psychological standpoint, if one reads between the lines then in its own way the story-line could be perceived to be just as cruel, perhaps more so.

.....

Taking all that into account we finally come to the point regarding the prophylactic devices. I originally intended to weave more detail as regards the operation and fitting of these devilish devices into INSTITUTIONALISED volume two. Indeed a heck of a lot was completed at the time, but insufficiently so to really do the idea justice. Rather than use the material half-baked, as it were, I decided upon including greater detail and incorporating it into the plot line of volume three. I have since come to the conclusion that the best place to elucidate these ideas is within the pages of the upcoming 'in-betweeny' volume - think how a Victorian physician might have tackled 'obsessive self abuse', think of masturbation denied...but think also of temptation constantly and unrelentingly aroused. A similar fate befell certain ideas I harboured regarding the fitting of particularly ugly teeth braces to an otherwise pretty and vivacious girl and a description of what I like to call; 'Matron's, enforced self -critical body-image mirror therapy. The former I expect you will encounter in INSTITUTIONALISED volume three, the latter you will come across in the aforementioned, up-coming 'in-betweeny' book - I really must come up with a better working title!