Saturday 21 April 2012

A Contributed Essay

I’ve just signed up for ‘Artastic Tender Bottoms’, a forum on ‘Spanking Scouts’ (“Your source for adult spanking”), run in conjunction with the ‘Chross Guide To The Spanking Internet’ (see blog list in right hand sidebar). It’s free to join, chocablock with spanking art and other delicious stuff and it’s easy to sign up to – CLICK HERE). Anyway; you’re sure to find an interesting thread to follow (I posted a comment there myself – and I rarely do that; I just lurk, sinisterly, in the background). It is also where these fine Julian Guile works were pinched from. As it says on the forum (and I couldn’t have put it any better myself - which is why I’ve directly quoted):

“Julian Guile is an artist who works mainly in pencil, drawing erotic fantasy scenes of young women in punishment situations. Facial expression used to convey emotion is significant to Guile's work, sometimes giving the images just a hint of dark humour. The scenes he portrays usually take place in domestic or rather old fashioned school and reformatory type settings. His girls are mature, yet with a look of innocence and there is usually an element of humiliation in his pictures with the act of undressing and enforced nudity playing an evident part to the girl's punishment.”

Quite!

Like many others, I have often wondered if Julian Guile, Hobbes (or Hobbs) and Thorn are one and the same person – but let’s not go there. Suffice it to say that I came across the aforementioned forum while searching for the work of Julian Guile prompted by an email request I received.

Talking of emails: some time ago ‘imreadonly2’ emailed me a piece he originally conceived as a comment to be appended to Now, That is What I Call Domination! Or is it? Discuss! (Part 1)’ (Friday, 16 March 2012 – click to go straight there). He was having a few problems posting and I was going to do it for him but then suggested I might post up as a main entry instead. Then I mislaid or deleted the email – and he was kind enough to re-send it – then I just plain got sidetracked (sorry, ‘imredonly2’!). So here is ‘imredonly2’s essay – the pics sort of go with it if you use a little imagination. He was interested in the phrase "gradual erosion" (used in the original post) and imagined this concept put to practice:

An Essay by ‘imreadonly2’

Imagine Kate, a lovely, doe-eyed wife of 28 who, with her Army husband, has made friends with the Reformatory's Headmaster. Both husband and wife have expressed a strong support for "law & order" and have been special guests of the Headmaster for several instructive evenings where Kate, gape mouth, watched as a wide variety of delinquents were disciplined. The Headmaster watches Kate's reaction to the whippings carefully, taking special note of the way the winsome wife bites her lip nervously as the girls are fastened over the punishment horse, and winces and jerks her bottom in sympathy with every stroke.

Katie expresses her sympathy with the "exposure" of the young women straddling the punishment horses, the Headmaster's tart response leaves her aghast. "Curious, my dear, how you identify not with the chastisers performing their wholesome and necessary corrections, but the delinquents and miscreants in need of discipline. Perhaps I should assign YOU a punishment horse, and place you in the front of the line, so that the executioner and his assistant tire their arms out correcting you, and spare the gentle, tender bottoms of the criminals you so wish to coddle."

Katie's husband laughs heartily at the sally, and the Headmaster joins him, but Katie's blushing, pie eyed reaction makes the Headmaster wonder if the lovely young woman with the spotless reputation might indeed harbour sympathies that are entirely inappropriate.  When her husband is stationed overseas, the Headmaster asks if Kate wishes to visit the reformatory for lunch "and perhaps sit in on a class or two." Kate eagerly agrees, and wearing her very smartest and most stylish business attire, attends Miss Pempleton's Recitations.

Upon entering the room her attention fixes on the row of straps, tawses, and canes hanging on peg hooks on the cupboard. She finds it curious to see such antiques on display in this day-and-age, and imagines they are merely part of the room's old fashioned décor, like the wooden peg holes in the desk where the inkwells used to go.

Strangely discomforted at the notion of sitting on one of the old wooden benches attached to the ancient school desks, Kate stands demurely at the back of the room, staring transfixed at the disciplinary relics of a forgotten age.

Kate's shocked when 19 year old Peggy misses a word of HAMLET, and is ordered to touch her toes, with her uniform skirt pinned up and her knickers around her knees, "for a taste of the tawse". Miss Pempleton finds Kate's naiveté amusing, and lays on Peggy's stripes with great vigour, so as to impress upon her amazed, slack jawed visitor the earnestness of the school's approach to discipline.

After several such "fieldtrips" Kate's shock dissipates and she gradually accepts the necessity of strict discipline. Sensing the change in her attitude, the Headmaster innocently wonders aloud if Kate might wish to TAKE a class, rather than merely observe one. Recitations, perhaps?

Kate demurs, and chooses a basic Algebra class, quite simple for someone with a Masters in Physics. Kate finds the work quite easy, and loves doing the problems with the other girls. She makes fast friends with several of them, even taking it upon herself to tutor several of them after class.

Her teacher watches closely as Kate gradually enmeshes herself with other students, and with the teacher's encouragement the students soon embrace Kate as one of their own. Kate chatters with them, studies with them, and furrows her brow as she diligently takes her "exams." The change is slow and gradual, but within a few weeks Kate's manner becomes less like a successful young woman and more like a schoolgirl.

The Headmaster is pleased to see the change in his demeanour, and smiles when he spots Kate gossiping with the other students before class. If you closed your eyes, and heard only her high pitched giggles, you might imagine she was a student…

But alas, in her stylish business attire, Kate does not look like a student. It is a lapse the Headmaster fully intends to correct.  Kate considers herself a model pupil and is rather surprised to be summoned to the office for a sombre conference with her teacher and the Headmaster.

"We are deeply concerned that your appearance, most specifically your makeup, jewellery, and clothing, might be having a disruptive effect on the girls. If you wish to continue your class, we must insist you wear a proper school uniform, and conform to the dress code, like all the other girls."

Kate is thunderstruck. She DID show off her earrings a bit, and discussing her outfits with the other girls, but surely it isn't a crime for a young woman to dress fashionably?

The Headmaster is adamant. "You may withdraw from the class, in which case you will receive an 'F', your first ever, I believe. Or you may successfully complete your studies, in proper uniform."

Katie bristles at the suggestion, for the Headmaster has touched a nerve. She has never failed at anything in her life!

"But sir…"

The Headmaster's eyes narrow as his voice hardens into the tone he reserves for his naughtiest students. "A proper uniform, young lady, right down to your green knee socks and bottle green knickers," he says, snapping the syllables in the word "knick-ers" in a way that momentarily diverts Kate's attention to the arsenal of canes hanging on the cupboard door. "Do I make myself clear?"

Kate swallows hard and nods. Fidgeting under her Headmaster's disapproving gaze, she feels oddly discombobulated, frightened, and ashamed. She can't explain her feelings to anyone, not even herself, but she knows she wants to be good, and please her Headmaster, and above all avoid another meeting in this office.

The girls are shocked when clothes-horse Kate shows up the next morning sans makeup, wearing the blazer, tie, knee socks, and short skirt that brand her as an academy girl. Her appearance is so radically different that most of the girls don't recognize her, and it isn't until the "new girl" nervously squeezes into Kate's old wooden desk, carefully smoothing her short shirt and blazer as she does so, and adjusting her tie, that the puzzle is solved.

The Reformatory hosts women 18-40, but in their uniforms all of them look, and act, like schoolgirls. Her teacher smiles, for 28-year-old Kate has now joined their ranks.

Over the next two weeks the teacher keeps the Headmaster posted on Kate's progress. Stripped of her stylish togs, Kate become increasingly diffident, less confident. Her teacher contributes to her condition by giving her complex problems to do in front of the class, urging her to finish quickly, and then pointing out her every mistake with an increasing sense of impatience. Unsure of her abilities, Kate's tutoring of the other students ceases, and her popularity with the other girls fades.

The Headmaster watches Kate closely, taking pleasure in her nervousness in his presence, the halting nature of her speech, and her nervous habit of trying to tug her short school skirt (for Kate is tall for her age) just a bit longer. The Headmaster, expressing concern for her enunciation, prescribes a daily two hour session with Miss Pemrose. Unfortunately, under Miss Pemrose's stern and disapproving review of her every utterance, Kate's occasional stammering soon mushrooms into a distinct stutter.

The Headmaster does his part to impress everyone with Katie's new role, greeting her in the hallway as if she were his newest student, and never missing a chance to verbally chastise her for "dallying", "slouching", "hair twirling" "fidgeting" or some other imagined offence. These verbal corrections elicit smiles and giggles from some of the other girls, and make it clear to everyone that whatever her former position the Headmaster regards the uniformed young wife as a young lady very much in need of correction.

After a few weeks an imaginary parking shortage forces Kate to sacrifice her parking pass, and she is soon required to take a lengthy public bus ride, in uniform, every morning. After several complaints to the Headmaster about her plight, he suggests she might be happier living at the Reformatory, and sleeping in the dormitory "with the other girls."

Katie, embarrassed at her inability to stutter a reasonable defence, reluctantly drops her car keys into the smiling Headmaster's outstretched palm.

The next morning Katie is highly embarrassed to finds herself standing naked in an enormous gang shower, washing herself with a gritty and foul smelling carbolic soap. She becomes even more self conscious when a few of the other girls tease "Ka-Ka-Ka-Katie" about her "flat boobies" and "skinny legs." Tragically, the bullying only makes her stuttering worse.

Katie is horrified a few days later when the Headmaster and a few of his friends casually walk through as Katie and the other girls are showering. Katie is mortified, but he pays her no mind; she is simply another naked girl in a sea of bare breasts and bottoms.

After a few days of spending her afternoons reading in the library, Kate is summoned to the Headmaster's office, where his secretary presents her with a full class schedule. Katie protests and asks to see the Headmaster, but is told tartly that "he is busy, and doesn't have time to listen to you stutter on-and-on without saying anything. There is a lengthy list of students who wish to see him, and the naughty, disrespectful ones go first. I can place you on that list, or you may return to class." Katie, feeling like an ant under a magnifying glass under the Secretary's burning smile, withdraws her protest, and scurries off to class.

The pace of the transformation quickens, and to Kate's horror she finds that her "institutionalization" has taken on an unstoppable momentum. Kate finds she is no longer permitted to leave on weekends, "at least until the end of term." A few days later, Katie is surprised to receive an appointment slip for the school's barbershop, where a grinning old letch of a barber quickly reduces her stylish coif to a pageboy cut "that lets those big floppy ears of yours show."

Katie's attempts to contact her husband are denied, although she is assured that he is in constant communication with the Headmaster, and "approves heartily of your progress, and is pleased with your ongoing reformation."

Kate, or "Katie Cow-Ears" as she is now know, has a schedule of Algebra, Latin, World History, Gym, and, of course, Recitations. She studies very hard, but when the inevitable happens, and she fails to stutter her way thru "chanticleer" in her recitation of AS YOU LIKE IT in front of the laughing class, she finds herself ordered to the front of the room!

Watching from the back the Headmaster smiles. Little Katie is too cowed to protest, but even if she dared, her stuttering has rendered her unintelligible. Meekly she touches her toes and grits her teeth as Miss Pemrose pins up her skirt and lowers her regulation knickers to her knees. Katie makes no protest as the cane whizzes thru the air. Like all naughty girls, she merely promises to be "ga-ga-ga-oood."

On the next punishment night Katie finds herself straddling the punishment horse with her bare thighs tightly squeezing the leather. How long ago was it that she herself sat in the crowd, watching eagerly as the girls were strapped down into place? It seems like another life...

In the front row, Katie spots her husband, who is sitting next to his new girlfriend, a little tart who has been attempting to steal his affections for years. Katie will come to know her well, for over the next few months her romantic rival will assume the role of Katie's stepmother, and Katie will be forced to stand in the Headmaster's office and listen as she and the Headmaster discuss the most effective tools for chastising Katie's naughty bottom.

SWISH! The first stroke lands, Katie winces and jerks her bottom suggestively. But this time, the pain is not in her mind.

9 comments:

Penelope said...

Chilling and thrilling. imreadonly2 has a way of weaving tales of transformation that envelop the senses; tales of female subjugation driven by a dark, inescapable logic.

As a female reader I find I cannot help identifying with the unfortunate protagonist each time: here I feel Katie's diminution with a vividness that frightens (and arouses). I experience the Kafkaesque, incremental shifts in her status partly as a detached witness, afraid to watch and powerless to intervene, and partly as a fearful participant, swept along on a current of inevitability. My heart goes out to her; betrayed by a callous husband, tricked, reduced and imprisoned. But there is always another feeling alongside this as I read: a dark, licentious curiosity; a 'what would it be like, were I in her shoes?'

That the story has such an effect is testament to the skill of its author: I certainly feel moved having read it!

Orage said...

I'm sorry to say this is a highly improbable story, even in the field of imreadonly's reformatory tales.

How can you expect an educated married 28 year old woman to meekly accept those ever increasing requirements unless she's a doormat at heart?

BTW I learnt a few words I had never come upon in my whole life. Imreadonly has always written beautifully!

Toyntanen said...

Hi again Orage! Well, I guess plausibility is sort of in the eye (mind?) of the beholder when it comes to fantasy. And to be honest, plausibility can be difficult to do when it comes to our subject; it is why I have used so much factual, historical material to inform my writing. I've had a go at incorporating anything and everything; from the annuals of dubious, unethical psychology experiments to the exploitative, church-run 'Magdalene laundries' of latter-day Ireland, via the more misguided aspects of so-called 'harassment therapy' (all alluded to in past posts – see blog archive or search via the facility provided near the top of the right hand sidebar). Mind you, I'm not sure how successful I have been; it's all too easy to get carried away.

Hi, too, Penelope, and welcome. Wow! what an erudite analysis! It's given me an interesting idea.

I've just added a link to your blog, 'Naughty Little Writer' (http://penelopehasler.blogspot.co.uk/) on the blog listing in the right hand sidebar.

I've also added a link to OldFashionedGirl's blog 'Another Country' (http://oldfashionedgirl-anothercountry.blogspot.co.uk/)

Actually, I've added quite a few blogs to the list recently; I'll have to post an update at some point soon.

Penelope said...

Thanks, Toyntanen.

Just to add that imreadonly2's stories remind me very much of Gothic and/or 'sensation' fiction. They certainly evoke various sensations in me!

And of course this connection also extends to the issue of plausibility: like Gothic texts, imreadonly2's stories take place within narrative frameworks in which the usual rules don't apply. It's a bit like going through the looking glass.

Hm. Now I'm picturing imreadonly2 as the Mad Hatter.

Anonymous said...

I don't generally use the word plausibility in connection with erotica. Sometimes I talk about suspension of disbelief, which isn't exactly the same thing. A fantasy can be hot without ever being in any way plausible, and a piece of erotica can be exciting without ever actually getting you to suspend disbelief.

Orage is right that the story is kind of improbable, but if that's your cup of tea then by all means drink it. Penelope is right that sometimes a story can take place in a kind of alternate world where the normal rules don't really apply.

I think what really fired me up about the Institutionalised boks was that it almost felt like they could be taking place in our world, but just out of sight. The books are a lot of things, part erotica, part horror, part mad scientist story. And of course, mad scientists sometimes do really nasty things to people. (Sometimes in real life!) Dr Ecclestone is really not that far removed from Dr Frankenstein or Dr Moreau. The main difference being that Dr M and Dr F were doing stuff that no one can actually do, whereas Anne...as Toyntanen like to point out, people have actually DONE this stuff.

So suspension of disbelief is kind of rare in erotica, but when it happens, it can rock mad socks.

And for imreadonly2, I want to say, thanks for sharing.

The Non Victorian Chick

Anonymous said...

Looking back at this post, I see I managed misspell words, and start a sentence with a conjunction, a habit I've been trying to break. Rats.

The Non Victorian Chick

Toyntanen said...

"And what do you call assassins that accuse assassins anyway, my friend?" Sorry; I was suddenly overcome with an uncontrollable urge to quote from the words of that great sage, 'Fish' (from that 1980s megaband, MARILLION) - don't know why.

But, then nobody's perfect! And I am forever being accused of dodgy sentence construction; sentences too long (I have come across two word sentences in modern journalism), too many commas, the use of the 'Oxford comma', and over-reliance on semicolons and colons - and hyphens (and brackets - although these are actually parentheses).

And despite my railing against starting off sentences with 'and', it is a habit I have to admit to having succumbed to far too often of late (see: Now I've gone and started a paragraph with one!). And hands up who spotted that 'Oxford comma' gracing the preceding paragraph!

Toyntanen said...

This from and on behalf of 'imreadonly2' who is apparently having problems posting again:

Excellent! An interesting discussion [has] (now, those, preceding, are brackets - pedantic Toyntanen) started,

These stories aren't [supposed to be] documentaries; they're fantasies about control. And of course the ultimate "control" fantasy (pushed to the maximum) is to give up control completely.

In [my] tale the wife slowly but willingly gives up more and more control in order to complete her fantasy of reformatory discipline. The Headmaster turns up the heat one degree at a time, so the frog doesn't jump out of the pot…

Imagine you have a harem fantasy. You are kidnapped while abroad, and spirited to a slave market. You are stripped naked and examined intimately by the buyers. Finally, you are put on the block, and as the auctioneer cracks the whip you display yourself to the laughing, jeering, crowd.

No person would want to experience this as a reality, since there is no coming back from this adventure, but it is still a delicious fantasy.

These are fantasies about being humiliated and losing control. How far do you push that fantasy? Is pushing it to a place where the situation may become permanent yummy or scary, or both?

I'm obviously on the borderline, since you'll notice that my heroines, as much as they may protest, are always turned on by it, and are fulfilling THEIR fantasy. So in some sense, they are always in charge, and they make the decision NOT to make the decisions, even as they complain of their cruel fate!

I think the [latter aspect] alleviates in my mind the darker aspect of the tale...in a way, it's a sort of role play, pushed farther, to further the fantasy.

imreadonly2

Anonymous said...

None of us needs to apologize for our fantasies, even if they're implausible, or a bit dark. They're part of who we are. And as for them being yummy or scary...the two aren't mutually exclusive. Sometimes being scary is what makes them really appealing.

The Non Victorian Chick