Another Unconventional Case

“Wha… wha… what’s th… th…  What’s that?  A-a-a p-ppocket watch?  On a-a-a ch-chain?  Twirl-ing round an round an round… Tha-th-that tha’s sil-ly… It’s l-l-like y-y-you… like y-y-y you try… like y-you tryin t-to.. trying to hyp, hyp hyp-no… hyp-no-tise… b-b-but tha’s si-lly… ha, ha, ha, ha” (a fit of giggles, childish, imbecilic almost)  “Bu-bu-bu ladies… bu ladies… bu ladies don’t… don’t have… ha,ha,ha,ha,ha, po-po-pockets …ha,ha,ha,ha,ha… I m-m-mean po-po-pocket wa-wa-wa-wa…”

“Ssshhh, hush now… that’s a BIG word, you KNOW you have trouble saying big words.  Just think of it as a thing, now – a big shiny, ever so pretty thing that you just can’t remember the name of, that catches your eye and wont let it go, that fills your mind until your silly little head is empty of all else, that you can still see even when it isn’t there, whenever you hear my voice, like a gentle lullaby, a baby blanket lying heavy on your thoughts… it’s just another silly word you no longer need to know, that you just can’t be bothered to hold on to, that has drifted out of your head forever, like the name of your boyfriend, the name of your favourite pet… all those other things we have been working on together to help you forget… remember… we work TOGETHER to help you forget… can you remember why? “

“He-help m-m-m make be-be-be…”

“Another difficult one…better…try good… say good…”

“He-he-help m-make m-m-me g-g-good pat-pat-pa-pa…”

“Patient…”

“He-help m-m-make g-good pash-pash-pash-passhh…”

“And what SORT of good patient are we trying to become?”

“M-m-men… men… men… men-tall p-p-passhnt…. No…No… No I-I-I’mm no-not a-a-a me-me-men-t-al passhnt… I’m not go-go-gonna l-l-ook at th-th po-po-po wa-wa-wa…th-th-th-f-fing…shi-shy-nee fing… not gonna look at th-th-th shy-n-n-nee f-fing… you c-can’t m-m-make m-m-me… you hip-hip-hip-no-tissst… can’t hip-hip-hip against will, not if not want to…me…me know ho-ow it w-works…can’t make me if, if,if.. I wont look.. I…”

“Silly girl, you’re already deeply under… deeeply, deeeeply under – and you’re deeply under because you want to be under… because for months now I’ve told you that you want to be  under, because you trust me, you LOVE me, you want me to help you empty out your head for you – so that I can take care of you – so that you can better adjust to life here in an institution… that is how you can tell how deeply under my spell you really are.  Look around you and you see a bedroom, a child’s bedroom all fluffy and pink and comforting… that’s it, let your eyes drift from the shiny gold thing twirling around and around – go on, I’ll let you… you can see the room – just as I describe – but you can still see the twirling shiny gold thing, whichever way you look, a room full of things you no longer know the names of… but you know you are in a hospital ward with bars on the windows and locks on the doors and the nightie you wear is really a pair of hospital-issue pyjamas and the teddy bears in cots are really the five other girls we have here, all dressed in exactly the same way and all in their hospital beds… so you must be hypnotised already. ..”

“N-no-no no ye-ye-ye c-c-cnt m-m-make m-m-m l-ll-look at…fing…shy-n-ee fing…can’t hip, hip-hip-hip no no tizze against m-m-m… can’t make me go, go. Go deep-er..can’t… wont shut eyes – yo-yu-yu’lll want me to sllleeep, shut my eys and sleep but wont sllleeep, so sleepppeee, so…”

“I’m NOT trying to make you… silly… I’m not trying to make you follow the pretty shinny thing spinning around and around and around, see, I gave you permission to look away… I’m not even using my pocket watch… it is not even there… that is why you can still see it every where you look – it can’t be moving all around the room.  You see, it doesn’t exist, my pretty, shiny pocket watch is all in your mind… which is because your eyes are already shut, you are already deep, deep asleep – you are completely unable to see or hear anything I don’t want you to… If you don’t believe me, close your eyes, see if that’ll make the pocket watch go away… there you are… good girl… the pocket watch is still there, isn’t it?  That is because you were already hypnotised, very deeply hypnotised – and now you’re helping me take you deeper still, by testing that fact, closing your eyes and slipping deeper still… We do this every day – in the sessions we have together, three times per day.  It is called ‘fractioning’; I bring you partly out of your trance, give you a little awareness while keeping you under my control just enough to prevent you resurfacing completely, and then take you back down again, each time a little further, perhaps ten or twelve times each session until we reach our final destination.  Do you remember the schoolroom we go to, the special private little schoolroom where we un-learn things?  We’re nearly there now – when we get there your subconscious will be spilled all over the schoolroom floor like a discarded jigsaw puzzle, and when we turn to leave we choose together some piece to leave behind, to be swept up.  And then we sit you at a desk in a little school pinafore dress, with your hair in pigtails, and we play that kind of hangman game we play on the schoolroom blackboard, in which we rub out one letter at a time of some word, name, idea or fact we are trying to rid ourselves of, and when that thing has all gone, and no longer clutters up your silly little head, you get to pick a chocolate from teacher’s box as a reward for helping yourself… Look, can you see the schoolroom door up ahead?”

“Yes miss”  The voice, lispy, childlike.

“And are you ready, dressed in your school uniform?”

“Yes, miss, of course miss…”

“There, you see – silly girl.  And I’ve not needed my pocket watch for months now, you silly thing… I just have to say ‘you silly thing’ and it is right there, in front of your eyes…. All you can see… my voice all you can hear… And when you wake up, you giggle wildly at the nurses, and at the hospital ward with its bars and locks, and at the other girls in their matching mental patient pyjamas - it all seems so deliriously funny, and yet so comforting to be a mental patient now…  Isn’t that right, honey?”

“Yes miss”

“Then open the schoolroom door and we’ll go in… look there is your desk, an… Oh, look – the blackboard is already set up from last time, the hangman game is halfway through.  Shall we complete it?  I don’t recognize the word, there are too few letters left – what do you think it may have been?  Do you think it might have been your name, the thing people used to address you by you before you came under our care here in this institution?  I think it might have been, don’t you?  I can’t imagine what it might have been, not from those few letters.  I.B.L.L.A – whatever could that have been?  It’d give you one of your migraines trying to work it out from that, make you feel REALLY poorly – and we don’t want THAT, now, do we?  I think it’d be best if you just took this blackboard eraser here and just rubbed through the whole lot with one swipe, so we can get them out of your head once and for all, and then you can have one of my delicious chocolates for being such a clever girl – and then we can start another game… that’s it – good girl.”

Lying back on her hospital bed, eyes closed and her green and white striped institutional pyjamas crumpled under the heavy covers, the back of her head sunken deeply in the latex-covered pillow, Isabella Hanky-Smyth-Green’s soft lips moved gently, her voice resigned yet relaxed, a mere whisper where once there had been strident tomboyish rebellious indignation that she should find herself installed in a mental institution at the whim of a legal guardian she hadn’t even met:

“Yes miss..” 

The truth was a little different.  The truth was, in reality the doctor NEVER let young Isabella Hanky-Smyth-Green fully resurface nowadays.  Even the supposed companionship of the other five girls – although institution discipline forbade any communication between them – and the semi-conventionalism of the small hospital ward with its double row of curtain surrounded beds, three either side, and barred, frosted glass windows she would wake up to was an illusion constructed in her head. 

Her reality was in fact far sadder, more impoverished, than even that.  There was a small windowless bare-walled room furnished with a rail-sided hospital bed that in turn was furnished with all the leather-strap wherewithal necessary for the ‘humane restraint’ of a psychiatric patient. on which the late teen girl was presently reclining on her back.  A tall, slender yet full busted woman, dressed in a tight fitted tweed skirt and white form-fitted satin-finished shirt-blouse was leaning across from one side, murmuring the soft sing-song words of the practiced stage hypnotist – which she indeed actually was , or had once been - while gently rhythmically tapping the pretty girl on the forehead with two fingers.  Two other beds, both opposite, contained what were obviously – to any sensible eye – two manikins dressed in institutional pyjamas identical to those the hypnotised teen was clothed in, right down the to the hospital badge, name and the words, ‘mental hospital’ on the breast pocket along with the word ‘DELUSIONAL’ printed in block capitals across the centre – a word repeated up on the wall at the rear of each bed. 

A wheelchair, equipped with straps and a restraining poncho affair, was set before a television set perpetually playing films about mental illness and featuring the inside views of various mental hospitals and was where young Isabella spent the major portion of each day.  A commode chair equipped with restraints and a colonic irrigation apparatus took care of toileting matters and was set before a full length wall mirror such that the occupant would have little choice but be witness to her own humiliation.  Supervising from a corner, part reflected in the mirror, stood a life-sized manikin of a well proportioned, wide-hipped and big breasted woman, black nylon hair in a tight no-nonsense bun and dressed in the unmistakable uniform of the British hospital matron of days gone by, the navy blue dress, white cuffs, collar, high-fronted cap and starched pinafore apron pressed and ironed to perfection.

What would have been oppressive, subterranean silence was perpetually under attack by a softly indistinct cacophony reminiscent of hospital ward activity.  The air was filled with the hissing and rasping of nylon stockings, the click-clack of stilettos, the rustle of starched nurses’ uniforms, the snap of rubber gloves, the faint crinkle of those disposable plastic aprons nurses sometimes wore, the occasional clatter of porcelain or enamelled bedpans and the rattling of urine.  There was the murmur of  conversation, too indistinct to pick out actual words, other than the occasional remark which would surface as if gas bubbling up from out the ground in some mire someplace – and always disparaging; “…very poor mental health…” or “…all mentally ill in here…” or “…losing her grip on reality, poor thing…”  or “delusional – cant expect much” or “…take no notice – they’re all delusional in here; spout nonsense night and day…”.  All this was set to a background of gently hissing, rattling rainfall as if on a roof or window some way off – and all of it on a tape loop; actually a rather long one, cleverly running between two tape machines and long enough to mask any repetitive pattern that might otherwise have emerged.  The tape loop ran night and day, and had done so since the girl’s capture. 

The basic motive had been simple extortion, the promised payday of a nice ransom.  The setup had been elaborate, but the amount they had been after was… well, extortionate – ruinous.  It was anticipated that negotiation would be long and drawn out, and in addition would benefit from a long ‘sweating out period’ beforehand, possibly of several months, through which they would of course have to hold on to their captive, yet would make no mention nor make contact with their intended victim.  Then there was planned to be another extended period while they salted away and laundered the money and erased any paper trail – only then was their captive to be released. 

The set  up had been intended to create confusion in their captive, leave her convinced she had been perhaps injured and been in some medical clinic somewhere, and simple surgical masks covering her captor’s features would have added to that illusion.  Obviously there were always going to be SOME mental scars, such an aftermath was inevitable.  But there was not to be any physical harm, nor long-term mental harm:  The latter didn’t necessarily fit with the agenda of certain of the girl’s captors,, a couple of characters with an axe to grind with their extortion victim which went well beyond monitory destruction.  And here was the result.  The ransom had been paid long ago – and an extra payment extracted since, the latter seeing the sale of the family seat in addition to the company assets and art collection which had had to go to settle the initial demands; it had been ruinous indeed!   

The negotiation had indeed been long and laboured, and reluctant to apply pressure - as many more ruthless types might have done - through physical threat and peril, perhaps hacking of an ear or finger (although the girl’s hair had paid the price at one point – though that did play to the institutionalising theme), they chose instead to highlight the psychologically damaging aspect of the girl’s incarceration.  Thus at one point the teen was subjected to their own idiosyncratic and highly imaginative form of the well-known Chinese water torture for the cameras.  At another point they had filmed the result of several days of sleep deprivation.  Then of course there were the corporal punishment, discipline and humiliation scenes they had filmed the girl undergoing, a regimen put together by one of their number, a trained research psychologist, with the intended aim of the régime being instantly recognisable to any expert as something likely to lead to long-term psychological damage if prolonged. 

So yes, their aims were met.  The girl’s family effectively ruined, at least in so far as their continued participation in the particular realm the girl’s captors were interested in was concerned.  But as for the girl herself… Well it wasn’t looking likely they would be getting her back any time soon; and they certainly would not be getting back anything LIKE the outgoing, gregarious, vivacious and rebellious girl they had once known, even then.  But then again, the girl and her remaining two captors were not even anywhere NEAR the United Kingdom, let alone under British jurisdiction or even its influence; her new home was not even under western hemisphere influence.  Labour relations had an altogether different meaning in these parts, and a mental defective could be put to work in a number of ways.  Indeed, there were residential institutions in this region of the world that owed their entire EXISTENCE to the efficient manufacturing power of their inmates, the rigid discipline they worked under and the sweatshops they laboured in.  And of course, anything even vaguely young and pretty could expect to participate in certain… extracurricular activities – it went without saying.   

Straightening up from the soundly sleeping girl, the woman smiled smugly to herself.  Once she had finished emptying out the little fools head, then… hmmm… perhaps she’d keep her closer to home.  Domestic service didn’t take much of a mind – and she’d always wanted to see an heiress, and a spoilt little would-be (or would have been) debutant to boot, scrubbing the stairs on her knees – or would it be on a cushion on her knees with her head bobbing up and down between a pair of well spread thighs.  Either way, she could still send the girl back to her family if she tired of her in a few years, safe in the knowledge that they would be both appalled and devastated at what little they would receive back.  The term ‘husk’ wouldn’t do it justice.  

 Yes, a VERY unconventional case, indeed – if anything about kidnapping could ever be said to be 'conventional'.     

A CLEAR-CUT CASE OF DISINHERITANCE

“So… You thought one day all this would be yours?  And look at you now, without a stitch on: That is because you don’t OWN  a stitch, dear…

On second thoughts… Perhaps one day all this WILL be yours, my dear, if you want to look at it that way – but to work in, NOT own; in fact I am going to see to it you never OWN anything, ever again, not as long as you live.   

You, yourself on the other hand, are owned; in my eyes you are the property of this estate, just as much as this desk, the rug you are standing on, and the deer out in the chase…. 

No?  You’re shaking your head, like some dumb imbecile… and after all that time you spent in that clinic? And you still don’t think so?  Well, I do! 

 I’ll tell you what.  Do you want a couple of your little white pills – the ones the doctor prescribed?  Yes?  Of course you do – you’re nodding your head like an eager little puppy now...  Well, perhaps it’s high time we started getting our puppy properly housetrained – no time like the present, as I like to say!  Why don’t you just trot along to the kitchen, like a good little puppy; you’ll find a pretty, frilly lace pinafore and a lacy cap for your silly pretty little head waiting for you on one of the chairs there; pop them on like a good little soul and ask my housekeeper to start you off scrubbing out the scullery… And I’ll see what I can do about getting your pills for you… Oh!  And don’t forget to ask my housekeeper to give you half a dozen stripes across your bottom first – she knows where the cane is; tell her it is for dumb insolence…

Don’t you shake your head at me like that – don’t you dare!  You need to remember; it would be easy enough for me to pack you off back to that hospital again: a few more years in that place and your brain would be COMPLETELY reduced to blancmange.  Your mind would be so scrambled you’d NEVER get out – and I’d be happy enough to come visit from time to time, watch your progress, as I used to before, make sure they were doing a good job… You know… I’d get a kick out of that – I know I used to! 

I used to get a copy of your notes, too, your treatment records – you’ve no idea the pleasure I got from reading through those.  In my imagination I was there with you when you first began to stutter – I read about how that stutter was worsening, how eventually you could barely make yourself understood, how you would no longer make eye contact… And do you remember how the nurses wouldn’t wash you like they did the other patients, how they made you wear the same pyjamas day after day until they stunk?  That was my idea – I knew how particular you were over personal hygiene; I THOUGHT that would get to you.  And when for a while they put you in a straightjacket?  Why, yes!  That’s right!  THAT was my idea too – I asked them to. 

And those thrashings you received from the doctor’s cane over her desk in her office, and the hand spankings and slippering, and strappings you received over the nurse’s lap?  You’re surprised I should know about them, I can see it in your eyes – and you’re blushing, you’re embarrassed; how sweet! But I had nothing to do with that, you know – that was just a standard part of hospital discipline; certain mental hospitals have a special dispensation to employ corporal punishment to control intractable patients under certain circumstances, if they are being a danger to themselves or others or being otherwise disruptive.  Didn’t you know that?  Well, by constantly insisting that you were normal, that you’d been ‘tricked’ into being there, that you weren’t a mental patient you were deemed a ‘disruptive’ patient…. But I had someone there send me the pictures…. Oh!  Didn’t you know there were cameras there?  Oh yes! 

I watched you writhing about over the Ward Sister’s lap with your hospital issue pyjamas down around your ankles, begging and sobbing and promising to be a good mental patient while she brought the leather tawse down across your backside again and again.  I watched the doctor take off her white coat to give her more freedom of movement, in her high heels, that tight leather skirt of hers and that white satin blouse she always seemed to be wearing, slashing that thin bamboo cane in to your fat bottom, over and over and over; even with those polythene knickers they made you wear still in place – ugly bloomer-like things, I have to say – you couldn’t stand more than three strokes without screaming the place down; I think as I counted it the doctor gave you eighteen.  She had to ask a nurse in, to help hold you down as I recall.  I think it was the day she got you to sign the voluntary committal papers that made everything legit, and I think the nurse must have been a trainee or student nurse or something; she had on one of those polyester or whatever blue and white checkered pattern dresses with an elasticated white belt and one of those semi-transparent disposable plastic pinafore aprons over the top; funny how these little details stick in the mind; she had red hair pinned up in a tight bun with a white nurse’s cap decorated with two light blue bands around the top – I’m sure that means something, the two bands or stripes – and she didn’t look to be much older than you are now; how galling for you THAT must have been.  And then the doctor had you tell the nurse the reason you had been punished, and that it was because you were a silly delusional little thing who wouldn’t admit she was a mental patient.  

‘Delusional’, that was the word that was printed, sewn or embroidered or whatever on the top pocket of your pyjama jacket – your ‘diagnosis’ – where everybody could see it – AND it was displayed on a notice board above your bed, and at the head of your notes on the clipboard clipped to the bed’s foot rail; and no one would take any notice of anything you would say; what a shame, you poor thing; and all because of that label somebody had saddled you with…  So… Do you want to go back to all that?  You’re shaking your head… I’m so glad… Though I suppose I WILL be missing out on CERTAIN aspects of my enjoyment – and I know the doctor would be keen to have you back; she has all SORTS of things lined up.  Do you know, nobody has ever proved that the proverbial Chinese water torture thing actually works – from a scientific standpoint I mean – not all the way to its logical, some say mythical, conclusion anyway?  No?  Me neither!  Too unethical I suppose; still, I know it is something that fascinates our doctor friend  …  Who knows?  Oh well, let’s see how this new arrangement  of ours pans out first, hmm,?  So off you scurry, that’s it.  And I think you can ask my housekeeper to make it double – twelve strokes of the cane instead of the half-dozen I said earlier – for refusing the first time I sent you off…"

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 Yes, it was another of those captions inspired by Tumblr reposts - see pic above... You really should check out my Tumblr account, or follow me or something.

Non-Victorian Chick asked about pain relief as regards my new knee - Hi there Non-Victorian Chick! - and was concerned I might be hallucinating spiders as a result of overindulging said pharmaceutical intervention.

No need to worry on THAT score!  Not now that I've read the warning.  As I said on the comment section:  Spiders?  I HATE spiders (see - I DO have a weakness, I'm not QUITE the superior being I'd like folk to perceive me as... err... and then there is the barely-controlled alcoholism… and the dyslexia… and the bouts of depression… 

...and the urge to eat vast quantities of veggie sausage rolls – lower fat pastry of course – despite the fact they make me ill coz I’m a bit wheat intolerant and they use gluten much more for the filling nowadays coz of the concern over GMO soya; I ate eight last night, and I’m paying the cost in sheets of bog roll… 

Oh god, it goes on and on… see what you’ve done?  I’m gonna have to go down the pub now and get pissed – which is what I did yesterday, first time since surgery)     

Five weeks out, and there is still stacks of pain… But I’m on paracetamol   and Voltarol cream, so no need for concern, young non-Victorian type person (and now booze too).  But, yeah, if they’d sent me packing with some nice morphine-based stuff I’d be abusing that too!

A Spanking Discipline Hypnosis Caption

How long had she been in governess Swanley’s care?  She couldn’t remember.  It felt as if it had been for her whole life.  She couldn’t imagine a life without governess Swanley, couldn’t even begin to think how she could cope without her governess to guide her, without her governess to make all those little decisions  for her, life’s little decisions, tell her what to do, what to wear, how to behave; decisions were so difficult to make, so hard to make her mind up…

She’d been so stupid to think she could make it through that final year in school, go on to university.  It had been a ridiculous idea – why, she couldn’t even leave the house alone, not without her governess to hold her hand; she was terrified, absolutely petrified, by open spaces you see; agoraphobia they call it.  Her stepmother had been absolutely correct to take her out of school as early as was legally ratified, as soon as she was no longer compelled by law to attend.  That school had been far too relaxed, had lacked discipline.  Why they didn’t even have a school uniform.  Miss Swanley would never have that; Miss Swanley, governess Swanley, insisted on school uniform at all times, even though she was being schooled at home – a school uniform Miss Swanley had designed herself, had tailor-made by a dressmaker in her employ, right down to the mid-thigh length bloomers with their removable rubberised lining and locking ‘tamper proof’ waistband that constantly peek out from beneath the hem of the little pleated skirt. 

Discipline was something definitely NOT in short supply under Miss Swanley’s régime; discipline was what she needed; a firm hand; someone to keep her on a short leash, under control… Strict discipline – that was what she needed; a strong hand, and a warmed behind if she stepped out of  line…  And Miss Swanley’s cane could provide that.  But Miss Swanley was right to cane her or throw her across her knee for a sound hairbrush spanking

She was such a silly, silly empty-headed little girl… a silly little thing without a thought in her silly little head, quite unable to make the tiniest little decision for herself, completely dependent on her governess, on governess Swanley, on those wonderful little sedative capsules the woman doled out, too shy to as much as look at strangers let alone speak… terrified even of leaving her bedroom unaccompanied…    

Another caption from a picture I've re-blogged on Tumblr to my account there.  You'll doubtless recognise many of the elements from my books, but there you are; such were the thoughts running through my head.

Four days to go to my knee replacement surgery.  So, the sun's out (unlike yesterday, which was dismal) so I'm off to meet up with the other half.  Going to the Victora and Albert museum (wow!  I'd much rather go to the pub - still, perhaps I'll manage both!)

I'll have my phone with me - and my lap top - so I'll be able to see and reply to my emails.

See Ya!

Worse than the Cane? A Written Imposition with a Twist: A Caption From - and Inspired by - a Tumblr Blog

Just a few words of explanation:  I have had a few personal problems.  But I’m back working.  I have been working on a project with Roger Benson, the spanking and discipline artist who specialises in setting his work in the 1950s – early 60s, and have taken a look at a part-written piece which I originally intended for the Erotic Mind Control Story Archive with an eye to putting together some sort of novel or book, although I’m not sure where it will fit within my present canon, if at all.  Another activity I have been involving myself (usually first thing, for inspiration) is cruising through the more interesting Tumblr blog pages, re-bloging anything that catches my eye to my own account, more often than not adding a caption inspired by the image, which more than once has led on to exploring certain other directions in terms of imagery and / or writing.  And so I blundered across this pic – and below is where my inspiration led me.  I have also been in email dialogue with a contributor who was responding to something I once wrote about the deliberate induction of stuttering or stammering as a method of gaining control and influence over a subject (itself based on real life, anything but ethical, experimentation).

On the 24^th of this month I am going in to hospital (The Highgate – in Highgate, North London, funnily enough) for a total knee replacement operation.  I’ll be in for three nights, but will be staying elsewhere for at least a week after, as where I am usually based there are too many stairs to climb initially.  I Hope to be back on my trusty bicycle by my birthday in mid-July and plan (not TOO ambitious I hope) to cycle to Brighton from London at that point (I doubt I will be sufficiently strong enough to join in the actual organised London to Brighton cycle ride in mid JUNE).

Worse than the Cane? A Written Imposition with a Twist:  A Caption From and Inspired by a Tumblr Blog

She had never felt so crestfallen in all her life.  Line writing was one of Aunt Amelia’s favourite impositions.  But it was not the written imposition itself but rather the effect it was having on her, on the way she was thinking, one the way she acted, that was brining her down so.

“I must not think myself an adult until I turn 21.  Until then I am a child and I must expect to be treated as a child.  I will dress as a child.  I will be seen and not heard.  I will speak only when spoken to.  I will do as I am told.  I will do nothing without Aunt Amelia’s implicit permission, and I will raise my hand to ask”. 

It was a lot to write out – as tedious as can be, and made more so by having to undertake the task as if a dictation, her hand moving in time to a slow, measured, recitation, a recording of her own voice.  Aunt Amelia had made her read the statement aloud from a sheet the very first time she had given her those lines to write, when finally she had completed the task.  And what an onerous task it had been:  One thousand times it had been that day; how her bottom had smarted when at first she had refused; but Aunt Amelia had reached for the cane, and that had been the end of THAT little rebellion.  Then Aunt Amelia had set up the tape recorder and the metronome which usually lived on the grand piano downstairs and had her read through the imposition in time with the slow, resonant, ‘tock’ ‘tock’ ‘tock’ of the wood-cased metronome; she could hear its insistent rhythm now on the tape loop going round and around and around, ‘tock’ ‘tock’ ‘tock’ like a dripping tap spacing out each word from the next…  Then suddenly the passage would change – her own recorded voice still, solemn and slow as if reading a prayer in church:

“A good girl is an obedient girl – I want to be a good girl…”  Over and over.

Then it would be back to the original.  Usually it would be 500 times for the first passage, split in to two blocks of 250 lines with a 250 line reiteration of the shorter ‘good girl’ mantra in between.  When she was being punished, as she was at present, this was a task that had to be repeated twice per day; once, before her afternoon nap, and again in the evening before being put down for the night.  Aunt Amelia said that writing lines before bed was the best way of fixing the lesson in the mind. 

Usually it went on for one week, although it was difficult to know for sure when one week began and finished in Aunt Amelia’s house:  When she was under punishment she was confined to her room with the shutters locked across the window.  This time it had simply been for not addressing one of Aunt Amelia’s lady friends as ‘Miss’ and forgetting to curtsy when that woman had enquired as to whether she was well.  “I am well, thank you for asking, Miss” was the prescribed answer she should have given - while dropping the requisite low curtsy of course.  Sometimes, though, it was just TOO humiliating to have to speak in that tiresome manor – she could always see when a guest or visitor was finding it amusing; and there was only so much a late-teen girl could take. 

But Aunt Amelia had imposed such prescribed idioms of speech for just about EVERY activity:  Asked if she had had enough to eat, she could never be ‘full up’.  Oh no: “I have had sufficient, sir, madam or miss (depending on who was asking)” and – if feeling particularly uncomfortable – “May I get down from the table please, Aunt Amelia?”.  As often as not the answer would be: “Yes, you may; but go and stand in the corner please, facing the wall, until we are finished”. 

Of course if she WAS particularly full, if she was noticeably uncomfortable, fidgeting, wriggling, perhaps squirming a little, the answer might not NECESSARILY be in the affirmative:  “No, I think you can wait there a LITTLE longer – until the ‘grownups’ are finished:  Now, you know the rules: if you have finished your dinner, you sit up straight and put your hands on your head and sit quietly to let your dinner get down; there’s a good girl!  Thank you”.  If the latter was the case, how agitated she would become, how long it would be, before her hand would shoot up would just depend; and as much as anything or whether Aunt Amelia had administered a spoon full of caster oil before her meal. 

So she’d need the toilet, her hand would be raised in the air, and in her own good time Aunt Amelia might deign to notice.  And despite the presence of visitors, there was a prescribed way of asking to go to the toilet too: in fact the very word ‘toilet’ was something her aunt was trying her best to eradicate from her vocabulary;  it was NEVER toilet, nor ‘loo’ nor ANY of the usual run-of-the-mill everyday euphemisms that the rest of the modern world used; ‘powder room’ ‘bathroom’, ‘cloakroom’.  In Aunt Amelia’s home the word was ‘lavatory’.  Who had ever heard of such a thing?  ‘Lavatory’:  “Please, Aunt Amelia, may I be excused to go to the lavatory?”.  It always had to be those words – EXACTLY those words.  It was something male guests in particular seemed to find amusing – a girl of her age, old enough to marry under different circumstances, speaking like that, in those deferential, Victorian-child terms.   Usually Aunt Amelia would consult her watch – there were prescribed times Aunt Amelia preferred her to use the lavatory, although she didn’t know what actual times those were, not in terms of time of day; she had no watch of her own, and there were no clocks she could check around the house.  Of course she wouldn’t be allowed to go alone; she was always under supervision.  Aunt Amelia had hired a nurse whose duties, among others, included escorting her to the toilet; she would stay outside, but the door had to be left ajar.  “I don’t think so, not yet, dear.  Not everyone has finished yet; once they have, I’ll call your nurse to take you”.

And Aunt Amelia was right – when it came to these written impositions, and completing them just before bed.  It really did stick in one’s head, it really WAS a lesson well learned :Yesterday Aunt Amelia - in front of one of her friends, a buxom middle aged and well-to-do woman she had never seen before  - had suddenly turned around and said to her: “A good girl is an…” 

It had come out of the blue – and without thinking she had found herself finishing the sentence, answering “…an obedient girl…”.  Both women had tittered – and she had felt her cheeks go red; especially when Aunt Amelia had patted her on the bottom, the woman’s hand lingering longer than necessary over the frills and flounces of her knickers, a finger insinuating itself momentarily under the taut leg elastic. 

Yes, she had never felt so crestfallen in all her life...  Until now!

Incarceration: Day 62

Day 62:  The Honorable Lady Samantha Etherington-Smyth-Hope - a minor title somewhat less important than it sounds despite the double hyphenation, the pseudo-noble nomenclature based on a dubious bought peerage – has succumbed to temptation, tongue lashing her first ever visitor, her husband’s glamorous trophy-blond ‘personal secretary’.  But it isn’t fair.  The little tart had just come to gloat - under orders from her husband, she wouldn’t be surprised – come to compare her Donna Karan stretch lambskin pencil skirt against the dowdy bottle green prison uniform dress, her Dior fragrance against the perpetual odor of disinfectant and perspiration that infuses the place and her beautiful professionally applied makeup juxtaposed against her pallid sun-starved carbolic soap-scrubbed complexion. 

The dirty gold-digging cow had got her claws in her husband’s naïve hide, undoubtedly had been directly instrumental in setting up this whole situation – she’d provided the alibi which had drawn the finger of blame off her husband and pointed it squarely at herself.  And now she was supposed to politely curtsy, gratefully thank her husband through her visitor for his generosity in funding her incarceration here…

And then there was that sheaf of papers, the documents, the woman had brought with her, and what they stood for, the implications of their contents had she set pen to paper, validated them with her signature as she had been ordered…  Those papers would be coming back, the smug smiling blond with them – not her husband though; he would never sully himself… Or did he even know?  Really know?  She’d be in no hurry, perhaps two months, maybe three – and meanwhile the cane, three strokes repeated three times a day, every day…  Yes THREE months, it would be another THREE months – THREE months of THREE strokes of the prison-weight cane repeated THREE times per day; morning, noon and night. Three by three by three – it was a Masonic thing.

She didn’t doubt she’d sign next time…  But as for the rest, the curtsy, the greeting, the offering of heart-felt gratitude… Of these stipulations she still wasn’t sure.

Absolutely nothing really to do with any of my books - at least not directly - either those already out there and any I might  (or might not) have in the pipeline.  It is just the result of the stream of consciousness that poured out when casting my fevered gaze over this picture which I came across on Tumblr earlier today.  I often annotate stuff in this manner when I re-blog images to my Tumblr blog.  Why not pay me a visit there?  And don't forget to follow me on Tumblr!

http://www.tumblr.com/blog/toyntanenhttp://www.tumblr.com/blog/toyntanen

If you missed the new book (which I was a bit dubious about publishing) it is now available as a PDF on LULU and at Amazon (which is cheaper) here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/BECOMING-SUBJECT-MISS-SWANLEYS-METHODS-ebook/dp/B00ISBUBTS

A gloriously sunny day here in London and I am going to treat myself to a day at the pub, although I will be taking a laptop and will be working.  If you are in North London you are cordially invited to join me for a pint:  I'll be starting at The Tolgate in North London's Turnpike Lane (Wettherspoons) and then moving on to Hampstead (The Holly Bush) or the West End (And Possibly the Southgate or Palmers Green Wetherspoons later).  Follow me on twitter and find out where I pitch up...  Seee y'all!!!

Super Inspiration?

So there I was.  It was 1965 and I was just a little kid myself, and I was on Bognor Regis sea front (on the UK South Coast - some way west of Brighton and near Little Hampton) and it was a rainy day and my parents wanted to keep me amused and quiet.  I liked Superman comics, and I sometimes even asked for the Lois Lane comic if there were no Superman titles as such in the shop - and as I was making so much fuss about the rain, that was what I got.  And low and behold it was this little gem - and my sexual development changed completely and forever. I still recall vividly this particular comic book to this very day; it struck some sort of chord in my brain which has influenced all sorts of interests ever since. 

 I long ago lost the comic of course, but they would have sold countless thousands of the title - and so it was only a matter of time before it cropped up on the Internet.  So insofar as the mind control aspect of my writing and plotting is concerned, this was pretty much the start of it - along with certain half-remember bits of telly, such as certain scenes in The Prisoner of the 1960s (the maid assigned to No 6 who was once a high-flying intellectual and language translator comes to mind - the manner in which she now so docilely accepts her lot which makes one wonder what might have been done to her). 

Now fem-dom is not really my thing, but there was something here which got me going, and kind of has ever since, although I quickly began to transfer the scene, nowadays transplanting in a late-teen girl and so on in my imagination.   

The storyline was that Superman had been affected by red Kryptonite which had temporarily rejuvenated him and it was left up to Lana and Lois to look after him... And Lois (I think it was) had seen a programme on TV regarding hypnosis which utilised an electric fan and mirror affair and having had problems disciplining the littler Super Brat (yes, there was an over-the-knee spanking scene too) decided she needed to try some alternative form of control.  And it actually goes beyond simple hypnosis too – there is an aspect of classical conditioning introduced to reinforce the post-hypnotic suggestions.  It is all good stuff, fodder I drew from heavily in a couple of scenes in one of my books.  I even mention the use of a child's spinning-top toy decorated with a red spiral at one point.Of course in my case it is all about finding a semi-plausible way to impose discipline on - and introduce corporal punishment to - the recalcitrant teen.

But OMG in super-capital letters!!!  What would happen if this were to be published nowadays - the writers would probably end up in jail someplace, and the editor, AND the publishers.  Spanking scenes, female domination and little kids???  And it was sold to little kids too!  I was one!  And look what it did to me...  Harmless fun indeed... Humph!

Another Version - Another Vision

As I replied to an anonymous comment earlier today, as originally created by Roger Benson this drawing portrayed some sort of scene being played out in a college dean or tutor's office - but that was not how I saw it. So with the addition of a suitably period-style camera and stool (from another of his pictures, a diploma on the wall (created by yours truly)and a metronome adapted from a photograph, the cane in the foreground (also created by moi) and one or two other changes, the whole scene changes.

In hindsight, I probably should not have added the caption – but I couldn’t resist harking back to one of my favourite scenes from my earlier books, the INSTITUTIONALISED series (volume 3 I think it is – correct me if I’m wrong; but not TOO hard!). anyway, there is probably enough embedded in the image as it stands to put over that SOMETHING sinister is going on. Exactly what can be left up to the viewer’s imagination.  So here is another version, decked out as if a cover for that book I was handing out free up until recently.

The presence of the camera represents - and hints at (even without the caption) - one of my main interests: plausibility in spanking literature. How does one get a strapping, would-be independent late-teen or early twenties lass to docilely bend for the cane or drape herself across the knees of some authority figure, whether that be a strong-willed stepmother almost young enough to be her sister, a governess or institutional figure for a damn good spanking or thrashing? Part of the answer relies on making a start on toning down some of that independence - and replacing it with something diametrically the opposite.