ZEN AND THE ART OF DISCIPLINE
By Fidelis Blue
Afterwards I made her kneel naked in the corner, hands behind her back,
head lowered. I said if she moved she'd be sorry. I gave her a little lecture
about how when I said a thing I meant it. When I say black knickers, I mean just
that, I said. If I wanted pink satin trim round the edges, I'd ask for it. When
I say the stockings must have seams, that's what they must have, I said.
'I tried,' she whispered. 'I just couldn't find any.'
'Be quiet,' I ordered her.
I looked at the stripes on her bare bottom, vivid red tram-lines across the
smooth white skin. I picked up my book and resumed reading. Out of the corner of
my eye I saw her fidget.
'Keep still,' I said.
I kept her kneeling there for about half an hour while I read a couple of
chapters. It wasn't a comfortable position; it wasn't meant to be. Eventually I
put my book down.
'Come here,' I said.
She stood in front of me.
'Turn around.'
The angry red marks on her behind had faded slightly, turned to a duller
glow with intimations of the purple bruises to come.
'You will visit again on Thursday, at 6.00pm,' I said. 'You will wear a
black satin corset, and black stockings and shoes, with high heels. Your nails
will be scarlet. The rest of your clothing is up to you.'
'Very well,' she said. She stood there, waiting.
'That's all.'
She hesitated. 'You don't want to...?'
'If I wanted to I would,' I said. 'Now get dressed and go.'
She arrived on Thursday five minutes late.
'I'm sorry,' she said. 'The traffic is terrible.'
'I don't care about that,' I said coldly. 'Take off everything except what
I prescribed for you to wear.'
She removed her coat. Her black dress unbuttoned down the front. She took
it off and draped it over a chair. I sat and watched as she removed her knickers
and stood waiting in her corset, stockings and shoes in front of the fire, which
burned fiercely in the grate.
'Bend over and touch your toes,' I said.
She pressed her fingers against the toes of her black high-heeled shoes. I
fetched my favourite cane, very thin, about two feet long. I measured the
distance to her bottom, bare except for the elasticated suspenders down the
sides holding up her stockings.
'At least you got the clothes right,' I said. 'But I'm angry about your
time-keeping.'
'Yes,' she said.
I could see the muscles of her buttocks braced against the blows to come.
Afterwards I put the cane away and left her bending over. I rang the bell
for Mrs Benson. When she came in I asked for a bottle of Medoc and two glasses.
I sat in silence while the wine was brought. I knew she didn't like Mrs Benson
to see her undressed, especially after she had been punished.
'Come and sit down,' I said when Mrs Benson had gone. I indicated a wooden
chair opposite mine. She sat down and crossed her legs. The stockings rasped
against each other.
'Don't cross your legs,' I said. 'Sit with your knees six inches apart, so
that I can see you.'
I handed her a glass of wine.
'I begin to wonder if you are trying to provoke me,' I said.
'No, I assure you I am not.'
'If I thought you were doing so it would be the worse for you,' I said.
I watched her drink wine. I liked the way her breast, half exposed above
the corset, rose slightly as her arm lifted the glass.
'May I fellate you?' she enquired.
'No,' I said, 'you may not.'
She seemed disappointed, though she said nothing. On occasion, I would
permit her to perform this act, which she took great pleasure in, though I never
ejaculated as she did so, preferring always to penetrate her from the rear,
since of all her many attractions it was her bottom which I took most delight
in. Sometimes, but rarely, I engaged her in anal intercourse, but usually it was
her sex that I entered. I forbade her to react in any way as I did so. There
were to be no sounds of pleasure, no movement of the hips, no tightening of the
vaginal muscles.
Less frequently, perhaps once or twice a month, I would allow her to
indulge herself. I had her sit facing me, legs apart, while with her finger she
brought herself to a climax. Again, she was to display no outward signs of
pleasure. Even at the moment of orgasm she was to remain impassive. I made her
look me in the eye throughout; if she glanced away I put a stop to it.
Tonight there would be no such relief.
'Put your clothes on. We'll go out to dine,' I said.
After dinner I took her back to her apartment and kissed her on the cheek.
'Aren't you coming in?' she asked.
'I shall see you on Sunday at 3.00,' I said. 'Come to my house in your fur
coat, with only shoes and stockings underneath.'
I drove away. I thought of her going up to her bedroom to masturbate. At
first I had forbidden her to indulge in such a release. But then I reasoned that
to make rules that I could not police was bound at some point to bring my strict
regime into disrepute. After all, I thought, I care only about what she does
when she is with me. Then, I must have absolute obedience. When she is not with
me, she may do as she pleases. Were she the biggest whore in creation I should
not care, if only she is submissive in my presence, down to the tiniest detail.
When we first met, she was seeing other men, three or four of them on a
more or less regular basis. I told her she might continue to see them if she
wished. But, as she explained, it was difficult to maintain these relationships
after the beatings started. They couldn't deal with the livid marks across her
buttocks, the evidence that she belonged to another. Now she had sex with
strange men she picked up in public places, in the back seat of cars or down
dark alleys or behind the bushes in a public park. I told her it was dangerous.
She said that was the point. She would go to the cinema in the afternoons and,
sitting in the dark side by side with an unknown man in front of the flickering
screen, engage in mutual masturbation. She related to me the details of these
encounters.
I knew that she expected a beating every time she came to see me. Sometimes
I disappointed her. Instead I would have her sit naked next to me on the sofa
while I inserted an object in her sex, sometimes a fruit, sometimes a sexual
device or the handle of a whip. At other times I would tie her wrists to a hook
above the door then attach to her nipples some little Japanese clamps I had
bought. They had strong springs of high-quality steel and gripped tightly. Once
I clamped her sex as well. She protested that it was too much. To punish her for
such impertinence, I took the cane to her with special severity.
At the beginning I had bound her hand and foot before beating her. But I
concluded that perfect obedience would be better demonstrated were she to
exercise self-restraint. Henceforth it was part of the discipline that though
she was free to move, she might not. If she lifted a hand to shield herself from
the blow, that stroke was repeated. I always informed her before the beating of
how many strokes she was to receive so that she might count them off. When the
number was complete she had to thank me.
'Where will it lead?' she said to me one day as we were having dinner
afterwards. She shifted position on her chair slightly. I supposed that the pain
of the beating she had just received lingered on.
'You know the answer to that question,' I replied.
'Do I?'
'It will lead to where you want it to lead, of course.'
'But where is that?' she answered. 'That is the problem.'
I knew that in all relationships there was a dynamic. Things progressed, or
they regressed. Nothing stayed the same. There had been a slow gathering of
intensity in the progress of our affair. Could this continue in perpetuity, or
must we reach a climax and from there decline?
'One step at a time,' I said. 'Just think about the next time. We cannot
look too far ahead.'
What she liked was the uncertainty. Or rather, an uncertainty about what
precisely might occur combined with a certainty that it would be extreme, that
it would push her to the limits. She told me that unless she felt afraid she
could not be really excited. But there had to be confidence that whatever
happened would tap into the well of her submissiveness, that she would be led a
little further down the path she trembled to tread yet was compelled to follow.
I seek always a balance, she said, between dread and desire. My role was to
achieve this balance for her. What she wanted, I realised, was to go always a
little further than she thought she could bear. But eventually there must come a
limit. What then?
One day after a particularly severe beating I had a sudden vision of the
future. I thought that I could not do it much harder without a risk of injuring
her, and that I could not bear to do, even if she had agreed to let it happen.
And then it seemed to me that the way forward was not in the increased use of
force, but rather in its opposite. After all, I had established complete
control. I no longer needed to hurt her in order to demonstrate my domination.
We could move beyond physical pain into a realm of abstraction, where the mere
thought of it would be enough to secure compliance.
Indeed, I reasoned, that could apply henceforth to the sexual act itself.
At our next meeting I had her strip naked and sit in front of me, her hands
clasped behind her neck, her legs apart. I told that that in future we would
only perform the physical act once a month, instead of the one or twice a week
that had been the norm.
'And after a while that will reduce to once every three months, then every
six months and then once a year. At that point I shall review the situation and
consider whether it will be abandoned altogether.'
She looked bewildered.
'You don't want to fuck me any more?'
'I want to as much as ever, indeed more. But the submissive is not the only
one to make sacrifices. The dominant must be prepared to deny himself pleasure
in order to demonstrate the totality of his control. If I cannot help myself
from having sex with you then I am not in full control of the relationship. You
still have some power over me if I cannot abstain from the expression of
desire.'
She was silent. I could see that she was perplexed, even upset. But I was
determined to pursue the course I had chosen.
'In future I shall also beat you less. We have reached the stage where the
knowledge that I may beat you if I choose, and most severely, to the point where
you shed tears and beg for mercy, should suffice. The act may now be substituted
by a symbolic representation. In this way we free ourselves of the tyranny of
the physical world and our carnal desires. Think of it, if you will, as a kind
of Zen discipline, in which instead of actual beatings there is the
contemplation of them. I shall now show you what I mean.'
I made her kneel on the small coffee table in front of the fire, with
cushions under her knees and hands. This was the usual position for a beating.
But this time I simply placed a cane on her bottom, balancing it carefully
across the two cheeks. She shivered slightly as she felt the thin, cruel wood
caress her naked buttocks. I could see that the threat contained in the object
laid upon her was enough to arouse her.
I left her in this position for fully an hour, at the end of which I told
her to get dressed. I then drove her home and kissed her lightly on the cheek as
I left her at her door. The next day I telephoned her and told her to come at
9.00pm. I had decided that during the transition to the non-physical state I
should not let her think that my feelings for her were any the less intense.
When she arrived I set upon her with a heavy leather whip, lashing her buttocks
until she whimpered and pleaded with me, after which I fucked her long and hard
in the usual position, her bottom raised, her legs apart, her face pressed to
the cushions. She wept copiously afterwards.
'Surely you will not renounce such pleasure?'
'I have stated my position,' I replied. 'Of course you are at liberty to
withdraw from our arrangement.'
'You know I cannot,' she whispered.
It is now fully a year since I instituted this regime. I have not performed
a sexual act with her for six months. I last beat her four months ago. Last week
she told me that she had all but ceased the encounters with anonymous men in
dark places. Having no marks to hide, she had begun seeing a young man
regularly. She said she would like to combine this with whatever relationship I
wished to have with her. I have summoned her tomorrow evening to discuss the
future. I cannot decide if there should be one last spectacular in which I beat
her harder than ever before and then fuck her without mercy, or whether I
announce that we have already ascended to nirvana, in which the abstract
contemplation of physical discipline and sexual intercourse has released us from
any further need to enact them.
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