Robert Coover - Briar Rose & Spanking the Maid

He awakes, vaguely frightened by something he has dreamt (it was about order or odor and a changed condition — but how did it begin …?), wound up in damp sheets and unable at first even to move, defenseless against the day already hard upon him. Its glare blinds him, but he can hear the maid moving about the room, sweeping the floor, changing the towels, running water, pushing furniture around. ‘Good morning, sir,’ she says. ‘Come here a moment,’ he replies gruffly, then clears his throat. ‘Sir?’ ‘Look under the bed. Tell me what you see.’ He expects the worst: blood, a decapitated head, a bottomless hole … ‘I’m — I’m sorry, sir,’ she says, tucking up her skirt and apron, lowering her drawers, ‘I thought I had swept it …’

No matter how much fresh air and sunlight she lets in, there is always this little pocket of lingering night which she has to uncover. Once she found a dried bull’s pizzle in there, another time a dead mouse in a trap. Even the nice things she finds in the bed are somehow horrible: the toys broken, the food moldy, the clothing torn and bloody. She knows she must always be circumspect and self-effacing, never letting her countenance betray the least dislike toward any task, however trivial or distasteful, and she resolves every morning to be cheerful and good-natured, letting nothing she finds there put her out of temper with everything besides, but sometimes she cannot help herself. ‘Oh, teach me, my God and King, in all things thee to see, and what I do in any thing, to do it as for thee,’ she tells herself, seeking courage, and flings back the sheets and blankets. She screams. But it’s only money, a little pile of gold coins, agleam with promise. Or challenge: is he testing her?

Oh well, he envies her, even as that seat chosen by Mother Nature for such interventions quivers and reddens under the whistling strokes of the birch rod in his hand. ‘Again!’ ‘Be … be diligent in endeavoring to please your master — be faithful and … and …’ Swish- SNAP! ‘Oh, sir!’ ‘Honest!’ ‘Yes, sir!’ She, after all, is free to come and go, her correction finitely inscribed by time and the manuals, but he … He sighs unhappily. How did it all begin, he wonders. Was it destiny, choice, generosity? If she would only get it right for once, he reasons, bringing his stout engine of duty down with a sharp report on her brightly striped but seemingly unimpressionable hinder parts, he might at least have time for a stroll in the garden. Does she — CRACK! — think he enjoys this? ‘Well?’ ‘Be … be faithful, honest and submissive to him, sir, and—’ Whish- SLASH! ‘And — gasp! — do not incline to be slothful! Or—’ THWOCK! ‘Ow! Please, sir!’ Hiss- WHAP! She groans, quivers, starts. The two raised hemispheres upon which the blows from the birch rod have fallen begin (predictably) to make involuntary motions both vertically and horizontally, the constrictor muscle being hard at work, the thighs also participating in the general vibrations, all in all a dismal spectacle. And for nothing? So it would seem … ‘Or?’ ‘Or lie long in bed, sir, but rise … rise early in a morning!’ The weals crisscross each other on her enflamed posteriors like branches against the pink clouds of dawn, which for some reason saddens him. ‘Am I being unfair?’ ‘No — no, s—’ Whisp- CRACK! She shows no tears, but her face pressed against the bedding is flushed, her lips trembling, and she breathes heavily as though she’s been running, confirming the quality of the rod which is his own construction. ‘Sir,’ he reminds her, turning away. ‘Sir,’ she replies faintly. ‘Thank you, sir.’

She enters, once and for all, radiant and clear-browed (a long devotion to duty), with all her paraphernalia, her mop and bucket, brooms, rags, soaps, polishes, sets them all down, counting them off on her fingers, then crosses the room deliberately and circumspectly, not glancing at the rumpled bed, and flings open the curtains and the garden doors to call forth the morning, what’s left of it. There is such a song of insects all about (the preying birds are silent) — what inspiration! ‘Lord, keep me in my place!’ The master is in the shower: she hears the water. ‘Let me be diligent in performing whatever my master commands me,’ she prays, ‘neat and clean in my habit, modest in my carriage, silent when he is angry, willing to please, quick and neat-handed about what I do, and always of an humble and good disposition!’ Then, excited to the most generous and efficient accomplishments, she turns with a palpitating heart (she is thinking about perfect service and freedom and the unpleasant things she has found) to the opening up and airing of the bed. She braces herself, expecting the worst, but finds only a wilted flower from the garden: ah! today then! she thinks hopefully — perhaps at last! But then she hears the master turn the taps off, step out of the shower. Oh no …! She lowers her drawers to her knees, lifts her dress, and bends over the unmade bed. ‘ These towels are damp! ’ he blusters, storming out of the bathroom, wielding the fearsome rod, that stout engine of duty, still wet from the shower.

Sometimes he uses a rod, sometimes his hand, his belt, sometimes a whip, a cane, a cat-o’-nine-tails, a bull’s pizzle, a hickory switch, a martinet, ruler, slipper, a leather strap, a hairbrush. There are manuals for this. Different preparations and positions to be assumed, the number and severity of the strokes generally prescribed to fit the offense, he has explained it all to her, though it is not what is important to her. She knows he is just, could not be otherwise if he tried, even if the relative seriousness of the various infractions seems somewhat obscure to her at times. No, what matters to her is the idea behind the regulations that her daily tasks, however trivial, are perfectible. Not absolutely perhaps, but at least in terms of the manuals. This idea, which is almost tangible — made manifest, as it were, in the weals on her behind — is what the punishment is for, she assumes. She does not enjoy it certainly, nor (she believes — and it wouldn’t matter if he did) does he. Rather, it is a road (speaking loosely), the rod, to bring her daily nearer God — and what’s more, it seems that she’s succeeding at last! Today everything has been perfect: her entry, all her vital paraphernalia, her circumspect crossing of the room and opening of the garden doors, her scrubbing and waxing and dusting and polishing, her opening up and airing and making of the master’s bed — everything! True service, she knows (he has taught her!), is perfect freedom, and today she feels it: almost like a breeze — the sweet breath of success — lifting her! But then the master emerges from the bathroom, his hair wild, fumbles through the clothes hanging in the wardrobe, pokes through the dresser drawers, whips back the covers of her perfectly made bed. ‘What’s this doing here —?!’ he demands, holding up his comb. ‘I–I’m sorry, sir! It wasn’t there when I—’ ‘What? What —?! ’ He seizes her by the elbow, drags her to the foot of the bed, forces her to bend over it. ‘I have been very indulgent to you up to now, but now I am going to punish you severely, to cure you of your insolent clumsiness once and for all! So pull up your skirt — come! pull it up! you know well enough that the least show of resistance means ten extra cuts of the — what’s this—?! ’ She peers round her shoulder at her elevated sit-me-down, so sad and pale above her stockings. ‘I–I don’t understand, sir! I had them on when I came in—!’

Perhaps he’s been pushing her too hard, he muses, soaping himself in the shower and trying to recall the dream he was having when she woke him up (something about ledgers and manual positions, a woman, and the merciless invention of souls which was a sort of fever of the mind), perhaps he’s been expecting too much too soon, making her overanxious, for in some particulars now she is almost too efficient, clattering in with her paraphernalia like a soldier, blinding him with a sudden brutal flood of sunlight from the garden, hauling the sheets out from under him while he’s still trying to stuff his feet into his slippers. Perhaps he should back off a bit, give her a chance to recover some of her ease and spontaneity, even at the expense of a few undisciplined errors. Perhaps … yet he knows he could never let up, even if he tried. Not that he enjoys all this punishment, any more (he assumes, but it doesn’t matter) than she does. No, he would rather do just about anything else — crawl back into bed, read his manuals, even take a stroll in the garden — but he is committed to a higher end, his life a mission of sorts, a consecration, and so punish her he must, for to the extent that she fails, he fails. As he turns off the taps and steps out of the shower, reaching for the towel, the maid rushes in. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon, sir!’ He grabs a towel and wraps it around him, but she snatches it away again: ‘That one’s damp, sir!’ She dashes out to fetch him a fresh one and he is moved by her transparent enthusiasm, her eagerness to please, her seemingly unquenchable appetite for hope: perhaps today …! But he has already noticed that she has forgotten her lace cap, there’s a dark stain on the bib of her apron, and her garters are dangling. He sighs, reaches for the leather strap. Somehow (is there to be no end to this? he wonders ruefully) it should be easier than this.