John Hawkes - Travesty

But as I have been saying, I had not the slightest thought of causing Monique even a moment of pain that night; I was not unusually aware of her childish, upturned buttocks twitching occasionally in the rose-colored suffusion from the lamp in the corner; I felt no need to exert any special mastery over Monique amidst the muffling softness of so many tasteless (but appropriate) oriental bolsters. And yet when all at once the moment of provocation was upon me, and in fact it was nothing more than a pouting underlip and some sort of pert, injurious remark quite lost now to passing time, it was then that I knew without any hesitation that I wanted to spank Monique-and to spank her in the conventional position, with my bare hand, with conscious determination and as hard and as long as possible. Mind you, until that instant I was absolutely uninitiated into that commonplace practice of familial punishment. And yet I did not hesitate, it did not occur to me to spare Monique one trace of humiliation or one grain of pain: I was not interested in justice or the possible sexual consequences of that event. To the contrary, thought and action were as one and I seized Monique abruptly, joyously, and like a vindictive father of long experience pulled my little startled mistress across my naked lap where I held that sprawled and squirming body in a grip that made escape impossible. The pleasure of the first long, deliberate blow was immense. Simply immense.

Well, the palm of my hand was a cruel and relentless paddle. Monique cried out, I gave not a thought to the sleeping neighbors, I spanked Monique with a lack of restraint astonishing even to myself. It was as if I could not bring the flat of my hand into hurtful contact with the soft, private world of her buttocks often enough or hard enough, so that I increased my efforts and gave myself total consciousness of touch and sound and enjoyed to the fullest the agitation of her helplessness. And then breathless, delighted, feeling the heat in my hand and a sparkling sensation throughout my own nakedness, finally I stopped. Only then did she cease resisting. Only then did she go limp, roll slowly away from me, and smother her angry sobs in one of the bolsters. Her weeping was a shameless exploitation of her childlike appearance, but it was an agreeable addition to the pleasure I was then savoring in my exhaustion.

So I myself fell back among the bolsters, surprised at what had happened but smiling, hearing the rain, feeling my own body filled, as it were, with crystals of vigor. Partially on my side and in a condition of curious alertness, peacefully I contemplated the body lying in rare quiescence and with its back to me. Yes, the buttocks were still pink, and pinker yet because of the lampshade. Every now and again a tremor passed down the spine or through one slender leg as if, released from my grip, she was striving now to relieve the discomfort of her small derriere by settling her body more deeply into the rolling, Oriental softness. The spare, black, lacy harness was low and loose on her little hips, one of her hands crept back and of its own accord began to rub and soothe the afflicted area. I watched her, I smiled. I did not for a moment think I had done any genuine harm. It even occurred to me, and with reason, that Monique in her sobbing was actually just as expectant as I was in my smiling. Of course by now my great bird, if you will allow the poetic license, was soaring in flight, so that it was only natural that while I watched Monique's small hand moving to pacify the hurt in her buttocks, my own firm hand-the very one with which I had per-

formed what she later called the abomination-became a skilled and willing communicant with my distended sex.

How long we were held together in that wordless state of sexual torpor I do not know. Only the movements of our hands, fingers, suggested that even we two nude luxuriating figures lay under the spell of time. But then Monique herself effected the transition to what would lead, or so I quite wrongly thought, to our embrace. She turned her head and looked at me. One moment I was merely the comfortable voyeur who in actuality sees very little, the next I was looking directly into the small, handsome face of my Monique and growing suddenly expansive at the sight of the tears on the cheeks, the wet nose, the familiar, hard, dark scrutiny which I seemed to detect in the filmy eyes. Yes, I felt that now I was performing, so to speak, not merely for myself but for Monique's own attentive contemplation. She was watching me, she was waiting, I thought that in a moment she would creep to my arms.

But how wrong I was. Because even now and betraying not the slightest sign of her intention, Monique was already preparing herself to become like nothing so much as a cat in a sack. She smiled, I felt forgiven. In a spasm of her former childish energy she was on all fours, I rose on an expectant elbow. She leapt to her feet on the floor and struck and held a suggestive pose, I responded with more explicit and vigorous manipulation. She stripped off the little black threatening belt, in eager anticipation I sat up and held out one beckoning arm to her. She raised the belt above her head (rather than tossing it away as I thought she would), and even then I merely exposed myself still further to what I thought was going to be some new form of erotic stimulation. Would you believe it?

Even when I beheld and felt the first lash across my thighs, I thought she meant only to whip me lightly to ejaculation, a process, which, at that moment, I imagined as a fulsome and brilliant novelty. But when I received the second lash, this time across the eyes so that instinctively I covered my face with both my arms, and then received full in the lap the pain of the little metal grips affixed to the tips of those four silken straps, of course I realized that she meant quite the opposite.

Yes, with terrible precision and on an ascending scale of strength and tempo, my little mistress thrashed me on face and lap, chest and lap, until I thought the very possibility of sexual discharge was no longer mine. I groaned, I tasted blood, I cowered. My great bird was dead. And yet throughout the ordeal, while attempting hopelessly to protect myself, still I was somehow admiringly aware of the legs apart, the dark flashing eyes, the vindictive, animated dance of that small, nude girl, the black straps that flew from her fist like the snakes from the head of some tiny and gloriously tormented Medusa. She flayed me. She did so with joy. And even that was not the end of it.

Because when at last she stopped, not from fatigue but from an unbearable excess of exhilaration, she flung the now useless garter belt into the very lap she had but

a moment before so fiercely beaten. It was a gesture of superb contempt. But as if that gesture of contempt were not enough, for an instant she looked around the room helplessly, trapped in the passion of her distraction and clear purpose, and then in wickedness and exasperation flung herself down beside me among the bolsters and with the furious fingers of both hands brought herself to an orgasm that would have satisfied even a cat in a sack. At least it satisfied Monique. In my defeat and discomfort I too felt a certain relief, a certain happiness for Monique, and if in the midst of helplessness and pain I had nonetheless been able to photograph her benign expression, surely I would have set up the tripod, triggered the blinding light. As it was I merely gave myself to the sound of the rain and finally, on all fours, made my way to my clothes.

Well, it was an instructive night, as you can see. An hour, two hours, and as from nothing a new bond of accord was suddenly drawn between Monique and myself. I learned that I too had a sadistic capacity and that the commiseration of Honorine was even vaster and sweeter than I had thought. But what is still most important about that particular and now long-lost night is that it reveals that I too have suffered and that I am not always in total mastery of the life I create, as I have been accused of being. Furthermore it illustrates that I am indeed a specialist on the subject of dead passion. At any rate, and for better or worse, I abandoned Monique when you entered our household. Somehow your presence made Monique's unnecessary. But of course there are moments, such as this one, when she still dances inside my head with a vividness quite comparable to that of the life enclosed within our own small world which is moving-need I say it? — with the speed and elasticity of the panther in full chase.