The salesman held up the battered lantern. "Hard to
tell when it was made, exactly," he said. "This model was
patented in 1880, but they kept selling them right up until
rural electrification in the 1920s."
"Doesn't look like it gives much light," Darcy said.
Darcy was interested in light.
"Unless you were used to candles," the salesman said.
"This was brighter, cleaner, lasted longer, and was more
economical to operate."
An old thing. A Victorian thing. The shop was filled
with junk antiques, inexpertly set out on shelves, overflowing
into aisles. Someone who needed cleanliness and order would
hate this place. But it allowed a feel for the old. "I
would need to be able to operate it," Darcy said. "There is
no lamp wick. There is no kerosene."
"Right this way," the salesman said. Darcy followed him
deeper into the maze, and opened up her purse.
. . .
The goblet in the window spoke to her, the soft glow of
silver, the subtlety of shape. This wasn't the kind of store
she could afford, but maybe she could just go look. She
entered and went up to it.
"You have a good eye," the salesman said.
Darcy knew that. She also knew that flattery was de
rigeur for a place like this. "It doesn't look Victorian,"
she said. "This lets the shape tell the story without
embellishment."
"One can only imagine," the salesman said. "Bunches of
grapes and angels blowing trumpets and all sorts of clutter.
This is quite a bit earlier. Georgian. George IV, actually.
But a Victorian would have used it proudly, glad to show his
family were well off that far back."
A thing glowing with possibilities. "I want to see it
in lamplight," Darcy said.
The salesman smiled. "$2,100," he said. "Will that be
cash or charge?"
Too much, of course. She knew that. "How much just to
borrow it for a week? I want to sketch it. Take photographs."
"Or take it to get a second opinion on the appraisal,"
the salesman said. "Tell you what. Give me 10% down and
take it. Bring it back in a week for a refund, or pay the
balance at that time. Fair?"
Yes. She needed to see what the lamp did to it. How
it might have looked to those who used it. "Fair," she said.
She handed him her debit card and held her breath while it
validated, because she knew she was getting close to empty.
Time to see her accountant and get a refill.
. . .
The accountant looked somehow pained. "I was going to
call you," he said. "It's better doing it this way. In
person. You're done, Darcy. The money's gone."
There was this feeling of dizzyness, of coming unmoored.
"All gone?" she asked. She knew she had been getting low,
but she put off the inevitable need for change.
"You live modestly," the accountant said. "You spent
$22,000 last year. But sales of your art only netted $2,600.
As your principal dwindled, you agreed to accept more risk.
A decision which seemed sensible at the time, but then the
market tanked. It's gone."
Oh. Yeah. It wasn't that she paid no attention to the
news, but that she hadn't considered it might affect her. "I
regret college," Darcy said. "All that time, all that money,
and it was training more useful to an art critic than to a
painter. Now I guess I'm screwed."
The accountant grinned at the indecorous choice of words,
then gathered his professional demeanor around him. "Someone
has offered to become your patron," he said. "Subsidize you
so you can continue your career. But I hesitate to mention
it. I got a sense of an immoral quid pro quo."
Immoral? What did that mean? Surely something less
dangerous than robbing banks, something less destructive of
her time than some mundane job. "Why don't you give me the
number?" she asked. "I'll decide later if I want to make the
call."
The accountant sighed and handed her a letter. "Good
luck, Darcy," he said. "I've watched you grow up into a fine
young woman. Your father would have been proud."
She couldn't help hearing the unsaid echo: up 'til now.
. . .
Raising the wick on the lamp made it brighter, but only
to a point. After that it began to smoke and cloud the glass
chimney. It took a while to get used to the dimness. There.
Look how the color spectrum shifted toward yellow and moved
with distance into browns and finally black. The silver
goblet glowed as she had hoped it would, a specular reflection
of the yellow wick on its curved surface surrounded by a
wider more diffuse homage to the light. She moved it farther
from the lamp, carefully considering the changes made as it
retreated. A stray thought intruded on her consciousness.
Rent was due in three days. She was going to have to make the
call. And then she took her photographs, and began to sketch.
. . .
Everything looked so different in sunlight. Before electricity
there'd been more difference between day and night. Darcy called
the number, knowing she wasn't going to like this. Knowing
she had very little choice. Each ring made her flinch. Part
of her wanted to hang up. A larger part wanted the freedom
to paint.
"Hello?"
She felt the tightness in her gut. "Hi. Darcy Hamilton.
I'm told you're interested in helping me in some way."
"Yes." The voice was masculine, of course, self-assured,
probably some business type. "I have made some discreet
inquiries and found you are quite capable of living on $2,500
a month. I'm prepared to send you that amount, on which you
will owe no tax. You will be able to concentrate on your art
without much distraction."
Anything that sounds too good to be true, probably is.
"There has to be a catch."
On the other end of the phone, the man laughed softly.
"Alas," he said. "I'd like to be so generous, but I fear I
am not. There are 168 hours in a week, Darcy. Most of them
you will be free to do as you like. For one or perhaps two,
you will be my slave."
"Prostitution," she said. The word just came out. She
thought she had only thought it.
"Without the risks associated with life on the street,"
the man said. "Without the risks associated with multiple
partners. You're a very pretty girl. You could always marry
for money, I suppose. But then you'd have to put up with him
a lot more than a couple hours a week."
"I have to think," she said. "This is so sudden." Although
she was running out of time.
"Are you tempted," he asked, "perhaps just a little?"
"Yes," she said. Ashamed, but it was true.
"I'll be in touch," he said.
But there was something else she needed to know. "Wait.
Before you hang up, you said 'slave.' What would your slave
expect?"
"She would be punished and raped," he said.
"Oh," she said. She sat there in the bright morning and
trembled, because she feared what he might do. Feared that
her need to paint was so strong that still she might say 'yes.'
. . .
She went around in a sort of daze. She thought she might
be hungry, so she started eating an apple, but when it was
half gone she found she liked the shape of it, half perfect
and half ravaged, and sketched it instead. The doorbell rang.
There was a truck parked out at the curb and a workman with
a clipboard. A cigarette hung out of his mouth. She tried
to stay upwind.
"Darcy Hamilton? Sign here,"
She signed, curious. The man grunted and waved. Another
came off the truck with a dolly and a fairly big cardboard box.
A man in a DHL uniform walked up behind them. "Oh good," he
said. "Someone to sign for this."
One of those cardboard delivery folders like for overnight
mail. Darcy signed. The men with the box put it in her house
and drove away. What was all this?
The DHL package had an easy-open strip. Inside was a
rectangle of pink paper. A cashier's check made out to her
for $2,500. She got a box cutter from her junk drawer to
open the box. Inside was what could have been a piece of
exercise equipment were it not for the obvious wrist and
ankle restraints. It was an instrument of torture.
Fear gripped her. It was three feet high with metal
A-frame legs and a curved padded leather top. The victim
would bend across it, ankles strapped down on one side, wrists
secured on the other, helpless and ready to be screwed or
whipped. Or both. Oh, God. At least he was letting her
know up front what she'd be in for. She went to get her car
keys. She had to return her borrowed silver. On the way
back she could drop by the bank and make a deposit. Or not.
She could just tear up the check, pretend this never happened.
Sure. And be evicted. Be on the street. She could decide
while she drove.
. . .
The second call was harder than the first, even though
all the decisions had been made. The fact she could just have
taken his money and given him nothing taunted her, but that
would only put things off by one mere month. And besides,
rich and decisive people make dangerous enemies.
"Hello?"
"I deposited the check. I... I guess that means I am
at your disposal."
"Good," he said. "I'll meet you at your place. Friday,
eight o'clock."
Three days. Three days to fret and ponder and regret.
"Yes, sir," she said.
Her master chuckled.
. . .
The upright piano glowed softly in the museum's subtle
light. The case was mahogany embellished by inlaid marquetry
of satinwood and rosewood. Great embellishers, those Victorians,
though this worked better than most, managing to be more
elegant than garish. She took in the pleasing bulk of it, the
space it took up along the wall. Never content with understatement,
they would have put things on top. The museum's little sign
warned that it was being displayed mainly as an example of the
cabinet maker's art, since the instrument within was sadly
ordinary. How typically Victorian, to lavish the bulk of the
money only where it would show. Look at that scroll work on the
stubby feet. Darcy imagined how it would look in lamplight,
and began to draw.
. . .
A knock at the door. She felt a pang of regret and fear
and sexual excitement all at once. Here she was, clad only
in a robe, waiting for some stranger who would do mean things
to her. How very forward of her. How very naughty. She
opened the door. The man was mid-forties, conservatively
dressed. He had a bouquet of flowers in one hand, a cardboard
mailing tube in the other. She felt suddenly quite shy. "Come
in," she said. "I knew you would want me undressed, so I
decided to make it easy for you." She took the bouquet and
moved to the kitchen to find a vase.
He examined her living room. "I expected an artist's
pad to either be very elegant or very avant garde," he said.
"This is oddly ordinary."
She came back in and put the vase of flowers on an end
table. "If I'd bought pretty things my inheritance would
have run out even sooner," Darcy said. "When I want to see
nice things, I have museums and art galleries, and even
antique shops."
His smile was perhaps a bit sardonic. "Ah yes. I
understand. Sometimes it is enough to visit pretty things
from time to time, one need not take them home. Shall we?"
She could feel that she was blushing. "I had to put it
in my work room," she said. "Anywhere else I'd be tripping
over it, or have to explain it or both. This way, please."
She led the way into her sanctum, where his mean apparatus
waited patiently, covered by a sheet. "I like the idea," he
said. "Even covered over the bulk of it will remind you as
you work that you pay a price for the freedom to create. Who
knows, it may even inspire you." He pulled open the cardboard
tube. It opened with an almost musical thunk and spilled out
a long thin cane with a curved handle. She looked at it as
if confronting a viper.
Darcy took the cover off the frame. It lurked there,
ready to hold her fast and render her completely helpless.
But after all, it's what she deserved. "Punish me for choosing
to become a prostitute," she said. "I have it coming." She
let the robe fall from her shoulders, surprised and shocked
that her body interpreted her plight as sexy. Her nipples
were erect and her crotch was sending signals.
He led her over to the frame and buckled her ankles into
the restraints. Then he drew her down and did her wrists.
She tried to struggle just to see what would happen. Nothing.
She was held fast. The man moved behind her and reached in
to caress her breasts as they hung down. It encouraged her
body's need to mate.
"Naughty girl," he said. A sudden breathless shock and
then pain, spreading out from the line of contact, burning
away all thoughts of sex, and Darcy screamed. Then silence.
She could hear her ragged breathing, and his. He struck again,
parallel and a little higher up.
She moaned this time. Punished. She was being punished.
But it brought forth shame, because she knew it was deserved.
He struck again, a third line overlapping the other two. She
writhed and begged. "I'll be good, I'll do what you want.
I'll be good. Please. Please."
He stroked her flank. "Good girl," he said. "Three is
enough for your first time."
The sex that had fled before the pain returned now in
the aftermath, and to her aching weals was added an aching
need to screw. Darcy whimpered and rotated her hips. She
felt him behind her. Felt his prick gain entry and fill her
up. Oh yes. Oh yes. It was short and sharp and loveless
and absolutely draining. A better orgasm than she had ever
had from the men she'd chosen and brought home. It left a sated
gladness mixed with shame.
Her master unbuckled her and departed. Darcy lay there
until she felt recovered enough to stand. When she moved,
her bottom ached. He had left the awful cane. She hung it
on the instrument of torture and draped the sheet back over
it, out of sight now but hardly out of mind. The strength of
her body's response excited and repelled her. She needed to
do something to take her mind off it. Tired as she was, she
was too distraught for sleep. She knew, she would get the
bouquet and light the lamp and watch the flowers by lamplight.
Maybe she could finish a decent study of them, before they
began to fade.
. . .
It was a very pretty picture, but Darcy wasn't sure she
liked it. A bit commercial. A bit cute. A hillside meadow
dotted with grazing sheep. "He was a great success," the
curator enthused. "Well respected in his own day and highly
sought after now."
Hmmmpf. "A country scene for city folk," Darcy said.
"Look how white the sheep are and how there are no brambles
in their coats. It's as if they've just been shampooed so
they could have their picture done. It's romantic embellishment.
A Victorian conceit. And look at the technique. See here?
He stopped improving it when it was good enough to sell."
"Well, he had to put food on the table," the curator
said. "He was not a wealthy man. I suppose to produce art
totally naieve of commerce one would need to be independently
wealthy, or have a patron."
Or be somebody's mistress, Darcy thought. She felt herself
begin to blush.
. . .
She dressed up pretty for him this time, surprisingly
eager for his visit and ashamed of her eagerness. He came
with a smile and a bag and a box. He marched into her kitchen
and began unpacking. The box contained a wok, the bag vegetables,
shrimp, and a bottle of soy.
"I hope you don't expect me to cook," she said. "I never
learned. Mostly I thaw and microwave."
"I cook," he said. "You can boil water for rice and keep
me company." He heated the wok and chopped vegetables and
threw them in with a long squirt of soy. Such an oddly domestic
scene. She sort of liked it.
"I've had bad luck with men," she said. She set the
table as she spoke. "Mainly I'd just bring home strays. I
liked the flattery and the attention, but the sex itself was
often disappointing. What you did really got to me, and I'm
sure I don't know why."
He threw the shrimp in with the vegetables and squirted
in more soy. The wok hissed as the liquid hit the metal.
"Because you were acting as the strong party," he said. "The
heiress who deigned to let them come and play. Now you're
learning that being submissive suits you."
She blushed. "It shouldn't. I've always been independent.
Heck. Even our understanding. I chose it because of how
minimal my loss of freedom would truly be. A couple hours,
in exchange for all the rest."
"It's just one thread among many," he said. "You wouldn't
want to be dominated full time, but a few hours a week somehow
suits you."
She had forgotten to boil water after all, but he seemed
to have prepared for that, opening a can of noodles. He dished
up, shrimp and pea pods and water chestnuts and bamboo shoots,
a little celery, an occasional onion. It smelled marvelous.
"So what about you?" she asked. "Your wife doesn't understand
you?"
He poured out wine, something chill and slightly greenish.
"She understands me just fine," he said. "She told me she'd
rather I take a lover than pester her for sex. Don't have to
tell me twice. But this time around I wasn't going to be
content with the missionary position in the dark in the middle
of the night."
She felt need stir and felt her answering blush. "I think
I could stand a little more this time," she said, "if you would
like."
He looked up from his plate, a slow smile spreading over
his broad face. "I think four sounds about right this time,"
he said.
Fear fluttered, tempering lust. "Yes, sir," she said.
As a matter of fact, it sounded just about right.
. . .
An antique mirror in a gilt frame, crammed full of vines
and leaves and little flowers, at once both clever and frightfully
overwrought. Period, surely, or a particularly accurate
reproduction. "Clever people, those Victorians," the proprietor
gushed. "Opulent, but ever practical."
"A time of contradictions," Darcy said. "On the surface
so careful of propriety, but beneath the surface everything
was different. There are hints it was not uncommon for them
to beat their wives."
"There may have been more to that than meets the eye,"
the proprietor said. "Women grew up being taught that only
bad girls enjoyed the conjugal act. They were so repressed
that when they married, many of them may have had trouble
responding normally. My own unproven theory is that we may
be witnessing rampant female masochism and mis-diagnosing
it as rampant male sadism. Many ladies may have welcomed the
excuse of being forced."
Darcy felt her own body's answering echoes of guilt and
lust. "Odd theory," she said. "Not easily proved or disproved."
"Did you want the mirror?" the proprietor asked.
"No thanks," she said. "Just looking." But she would
like to have seen it in the lamplight.
. . .
She set her camera on a tripod, took her clothes off,
set the timer, bent over the spanking frame and waited for
the flash. The instant print came out of the murky background
and slowly clarified. Oh my. Look how open she was in that
posture. How vulnerable. How the secret little sexual bits
peeked out from between her slightly parted thighs. This is
what he saw when she was bound and helpless. That and the
change of colors as the cane lashed her pale flesh. The thought
of a whipping was making her need to touch herself. Darcy
had always wondered why people made such a big deal about sex.
It was okay, perhaps, but seldom worth the trouble. Now she
masturbated several times a day, playing an inner fantasy of
being discovered. Scolded. Punished.
When her fun was over she was ashamed. But she left the
apparatus visible in her work room, no longer covering it
with a sheet.
. . .
She wore a white blouse and a short skirt for him,
wondering if he would take the hint, and carried a heavy
hair brush just to stack the deck. He took one look and played
along. "Has Darcy been a good girl?" he asked.
Her real childhood had been loveless and populated by
strangers, and punishment had meant loss of privileges, not
anything physical. Now she studied the carpet, rehearsing
her answer. "No, sir, I've been naughty. I touch myself,
even though I know you're going to spank me for doing it."
"Come here," he said. He took the hair brush from her
hand and led her to the kitchen. He pulled out a chair
and drew her down across his lap. he flipped the little skirt
up out of the way and slowly pulled her panties down. Her
crotch ground against his thigh. This was way more intimate
than being tied in a frame and caned. Way more intimate. Oh!
He started spanking. The bastard had a flick of the wrist
there at the last that added to both sting and ache. Victorian
teens would be spanked like this. Their parents were taught
it was their duty. Oh, it hurt and ached and she loved it
and she hated it and it made her wet. She moaned and wiggled
lewdly.
He picked her up and carried her into the bed room and
they made love face to face. But the lights were on, and
it wasn't the middle of the night. "If you wanted to come
over more than once a week, that would be okay," Darcy said,
surprised how shy she felt.
"Just so you know," he said, "I'm not going to leave my
wife."
Perish the thought. There were things she had to do.
A bit of him was yummy, a bit more might be better. Full time
might spoil it pretty quick.
. . .
She chose a large horizontal canvas and with light pencil
strokes planned out the major elements. The mantle on the
right with the kerosene lamp, the partial view of the table
on the left with its still life elements. The piano in the
central background, with the ornate mirror above it and its
embedded image. In the foreground, the piano bench. The
girl. She wondered about clothing. Time for some more research.
The spanking bench lurked near where she worked, never quite
out of mind.
. . .
"The Victorians didn't go out of their way to write much
about their underwear," the librarian said. "But an old Sears
catalog does wonders. This one's from 1896. Fashions weren't
changing very quickly when it came to undergarments. The
corset of course was a pure instrument of torture. But there
were no bras, nor panties as we know them. Everything they
wore underneath seems more alien than quaint."
As alien as how they thought, an attractive and repellent
mixture of bigotry and good intentions that turned out deeply
flawed yet very human. Darcy took out her notebook and opened
to a blank page, and began to sketch.
. . .
She was in a deep creative trance involving light and
roundness when she looked up and he was there. Reality
lurched briefly as she shifted context. "Get dressed," he
said. "I'm taking you out, remember?"
"Oh," she said, "yeah." She was still shifting gears.
"May I?" he asked. He came around to her side of the
canvas. She didn't like people viewing unfinished works,
but really she could refuse him nothing. "It's wonderful,"
he said.
"It's just a fragment. One corner half done, the rest
still just a concept. It will take half of forever and then
have no commercial value. But you've given me the freedom
not to care about such things. I can do the work I want."
"This will sell," he said. "Not all art lovers are
prudes. Now. Are you going to get dressed?"
A night away, a night with him. Of course. "If you'd
like me pert and saucy, we can go right now," she said. "If
you'd rather a dinner companion who is gentle and demur,
you'd better spank me first."
"Come here," he said.
She giggled and pretended to run away, horny, happy, and
very much alive.
. . .
"We are proud to offer you this stunning work by the
little known American artist Darcy Hamilton, who has taken
what could have been mere pornography and elevated it to art.
"The scene is nineteenth century, but the the technique
hearkens back to a far earlier time, when the goal of the
artist was true mastery rather than mere competence. The
three dimensionality of the work draws the viewer into the
scene. The still life elements are amazing, the use of light
and shadow lyrical, the subject matter arresting and enigmatic.
"On the right we have a fireplace, on whose mantle sits
the oil lamp whose soft yellow light is the only illumination.
At the far left is the corner of a table, its linen table
cloth fringed with lace. An antique silver goblet glows
warmly. A half-eaten apple looks delicious, the exposed
surface just barely browning from contact with the air. In
the central background is an upright piano, mahogany with
inlays of satinwood and rosewood, on which rests the almost
obligatory vase of flowers. Above it, a mirror reflects a
painting from the opposite wall, a romantic landscape dotted
with grazing sheep.
"In the foreground, the piano bench had been pulled out,
and a young woman sprawls across it. She wears a tight
constraining corset, but is otherwise naked. Her clothing
is in a pile nearby, underthings on top. The smooth expanse
of her lightly freckled rump is marred by three parallel
angry weals. The woman has been caned.
"Is this an errant daughter, punished for a clandestine
romance? A wife chastised for infidelity? Or are we merely
a witness to high drama rather than tragedy, soon to culminate
in copulation? We do not know, and frankly, the ambiguity is
part of this piece's quirky charm. It is what it is, but yet,
it is what we make it.
"_Lamplight_, by Darcy Hamilton. We will begin the
bidding at ten thousand dollars."
. . .
She was at loose ends between projects, and success had
only made it worse. She wondered if it had been a fluke. If
she could ever do that well again. It made her especially
grateful he was here. Perhaps his need could overwhelm her,
and burn away her funk. "I got a nice little note with the
check," she said. "The winning bidder is donating it to a
private all male club somewhere in the north of England. It
can be enjoyed by generations of perverts instead of only one.
That's almost as nice as getting paid."
"Twenty seven five," he said. "Even after taxes it's
enough to sustain you for a year. You're free to quit me if
you want."
Her head jerked up in panic. Was he sending her away?
"Don't be mean," she said. "It didn't take long at all before
what you do to me became much more than quid pro quo. It's
the high point of my week sometimes. I can't not play now,
any more than I could not work. I've become an addict."
He grinned. "It's been good for your art," he said.
"You've always been technically brilliant, but you used to
shy away from themes with any emotional content. It made
your work too cerebral. Mere exercise. Now you have grown
and it shows."
He meant it. He would not leave. Relief filled her.
She almost told him that she loved him, but she was superstitious
about the word, afraid it might drive him away. "I've been
so naughty," she said instead.
He kissed her cheek. "In a minute," he said. "First I
thought I'd tell you my own news. My wife has let the other
shoe drop. She's fallen in love with a woman and decided to
leave me to be with her. So you could live with me if you
would like."
Opportunity. Danger. Would their coming together become
less special if it were too commonplace? Would the everyday
overwhelm the spell and leave them jaded? "I'm not always
good company when I'm working," she said. "Too focused. Too
selfish."
"Me, too," he said.
She giggled, surprised by the rising tone of gladness in
the sound. "How's the light?" she asked.
Her lover smiled.
And it is beautiful.
Thank you John. This flowed so easily, it was like
the very loveliest dream.
Peace,
Mija
"Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around."
The Treehouse shall return!
Ooooooh, John, that was hot hot hot. I loved it! Made my thoughts turn
in a direction they hadn't in a while. <BG>
Jen
I am always amazed by the great quality of your writing. It's like opening a
gift when I see a now story post from you.
This was wonderful. I loved how you brought all the different elements
together and used her interest in Victorian life as a metaphor for the changes
in her own.
And, of course, being the romantic that I am, I was also happy to see them end
up together in the end ;)
Jodi
ILSA LASLOW
Thanks again. Pent.
And you've described the man of my dreams- he whacks, he canes, he
cooks <smiling>.
Michele
Brian
--
Switchy, enquiring, mature and a VIP....
dog...@bgserv.demon.co.uk
I second this! Wouldn't it be great to have a collection of John Benson's work
all in one place? I know I would love it!
Jodi
<I second this! Wouldn't it be great to have a collection of John Benson's
work
all in one place? I know I would love it!
>>
Um...well Uh.. I think there IS a collection of some of his work. At least I
thought that there was one... put out by Cf publications maybe? ( i could be
wrong)
Laura's Spanking Page, at http://www.goodkitty.com/spanking. ;>
Reply to this address; mail sent to the address in
From: will disappear into a black hole. :)
< Kess is right. There is a collection done a couple years
ago by CF. Laura's also has older works. And they and CF
are complimentary: there is no overlap. There's nothing really
recent.
Are they still in print John?
love kess
xoxo
serijules