Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 13:53:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: hugh questorius <questorius@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: The Humiliator. Chapter 25. Casual Cruelty
Chapter Twentyfive
CASUAL CRUELTY
One morning he came back from the bathroom and reached as usual for the
strap hung over the bedhead to give me my morning beating, but suddenly
checked himself, as if on impulse, and said "No. Let's use something
different for a change." He untethered me and told me to go up to the
punishment room and bring him "something to thrash you with."
I was aghast, knowing the huge variety of equipment up there, and asked him
what he wanted. He shrugged as if it were a matter of no great consequence
and told me to choose.
It was a winter morning and still dark so I switched on the stair light and
went up. The landing light shone through the doorway into that grim attic,
illuminating the rack of implements on the opposite wall. It was if they
were waiting for me. It was freezing cold in the big, bare space under the
rafters and my naked body was soon shuddering, so a quick decision was
needed. Just grab the first thing and get back, was the obvious strategy.
Well no, not the first thing because that was a length of heavy chain -
obviously unsuitable. The next was a light whip with three tails of soft,
thin leather. Ideal! But was it? That would be lighter than the regular
strap. Would he accept it, and even if he did, would he not despise me for
taking such an easy option?
Next came two canes; the heavy "Big Bruiser" and the lighter but much
longer "Slasher". I had experience of both and had no wish to renew the
acquaintance. Then, on the next two nails, hung the thin flex which stung
like hell and the three core, rubber-sheathed electric cable. No, not
that! Then what? The plaited quirt?, the knotted sash-cord?, the
dog-whip?, the fireman's belt?, "Upper School" cane?, "Lower School"?, the
paddle?, the tawse?, the webbing strap?, come on, choose for God's sake!
He's waiting and I'm freezing. I stood there in an agony of indecision,
dithering and teeth chattering. I felt angry with him that he should have
put me in this impossible position of having to choose a rod for my own
back - and suddenly I realised that his apparently spontaneous and casual
decision was very probably neither spontaneous nor casual but a carefully
devised ploy to humiliate me by making me choose my own scourge.
In a rage at his manipulative cruelty, I thrust out my hand, grabbed at
random and turned out into the light on the landing. There I stopped dead
as I saw what was in my hand. It was a tawse and I hated tawses, but this
was no ordinary tawse. Basically it was the standard design, a straight,
broad blade, slit into four fingers and shaped at one end for grip, but
that was the only thing that was standard. For a start it was not leather
but a very dense, very heavy rubber-like material. Neoprene perhaps? It
was also slightly wider and slightly longer than the traditional Scottish
schoolroom model - only slightly, but with material of this weight, an
extra half inch of width and one inch of length made an enormous
difference. But worst of all was that each of the four fingers was fitted
near the tip with a "fingernail" of a steel rivet hammered out flat to
nearly half an inch in diameter for extra weight, extra impact! This was a
sick device designed not just to inflict punishment but to inflict injury!
My mind flashed back to my very first visit when I had been
court-martialled and sentenced to be tied to a bed blinfold, with my legs
splayed, to have my inner thighs flogged with three different implements.
I remembered so vividly my master instructing the Corporal to start with
the tawse and then saying "No, not that one. I don't think he's ready for
that yet." This thing I now held in my hands must have been that very one,
rejected as too cruel even for formal punishment, so there was no way it
could be used for a casual morning beating.
Iturned back to the attic to select some more suitable implement - any
other implement, but even as I did so, I heard the Brig bellow up the
stairs "What the hell are you doing up there, boy?" In a panic that I had
displeased him, I ran immediately down to the bedroom and sheepishly held
out the appalling instrument of torture to him. "Jesus!" he exclaimed when
he saw it. He took it from me and threw it down on the bed, saying he
didn't think that was suitable for morning use. He reached again for the
bed-head strap, and I felt crushed by failure to do his bidding and find
him a new toy to play with, but I need not have worried for he had a
different solution.
He gripped the strap at either end and snapped it out tight and horizontal
in front of my face in a gesture clearly meant to say "Watch this, scum."
Then, holding one end still, he slowly twisted the other end round and
round till it would twist no more. He brought the two ends smartly
together so that they spun round on themselves in a twist. He now had a
thrash implement only half the length of the strap and therefore less
painful, but twice the thickness, twice the weight and therefore more
brutal. These two factors probably cancelled each other out, but of course
there was a third factor which over-rode the others - the twist. In normal
use the strap tended to impact flat, but this short, thick, twisted version
could only deliver a mixture of flat and edge impacts. And to be hit
edge-on by that double thickness of leather would be no joke.
Normally, as I have said, a morning beating was a fairly token affair of
two or three lashes. That morning though, he gave me eight! Six on my
arse, two across my shoulders. All of them hard. I mean really hard! And
Christ they hurt! The bruising was so bad it still showed five weeks later
when I returned for my next visit and he even photographed the marks for
his records, clearly rather pleased with his handiwork, the bastard.
But again, I had learned another lesson - when he sent me on an errand, he
expected it to be carried out at the double! It didn't pay to keep The
Humiliator waiting!