4) Finally, and most egregiously, one week ago Friday, virtually all the residents of Hall A were discovered well after lights-out in freshman Erica Nottage’s room, making quite a ruckus. Upon entering I discovered Erica splayed on the bed, attired most shockingly and bound wrist and ankle to the head and footboard! Junior Cecile Morrow and sophomore Pandora Drew had stripped themselves bare and were applied with some fervency to young Erica’s body, Pandora administering body-slams to the poor girl’s face with her legs spread quite wide while Cecile caned her lace-pantied sex. All this occurred while the other residents of Hall A cheered the girls on.
Extensive interrogation brought out the fact that Erica’s roommate, freshman Veronica Wallop, had discovered Erica so appareled in anticipation of sneaking out for a date with a boy (an infraction that carries a penalty of immediate expulsion). She had summoned the other girls, who had wrestled the transgressing freshman to the bed and begun to administer their own brand of punishment. Antoinette, I don’t mean to shock you, but Erica was clad in just the barest of dresses that would have been considered exceedingly inappropriate had it adorned a worn-out whore in a Thailand brothel, and was so far beyond Birchwood’s dress code as to suggest that our young Erica had been replaced by some sort of doppelganger. Furthermore, the insufficiency of the girl’s undergarments in covering her underlips – not to mention her posterior, which was hidden (or shall I say “revealed”) by nothing more substantial than a fragrant scrap of dental floss – was so shocking as to elicit a gasp from my lips when I saw them up close – as did the fact that they were badly in need of a determined wringing-out.
Erica refused to admit that she’d dressed up for a date, regaling me instead with a fairy tale of how the other girls had forced her to dress up like this so they could “whore her out down by the waterfront.”
Unmoved by Erica’s improbable account I informed the freshman that if she wanted to make a slut of herself she could quite effectively do it without leaving Birchwood. Though Erica protested at first, she soon learned her lesson, discovering that a date with boys, in addition to being strictly against the rules, was wholly inadvisable. The other residents of Hall A were commended both for their apprehension of their wicked schoolmate and for their enthusiastic participation in her punishment (which took the remainder of the weekend, and then some).
How I wish I could end the story there, Antoinette! It was soon confessed to me at weekly panty inspection that the “official” account of things was not in any way accurate. This confession was elicited from Veronica upon discovery of a black lace garter belt – a garter belt! – in her panty drawer along with black fishnet stockings. Apparently Veronica had conspired with the other girls on the hall to overpower and dress up young Erica, whom they considered to be “too stuffy for her own good – or ours.” Though several girls had helped her smuggle in an array of lace garments for the forced transformation, Veronica had been unable to part with the garter belt and stockings, which she considered quite fetchingly sexy.
Since Erica’s account of things now appeared to be accurate, I had no choice but to reverse the previous state of affairs, requiring each of the participants in the scheme to return Erica’s lingual attentions to the wronged girl’s nether regions. Erica was quite eager to participate in this punishment in order to set right the state of affairs. In fact, as she was serviced she could be heard uttering language that was quite inappropriate for use during a disciplinary session at Birchwood. Needless to say, this indiscretion was corrected as soon as Erica’s recompense was completed – each girl at whom she had hurled an encouraging or demeaning expletive was invited to hurl the same back at her tenfold, and thereafter to administer a few swats to the potty-mouthed trollop’s well-used bottom.
As you can see, Ms Childress, there is little I can do to maintain discipline on Hall A. I am at quite a loss, finding myself as incapable of maintaining order as I was of behaving when I was a student here just a few short years ago. As you know, I was disciplined quite severely for indiscretions and oversights, and I think this account should establish that I’ve not learned my lesson yet. That is why I’ve submitted my application for Birchwood’s graduate program in Home Economics, with the humble aspiration that you’ll accept me as a candidate for student residence at Birchwood – preferably on Hall A. Clearly, Antoinette, I deserve it. My hope is that, given my catalog of the indefatigable sins of Hall A’s residents, you will take over the residential preceptorage of this incorrigible hall yourself. I’m quite hopeful that your firm hand, so much more experienced than mine (as I discovered many times when I was a resident on Hall A during my undergraduate studies) will render the otherwise inveterate tarts as obedient as possible, and produce the kind of young ladies of which Birchwood can be proud.
Miss Childress, I implore you to consider my application for residence on Hall A. In my mind, nothing else will correct my failings as a preceptor.
Sincerely,
Felicity Hamilton
Residential Preceptor
Carrigan Memorial Dormitory, Hall A
Birchwood Heights College for Young Women
Handwritten note at bottom:
Guided Tours
Jolan Sulinski
Lewis cautiously peered into the cup of thin, dark sauce and sniffed it. He shrugged, and in a single, smooth motion, he poured it over the pile of slender brown noodles set before him. The sauce flooded through the noodles and out from under the red lacquer box that was their home. Lewis twitched slightly as the cold sauce soaked through his trousers. His fellow travelers froze. Half of them tensed, ready to be chased out of the restaurant by a katana-wielding chef. The other half choked on suppressed laughter.
The Japanese said nothing, only blinked at the silly gaijin, and continued their meals. A waitress rushed over with a washcloth. May, the ever-nonplussed tour guide, offered Lewis her napkin. A flurry of apologies and reassurances in Japanese and English thickened the air.
“Mr Hoffman,” said May, “Dip the soba in the sauce next time. One mouthful at a time.”
“Yes. Well. Maybe next time we should just tie my hands behind my back and let me bury my face into whatever is put before me. It will be only slightly less embarrassing.”
May smiled and touched his arm. This small touch managed to wipe his brain of the incident entirely. He would’ve joyfully rammed edamame up his nose if only she would consent to keep her fingers there.
Lewis had not traveled much, even though he was a cartographer by trade. He made maps; he didn’t use them to go places. Leave the data collection to the graduate students. Why should he get his hands dirty? He did the same thing day in and day out, each week a replica of the one before it. Get up, go to work, eat a microwave burrito and fall asleep in front of the TV. His life was smooth and precise, as unwavering as the lines of latitude.
The inspiration for this trip had come in December. One day, Lewis went to the bank and found that all the doors were locked. This was strange for a Wednesday. He stared hard at his reflection in the glass, and saw himself surrounded by piles of white. He turned around and noticed, for the first time, that everything was covered in snow. He checked the calendar function on his watch and saw that it was the 25th. Lewis couldn’t recall autumn. He felt ill.
Lewis had some vacation time to use. He decided to go someplace exotic, to shock himself out of his stagnation, but knew he wouldn’t get very far on his own. Still, he had mixed feelings about taking a tour. He didn’t want to get stuck following a stiff itinerary with whiney retirees wearing their pants hiked up to their tits.
After a brief search, he got a good deal on a package to Japan with a small local company called Chawan Tours. It offered modest-sized groups, a relaxed pace, and plenty of time to wander on one’s own, just what he was looking for. Japan! The other side of the world! Everything would be different there: the food, the language, the architecture, and with any luck, himself.
Lewis’s expectations of the tour company were s
urpassed. The guide, May, was an inspiration. It was as if she had just stepped out of a pulp fiction paperback, the brilliant and daring heroine in a crisp white shirt that never stained and khakis that never wrinkled. One got the impression that she could go anywhere and do anything. As a guide, she had a gentle touch. She was happy to let her charges make their own discoveries and their own mistakes. She stood calmly aside and assisted only if asked, or if, presumably, the situation was life threatening. One could easily imagine her inside of a ramen shop calmly sipping beer while Godzilla gobbled up busloads of salarymen a block away.
Lewis took a liking to her immediately. She was cool and self-possessed. She was quiet, too, which lent an air of mystery to her. Lewis developed an astounding crush on her over the course of the tour. Every night he dreamt of her. He shut his eyes and she wrestled crocodiles, scaled mountains, drank whiskey straight from the bottle, took him to bed.
Lewis awoke every morning with an erection that taunted him, for these were dreams and would remain so. He was shy. He was smart and happy-go-lucky, too, but these qualities tended to fail him just when needed most. He became clumsy both linguistically and kinetically before the object of his desire. Awkwardness is generally not something women look for in a man, he found.
But this day, in the restaurant, the gods were in a good mood, and they smiled upon Lewis as he stood there with wet pants. Sometimes, making an ass of oneself does not destroy one’s chances for romance. Rather, it is one’s opportunity to prove how charming and gracious one can be under such circumstances. And so Lewis did not lose love but encourage it by the Soba Incident.
The next day the group had some free time in the afternoon and split up. Lewis stood on the street as usual wrestling with an armful of tourist brochures, all half unfolded, as if he was inventing a new and particularly ugly school of origami.
“Mr Hoffman.”
Lewis started. May was beside him. She had taken a special interest in him, or so Lewis imagined. Maybe it was just that obvious he needed more guidance than the others, lest he walk grinning into an open manhole.
“I could show you a garden of such intoxicating beauty that you will never want to leave it. Unless, of course, you have other plans?”
He followed her. At first, they didn’t talk much. May apparently had no need to speak, and Lewis was so busy trying to think of something clever to say that he was rendered completely dumb. This did not escape May’s notice, and she began to ask him a series of questions. “Where are you from? Where do you work? What do you think of the beer here?” The gentle small talk put Lewis at ease. How else can a friendship begin? But Lewis could not wait to get past these preliminaries. He wanted to know why she was so quiet and so cool. He wanted to know what she dreamt about. He wanted to know what she looked like when she was asleep. He wanted to know what she looked like in the shower. He wanted to make her laugh. He wanted to trade secrets with her. The world seemed different when May was near. It engaged him, he saw that he was a part of it, not some disembodied imp amusing himself by reducing it to two dimensions, and for once, he wanted to see more of it.
They left the crowded sidewalks behind and followed a path through a quiet wood. Fallen needles and moss absorbed all sound. They reached a tiny gatehouse, and May gave the monk inside some coins. He handed her a brochure, which she passed over to Lewis.
The temple grounds were built on a narrow strip of land ascending the side of a mountain. Switchbacks cut through a meticulous garden with forest on either side. It was quiet and peaceful. How could such a place exist in this world? It was heartachingly beautiful.
They reached the uppermost boundary of the grounds and sat on a worn stone bench. The view overlooked the city and the mountains on the other side of it.
“I hope,” said May, “that there is a place like this inside each one of us. And I hope we each find it.” She turned her eyes from the distant peaks and looked at Lewis, who met her gaze. He had been transfixed by her, not the view.
Those eyes. So much to explore in those lovely dark eyes. “I hope so, too,” he said softly. She smiled.
They descended. Along the way, May told him the names of the plants and pointed out the techniques that brought out certain effects in the garden. “I learn something new every time I come here,” she said.
For the rest of the tour, whenever the group had free time, Lewis went with May. She took care to instruct him, and she intervened whenever he was about to do something that would give the Japanese a hilarious story to tell their friends over tea. This was fairly often.
“You’re a good man, Mr Hoffman,” May said. “You just need a little guidance.”
On the last day, May escorted everyone to the airport. She was not returning with them to the US, but was off to see what sort of trouble she could get into in Southeast Asia before making her way back to the States.
The group had a farewell drink together. When the boarding call for their flight came over the intercom, Lewis tried to say something to May and failed. I had a wonderful time, thanks to you, he thought. “Um, er, I’ll be going now,” is what he said. He followed this with a series of unintelligible gurgling noises, the music of his nervous self-loathing. He had gone on this trip in the first place to wake himself up with an unapologetic slap, and here he was at the end of it, the same clumsy idiot who began it.
He fumbled with his bag as a language he had never heard before poured out of his mouth. He wondered if perhaps aliens had abducted him when he was a child, and the long-dormant brain-implant of an extra-terrestrial tongue was only now becoming active. He looked into May’s dark eyes, and his heart crumbled.
May grabbed him by the collar and kissed him. Lewis’ command of English was restored, and they agreed to meet each other in their native land. Lewis could have ripped up his plane ticket and soared home on love.
Back in the States, a romance swiftly blossomed between Lewis and May. They took great pleasure in unraveling one another’s mysteries, and they found that they complemented one another. Lewis borrowed May’s sense of adventure, and she borrowed his calm. She was fascinated by his lack of restlessness, something she had never known.
Lewis still dreamt about May, but his morning erections no longer taunted him, because he got to go to bed with her in real life, too. She was a passionate and generous lover. Lewis felt very lucky. And very awkward. Shyness, it would seem, had invited itself along for a ménage à trois.
“Is there anything you’d like to try?” she asked him. “What can I do for you? I’ll do anything.”
This was hard for Lewis. There he was in bed with an amazing woman who had put herself at his command. He imagined all the jerks who had picked on him through school, and the women who wouldn’t even give him the time of day. If only they could see him now. He was so happy. And so in love. And so paralyzed.
He couldn’t think of a single thing to say. A thousand dreams and fantasies lingered in his brain and pestered him at all hours when he was apart from May. His penis felt harder than it had ever been before. Lewis was certain that when he finally came to orgasm, his entire flushed body would come out of his cock, and there would be nothing left of him. He craved this annihilation, and his body screamed at him to say something, anything!
May was silent. She caressed his face. Lewis could barely make out her mouth in the darkness. Was she frowning? He had to speak up.
“I don’t know,” he creaked. Oh, charming, Lewis. You’ll be shown the way out now.
“Let’s make it multiple choice, then. I could: a, suck your dick; b, fuck you; or c, give you a hand job.”
Lewis mustered up the courage for a weakly whispered “b”, and she happily rolled a condom down his cock, climbed on top of him and fucked away.
He loved to have her on top. He didn’t have to worry about his performance, his inexperience, or his shyness. She fucked and he responded. He could open his eyes and see how pretty she was, reach up and touch her soft breasts, watch them swinging and bou
ncing as she went to work on him. It felt good. Really, really good.
This sort of positive conditioning worked wonders over time. Eventually, she could ask him what he wanted and he’d answer. At first, it was always the same thing, but later he branched out a bit. He became more comfortable using dirty words. Being able to say, “I want to come between your tits,” was reliably rewarded, and while the words slowly lost their shame, they never lost their erotic power.
One night. May confessed to him that she had never really enjoyed being on top before she met him. She used to feel too vulnerable, ungraceful. She trusted him and felt so safe with him, she explained. He seemed to like it so much, and she was eager to please him. Lewis was incredulous. How could May ever lack confidence in anything? It was a sweet confession. Things were going well, and Lewis was very happy.
It was true: things were going well – for Lewis. But having lunch in a restaurant one day, when May told him that she was thinking of breaking up with him, it occurred to him that he hadn’t really considered if she was happy.
“You don’t know my favorite position, do you? You never ask me how I want to be pleased. You never give me multiple choice. Why is it always up to me to initiate sex and make all the decisions in bed? I don’t know if we’d ever fuck if I didn’t shanghai you into bed. We probably wouldn’t be sitting here at all if I hadn’t lost my patience and kissed you in the airport bar. Don’t you find me attractive?”
Lewis sat there stupefied and ashamed, gazing into his soup. The icy grip of panic tightened around his throat. She thinks I’m a terrible lover and she’s going to leave me! He thought of all the times he had been mysteriously, coldly dumped, without explanation and without ceremony. Well, truthfully, he had only dated a handful of women, and he hadn’t made it into the sack with most of them. No, he could quite successfully repel women without going to bed with them, thank you very much.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 5 Page 31