The Academy

by Laura Antoniou

  “Now, now, now—” the strong woman said, wagging a finger under Doris’ nose and smiling broadly, “— it’s Pa, remember? That’s Ma, I’m Pa, and you know Sonny already—”

  “Spunk,” he said from the doorway with a teenager’s practiced disgust and embarrassment. “It’s Spunk, remember?” But it was done with a drag queen’s performance, a routine of broad gestures and winks at the audience.

  “Kids these days,” Pa said, playfully putting Spunk in a headlock and wrinkling his Mohawk. “To me you’ll always be that little snot-nose kid I picked up at the bus station.”

  Dazed, glazed, floating a few inches off the floor, Doris felt a firm hand on her shoulder. “Are you hungry, dear? I bet you are—what with nothing but airplane food all the way here. What would you like? I can cook just about anything,” Ma said, his voice like a slowly running brook: musical and shimmering. It was a voice, Doris realized, she could listen to for hours.

  Was she hungry? It was a strange feeling, to be asked rather than told. She had expected to be asked to serve, and then serve herself. But to be asked was just as staggering as the strange environment. She thought, probably longer than she would have normally, before deciding that she actually wasn’t. “I’m actually fine, Sir—I mean, ‘Ma.’ Thank you.”

  “What a precious child,” Ma said, beaming with delight. “So polite... and so sexy.”

  “She is at that,” Pa said, hooking her thumbs into the top of her chaps. “Can I pick ’em or can I pick ’em!”

  “I’ll say,” winked and leered Spunk, pushing past Pa and moving toward the sink. “She’ll fit right in.”

  “You’ll have lots of fun here, dear,” Ma said, rising from her stool to step towards Spunk. “We all get along famously.” With the practice reactions of people who’ve lived together too long, Spunk opened a cabinet, pulled out a stainless steel container, and wolfishly started eating the... granola?... he found there, till Ma walked over to him and calmly pulled the container out of his hands, put the lid back on, closed the cabinet, and said, “You’ll spoil your dinner.”

  “I... I’m sure I will, Ma,” Doris said, watching them, wondering if she ever would, really.

  “I know we will, kid: we’re one helluva fun family. You could say that we get along... real well.” Pa might have looked like a leather man but her—his? tone and gestures were a broad parody of a leering heterosexual male. There was something there, something in the playful absurdity of the act that made Doris relax a bit, and smile. It was like a bit of proof that this was all a game, a kind of act that simply overlaid the game she knew too well.

  As if reading her mind, Pa said: “It’s real simple, kid. I’m the head of the household: the fucking breadwinner, the man of the house. Ma here is the lady of the house. She stays home and does the ironing or whatever she does all day.”

  “I cook, I clean, and I write mystery novels,” Ma said, smiling as he hugged a widely-grinning Spunk.

  “And that good-for-nothing is our sort-of son. We call him Sonny just to piss him off.”

  “Which they do—all the time,” Spunk said, smiling.

  “We might not look it but we are something you’re used to—just a little different packaging. You’ll get the hang of it.”

  Confused, but more at ease, Doris nodded.

  “Fer instance—get over here you worthless lay-about,” Pa said sharply to Spunk.

  “So what the fuck do you want... dad,” Spunk said, sarcastically, disengaging himself from the tender embrace of Ma and walking over to the stern visage of Pa.

  “Now didn’t I tell you that you were supposed to pick up... Doris?” The last of what he said died in a question. “Got to change that name. I’m sure we’ll think of something. Weren’t you supposed to just pick up Doris and bring her here.”

  “Yeah, Pa, that’s what you said.”

  “Well, sport, if these superbly trained nostrils are right then I think you did more than just pick this poor young thing up—” Quicker than she’d seen anyone move before, Pa had Spunk’s still-gloved left hand in his own and brought it sharply up in front of his nose.

  Spunk, in response, hissed in delight at the sudden movement and the domination, sagging slightly to his knees.

  Pa gave a long sniff of Spunk’s glove. “Definitely did more than just pick her up, I’d say—isn’t that right, Sport?”

  In delighted submission, Spunk whined: “Yes, Pa.”

  “You’ve been a bad boy.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “What have you been?”

  “A bad boy, Sir.”

  “I think we’ll have to punish you, Sport. Something, I think, appropriate—right, Ma?” Pa said, dripping power and strength, pure masculine dominance.

  “I think a little discipline would do wonders for his whole attitude on life,” said Ma, in his musical tones.

  “But not tonight. Oh, no, I want you to have to wait till later on—to really think about how you’ve misbehaved. Then, maybe, we’ll teach you a nice, firm, lesson.”

  Spunk caved in even more, dropping his eyes and whimpering like a punk puppy. “I’m sorry, Pa. It won’t happen again.”

  “What’s the worst thing to do to a masochist?” Pa said, a stage-whisper in Doris’s ear.

  “Make them go to bed without any... supper,” chimed Ma in response, behind her.

  “Now you, young lady—” Pa said, straightening and putting her male-echoing voice down at Doris.

  “Yes, Sir? I—I, mean, ‘Pa?’” Doris said, stumbling into the familiar dynamic, but with the unfamiliar terms.

  “You’re getting it,” Ma said softly from behind her.

  “I don’t think Sonny was the only one completely guilty in this. Am I right?”

  “Yes, Pa,” Doris said, eyes downcast, focused on her polished black boots. A slave by any other name: she hoped, immediately, that one day in the future she’d be able to polish them. And she was terribly glad that Max Bloom had carefully instructed her in the ability to tell the difference between being punished because you did something wrong and being punished because Master wishes to play the game. It was delicious to play the game.

  “I know you’ve been a very bad girl, a real slutty girl. I do believe, Ma, that we’re going to have to punish this slut—to show her the error of her ways.”

  “It’s for her own good,” Ma said, laughter and smiles in his voice.

  “Come on now, slut,” Pa said, bending down to look up into Doris’s downcast eyes, “time to face the music.” Hooking a finger in the top of Doris’s blue suit, she gently tugged her towards the Japanese front room. “Come along, slut.”

  Stunned, Doris did. Emotions played around her mind, dazzling her vision: she was Slave Doris, tingling with anticipation of what her new Masters might have use of her, already feeling the familiar sensation of desire flooding her body. But she was also Just Plain Doris—shocked and scared, not knowing how to feel, how to act, and waiting for the bad things of “family” to start.

  The whole gang of them, the whole... (deep breath Doris) “family” walked into the oriental austerity of the front room. Spunk sat on a little black cushion, with his back to an immaculate screen. Ma went over to one of the low cabinets and, with the grace and perfect motions of a geisha or a samurai, bent down and began to remove and display an assortment of objects.

  Pa, who still had her finger tucked into her suit, led her into the middle of the room. “I think you’re gonna enjoy this, you nasty little girl. It’s punishment, true, but something tells me that this is not going to be all that punishing—” she said, smiles in her words, play in her words, but, still, the firm hand of a Master.

  “I want you to look over at what Ma is laying out there. Tell me what you see,” Pa said, turning her head gently with one finger.

  Beautifully polished ocher, fine strips of butter-soft black leather. Even from where she stood the workmanship and power was evident. “A whip.”

  Coils and coils of it
, dyed midnight black so as to be not so much lengths as a great corded cloud. “Rope.”

  Hard and long, a curved scimitar that would have been ridiculous for its dimensions if not for its fine, sculpted workmanship. “A dildo.”

  “You have an assignment... Doris (we have to do something about that name). As you are punished, as you are used and abused I want you to think of one thing—” Pa said, leaning close, running a steel-firm finger down the side of her cheek and down into the narrow valley of the suit Doris remarkably still wore. “—what we should do to Spunk for his punishment.”

  “Hey—” Spunk protested, humor dancing in his outrage.

  “Do you understand me, slut?”

  “Yes, Pa.”

  “Good—now get rid of this ridiculous outfit and show us all what we paid good, hard money for.”

  She was Doris the Slave and her Master—Pa?—had ordered her to strip. So she did. The jacket first: the scratchy, uncomfortable fabric slipping off her arms and shoulders. Free, she briefly wondered what she should do with it (on the floor? folded or dropped?) when Ma appeared at her side and gently took it from her, saying, “I’ll put it away so it won’t get wrinkled.”

  Then her shoes (ugly, uncomfortable things), and her stockings (Bloom had sent her in garters, a little gift to her new Master)—rolling them down and again handing them to Ma.

  Then her blouse, the finer material sliding over her arms, dusting them with gentle goose bumps. The skirt was next—since she was a narrow, slim woman it was a quick, short trip: past her supple thighs, past her firm (“Exercise is important to maintain property” Bloom had said) ass, and down to the floor. Ma elegantly descended and offered her a supportive hand as she stepped out of it, then took them away as well.

  In bra and panties she stood. Her pause wasn’t long, but Pa said: “All of them.”

  All of them—bra unhooked and gone the way of the rest of her clothes. Panties, dainty and fringed, over those same thighs, that same tight ass. Naked, she stood before Pa—who looked at her with cool appraisal, before Ma—who looked at her with an artist’s refined vision, and Spunk—who smiled and licked his lips.

  “Ma, Sonny, I do think we’ve got ourselves a winner,” Pa said.

  From somewhere behind one of the glowing white screens, Ma produced an elegantly formed bench. The top was smoothly polished leather and—again—Doris found herself wishing that she would be allowed to polish it.

  “Can you guess which one these wonderful objects you get to experience first?” Pa said, running a firm finger across the polished leather.

  Across the room, Spunk mouthed “Dil-do.”

  “The dildo, Pa?” Doris said, keeping her eyes lowered from Pa’s burning gaze.

  “Nope! Dead wrong—and just for that you get twenty extra strokes,” Pa said, patting the top of the bench. “Lean over and get yourself ready.”

  “And you,” Doris heard Pa say to Spunk as she leaned over the bench and gripped the lower ends to balance yourself, “you’d better fucking behave yourself—remember, she gets to name your punishment when this is over.”

  “Oh, fuck—” she heard Spunk say, a (mock) painful revelation in his words.

  “This is a simple game—one, I think, you’ll enjoy,” Pa said, bending down to whisper in her ear. “It’s very simple. I’m going to whip you. You’re going to tell me, when I ask, how many times you’ve been whipped. Get it right and you get one of Ma’s delicious flans. Get it wrong... and you get twenty more strokes.”

  “Yes, Pa,” Doris said, already feeling the delicious pre-warmth spread through her. Like a warm blanket, the knowledge that she was where she was, where she wanted to be, fell over her. Family... San Francisco... retreated till it was just her, Slave Doris, and her Masters. It was good. Very, very good.

  A firm finger traced the shape of her ass. “Very lovely—” said Pa.

  “Quite spectacular”: The music of Ma.

  “Fucking ‘A’”: The boyish tones of Spunk.

  Then: the first impact. More of a kiss than a strike, the smooth leather of the whip glided over her thighs, up and off her ass, setting a gentle gust of warm room air tumbling over her back. Almost unconsciously, she thought, one.

  Then another, and she felt the familiar warmth spread up and through her ass, touching, but not burning, her cunt. After so much strangeness, it was welcome familiarity—something she was trained to receive, loved to receive. It wasn’t a strange house anymore with strange people who might or might not be her new masters, in a city that conjured bad memories—rather, she was a Slave and she was being punished.

  Ten, eleven, twelve, more—the strokes slowly becoming more intense, progressively heavier. The warmth, the gentle radiance from her ass boiled down into her cunt and she felt herself grow expectedly wet. The tease, the fluttering hint of excitement became even more real, a glow from a rising sun.

  Doris felt each stroke as a fleshy surge up from her ass, along her back, and into her shoulders—and down, naturally, into the smoldering cauldron of her cunt.

  Twenty, twenty... one, twenty-two, twenty... three, twenty-four?

  Stroke, stroke, stroke—impact, impact, impact. Maybe, somewhere in that dim and distant land that was her first leaning over the bench, the whip might have seemed like pain, could have been called something akin to discomfort, but as they progressed and drum-beat into her, the sensations had evolved and moved. Now it wasn’t anything but a thunderous, rhythmic bliss that moved through her body: waves, crests, surges, rolls... they rocked from her ass to her cunt (wet, very wet) and through the rest of her body.

  Doris, the Slave, felt good.

  Somewhere very far away, maybe from New York (since she was in that mythical land called San Francisco) a woman with a very butch—gravel and thunder—voice said: “How many, slut?”

  The voice was asking for something—something Doris knew was important but didn’t know how to respond. A body orgasm was hiding close by, too close to allow her mind to function as anything but as a receiver of firm pleasure. Numbers? The concept tasted familiar but the meaning was flushed away. She didn’t know how many, hadn’t a clue, but she did know one thing: she wanted more.

  “I...” she managed to say, breathing heavily, “... ten, Si—I mean, Pa.”

  Thunder and gravel: “Wrong-on, slut! Yeah, like we had any idea that you’d get it right—or want to get it right.”

  She heard someone she thought might be Spunk say, “Yeah, right.”

  She heard someone she thought might be Ma say, “Isn’t that just so precious!”

  Then she heard someone she thought might be Pa say, “I guess the little slut should get some more.”

  Then she did. The first might have been a leather rainfall on her ass, vibrations into her cunt, but the next series was different: simple rain turning to powerful storm.

  The body come that was coming, in sight but undefined, was suddenly clear and close—a quaking, epileptic orgasm that Doris reached out for, touched (shiver, shiver!), and tried to bring into herself.

  Then it stopped—and it was all Doris could to not to complain, to open her mouth, to speak.

  Pa spoke first: “Not yet, slut. Don’t be greedy your first night at home.”

  That word. That bad word reached down into her like bucket of ice water. “Sorry, Pa. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry your sweet little head about it,” Ma said, his musical voice close, his breath on her back. “You’ll have your treat before the night is over. Now stand up, dear—”

  Doris did, her head swimming with redirected blood. Ma looked at her, an artist gazing for the first time at a blank canvas. In his pale hands was the length of dyed rope.

  Pa said. “Ma’s real body is thin, long, black, and very, very strong. She’s going to make love to you now.”

  Then, magically, that’s just what Ma did. At first it was a confusing dance, full of strange steps and odd movements: loops mysteriously appearing and vanishing over and
around her body. She kept waiting for knots... and waiting and waiting... but none seemed to appear. The rope was, literally, a thing alive: an extension of Ma’s self, a kind of hand, arm, finger around her arms, waist, thighs, chest, tits, between her legs, and between her lips. Just as she expected knots, she also expected—and didn’t get—the focused restriction of other forms of bondage. Yes, it was tight. Yes, it was firm. But the pressure was so elegantly distributed over her body that she couldn’t really say where the points really were—the sensations blurred into just a general firmness: arms, chest, tits, cunt, legs... she was caught in an elaborate black web, a network of no-knots, tying her into artistic immobility.

  Then Doris, Slave Doris, was flying. How else to describe it? One moment she was bound by coils and beautifully stylish contortions of nothing but simple rope and the next she was suspended. After the whipping, and because of the rope, her position was vague. She suspected she was standing, one leg forward, one leg back—with hands over her head and laced together with a ladder of simple coils. She had heard of the art of Japanese bondage and had even seen some examples in some magazines she’d masturbated over—long before she’d heard of the Marketplace, or become the Slave she loved to be—but she had no idea that it could be... like that: like flying. Doris was a butterfly—a beautiful creation of black rope and meticulous talent.

  She was somewhere else—not the same place Pa’s flogger had brought her, but somewhere else entirely. Ma had brought her somewhere more... supported. She flew, yes, but it wasn’t a kind of dreamlike flight. There, caught in his supportive web, Doris was soaring on thin black wings.

  Of course, she realized—in a coolly rational part of her mind that was, surprisingly, able to make this observation—having the rope be a throbbing pressure between her slick lips and a strategic knot placed just where it would tap (a quaking heartbeat in her cunt) with every movement she made, every breath she took, could have been a large part of her trip, her flight.

  “Beautiful,” said someone who could have been Ma.

  “Fucking ’A” said someone who could have been Pa.