el tercer ojo

Seeing What I Want to See: Advent Blog Day 20

Two weeks ago, give or take,  Kaelah posted a question about Spanking Porn: On Compartmentalization, musing about the differences between her own and Ludwig's experience with spanking videos with elements they don't like and wondering if it has to do with the differences between their INTJ and INFJ personalities. (For more on what these types are, see my post on Myers Briggs types. 

I'm good at overlooking things that I don't want to see.  Or maybe it's that I see what I think should be there rather than what is.  Paul has pointed out that this makes me a terrible editor. I read what should be there or what I want to be there rather than what is. While I don't watch very much spanking porn as I'm not a very visual person, it definitely holds true in spanking stories.  In fact, one of the biggest surprises I ever had was when I re-read The Reckoning, which was my pre-internet favorite spanking book, some ten years after my earlier readings of it.  I remembered it as not having sex or much reference to it in it, something which added to its attraction for me.  But when I re-read it, I found all the stories ended with the M/F pair heading toward sex.  

That's not to say stories shouldn't end with sex, of course, but the fact that I had read past it to such a degree I didn't remember it being there at all still surprises me as I'd probably read some of the stories in this book thirty times or more.  My own Myers Briggs type is INFP, lending support to Kaelah's hypothesis that NFs are more able to naturally compartmentalize or look past the things they don't like in a film or story than NTs.  That said, the sample size we're discussing here is obviously quite small. How is it for you? Do you look past the things that aren't right for your kink or does their presence damage the fantasy?

Advent bloggers:

padme & Anakin - Journey to the Darkside

Marie - Life, Lemons & Spanking

EmmaEnchanted - This Kinky Life

Quai  -  Spanking Discussion

Poppy St. Vincent - Poppy's Submissions

Sharon - The Evolution of a Pin-Up Model

Tiger - Innermost Me 

Indy - Not So Submissive

 

Fiction: Ghost Girl

[Today, as I joked on Twitter that I'd taken money out of Paul's account for the first time today and was a "kept woman."  Serenity reminded me of a story I wrote about this some ten years ago. As I told her, my fantasies about being kept have always been dark ones. This one was inspired by a short story by Joyce Carol Oates. Please don't reproduce it without permission. ]

Ghost Girl
by Mija

Surrender.

There the relationship began. They'd met on-line and chatted for weeks, at times bouncing dozens of emails a day back and forth. As they talked, the two discovered mutual friends and so much in common. Lindsey had been around the scene for a year, not a regular player but hardly a newbie. Karl wasn't new either, though Lindsey was his first real-life partner. Long before he could tell her how much he cared he couldn't imagine ever being with anyone else. Her voice over the phone made his breath catch.

When the two finally met it was electric - their voices more shattering in the small cafe then their words were on-line or across the phone wires. When Lindsey looked back now she could remember shivering as his hand skimmed her skin. The scenes too came naturally, and felt more serious than Lindsey had ever felt with anyone before. She lifted her bottom to meet his hand, yearning for burning physical pain.

But Karl worried about hurting her. She comforted him as he nearly wept in self-loathing at the sight of bruises marking her legs and bottom. Lindsey embraced Karl and urged him to trace his fingers over the hot, reddened and discolored skin.

"I like wearing your marks," she told him, looking into his eyes, her face open to his. "It makes me feel like I belong to someone. To you." A feeling like feathers stirred next to her heart.

"And you want that? To belong to me?" he asked, fingers barely touching her skin, making her tremble. His voice was hardly a whisper.

Her eyes filled with tears. Always, Lindsey had wanted that as long as she could remember. The desire felt so great she could only nod her answer and marvel at the brightness of his stare, the glow of his eyes. He desired her, wanted her. How lucky!

He raised his hand and brought it down hard on her lower thigh, leaving a mark the shape of his palm. She shuddered, trying not to cry out from the sting. He bent and gently kissed the edges of the mark, before raising his hand and striking the same spot again.

"I've marked you. Now you belong to me."

Lindsey marvelled at the yearning in his voice.

"Yes," she replied, "I'm yours."

He kissed the marks again before striking her other thigh. Lindsey moaned softly. Karl was such a very gentle man, after all.

La Llorona

The infamous tale of La Llorona (translates as "The Wailing Woman") is a classic of Chicana feminism. The tales date back to 16th century Mexico where, some believe, several Indian women murdered their children by drowning them and then committed suicide rather than allow the children's Spanish fathers to take the children away to Spain.

The legend was kept alive by oral tradition, explaining the many versions. In each variation lies the basic Medea story of a woman ridding herself of her own children by drowning them in a body of water, usually a river, and then becoming a phantom who snatches the unwary (usually children) walking beside a body of water.

I've been told that all Chicana writers eventually tell a La Llorona story. So I guess this one is mine.  I wrote it some years ago for soc.sexuality.spanking short story contest.

La Llorona - The Wailing Woman

"Es muy peligroso Tito!"

"La Llorona drowned her own children! She'll snatch you away!"

"No soy un ninito! Ustedes can't scare me!"

Saying that, Tito ran to his room, slamming the door.

Tito frowned whenever La Llorona was mentioned. When he was younger and still afraid of the dark, stories of the crying woman dressed in flowing white frightened him to nightmares. Now twelve, Tito no longer believed the child-snatching tales. Still, his heart pounded whenever he walked by the river near dusk.

"It's just a story," Tito thought. "Lita y Mamacita just want me home early."

So the brave boy stayed out later each evening, watching the shadows get longer and deeper, before running home along the riverside, arriving home to the hacienda breathless and late for dinner.
The night after his scolding, Tito stayed out later still and, defying his own fears, did not run, but strolled slowly home beside the river.

"It's not so late," he told himself. "See, the moon has barely risen. And the señora is still gathering the day's washing."

For not fifty meters ahead stood a woman folding her white linens. She was beautiful, but her face appeared distorted, pain twisting her lovely features as she cried with the keening helplessness of a lost child. Tito's heart and soul longed to comfort her but he was frozen, rooted in place.

He stood completely still, as did the crying señora. But fifty meters were suddenly fifteen, then five.
Terror passed through Tito as he saw the truth. This was La Llorona. Worse, her grimace was fury, not pain. La Llorona's right hand wielded a whip of yucca fibers while her left remained hidden beneath her robes. And her mouth, despite the still louder wailing, was closed tight. The sobbing emanated from within her.

Tito screamed as La Llorona's robes flowed out and enveloped him. Within the white he saw a pale girl clothed in white rags, dark circles and salt trails beneath her black eyes. La Llorona's left hand held the girl's shoulder in an iron grip. The girl wore nothing below her waist, displaying her bottom, white as alabaster except for a criss-crossed maze of blood-red weals.

Tito's cries matched the girl's as his clothes bled white. La Llorona's hold on the girl loosened, then suddenly her bone white hand tightened on his shoulder. At her touch, all garments below his waist vanished and he felt the night air on his privates. Then La Llorona grasped Tito's shoulder tightly and raised her whip.

Despite her dark circles and salt trails, the girl's expression transformed into a smile at his first cry of pain. Above the sound of the whip Tito heard her say:

"Mejor tu que mí."

With that, a red haze dimmed Tito's mind to everything but the searing pain in his bottom as the girl became translucent and whiter still, her form finally merging with La Llorona's robes.

-----

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/karmacamilleeon/

SSC10: Red Darn

This story was written for the 2010 SSC (Short Story Contest). It was inspired by the following picture.  Go on, play along.

 

 Copyright 2010 to mijita (AT) the treehouse (DOT) net . Please respect this copyright. Don't distribute or archive this story in any way except for personal use without explicit permission. No, it's not in the public domain. Ask first, okay? Thanks. 

o0o

A shout startled the daydreaming girl from her novel. 

"Fairfield, what are you about?"

Fiona (aka Fairfield) looked up, annoyed. A pair of navy wool knickers were being shaken in her face.

"I'm not sure what you mean, Miss" said the girl resentfully.

"These knickers, *your* knickers, are shredded. Clearly you took a shortcut on your run."

"Only once. I--I got lost. I'll write to my mother -- she'll send me a new pair by return post."

The matron drew herself up as her annoyance visibly increased.

"No you won't. Bad enough cheating, but as our headmistress made it quite clear at the start of the term, we are *all* were expected to conserve and ration as part of the war effort."

"But I can't do gym without knickers," replied Fiona, sounding hopeful. Perhaps she would be excused gym.

"Right. And so," said the older woman, thrusting out a sewing basket "you will give up your free time until each of the tears is properly darned. And remember you have gym class Monday morning."

As the older woman sailed from the room, the sixteen-year-old eyed the basket with disdain. Fiona hated sewing and darning. Further, it was Friday evening and she'd looked forward all week to finishing her book. With a sigh she examined the long tears in her tattered knickers before opening the basket.

Inside were slim darning needles threaded with several rows of wool stitching, a perfect darn. Perfect save the color.

o0o

"Fairfield! What are you wearing?"

Fiona looked up at the games mistress, sulking.

"Matron had me mend my knickers, Miss."

"I doubt she had you mend them in red, but be sure I will ask. Now stand forth and touch your toes."

The girl felt the eyes of her classmates burning into her as she stepped forward and bent over. At least one classmate giggled. Her pleated games skirt rose. Tears pricked the corners of Fiona's eyes as the slipper thudded into her darned knickers, once, twice...

...six times.

o0o

Fiona's bottom still ached as she stood in Matron's study. The woman's face flushed as she examined the knickers.

"What a lazy sneak you are! Fairfield, these knickers are truly ruined; they'll have to be replaced."

Nervous as she was, Fairfield couldn't help but feel pleased there'd be no more darning. Unfortunately she couldn't keep the delight from her voice.

"Sorry Matron. I'll write to my mother tonight."

Matron eyed the girl grimly, making Fiona blush.

"Well you should be, and will be when I finish with you. Have you forgotten clothing is rationed, you horrible girl?"

Fiona felt hot with fear and embarrassment, anxiety rising. She was unable to say anything as the matron removed a heavy wooden hairbrush from her side table.

"If only your mother had spanked you longer and harder I dare say you'd be more responsible and considerate. Knickers down and across my knee, Fairfield."

The matron raised the brush and continued.

"Think of this as me doing *my* part for the war effort."

o0o


Category: A Picture is Worth 500 Words (Your Ration Book*)
Word Count: 500

(*Note: I didn't notice until after I'd written the story that the ration book in the picture is for food rather than clothing. Doh!)

SSC10: The Adjustment

This story was written for the 2010 SSC (Short Story Contest). Go on, play along.

Copyright 2010 to <mijita (at) the treehouse (dot) net>. Please respect this copyright. Don't distribute or archive this story in any way except for personal use without explicit permission. No, it's not in the public domain. Ask first, okay? Thanks.

                           o0o

The dog chased the tennis ball across the garden, then pelted back to Alice.  The girl watched, marveling at Dobbie's focus.

She threw the ball harder, farther.  Time slowed as she threw and he fetched, the blue sky and green grass of June wrapping them in a perfect day--

-- shattered by a shout of "Alice Michelle, you get in here right now."

                           o0o

"Hey Mom."

The house was dark after the bright sunshine.  Alice blinked.  Darker yes, but cleaner too. 

"Don't you 'Hey Mom' me, young lady. I told you not to leave this house until you cleaned your room."

Did she really? Alice didn't remember.  Wait, when did Mom wear a dress or apron? 

While Alice was musing on this, noticing the much tidier house and her unusually tidy mother, her mother landed a ringing slap on the seat of her shorts. 

"Pay attention!  I'm very cross with you, Alice Michelle. Your room's still a disaster. Go in there right now and wait for me. You're in big trouble."

                           o0o

Alice slammed the bedroom door.  Her mother had *hit* her. 

Double-take.  The bedroom... 

Yes, it was messy with her papers and drawings everywhere. But the room was furnished in a completely different style.  No mis-matched IKEA and garage sale finds coupled with her mother's art. Instead a white bed and desk set with pillows and matching bedspread. 

This was not her room.

As that realization struck, her mother, her suddenly *taller* mother, open the door. She was holding a wooden hairbrush. 

"Slamming doors Miss? And why aren't you in the corner with your shorts down?"

Alice looked up and screamed as this woman who was clearly *not* her mother pulled her across her lap and pinned her arms behind her back.

"No! Get away from me you crazy bitch!"

She kicked helplessly as the brush briskly smacked her thinly clad bottom. 

Fifteen minutes later, a sobbing, red-bottomed Alice let herself be led to a stool waiting in the corner. 

"You stay there until you calm down.  Then get to work on this room. I want it spotless, do you hear me? Then you can stay in here and think about your behavior.  I wouldn't want to be you when your father hears what you called me today."

Unable to speak, Alice could only nod.

                           o0o                         

The Clerk's eyes narrowed. 

"Report, Agent D."

"Unhappy, but cleaned her room and waited for her father. Cried on me."

"Adjustments are never happy. Hers isn't the worst."

"Why the change?"

"They determined 2020 wasn't working. Much as Alice needs creative space, she needs to develop self-discipline but wasn't.  Or something.  1950 suburbia is the adjustment."

"She's not happy."

"Happy doesn't matter. Alice has to grow up creative but disciplined. That's what *They* require. You're required to watch and report... unless you want a new assignment."

"No sir."

Dobbie shrugged. He had no idea why They needed Alice to grow up creative and discipline but the Clerk was right. His job was to watch and report. 

A dog's life.

                            o0o

Word Count: 509

This story is inspired by -- and very loosely based on -- the much more brilliant story "The Adjustment Team" by Philip K. Dick (1954).  Like the original, this story's intended genre is science fiction. 

SSC2010: Tag

This story was written for the 2010 SSC (Short Story Contest). Go on, play along.

Copyright 2010 to <mijita (at) the treehouse (dot) net>. Please respect this copyright. Don't distribute or archive this story in any way except for personal use without explicit permission. No, it's not in the public domain. Ask first, okay? Thanks.

                                                        o0o

 Yes, yes, you don't have to tell me.  I already know there are pages where I can go and look for "trending" topics, find out what words and letter codes are being used to discuss this or that.  I =know= all that.  

... but it just doesn't feel quite fair.  

Better to try and peer through the words and guess the "right" word, all the while knowing what term I'm =really= going to search.

Twitter is like the IRC of a decade ago in that almost anything is being discussed at any time but, unless you're already following someone who's writing on that specific topic at an exact given moment, you have to look.  

But rather than looking for a specific room dedicated to, well, to an individual subject, we now search for tags.  

I search for my thrill, my heart-throbbing rush. 

You see, I'd been tweeting for almost a year, even tweeted a Shadow Lane party (badly for what its worth) when it occurred to me to search for =the= hash tag.  I still don't look for it very often. 

>

I've learned in the past 13 years that I can become jaded.  Even the most powerful eight letters in the world can have their edges knocked off.  And I deeply love feeling that secret and ever so naughty, blushing-hot shock.

Of course now, having written that, I can't resist, won't resist, didn't resist.  I had to look, had to search.  To see what's there, right now, right at this moment.  That's always the lure.

There are those odd people who've got (or lost) something new.  (Has anyone who's kinked this way ever said the word so casually?  Used it to talk about a car or an iPhone?  I couldn't - it would feel creepy and almost like a sacrilege.  =The= word has to have more power than that.)

Then there are the personals - in 140 or fewer characters - offers to give or receive.  Or offers of video clips. (I never click the links.  Don't know why -- for the same reason I didn't answer the ads in the LA Weekly.  But reading them?  Always, so glad they're there, those ads that taught me that in this world there are Others to be found.)

Then there's the flirting.  The taunts that someone "deserves it," someone's "going to get it," "wants it," "is asking for it."  Their (shameless) desire right in front of me, so sweet.  Right or wrong, I imagine there's part of a generation now that can flirt with our "topic of greatest interest" as easily as sex.  Maybe even more easily.  

I hope so. 

But what about the shame-*full*?  Those who can't chirp or even type in tweet tag?  They're so much harder to find, yet that hint of shame, the hand-trembling embarrassment, makes my pulse race with recognition.  Longing and remembrance. 

That's why I search the Twitterverse for Other Words.  It's why hash-spanking [#spanking] will never be enough. 

Category: The Age of Twitter

Words: 500

Flash Fiction: Distant Thunder

Yesterday, over on her delightful website, Casey Morgan put up the week'sFlash Fiction challenge.  The brief is

Welcome to Flash Fiction Friday. Come write a 250-word story (erotic? tgi oriented?). Start any time Friday, finish by 6pm PDT Saturday. Post the link to your story in the comments below or on Twitter (@caseydamnmorgan). Try to include the wildcards. (Find out the wild cards by going to Casey's site).

As ever, Copyright 2009 to mijita (at) thetreehouse (dot) net. Please respect this copyright. Don't distribute or archive this story in any way except for personal use without explicit permission. No, it's not in the public domain. Ask first, okay? Thanks.

"C'mon, do the jigsaw, Lizzie."  Bradley shakes the box, coaxing.

I turn away.

"C'mon, I can't alone.  You know." 

I spin back, snapping, "I do know you can't, you little shit. Get of out my room, now."

"I'm telling," wails the little shit, running for the door. 

My mother raises her voice so I'll hear, "Stay away from her. Your sister'll get hers when your father gets home."

When your father gets home. Her words make me feel sick, and I slam my door. 

I'm alone with my thoughts.

If only I could rewind today, not have talked in class, not have talked back to Horrible Mrs. R. Most importantly, if only a letter hadn't come home. 

I close my eyes, trying to focus on tomorrow.  No.  Tomorrow is distant future, with too much between now and then.  

I try not to think about him coming home, try not to imagine my mother showing the letter, telling him what a horrible  
girl I am, finally crying to show her frustration. 

I know he'll open my door without knocking, eyes grave with disappointment, my own burning with defiance.  

The lecture will go on and on before his hands unbuckle his belt and my father orders me to pull down my panties. Before I take a pillow and bend over the end of the bed. Before I feel his hands on my skirt. 

My defiance will be stripped away. I'll be left crying begging, promising, finally screaming. 

I will hurt.

I squeeze my eyes shut tighter, trying to hide from the inevitable. 

Like the far off thunder of an approaching storm, his car rumbles into the drive. 

My father is home.

[Note: I wasn't able to do it in 250 words -- this came to about 287. Maybe next week.  I did, however, us all the wildcards.]

Not a Party Report

Last summer I wrote a sort of short story about a furniture fantasy involving an ad for a Chesterfield sofa.  Recently Casey Morgan blogged about the attractiveness of said leather furniture under a blog entry called When Furniture Is Hot.  

So last night as I was surfing a bit and thinking about bedtime I found this picture.  Have I mentioned I've got a thing for Clive Owen? Oh, I suspect I have, even without his having given an on-screen spanking in Shoot 'Em Up.

Yes, okClive Owen is smoking in this picture, which generally does spoil spanking fantasies for me, but I'm willing to be flexible.

Btw, when I finally get back to the rest of the party reports, I'll be able to tell of a conversation about Clive Owen spanking the lovely Amy Hunter.  

Clive, if you're reading, Amy says it would be okay with her.   Just send her an email.

A Short Story Entry: The Chesterfield

The Craigslist Ad

"86"lx36"dx27"h oxblood leather, excellent condition, $1000"

The advertisement's text looked simple.  But the delicious picture, combined with the word "Chesterfield" tipped Annie into a fantasy realm.   Paul, noticing her distraction, asked what she was thinking.

She sent him a link, pointing him to the Craigslist ad.

Then Annie told the story.

A.'s Memory

I remember reading something about a Chesterfield sofa when I was 12 or 13.  I'm not sure where, an anon book, probably one of the BlueMoons.  I didn't own it - I read it standing in a bookshop, trying to look like I wasn't reading porn.

There was a scene in the book where a man, an artist I think, punishes a woman, maybe his model.  The man made her bend over the Chesterfield in his study and began to strap her hard.  But the woman wouldn't or couldn't stay still.  Her moving distracted him -- broke up the image of punishment and submission he wanted to create.  She made his strap fall in the wrong places and leave marks he didn't intend. 

Finally the man stopped.  He left her there, crying and man came back with some of his old ties, tying her down so tightly she couldn't even lift a foot, let alone get out of position.  Then, when she was utterly helpless, he told her he was beginning the strapping again.  I remember feeling of horror at the strapping starting all over, only this time with her tied so completely.

I loved that.  His beginning again.  Loved that she had to be still, totally and completely controlled.  His lack of mercy a strange mercy in itself.

Their Conversation

A: It's a beautiful sofa.  The oxblood leather is the color of tramlines.  It reminds me something from a headmaster's study.

P:  And you as a naughty girl?  You'd definitely be bent over it, gymslip lifted high up, almost over your head.

A:  I could bend over it without a stool, but my bottom wouldn't be the highest point, unless I was standing on something or my feet were off the floor.

P: Yes, your hands would be tied in front and you'd stand on a stool.

A: So I'd be all stretched out and up on my toes?

P: Yes.  It looks like it would be comfortable enough to live with too.  That's an important, if secondary, consideration.

A: Yes.  We'll definitely need to be able to live with it as our sofa.

A: Sorry.   I'm actually still imagining I'm bent over the back of it, wearing my new gymslip, hands tied so I'm all stretched, bottom very high.  I can almost feel you lifting the skirt waaay up on my back, the front riding up too.  Finally feeling you tug my knickers down for a thrashing.  Right?

P: Goodness, what a naughty girl you must have been.  Of course, that's a good position for inserting a nice big plug, too.

A: ::stunned, embarrassed silence::

Final Nagging Question

Will the seller take less than $1000?