MASOCHISM
by John Logan

I didn�t realise that I was a sexual masochist until the December of 1994, not long after my 27th birthday. Angela had been my girlfriend for 13 months by then and we�d spent most of it living together in one room. There�d been other rooms to go to if we�d wanted...a kitchen, a bathroom, a showerroom...sometimes one of the other 2 bedrooms in her flat became vacant and we�d use it just for sex and maybe sleep there afterwards for a while, a different bed for variety, a different window with different shadows coming in from the street below. And there�d been the loft where I stored most of my stuff and went sometimes to read. The loft was supposed to be �my room� but I�d never slept a night up there. Once, after a bad argument, I�d tried to. But Angela had come up and wept until snot ran out of her nostrils, dragged at my shoulders and thighs as I feigned sleep, managed to get me to come back down to her room again. Sometimes we used the loft for sex too.

But in the December of `94 she�d gone down to Bearsden to stay with her bloated capitalist family; I�d come back to Inverness for the week or fortnight or whatever it was, to hole up in my mum�s Council flat. Then, standing in a bookshop one day, browsing through the non-fiction section for those reportage-type books by guys like Tom Wolfe/Truman Capote that used to grab my fancy in those days, I happened to chance on a book by Nancy Friday. Women On Top it was called. Fantasies that Friday claimed to have had sent to her in the mail by readers of her previous books; fantasies by women that she�d collated into a book. I�d never read anything like it. I had this raging erection, maybe the most intense of my life, as I gobbled the pages. I�d never read that fast. It was like one of those Science Fiction films where an android reads a book in seconds, just by flicking through the pages. My brain gobbled up the new information. The erection grew. I stood for about an hour like that, reading the book. Then I put it down, picked up another by Nancy Friday called Men In Love. This time the fantasies had been sent in to Friday by men only. I flicked to the chapters on sado-masochism, a phrase and subject that had never meant a thing to me until that afternoon. This book was as good as the other one. I stood with the erection for another hour, reading Men In Love. I had no self-consciousness about it, no sense of my surroundings at all. I�d found something.

There was enough money in my pocket so I eventually walked over to the till with the 2 books. An attractive girl, brown hair and electric blue eyes that half-smiled, took the books and placed them in a bag, took my money, saw my unwavering intent maybe, pouted provocatively, said Thanks, `Bye.

I phoned Angela that night and told her about the books.

�I stood in the shop for two hours with a hard-on. I�ve never come across anything like this.�

�Have you been wanking?�

�Yeah. Once in the public toilet near the bookshop. Three more times since I got home.�

�Tsst! Fuck�s sake, Joe.�

�Can I read you one?�

�Yeah.�

I read her one from the Women On Top book. It had all the ingredients I�d never been aware of in my life before: pain, humiliation, domination, torture. It had the new language to hold the new powerful ideas:...Mistress...Slave...Obedience...

�Did you like it?� I asked her.

�It turned me on.�

�Yeah?�

I laughed.

�Yeah, really.�

She wasn�t laughing.

�I want you to come down here for New Year,� she said.

I�d never met her millionaire parents before. We�d debated the possibility of me going down. I didn�t say anything.

�I want you down here,� she said.

My penis twitched. My heart sped up. I swallowed.

�Do you want to try this stuff?� I said.

�Yes.�

Her voice was eager.

�Will you be my Mistress?�

�Yes.�

�Do you want to be?�

�Yes.�

�I�m not joking.�

�I know you�re not.�

�What day do you want me to come down?�

�Come down on the Friday. Get a bus that�ll get you into Glasgow at about 6. I�ll collect you at the station.�

�Ok.�

�Good. Good boy. Slave?�

�Yes...Mistress?�

�Go and get a tissue. Do it now.�

I put the phone down, walked across the room and brought the box of tissues over. I picked up the phone.

�I�ve got one.�

�Good. I hope you haven�t used yourself up already, Slave. You�d better not have. Pull down your zip...�

I already had but I didn�t tell her.

***

She met me in Glasgow with her mother�s car. When we were nearly at the Bearsden house she stopped the car.

�I just thought we�d pause for a minute,� she said, �when we get there we won�t be alone for a while.�

We kissed.

�Do you still want to be my Mistress?�

I looked at her eyes.

�Yes. There�ll be time for that later, Slave.�

The bookshop erection sprang back. She put her hand on it, rubbed me through my trousers, laughed contemptuously and turned away to start the car.

We came in through the back door. Her father and mother were standing in the kitchen.

�Did you have a good journey?� asked her father.

�Well, I don�t like buses much.�

�No, I meant, how was the road?�

�Oh, right. The snow was really bad down to Aviemore but after that the road was clear.�

The house had, effectively, 3 living-rooms, each as big as all the rooms in my mum�s flat combined. Ceilings 20 feet high. There were 4 huge bedrooms upstairs. The weird thing for me was the toilet set-up. One toilet down by the kitchen. Then halfway up the big staircase, just where the stairs turned, there were 2 identical bathrooms, side by side. Each was as big as my mum�s living-room. Each had bath, shower, crapper, the lot. They were even painted identically so you could forget which one you�d gone into and get a surprise when you came out onto the landing, finding you�d been in the left rather than the right. Angela had gone to study in Aberdeen and her parents had bought her the flat she�d been made landlady of at 19, the year before. Now there was just her parents and her younger brother, Malcolm, left in the house so they had a toilet each. It was strange knowing that a deprived zone like Drumchapel was just a 20 minute walk away. I�d seen a documentary that said the life expectancy was 20 years shorter in Drumchapel than in Bearsden.

We all sat at a large wooden table, eating, drinking, talking. I�d been unemployed for 6 months.

�When I�d just left school, Joe,� said Mr Cook, �I made sure I went in person to see about jobs, rather than doing it by phone or letter. I�d just drop into the premises on spec. Have you tried that?�

�Well, when I�d just left school, ten years ago, I did that too.�

Mr Cook nodded. He�d only been out of hospital for a fortnight after an emergency bypass operation following his first heart attack at 48. He looked pretty strong, no sign of the near-death experience he�d had. Angela�d told me how her mother was trying to keep him from returning to his old regimen of 40 cigarettes and half-a-bottle of whiskey a day. He employed 30 people in Glasgow, travelled the world installing sound systems for railway stations, football stadiums.

Within the hour Angela and me were headed out the door to a taxi, on the way to some party. My jacket hid her hand as she undid my zip and used her long, sharp nails on me, nipping the skin mercilessly so that I had to wince sometimes, squirm in my seat. She kept doing it and looking out the taxi window. The party was quiet. I knew half the people from visits they�d made to Aberdeen. Angela was beside me, her long black dress hugging wonderfully at the breasts and hips and buttocks. She kissed me, reached up and nipped my earlobe.

�Just you wait `til I get you alone,� she said.

I swallowed. My earlobe felt hot, like it must be glowing for everyone to see. Midnight came and went. Angela and her friends gradually drifted out of the room to next door. They�d all gotten into sleeping bags on the floor. There was music and the room was nearly dark. I got into the bag beside Angela, both fully dressed. I kissed her. She opened my zip and started to pinch me. The pain was sometimes excruciating.

�Do you like that, Slave?� she whispered.

�Yes...uhhh!�

�Sshh! Yes what, Slave?�

�Yes Mistress.�

I pulled her body hard against me.

�No,� she said, �not here.�

But I had her dress up at her waist, her pants tugged down. I was inside her. The heat was incredible. I wondered if she�d cut my penis with her nails but I didn�t care. Or I hoped she had if it felt that good. She worked with me, then pulled back and I was out in the cold again.

�I said Not Here, Slave.�

�Come on...�

She pinched me again, repeated nips. I sucked in air.

�Shut up, Slave.�

�Please, not so hard.�

�Don�t fucking complain,� she hissed and did it harder. At first I couldn�t stand the extra pain, then I realised that I liked it, that it would have been a disappointment if she�d stopped because I�d asked. I was grateful that she�d gone on, done it even harder.

Neither of us had ever done anything like the stuff we started to do that New Year�s Eve; the stuff that was started off by me finding the Nancy Friday books. Sexually, a great deal of the time, Angela was on fire, like no-one else I�ve been with. That was, in the end, what would wreck us, but I didn�t know that yet, on the New Year�s Eve of first slavery. During the 13 months of being together there�d been terrible, soul-destroying, insane arguments. She�d punched and slapped me. My forearms and calves were always cut from her running her nails down them in rage or kicking at me with sharp-edged boots. I�d never hit her back. I�d shout and scream instead, break things. Long after the slavery started I analysed it all one night, lay beside Angela and suggested the theory that maybe it had been her hitting and scratching, kicking and punching me for the 13 months...maybe that was what changed me, gave me the appetite for masochism that I only became conscious of that day in the bookshop with the hard-on and the Nancy Friday books.

�Oh God,� she said, �don�t say that.�

She couldn�t face the part of herself that lashed out in rage. Before I�d gotten it she said it used to be her younger brother who got whacked. But this violence in her, it was a big secret during the 13 months, only known to her and me. On the New Year�s Eve we hadn�t analysed any of it yet. We were just moving through it all like fish through water.

New Year�s Day was just a matter of eating, sitting, talking politely to Angela�s parents. When they were in bed Angela took me by the hand, led me into her bedroom. The house was silent. I whispered,

�What if they catch us?�

�No. They won�t come in here.�

I went to kiss her but she turned her mouth away.

�Take off your clothes,� she said, not looking at me.

I obeyed.

�Get on your knees, Slave.�

I did it. She was standing near, still wearing the black dress. I put my arms round her thighs, squeezed them tight to my chest and closed my eyes. She gripped my earlobe and twisted.

�Do you want me, Slave?�

�Yes.�

She twisted my ear sharply.

�Yes what?� she hissed.

�Yes Mistress. I want you very much. I want to make love to you now. Please, Mistress.�

�You�re going to have to suffer first, Slave. To show me how much you want me.�

She started scratching at my back, applying more and more pressure.

�If we didn�t have to be quiet I�d whip you with that old belt over there. I�d whip you until you were crying and begging me to stop. I�d whip you until you were bleeding, Slave, before I�d let you lay a hand on me.�

I hugged her beautiful, strong thighs tighter and shuddered from deep inside myself.

�Right,� she said, �get on the bed. Now!�

I moved slowly, rose from the floor. She was walking away, her back to me. I lay down on the bed, face up. I felt exposed in a way I�d never experienced before. My sense of time had gone. I was breathing quickly. Angela had become a stranger; it was magical. She was walking back towards the bed. I didn�t recognise the pace of her steps, the outline of her body. I didn�t know the voice that said,

�Slave, you�re not going to find what happens to you now very pleasant. But you�re going to have to obey and amuse me. Understand?�

I nodded.

�You read to me on the phone about a Mistress who enjoyed making her Slave suffer. Do you remember?�

�Yes...Mistress.�

�She put a vibrator up his little bottom, didn�t she? Well, when we get to Aberdeen that�s what I�m going to do to you. The idea of doing that turns me on...so much...�

She bent over me as I lay on the bed and kissed my mouth deeply, sucking a little. She pulled her mouth away abruptly, grabbed my face with a hand.

�Turn over, Slave.�

I flipped onto my front.

�Bend your legs. Up! Kneel and lean on your forearms! Like a dog! Now! Like a dog!�

I shivered, shuddered.

�I don�t have a vibrator here, Slave. All I�ve got is this.�

She held a pen in front of my tilted face. I frowned and blinked.

�Lick my finger well, Slave. It�s the only lubrication you�ll be getting.�

She pushed the succulent, sharp-nailed index finger all the way into my mouth. I closed my eyes, sucked. Then she pulled it out, was at my bottom with it, probing gently, easing in. Another first experience. There had been the time I�d done it to myself in the bath 2 years before, out of curiosity. Then, soon after, met a girl and slept platonically with her on a small couch, told her that I�d done it, to see what it felt like, something up my arse. That girl had been gorgeous but not interested in me. She said she was going to try the same next time she had a bath, though, see what it felt like. Angela got her finger all the way in. I breathed in deeply, that shudder-response again. She probed around. I made a sound.

�Sshhh! Don�t dare complain about anything your Mistress does to you, Slave!�

She pulled the finger out brutally. There was pain and fear that she�d ripped something. Then a sharp pain on a whole new level. She was starting to work the pen in. I screwed my eyes shut tight, aware of the danger, a moment away from quitting. But the pen was going in, the pain was dull now.

�Little Slave...silly little Slave!�

She wiggled the pen. It seemed to be all the way in. I moaned quietly and Angela laughed. Then she started to pull it out. I shuddered from the shoulders. Then she pushed in again. Out again about an inch. In again. It was tolerable. The hardest part was trusting her and knowing it was stupid using a pen of all things. Knowing it was stupid but obeying anyway because there was a dazzling never-before-known excitement in complying with the beautiful woman�s mad, dangerous whim. She worked on me with the pen until my penis was burgeoning and tears were flowing from the corners of my screwed-shut eyes. I had never loved a woman so completely. When she pulled the pen out I almost screamed. She grabbed my throat with a hand, squeezed.

�Now Slave!�

I turned, held her. But she pushed me away, wouldn�t kiss.

�Don�t waste my time with that shite, Slave! Do it!�

She lay back on the bed, her legs wide. I raised the black dress. She�d taken her pants off already. She was so wet. It felt like the pen was still inside me...ten pens. I entered and she was burning hot but still the feeling of ten pens up my bottom was more intense. Her eyes were closed, face contorted. I tried to kiss her but she turned her mouth away, eyes kept shut tight, hissed,

�Don�t waste my time with that! Just fuck!�

I did it. She dug her nails into my shoulders, my arms, never looked at me once.

�Slower!� she said.

Then later,

�Faster! Now! Faster you little idiot! Do it!�

She was getting near to orgasm. I couldn�t get anywhere near it. There was pain deep in my rectum from twenty sharp pens and I was doing everything for Angela, my new Mistress who I�d just met that night. Every thrust was for her, not me. I knew I wasn�t going to come and that my arse would probably hurt all night, into the next night maybe. But it was still the best thing I�d ever done in my life. I�d never loved anything like I was loving this woman who was beneath me now, using me inside her and refusing to look at me or kiss. If I could choose one moment to live in forever I�d choose that one. Even now that I know the love for the new Mistress led nowhere in the end. And it cost me the love of Angela, the real woman who�d loved me for 13 months, even though she had a temper and couldn�t keep her hands to herself.

� John Logan
Reproduced with permission

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