The Specialist

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so i went and posted this story three times before, and it failed to make it off site. however, we think we've traced the problem to bad distribution lines pasted in by gnus, so i'm hacking the distribution by hand. i haven't posted a story in a year or so. if you like this one, feel free to send me a note so i don't have to go digging through news spools on other sites to see if this gets out or not.

a revised and generally fixed version of this story will be published in an upcoming circlet press anthology:

SM Futures: Erotica on the Edge edited by Cecilia Tan cover art by Michael Manning to be published by Circlet Press, August 1994 Circlet Press PO Box 15143 Boston MA 02215 ctan@world.std.com

The Specialist

Copyright 1993 Lauren P. Burka

This story may not be archived or redistributed without the written permission of the author.

Ilsiblieh IV Central Library Record SC144286H, File date 05:07:1025

I ran down to the caf for lunch instead of studying or returning to my room for a nap. This wasn't the first mistake I made that day, nor the last, but the first I had cause to regret.

Two months away from my D.A. certification, I was starting to feel the strain, all the worse because I couldn't complain about it.

"You don't need to be here," one of the instructors had told us this morning at line-up, like they did every week. "All eight of you have Erotic Arts certs to your credit."

The number had been ten before Kadie quit and nine before Selhahn was dismissed last week. We were far enough into our training that people who stumbled wouldn't catch up again often. They were reassigned to some other specialty, or released to another Band.

"You can expect a salary in the seventy-eighth percentile even if you don't stay with the Adoration. You could make a passable living leaning against a tree in a park two nights a week, for bleeding sake. If you don't want to be here, really don't want to, get out before you get hurt."

My body ached like I'd been turned on a lathe. The finest knives of the Adoration were slicing away physical weakness and shame, rationalizations, delusions, and false pride. They were trying to break me before I broke myself. Or someone else. I didn't quit this morning after line-up, though, and I wouldn't quit now. Even if Gahan had left a cryptic message asking to see me this afternoon. My stomach was snarling around my sandwich with anxiety. This wouldn't be a social call.

"Vri."

"Idran," I replied without turning.

"Hey, slow down." He was carrying a tray of food, a bigger lunch than my own.

"I really shouldn't stay."

"We haven't seen much of you all week."

I sighed. May as well quell rumors now. "You want to know why they took me out of morning class, correct?"

"Ahhh..." He hesitated.

"Then don't be so polite," I told him. "Oh, sit down."

We hooked a table and two chairs on the edge of the dining pavilion. The place was nearly empty, the end of the normal lunch period on a day when most of the standard contracts were on break. I pulled a piece of meat out of my sandwich and ate it with my fingers.

Idran was a year older than I and more poised for it. But then he was slated to become a dom, and he already possessed that aura. His job was so much harder than mine.

I said, "It's not even that big a deal. Medical said my skin wasn't responding to surface treatment anymore, and if I didn't stop accumulating bruises, they'd have to grow me a new hide all the sooner." My pale skin would make me a prize for sadists after I got my D.A., but it required more upkeep.

Idran whistled. "Why didn't they tell us? Trying to keep us off-balance?"

"I'll bet they just forgot, or figured someone already asked me. I've been too busy, though. Tellie has me mornings for a bit, and I've been even more sore, if that's possible."

He grinned. "Don't you like it just a little?"

I picked at the remains of my sandwich. "Women scare me. I don't know what they want because I'm not one of them."

Idran raised an eyebrow at me. "Do you know what men want, then, just because you are one?"

"I like to think so."

"Do you?"

So I was a little slow this afternoon.

"I don't have much time," I said.

"You have enough time," said Idran.

I met his eyes and tripped and fell into that dom's aura.

"Just enough for you," I agreed.

Idran stood and pushed his chair back.

"Aren't you going to eat your lunch?" I asked.

"But of course."

He touched my shoulder, making me shiver as I stood.

I kept my eyes down as I walked two steps behind him like a proper submissive. This would be good, I thought, anticipating a chance to play with an equal, to fuck and not be graded for it.

I thought Idran might paw me over in the lift, but he was keeping reserved in public at least. He possessed a handsome face and long, black hair. I was a little jaded about these by now. Each of us had been recast in flesh for our role, and there were no plain-looking D.A.'s. Idran's eyes were blue, though. I wondered if they were originals.

Back in his room, he ordered me to stand facing the wall while he washed his face and stacked up the junk on his floor. I should be studying, I thought. I had volumes of music theory and political science to understand, the facets of my education that would make me more than just an excellent lay. I had martial arts practice so that I could throw someone three times my size, or fall safely and make it look real no matter how clumsy the person who wrestled me down.

If I'm late, Gahan will hurt me. That was a threat, even for a masochist in training who got beaten to tears every morning before breakfast. And how long did Idran plan for me to stand here? I considered testing his authority.

But before I could, he came up behind me. One hand wrapped around my throat while the other unlaced my shirt and clawed at my left nipple. Subtle Idran, I thought. He knew just how far to push it.

"Of course I do," he breathed into my ear. "I've been watching you every day for the last four months." He pinched my nipple until I mewed.

Gahan said that being wanted was what I did best. At least all of us weren't jaded.

I turned in Idran's arms and tipped my face up. He kissed me, a mere brush of the lips. I stood for a moment more with my lips parted while he smiled down at me. I wanted something in my mouth.

Dropping to my knees, I went for the closure of his pants. He seized my chin before I could begin to tongue that soft piece of his flesh that was even now stirring to weapon-hardness.

"I commend your eagerness," he said, "but that's not what I want from you."

I had no objections. I knelt there on his floor and locked gazes with him, watching his beautiful blue eyes grow narrow and cruel at my insolence. Why not enjoy the struggle before I must surrender? I smiled as best I could around his hand. From the standpoint of technique, I was curious how he would break me if he couldn't whip me.

"That's what you're getting," I said.

"No. I'm getting your ass, and the only question yet to be settled is whether or not I grease it first."

I spat at him.

Idran slapped me so hard that I lost my balance. I wasn't expecting that, but it was no danger to my fragile skin. There was nothing wrong with my face. He helped my own momentum take me down on my stomach and locked my arm behind me. The pressure on my wrist ground my sigill against my bones. Idran put a knee on my back.

I tried to twist enough to kick him. But Idran had one hand on my ass, his fingers working deeper and deeper between my legs to that hot spot behind my balls. When he found it I gasped, arching my back against his weight. My penis stiffened under my belly.

"Little slut," he said with a voice like velvet-sheathed knives, "tell me you don't want it, and I'll stop." He was loving this as much as I was.

His fingers worked under my clothes at my bare flesh, one cool finger opening my ass. I moaned into the floor.

Idran said, "You're in danger of boring me."

To hell with technique. "Fuck me," I whispered.

"Are you giving me orders?"

"No! Use me as you wish, sir."

I sensed his surprise and the twinge of fear. The use of titles between students was forbidden. I could be fined for it, I suppose. But I knew both of us were getting off on the broken taboo.

"I am not persuaded." Idran's fingers withdrew from me.

I sighed. It is a truism that good specialists couldn't enjoy their work too much. But in sadomasochism pleasure is colored with pain and tears. I would never serve a client well whom I did not serve completely. At the least, Idran would not be pleased by my lying here and taking it.

Climbing to my knees, I faced Idran and composed myself in a proper supplicant position, hands clasped behind my back and head down in his lap.

"Please, sir."

Idran picked me up by my hair. I tensed for the slap. Even so it hurt, and the second blow to my tender cheek even more so. I savored the taste of cruelty for cruelty's sake alone, not for my precious education. His hands pushed my head down to his still-stiff penis.

"Suck it," he ordered. "That's the only grease you're getting."

I swallowed, wetting my dry mouth as best as I could. His penis was rather large. My mouth was not, and he didn't let me relax enough to go all the way down on it without gagging, though my teachers say I've the most talented mouth of my class. I've been told too that I look most appealing when I choke and tears run down my face. Idran's hand tightened on the back of my neck, forcing the musky, veined length of cock far back down my throat until my nose met his pubic fur. My own penis swelled.

Idran pulled out rather suddenly, and I felt a flash of heat from him, so close he was to climax. He pressed my face down into the floor while he pulled at my clothing. I was panting and beginning to tremble as Idran bared my ass.

The head of his penis entered me more gently than I expected. I spread my legs a bit to help him in. Greased or not, I'm an easy fuck, and Idran was impaling me so slowly that it was almost teasing. He brushed the hair off my neck and bit me there. His fingers touched my cheek, drifted to my lips until I could take them into my mouth.

And then the only challenge was not to come before he did, squeezing me in shaking arms and spilling his passion into my guts.

"Good little slut," he said, then gave an unmasterly whimper. "Thank you, Vri."

His body was warmer than a silken blanket. I stirred beneath him, then tensed as a cold fear jolted me fully awake. The clock on his console blinked five minutes to seventeen.

"Oh no," I said. "Gahan."

Idran blinked, than sat up as I climbed to my feet and ran for the bathroom.

"Blood and misery," he swore. "I'll take the blame. I was the dom. I shouldn't have let you sleep."

I emptied my bladder, then washed my face and genitals. "Thanks, but I can't let you suffer for my choices." I started pulling my clothes on and sighed. "It'll do me no good to hurry, either. I can't make it across the Plex before seventeen."

He stopped me at the door with an embrace. I soaked the heat from him, needing it. My next interview would not be so warm.

"Vri, before you go."

"Hm?"

"You felt like you were grading yourself the whole time."

I bit my lip. "Thanks. I didn't realize."

"My pleasure." He kissed me.

I made myself walk slowly, counting the steps as if they were blows to my back. I would not run. Gahan had told me if I couldn't be right, be graceful. As I reached the lift at the south side of the Plex, a wall clock was reporting ten minutes after. And, of course, he was waiting by my door, with an air as if this interlude was planned.

I should explain Gahan.

He was twice my age but will never show it. The body shapers had given him an extra eight centimeters of height, a painful process deemed psychologically necessary for many doms. His shoulders were broad and heavily corded under the black silk of his shirt. The sigill on his left wrist glowed red and gold against chocolate skin that would never show bruises. There was a slight curl to his hair, which he kept just long enough to tie back.

It is rumored that the Rausten-Frith empathy scale was revised to accommodate him, though his scores have been bettered since. For twenty years he was a specialist, the most talented sadist the Adoration had ever possessed. When he finally burned out, the Band had retired him to recruiting.

I was but fifteen years old and desperately impressed by the cool creature in black leather across the desk when I first met him. "My duty is to dissuade recruits from joining the Adoration if they are not truly serious, and specifically from becoming specialists," he said. "Most are attracted by the romance and don't understand the dedication required. In your case, however, I can but look at your scores and look at you and know that you were made for this. If you want it, I can hardly stand in your way."

He did me no favor, and made sure I knew it. After I passed the first phase of my training, he came out of retirement to hold my contract. There was no more exacting teacher in all the Adoration, no one less likely to be fooled by a half-hearted performance. But then, perhaps no one else could truly understand what was demanded of me.

As I palmed the door open and he followed me in, I could not help but compare him to Idran. In twenty years of practice, Idran might muster that presence and physical grace. Yet Gahan had no sexual interest in men. It's a shame, really, but I require a holder who does not want me.

My room was large by Adoration standards. The shelves held a few books, precious and beautiful things. I hadn't been there much recently, so it was clean enough.

Gahan took the chair by the window and said nothing at all.

I gave him a half-bow. "I'm late. I will accept such penalties as you see fit, sir." My own rehearsed words sounded painfully inadequate even to me. I doubted he'd beat me, but i I couldn't bear the thought of his anger.

"Sit down," said Gahan. His voice was soft and without inflection.

I scrambled backwards to sit on the edge of my bed. He had something else on his mind. For the moment, at least, I was spared.

He regarded me for a moment. "Tellie called me this morning on your account."

Oh no, I thought.

"There is nothing wrong with your technique, Vri."

"But?"

"She said your empathic response was sub-standard. You missed most of her prompting, even the more blunt requests."

At last I quantified his demeanor. He was not angry, but disappointed. Excuses slipped from my mouth.

"You know I've been preoccupied this past week," I said. "You yourself ordered my schedule reduced because of medical's report..."

He shook his head. "Vri, that's your skin. I'm talking about your mind."

I unclenched my fingers. "I have more innate talent than any other recruit of my year. If I'm not performing well in one artificial encounter..."

"Innate talent alone may get you through certification. It's not enough for a specialist in sadomasochism." He sighed and rubbed at his eyes. "Perhaps it is time to reconsider your participation."

Quit the Dolorous Arts program? Fall back on Erotic Arts, or take another specialty, like babysitting or bureaucracy or bereavement counseling, something relatively easy? I'd probably have a new holder, and the same hopeless crush on Gahan, but no excuse then to touch him. "Gahan, I re-read my entire contract last night. I renewed my consent this morning."

"I do not believe you saw a word of what you read," he said.

I stared. Gahan was my holder. I confided in him. I cried on his shoulder. I let him counsel me in my fears and new, strange pleasures. For him to doubt me was like a slap from a stranger.

"Test me," I said.

"Very well." He sighed and shook himself. "Keep a secret from me."

I closed my eyes and formed an image of roses in a market stall by the Canal, the tasteeof fried food in my mouth, and the smell of something burning. I wrapped it in layers of myself, hid a decoy where Gahan could find it, and buried the true image behind my eyes.

"Open your eyes, Vri. You're no novice to need that crutch."

I locked gazes with him, and felt my secure closure begin to shred.

"Roses in a market stall," he said. "By the canal. The taste of fried food, and the smell of something burning."

I considered my defeat, put it behind me.

Gahan said, "Tell me what I'm thinking."

I considered his cool gaze as I probed at the edges of his formidable mind. I found an entrance and followed it through, evading the traps laid out on either side. Something sweet leaked through. I turned the corner of an emotion and ran smack into a locked door. Retracing my steps, I edged backwards, making a choice where none had existed. As I turned, I was surrounded by iron bars. They closed on me until my hands and breath were bound in iron. I broke the contact with a jolt. I couldn't look at him this time.

"You panicked," remarked Gahan needlessly. "Your perimeter should be more subtle, able to yield to apparent probing and yet reveal nothing. You almost have that down, but your core defenses are are tissue paper. Have you been practicing for at least two hours a day?"

"No, sir."

"That's a contract violation."

"I know, sir."

"Curse you, Vri. You can make anyone within three city blocks want you."

Except you, I thought.

"How will you ever know what else they want if you don't ask? Perhaps I have expected too much of you. If I hadn't let you know your own strength, you might have given your studies half the attention they required." He closed his eyes for a moment, then regarded me, cool once more. "But no, I wouldn't degrade you so by lying. Would that you were so gracious with me. Will you do us both a favor and quit now?" he asked.

Damned if I was going to make it easier for him than it was for me. "No, sir."

Gahan stood. "I'm giving you one day to reconsider your choice. Come to me this time tomorrow, and if you choose to stay, you will receive ten lashes by my hand. Do you understand?"

The skin between my shoulder blades tightened as if at the touch of a knife. "Yes, sir."

I sat and considered long after he had gone. Would Gahan have me believe that I failed him and not, perhaps, the reverse? The sun left my windows. My legs were stiff and sore when I stood, and I decided to take a walk. Certainly I'd get no studying done tonight. I had seen recordings of Gahan at work, with soft floggers and two, three, and five meter whips. I might need that new hide after ten lashes. This was no scene, no game of negotiation and consent. No, this would be a true humiliation and an inescapable pain, given in anger by someone I loved. I should have made him throw me out.

Taking the lift down three floors, I wandered through the public area of the Adoration Central Complex. But through the glass walls I could see lights from Landfall City etching nighttime rainbows, and I decided to go out.

This was a weekend night, but no festival, warm with with early summer wind. Two moons were visible on the horizon. I traveled footpaths to wider ways where young people on skates and bikes spun past me, and older men and women flirted, talked, challenged. Two members of the Circle Band were dueling in a park. I watched the vicious gleam of their steel weapons as they circled each other, settling a private dispute with blood. Even their gaudy bursts of temper had a purpose. They kept the skill of armsmanship alive in case our world needed it again.

I checked my credit balance and was mildly surprised. Of course I had been drawing training pay and spending none of it. If I were frugal, I could live for months off my balance and not lift a finger. Reassured of my solvency, I wandered into the tourist district near the Parliament building, found a sushi bar, sat down, and ate until I was full. Afterwards I fell asleep under a tree in a park and slept until nearly noon.

After a trip to a luxurious public bath, I considered my free time. I hadn't seen either of my parents in at least a year, though I'd exchanged notes with my mother. They were Bandmates in the Entropic Symmetry, who had argued just after I was born. They stayed together until I turned five and left for school, at which point they split up with relief and never saw each other again. I spent part of the afternoon looking up my father, but as I expected, he had left no public address. I decided not to try to find him if he didn't want to be found, and instead left some messages with the network.

My mother was easy to locate, but wasn't taking calls. Since I had nothing better to do, I walked across town to the same old apartment in a residential district where she'd lived since I was born. Memories bitter and strange stirred in me as I threaded my way between trees that were larger than I remembered, and buildings that were smaller.

I found the apartment, rang the bell, and was informed by message that she had gone away for two weeks to visit a cousin on Crystal of Dawn, Lunar Habitat Three. I thought of leaving another message, and decided against it.

It was sunset. I'd missed my appointment with Gahan, this time more or less on purpose. Supposedly every specialist goes through some crisis of obedience. Kadie had, and it was the end of her Dolorous Arts career. But she was still in the Adoration somewhere. I didn't have to stay. What would Idran say to me now that we weren't playing the same game anymore? I couldn't bear the thought of his glances gone from passion to pity. For a supreme irony, if I wanted my classmates' attentions, I'd have to pay them.

If I didn't report back in ten days, the Adoration would terminate me entirely. I'd give them back the red and gold sigill from my wrist, cash in all pending bonuses and vacation time, and go shopping for another Band. Like my parents, I could join Entropic Symmetry or some other political, spiritual, and economic unit where one's job wasn't the same as one's identity. I could live off my Erotic Arts Certification and tithe to my new Band. If Gahan thought he was disappointed now, just wait until I didn't come home.

If only I didn't have to wait so long to make it final.

I found a cheap room in a tourist hostel and crashed for the night. I slept for a good twelve hours, another sinful luxury of dreams after the four or five hours I was used to. I awoke to sexual stirring in my body that I wasn't prepared to deal with yet. I had been kept on the sharp edge of physical desire for a year now. I lay still until my erection subsided.

After a long shower, I considered what to do with myself for the next eight days. No more lessons in anatomy dutifully memorized from color holographs. No human psychology and history. No mornings spent drawing lots with other students to select who would be the victim for some demonstration of technique, and who would practice it under the watchful eyes of instructors. No deep explorations of each human emotion in turn. No more soft hands to massage me when I was sore, hold me up when I was falling, or touch me when I was lonely.

Instead I went to get lunch, then to Parliament to catch up on some recent votes, legislative showdowns between the Adorati and the Charismati. After dinner I caught a new play, then went back to my rented room.

There I lay down and gave in to my pent desires. My own hands were so gentle compared to all those who shaped and used me, and my eventual climax so lonely with no one there to watch.

I made it all the way to the fifth day missing before I checked for messages from the net. There were none. But then Gahan would have figured I needed to be left alone and honored my privacy. Damn him. His silence was more provoking than any lecture might have been.

The next morning I almost returned to beg for mercy. But I could hear Gahan's scornful rebuke: "Vri, don't you dare come back just because you have nowhere else to go."

I grew tired of sleeping. That night I was out late along the Canal, smelling water and apple trees and watching moonset. A young woman, new-made adult of the Circle, came up next to me and leaned on the railing.

"Hi," she said.

"Hello."

I sized up her budding form and the longsword at her hip, the black leather of her armor-like clothes. By now she had seen my sigill.

"Are you... for hire?"

"No."

She took a half-step back from me, but by then my client-negotiation skills had snapped into place.

"I'm an apprentice," I told her. "I may not charge you, but I do have an E.A. I will serve you for free, and you need only ask." That, at least, the Band couldn't take away from me.

She squirmed a bit. No virgin, I thought, but inexperienced and with no knowing lover to teach her. All of pleasure is not learned from books and self-exploration. I forgot to be a little nervous of the other sex.

"Please?" she said.

"What's your name?" I asked her.

"Silsara."

"Mine is Vri. Would you prefer your place...?"

"Yes," she answered, saving me the embarrassment of explaining my temporary lodging.

Her place was a shared apartment in a Circle complex. She hung her sword on the rack by the door. Her housemate had two friends over playing a strategy game complete with maps and paper markers spread on the floor. They paid us little attention as we stepped over them and entered her bedroom.

"Kiss me," she whispered.

Silsara's hands trembled on my shoulders as I pinned her gently against the wall and brushed my lips against hers. Her mouth opened for me. My hands busied themselves with the laces of her jacket until I had bared the white silk tunic beneath. Small breasts, no bra. I traced them with my fingertips. She moaned into my mouth.

When her knees began to buckle I moved us to her unmade bed. By now she was more sure. Biting me playfully, Silsara pulled at my own clothes and was soon too eager to be shy of my body. Her fingers found my penis and stroked the length. Wetting her hand with her tongue, she squeezed me, playing with the soft fur and the balls beneath. My breath had grown quite ragged.

"Go ahead and come," she said.

I bucked, gasping as I spilled on her fingers. Silsara laughed and tasted them.

"Didn't you want to save that for later?" I asked.

"No," she said. "I'd be most disappointed if you could only come once."

I sighed and smiled. She was right, too. My body had seen little enough attention since I walked out, and was eager for more. I began to kiss her belly, unfastening her tight leather pants and sliding them down her legs. She made her own soft noises when I licked her. Her cunt tasted of leather and her own spice, leaking over the sheets when she came.

When the sun rose I was fucking her slowly, sliding my penis in and out its full length while she rose to climax again beneath me. I kissed and bit her until she gave a stifled scream and convulsed. Sweat was running down my back to the crack of my ass when I finally collapsed on top of her.

I brought us a glass of water from the bathroom and curled up under the blankets with her.

"Was that what you wanted?" I asked.

"Uhm."

As I lay there with her, I probed beneath her surface thoughts for the first time. I found memories of two years ago when she wrestled with friends, one of them holding her down while the other tickled and pinched her. And again of being wrapped up in a bedsheet during the night as a prank, struggling to get free as her compressed hips grew warmer and the juncture of her legs wet and slick. I found the fantasy of being tied down and pinched, and fucked by someone who showed no gentleness at all.

She watched me through half-opened eyes, blushing at the knowledge.

"Silsara," I said, "I'm an apprentice. But I can give you the names of some other Adorati who are far more skilled, who can give you want you want."

"Maybe," she said. "I have to think about it."

A few minutes later she had fallen asleep. I could not, but lay awake and meditated upon my failure. Silsara would be getting a refund, if she had paid me money. I suppose I'd get a lecture, if there was anyone to lecture me.

We said farewell after breakfast. I went to a library to do some more research on Bands, filled out a couple of applications, and procrastinated from sending them off.

Someone else approached me for hire, but I politely declined and spent the night alone in my room. The next morning would be the last of my long wait. I couldn't sleep, and finally got myself a rare drink of wine from a vendor. When I awoke my mouth was dry and my eyes crusted over.

I dressed and went for a walk. The Canal Bridge was closed to vehicle traffic in the summer. Sellers of trinkets were staking blanket space along both sides. Two Charismati, barefoot in ragged tunics, were handing out inspirational cards. One of them pushed a card under my nose. He tilted is so that the message sprang into three dimensions.

"The world is illusion. The body is exile. Accept the Divine and be free."

I had no patience for these people. Their band leadership and mine were bitter enemies. The Charismati were instigating legislative assaults on licensed personal service and financial assaults on our other care-giving functions. The Adoration, in turn, had an army of lawyers and accountants investigating certain Charismati charitable donations. Their theology of guilt and penitence and blind obedience, as well as their poor personal hygiene, disgusted me.

"Freedom belongs to those who can handle it," I told him.

He eyed me back, and I could smell his unwashed body.

"Despair is the sin of believing what you have done to be so severe that even the Divine, whose benevolence is infinite, cannot forgive you."

"I don't want forgiveness from your dubious god." Certainly not for my profession. Is there any greater gift?

"Then beg it from your own," he said.

He and his companion bowed their heads, in effect dismissing me. The little card, forgotten on the ground, blew over the railing into the canal.

I sighed and trudged back across three quarters of the bridge. The clock on a building above me read only ten. I had plenty of time to make it back to the Plex before I was officially terminated.

Gahan, had I put both of us through this because I was afraid of a whipping?

I took the tubeway part of the way back, then walked. It took me longer than it should have to reach the Plex. I found a console, logged in and checked for messages. There were none, but I had established my presence. I walked to the south end of the Plex to Gahan's place. Of course he wasn't in. I should have called first, but no, I just had to be dramatic. Even Gahan couldn't be so cool as to absent himself on this of all days.

I sat down to wait outside his doorstep. An hour passed. Then another. I got hungry, bit my nails, and tried to doze. At half-past fourteen I saw his familiar figure down the hall and felt a probing mind-touch, quickly withdrawn. He said farewell to the person who walked beside him, and she hurried back the way they had come.

I scrambled to my knees and bowed, pressing my cheek to the floor. I might be eating metaphorical ashes, but this way I didn't have to look at him.

"Go to Medical," he said. "They'll be expecting you." The door to his room shut between us with an emphatic click.

Shivering, I climbed to my feet. Medical was another long walk from here and I had plenty of time to imagine what they would do to me. In fact, our Medical personnel were the soul of compassion, but a D.A. consigned for psys<ical discipline was fair game for anything. The technician who greeted me merely ordered me onto a table and ran a test suite, however. I heard her voice checking off system functions: heart, brain wave, circulation, reflexes, senses.

"Physical fitness, certified," she spoke into a console. "Psychological fitness, override by Holder authority."

Great. Not only my skin, but my sanity was forfeit; one could be patched with hardly more expense than the other.

The technician handed me off to a subordinate who perfunctorily emptied my bowels and bladder, fed me a small cup of glucose solution, then braided my hair. A half hour later I was half-dragged through the door of one of Medical's "wet rooms" and left alone to ponder my fate.

Wet rooms have drains in the floor and ceiling-mounted water sources. The temperature is controlled, and the floor has a bit of give. Students have been known to "borrow" a wet room for orgies. This one possessed a floor-to-ceiling X-shaped rack, anodized black steel, inclined ten degrees from vertical, with soft straps along all four arms and a sensor link dangling from the ceiling. I stood next to it and needlessly confirmed that it had been adjusted down to my height.

The door opened behind me as I considered.

"Gahan," I asked, "why all of this for ten lashes?"

"You were gone for ten days. Ten lashes for each day."

I spun to face him. He was wearing a worn leather jacket with a pair of gloves tucked through his belt, next to the three-meter whip. Not the five-meter. I was about to get lucky by virtue of the fact that he was out of practice.

"I was not gone ten days. It was barely nine; I returned this morning. Just because..."

"Make that eleven. Want to try for twelve?"

"No, sir. Please, Gahan, tell me. When you're done with me, will I still be a D.A.?"

"Beg for it."

I sighed, breathed, and prepared to pay.

"Please."

He stared at me for a moment, then nodded.

"Strip."

I got myself out of my shirt, pants, and shoes. Bare except for my sigill, I leaned face down against the rack. Gahan secured my wrists and ankles first, snugging the straps down so that I could not consider bolting, which was a good thing for both of us. His bare hands brushed against my skin as he strapped down my forearms, waist, and thighs, and attached the sensor to my right hand. One of the Medical staff would be monitoring its output and would stop Gahan if need be. But I was young and healthy and couldn't expect even that mercy. I squirmed against the cold metal, scraping my nipples. The rack pulled my legs a bit too far apart so that my weight was taken up by the straps. They were benign creatures, though, and would neither hurt nor comfort me.

Gahan stepped before me. He pulled on his right glove, tucking the cuff into his jacket and smoothing every wrinkle. Only a foolish whip master performed without this much body armor. Gahan folded his other glove and offered it to my mouth. I considered. Only a foolish submissive refused such a comfort.

I clenched my teeth down on the leather, adjusting it a bit with my tongue. I let my head hang and felt my heart pound. Pain is caused by an absence of choices, and now I had none.

Gahan's leather whistled, howled, and cracked against my shoulder. The force of it took me right off my feet so that I sagged in my restraints. I blinked tears, chewed the glove, and reminded myself I had one hundred and nine to go. I hoped Gahan remembered to count. I sure wouldn't be able to.

The second blow clipped my ribs just as I got my footing and almost caused me to fall again. Hot liquid trickled down my back. Sweat or blood? If it wasn't blood yet, it would be soon.

Blow three scored both my thighs.

At the rate of less than two per minute, I'd be hanging here for over an hour bleeding on the floor. Gahan was giving me plenty of time to appreciate each and every cut. Blow four... or was that five? Did I forget to count one? I wept. Part of my mind was still trying to break the experience into pieces small enough to bear.

The whip caressed me, wrapping a bit on my legs and ribs to sting me even harder. Gahan let it circle my calf once and then yanked it back, taking my skin with it. I'd seen him do that in recording. The blows grew further and further apart, or at least it seemed that way. When I opened my eyes, I saw red spots, and then realized that they were blood.

My teeth nearly met through the leather of his glove. If this were an ordinary scene, I could start begging now.

The next blow fell. I heard it, but felt nothing. Gahan gave one startled breath, clipped short. I knew in an instant that he had missed me and cut himself, right through the armor of his jacket. Even as the next blow fell I laughed in silence. Gahan was pushing himself with the three meter, and would share just a little bit in my pain.

He knew I was laughing. His attentions grew sharper, more intimate, closer together, until I regretted my mirth three times over. Over-reaching, he missed again, and this time cursed out loud.

And then there was nothing. I scrambled for a grip on reality. No lash to tear my heart out, no sound but Gahan's breath and mine. We were only half-way there. Was he that rattled, or did he plan the dramatic pause for my benefit?

Someone else was crying.

It could not be true, that I could take more than he could give.

I spat out the glove.

"Finish me, Gahan!"

No answer.

"Curse you for being less than perfect!"

This time the whip took me right between the legs. I had nothing left to stop the screaming.

I awoke still strapped to the frame, a taste of blood in my bitten mouth.

"You fainted." So cool, as if he hadn't broken. "We've eleven more."

Of course he waited for me to come around. How courteous. Eleven more and I would snap like an over-wound spring.

Crack. I groaned, spat, tried to stand and take the strain off my limbs. No use. One shoulder was out of socket.

And then the next ten came down on me like a rain of fire with no pause even to scream.

Gahan sighed. I heard the thud of his coiled whip hitting the ground.

The door opened. Through haze I saw two medical technicians entering. One wrapped a blanket around me while the other sprang the straps and let me down. A water bottle was pressed to my lips.

"Keep him on ice for twenty-six hours before you start repair procedures." Gahan's voice was steady and devoid of tears.

One of the techs chuckled. "Wouldn't want to erase your hard work too quickly."

The other's gloved hands probed my dislocated shoulder, then popped it back in place. I tried to scream, but the sound came out a strangled gurgle instead.

Gahan was gone.

I spent the following day on a nerve induction platform in a darkened room while fluids were pumped back into my body. The induction field stilled my motor nerves, but not my senses. Neither was I anesthetized for the dermal repairs. Medical didn't mess with me like they could have, but left me alone. That was worse. I lay in the dark and considered the twin purposes of punishment: deterrence and retribution.

When they were finished, there were no scars, no changes in pigment, no sign of what must have looked like raw meat. I couldn't tell looking over my shoulder in the mirror that anything had happened to me. On the outside. Medical threw me out with a bottle of analgesics and instructions to drink lots of water.

I met no one I knew on the way back across the Plex. The rest of the class would be carefully avoiding me for a couple of days, gathering at meals to mutter "There but for the grace."

My room was untouched, and still mine. I took a book at random from the shelf and read it until I fell asleep.

The door chimed, waking me. I pulled on a robe. According to the console, this was the third chime. I had not heard the other two. The clock read twenty-five hundred, and the windows were dark.

"Come in," I said.

Gahan stepped through my door and shut it behind him.

I sat down on my bed and tucked my robe around my knees.

"Hello," said Gahan, as he dropped into my chair. For the first time I thought he looked every year of his forty-five.

"Hi."

"Are you going to blame me for your pain?" he asked.

I didn't answer.

"Don't make me do it again," he said.

"I didn't choose the hundred and ten," I snapped. "Are you afraid I'll tell someone you cried? I didn't make you do anything."

Gahan stood. "That was unfair, uncalled-for, and wrong." He stepped towards the bed.

I tried not to flinch. "What are you going to do, hit me?"

"No."

Gahan sat on the edge of the bed. His fingers stroked the sides of my face. "I ran your big rebellion scene exactly the way you wanted it. I let you resist. I let you run. And then I took you back. You got more out of me than any paying client ever could. I didn't cry for them. I may not fuck you, but I still love you." He laughed. "I never would have made it through the last year otherwise."

And I had believed him less than perfect.

"I'm sorry, sir..."

"Just shut up," he said, and kissed me.

I shouldn't have been startled, either that he would do it, or that he was clumsy and uncertain, and I had to show him how to do it right.

To hell with technique, I thought, and held Gahan with all my strength.

-- _______________________________________________________________________ Northeastern University | When that old gray wind is blowing

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Science | Then it's time you should be going

http://www.ccs.neu.edu/USER/lpb