Thursday, December 16, 2010

Lost In Translation

I’m out of step. I know that.

There are certain concepts that are alien to me. I can read them only in translation; working out what they mean but never having the depth of nuanced understanding that comes effortlessly to the native speaker.

“Naughty but Nice” is one of these concepts.

I know what it means. I see the appeal it has for people. I see the effect it has on their behaviour.

Naughty but nice is supposed to make me smile as I fondly recall risk-tinged pleasure achieved through forgivable transgressions.

Naughtiness, in moderation, is a proof of virtue.

Nice refers not just to the pleasure but to the unstained integrity of the person being pleasured.

Seriously, how can any adult work with a concept like that except on the basis of willful self-deception?

And yet, I can see that they do.

As I said, I am out of step.

Being out of step is not necessarily a good thing. I’m sure I miss out on a lot, like being able to be both naughty and nice.

It’s just how I’m built.

A couple of decades ago, I made part of my living running assessment centres using various psychometric tests. Before you can do such a thing, you have to go through all the tests yourself.

The woman testing me was polite and professional but I have a talent for seeing past such masks. She was not comfortable with what she had found.

She explained it a bit a time.

„You have a very low need for association“.

„You march to the beat of a different drummer.“

„You have extremely high insight into people combined with very low levels of empathy.“

„You have a strong need to shape your environment combined with low needs for approval.“

I’d done the training by then. I knew the code behind these carefully neutral statements.

I smiled at her. Her level of discomfort increased. But then, I’d known it would.

In a soft, calm voice I said, „So I’m a loner who doesn’t so much break rules as re-write them to my advantage; who can analyse the grief, fear, love or joy of others and still be emotionally distant from it; who takes control and has no agenda but their own?“

There was a pause. She looked me in the eyes as she said, „Yes.“

I admired her for that.

„Smile,“ I said, „It’s not everyday you meet a borderline sociopath.“

She did smile but I could see that she had reservations about the borderline part of my statement.

Psychiatrists have a strong emotional attachment to the concept of normal. It’s what enables them to study deviance.

Normal is a very value laden word, don’t you think? How about we replace it with, average or unexceptional, would the psychiatrists still be so keen to use it as measure of humanity?

My version of normal is shared by a single digit percentage of humanity. Still, it’s normal to me.

So in my version of normal, what does “Naughty but Nice” mean?

Naughty is a nursery term that we use to teach children not what is right or wrong but what they will be punished for and what they will not, assuming of course that they are caught.

Nice, as Little Red Riding-hood explained, does not mean good. Nice is one of those M&M words: it’s coated in polite, clean, socially acceptable sugar, but at its heart is the harder nut of almost addictive personal gratification.

Naughty but Nice is a marketing term that gives you permission to play with being bad, to scratch an itch without admitting to have a rash, to give up what you claim to believe to take what you think you need without confronting what any of that tells you about yourself.

I know, for a borderline sociopath, I’m not much fun am I?

I can’t seem to write Naughty but Nice. My heart isn’t in it. Evil? Sure. Guilty?, Definitely. Even honest and loving can make a good tale but naughty? … well, I don’t really get it.

It has all the appeal of dressing up as a Vampire at a SciFiCon and pretending that I become invisible when I cross my arms in front of my chest. I can’t quite manage the suspension of disbelief needed to carry it off and I can’t see the benefit if I succeeded.

I perhaps I’m just lost in translation.

In the spirit of trying to be a better writer, I decided to cook up a naughty little tale for this post. I think I over-shot naughty and landed thigh deep in nasty. See what you think.

I hope to see you again next week.

“Naughty But Nice?”

© Mike Kimera 2010

I shouldn’t have been hard but I was. After the night I’d had any normal man would’ve wanted to be deeply asleep. I’ve never thought of myself as a normal man and I what I wanted was to be deeply inside Christine.

Darkness greeted me as I pushed into the apartment. The blinds were down, blocking out even the moonlight.

Before I could reach the switch, Christine had me pushed back against the door. I could feel her nakedness as she pressed up against me, clamping her thighs around one of my legs.

“Well,” she said, “did she let you do it?”

There was so much hunger and malice in her voice that for a moment I pictured huge fangs ripping at my throat.

“No. She didn’t let me.”

The hand that had been stroking the length of my erection through my trousers suddenly grasped me hard enough to hurt.

“No?”

I laughed.

“She didn’t let me. She begged me.”

“Sally begged you to fuck her arse?”

“On all fours, arse in the air, looking back at me over her shoulder.”

“Good boy,” she said, unzipping me and roughly yanking my erection out where she could get at it. “You followed my instructions?”

“No condom. No shower afterwards. Left as soon as she fell asleep. Yes ma’am.”

“I can smell her stink on you.”

She bit my neck and worked my cock with her hand.

“I have to taste it.”

Christine slid down my body and took me into her mouth.

“The Valentine’s gift worked a charm.”

The image of it blossomed in my mind, a camisole and panties in a truly dreadful red silk with white lettering.

“Little Sally’s nipples pushed through “Naughty”,” I said. “Her clit was a prominent ridge beneath the “I” in “Nice”. I’ve seldom seen anyone who wanted it that badly. Other than you, of course.”

Christine stood, wrapped one ballet-trained leg around my hip and fed my cock into her wet cunt.

“And did you fuck her badly?” she said, grinding against me.

“I bound her wrists with my tie, pulled her to the floor, ripped off her panties, pushed them into her mouth and set to work giving her the rimming of her life.”

“Poor little Sally. You must have driven the frigid little bitch wild.”

“I told you I could.”

Christine stopped grinding.

“Yes you did.”

“So I won my bet. I drilled your too-nice-to-be-true little sister’s arse. Do I get my reward?”

“Do you want it?”

“It’s Valentine’s night. What could be better that having anal sex with two sisters on the one night?”

Christine pulled my cock out of her but didn’t let go of it.

“You are not a nice man,” she said, squeezing my cock. “You can have me until dawn. You have to leave before my husband gets back tomorrow. You have to use a condom and if you call me Sally I will castrate you.”

Grinning, I let Christine lead me by the cock to her husband’s bed.

.


8 comments:

  1. Hello, Mike,

    I see what you mean...This is a terrific riff on the hypocrisy behind the bandied-about Christmas phrase, but it's certainly not nice and would only be considered naughty by someone who was harboring even more extreme visions.

    Still, I'm not sure I believe you're a "borderline sociopath" - and I've known you a long time and read quite a bit of your work. The reason I say this is that you have a strong moral sense, which comes out in everything you write (sometimes in your characters, sometimes in the omniscient observer who presents them).

    I've always thought that normal was over-rated.

    Warmly,
    Lisabet

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  2. Mike - I enjoyed your story. Does naughty or nice even matter?

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  3. Normal,I hate this word! It only exists in TV. I am proud, that I'm not normal~ I was a good girl always followed the rules. I like marching to the beat of a different drum, my way! I don't want to be a cookie cutter mold.

    Strong words, which I doubt, distracted and detached might be more like it! We need to meet our people, to allow our soul to open. Pain can cause this revolving door to open n' close.
    Naught n' nice, mixed metaphors, that can work, like the fine line between love n' hate.

    Lost in translation, aren't we all at this time of year~

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  4. Hi Mike

    I thought the way the lady tester described you was less the description of a sociopath and more that of a writer. Writers I think have a internal solitude and they do what - observe people and try to understand why they do what they do, and they control situations by what - creating them in their imagination and more or less controlling their outcomes.

    As far as naughty and nice, I'm not sure what it means either, other than as you say, skirting along the edges of the acceptable.

    Garce

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  5. Hi Lisabet,

    thank you. Actually, the sociopath label (while it probably isn't accurate) wouldn't bother me.

    Sociopaths have been given a bad reputation by TV shows.

    Psychopaths are the ones who are unable to evaluate the consequences of their actions by any moral code.

    Sociopaths understand morality quite well,they just don't feel any more bound by societal ethics than by rules that say that you shouldn't wear white after memorial day.

    This means that someone with a sociopath profile has to choose their morality, otherwise it doesn't take.

    I like to think that I'd have been welcome in Slytherin but chose Ravenclaw instead.:-)

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  6. Hi Kathleen,

    I'm glad you liked the story. I'm going to work it up a bit and see what comes of it.

    Naughty but nice doesn't matter so much but I was surprised at how difficult I found it to generate a nice light festive piece with just a little bit of naughtiness to it.

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  7. Hi Ellen,

    I think this is great time of year to understand who you are and who you want to become.

    I took a look at your site. Nice work.

    Thanks for commenting.

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  8. Hi Garce,

    I'm not aware of anyone having done a profile for writer. Something like the Strong Interest Inventory doesn't really cover it. I like the idea though: writers who write so that can puzzle out what the rest of the world takes for granted and readers who read to find themselves reflected and explained in the text.

    ReplyDelete

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