Hurt/Comfort

Sacchi Green

I thought some of you writers with more experience in this area than I might already have gone here, but I’ll just muddle along and be glad if someone else does tackle this particular niche of erotica, and do it with more authority.

I see the term hurt/comfort now and then, mostly with regard to M/M erotica written by women. When I decided to Google the term to make sure it meant what I thought it did, I was surprised at how many posts showed up, and also, foolishly, surprised that all the mentions I took the time to read were about fanfic, not mainstream erotica (if there even is such a thing as mainstream erotica.) Apparently there are large numbers of “ficcers” getting a huge and gleeful thrill from torturing their favorite male characters from TV and movies in their writing, and then making other characters comfort them in ways that frequently lead to hot sex.

I know of at least one published writer who has written stories where the hurter and the comforter are the same person, rather like a good cop/bad cop routine all rolled into one person, and I have an impression that tactics like that have often been used with military prisoners, among others. The “Stockholm Syndrome” where captives come to identify with their captors doesn’t necessarily depend on being mistreated, but it’s been described as a form of traumatic bonding where a person (or a group) is intermittently abused by another. “Intermittent” seems to be the key word here, and I’m assuming this indicates an alternation of comfort of sorts with the hurt.

What’s the appeal here, in terms of erotic fiction? Does the reader or, for that matter, the writer, who seem in these cases to be mostly women writing about men for women, get to feel powerful when a central character is tortured and then also feel powerful when another character gets all vulnerable and empathetic and comforts the hurt one? Does it express the ambivalent feelings that women in a patriarchic culture have toward men?  

I think there’s a difference between this sort of hurt/comfort and the Dominant/submissive interplay in the world of BDSM, but I may be way off base here. I belonged to a women’s BDSM organization for a while, and knew some expert tops who always followed their scenes of whipping, spanking, flogging, etc. with the after-care period, soothing hurts, bringing the bottom gradually down from the endorphin highs, and up—although “up” isn’t really the right word—from being deep in sub space. The “hurt” was consensual and desired, and the “comfort” wasn’t a reversal but an integral part of the process. Of course this was in the context of “play parties” rather than extended relationships, so one might say it’s comparing vignettes with whole novels and not relevant at all. As I said, I’m pretty clueless about this hurt/comfort thing.

I had meant to approach the comfort theme from the angle of what we need comfort from, and then I derailed myself with this hurt/comfort trope, just because it’s something I’ve wondered about from the viewpoint of a writer. I’m not particularly interested in writing in that vein myself, but I’m still curious about its appeal. Is it only something that interests fanficcers? I think Diana Gabaldon’s books are very much along these lines, but I haven’t read them.

I had also meant to try to work in a personal source of comfort very subtly, but it’s not going to work that way. It’s really not fair to say that finding out good news (on really a very minor matter) is a comfort when one has been in some trepidation about it. More of a relief than comfort. So I won’t say anything about finding out this past Thursday that my most recent anthology, Wild Girls, Wild Nights: True Lesbian Sex Stories, is a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. My writers should get all the credit (and Giselle Renarde, whose story was just praised in a review on Amazon, should get double credit,) but I get to crow about it just the same. Even if I have no excuse to do it here.    

Feeling Comfy?

Post by Lily Harlem

Comfort is vitally important to all of us, we all like to feel physically and emotionally comfortable. However, for some professionals, such as nurses, the responsibility for other peoples' comfort becomes part of day-to-day life.

Many of you know that before I put pen to paper I nursed in London, UK. I loved my job and took great pride in the fact that my knowledge and experience could promote comfort for patients going through very uncomfortable experiences, be it acute or chronic. I remember in particular one patient, a young woman who was in terrible pain post surgery. She didn't know what to do with herself, how to lie, whether to cry or stay frozen still, it really wrenched my heart. I went through her medication, tweaked and fiddled as nurses do, and promised her, actually promised her that I wouldn't leave her until she was comfortable. She looked at me and said 'you can't promise that,' and I said 'I can and I am'. It was a risky move on my behalf, I had a train to catch after shift to travel north and see family, but I absolutely knew that I could make a difference. I also knew that I wouldn't rest until my patient was.

To cut a long story short, I made my train and left my patient feeling perfectly fine - sitting up in bed, smiling and sipping on a cup of tea. I'm sure there were many elements and dynamics at play between us that day. My absolute resolution, her belief in me plus my experience in the surgical field and in particular her type of surgery.

I miss nursing, I miss being able to make a difference in peoples' lives when they're going through a tough time. But I've drawn on characters and situations I came across in hospital in two of my books - Breathe You In, Confessions of a Naughty Night Nurse - and whenever I do, I remember what a huge part of my role providing comfort was.

The Comforts of Home

by Giselle Renarde

I really hate it when people ask if I "live at home."

At home?

Of course I live at home--at MY home, the apartment that's been my primary residence for more than a decade.

But that's not what they mean.  They're asking if I live with my parents.  And then, because I'm already irritated, I want to ask, "Well, which of my parents are you talking about?  The one I haven't spoken to since I was thirteen years old and who is DEAD, or the one who isn't? And it doesn't even matter because I don't live either of them."

All this angrrrrrr is underscored by the fact that I'm in my mid-thirties and, until last year or so, I had never in my adult life been perceived as an ADULT.  I think I'm starting to look my age now (actually, I seem to have skipped from looking 16 to looking 46, somehow), but until very recently I looked like a kid.

I don't voice this grrrr very often, because every time I do whoever I'm talking to says, "You don't know how lucky you are. When you're 50 you'll look 30, so it's all good."  But, see, I don't want to look 30 when I'm 50 any more than I wanted to look 14 when I was 24.

Maybe I'd have a different mindset if I'd gone through a "normal" maturation process and looked 21 at 21, 28 and 28, etc.  But that's not how it went down.  I can tell you, from experience, that it's irritating as hell to be perceived as a child when you're an adult.

One time at the CNE, I sat in one of those chairs that has kind of a back massager thingy in it.  There was a sign up that said like "no kids 13 years and under" and the guy who ran the booth started yelling at me, "No kids! You have to be over 13!"  Guys, I was 26 years old.  For serious.

That's the sort of thing people don't consider when they tell me how lucky I am.

Booze is a whole 'nother kettle of fish.  I actually stopped drinking in my late twenties, in part because buying alcohol was too much of a hassle.  I never drank very often anyway, so it wasn't a huge change.  I was just sick of cashiers at the liquor store being jerks to me because they didn't believe the 16-year-old they were looking at was actually the 29-year-old my ID said I was.  So fuck it.  I don't drink anymore.

These days, I'm going a little grey and getting a little wrinkly.  I can't even begin to tell you how much I love my crows' feet. And my gorgeous silver strands!  Ah, they're beautiful.  I would frame them, but better to keep them on my head.

All that said, any time I feel sick there's only one place I want to be: my mom's house.  I don't have a bedroom there anymore, but I sleep on her couch probably once a month.  When I think about "home" I picture my apartment, because this is MY place in the world, but when I'm looking for comfort?  Mom's house.

When you read my diary (it's coming out of March 14th, but you can pre-order now) you'll find that Mom's house wasn't always a safe place to be, but plenty can change in 15 or 20 years.

Hey, you might even start looking your age... if you're lucky...

"Pinky" : An Uncomfortable Story

            Slowly braising in sun tan oil on this unclouded day, visions of melanoma danced in his head.  My problem, he thought, you know what my problem is, I lack gratitude.  That's my problem.  If I could just learn to be grateful I would find  happiness with what I have.  I should read a book.  Somewhere there's a book on this gratitude.

He reached down and moved his penis to one side to let it tan on the other.

A shadow passed over him.  He smiled.  Loving fingers, strong and knowing picked up the tense knot of his shoulders, lifted, squeezed, kneaded with thumbs and let them fall.

Maybe its status.  Or maybe I think too much about status.  Maybe that's my problem.

The hands picked up his shoulders again, kneaded the tension out of them, palmed the skin of his neck and behind his ear, lovingly, circled back to his shoulders, lifted, squeezed and released.

A cool sea breeze from the surf off his private stretch of beach property moved over him bringing the scent of sweet coconut oil and salt water.  He opened his eyes under his sunglasses and held out his hand.  He snapped his fingers.  The shadow went away, returned and placed a cool plastic cup in his hand.  There was no straw.  He held it up and pointed.  "Hey.  Straw."  He tapped the glass and stuck out his lips and made smoochy noises.  "Straw."

The shadow passed over him again and put a straw in his glass.  He put the straw to his lips. The shadow padded through the white sand to the igloo cooler filled with fresh fruit on ice.  He heard the sounds of her hand rummaging through the ice water.  The ice cubes rattled as he sipped at the bourbon and tea and he felt himself begin to drowse in the heat.

Of course I have stress.  Screwing widows and orphans and defending sons of bitches in wool suits is stressful.  But what chafes my fanny is that after a while the money stops existing and it just becomes a score on a board.  What you want is true love.  Yes, I should read a book. True love.  And Mindfulness.  They must be connected.  My real problem is that I always -

A wet, ice cold fist clamped around his cock.

"Ahh!  Holy shit!"

A female voice screamed happily, laughing and hooting as she jumped out of his reach.

"Pinky!  You did that on purpose. Daddy's going to spank your ass."

By the cooler a sweet young thing, not so much a woman as a female, capered and laughed, shrieking and pointing.  She was short and slender, with light brown skin thinly covered in fine dark hair - and nothing else at the moment - a little over five feet tall when she stood upright, though she tended to stoop slightly when she walked at his side.  Her unruly hair was distinctly wooly and thick, and her face square as a block with a pugnacious jaw and thick wide lips.  Her eyes were blue and shining with mischief under thick powerful brows looking like a sexy, tough Italian peasant with large nippled rounded breasts.  She was far stronger than the skinny waif she appeared.  The muscle structure of a Homo Erectus, male or female, was fundamentally different from a Homo Sapiens, closer to that of a chimpanzee.  Sapiens men underestimated her and she had won money for him in bars at arm wrestling. 

He fished out an ice cube from the glass and threw it at her.  She had been snacking on an apple.  She threw the core at him and shouted something in that high voice.  He picked up the core from the sand and threw at her and she caught it.  She threw it and it hit him in the face knocking his sunglasses away.  He set his glass down and sat up, blinking and holding his hand against his eye.

She cooed in her worry-voice and scurried over to him.  She nuzzled him and brushed her thick lips against his. Gently she pulled his hand away from his eye and examined it.  She chittered and brushed the sand away as he blinked.  He felt her other hand drift down between his legs and console him there.  "Yes, I think you owe me an apology," he said as he drew her close to him.  She sniffed at him, sniffed his face, his ear, took his ear lobe between her lips and held it gently with her teeth.  She ran her fingers through his hair, affectionately grooming him as her hand played with him below.

She expertly curled her fingers around his stiffening phallus and let go of his ear.  He sighed affectionately as her warm breath brushed his face.  She whispered love sounds to him. She put her lips to his ear.  "Wow-wha."

"Wow-wha, honey."

She put her forehead against his head and pressed, the cave woman way of kissing.  He rubbed his head against her.  "Where's my little apology?"

She scooted down and rubbed her forehead against his belly.  He spread his legs.  She ducked down further and he felt her lips kiss his balls and then her thick hot tongue lick his rigid phallus.  He closed his eyes in bliss, put the drink straw to his lips and sipped the coolness as she took him in her mouth and rolled and rolled and rolled her tongue around his throbbing boner in a way Angela never did and never would.

"Come lay down," he said, stretching out on the beach towel.  "Come lay down with daddy."

She straddled him and spit in her hand twice.  She rubbed the thick spit on his phallus to lubricate it as he sighed and lifted his head to watch what she was doing.  "Come on Pinky.  Daddy's waiting for his apology.  Yes he is."

She mounted him. 

She slipped him deep inside. 

She began the act of apologizing.  Far away, beyond her bobbing shoulder, he heard a screen door slam.

About a century ago the perfectly preserved bodies of a tribe of cave people had been found in Madagascar, in a cavern that had been sealed off for hundreds of millennia after a landslide.  Toxic volcanic gases had displaced the oxygen, killing off the tribe but saving their bodies so perfectly that a genome project had been able to resurrect this lost species of Home Erectus by mapping and recreating the DNA.  Immediately their money minded modern counterparts began to explore what commercial uses semi-human humans could be put to without much offending the civilized conscience. Their sensitive, exuberant and startlingly intelligent natures made them exquisite, highly prized companions, far beyond mere domestic animals.  And - when properly dressed for dinner - they were delicious.

One night during the early experimental stages of the Hominid Genome Project a virile young undergraduate was alone on the graveyard shift with one of the first generation Homo Erectus females, an assertive adolescent named Lucy.  While preparing a dinner bowl of fresh fruit salad, the gentle Erectus folk were solid vegetarians, he had been eating a chocolate bar.  Lucy put her long arms around him affectionately and sniffed at it.  She made begging sounds and held out her hand.  He gave her his candy bar.  She ate it with excitement and held out her hand for more.  He refused.  She grasped his hand and firmly led him over to her soft bedding in the corner and then made him an offer he wouldn't refuse.  It was in the interest of science he told himself as he moaned and felt his sweet release inside the hairy and eager virgin's tight depths.  By the third time they coupled he knew it was no longer about science.  When the morning shift came in, Lucy was cheerfully munching through her fifth chocolate bar from the vending machine and the exhausted young man could hardly walk.  Lucy had assured the survival of her people  for all time.  Homo Erectus were talented at something for which there was a thriving demand.

"Oh Pinky . . . Oh Pinky, Daddy loves his Pinky.  Come on, Pinky.  Who's a good girl?  Who's a good girl?  Yeah, baby.  That's the way.  Who's a good girl?"

Her eyes went slightly crossed and stared straight ahead. Her lips suddenly pursed into the reflex round pucker, what commercial hominid breeders called "the O face". He felt the gorgeous shiver of her orgasm below, once, twice around his cock, pushing him along to the edge with her.  

"Huh?  Huh?  Who's a good girl?  Who's daddy's good girl?  Huh!  You're my good girl."

"Dan."

The sharp female voice was coming from behind him.

"Angie.  Jesus.  Wait."

"We need to talk."

"I'm gonna pop.  Oh God.  Wait."

"Dan! Stop fucking that damn monkey for two seconds.  I'm asking you nice."

However the damage was done.  Pinky stopped her thrusting motion but stayed perched on top of him, looking up at her rival.  She wiggled her hips in defiance but Dan growled as his erection deserted him.

"Goddamn it Angie, can't a guy get his nut off around here?"

"Your office called."

"Fuck, not now."  But Pinky had lifted off and dismounted.  She hobbled off to the fruit cooler and squatted on her haunches sulking.  "What's so damn important it can't wait?  Or you just can't stand to see me have a little fun?"

"Your law partner called, oh you remember them right?  The guys you earn a living with?  The people who pay for all this?

"I pay for all this."

"They want to know where you've been for the last week."

"Aw Jesus."

"You told them you were on vacation. That's what you told me. They didn't know anything about it."

"I just . . . It's just . . .I can't."

"Can't what?"

"Can't go back."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I get tired sometimes.  I hate my job.  I hate them."  He stopped the next words from coming out of his mouth - I hate you.  Legal wife and help mate and co signer of a truly devastating prenuptial agreement.

"So you're doing what, you're having a mid-life crisis?  Is that why we bought that?"  She jerked a thumb towards Pinky.  "Your monkey fucker?  You can't buy a big dirty motorcycle like everybody else?"

"She's a pure bred Erectus Africanensis .  She's just as human as you are.  Maybe more.  Anyway, she got sand in my eye and she was saying she was sorry."

"I don't fuck a guy to say I'm sorry."

"Try it some time."

"She was into it!"

"Why not?  When was the last time you were?"

"You want to know when?  Someday.  That's when.  Someday when your little tramp is gone, the next hominid is mine.  I want an Iberian Blue, one that's hung like a horse, I swear to god and I'm going to make you watch us go at it like bunnies and see how you like it."

"You'll castrate the poor little bastard.  Just like me."

"I'm that far - " she held out two fingers an inch apart. " - I'm that far from divorcing your ass.  When are you going to get a clue?"

"I had a clue once, Angie.  When I was a poor kid in the Bronx I once had this clue.  It was a beautiful clue.  A brilliant, shining clue.  And now I'm fucked.  How did that happen to me?  I lie here on my nice little beach with my Bourbon and tea and I ask myself where did my clue go?  What'd I ever do?  How did that happen to me, Angie?"

"Who gives a fuck about your little self pitying clue?  You need to wash the monkey sweat off your dick and get in this house and call these people back and tell them you were dying from a deadly disease or in coma or something, but you need to be a man and stop acting like a spoiled baby."

He glanced over at Pinky.  She wasn't angry.  He had never seen her angry.  She was troubled.  She looked upset.  She didn't like raised voices or hostile body language.  She couldn't speak but it was obvious she understood.  He held up his hand and made a sign to her.  Carry the stuff in.  She nodded and stood up.  He rolled his eyes and smiled for her, a shit eating grin that was supposed to say Don't Worry About Daddy.  But he could see she worried.  She was worried a lot about Daddy.

On Monday afternoon, inside the office, while leafing through a pile of documents on his screen, his cell phone buzzed.  North Memorial emergency calling.  It was his wife.  She had been attacked.

He raced to the hospital and to the information window.  The receptionist waved him down the hall.  He found her laying in the intensive care ward with a cotton patch taped over her eye and stitches leading under it.

Her other eye saw him enter the room with a cold indifference and he saw the IV drip on her arm.  She seemed almost cheerful.  Those must be good drugs, he thought.

"What happened honey?  Are you all right?"

She held up two fingers.  Now they were touching.  "Countdown is this far minus zero from divorcing your ass.  She did this.  With her fingernails.  They saved the eye.  Your girlfriend goes.  Or I go.  There's only room in this house for one alpha female, and I'm it.  Handle it.  Or I'll be so far up your ass you'll be living out of a dumpster."  She rolled over and turned her back to him.

The roads frayed ribbon strung through the green hills that bulleted by as he stared straight ahead with tears in his eyes.  The roadsides were lined with white picket fences behind which horses grazed.  Pinky did not so much sit in the passenger seat as occupy it the way a big dog might, unbuckled, the window of the Porsche rolled down and her head far out in the wind that blew back her wiry hair and flapped the sleeves of her simple red flowered dress.  She grinned into the wind showing big square teeth.  He imagined driving close to a tree where a low hanging branch might strike her head off.  Or driving the Porsche fast into something and her unrestrained body hitting the windshield and killing her instantly.  Anything but this.

As they passed a limpid lake he swung off on a dirt road and drove far out of sight.  When he was sure they would be alone he pulled into a patch of weeds near the water's edge and turned off the engine.

Pinky had done this before, parking together in quiet spots late at night; kissing and petting and then frantically copulating in the back seat like a couple of kids under the stars.  She hopped across the gearshift and put her head in his lap. 

"No honey," he said. "Maybe time for that later.  We're going to have a picnic."

The sound of his voice, the timbre of it made her look up in concern.  She tuned his mood like radar and looked into his eyes searching for something there.

"Don't worry baby," he said.  "Everything's all right.  Let's go."  He waved his hand.  "Shoo.  Out."

She opened the door, clambered out and closed it.  While he went around to the trunk, she walked to the water and found wild flowers growing.  He opened the trunk and took out a wicker picnic basket, a blanket and big utility bag.  He closed the trunk and she was standing right there holding out a fistful of purple flowers to him.  He set the bags down and took the flowers.  He took out the largest and reached over and laced it behind her ear.  "Come on," he said.

By the water, in the shade of a tree he spread out the blanket for her.  She settled down on the blanket holding the flowers to her face and picking at them. He opened the wicker basket and took out a papaya.  She turned at the scent and looked at him.  He held it out.  "For you, baby.  I know you like these."  She put the flowers down and took the papaya and sniffed it.  She took a bite from it and turned to watch a mother duck and four ducklings glide across the water.  She pointed and huffed.

"I see them," he said as he unzipped the utility bag.  Inside was a folded body bag.  He unzipped the body bag and took out a black Smith and Wesson.

She was looking at him when he came up to her and sat down next to her.  She looked at the gun.  She had never seen one before.  She looked in his eyes.  "Wow-wha," she said softly, and touched her forehead to his cheek.  "Wow-wha," she said again. 

He pressed the round muzzle of the barrel between her thick beetled brows and pulled back the hammer with his thumb.

"Wow-wha," he whispered.

"I don't believe in God, but this meat is heaven."

Ralph nodded at his wife.  "Great rib roast, Dan.  I've heard hominids were good, I didn't know they were this good.  Tastes just like roast pork."

"I thought they were supposed to be a little stringy," said his wife Judy.  "She's not stringy at all."

"It's just fundamental barbecue," said Dan, basking in the glow of their pleasure.  "Low and slow.  That's how you roast.  Low and slow.  Shiraz?"  He held up the bottle of wine.

"White wine with poultry.  Red wine with beef and Erectus," said Judy, holding out her glass to be filled.

"They eat dogs in Korea," said Ralph.

"Shut up!" said Judy.  "I'm sorry Dan, this guy."

"They do!" said Ralph.  "What's wrong with eating an animal you knew personally?"

"You must miss her terribly," said Judy.

"The house is quieter at least.  Can't have two alpha females around.  It gets ugly."

"But this is delicious," said Ralph.  "And expensive I'll bet."

"They don't eat meat do they?"

"No," said Dan.  "Lucky for us."

They laughed. "You should see a marriage counselor.  Can't you get Angie back?  You belong together.."

"Irreconcilable differences," said Dan cutting a piece of meat and putting it in his mouth.

"Well," said Ralph.  "This meat is really delicious.  Now I know why hominid is so expensive."

The door to the kitchen opened and Pinky came in wearing a pink frock with daisies and a bright red apron with her name on it.  She was carrying a tray of fruit and set it on the table.

"Sit next to Daddy," said Dan patting the chair next to him.  She pulled back her chair gracefully and sat.  "Wow-wha," he said, blowing her a kiss.

"She's a sexy little honey," said Ralph.  "When can I get a go at her?"

"Well, that's up to her," said Dan nodding at Judy.  "Pinky's not fussy."

"You really miss mommy don't you?" said Judy, speaking to Pinky.  Pinky looked at her blankly.  "Where did she go?"

"Oh.  Some place nice.  A big farm in the country her family owns.  Lots of space to jog in. Such a health nut. I'm sure she's happier where she is now with all that open space."  He speared another piece of rib roast and lifted it to his lips. "You know," he said softly, "Really one hominid species tastes pretty much like another."

He whispered to the piece of meat trembling on the end of his fork. "Mommy go bye-bye."

No Comfort at the Inn by J.P. Bowie

The definition of comfort, according to Merriam Webster is to give strength and hope to - cheer :  to ease the grief or trouble of - console.  

Some years ago my partner Phil and I traveled to the UK to attend the memorial service for a dear friend. I had known Godfrey since we were both chorus boys at the London Palladium and although our lives took us to different corners of the globe at times, myself in the States, G. in South Africa, we had remained in touch over the years. It was a devastating blow when he was stricken with cancer.

We had many friends in common so it seemed a good thing to be with them - we all needed to find comfort in each others' company and share the burden of our loss. Ironically, the hotel we chose to stay in was a Comfort Inn. It was cheap by Brit standards and reasonably close to where we needed to be to meet with friends and attend the memorial service.

What we hadn't bargained for was the sheer discomfort this particular Comfort Inn afforded. In its original form as a Victorian townhouse I'm sure it had some elegance, but with its rooms chopped up to make thirty out of its original twelve and teeny bathrooms inserted here and there, it more resembled a warren for humans - and small humans at that. The 'breakfast' room was in a windowless basement and there were more rooms down there! Can you imagine staying in a hotel room without windows? Shudder...

When I complained about the inadequacy of our room and asked if they had anything larger, the receptionist glared at me from under her burka and snapped - "You must be from America!" Precious little comfort at this inn. I'd rather they'd said - "No room."

The weather was bitterly cold - it was January in London after all. As our room could not accommodate more than the two of us, when friends came to call we had to find a restaurant or pub to meet up in. That's where we found a place of real comfort - the John Betjeman pub outside Kings Cross Station. Named after the famous British poet, this place had taken the word ambience and made it its own. A friendly and rowdy crowd of punters and bar staff, a dining room complete with roaring fire and a damned good menu - bangers and mash, fish and chips, shepherd's pie - comfort food nonpareil! It was hard to pry us away from all that coziness and bonhomie. Almost made us forget why we were in London, but we knew G. would have been one of the first to appreciate the comfort the John Betjeman gave us in our time of sorrow.

Years later Phil and I still talk about that time in London - the awful hotel, the wonderful pub, the joy of seeing friends again and vowing to stay more in touch. Thank heavens for Facebook! Never thought I'd say that. But it's amazing what a friendly message can do for one's spirits on a rough day. Cyber comfort - now there's a new phrase not yet found in Merriam Webster.

Comfort

By Lisabet Sarai

I am washing myself when he knocks.

The tepid water stings as I fling cupped handfuls between my thighs. At least there is no blood this time. After all these months, perhaps my sex has become as calloused as Jin's hands were from pushing his plow. But I should not think about Jin. The recollection brings far more pain than the most brutal fucking by my masters.

I rush to dry myself and don the cheap cotton hakata that is my working uniform. They do not like to be kept waiting.

“Dozo ohairi kudasai.”

Draping my body along the bed in an alluring pose, I arrange the robe to reveal a glimpse of my full breasts. I use the few weapons I have. In the first weeks I learned that feigned desire sometimes reduced their violence. Sometimes.

Thirty seconds pass. A minute. Perhaps he did not hear me. “Please enter this humble place, honored sir,” I repeat my invitation, hoping that I have got the pronunciation right. My Japanese is rudimentary. It would help, I think, if I could communicate better, but servicing a dozen or more men a day leaves me little time or energy to study. The clients do not come to talk in any case. If I could speak to them, though, perhaps they would see me as a fellow human instead of a thing, a collection of holes to be used for their basest needs.

There's still no sign from the man outside. With a sigh, I rise and pad barefoot across the tatami to the door. It's possible that the noise was accidental, some officer's sword hitting the wood as he strode past to some other poor woman's cell. Maybe I will have some time to rest after all.

When I crack open the door, however, I see that I do have a client. I hide my disappointment and my weariness as best I can. “Dozo, senshi-san.” I gesture toward the kapok-filled mattress on the floor, standing back so he can enter.

Still he hovers on the threshold. I shiver as a chill draft sweeps past me from the unheated hallway. My nipples shrink and harden. The skin on my bare arms looks like plucked chicken-flesh. I shake the sleeves down to cover this unattractive sight and once again mime an invitation.

He is young, possibly not even twenty, and wears the insignia of a mere private. It is important for me to recognize these things. When multiple men use me together, I must take care to serve the one with the highest rank first. I made a mistake about this during my first days and barely escaped having my throat slit.

I've noticed that rank and cruelty seem to increase together.

The soldier loitering in my doorway babbles something. I can't catch a single word.

“Wakarimasen, senshi-san. Dozo ohairi kudasai.”

The sound of polished boots on the wooden floor of the corridor reaches both our ears. He starts like a fawn surprised by hunters, pushes his way past me, shuts and bolts the door behind him. He slips off his own boots and stands there in his regulation blue socks, looking lost.

Once he's inside, I see that he's tall, for a Japanese. When he matures he may have a well-shaped, muscular body, but now he is too thin, his uniform hanging loose on his gangly limbs. Or maybe our frigid Korean winter and his short rations have reduced him to this semi-skeleton.

“Dozo.” I repeat, pointing the pallet.

He shakes his head, his face twisted in strange misery. Unintelligible words spill from his lips.

“Wakarimasen,” I tell him. He doesn't appear to understand me either. To me his features look like all his compatriots: narrow faces, hatchet-sharp chins, eyes that tilt far more than ours. But maybe he's from some remote corner of their Empire, a place with its own dialect and customs.

I give up speech and switch to a more universal language. Shrugging off my robe, I display my body for him to admire. Shame is a luxury we slave women cannot afford. I know it is easier for me, anyway, than for the young ones. When the soldiers took me, I'd already known love and pleasure, though now that all seems a faint and distant dream. The innocent virgins that the masters prize so highly have their modesty ripped away with the bloodied tatters of their maidenhood.

His gaze flits over my ripe breasts and my matronly hips. At least we eat well, better than poor foot soldiers like him. He lingers on the black tangle between my meaty thighs. The adolescent lump in his scrawny throat is prominent as he swallows. Still he does not smile, though I detect a stirring in his baggy trousers.

A flicker of satisfaction warms me. I reach for his hand, trying to pull him toward the bed. He snatches it away as if I were a brazier of hot coals.

“Iie!” That I understand. But why is he refusing me? If he doesn't want to fuck me, why is he here?

He reaches into his shirt for a pouch that hangs around his neck. Extracting what looks like a scrap of dirty paper, he hands it to me.

It's a photograph, faded and ragged around the edges as if torn from a larger sheet. A lovely girl of sixteen or seventeen, dressed in a ceremonial kimono and wearing flowers in her hair, stares into the camera. Her expression is demure but as I look more closely, I sense she's fighting the urge to laugh. She's absolutely charming.

I send my client a questioning look.

“Mariko.” For the first time, his features soften. Is this woman his sister? No, no, I see now, this is his sweetheart, his betrothed, whom he left behind when he joined – or was forced to join – the Imperial army.

But Mariko is probably far away. He's here, with me, and for the first time since I was captured I actually want sex. Not for pleasure – I know that's all in the past – but to prove my power.

“Come here, boy, and I will make you feel better,” I croon in my own language, well aware that he won't comprehend the words but sure he'll pick up my tone. In fact, I go to him instead, lacing my arms around his waist and rubbing my pillowy bare bosom against his chest. He's hard, despite his show of resistance. A pestle of stone nudges against my pubis as I capture and massage his rear cheeks.

He ceases to fight me. Passive, he stands unmoving while I unbutton his shirt and remove his trousers. His penis is a long, pale arch, almost without veins, terminated by a moist, ruddy mushroom. He jumps when I brush my palm over the tip.

“So hard,” I murmur, dragging him to the mattress, pulling him down on top of me. “Such a big, hard man...” I spread my legs, draw up my knees on either side of his bony hips, offer my surprisingly damp oyster to his rampant stalk.

He doesn't know what he's doing, though. He grinds blindly against my mound, his eyes screwed shut as if he can't bear to look at me. In the end I have to guide his penis to my slit and tilt my own hips to embed him inside me.

After that, he gets the idea. Before long he's thrusting deep, with a smooth, regular rhythm. Each time he plunges into me, pain streaks through my ravaged private parts, echoes from my last client, and the ones before him. But this boy isn't rough – oh no. Though I try not to wince when his cock pierces my flesh, he senses how raw and sensitive I am down there. He slows down, makes his strokes shallower.

How sweet he is! It has been an eternity since anyone showed any concern for me. The first time, the soldiers took me right in front of Jin, in the barn where they found us hiding. Six of them, one right after the other, while my husband screamed curses at their straining backs.

I bled for a week after that. I almost died. I wanted to die, but they wouldn't let me. I was useful to them, just as Jin was. They marched him off to some front or other, one of thousands of conscripts offered up to the gods of war. Hyeun and Keong, our son and daughter, had no utility. They were slaughtered, one shot to the head each, before our horrified eyes.

I mustn't think about that or I'll go mad. I'll give up. “Survive,” Jin whispered to me as they led us away in opposite directions, away from the corpses of our children. “Do anything you can to survive. We will meet again, Myeongu.”

I don't believe it. I'm sure Jin is dead. Still, I hold on to his last words like some talisman. I paint my face with the cosmetics they give me. I pretend to be aroused. I suck their damned dicks till they choke me. I don't fight when they force me open.

It doesn't take long for the boy on top of me to lose control. It never does, at that age. As the sensations build, he fucks me harder and deeper, every thrust bringing him closer to the edge. I wrap my legs around his waist, urging him on. It hurts, but then it always hurts now.

I know he'd spare me if he could. He's been ordered to fuck me by some officer who was worried the private was a pansy. Poor boy. He had dreamed of saving himself for his girl back home. Another dream devoured by this endless war.

“Mariko!” he yells as he jerks like a puppet and pours his semen into me. I wish she knew her name was on his lips the first time he exploded inside a woman's cunt. But she might well be dead, too. I hope not.

Afterward, he weeps. “Sumimasen,” he moans again and again. “I'm so sorry.”

I hold him close, his cheek resting upon my breasts, and murmur encouragement that he does not understand. When he dozes off, exhausted by emotion, his face looks younger than ever. I stroke his hair off his brow, trace the delicate curve of his ear, admire the thick dark brush of his eyelashes against his porcelain skin. He seems so fragile that I feel strong by comparison.

I should wake him, dress him and push him out the door. We are forbidden to sleep with the men who use us. Another man might arrive any time. I need to clean and ready myself.

I'm reluctant to disturb him, though. His warm weight lies upon my body like a welcome blanket. His emptied cock has settled in my sex as though it belongs there. I don't want to break the connection.

When I stroke his smooth, naked buttocks, his penis starts to swell once more. It nudges my puffy lower lips. Young men! I hold him closer. A barely remembered feeling washes over me. Not arousal, no. Not yet. Maybe not ever again. This is something deeper and possibly more sustaining.

Peace.

Fairy Tales

by Jean Roberta

The most recent book I've read is Red Caps: New Fairy Tales for Out of the Ordinary Readers by Steve Berman, newly released by his publishing company, Lethe Press. The version I received weeks ago was a PDF of the pre-publication, unedited manuscript, with some illustrations, and some spaces where illustrations would be placed later.

I’m still not sure whether I think the illustrations by various artists are a good idea. The sketches of teenage boys and fanciful imaginary beings capture a certain high-school ambience, but there is a delicate enchantment in the words themselves that lends itself better to imagination alone.

After Steve Berman’s young-adult fantasy novel, Vintage (about an openly-gay high-school boy in New Jersey who has a kind of romance with the ghost of a popular boy who died in the 1950s) received rave reviews in 2008, the author himself complained that he couldn’t repeat his success. This is a common fear among writers, since no one can rewrite the same book and still produce something new.

The current collection of stories is obviously not a repeat of Vintage. Berman doesn’t use formulas. What it shows, however, is his amazing ability to channel his inner teenager: to write with the skill of an adult writer in his prime about the larger-than life hopes, fears, giddy excitement and suicidal desperation of a person in that grey area between childhood and adulthood.

Very few writers seem able to do this well, possibly because (to draw on my own memories), adolescence combines intense emotions with a limited ability to express them. And spending most of each weekday in high school combines the experience of being institutionalized with opportunities to find a soul-mate.

The Red Caps in the title are an elusive band that are always off-stage, but the narrators of the stories collect souvenirs of them, such as red caps. The name also suggests a euphemistic term for pills which could cause hallucinations.

In “Most Likely,” the young, gay-male narrator discovers a magical high school yearbook in which school photos are accompanied by captions that express the real thoughts of students who would never write them down for others to see. This is a kind of hyper-realism which is both perfectly logical and literally unbelievable. In this story, the narrator is rescued from pouring rain by the object of his crush, who feels the same way about him. Without the magically intimate words, they probably wouldn’t have connected.

There is a droll humour in most of these stories that reaches a peak in “Gomorrahs of the Deep, a Musical Coming Someday to Off-Broadway.” Greg, the narrator, is lucky enough to have a boyfriend in school, and their relationship is tolerated by their classmates and teachers. However, Greg doesn’t want to push his luck. He is alarmed when his boyfriend announces his plan for a presentation in English class:

“’I’m going to do a whole presentation—not some sixth-grader’s book report—on the homoeroticism in Moby Dick.’

Greg recklessly tells him: 'You might as well sing it.'

Later, when Greg is walking home alone, "I soon heard my boyfriend’s car whining behind me. When he rolled down the window, music from the radio filled the air. Then he sang:

Get in the car. It’s cold. Don’t be so angry all the time.

I kept walking, but more slowly.

Get in the car. Don’t make me beg. Don’t make me rhyme.

I stopped and turned.

Don’t call me Ishmael.

‘I won’t.” he said. “Your name is Greg.’

I took a step forward, resting my hands on the open car window.
Tell me you won’t go through with this. Tell me that tomorrow will be sane.

He shook his head.

I can’t. I won’t. Don’t you see? That would go against my grain.

They’ll laugh at you and, if I stand by you, me as well.

What else does English class do than make our lives a hell?

It’s only Melville.”

This probably wouldn’t seem laugh-out-loud funny to every reader, but as an English instructor, I was charmed.

Two stories that are fantasy from beginning to end, and not necessarily about teenagers in a modern sense, are “Thimbleriggery and Fledglings” (a lesbian retelling of the Swan Lake story) and “Steeped in Debt to the Chimney Pots” (an ambitious, atmospheric tale about a hard-luck young man who falls in with bad company—the fairy folk—in Victorian London). These two stories are well worth reading, but they seem only marginally related to the stories about magic that arises from the ordeals of contemporary teenage life.

Altogether, this collection is greater than the sum of its parts. It will suck you in like a phantom lover or a dream that seems more real than your waking life. The storyteller’s magic still works.