Hard Corps

by Claire Thompson

  ‘I stumbled on the Slave Corps totally by accident. When I was in secretary school, several openings came up at the Academy. I applied for one and got the job, as a secretary in the central office. The work was fine, and the pay decent. I started to notice that one other secretary in the office was always being called away ‘on assignment’. Something to do with army training: it was all rather vague. I became friends with Jane — that was her name — and one night we went out for drinks after work.

  ‘I asked her where she was really going all the time. I was only joking when I said, “Come on, I know you’re out servicing all the officers, satisfying their sexual needs. Don’t deny it.” I expected her to laugh it off, but she blushed suddenly and looked away from me.

  ‘I knew I was on to something. Call it pervert radar. Anyway, I pressed her, pretending I knew more than I did. Finally she admitted that where she went wasn’t exactly “protocol”. “It’s like this,” she explained, the margaritas we’d been drinking all night no doubt causing her to let down her guard. “I like to play the slave girl. I like to submit.” Well, as you can imagine, my hair just stood on end at the very words. I was riveted to her, willing her to say more. She did. “There’s this kind of club see, but it’s secret. I could get in big trouble just for saying anything about it. So don’t you ever breathe a word, you hear me, Eloise?”

  ‘ “Never,” I whispered, almost dying with excitement. “Tell me, Jane. Tell me. I have to know. I want to be in the club. Please. How do I get in?”

  ‘ “Wait a minute, you nut!” She laughed at me; I was probably being way too intense for her. I couldn’t help it. These were my deepest secrets, my most constant longings she was hinting at. “You don’t even know anything about it!”

  ‘ “So tell me, Jane. Please.” I guess something in my tone finally convinced her I meant it. She started telling me about the Corps, whispering, and looking over her shoulder all the time to make sure she wasn’t being overheard. I was enraptured. I wanted to enlist right away. She explained that it wasn’t so easy, that I would have to apply, with her recommendation, and that I would have to pass certain tests.

  ‘The very next day I got Jane to take me after work to a stage show. I was floored by what I saw. I was so excited I almost came right in my chair without even touching myself. I was allowed to try out, or whatever you wanna call it. I actually fainted when they were whipping me, but it wasn’t from fear or pain or anything. I think I just swooned from sheer pleasure.

  ‘Well, needless to say, I got in. I loved it from the second I was in. I could barely focus on my job. I started getting more and more assignments. I would do any and everything asked of me. I kept waiting for someone to really take me to the edge. It sometimes just seemed like a game. A fun game, but not the real-life suffering and submission I craved.

  ‘I think I got a reputation or something, because I started getting the really hard-core masters. Like the colonel. I didn’t know anything about him back then. I didn’t know much about the academic side of things, you know, or who was who. I just got my next assignment, and I went.

  ‘He used me the very first time. Which I found out later is very unusual. The second time he took me down to the chambers in the tower. He suspended me upside down and fucked my mouth with his cock. Then, after he came, he whipped me really hard. I remember swinging and twisting, hanging there upside-down, the blood in my head making me dizzy and disoriented. I was blindfolded and gagged.

  ‘After the whipping, he left me hanging there, and spread my legs far apart, fingering me until I came. Which was in about ten seconds. I have never been so turned on in my life. Thank God I pleased him, because I was obsessed by him. Totally absorbed. I was actually bored now by my other “assignments”. They couldn’t give me what I needed. They were too tentative, too careful. They didn’t want to mark me, for God’s sake. Bunch of wimps. I only wanted to serve him.

  ‘Well, by some glorious chance, he had found his soul mate at last in me. He wanted me for his own. When he asked me if I would resign from the Corps and become his personal property, there was no hesitation. I instantly agreed. That was two years ago. I couldn’t imagine life without him.’

  She looked at me expectantly. I didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t the extremity of her lifestyle that bothered me. I mean, it was too intense for me, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t right for her. What I was thinking of was the sadness. Her obvious loneliness and the fact that he was still married, whether or not happily, to someone else. I didn’t feel I had the right to pry, though.

  ‘Well,’ she pressed. ‘What do you think? Bet I had you fooled the first time you saw me in the office, right? Sweet little goodie-two-shoes type, right? People always think that.’

  I nodded and smiled, glad that she had shifted the direction away from requiring a response from me. But just as quickly it shifted back. ‘You think I’m a jerk, don’t you?’

  ‘What?’ I was genuinely surprised.

  ‘Sure. I know you do. You think I’m an idiot for staying with a guy who won’t leave his wife.’

  ‘I never said that. Anyway, maybe he will.’

  ‘No. He won’t. He made a commitment to her, he says. Duty, all that shit. I’m just a slave; a possession. I don’t rank. No status. Just a toy.’

  ‘You don’t believe that.’

  ‘I have to. I don’t know what to believe. I can’t believe he loves her, but I don’t dare believe he loves me. So I just console myself with the fact that he is the best thing that ever happened to me. I’ll take what I can get. I do get to see him every day. I work for the guy, for God’s sake. And he takes me here, every day at lunch time, and beats me and uses me until I taste the stars in heaven. What more could a person ask for?’

  What more, indeed?

  Just then there was a knock at the door. Eloise, who was still curled up naked on her bed, jumped up, alarmed. ‘Oh, my God! Get the door! Oh, shit! What if it’s him. I’m not ready! Hurry!’ She was racing around the room, pulling on her clothing, smoothing her hair, all in a frenzy. The knock sounded again, more insistently. Eloise fairly shoved me out of her room saying, ‘Tell him I’m in the bathroom. Hurry, don’t keep him waiting!’

  I walked quickly over to the front door and looked through the little peephole in the centre. It was the colonel, just as she had said. He must have ditched the wife and kids somehow and popped over for a quickie. I wasn’t sure if I should open it, when the colonel saved me the trouble by taking out his key and inserting it in the lock.

  Quickly I pulled the door open. He looked up, angrily, and then looked confused, when he saw it was me, and not his slave girl. ‘Hello, sir. Nice to see you again, sir.’ A lie. Just seeing him reminded me of his humiliating treatment of me at our last meeting.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here? Where the hell is Eloise?’ If he even recognised me, he gave no indication.

  ‘She’s in her room, sir. Um, in the bathroom. She’ll be right out.’ Thank God, Eloise burst out of her room at that moment, smoothing her hair, smiling nervously at the colonel.

  ‘You kept me waiting, E.’

  Eloise blanched visibly. I know it was what she said she wanted, but it was just a little too close to abuse for me to stomach. I didn’t want to stick around for the ‘angry master exacting retribution show’.

  ‘Well, wow. Look at the time,’ I said, aware that my voice was falsely bright. ‘I have to get ready for inspection. It was fun, Eloise. Goodbye, sir.’ I practically ran out of there. Neither one of them said a word. I don’t even think they had heard me. I guess true love will do that to you.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Stars in Heaven

  After I left Eloise’s I was in a kind of a funk. Here I was, twenty years old and I had never experienced the kind of intensity of feeling that she seemed to experience on a daily basis. I don’t know, though, that I would call what she had with the colonel love exactly. I was clueless myself. What was love, anyway? I had to l
augh at myself just a little. I mean, isn’t that the age-old question?

  I had thought I was in love with Jacob last year, but I came to realise it was just infatuation. He was older, handsome and sure of himself. He was the first one to finally sneak a little way into my heart. But not very far. And I eventually realised that I had never loved him. I mourned the loss, not of him as a human being, but the loss of the situation. It had been nice to have a boyfriend, to have someone to look forward to seeing every day.

  Not to mention the sex, which was great. But really, he was still my one and only. I had had lots of sexual adventures in the ‘Hard Corps’, but I had never made love again. Not only was it against the rules, but the Corps wasn’t about that. The Corps satisfied a deep longing in me to submit, to surrender to another, but it sure wasn’t about love.

  Spring break was right around the corner. I drifted through my classes and army training and before I knew it, the break was here. I wasn’t going home this spring. My parents were travelling to Italy for a vacation. Instead I was to go see my aunt in Columbia, South Carolina. She was a widow, who had lost her true love, my Uncle John, about five years back, to cancer. She had told me she would never remarry; a love like that just doesn’t happen twice, she told me. But she was so full of life and vigour that nothing would keep her down. She had as many beaux, as she called them, as she could handle. Her life was always exciting, it seemed to me. Always spur of the moment.

  When I arrived, she was there at the bus station, all out of breath, waving and smiling at me from the platform. She was about twelve years younger than my mother, and more like a girlfriend than an aunt. Her dark-blonde hair was barely contained in two tortoiseshell combs, framing her round, cheerful face and setting off her large, blue eyes. ‘How are you, Remy sugar?’ She kissed me and then held me at arm’s length. ‘My God, girl. You must be six feet tall! You look like some gorgeous Amazon with your shock of blonde hair and that coppery tan. The Army life is good for you, I guess!’

  I laughed and agreed that it was. If she only knew.

  ‘Listen, sugar. I have a proposal to make. And if you don’t like it, I’ll just change my plans. But you are a grown woman now, after all.’

  ‘What is it, Aunt Salome?’ I was beginning to worry a little. Aunt Salome’s ‘proposals’ were something to watch out for.

  ‘Well, darling! Something wonderful’s just popped up. I have a chance to use someone else’s ticket and hotel reservation for Atlantic City! You know how I love to gamble! But I only have the one ticket and it’s only good this week! Of all weeks, when you are coming to see me! But I thought, well, Remy is a woman now. Maybe she can stay here alone and kind of enjoy the solitude. You always were a loner, girl, ever since I knew you, off on your bike God knew where, with a book and a Coke.’

  ‘Wow, Aunt Salome. Alone? Mom and Dad — ’

  ‘I called them. I made sure it was OK before I even asked you. Because I didn’t want to offer something they wouldn’t approve of. They said you are old enough to make your own decisions. I told them I wouldn’t go if you want me to stay. I won’t, sugar, if you don’t want.’

  What could I say? She looked so eager, even though she was trying to play the proper aunt, willing to stay with little niecey if little niecey couldn’t handle being alone for a few days. In fact, as I thought it over, the idea did rather appeal to me. My very own place for a whole week! After the crowded barracks, a little time alone would be fabulous.

  ‘Sure, Aunt Salome. You go ahead and have a grand time! I think it would be fun to stay alone! I’ve never done it before. It’s about time I tried it out, right?’

  ‘Oh, you wonderful girl! You really are grown up now! I’ll be back Saturday morning. So we’ll still have all day Saturday and Sunday to catch up on things. And here: here’s some money so you can buy food and just enjoy yourself. Go to the movies or something. Buy yourself a dress. Do you ever wear a dress? Always the tomboy.’

  I interrupted the lecture I knew was about to begin about being a tomboy and not catching a man. ‘Yeah, sure. That would be great. When do you have to go?’

  ‘Well, my flight’s not till ten tonight, so we even have time for some dinner.’

  Tonight! I had thought we would at least have a day or two to visit. But I kept that thought to myself. I didn’t want to make her feel bad.

  ‘Oh. Well, OK then. I’m pretty hungry, actually. Should we stop off at your place so I can leave my stuff?’ My stuff consisted of my duffel-bag and a backpack full of books I had to read for next term.

  ‘Let’s go!’ Linking arms, she led me to her bright yellow Porsche, illegally parked in a fire lane. As usual, there was no ticket on the window shield. Aunt Salome got away with everything. After a dinner at her favourite diner in downtown Columbia, I drove her to the airbus stand and we bid our farewells.

  Driving slowly back to her apartment, I savoured the unusual freedom of my own car and my own place. Imagine! My own bed with no bunk overhead and no nine other girls tossing and turning around me. I got back to her place, a comfortable, spacious two-bedroom apartment done in pinks and greys. I watched TV for a while and then curled up with a one of my English Lit. books.

  I awoke to a beautiful dawn slipping through the slats of Aunt Salome’s bedroom window. So used to rising early from my military life, I jumped out of bed and hopped into the shower. I pulled on my favourite faded dark-blue T-shirt and some cutoffs.

  Going into the kitchen, I laughed with pleasure when I opened the refrigerator to a whole shelf of Coca Cola, in the six-ounce glass bottles, just the way I like it. Good old Aunt Salome.

  The morning would have been perfect if only I’d had my bike. Still, it was a lovely spring morning and I looked forward to getting out. Armed with a backpack full of Cokes and some good books, I set out for a walk. Leaving Aunt Salome’s apartment building, I made my way down a little hill to a nearby park. The park was empty at this hour; the sun just hitting the trees, promising a warm day ahead. It must have been pretty early still, maybe 7.30. I found a nice little spot on a bench near the fountain to get on with my reading.

  I was deep into Walker Percy’s Love Among the Ruins when I noticed someone sitting down next to me. Looking up, I saw a young man, maybe twenty-four or twenty-five. He was sitting so that the sun hit his hair, lighting it to a coppery red, shot with gold. He looked over at me and smiled. His eyes were what struck me first. They were a lovely blue-green colour that was identical to the T-shirt he wore over blue jeans.

  ‘Beautiful morning.’ He had that unusual South Carolina accent. It is a rolling sound on the tongue that I’ve never been able to imitate, at once deep South and some kind of European twist that never quite got lost in the melting pot. On him it sounded delightful.

  ‘It sure is. Perfect spring day.’

  ‘No work today?’

  ‘I’m on break. Spring break. I’m a college student.’

  ‘Oh, that’s neat. Here in Columbia?’

  ‘No, at Stewart Military Academy.’ I felt vaguely defensive as I said it. Lots of people didn’t understand anyone wanting a military career. But he seemed politely interested.

  ‘No kidding. What year are you?’

  ‘Sophomore.’

  ‘Huh. I never went to college. Just didn’t find the time.’

  ‘Oh. What do you do?’

  ‘I’m a writer. I write for various magazines. And I’ve written a few novels.’

  ‘That sounds so cool! What do you write about?’

  ‘Oh, stuff.’ He got vague suddenly and looked away uncomfortably.

  ‘Well. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Remy Harris.’

  ‘Remy.’ It seemed to roll off his tongue like a round, perfect grape. I was enchanted. ‘Eric Darby, at your service.’ He bowed from the waist as he spoke, in an exaggerated gesture of formal greeting. Suddenly his expression changed from gracious good humour to a scowl. He glared at his watch, as if it were at fault.

  ‘Oh, shit! I was jus
t going to try and charm you into breakfast with me. Your enchanting beauty must have driven all thought of my dreaded visit with the dentist from my head.’

  I laughed, disappointed that he was apparently leaving me so soon, but pleased at his gallant excuse. ‘Well, what reminded you?’

  ‘My dentist. He’s waving at me.’ Looking around, I saw a tall, thin man in his mid-fifties waving heartily in our direction. Sure enough, above his head, over a bright-red painted door, the word DENTIST was neatly etched in black letters on a white sign. Looking apologetic, Eric said, ‘Perhaps tomorrow? Anyway, it was a pleasure. I hope I’ll see you around.’ He loped off, turning back to smile as he disappeared into the dentist’s office.

  I watched that red door for a while, wondering if I should stick around and wait. But that would seem too obvious. Anyway, what if he was there for a root canal? He would hardly be in the mood for clever banter with a stranger after that. I sighed, packing up my book. I was even vaguely resentful that I had to move from my cosy spot on the bench, just to prove to him and myself that I wasn’t sitting there waiting for him to come out.

  That evening my aunt called. She reported having a fabulous time in Atlantic City. I told her I was having a terrific time as well. I would have been, too, if only I hadn’t met Eric like that. I would have been savouring the Chinese take-out and the video I had rented to watch that evening. I would have been perfectly happy with my quiet evening alone, ending with a hot bath and an early bed.

  Instead I found myself inexplicably musing on the stranger I had only met for a few minutes. I could see his handsome face, the blue-green eyes, the glossy, reddish-blond hair. His lips were full and sensual, his jawline firm. I liked the way he held his body, as if he were comfortable with it, with himself. Sitting with my head in my hands, dreaming of this stranger, I realised my problem: I was horny.

  As I turned on the hot water and dropped some of Aunt Salome’s bath oil into it, I thought about my situation. Here I was, in a sexual club where I wasn’t even allowed to have sex. Well, that wasn’t strictly true; I was allowed to have orgasms. I was certainly allowed to give orgasms, and to receive the sting of a lash or the burn of a rope. All of which I loved. But I wasn’t, indeed expressly wasn’t, allowed to make love. To lie in the tender embrace of another human being.