Hard Corps

by Claire Thompson

  It wasn’t that the club precluded me having a boyfriend. But with school and army training and my ‘assignments’, who had the time? Not only that, I didn’t think I could settle for a ‘vanilla’ boyfriend at this point. A timid, cautious, uncertain college boy who barely knew how to kiss a girl, much less leave her weak with passion and desire.

  I eased into the tub, soaking in the hot, fragrant water as I ruminated on my plight. Without quite realising it, my hands had found their way to my pussy. Slipping a finger inside, I rubbed the palm of my hand against my clit, enjoying the heat of the water and the pressure of my hand.

  The hot water was still on, at low pressure, to keep my bath warm. Suddenly I had an idea that hadn’t occurred to me since high school. When I lived at home, I would often masturbate by positioning myself under the water faucet in the bathtub. It was a safe and easy way to come, without worrying about anyone finding out what I was doing.

  Inching forward now, feeling a little silly, but determined nonetheless, I scooched up under the faucet and adjusted the water until it was a warm, forceful spray on my spread pussy. Sighing as the spray hit just right, I held myself open, imagining that it was Eric holding me that way. Eric had taken me home and forced me into the tub. He had held my legs open and wouldn’t let me up until I passed out from coming over and over again under the hot jet of water.

  Then he would pull me out, wrap me in a big, warm towel, carry me to the bed, and fuck me silly. Not very imaginative, I admit, but, in my needy state, it didn’t take much. Soon I was coming hard under the water’s intense and direct pressure to my clit. Moaning aloud, I shifted slightly, but stayed under the stream until my shudders subsided into stillness.

  At last I felt that maybe I could get to sleep, and I climbed out of the now-tepid water. After wrapping myself in a big, warm towel, I brushed my teeth and went to bed, hoping for sweet and spicy dreams.

  * * *

  The next morning I took more care with my appearance than usual, putting on my only dress, a pretty, soft cotton floral print that was cut close to the body and then flared at the hips, swirling down past my knees. I even put on a hint of make-up, and brushed my hair until it shone in the sunlight streaming through the window. My old, brown leather sandals completed that outfit. It was either them or sneakers.

  I found the same bench, again empty, and sat down to wait, hoping it wasn’t obvious that I was doing so. After several minutes, I had actually gotten rather involved in my novel and was startled by the sound of a male voice close behind me.

  Turning, I saw that it was Eric! He had come back. I couldn’t suppress the smile that burst through my self-promised attempt to be nonchalant. He looked even more handsome than the day before in a black T-shirt that showed off his muscular arms and chest. His jeans were faded, with large holes at the knees. His feet were bare. Quite the opposite of military-perfect Jacob, in starched uniform and spit-shined boots. I decided I liked the contrast and definitely preferred the former.

  ‘Remy! I was hoping I would find you here! For some crazy reason, I can’t get you out of my head. What am I talking about? Nothing crazy about it! A gorgeous blonde with the body of a model and the face of an angel was sitting on a park bench being pleasant to me and I left her to get a cavity filled! I spent all of yesterday cursing myself for being so stupid and not cancelling my appointment.

  ‘I spent the night alone in my house, miserable that I’d let such a lovely person disappear, maybe forever. I set my clock for five so I would get here at sunrise, just in case you were a very early riser, and just in case you would come back to this bench to read again. Then I fell into troubled sleep and when I woke up the sun was already up in the sky and I was sure I had lost you! The damn clock didn’t go off!

  ‘But you’re here! You’re here. And you weren’t a dream after all.’ He ran out of breath and fell heavily on to the bench next to me. I was completely dumbfounded by his long and breathless speech. How could this handsome, funny man possibly be so smitten with me?

  I suspended disbelief and just sat back, enjoying his show.

  ‘So, now that I’ve made a complete and total ass out of myself, how about a belated invitation to breakfast? I know a great little dive near here that makes the most incredible corn muffins.’

  Laughing, I said I was starving and would love to get some breakfast. We walked toward the little block of stores and restaurants, our arms occasionally touching as we strode along. Each time I felt his skin against mine I felt an uncontrollable little shiver of pleasure. The place we entered was called Pete’s Grill. Eric told me the owner was Greek and they catered to the working man who got up at 4.30 for the early shift. They were closed by 2.00 in the afternoon.

  We ordered a breakfast of hot coffee and corn muffins from the counter and then went to sit in a booth near the window. Our food came: long, flat muffins sliced in half and grilled in butter, and big mugs of steamy coffee with plenty of fresh cream and sugar to ladle in the way I like it. For some reason the food tasted incredibly delicious, better than food has a right to taste.

  We ate in happy silence for a while. Then, as usual, my curiosity started getting the better of me and I came back to the conversation at the bench. ‘So, I really want to know. What do you write about? What is your area of expertise, or whatever they call it?’

  ‘Well.’ He seemed to be appraising me, giving me some kind of secret test in his head. At last he said, ‘I don’t usually talk about it. I mean, I usually tell people I’m a carpenter, because I do that too. I make furniture for a local store here when I’m not writing. I don’t even know why I told you that yesterday morning about being a writer. Maybe I wanted to impress you.’

  I smiled, pleased at the idea that he had wanted to impress me. I waited.

  ‘OK. I can see you aren’t going to let this drop. I’ll just tell you flat out. I write erotica. I have a very active imagination and an active libido to match.’ He smiled, his eyes crinkling with mirth. ‘Figured I might as well make some bucks at it.’

  ‘No kidding! How did you get into that? I mean, how do you even think of doing something like that in the first place? Who do you write for? How did you get the idea?’

  ‘Well, I was a very horny and very lonely teenager with acne and a stutter.’ No trace of either now, that was for sure. ‘And,’ he continued, ‘I bought a lot of soft-porn magazines and got on-line a lot too, downloading endless series of pictures and stories I found on the web. I was almost always disappointed. The stuff in the magazines was usually so poorly written you couldn’t even masturbate to it without getting distracted and disgusted by the bad writing.’ He blushed a little as he said this, which I found absolutely endearing.

  ‘I thought guys were into pictures. Girls like to read about it, boys like to look at it.’

  ‘Well, that’s a bit stereotypical, don’t you think, Remy?’

  Now it was my turn to blush a little. He was right. I was being sexist in reverse. ‘Yeah, I guess you’re right. Sorry.’

  ‘No, it’s OK. You’re right for the most part, I guess. Anyway, I started writing out stuff I would like to read about. Written in proper English with some sense of a storyline. But still full of sexy stuff. You know, to be read with one hand while the other is, uh, busy.’ Again the faint blush, but I could see he was enjoying himself, and trying to gauge my reaction.

  ‘And what do you like to write about?’ I asked, teasing him, hoping to catch the blush again.

  ‘Oh, the usual. Whips and chains and naked slave girls begging for mercy.’ Silence. I felt a little catch in my chest as I looked down at my plate. Probably he was just kidding, throwing out something ‘perverted’ to see what I’d do.

  ‘Well you sure got silent all of a sudden. Cat got your tongue? Or was it something I said?’

  ‘You’re kidding, right? About the whips and chains?’

  ‘Why would I be kidding? Don’t be a prude. It’s a free country. If two consenting adults want to play a few litt
le SM games, why not?’

  ‘Oh,’ was all I said. I nibbled at my muffin, not really tasting it anymore.

  ‘Remy.’ He seemed concerned now. ‘Hey, I’m sorry. Sometimes I get out of line. I forget, because I’m in the business, that not everyone is open to that sort of thing. I’m sorry if I offended you.’ He looked so worried and contrite at the thought of having upset me that I burst out laughing.

  ‘What? What’s so funny? You really have me confused, Remy!’

  I was laughing now so hard the tears were rolling down my cheeks. To think that this man was worried about offending a girl who had just spent most of the last two years involved in a club where she was regularly stripped, bound, and beaten for fun. Whips and chains indeed.

  Laughter is contagious and finally Eric started laughing too. At last I ran out of breath and slowed to a halting, hiccuping stop.

  ‘OK, Remy. You can let me in on the joke now.’

  ‘You sure you’re ready, Mr Porno Writer, sir?’

  ‘Oh, come on, I’m not — ’

  ‘I’m just giving you a hard time. The joke is this. I’m a slave. I mean, a real sex slave! I’m so into your whips and chains I can tell you stories that would send you screaming to your mamma. Or running to your publisher, maybe.’

  He stared at me, those big, blue-green eyes wide with disbelief. Then his mouth twitched up into a little grin. ‘Well, you don’t say. Miss All American girl, miss girl-next-door beauty, is a perverted, depraved slut!’ He started laughing and again we burst into uncontrollable hysterics. I hadn’t had so much fun since, well, ever, I guess.

  ‘Let’s get out of here, Remy. You have some talking to do! Here I am, just imagining the stuff and writing fantasies, and I have before me a real live girl whose maybe done all the nasty stuff I contrive in my sick, twisted mind!’

  We left the diner arm in arm. He invited me back to his place but I opted for the park bench again. I wasn’t quite ready to go home with a guy I’d just met. Once we were settled comfortably, I got out two Cokes from my backpack, offering him one, which he took.

  ‘OK, Remy. Now tell me what you really mean when you say you are a slave girl? Does your boyfriend tie you up and spank you?’

  ‘I don’t have a boyfriend.’ That seemed to distract him for a moment. I liked the fact that it did. But he wasn’t to be dissuaded.

  ‘Well, so what do you mean, then? You can’t just throw out something like that and then not follow up!’

  ‘Well, I want to tell you. I think I do, anyway. I’ve never told anyone. I’ve never even talked about it with fellow Corps — ’ I broke off, having already revealed more than I meant to.

  ‘Fellow core? What are you talking about? What are cores?’

  I had been about to say Corps members, of course. I laughed at his misunderstanding. I felt so comfortable and happy being around him. It was really weird for me. A first, you might say. Even around Jacob I had never felt exactly comfortable. In some way I was always on my guard. With Eric, things felt so relaxed.

  ‘Not core, silly. Corps. As in a military corps. Only this corps has a twist. I’m afraid to tell you, though, because of my promise. I am sworn to secrecy, you see. If I tell you, I might be betraying the trust of the other members. If it ever got back, I’d be thrown out for sure. I might even be thrown out of the Academy!’ It was strange but, as I said it, I had the shocking realisation that I didn’t particularly care.

  Everything that had seemed so vitally important to me — the Academy, my military career, the Slave Corps — suddenly just didn’t seem to matter so terribly much. It seemed pale, almost an imitation of real life. Sitting here with Eric felt like real life times ten. I was a little shaken by this. I didn’t even know this handsome, strange guy next to me, and yet on some level I felt more comfortable with him than I did with anyone I had ever met. I decided to tell him, there and then. What the hell? Who would he tell, anyway? He didn’t even live in the same state.

  Eric was probably gearing up to swear to secrecy, leaning forward, looking sincere, but I cut him off. ‘You know what, Eric? I’ll tell you. I feel like telling you. Isn’t that crazy?’

  ‘No, that’s terrific! Because I intend to hound you until you give in, anyway. So might as well be now as later, right Remy, darlin’?’

  I sat back, feeling happy, but nervous that I was going to say out loud the deep, dark secrets of my life. Secrecy had become such second nature to me that I wasn’t sure I could be very articulate about it.

  ‘Well,’ I started. ‘It’s like this. Underlying the basic military and college life at Stewart, there is a secret society, a club, kind of. You have to get invited to join, and even then you have to pass some pretty rigorous tests to qualify. It’s called the Slave Corps, which is kind of a misnomer, since there are masters and mistresses in the club too. It’s got the nickname “the Hard Corps”, which might be more apt, really.’

  He smiled and nodded toward me, indicating that I should go on. He was leaning further forward, listening intently. I took a deep breath and continued.

  ‘Slaves get assignments. That’s what they call it. Every week or so, or a few times a week, for an hour or two, you meet with an assigned master and they get to abuse you for a while. Whippings, bondage, sex, but no intercourse. Just about anything goes but they can’t mark you. Wouldn’t look good in the public showers.’ I looked sideways at him to see how he was taking all this. He was staring at me, his eyes bright, his mouth slightly open. I plunged ahead. ‘I guess you could say it’s a place where people with like interests — in this case sadomasochism and dominance and submission — come together in a formalised process to express their needs and desires.’

  ‘Huh?’

  Laughing, I expounded, ‘It’s a sex club. Either you are submissive, and get beaten and sexually used and tortured, or you are dominant, and get to do the abusing. Get it now?’

  ‘No way.’ He was shaking his head in disbelief. ‘No way. How could the students ever get away with that? They’d be caught in a New York min — ’

  ‘Who said it’s only students? The most powerful and active members of the group are professors and military staff on the campus. And it doesn’t stop there. I’ve heard we have members all the way up through the Pentagon. We students are just little cogs in the big perverted wheel that is the Hard Corps.’

  ‘That is absolutely incredible!’ Eric leaned close to me, looking at me intently. ‘And you are submissive? You look so, I don’t know, so tough. No, that isn’t the right word. You look so confident, so strong and sure of yourself.’

  ‘Well, thank you, I think. But why do being submissive and being strong have to be at odds? I think to truly submit takes way more courage and confidence than just whipping someone’s ass with a paddle. You know?’

  ‘Yeah, I guess I hadn’t thought of it like that.’

  ‘I know. I was like you at first. I confused submission with passivity. I had no idea of the grace and courage it takes to submit with honesty and passion.’

  ‘Wow, listen to you! You should be the writer! You have a very poetic way with words.’ I looked down, embarrassed but pleased. ‘Remy.’ Again my name rolled on his tongue like honey and melted butter. ‘Remy, you are the most exciting woman I’ve ever met. Beautiful, intelligent, honest. Listen, I want to confide something in you. But I’m a little nervous about it.’

  ‘Oh, Eric! Come on. I just told you the biggest secret of my life. You can tell me a secret too now. After all, it’d only be fair.’ I was grinning as I said it, but very much in earnest.

  ‘I know you did. And I believe you. It sounds impossible, but something in your face, in your voice, makes me know you are telling the truth. And I want to hear all about it! I will hold you my prisoner until you confess every word!’ We laughed again, though my perverted mind instantly seized on the phrase, ‘hold you my prisoner’. Sounded yummy.

  ‘So back to you, then. What did you want to tell me?’

  He sat back, lo
oking toward the fountain, as if the answer might be in the clear water splashing over a triad of stone fish perched up on their tails. ‘Well, you know we share the same passion of dominance and submission. But your passion is tested. Mine is academic. I’ve written about it, fantasised about it, dreamed about it. But I’ve never had the courage to do a thing about it in real life. I think I’ve secretly believed that there is something wrong with me. That’s why I don’t usually tell people what I do for a living. They would scream “pervert” and run away. And I have never dared even hint about it to my girlfriends.’

  I must have made a face at that point, because he hastened to explain. ‘Past girlfriends. I don’t have a girlfriend now.’

  I smiled at him, embarrassed that I was so obvious.

  ‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘I can’t tell you how often, when I’ve been with a girl, that I’ve wanted to try something, pin her down, or smack her bottom. But I never dared.

  ‘See, here’s the weird thing. I regard myself as a feminist, or humanist might be a more accurate term. And I’ve never been able to reconcile those feelings that we should all be equal with forcing a girl to do things, and tying her up and whipping her, you know?’

  I smiled. I had wrestled with precisely the same demons. ‘I used to think that way, too. Before I understood the true nature of dominance and submission. It isn’t about you forcing her, or taking something that you have no right to. In a real D/s relationship, there is an open, acknowledged exchange of power. She gives you the right to do the things you do. She gives herself to you. And, really, in a way, you give yourself back. Because when you take control of her, you also take the responsibility for her, to keep her safe and loved. I think it’s the most romantic exchange possible.’