Emily felt tears scald her eyes as she faced the wall. The wallpaper
had never looked more hideous. Of course her mother would never allow
her to look on a naked body, whether that of a man or woman. Mother quite
logically explained the fact that Emily was almost always naked when she
chastised her: the removal of every vestige of modesty increased the
humiliation, and, after all, humiliation was the most essential part of the
punishment, even more than the pain.
"You have been disobedient, Emily," her mother's husky, commanding
voice came to her. "And Dr Mappamundi must suffer the consequences.
"No, Mommy, don't say that, please, I beg you!!"
"But perhaps in the long run it's for the best."
There was a slight gasp and moan from Dr Mappamundi.
"Emily, where is Dr Mappamundi?" Mrs Adams asked "What
position does she find herself in?"
"She .... Is she across your knees, Mummy?"
"Would you find that surprising, Emily?"
"Oh, Mommy, please let her go. Please don't hurt her," Emily
was frantic with embarrassment.
"I think Dr Mappamundi can speak for herself," her mother said.
"Emily, perhaps you'll...you'll feel I've let you down," Dr Mappamundi
said. "I came here to speak on your behalf. I confess I ...I was somewhat
disturbed over what you told me -about how your appeal to your mother had
failed."
In fact, Dr Mappamundi had been extremely scornful when Emily told her of
her mother's powers of argument. They were in Dr Mappamundi's study
at the university, Dr Mappamundi smoking a cigarette, her legs in those
same elegant boots propped between two piles of books on the worn leather
surface of her desk. Emily had tried to explain how her mother could argue
a case most cogently, so that Dr Mappamundi had said with a mocking
smile on her beautiful lips: "She sounds like a controversialist and logic-
chopper of the highest order."
This was unusually sarcastic, even for Dr Mappamundi. When asked what
College her mother had attended, Emily had to admit that her mother had
never been to university, but that she was very well read and informed.
"I have little time for auto-didacts," Dr Knapp had said dismissively,
crossing her elegant legs and lighting another cigarette. "Your mother's
opinions are outrageous and I have by no means decided that I shall not
take this matter further."
There was a dressing table to Emily's left on which lay her mother's
modest cosmetics. It had a three-winged mirror. Emily dared take a
glance at one of the mirrors, which was angled so that she could see her
mother's erect back. In the bright afternoon sunlight through the net
curtains she could see Dr Mappamundi's superb buttocks prominently
exposed over her mother's thighs. Exquisitely curved pale cream buttocks,
unmarked as yet, but the blonde woman's upper thighs were suffused with
a painfully rosy flush. With another slight move of her head Emily could
see how Dr Mappamundi's right arm was twisted behind her back and
gripped at the wrist by her tormentor.
"I'm so, so sorry, Dr Mappamundi," Emily mumbled.
"And I so much wanted to meet your mother," Dr Mappamundi went on. "So
when she telephoned me.."
"Telephoned you?" Emily was terrified. So Mommy knew! Oh,
Christ, she'd know about the demonstrations as well. And all Emily's little
acts of solidarity with the student body. It was too horrible.
"I knew she must have a most interesting mind." Dr Mappamundi went on.
As indeed she has. We...We had a most civilised discussion "
There was a silence, while Emily grew more and more agitated.
"You are probably aware what stage we have reached."
"Mommy won the argument," Emily said, then added despairingly, " I know
that you're just winding up the discussion the way Mommy likes to do, but
why are you... why are you in.. in that ..position?"
"In the discussion with your mother I certainly had not expected to lose the
argument," Dr Mappamundi said in her usual closely reasoned tones.
"You were the youngest Philosophy graduate in Lady Margaret Hall,"
gushed Emily.
"Hold your tongue, Emily," her mother interrupted.
There was a crack like a pistol shot and a cry of despair from Dr
Mappamundi. Mommy was obviously in possession of her ebony
hairbrush and had just made violent contact with the philosophical buttocks.
There were several minutes of gulping sobs, interspersed with pleadings for
mercy from Dr Mappamundi, before she was able to continue in faltering
tones.
"I was, of course, totally wrong in my assumption."
"Yes, but..."Emily said, bewildered.
"Silence, Emily" her mother said with such a lemony twist of asperity in her
voice that Emily's fears for Mommy's helpless prisoner were greatly
increased. She was only too well aware how powerless you were over
Mommy's knees, your outer arm twisted behind your back and held firmly,
with a half-turn to the wrist, a slight but utterly weakening twist which left
you completely at her mercy. But then, you were already at her mercy,
after she had droned on at you in her deep voice, staring into your eyes so
that all resistance was drained out of you and you trembled to do her will.
"In view of my erroneous assumption," Dr Mappamundi went on, "I had little
difficulty in agreeing to a certain proposition of you mother's."
"Oh dear!" Emily said.
" She told me that you had eventually accepted her arguments when you
made your case to her about your future plans."
"Well, yes, that's true. Mommy always wins her arguments with me."
"She told me that she had chastised you and brought you to book."
"Yes," Emily said miserably, knowing what was coming.
"She asked me was I prepared to accept the same terms."
"Oh God, no" wailed Emily.
"I made the mistake of assuming..... and it is one of my tenets that one
should never merely assume... that she had chastised you verbally"
"Oh, Dr Mappamundi Emily said. "I'm so terribly sorry.."
"Your mother's arguments were in fact irrefutable. She was logical,
persuasive and cogent in her reasoning in a way that I, trained in argument,
could only listen to in admiration. It was wonderfully well brought home to
me how often the ordinary conservative Christian point of view is not well
represented in argument nowadays, or goes by default."
Emily felt so sorry for Dr Mappamundi, the way she was trying to butter
Mommy up like this. Emily could have told her it was totally useless, that
the punishment would continue no matter what she said, no matter how
much she abased herself.
"One forgets" Dr Mappamundi went on, " how cogent, how powerful this
point of view, in fact, is. "
Three further staccato cracks, which Emily well knew by their sound were
made directly by her mother on her victim's buttocks brought a cry of
outrage which gradually reduced to fresh pleadings for mercy and agitated
but helpless sobbing.
"Get on with it, Dr Mappamundi," the older woman ordered peremptorily.
"I didn't know you were coming to see Mommy," Emily wailed
.
"Oh Emily, Emily,"Dr Mappamundi sobbed. "Why didn't you warn me what
your mother meant by "chastised" and "brought to book." I have been
"brought to book," Emily. I should have been outraged when she ordered
me to take off my dress, yet here I am naked and helpless across your
mother's knees. I have received the greatest thrashing of my life and your
mother refuses to tell me how much more of the same I may expect."
"Please, Mommy," Emily begged again, "let her go now, she's had enough.."
"I shall be the judge of that, Emily" her mother said tartly. "Now you may
go to your room and prepare"
"My room?"
"You know what I mean, Emily. You have disobeyed me again. You did
not convey my sentiments to Dr Mappamundi as I requested. Kindly repair
to your room and remove your dress and underclothes and stand in the
corner until I come for you."
In her own bedroom Emily laid her dress carefully on her bed and a few
seconds later her plain white bra and pants were folded neatly on top. She
stood in the corner with her head bowed and her wrists crossed
submissively behind her. It was cool, almost cold in the bedroom and
only the carpet felt comforting under her bare feet. She could feel goose-
pimples rising on her skin. She trembled. She could hear the dull buzz
of voices, mostly her mother's voice from the room next door, the crack of
the hairbrush on Dr Mappamundi's buttocks and her outraged, despairing
cries.
Ten minutes later her mother entered the room and Emily could feel the
faint cool movement of air as she passed behind her, taking hold of Emily's
wrist as she did so, leading her to the bed where she seated herself
comfortably on the edge. Emily turned and lay obediently across her
mother's thighs, feeling the rough kiss of the tweed skirt against her skin,
the pressure against her bare flesh of the buttons on her mother's garter-
straps. Emily's right arm was twisted behind her, gripped firmly at the
wrist.
"It is hardly necessary to go into any further detail as to why you are being
punished," Mother said.
"No, Mommy," Emily said.
Her womb felt as though it was turning to water. She always felt this same
mixture of terror and exhilaration as she lay like this, knowing there was
absolutely no possibility of mercy in this position so completely was she in
this implacable woman's power. Her mother was using the hairbrush and
soon the sound of Dr Mappamundi's sobbing was blocked out by the loud,
persistent crack of wood against skin and Emily could not help shrieking
with pain. But in a few moments Mother had taken Emily into a state of
agony that was almost beyond pain, a dimension of numb defeat where her
soul seemed to leave her body and she swooned into a breathless void of
subjugation in which she knew she was obliged to beg for mercy with the
certainty only of being refused, thus confirming her mother's complete
dominion over her and her own perverse joy in her submission. Mother
had always had this power over her, as though able at will to lead her as a
prisoner into a flat, featureless landscape where there was neither desire
nor sin nor any will to be free. When her mother finally stopped beating
her Emily lay there, convulsed and frantic with pain, barely aware of her
mother's breath on her naked back. Her mother released her grip on her
wrist and tapped her on the shoulder and Emily immediately struggled to
her feet, humiliated that she was unable to resist dancing around the room
holding her buttocks, her mouth open in a soundless scream under her
mother's cool, sardonic gaze.
Later, when she was dressed again, gasping with pain, Emily joined her
mother and Dr Mappamundi in the older woman's bedroom. Her mother
sat in her armchair looking down at them. Emily and Dr Mappamundi
were both in agony and unable to sit down, so that they had to kneel on the
carpet, placing the two younger women in an appropriately submissive
attitude. Mrs Armstrong had attractive muscular legs, which she crossed
elegantly at the knees, showing off her shapely, fine-boned ankles, her skirt
neither too short nor too long, riding up just an inch above her kneecaps
which glowed faintly through the bronze of her nylons.
"Emily, you will be pleased to know that Dr Mappamundi will be staying for
a few days," Mrs Armstrong said genially, "while she makes some changes
in her domestic arrangements."
" Chris and I may get married," Dr Mappamundi said, giving a painful intake
of breath as she shifted to a more comfortable position. Chris was her
current lover. "Until that time we can no longer live together and I'm going
to ask him to move out."
She groaned slightly as she got to her feet.
"Your mother has rightly pointed out to me the irregularity of my lifestyle.
She has also persuaded me that it will be to my advantage if she advises
on my conduct on a more long term basis and, to that end, I shall be calling
here monthly at least to hold discussions with her."
In spite of her pain Emily burst out in despair "No, Dr Mappamundi, No!
Even if I am not free, you are. You are a free spirit."
"Hush, Emily," Dr Mappamundi said, "You are in good hands."
Emily's mother raised her hand to silence Dr Mappamundi and looked at
Emily, outraged, her beautiful intelligent eyes flashing with anger Emily
dropped her gaze, unable to sustain eye contact with her mother. She
couldn't believe what she had done. She hadn't meant to rebel. Although
sore, she was always at peace after one of her mother's thrashings, even
if it was the peace of utter humiliation and defeat, and knew exactly where
she stood. And now she had made this stupid outburst on Dr
Mappamundi's behalf. Dr Mappamundi wasn't even on her side now.
And her mother abhorred stupidity just as much as disobedience.
"To your room, Emily," her mother said. "I find I am not finished with you
yet."