THE RETREAT, I
(A camp in which girls learn to rule and boys learn to like
it.)
by Estragon
For adults only
Dearest Kristen,
I know, I know. It's been ages. But I had to get your approval
on something. Somebody recently posted to one of the
newsgroups on the net a vivid description of a summer-camp in
which mothers and daughters dominated and disciplined their
sons and brothers. For a minute I thought....Well, of course,
it turned out to be a fantasy, and I had to smile, because I
never really entertain the possibility of my real life being
somebody's fantasy. But why shouldn't I? When I need to
daydream about sex, mostly I only have to remember. Yes,
Kristen, maybe I don't write or call that much, but the very
sound of your name is enough to make my knees bend and my
penis harden. Believe me, I still go crazy when I remember
the first time we met. I was six and you five, so maybe you
can't even recall it. But it meant a lot to me. Mom introduced
your mother and you as "Aunt Bonnie and Cousin Kristen." For
a long time I really thought Bonnie was mom's sister. I only
found out it was a figure of speech years later, when I
started feeling guilty about wanting my own cousin to tap me.
Mom eased my mind on that matter. Do you remember that first
time at all? "Bobby, honey, be a good boy and undress for Aunt
Bonnie and Cousin Kristen." Can you imagine what that sounded
like to a little boy who wanted nothing more? "Be a good
boy!" Mom made being a good boy sound so easy. I never
figured out why the boys in the 'hood had such a hard time
with it.
I know, you're probably wondering why, at six, I wanted to be
naked for you and your mother so much. I can't say, really.
Just that it already seemethe best thing in the world to
"unhide" yourself to girls. (That was my mental word for it,
"unhide." And, actually, it's still my private word.) Dad was
around then, and I remember walking in on him and mom a
couple of times and seeing him kneeling in front of her stark
naked. My appearance in the doorway didn't bother mom at all,
but dad was embarrassed and probably would have skulked off
if mom didn't make a point of ordering him to stay put. I was
impressed, believe me. I was a really small child then, maybe
only five, but something in me made me think that dad was
crazy to want to hide. To be kneeling like that before "a
lady," even if the lady was my own mom, seemed the greatest
thing in the world for anybody who wasn't a lady. And I knew
that much - I mean, that I wasn't a lady. I think I took in
dad's erection, but I didn't know quite what to make of it.
I had a little one myself, but at that age they hardly
increased the total size of my tiny emblem of future slavery.
Do you remember? I had one that first day, right in front of
you and Aunt Bonnie. You probably don't even remember, but I
do - and how you giggled and gaily jogged it about with your
little-girl hand. Your mom said to mine, "He's absolutely
adorable." And mine said to yours, "So is Kristen, so is
Kristen."
Anyhow, anyhow....back to the internet. Naturally, this other
fellow's fantasy differed in many ways from our reality: there
was a lot of leather and lashing in it, for instance, and the
girls were a bit on the mean side. (Including, as I recall,
a youngster named Kristen. I've already mentioned, dearest
"cousin," what that name does to me.) But the story spoke to
a real need and lots of readers felt its eloquence. Well, as
it happens, I had written up some time ago a little account of
our own experience, but I've been too shy to publish it. Now
I'd like to. I want people to know it can really happen. But
I don't dare do it without your okay. Would you mind looking
it over? When you have the chance? I'll do nothing without
your permission, of course. (Can you believe it makes me hard
just typing tse words to you, Kristen? Are men hopeless, or
what?)
I apologize for my long silence. I'm sure you're breezing
through med school, though. As for MY career, well, there's
an old saying, "The law is an ass." You hear it all the time
and never really understand it. Let's just say I'm finally
getting the point. I see your mother's poems in The New
Yorker. My mom's photos are showing up all over the place and,
to judge from the postcards I get, so is she.
You were the girl who tapped me. I'll always be yours, you
know. Here's the article:
Back in the seventies, my feminist mother and a bunch of her
friends decided to take strong measures to prevent their own
kids from having to struggle with the popular myths about
gender. They felt the best approach was to nip male attitudes
of superiority in the bud. So they started a program among
themselves involving frequent weekend gatherings throughout
the year and a big summer retreat at a camp they refurbished
for the purpose. No wonder I remember my childhood as
paradise. No wonder I worship the female sex.
There were eight women and thirteen kids at first. Somewhere
in the middle three more women joined and brought three
daughters and two sons with them. When the retreats began,
the youngest of us was a five-year-old boy and the eldest an
eleven-year-old girl. I was seven. The retreats, as well as
occasional get-togethers during the year, went on until I was
sixteen. There were seven of us boys at first, later nine.
The oldest boy was about two years older than I. But most of
the mothers had been friends at school, so their kids
couldn't be that far apart in age.
The boys would be expected to go naked all the time we were at
the camp. At first, when one of the fathers or a male friend
of one of the mothers visited, he was expected to be
depilated to some extent around his genitals, and to "empty"
himself of semen several times a day to reduce the chances of
arousal, since some of the women worried about the effect on
the younger girls of seeing grown-up males naked. But when
the older boys began to show signs of puberty, the policy was
abandoned as no longer relevant. Some of the women thought it
was misguided anyhow. I remember hearing my own mom say that
in her view it was good for girl to see the pubic patches of
men since it showed them how impossible it was for a man to
hide, even with nature's help. She and others also felt that
there should be nothing intrinsically scarey about an adult
erection to a girl who understood that it was an
acknowledgement of HER power and not the man's.
But for a couple of years the policy held. Adult males weren't
actually around all that much, but when they were they
followed protocol. The adult males were required to ejaculate
privately at various points in the day, whether they felt
like it or not, in order to "wear their penises out," as one
of the women explained to us younger boys. Two ejaculations
were required in the morning, when testosterone runs high,
and one at lunch-time and another in the late afternoon, and
maybe another after dinner - I don't actually recall. The
grown-up men were given privacy to do their "emptying." They
weren't even allowed the company of their own woman-friend,
since the point was to reduce all of their sexual feeling. Of
course they obliged. They WERE the men our dominant mothers
had chosen for themselves. Their privacy during ejaculation
was the only privacy any male enjoyed at the retreat.
Otherwise we were expected to do everything within the sight
of women or girls - even toilet things. Once you became
accustomed to it, it was wonderful to go about your business
naked all day. To walk outdoors without a stitch of clothing,
to run, to play, to hike in the woods, scratching your skin
on the brush and brambles, risking abrasion to your penis and
impalement of your balls - it's pure heaven once you really
accept the fact that you're a male.
After a year or two, the women introduced a slight refinement
to the practice of having boys naked all the time. Boys in
puberty were made to wear a simple black strap-and-belt, a
little like an elastic posing-strap, except that the somewhat
thickened lower end fitted under, not over, the scrotum,
lifting it and pushing the testicles forward. The belt
circled the stomach just below the rib-cage and the
support-band descended from its back, coming down over our
haunches. The straps were as slender as those of a woman's
bra. When we left the retreat on outings we had to dress, of
course. We would wear this black truss under our clothes -
very loose shorts and a white t-shirt were mandatory - and its
outline was visible beneath our shirt. I can testify that a
boy got from this contraption a strong impression of being in
a state of constant offering.
Once you were old enough to wear the belt, it was considered
very rude not to and women and girls were thought within
their rights if they took it as an insult, a sign that a boy
was not willing to please. Of course, we boys weren't all
that rebellious. But we WERE boys. We had something in our
blood, a bit of aggression, a bit of mulishness, and,
especially when we'd been away from the community for a while
and back in the chaos of the "real world," we'd pick up
truculent ways from other kids. Every week-end get-together
and, God knows, every summer retreat, began with much
discipline and lecturing as sullen boys who had kept bad
company were dragged out of backslide.
But these things are relative. We never slipped to the level
of louts, we never even dreamed of repudiating our servile
state. It was small things, obstinate little points of pride,
petty signs of shame at being ordered around by girls, things
that eyes less acute than our mothers' and sisters' wouldn't
even see. Let's just say that the lectures and punishments
worked overtime to clean up fairly minor testosterone spills.
The women wanted nothing left ambiguous. And the girls learned
to want no less. That was the point. That was why a boy who'd
been even a little lackadaisical, or maybe ever so slightly
peevish, had to endure a serious thrashing (by real-life,
American standards anyhow - things might get a lot worse in
pornography or Singapore).
There were nightly meetings of the entire group. The girls and
women would sit in lawn-chairs facing us kneeling boys. Long,
frank discussions followed. Complaints and proposals for
improvements were voiced. Girls could ask questions about the
nature of boys and, where a demonstration of any kind was
called for, some boy would be drafted for the purpose. In
this way the girls got their first view of male masturbation
and ejaculation. But masturbation was a complicated matter at
the retreat, permitted, even encouraged, yet highly regulated
at the same time. The women had their reasons.
end of part one