Desire in Any Language (6 page)

“You came because you needed a spanking, did you not?”

His words sound like Mistress Susan, but his voice is so different from my imagining that I start to stand up from the recliner he has made me sit in.

“Sit down, Mira.”  This time, the politeness is laced with warning.  “Do not displease me.”

“But…Mistress Susan…”

He sits down in front of me, lacing his fingers together.  “Would you have come unaccompanied to a man’s apartment?  Be reasonable.  I want only to make your dreams come true, and you told me from our very first chat that you wouldn’t talk to a man.  What was I supposed to do?”

“Tell me the truth!” I burst out.

“And hinder your growth?  I saw what you needed.  I knew it from your first message.  You need someone to guide you, to teach you right and wrong.  Isn’t that right, Mira?”

Against my will, I nod.  I do want this.  I did want this.  Just…not
this
.

“Isn’t it sexist to assume that I can’t give you what I want because I am a man?  I care about you, Mira.  I want you to be happy.  I will give you the spanking I want and need.”

“Give me what
you
want?”
 

For a moment, he is off-guard.  He scowls in irritation.  Less than a second later, his face returns to its smooth, earnest openness.  “I mean give you what
you
want.  Of course.”

My hand searches, out of habit, for my missing cell phone.  If only I could call someone!  Not that I would say what was going on, but to have some way to contact…

“Now, Mira.  I have been patient enough.  We have already discussed why you will be punished.  Remove your clothes and touch your toes.”

I gasp.  “But you didn’t say…”

His smile grows a bit wider.  “I can’t give away all my secrets, can I?  Be quick about it or you will get double.”

I shake my head furiously and sit forward as if to dash toward the door, but he grabs me by the arm.

“Are you refusing me, little girl?  You naughty, wicked, selfish child!  You know you need to be punished.  If you run from me, you will have to live the rest of your life continuing to make mistakes.”  When I stop struggling, he leans closer.  “If you try to escape again, I will never let you go.  No one knows you are here, remember?  Either take off your clothes now or I will spank you first and then tear them off you before spanking you again.”

I stop shaking my head and answer in a terrified whisper.  “Not all of my clothes, I can’t.  I
can’t
!”

For some reason, his smile grows even bigger and his voice indulgent.  “Very well then.  I am prepared to compromise.  You may keep your shirt on, but take off your skirt.”  He pauses.  “Leave the nylons.  I’ll do that myself.”

I whimper, and with one move he lifts me to my feet and smacks my backside so hard that I gasp.  The shoulder seam of my shirt tears from the pressure of his arm-jerking.

“I’m through playing games, little girl.  Do as you’re told or there will be consequences.”

With trembling fingers, I unzip my skirt and step out of it.  I fold it carefully and set it on the recliner.  He nods, sits down on the other recliner, and holds his hand out to me.  I creep to him like a bunny going to a bounty hunter, and he dumps me over his lap like a sack of carrots.  I gasp as his hard hand comes down again and again.  I thought that the rod hurt at school, but there I am allowed to stand on my own.  Here, pressed against his legs and other parts I’d rather not think about, I am suffocated.  Trapped.  His hand comes down once more, and a gasp turns into a strangled yelp.

“Yes,” he croons.  “Let me hear your pain.  Does that hurt?”

I whimper and nod, struggling to get free.  “That’s enough!  I don’t want any more.”

“Oh no,” he chuckles.  “That was just to get you started.”  He rips my nylons open, pulls down my panties, and shifts position.  The next thing I know there is an explosion of pain so strong that it nearly blinds me.  His hand is holding my back down so I can’t look to see what he is using, but in our endless chats he told me of his fondness for the strap and paddle.  I scream, and he laughs as the solid something smashes into me.  As I scream again, he pulls my head back by the hair to force me to look at him.

“Tell me how much it hurts,” he commands.  When I am too shocked to answer, the solid something flattens my bottom again.  “Tell me!”

“A lot!” I moan.  “Please stop!”

“That’s right,” he says, releasing my hair.  “And how does it feel when I do this?”  He changes position again, and this time he spreads apart my legs before inflicting pain in areas that I never knew existed.  Every so often, he demands for me to tell him how much it hurts.  I babble incoherently, at first trying to obey and then no longer needing to simulate the terror that delights him.

After longer than I know to be possible, he pushes me to my knees on the floor.

“Beg my forgiveness,” he rasps.  I am too slow to understand his meaning, and he cuffs my ear as if I am a disobedient puppy.  “I said beg my forgiveness!”

I wail more incoherent words until he tells me to get dressed and to leave.  I don’t have to be told twice.  I scramble into my skirt before grabbing my shoes and running into the hallway on nylons that quickly shred into nothingness.  He laughs as he slams the door shut, and it is his laughter more than anything else that brings me to my senses.

“Eat yot!” I scream at the closed door before I run away, tears streaming down my cheeks.  I don’t even notice that I have lost a shoe until the blood from my cut foot causes me to slip.

Desire Expressed

Despite the pain and difficulty walking, I attend class the next day.  Ah-ee, Pedro, and several of the others are sufficiently red-eyed and hungover to make my red eyes and squirming quite unremarkable.  Ah-ee goes with me to the phone shop to declare my phone missing, and to my surprise I am offered use of a company phone free of charge. 

“Why?” I ask Ah-ee.  Her language skills are much better than mine, so she has done most of the negotiating.

“They don’t want to lose your business.  So you can use this one until you find your old one or buy another.”

The scuffed-up grey clamshell phone is hardly prize property, but it is free and in working condition.

“Really?  Thank you!” I beam at the service…what is she called?  Technician?  Specialist?  She pushes some paperwork toward me and rattles off a list of confusing instructions.  I only understand “sign” and notice the X marks in front of several lines.  I scribble my name and give it back to her. 

“Okay?” I ask.

“Okay,” she smiles back, answering in English.  It really is the universal word. 
Okay, taxi
, and
sh—
well, another word, they are the three universal words known by nearly everyone I meet.  Only here it sounds more like “tek-shee” and “sheet”.  There is no short “i” sound as in “bit”, only the long “ee” sound as in “whee.”  As in “Whee, I don’t have to buy a new phone!”

“Your phone number is even the same!” Ah-ee grins, as delighted as if she is the one to personally offer the service.  “Aren’t they great?”

I nod and thank both Ah-ee and the customer service person. 
What a great country
, I think.

Slipping my phone into my pocket, I am shocked at myself.  A great country?  Really?  After…but then I resolutely turn my thoughts away. 

“Shopping next, right?” Ah-ee asks.  I smile.  I don’t know how formal the lunch will be tomorrow, but it never hurts to have new clothes. 

“Sure!  Where first?”

We wander through the street markets as well as the little shops and huge department stores, and Ah-ee talks me into buying a lavender jacket with a matching skirt and a white blouse.

“I look forty-five!” I complain, even as I hold the jacket under my chin.  At least it will be warm.  Spring is slow to arrive this year.

“It’s a lunch with your tutor, not your boyfriend,” Ah-ee reminds me.  “Plus all of your other clothes make you look really young.”

I make a face at her, but I slip the jacket on and turn around to admire myself in it.  I do look grown-up.  Maybe grown-up enough to stop getting myself into messes.

“Okay,” I say.  “I’ll take it.”

Ah-ee is right, as usual, and the next day at the restaurant I am bathed in compliments.

“So pretty!” she remarks, stroking the soft fabric.  “So pretty with your skin, and your hair back…are you finally growing up?”

I blush profusely, stammering.  If I’d known that all it would take to get in her good graces was new clothes, I would have bought them long ago.  We are brought to a little table, and we slip our shoes off in order to seat ourselves on the floor.  A small “ooh!” escapes as I try to sit down, and she takes my arm.

“Have you hurt yourself?”

“No, no,” I answer.  “Just too much dancing…”

It’s a small lie, but it’s close enough to the truth that she sighs.  I stifle a sigh of my own.  I hadn’t meant to bring up a sensitive subject.  I was too focused on my own sensitive “subject” that now that I am sitting on the floor.  The warmth from the floorboards, ordinarily an uprising hug on a cold day, seeps through the floor cushion in the most uncomfortable places. 

I rise to my knees in order to arrange the napkins and cutlery from the serving dishes, and I pour her glass of water with the correct two-handed method.  It is my first time to eat a meal with her, but at school there is a special class for culture and etiquette.  Translation and interpretation are much more than changing words from one language to another.

When the server arrives he takes down the order and vanishes immediately.  She has not asked my preference but that, too, I have learned, is customary.  I hope she remembers that I don’t like squid.  I remember all too clearly that to not eat with appreciation is the height of rudeness. 

“Mira,” she begins, and I brace myself for the lecture, “tell me why you came here for school.”

I blink at her stupidly.  Didn’t we do all of this when I applied and interviewed and was accepted?  She is too young to accuse of senility, however, and it is an order rather than a request for my opinion. 

“Um…”  I think for a moment.  Did Lee Sonsengnim tell her the reason that I cried in class?  If he did, then maybe I could tell her more of the truth this time.  “Well, I was born here and I always wanted to see what it was like, so after I graduated from college I came to this school.”

She nods.  She has heard parts of this story but not all.  “What did your parents think?”

That’s been a hard adjustment for me here, to answer questions about my parents.  It’s not that I mind, but I have trouble remembering that here parents are involved even in their adult children’s lives.  People my own age here still ask their parents for permission or receive money on holidays.

“They were a little upset, but once they heard how much I like it here they said it was great.  Dad wants to come for a visit next year, but Mom isn’t much of a traveler so…”

The food arrives, hot and steaming and plentiful.  I don’t know the name, but she points out each bit of the noodles, vegetables, and oysters and explains them to me.  I am so relieved that there is no squid that I take a hearty bite—only to yelp in pain. 

“It’s hot!” she warns me, too late.

I hurriedly take a gulp of water and swish it around my burnt tongue.  Just when I was trying to make a good impression!  I look down to see, thankfully, that at least I have avoided spilling any of the sauce on my new clothes.  Spicy red sauce and pale white and lavender clothes are not an optimal combination. 

“Do you like being here?” she asks as if we hadn’t been interrupted by the food.  I think about her question as I carefully blow cooling air onto the sizzling noodles. 

“Am I going to get kicked out?”

I hadn’t meant to ask it that bluntly, but her eyes soften. 

“Do you want to be?”

I start to say no, but then I stop.  “I guess I’m doing all the things to get kicked out, right?”

It is not technically correct to ask an authority figure a question that assumes the answer, but she nods. 

“I want to be a translator,” I say.  “I’m not so good at the interpreting, I mean the speaking and listening stuff is too fast for me, but if I got my certificate and could start freelancing…I love it here.  I want to stay.”

“Here at school or here in this country?”

I pull on my lip, another etiquette no-no.  I must remember to thank Jung Sonsengnim for teaching me all of the etiquette rules so that I can be self-conscious as I  keep breaking them.

“I want to stay in the country yes, but the school too.  Only I keep messing up…”

She takes a choice bit of oyster and places it in front of me.  “Eat,” she says.  Oyster is not my favorite food in the world, but I nod my thanks and eat as if it is the most delicious morsel I have ever tasted.

“I’m not a translator,” she reminds me, and I give her a questioning look.  “Are you having so much trouble because you need to be with an advisor who can guide you better?”

“No!” I nearly shout.  Not this again! 

“I’m an English teacher by day, and I’m only at the school part-time.  Do you need someone more consistent, someone who can be more involved?  I’m not throwing you away, Mira.  But what we’re doing isn’t working, and something has to change.  What can we do?”

We
, she asks.  Not just me, but “we”.  Both of us.  I wonder…I catch my breath and then the memory of two days ago comes unbidden.

I can make your dreams come true.

No one can make all of my dreams come true, but perhaps I have been looking in the wrong places.

“Sonsengnim,” I begin, and she interrupts.

“What do you need?”

I look down at my plate, the chopsticks awkward in my hand. 

Do not displease me
.

Perhaps I have been trying to please the wrong people.  For the wrong reasons.  “Mistress Susan” disappeared overnight, “her” account deleted from the chat room.  A few questions to other chatters resulted in overwhelming stories of how “she” had said exactly the same things to other girls.  The only difference was that they lived too far away to visit “her” in person.  Lucky them.