Sir,
Nurse stirred me up from my gloriously wet slumber at seven o'clock this morning, long after you had forsaken the warmth of our shared bedding to return to the lonely homily of hostel life. Why can't we live together forever?
You know, poets, writers and visionaries have for a long time mused about the twin dilemma of _s_e_x_ as food and _s_e_x_ as idolatry but we managed to get on the see-saw last night, didn't we? Do you remember being all agog when our naked flesh was locked together in embrace under the covers? Sleeping in the nude has been a joie de vivre since my father introduced me to his discipline rituals. There's no greater earthly pleasure than abandoning ourselves to our hedonistic impulses, and to caress your penis with soft, cool sheets the entire night is the preponderance of material indulgence. It's akin to an endless blow job. Oh sir, please excuse my lapse from civilized restraints.
But now to get to the crux of this letter - let me be the first to confess that being in the nude in daylight is a different matter, altogether - it's what First Brother and I describe colloquially as "f**king face-losing".
So there was Nurse hurrying me to meet my parents while I tried to clear the sleep from my eyelashes. She spat onto her fingers and ran them over my tousled hair to tame the strands; not that this was necessary since, in a short while, it was all to disappear under the barber's clippers. Yes, Ky, it's all gone - those Samsonesque locks you so worshipped and said made me look like the girl you could be unashamed to marry.
Sol had just risen to ravage the wall paints again and under it I sat, on my punishment stool. Only yesterday, Father had caned my buttocks here; and it was for the first time in front of the whole family, remember? This is why I must now display my nudity for a day.
The family barber tried to pay no attention to my nakedness, but it proved impossible when the clipped hair persistently trespassed on my nethermost terrain. Very soon my pleasure portal started to resemble an unnatural mound. Sir, I tried hard to brush away all the hair that didn't legitimately belong, but my earnestness caused my penis to spring delightfully to life. The barber's face was crimson with embarrassment and Father, who'd been giving instructions the entire time, threatened to take the cane to the seat of my pants if I didn't cease tempting our guest. And he meant to. My cane was right under my naked hiney, right there beside the stool.
Nurse gave my body a hard scrub afterwards, with loofah. She was very determined to remove every bit of the hirsute stub from my skin.
But clean as I was, it didn't stop Master Kohn from putting my body under the microscope. Right after the bath I was presented to Master Kohn for four hours of religious instructions. Father had soundly reminded me that I would have no meals and playtime today, so Master Kohn was to fully exploit that free time tutoring me in Zen Buddhism. Father also proclaimed that my shaky religious grounding was the basis of my worsening apostasy.
Master Kohn examined my posterior first. I felt his cane in the vicinity of my anus and I jumped. I do say, sir, that he would have pushed the cane right up my prostate glands had I not stopped him.
"Do not do that, sir," I pleaded vaguely, "for I am still my father's seventh heir, and the eighth master of this house!"
I don't think Master Kohn quite appreciated that I had license to repartee. I think he must believe that all children, even in casual overtures, must be treated as social mutes.
He slapped me, sir, and at the impact, I fell prostrate to the floor, whereupon he started lashing his cane at my buttocks. I declare, sir, that he had abused the power of his vocation, for Father had not sanctioned his use of the cane on me in this way. Master Kohn's job purview excluded that of judge and executioner. Now I wish nothing more than to see him get what is coming to him; I only need to tell Father, but it is not my style to rat on my adversaries, and I fight my own fights.
At the third blow, I yelled with all my might, and he ceased hitting me; I surmise his charity was due to fear of calling attention to ourselves and that was not in his scheme today. His disembodied voice above me was next heard ordering me to the lectern. I got up and knelt before the sacred scroll and the lesson commenced. For two hours I parroted off what were mindless incantations in the guise of religion, and these soon cluttered the room and my head with their obsolete legalistic requirements and half-baked theosophy about the world.
When my loftier instincts decided that I had had enough of the mumbo-jumbo, I got off my knees.
"How dare you get up before time and without being told," Master Kohn bellowed, raising his cane to level with my nipples.
"I'm sorry, sir," I replied, "but I cannot carry on reciting a liturgy I have no convictions about without deprecating my own conscience."
I know I was being insolent, but, sir, didn't Galileo already prove the world was round centuries ago? How was I expected to tolerate teachings that were arcane and promoted prejudice, when all my being urged me to resist? Even you, sir, have taught me to seek the truth for truth is freedom.
But alas, sir, I am ashamed to confess that I am an unworthy proselyte of the truth. You see, sir, I started to remember that it was my hauteur and disobedience to Master Kohn yesterday that had, in the first place, led Father to punish my bottom so mercilessly with the cane - and the scars are still visible now - and also punish me to a day of lent and nakedness. I knew that if I didn't show I was penitent, I would be punished with another day in religious class tomorrow, with Master Kohn in supervision. Believe me, sir, I'd rather live for eternity as a eunuch than spend five minutes in his servitude.
So what choice had I except to make an apology?
But it was not to suffice. Sir, Master Kohn had me bend over the commode for a caning also.
"Spread your legs," he ordered me.
I did my best, sir, spreading them the way I would for Father. But Master Kohn ordered me to spread them wider still. I felt my buttock muscles clenching and unclenching and my virginal anus puckering in the next two minutes that he was whipping me. THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! - went his cane. I was in terror of him but I muffled my sobs on the lacquered top because I thought that co-operating with Master Kohn in the present would override the need to deal with any trouble in the future.
Sir, I must say that there was no other sound more welcoming to me that time than the silence that ensued after the fifth lash. Master Kohn left me bent over the commode for the next half an hour. It was recess, he said. I heard him eating his tea close behind me.
When I was finally allowed to return to my place at the scroll, Master Kohn resumed the farce: " ....and when the white man came, we had to submit to work and baptism and ...." I grasped at his so-called truths, sir, placid as a fawn. Half an hour later, I was longing for a good pee. Master Kohn granted me ten minutes.
On my return, Master Kohn subjected my penis to his examination - for the second time today, sir!
"There are residues of urine on your slit. Follow me," he exclaimed full of exaggerated aghast and affected dismay.
Then watching over me at the bathroom, he instructed me in the correct way to perform penile cleansing, using his own hands to pull back the prepuce to get at the ring. I say, sir, that this was all very officious on his part.
"Remember," he said, while I toweled myself dry, "if you can't be pious, at least be clean."
Sir, he took my penis roughly in his hands once more, and re-examined it with the meticulousness of an accountant, before he was satisfied and ready for me to complete my lessons. Then to justify himself, he said: "You see now, don't you, young Han, that I want only what's good for you? I want you to think of me as a father, even a father figure, who cares about his son. Won't you do this?"
I did not mean to be ungrateful, sir, but I regarded his poseur to be so antithetical to fatherhood that it insulted all fathers. But I was too much of a coward to tell him so.
The last two hours with Master Kohn were the most grueling to mind and buttocks I'd had to endure. At the end, he allowed me to stand up for a stretch, which I did with a protracted spasm of effort. About this time Father made an appearance for a report of my progress.
And this was when I discovered what a treacherous employee Father had on his payroll. Is this the man who was to teach me about religion and morality until I was as enlightened as the Dalai Lama? I was horrified to hear him give Father a thorough account of the events of the last four hours, cleverly peppering it with lies about how I engaged in a verbal attack of all the things Father held sanctimonious and sacred, even about God and ancestry. And through it all, he was able to keep a straight face!
Suis-je bete! To think I made a concession on principle and conscience for this!
Lastly His Unholy Highness said to Father: "Master Han has no discipline and no restraint. He is godless and impious and has a sacrilegious tongue. He is also a scoundrel, for look at his penis. See how it stands. It's his mind - it's always preoccupied with debauchery when he should be occupying it with godly pursuits. I must recommend that his punishment be extended for twenty-four hours. A further half a day of religious instruction and meditation can only benefit him. And I believe that it is necessary that you appease the gods Han has insulted by ensuring that he is caned before the night is over."
"So be it," Father pronounced, looking cross. But I wasn't sure with whom he was cross for his eyes were unfocused.
Sir, as I sit here composing this letter to you, I am completely aware of how fearful I am. I'm terrified, sir, of facing Master Kohn tomorrow. He's like a scabby itch on my arm that will not go away. Furthermore, I don't think this fellow can be trusted. He wears a false smile and piety that mask his extreme hate. Perhaps in a former life he had been a thespian, who knows? Sir, I assure you that I'm not making any of this up, even if you think I have too active an imagination.
I'm disappointed in Father, too. Why, he is as myopic, backward and narrow-minded as Master Kohn systematically peddles myopia, backwardness and narrow-mindedness like the merchant of bigotry that he is. Why does Father not see that Master Kohn is nothing but a demagogue? Why does he allow himself to be a prisoner of oppressive demagogy?
But you know, sir, just before I returned this night to my bedchamber, Master Kohn was reminding Father that I had a caning due to me. I was all prepared to be told to fetch my cane, but Father sent me to bed instead, after emphatically informing everyone present that the time and reason to cane his children were his decision to make. He would appease the gods some other way, he said.
I didn't want that to be the end of it, Ky. Master Kohn was allowed to get away with his lies even if he didn't convince Father to cane me for heresy. And you know, sir, don't you, that if my penis was standing up all that time, it was because HE couldn't stop paying attention to it?
When Father entered my bedchamber later in the night I first thought that a trick of the mind. But he was there - I wasn't dreaming; he was as real as the seven harsh and loving strokes he was administering to my bottom while I lay on my stomach on the bed. Before Father finally retired to his own chamber, he held my head to his cheeks.
"Don't presuppose me for a learned fool, even if you think others do," he advised. "Also, no one can obtrude his beliefs on you but remember, knowledge is useless without forgiveness. I hope tonight's caning helps you to realize this and display some humility in how you behave, no matter how set in ignorance you find the mind of others."
Do you suppose, sir, that I tend to underestimate Father's wisdom?
- Han