(Author's important notes: In the 'Yin Anecdotes', the author departs from the usual themes in order to conceptualize his brooding psyche in fiction. The stories in this series contain nudity, _s_e_x_, violence and profanity, but not always all at once. The characters and plot are merely a synthesis of actual people and events, and should not be construed as otherwise. The author would like to state categorically that he does not condone acts of violence and terrorism of any form against the weak and helpless, particularly children, women, homo_s_e_x_uals and all minority groups.)
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Tulsseram - I studied the name in the voluminous file in front of me. I knew this name. In a culture whose nomenclature was dominated by a thousand common surnames, Tulsseram was certainly rare and, therefore, unforgettable. Could it be? I wondered now. It had been quite some time since I last heard and thought of this name. The mere mention of it used to instill immense fear and deep loathing in me.
I leaned back against my leather winged-chair and let my fertile memory drift back to those desolate years of my adolescence. I saw myself at the monastery again. I recalled Brother Boniface Tulsseram and the entire prelacy in their off-shouldered saffron robes, wearing heads of tonsures and faces of ascetic severity. I remembered now the cherub-faced, pareo-clad, chest-naked monastic boys who worked at the altars and also the solemn acolytes in their brand new tamarind togas burning sticks of incense and learning the liturgy and incantations in a strange tongue. The sweaty flesh, the smells and the colors were even more lucid now than I remembered them in the two years that I was at the monastery being apprenticed as an altar boy.
Two years was not a long time by monastic standards, but when you were subjected to a variety of emotional and _s_e_x_ual indignation at least once a day, even one year would prove the longest year of your life.
But it was there that I discovered that the eternal mystery of spirituality was its conflict with _s_e_x_uality, and yet neither could the twain be separated. Consider the austere Buddha when he attained nirvana, the naked Christ on the cross, the renaissance depiction of the biblical Creation and Fall story at Sistine. Who had not, at one time, found the sacred icons erotic?
I leaned toward my mahogany desk and once more studied the pages before me. Subject: Areth Tulsseram, I read silently to myself. _s_e_x_: Male. Age: 17. Height: 5' 9". Weight: 145 lbs.
The offense: [1] Causing public nuisance by relieving himself in a public place on the evening of July 11, 1998, in full view of about thirty people, some of whom were women of genteel upbringing and underaged minors. [2] Exposing his private parts in an indecent manner in said public place.
The hearing: July 30, 1998, at 10 A. M. The verdict: Guilty.
The three-point sentence: [1] To carry out six months' work order, under the supervision of his Probation Officer, which must entail three hours a week of cleaning the streets, and the surrounding landscape and infrastructure, of the place of offense whilst displaying, on his body, a placard with the words, 'I relieved myself here on 7.11.98'. [2] To report to his Probation Officer for a character and progress evaluation four days a week for the next two years, during which time he must demonstrate in bodily presence to his Probation Officer his ability to use the toilet appropriately and this means relieving himself in a urinal or toilet while his Probation Officer is in supervision. [3] To report for institutional caning at the State Boys' Reformatory on August 4, 1998 at 1.00 P. M. to receive four strokes of the cane to his naked backside.
By order of: The presiding judge, the Honorable J. Goury.
I closed the fourteen-page file of my latest charge. Leaning back against the chair again, I started ruminating: August 4. That was in two days. I was the fortunate one assigned to the task of being Areth Tulsseram's Probation Officer for two years, and in two days, I must be present for the caning of his backside.
Areth Tulsseram, I said to myself, letting the name roll over my tongue a few times. I wonder if he's any relation to Brother Boniface Tulsseram, I asked myself now. What's the crime again? Urinating in a public place, was it? The rascal.
Suddenly, the smell of urine became prevalent and scourging in all its putrefaction around me. I saw Brother Boniface Tulsseram standing over me at the urinal, watching me. He always forced me to remove all my clothes for my bodily function and now I was holding my nude penis in my palm while I shook the last few drops of urine from the slit.
"All right, Juli," Brother Boniface ordered me next, "bend over the seat."
I did. I always did, for otherwise there would be hell to pay. I could get sent out into the streets to live as a vagrant, for I was an orphan, or I could be severely beaten, which was not as bad, given that I would still have a roof over my head and a warm bed to lie on, and three meals a day to comfort me. The monastery was my surrogate refuge of no other choice. And so, being naïve, foolish and scared and handed few other options, I always obeyed Brother Boniface.
I draped my naked body across the toilet seat. Not long after, I heard sounds like surreptitious mice foraging through diaphanous rice paper behind my raised backside. Brother Boniface was peeling away the protective plastic on the glycerine suppository. I felt his fingers spreading open my bottom cheeks, and then a sticky but smooth feeling snaking up my rectum. I knew the feeling for it was all too familiar. Ever since I was brought to the monastery two years ago, I had been force-fed a daily diet of suppositories and enemas to prepare me to satiate Brother Boniface's _s_e_x_ual appetite. The testosterone-obsessed Boniface, on the other hand, had been feeding on a daily diet of virgin anus.
With the suppository now deeply moored inside my abyss, I was left alone on the toilet seat for half an hour. For half an hour, I tolerated pure pain and discomfort while my gut and stomach churned from the chemicals reacting inside me. Even before it was time, I was all ready to go, but dared not, without the expressed permission of Brother Boniface. He wanted to prolong the process of the enema, I knew, in order to extend the time during which he could study my exposed anus. He liked studying the exposed holes of young virgin adolescents.
When he felt ready, Brother Boniface gripped me around an armpit and pulled me up. Swifter than the eye could see, he had opened the toilet lid and seated me on the porcelain bowl, coercing me to move my bowels. What a relief to be able to do this at long last. But I felt exceedingly ashamed to be watched, for Brother Boniface was also staring into my exposed genitals between my thighs, and so to keep my mind off him, I counted the number of times my stool dropped into the bowl.
Five minutes later, I was pushed under the showerhead. Brother Boniface supervised my bath, sometimes to the extent of using his own hands to take the sponge to my armpits, crotch and anus. All this personal terrain was hairless, for body shaves by one of the monastic brothers were a regular order of our physical hygiene. Brother Boniface scrubbed me very hard at times because he enjoyed the close feel of my skin under his hand, and as a sadist, he enjoyed the grimaces of pain that were registered on my face and that emanated from my diaphragm. He also liked the way my body twisted about in his hands when I would try to escape the roughness of his bathing me.
My bath was completed after twenty minutes. Brother Boniface himself toweled me dry and then turned me back and forth a few times to inspect for any spot that had been missed and remnants of grime.
It was time now to lie across his lap. Brother Boniface made different boys lie on his lap on different days for a variety of reasons. He also liked to put them through a windy routine of examining what he called their sacred temples. Today, it was my turn to get picked for his enjoyment.
He first made me stand in front of him to scrutinize my naked body. He took hold of my penis and testicles and inspected these, while at the same time, running a pseudo-intellectual commentary of their cleanliness, shape, development and beauty. He soundly reminded me to be grateful for my youth and beauty. "And be glad you're born a male," he added, in what sounded to be an allusion to misogyny.
Some time later, he ran his hand over my anterior landscape, tracing along the profusion of my chest and stomach definitions with his fingers. He sighed as he did this. One time, about the previous week, I barely just heard him mutter that he wished he were young again. Brother Boniface then squeezed my genitals till I cried out and started to weep. This put a sinister smile on his face and then he shifted on his chair.
Now he pulled me across his lap by my arm. While he did this, I adjusted my body so that I felt comfortable. If I had to surrender my body to his pleasure and suffer the resulting humiliation, at least I could try to get physically cozy because then the feeling would not be so sickening. This was a lie, of course. I never felt less than sickened, no matter how cozily my body would be snuggled into Brother Boniface's bosom. Besides, Brother Boniface was not a kind or gentle human being. There was never any tenderness or love proffered or exchanged. I was merely an object of pleasure to him, and by virtue of being made naked and used, I was a _s_e_x_ual toy.
I believed that all of Brother Boniface's boys, without exception, suffered from a very distorted self-image. Most of us were fearful and self-blaming. This, in addition to the fact that we didn't know whom to trust and we were completely cut off from the outside world, kept us silent about our abuse. I knew a number of the boys who were always crying themselves to sleep.
Brother Boniface took a long time playing with my anus that afternoon. I felt his fingers inside my sphincter, groping, feeling, curling themselves around the walls. They touched my prostates, too. This always hurt for he was not a medical man, and always handled my glands roughly. At this stage, I started to cry. I always started to cry from the degradation and humiliation of the act. It was never on account of the physical pain. However, I always also feared sustaining physical damage under Brother Boniface's manhandling for he sometimes introduced into my rectum a motley of phallic-like objects that included baby carrot sticks, feeding bottles and truncated joy sticks. This afternoon, he had stuffed me with a rubber _d_i_l_d_o_ and then spanked my bottom. He was so amused. For half an hour afterward, he left me to hang over the back of a chair, my backside pointed toward the ceiling. He went on to take pictures.
While I continued to pose for his camera, there was a singular knock on the door. This was a private signal, as if an agreement had been made between the brothers to use this singular knock as their tacit password.
I had also made this discovery the previous year: there was an exclusive network of brothers, in Boniface's favor, who supported his vices. These brothers were of the elite and had taken an oath of honor to keep Brother Boniface's machinations secret. In exchange, they were allowed to take part or just watch while Brother Boniface played with his pets on his lap, or was spanking their bottoms, or putting them in his home movie. In the matter of the home movies, Brother Boniface often engaged his boys, including me, in an orgy of homo_s_e_x_ual love-making or buggering his mongrel, which he had named 'South Dakota', for his interest in the issues of native land rights. All my senses used to revolt against the idea of buggering the bitch.
I heard now Brother Boniface informing the persons behind the door to enter. It was Brothers Juinkim and Pairin, with new recruits, Surin, Issa, Littikorn, Satrya and Jayaratna, in tow. Brother Boniface ordered me to get up. I took one look at the boys, fresh-faced, all of them about my age, and so unsuspecting for the time being, and I instantly knew what it was that Brother Boniface had in mind to order for his afternoon tea.
In fact, to confirm my suspicion, Brothers Juinkim and Pairin had taken out the movie cameras and were setting up the equipment on a tripod. The carpet would be the primary setting, for the cameras were being directed toward the floor. And then to my horror, Brother Boniface let his mongrels in. 'South Dakota' and her husband, 'North Dakota', sprinted excitedly into their master's arms.
"No!" I suddenly heard myself screaming.
Until today, I would never know what had overcome me to effect that fearsome outburst. Perhaps I had wanted to draw attention to Brother Boniface's abuse of the boys with my outcry. Perhaps I had been pixilated at being his whipping boy. Perhaps I was sorry for the innocents before me. The poor angels had no idea of the impending betrayal of their innocence by one they looked up to as a trustee. What had their parents done in sending them to Brother Boniface's monastery?
Even now, as I lament my past in this very tale, I cannot say for certain what had made me cry out against Brother Boniface, but the one certainty I have is that I would wear the scars of my whipping in his hand for six months thereafter. Indeed, for my audacious outburst and almost causing a mutiny, I was given a whipping with a cane.
Brother Boniface had me kneel on all fours on the floor. Forcing my nose to the carpet, which inadvertently raised my bottom up high, he then made my nude bottom the target of his cane and the focus of his ubiquitous cameras. Everyone that was present that time watched my caning. I had to be made an example for the boys and the brothers of what our fate was if we showed contumacy toward Brother Boniface. The scapegoating also included making me count out while he caned me.
Twenty vicious lashes were what Brother Boniface delivered to my young bottom. I had been spanked and caned before but this was the first time I was caned in the context of punishment.
THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!
Throughout Brother Boniface's tyrannical punitive campaign, I was screaming under the pain of the cane's pitiless scorn, yet compelled to keep count as bravely as I could at intervals. Sometimes I missed, or miscounted, and the lash was repeated. I swore that at that time, I could feel my bottom being split apart. I could feel blood being drawn forth out of my split skin. And I was crying for the longest time in memory.
When the event had finally run its course for everyone, Brother Boniface forcibly drew an apology from me for my show of insubordination. I mumbled my apologies a few times between choking sobs. My backside throbbed awfully but I had been warned about touching it to soothe it or rub out the pain.
"Let this be a lesson for all of you boys," Brother Boniface warned the rest. And then he had them all stripped completely naked for his film. No one uttered a word or sound while they obediently and fearfully allowed themselves to be stripped of their austere clothing. Only now did Brother Boniface bend me over to yank out the rubber _d_i_l_d_o_. He did this quickly to effect maximum pain and draw out blood from the damaged vessels.
Alas, for all the suffering I had had to endure, I was no better off than at the start. I was also required to take part in Brother Boniface's latest pornographic film. With my bottom welted, I had to improvise my role in the script to accommodate the significance of a spanked bottom. The other wide-eyed altar boys amateurishly followed directions to drape their youthful naked bodies on each other and the carpet. By the end of the filming, all the boys had been coerced into surrendering their virginity to each other's little erection. I had already surrendered mine in like manner earlier that year.
Later on, in the scene involving Brother Boniface's mastiffs, I felt 'North Dakota' tear apart my bottom. This experience left me retching horribly in the toilet afterward. It also left me with lingering bad dreams each time I closed my eyes to sleep.
But the abominable experience had been a disguised blessing and an eye-opener. I realized that all the material comforts that the monastery provided me within its walls, that echoed daily of mystical chants, were not worth an eternity of being in a psychological hell. Besides, since acquainting myself with Brother Boniface's unholy proclivities, I had come to associate the comforts of the monastery as outward images that disguised the absence of any ascetic substance. The pretense alienated rather than fooled me for long. It so debased the ideas of pantheism that I had long renounced the existence of a just religion. So then one day, having found my open window, I ran away from the monastery. I was already eighteen and emboldened by my newfound independence from the monastery for shelter and subsistence.
That was twenty-four years ago, and for twenty-four years, I never forgot the pain and the humiliation of the two years I served as Brother Boniface's _s_e_x_ slave. I never forgot, either, the _s_e_x_ual cannibalism that went on at his abbey. And for twenty-four years, I toyed with the idea that retribution would be on him someday.
"Papa," a little voice awoken me from my reminiscence.
I looked into the angelic face of my young son. He had hopped onto my lap.
"Papa," he said again.
"Yes, son?" I replied.
"It's my bedtime," he said, reminding me.
I got up and put my little boy on my hip. I carried him up to his room. Laying him under his comforter, I sat at his head, keeping him safe and close beside me. Next, I opened up 'Moby Dick', bookmarked to page thirty-six. I began to read from the page. My son gradually fell asleep to the lull of the ocean waves as I described it from the volume.
I quietly left my son, turning off the lights. I had to have an early night myself, for tomorrow, I would be meeting my new charge.
Areth Tulsseram - could my new charge be Boniface Tulsseram's son? I was still wondering as I slipped in between the sheets.
And was the senior Tulsseram finally going to get his retribution?