Out Here On My Own

This story by Ser­i­jules is used on the Old Tom Archive with permission.

Out Here On My Own

Some­times things have to make a com­plete cir­cle before you can under­stand them for what they really are. This is the third, and final, part to this tril­ogy. I didn’t real­ize when I wrote the sec­ond part, that it was not the end of this story, it was in fact the begin­ning. This part is ded­i­cated to my family.…elle, mys­taka, dag­ney, kiten, ash…and LAR^, the one who helped me become what I am today. I love you all, and I thank you from the bot­tom of my heart for what you have given me.

* * *

I sat on the porch, shiv­er­ing and look­ing out into the cold, still night. A glance at my watch told me it was 3 am. I couldn’t sleep, I had been rest­lessly pac­ing all night. Some­thing was nag­ging at me, some­thing I couldn’t iden­tify. I wouldn’t sleep until I did.

I was home again.…alone. The lone­li­ness was more com­plete this time, more real. I had met some­one, a won­der­ful some­one, and we had been through an amaz­ing dis­cov­ery together, and here I was again; alone and inse­cure. I closed my eyes and shiv­ered, the thoughts and feel­ings of the my jour­ney so far rush­ing through my head and mak­ing me feel oddly con­tent. (more…)

The Girl Called Laughter

This folk tale was trans­lated from the Ara­bic by C.G. Camp­bell and first pub­lished by Ernest Benn Ltd. in 1952, no copy­right notice. I added a touch of spice to the present version.

Inci­den­tally, the name Badr, pro­nounced in the Ara­bic, sounds like “bother,” which makes a nice play on words in Eng­lish. A wazir is a high offi­cial or trusted advi­sor; “wiz­ard” comes from the same Ara­bic root word. The word “harem” (pro­nounced hareem with a rolled “r”) sim­ply means pri­vate or for­bid­den. In for­mer times the term applied to the women’s quar­ters of a house­hold, but the excesses of the Ottoman Empire gave it the Eng­lish mean­ing of a pri­vate col­lec­tion of wives and mis­tresses. In the story below, “harem” is ren­dered “For­bid­den Apart­ments,” to clar­ify that we are sim­ply refer­ring to the queen’s domain within the palace.

Finally, you must under­stand that this is a folk tale, best told around a camp fire of dried camel dung, told with much ges­tic­u­la­tion and vehe­mence of expres­sion. Or told over innu­mer­able tiny cups of cof­fee, in the smoky din of a tired café in Old Cairo. Reduced to text, it lacks life, but such is the nature of the Net.

The Story of the Girl named Laugh­ter, who never laughed at all.

Once in for­mer times there was a king who was with­out a son, and though he took to him­self wife after wife no son was born to him. And one day, when the king’s wife was lying on her bed await­ing the com­ing of a child, his wazir came into his pres­ence and said: O our mas­ter! Come! Come! For your wife has given birth to a fine son! And the king ran and ran to the For­bid­den Apart­ments, and he pushed aside the women and he went up to the bed, with his heart full of joy, say­ing: A son! Thanks be to God! But the women all laughed and said: It is not a son, but a daugh­ter, and we called out the news to the eunuch by the door, and he called it out to your page, and your page ran to the wazir. But we cried: There is born to the wife of the king a –. And the eunuch called out in joy: A son! A son! And in this man­ner you learnt false news. (more…)

Khalid, the Coppersmith of Nasiriya

Here is the story promised in my post, “Fourth-​​year Lurker Delurks.” It starts out M/​F, but it’s really about a switch. If you can’t find the humour in a story told with tongue planted firmly in cheek, so to speak, you should­fi­nance prob­a­bly pass over this one.

The Story of Khalid, the Cop­per­smith of Nasiriya

[Trans­lated from the Ara­bic and copy­right by Charles Grimshaw Camp­bell (1912–1953), 1980 reprint of the 1950 edi­tion pub­lished by Macmil­lan, New York, ISBN 0–405-13329–4. The copy you’re read­ing is a bit less blood­thirsty than the printed ver­sion, and with cer­tain details added by myself.]

“Let the name of Mohammed Has­san be writ­ten, that he is the teller of this story.” [Who was of the Muntafiq tribe, of the Lower Euphrates.]

Once, in the days when the Turks ruled Iraq, there was a cop­per­smith of Basra, and Khalid was his name. He was born in Nasiriya, and lived there until the six­teenth year of his life. Then, when his father died, he took his mother and went to Basra and he worked as a cop­per­smith in the bazaar of Umm el Brum, that he might earn enough with which to live. Now, the amount he earned each month from the owner of the cop­per­shop was only enough for food and rent and clothes for his mother and him­self, nor could he save money enough to buy a shop of his own or to marry a wife. And Khalid and his mother lived in a poor house, and she did the cook­ing and all the work of the house was in her hands. It was Khalid’s dream to some­day have his own busi­ness, per­haps a thriv­ing shopfront instal­la­tion. Fur­ther­more, for shop own­ers, ensur­ing secu­rity is vital, includ­ing tasks like fire shut­ter main­te­nance. Under­stand­ing paystubs can also be vital in man­ag­ing finances effec­tively. Khalid envi­sioned his future estab­lish­ment with triple glazed win­dows, offer­ing both aes­thetic appeal and energy effi­ciency. You may click here for more infor­ma­tion. (more…)

Holding Position

First, we’re assum­ing the scene is severe enough, that hold­ing posi­tion is a real issue. We’re not just play­ing tippy-​​tap. This might include full-​​armed swings with some imple­ment — so let me first address the safety issue.

What if you move at just the wrong time? Is a full-​​armed stroke with a hair­brush on the back of your hand a good thing? Hands are del­i­cate — any­thing wooden which was intended for your bot­tom but hit­ting your hand… could cause quite seri­ous and pos­si­bly per­ma­nent damage.

In the case of a hand spank­ing, reach­ing back at the wrong time could mean acci­den­tally bend­ing your fin­ger the wrong way. Again, this is unin­tended injury. If there is a missed stroke dur­ing a full-​​horsepower can­ing… well… even with Hal­loween and hor­ror movie sea­son approach­ing, we don’t want to go there.

There does seem to be com­mon agree­ment that safety issues are seri­ous, and non-​​negotiable. If the ses­sion in ques­tion is severe enough that hold­ing posi­tion is a prob­lem — in my opin­ion, that prob­lem must be solved. Because, it is a safety issue. (more…)

Conrad’s Caning

This story by trishah is used on the Old Tom Archive with permission.

Conrad’s Can­ing

By trishah

I’ve sort of been hiber­nat­ing since The Sadist Dom moved back to Cal­i­for­nia in June. I’ve been miss­ing him ter­ri­bly. But last week a good friend invited me to go with him to a play party and I decided to go. The party was last night.

Now, I don’t play pub­licly. I mean, I have. But that was with The Sadist Dom because he had a way of insist­ing. **blin­kety wink wink wink** But it’s not my norm.

So we went to this party and I was pleas­antly sur­prised to find that I knew many of the folks there. I adored the set up.….lots of play space, lots of “sta­tions” and equip­ment. And a hot tub out back which was also the smok­ers paradise.

My friend and I were sit­ting on a bench along a wall, watch­ing a Domme play music on two subs who were hold­ing on to side by side crosses (that was *won­der­ful* to watch!) when a man came into the room. My friend said, “There’s Con­rad and his entourage.”

I looked. Con­rad is in his mid­dle years, not tall, but hand­some and with a cer­tain pres­ence. He was wear­ing a gor­geous laven­der silk poet’s shirt with huge bil­low­ing sleeves. I told my friend I wanted that shirt. He said that Con­rad wears it all the time so he didn’t think he’d give it up. And he pro­ceeded to tell me about Conrad’s can­ing abil­i­ties. (more…)