PART ONE
THE GOOD INTENTIONS
For the first eighteen years of my life I brought nothing but joy to my father and
mother. It appeared I had inherited my grandfather’s genius for science and I graduated
top of my class from England’s prestigious Academe Of Science And Medicine at Birch Upon
Gymnazine one month before my eighteenth birthday, an almost unheard of accomplishment.
But I was not happy. Without consulting me my parents had proceeded to arrange my entire
life for me – I would settle down to the dreary rounds of a society physician, following
in my father’s footsteps of course. I would marry the girl they, my parents, had picked
for me. I would be kept so busy with professional and social duties that I would have no
time to dabble in the forbidden arts that I was already strongly attracted to – those
“blasphemous invasions of God’s domain” that had brought my poor grandfather to ruin.
For the first time I incurred my parents’ displeasure by bringing my college roommate
home with me and being decidedly aloof when my fiancée came to call. Willard made
matters worse by being openly hostile to the poor girl.
When Father and I had one of our private parlor chats I told him that my roommate had
been most helpful to me in my studies and I had grown extremely attached to him.
Furthermore, the boy suffered from consumption, which I considered a very romantic
disease. (I wrote a thesis on The Life and Early Death from Consumption of
Frédéric Chopin after falling in love with his music.)
I pleaded Willard’s case to Father, hoping he would take my best friend on as a patient
and allow him to live with us in Karnstein Castle, the better to benefit from the pure and
rarefied air of that elevated region, but Father had taken a dislike to Willard on sight.
“I disapprove of your friendship with that boy,” he said. “There is an effeminacy about
him I find most distasteful.”
“He is not effeminate, Father,” I explained. “Sensitive yes, as befits a boy of genius.
His body is frail and wan as a prepubescent maiden in consequence of his consumption. I
fear he has not long to live.”
“Then he should be in a sanitorium. I could arrange for him to be sent to Jolette.”
“They know nothing about the lungs in Jolette” I declared. “They still bleed
consumptives there, which only hastens their deaths.”
“What’s wrong with bleeding? I bleed my patients. What fancy infamies did they put into
your head at Birch Upon Gymnazine?”
“Father, they nearly booted me out.”
“And why, pray?”
“For knowing too much.”
“Your grandfather knew too much and look what happened to him. We are still trying to
live it down. I was aware of the school’s prestigious Department of Science but my main
reason for sending you to Birch Upon Gymnazine – aside from keeping you away from crazed
mobs of superstitious, torch throwing peasants trying to burn our home down – was that
worthy-institution-across-the-channel’s typically English devotion to the merits of
physical education and strict discipline.”
“Of course, Father. The word ‘Gymnazine’ literally means ‘to exercise naked’ which we
did, every day, under the supervision of the school’s strictest master.”
“I am glad to hear it. And you certainly show the results. You’ve a fine, muscular
physique, my boy. I only wish you didn’t wear your pants so tight.”
“These are regulation school pants, Father. They’re supposed to fit tight. Headmaster
himself designed them.”
“I see … and did those tight regulation pants ever come down for a taste of the birch on
your bare bottom?”
“But of course. It’s a hallowed academic tradition. Indeed, it took its name from the
custom – still observed today – of applying the birch to our bottoms at the conclusion of
our exercises – while we’re still naked.”
“I’m glad to hear it. I never had to spank you when you were a lad because you were
always obedient and respectful to myself and your mother. I know that when a boy passes
puberty and starts to feel the urgings of young manhood he dearly requires some steady
strokes of correction on his bare bottom to tame his lusts before they get the better of
him. How often were you birched upon gymnazine, my son?”
“Every day – my first two years. After that, they quite gave up and started threatening
me with expulsion instead. I laughed at the birch so they switched to the lash. I
laughed at that too. I told them I enjoyed it. That threw them. I was a hero to the
other men for the way I loved the lash and begged for more. I confounded the masters.
They couldn’t make good their threats to expel me either because I was top of my class and
they knew I would be a credit to them someday. It was the manly way I took my naked
whippings that made me so attractive to Willard.
“Poor Willard. The other men shunned him because he had no stripes on his arse. Our
stripes were our marks of honor, you know. And Willard never got any, being so sickly and
delicate. Because he was obviously too weak to stand up to it, he was spared, but no
stripes on his arse made him an outcast. I was his only friend. I’m very fond of him,
Father. He may be consumptive but he’s a full blown genius, too. Please let him stay.”
“I want to know more about this consumptive genius you’ve grown attached to. Tell me
about his family. What does his father do?”
“My poor friend has no family. He is an orphan. Through his talents alone he got
himself accepted on a scholarship. He is more brilliant, more original than I can ever
hope to be. If he lives long enough he is bound to contribute to the betterment of
mankind.”
“Indeed. And what, pray, is his major interest? His specialty?”
“Father, I am so glad you asked. The reason he was not top of the class was his all
consuming dedication to areas about which there is still an excess of controversy.
Indeed, it was because I openly championed his cause from the beginning that I was
subjected to so many bare arse whippings. Willard is a man of great courage, Father, with
an eye to the future. His major interests lay in the field of Abnormal Psychology. He
has read every paper on the subject written by Dr. Freud. He has even corresponded with
him.”
“That Jew in Vienna? He speaks blasphemies! Is Willard not a Christian, then?”
“Of course he’s Christian, Father. He wants to devote himself to God and all His
children who suffer devils of the mind. His specialty is sexual disorders. He is
determined to find a cure for homosexuality.”
“Please do not speak that word in the parlor. What if your mother should hear?”
“Shall we retire to your study, then, Father?”
“That will not be necessary. Just – don’t talk dirty. Perhaps I have misjudged your
friend. Anyone who wants to find a cure for – that – abomination in the sight of God –
can’t be all bad. Frankly, I was beginning to wonder about him. The way he looks at you.
Worships you, it seems. I’ve been quite concerned.”
“Father, you hurt me. Do you think for one moment that I would associate with a nancy
boy?”
“I have asked you not to utter obscene cockney profanities in the parlor!”
“I only want to assure you that my good friend, who has been such an inspiration to me at
school shuns those men who are – that way – as you do – and as you have taught me to do.
Yes, he idolizes me because I represent all the manly virtues that I have inherited from
you, sir. And perhaps he envies my robust health and the long life it promises.”
“Perhaps you’re right. Still, I could not help but suspect that he was not altogether
indifferent to – to your – what your mother has called – your beauty. Not that I would
use that word to describe a male’s appearance. But when I speak of you as ‘fine’ or
‘strapping’ or ‘handsome’ your mother corrects me by saying: ‘Face it, Hugo, he’s
beautiful!’”
“Stuff and nonsense. Mother is prone to over statement. I admit Willard admires my
physique, and has often commented upon it when I undressed for bed in the room we shared.
And of course he couldn’t help but see me naked in Gymnazine. We were all naked. School
rule. Oh, how inadequate he must have felt! Time and again he told me he wished he had a
body like mine. Is that not a natural desire for a boy whose body is so pitifully
underdeveloped? He has been sickly all his life. What pain it must give him to have such
a strong and brilliant mind imprisoned in a frame that is wasting away. If I possessed
Grandfather’s secrets – all his papers and journals that were lost to science when you set
fire to his laboratory – his entire life’s work… Had I that knowledge I would create a
strong, healthy, manly, indestructible body in which I would put my poor dying friend’s
magnificent brain, that he might fulfill the great promise his premature death will surely
cut short. So, with your permission, Sir, I should like to restore the old laboratory and
all its equipment, that I might experiment and learn where Grandfather went wrong.”
“Silence! Not another word! If ever I hear you talk like this again –you! By God I
swear you’re not too old to get your first whipping from me!”
“I am, Father. I will soon be eighteen, and legally entitled to all the privileges of an
adult.”
“Until then you are subject to my authority. And, big as you are, if ever you utter
those blasphemies under my roof again I shall march you down into the dungeon where our
forefathers tortured their political enemies. And down there amongst the cobweb
enshrouded rack and wheel and iron maiden I shall string you up – naked as the day you
were born – and lash you with one of the stout leather scourges that still hang upon the
wall.”
“Father, surely you are not serious. With your heart condition you might do more harm to
yourself than to me. Whipping a grown man is hard work. I know. One of the masters at
school – a man much younger than yourself, sir, and in far better health – dropped dead
while giving a strapping, six-foot athlete sixty of the best!”
“Don’t underestimate me. I’ve still a strong arm for the whip. I used it on young
Felix, the footman, only last week. It made me feel young again. And you, my lad, have
been courting my displeasure ever since you came home in those infernal tight pants.”
“I have told you these are my uniform pants, Sir.”
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