Chapter Twenty-Seven

The next morning saw them turn to the topic of McCarthy again. No lesson was intended, they were both just enthusiastic fans. It was an agreeable way to avoid discussion of Karl’s situation. The fact that it was the anniversary of his accident loomed in the background. But after the previous night’s drama they had a tacit pact to just enjoy the end of their estrangement.

Doreen was full of smiles and touches and unexpected kisses. While never apologizing for what she’d put him through, she made it obvious that she was as happy as he that it was over. They bantered and flirted through the bowel routine, and the ease of affection between them let Karl forget the physical and emotional distress of the vibrator. When Doreen checked him at the end he was even able to moan (almost) unashamedly in the face of her sly grin.

It was in the bath where they connected again as McCarthy fans. Like everyone else they were in awe of his command of language. They agreed about his minimalist punctuation: the lack of commas lent power to his prose but dialogue without quotation marks could occasionally be a pain in the ass, especially in an e-book with chancy formatting.

Besides The Road they talked about their other favorites, first the harrowing Blood Meridian. Again they agreed that it had the greatest density of simply unforgettable scenes and savagely accurate yet breathtakingly elegant descriptive passages than any other book in print.

After that of course was No Country for Old Men, depicting the same inner and outer landscape a hundred and forty years later. As they were both fans of the Coen brothers too they were soon trading bits of dialogue from the film adaptation and lauding the performance of the actors. From there it was on to Fargo, Raising Arizona, Blood Simple and The Big Lebowski, all movies Doreen had loaded onto his laptop among so many others.

With a long, loving, blissfully thrilling and ecstatically maddening intermission for monster-baiting, their talk of movies and books and other conversational catching up carried them through stretching and a long PT session that didn’t involve the FNS bike for once. Karl wondered if his daily atonement would be equally forgiving.

Nurse Drake hadn’t mentioned her intentions. Nor had she revealed whatever new insights she’d gleaned or what turn his treatments would now take. They hadn’t yet even acknowledged the significance of the date, though she’d said before that they would make a real push on it. All that uncertainty was about to change however. And Karl would get his FNS.

With the PT finished, Doreen left him voiding into the urinal while she mystifyingly moved the bike’s control console and associated electronics closer to where he lay propped on a thirty-degree angle wedge. She dumped his output, as always giving it a check for color, cloudiness or other indications of a threat to his health. When she returned she shackled his ankles wide with the spreader-bar and sat down Indian-style next to him. She took his hand and brimmed with compassion while she faced him and explained what was needed next.

“Darling Karl, I know you were terribly upset by last night’s dream, and I don’t blame you. But I’m also glad you had it. Not only did it give me the excuse to restore my affections a little ahead of schedule, but it let us know where we stand after last week.

“You’ve had a bad setback. Deep inside you blame and hate yourself worse than ever. You wish horrific things on yourself, of which your paralysis is the palest substitute. This is all wrapped up with powerful, even primordial sexual issues that have to be worked out.

“Think of this as a struggle between life and death in which death has co-opted sex, the most powerful animal force, as its weapon. We are turning that weapon around on it and using it to attack death at its source, while at the same time bolstering life. I see more clearly now how best to do that.”

Nurse Drake released his hand and clasped Karl’s penis. Her touch roused the monster at once, and she began to almost idly pump him.

“I will address the issue of your curling toes another time. That will be our ace in the hole. Right now we need to deal with these persistent castration fantasies of yours.”

Karl opened his mouth to demur. She stopped him with a squeeze and continued pumping and talking.

“You were going to say those are dreams, not fantasies. Fair enough. In your dreams you are ecstatic to sacrifice your manhood. The idea arouses you even now. The penis-meter never lies, little slut. Every time I shave you, the razor in the hand of a woman down there excites you. So why don’t we have a look at your fantasies, shall we?

“You imagine being stung repeatedly all over the tip. You visualize big, barbed, poisonous stingers lodged in the tenderest, most erogenous spot on your body. You picture yourself all hideously swollen and discolored, as if in need of amputation. You deliberately exposed your poor peter to as much sun as it could get, along with every possible mosquito bite. And you were madly ‘enraptured’ the whole time, lost in a masochistic transport, a worshipful reverie of submissive yearning.

“It doesn’t stop there, darling. You enjoy the penis flail too. Don’t you little slut? Having your dick whipped raw is masochistic heaven for you. Admit it.”

“Everything you say is true.”

“You despise your sexual capacity. You have an enormous amount of guilt tied up in it. You believe it drove you to your doom and was responsible for your lover’s death. You even refer to your erect penis as a monster! I know you do so jokingly, but the choice of words is extremely telling. So what does all this indicate?”

“It seems we need to concentrate my atonement on that uppity little fellow. I’ll never be able to recover without extravagant punishment down there.”

“I’m afraid so, darling. So today we are still going to make a huge push to get through to the inner you, not in hopes of immediate healing, but in an attempt to focus our efforts more precisely and effectively. Are you up for this, darling? The monster certainly seems to be.”

“I am prepared to suffer however you decree for me, my valkyrie queen. And you’re right. Though I’m filled with dread, I’m terribly excited too.”

“Good boy. Unfortunately the penis is too tender to withstand the level and amount of pain we need to inflict through traditional means. And the need to keep a condom on you complicates things too. We can’t have any open wounds. Luckily I have the solution right here.”

Nurse Drake released his penis, which continued to jut up mad with sacrificial passion. She gathered up the electrodes she usually wired to his arms or legs, and the tube of adhesive conductant. While Karl watched aghast and with a trip-hammering heart, she began to glue these to his genitals.

By the time she was finished there was barely any bare flesh to be seen. He was completely covered with black rubber and trailing so many wires he again thought of Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange. Still the monster only raged harder, eager to pit itself against any conceivable torture. As Nurse Drake began tapping keys on the console she spoke more words of encouragement.

“I think we were and still are closer to healing you then we realized, darling. I think your subconscious is getting desperate. I think it tried to sabotage you last week, and now it’s hitting you with these horrific images and empty threats about intimacy.

“I mean, we established long ago that you were not going to have any problems with love and the sex act, didn’t we? We’re starting to get close to your deepest needs now, darling.”

Nurse Drake stepped around and hooked the lift chain through the center of the spreader bar. She raised Karl’s legs until his butt came off the ground and his rubber-encased genitals hung close before his face. She tied tubing about their base, guarding not against ejaculation but rather ensuring that he remain tumescent throughout the treatment. Finally she pulled his arms above his head, back over the rear of wedge and tied them together and to a large weight set on the floor.

“Okay little slut, we’re doing this on an empty stomach because some people react to too much electric shock with nausea. If you feel sick, or your heart gives you any trouble, say ‘danger’ to me immediately. Understand?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Very good. Now then, we are going to treat this like the catholic confessional. One by one you will recite what you feel are your sins, the things you still hold against yourself deep inside. As your Goddess-embodiment I will exact penance for them. I will punish you severely for what you have done. I will punish you until we’ve reached the limits of what I consider safe. Then it’s back to the afternoon-and-evening demeaning while I run a quick errand or two.”

“Okay, Nurse Drake.”

“All right then, patient Jensen, what do you blame yourself for? Try to start with issues of lesser severity and we’ll work our way up.”

“Okay.”

Karl thought about it. The trouble was not coming up with sins; it was trying to decide which ones didn’t qualify as truly unforgivable.

“I would say ordinary everyday meanness. Krista was always giving and conciliatory, and I took advantage of that. I had to get my way about things and I bullied her until she gave in. I didn’t do it consciously. That’s just the way my father treated my mother and I sort of internalized it. Still I was old enough to know better, and I never made any attempt to break the habit. I was a total asshole.”

Sudden agony raved into Karl’s testicles and erection. Not expecting this yet, he cried out as his muscles thrummed and the current savaged him.

This was nothing like the burning buzz stimulating the big muscles of his arms and legs, causing them to harmlessly contract. This was far more powerful, a direct infusion of raw energy into his most sensitive flesh. Blood-rich, bloated tissues screamed with excruciation, as did Karl himself. And unlike the blow of a whip or cane, that created an explosion of pain that then faded away, this agony only increased relentlessly.

Nurse Drake tapped a key, and immediately the current through the electrodes glued to his glans spiked substantially in amplitude. Karl’s body lurched autonomically. He screamed again and burst into tears. Still the infusion continued, his body absorbing electrons in astronomic numbers. There had never been pain like this, except perhaps when those genitals had been so sunburned, bug-bit and then whipped. Comparing agonies of this magnitude was a fool’s errand anyway. Karl was gasping and frantic by the time it stopped.

He got his weeping under control quickly. Still Nurse Drake clucked her tongue.

“Buck up, little slut. We’re just getting started.”

“I’m okay.” The quaver in Karl’s voice tried to make a liar out of him. “I just wasn’t braced for it. I will do better, I promise.”

“Okay. Continue your confession.”

“I expected oral sex on demand yet I refused to provide it.”

Again the electricity seared into him, far more savagely this time as befitted this much greater sin. Though he’d locked his teeth, another cry was ripped from his corded throat. The chain and shackles suspending him jingled as his legs shuddered wildly. Sweat sprang from his pores and tears from his ducts. This time it was his balls that suddenly got the extra kick of juice, eliciting more strangled sobs and desperate wishes for surcease.

Meanwhile, Karl’s erection had lost all urgency. By the time this second shock finished, the only thing keeping him from trying to shrivel back into his body was the foresight of that ligature. So much for the bravado of monsters! Nurse Drake let him gasp and sniffle a bit, sitting by as clinically dispassionate as always. Once she’d deemed he’d recovered enough she gave him another sustained dose, then another and another. Oral sex on demand with no reciprocation?

“Continue.”

“I refused to let her get on top. I let ridiculous ideas of manliness prevent her from ever having an orgasm. She died without ever climaxing.”

It must have been fifteen minutes of on-and-off jittering, jiving, grinding of teeth and feeling his normally inert body shuddering violently before Karl, his eyes rolling in his head and an ace from fainting, had atoned enough – at least for now.

Nurse Drake helped him sip from a bottle of Gatorade. She looked in his eyes with an ophthalmoscope and took his pulse. She sat back down at the control console.

“Continue, sinner. What happened two years ago tonight?”

Drenched with sweat and panting still, Karl winced. This was why he was here though.

“We were at a party. Everybody was drunk and high and making out. I was incredibly horny – or at least what passed for that before I moved here. I faced a choice. We had to call her house by midnight so her bother or one of her parents could pick us up to come home.

“They might smell beer and pot on us, or see the effects at close quarters. We also wouldn’t get to finish what we’d spent hours starting. A friend was leaving. He could drop us off. We could sneak out to the tree-house and pretend to get home at eleven forty-five.

“Krista didn’t want to ride with Josh. He was wrecked, and reckless. He’d already crashed one car. I bullied her until she gave in. I killed her with my selfish lust and thoughtless cruelty. It should have been me with my neck broke and my head bashed in.”

Was it an hour this time, or an eon? Karl was in no position to judge. He could only cling desperately to his honor and hope the demons inside were being satisfied. Shocks of varying intensity flayed him, playing up and down the shaft and all over the head of his cock like a virtuoso musician’s fingers on the flute. His balls burned like twin suns, blue supergiants racing through their thermonuclear fuel on their way toward the cataclysm that would seed a thousand new solar systems.

Trusting that a similar rebirth lay beyond his own apotheosis, Karl somehow endured this interminable if intermittent punishment as he had so many others. And at the end he was kissed and cosseted, loved and hugged as he’d so terribly missed the past week. He wept as much with joy at this as with wearinesss, relief and the aftermath of extended great agony. Then bolstered and consoled, praised and congratulated and treated to sweetly proffered pussy in lieu of lunch, Karl was returned to the bed for the day.

One benefit of electricity was that it left no lingering damage to the skin – at least when buffered by rubber and conductant. Doreen wasn’t restrained by healing considerations in devising his bondage and posture.

Clearly his time alone was going to be just as demeaning as ever. He was put on his back with his arms stretched straight above his head where his wrists were tied to the bed frame. Nurse Drake rolled him up then, lifting his feet above his head and raising his ass up high. She bound his ankles to his wrists and wedged a pillow under his curved back, ensuring that he remained in that stressful and degrading contortion.

If she hadn’t put the condom back on he would be in danger of peeing in his own face. Doreen give him a grin that seemed to reference this as she pulled the panties over his head again – clearly that aspect of his regular demeaning was here to stay, as were his dreaded struggles with tedium and panic.

She collared the original vibrator on and added the clothespins. The last one on his tongue was particularly diabolical. Lying flat, he was forced to either swallow continuously or turn his head and let the constant drool wet the panties and soak into the pillow he was kindly provided with. Yet that was still only a minor torment next to what awaited the other end.

Despite his strengthened resolve and pride in himself after what he’d just endured, despite the warmth of love cosseting him again and the admitted pleasure he got in the mornings from her finger, Karl whimpered with uncontrollable dismay when he felt his mistress rubbing lube on his anus again. Slyly she chided him.

“Still struggling with those hang-ups I see. What am I going to do with you?”

In pushed that big cold cylinder. Karl kept quiet, though tears leaked from him, hot on his far hotter face. When it was switched on he made a half-grunt, half stifled sob and immediately began ransacking his mind for albums to work through that he hadn’t already mastered. Doreen leaned over, tickled the bottom of one foot and kissed his pig-snubbed nose through the panties. Her voice was playfully affectionate.

“How do you like the pile-driver position, little slut? I think you look delightfully cute, myself. Now, as I said, I have a few rare errands to run. So think of me while I’m gone, and think about why your toes just curled again now. You know what to do in case of emergencies, right?”

Karl squawked his recognizable affirmative.

“You did really well today, little slut. I was so proud of you, and I still am. Tomorrow and so on will always be tougher, but you always make me proud. I’ll see you in a few hours.”