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Thursday, November 03, 2005




Miss Discipline

"That's getting into the weird zone!" the editor growled, when I finished pitching him the story I wanted to do. "Exactly my point," I said.

The last couple of weeks, images of torture and degradation in Iraq's prisons, dominated the headlines. As the story cooled and drifted back a few pages, I wanted to do a background piece. Something on the deeper malignant causes within the US psyche that made the abuse inevitable. Some root cause. Someone to blame.

The editor glanced at the fat, half-smoked cigar sitting in his ashtray. I knew he wanted to light it up and fog me out of his office but we're politically correct here at the Daily Dirt. He knew the smoke police would have him writing 100 times, 'I will not smoke in the building'.

I was scheduled to fly to Washington the next day, to cover the National Convention of Adult Entertainers. I'd do some interviews with porn actors, inside views on life in the business, review some new movies, check out the sex toy exhibitions. The usual boring journalism stuff. I had to fight to keep the assignment away from a dozen other writers.

The other story I wanted to do, while I was there, the one I was pitching the editor, was an investigative piece focusing on the pictures and stories about prisoner abuse in Iraq-and how inevitable it was this would happen.

I'd heard a lot about Washington having the biggest underground bondage and discipline scene in the US. I suspected there was something about all that unbridled power and Christian guilt mixed together. It had to burst out somewhere.

The unspoken understanding I have with the editor is that at the end of a pitch if he doesn't say no, then I'm free to do the piece. He was still thinking it over when his phone rang. He picked up the receiver and without looking at me flicked his wrist towards the door, in a gesture of dismissal.

The Washington hotel, where they were holding the convention, was a mad house. Glamorous women in skimpy attire, muscular young men with perfect teeth, limousines, red carpets, paparazzi. I parked my rented Neon in the day lot and carried my bags to the front desk.

That afternoon I interviewed a young starlet with a squeaky, high pitched voice. Her most memorable quote was, "This business is, like, you know, like a business! Know what I mean?" That night I sat through her picture, 'Deep Revenge'. Fortunately she didn't have many lines. The film is, like, you know, like an action flick. Know what I mean?

While I was having my leather jacket repaired at one of the "leather and rubber" displays, I struck up a conversation with another customer. She was a tall attractive woman, old enough to be a grandmother but still buxom and energetic with a certain dark sexual appeal. She listened while I described my desire to interview someone in the bondage and discipline business. I carefully explained that this was not a personal request for professional services.

She nodded her head and smiled. I saw in her face the look of someone who'd seen it all. Nothing shocked her. Her 'stage name' she told me was Miss Discipline. She was, I realized, exactly the kind of women powerful men would come to, for absolution from their many and sundry naughty transgressions.

She gave me her address and told me to drop by that night, at eight. Her building was in an exclusive part of town. It was beside the embassy of a small Central American country, topped with a flag showing a nasty reptile with huge fangs and a viscous Eagle, locked in mortal combat.
She buzzed me up to her condo. I stood at the full-length windows, sinking into the plush carpet. I looked out over the city while she poured me a drink. She wore a long, black silk dressing gown and underneath I could see the outline of her jewel covered leather costume.

I felt oddly comfortable in her presence, relieved of any need to control the conversation. I asked her a few questions and she told me how she got into the business and confided that it can be extremely lucrative, if you have the right customers.

"You would be surprised who some of my clients are," she said. We talked for about an hour, when suddenly there was a knock at the door. "I've forgotten about my nine o'clock regular," she said glancing at her watch.

She told me to wait in one of the bedrooms. She didn't want anyone to know she'd been talking to a reporter. Discretion, she assured me, is absolutely essential in her business.

Ordinarily I'm not the kind of guy who peaks through key holes but in this case I felt it was important for the integrity of my story. I owed it to my readers to get some firsthand, observed details. Besides, the customer's voice sounded oddly familiar.

It was dark in the other room and at first I could only make out shadowy details, until my eyes adjusted. I could see Miss Discipline's broad muscular back as she leaned over the mysterious customer.

"You've been a naughty boy!" I heard her say in a strong authoritative voice.

"I was Miss Discipline. I've been really bad."

"You've invaded a country and gotten a lot of people killed, for no good reason and I'm going to have to punish you, aren't I George?"

"Yes Miss Discipline."


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Paul Corman