Wimseyfic of Infinite Wrongness
Mar. 16th, 2012 10:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nineveh_ukI often finish a fic and wait until the next morning to post it. This is partly so I can read comments during the working day, but also so that I have the opportunity to spot anything wrong and correct it before posting. Fortunately I am still in the semi-hysterical state that is synonymous with the end of the ninth week of term and that allowed me to write this last night, or I would be looking at this fic by the cold light of day and acknowledging that the wrongness is inherent and can’t be cut out, and resolving never to look at it again.
Continuing to defy Disraeli, this is, as ever, not my fault. Yes, I seem to have started and finished the evil AU while half-way through the proper fic, butclanwilliam made me do it. I mean, if you go around posting comments like the following, apropos of various questions on LJ britpicking comms, what do you think is going to happen?
Well, if your uncle actually took a proper pride in his duties, he'd have taken you off to a brothel in Paris where you could be non-consensually buggered with a strap-on.
I cannot stress strongly enough that this is not my personal canon. And I am a little sceptical about the whole Edward VII sex chair business, but this is a picture, if you want to know what Peter’s tied too… Sorry about the Daily Mail, they had the best photograph.
With all due apologies to Roger McGough, I present:
The Lesson
I'm going to teach you a lesson
one that you'll never forget
Peter awoke feeling rather groggy. It must have been the physical exertion; he certainly hadn’t had that much to drink. His uncle had been very firm on the deleterious effects of excessive alcohol on both performance and dignity, and besides he wasn’t hungover. But he did feel a bit fogged. Perhaps he had had more than he remembered; he must be getting used to it. He thought back to Jerry being horribly sick one weekend the previous summer and felt briefly smug, a sensation that ended when the comfortable darkness was interrupted by a door being flung open and the overhead light switched on. At which point things suddenly became a lot more puzzling and a lot less pleasant. He was not in the bed in which he had fallen asleep. He was not even in the same room. The other room had been an ordinary, if rather ornate, bedroom. This was also a bedroom, but thoroughly extraordinary, ludicrously opulent, the walls lined with statues in the manner of an Oriental temple of the Hollywood type. There was a bed, a huge great vulgar thing decked with rose satin pillows, but Peter was not in it. Instead, he lay upon – within – a bizarre chair-like contraption, ornamented with some quite decent ormolu that entirely failed to distract Peter from the fact that he was strapped down, his arms at his sides, his legs apart and raised in stirrups. It made him feel rather peculiar, and not a little chilly. He suspected that the establishment’s glazing was not quite up to the standards of the upholstery.
Having established his own position, Peter craned his head around the chair’s gold-encrusted extrusions in the direction of the person who had entered the room. It was Estelle, which was reassuring. Indeed, had he been asked twenty-four hours previously to contemplate this very scenario Peter suspected he would have been enthusiastic at the prospect. Finding oneself in it was a little different, and Peter had a sneaking feeling that he wasn’t sure he liked it, though perhaps that was silly. Estelle was all right. Unfortunately, Estelle was accompanied by Uncle Paul, and though that same twenty-four hours ago Peter would likewise have expressed no doubts whatsoever about his uncle, the expression on Mr Delagardie’s face was such as to inspire an immediate reversal of that perspective. Peter didn’t like it at all. It vanished in an instant, but the shadow remained. Estelle’s face appeared between his knees, happily accompanied by much of the rest of her. She was by far the loveliest woman that Peter had ever seen. Admittedly he did not have much to compare her with, but he was confident that she offered Donne two infinitely better hemispheres than a pair of eyes. Her own eyes were laughing speculatively.
‘Good morning, Peter.’
‘Morning – and hullo to you, too, Uncle Paul. But I say, full many a glorious morning have I seen and all that, and this one is quite definitely travellin’ the realms of gold, but would you mind awfully lettin’ me up? I think I’m getting cramp.’ He sketched a tug against the pale leather bands restraining him.
‘Not yet, my dear,’ said Estelle. ‘You must have your lesson first.’
‘Before breakfast?’
She kissed his knee. ‘Before anything.’
He gave up. Estelle in this sort of mood was immovable, and presumably she’d kick his uncle out before she got down to brass tacks. Besides, the surprise of the thing having diminished a little, the prospects it might offer were entertaining, and he wouldn’t object to letting her do the work for once. Only then she moved to his side to reveal herself completely, and he saw exactly what lesson she had in mind, and the nine inches of vulcanized rubber she intended to deliver it with. Under different conditions, he might almost have considered it, if it amused her. Paris had rather opened his mind. Under these – he looked over her shoulder at his Mr Delagardie, and knew absolutely that he had not had any more to drink last night than he had first thought.
‘I think perhaps not,’ Peter said coldly, the grey eyes turning hard. ‘I’m sorry if I forgot to mention it, Uncle, but we don’t go in for that sort of thing at Eton. At least,’ because there were some things that even the present circumstances could not excuse, ‘most of us don’t, and if I’d wanted the services of those who do, I might have arranged it without your assistance.’
Mr Delagardie tweaked the rather unattractive strappings Estelle’s waist and thighs with an murmured ‘Allow me, my dear,’ causing the device to rear up at an angle that in other circumstances might have been comical, but in the present ones was all too illustrative.
‘Don’t be difficult, Peter. You need to learn,’ he continued in a voice of patient rationality that didn’t fool Peter for a moment, ‘what it’s like on the other side. You young men are far too concerned with your own cause, and not nearly enough with its effect. I don’t blame you: we’re all like that to begin with. But you won’t really understand what you’re doing until you learn a bit of sympathy for the opposite perspective. This,’ he gestured, ‘will help you appreciate things from a broader point of view.’ He clapped Peter on the shoulder and Wimsey repressed a shudder. ‘If you can stop being quite so ridiculously Anglo-Saxon for a moment you ought to enjoy it. You needn’t worry about Estelle getting carried away. I’ll be here to keep her in hand.’
‘I’ll tell,’ hissed Peter in English, but Uncle Paul smiled.
‘And what exactly will you say?’ He bent his head close to Peter’s. Estelle was standing by his feet again, tapping her fingernails impatiently against the rubber and running the other hand up and down his thigh. ‘I’d like to hear you tell your father. He had his doubts about you, you know. Are you quite sure he’ll believe you didn’t want it? Especially if I tell him first.’
‘You wouldn’t dare!’
‘I might, if you persist in being foolish. So why don’t you lie back and think of England - and take it like a man.’
Continuing to defy Disraeli, this is, as ever, not my fault. Yes, I seem to have started and finished the evil AU while half-way through the proper fic, but
clanwilliam made me do it. I mean, if you go around posting comments like the following, apropos of various questions on LJ britpicking comms, what do you think is going to happen?Well, if your uncle actually took a proper pride in his duties, he'd have taken you off to a brothel in Paris where you could be non-consensually buggered with a strap-on.
I cannot stress strongly enough that this is not my personal canon. And I am a little sceptical about the whole Edward VII sex chair business, but this is a picture, if you want to know what Peter’s tied too… Sorry about the Daily Mail, they had the best photograph.
With all due apologies to Roger McGough, I present:
The Lesson
I'm going to teach you a lesson
one that you'll never forget
Peter awoke feeling rather groggy. It must have been the physical exertion; he certainly hadn’t had that much to drink. His uncle had been very firm on the deleterious effects of excessive alcohol on both performance and dignity, and besides he wasn’t hungover. But he did feel a bit fogged. Perhaps he had had more than he remembered; he must be getting used to it. He thought back to Jerry being horribly sick one weekend the previous summer and felt briefly smug, a sensation that ended when the comfortable darkness was interrupted by a door being flung open and the overhead light switched on. At which point things suddenly became a lot more puzzling and a lot less pleasant. He was not in the bed in which he had fallen asleep. He was not even in the same room. The other room had been an ordinary, if rather ornate, bedroom. This was also a bedroom, but thoroughly extraordinary, ludicrously opulent, the walls lined with statues in the manner of an Oriental temple of the Hollywood type. There was a bed, a huge great vulgar thing decked with rose satin pillows, but Peter was not in it. Instead, he lay upon – within – a bizarre chair-like contraption, ornamented with some quite decent ormolu that entirely failed to distract Peter from the fact that he was strapped down, his arms at his sides, his legs apart and raised in stirrups. It made him feel rather peculiar, and not a little chilly. He suspected that the establishment’s glazing was not quite up to the standards of the upholstery.
Having established his own position, Peter craned his head around the chair’s gold-encrusted extrusions in the direction of the person who had entered the room. It was Estelle, which was reassuring. Indeed, had he been asked twenty-four hours previously to contemplate this very scenario Peter suspected he would have been enthusiastic at the prospect. Finding oneself in it was a little different, and Peter had a sneaking feeling that he wasn’t sure he liked it, though perhaps that was silly. Estelle was all right. Unfortunately, Estelle was accompanied by Uncle Paul, and though that same twenty-four hours ago Peter would likewise have expressed no doubts whatsoever about his uncle, the expression on Mr Delagardie’s face was such as to inspire an immediate reversal of that perspective. Peter didn’t like it at all. It vanished in an instant, but the shadow remained. Estelle’s face appeared between his knees, happily accompanied by much of the rest of her. She was by far the loveliest woman that Peter had ever seen. Admittedly he did not have much to compare her with, but he was confident that she offered Donne two infinitely better hemispheres than a pair of eyes. Her own eyes were laughing speculatively.
‘Good morning, Peter.’
‘Morning – and hullo to you, too, Uncle Paul. But I say, full many a glorious morning have I seen and all that, and this one is quite definitely travellin’ the realms of gold, but would you mind awfully lettin’ me up? I think I’m getting cramp.’ He sketched a tug against the pale leather bands restraining him.
‘Not yet, my dear,’ said Estelle. ‘You must have your lesson first.’
‘Before breakfast?’
She kissed his knee. ‘Before anything.’
He gave up. Estelle in this sort of mood was immovable, and presumably she’d kick his uncle out before she got down to brass tacks. Besides, the surprise of the thing having diminished a little, the prospects it might offer were entertaining, and he wouldn’t object to letting her do the work for once. Only then she moved to his side to reveal herself completely, and he saw exactly what lesson she had in mind, and the nine inches of vulcanized rubber she intended to deliver it with. Under different conditions, he might almost have considered it, if it amused her. Paris had rather opened his mind. Under these – he looked over her shoulder at his Mr Delagardie, and knew absolutely that he had not had any more to drink last night than he had first thought.
‘I think perhaps not,’ Peter said coldly, the grey eyes turning hard. ‘I’m sorry if I forgot to mention it, Uncle, but we don’t go in for that sort of thing at Eton. At least,’ because there were some things that even the present circumstances could not excuse, ‘most of us don’t, and if I’d wanted the services of those who do, I might have arranged it without your assistance.’
Mr Delagardie tweaked the rather unattractive strappings Estelle’s waist and thighs with an murmured ‘Allow me, my dear,’ causing the device to rear up at an angle that in other circumstances might have been comical, but in the present ones was all too illustrative.
‘Don’t be difficult, Peter. You need to learn,’ he continued in a voice of patient rationality that didn’t fool Peter for a moment, ‘what it’s like on the other side. You young men are far too concerned with your own cause, and not nearly enough with its effect. I don’t blame you: we’re all like that to begin with. But you won’t really understand what you’re doing until you learn a bit of sympathy for the opposite perspective. This,’ he gestured, ‘will help you appreciate things from a broader point of view.’ He clapped Peter on the shoulder and Wimsey repressed a shudder. ‘If you can stop being quite so ridiculously Anglo-Saxon for a moment you ought to enjoy it. You needn’t worry about Estelle getting carried away. I’ll be here to keep her in hand.’
‘I’ll tell,’ hissed Peter in English, but Uncle Paul smiled.
‘And what exactly will you say?’ He bent his head close to Peter’s. Estelle was standing by his feet again, tapping her fingernails impatiently against the rubber and running the other hand up and down his thigh. ‘I’d like to hear you tell your father. He had his doubts about you, you know. Are you quite sure he’ll believe you didn’t want it? Especially if I tell him first.’
‘You wouldn’t dare!’
‘I might, if you persist in being foolish. So why don’t you lie back and think of England - and take it like a man.’