The past is not a foreign country, as Hartley had it, but something visceral, real, and alive in us all. Our past permeates the deepest reaches of our subconscious minds, shaping our responses, informing our attitudes, and influencing our relationships, often in ways we do not realise and can barely comprehend.
For those with a virtuous past, the rewards are paid down over time. To them comes restful sleep, trusting, fulfilling relationships, and the prerogative to condemn others, to which they believe their moral piety has entitled them. But for those of us on the other side of the ledger, our lives gradually descend into self-loathing, denial, and guilt, all of which we have earned through our thoughtless, feckless, and self-centred actions.
It is uncommon for a man to escape the vortex of despair his dark past thrusts him into. Some find solace in the Twelve Steps, others through religious conversion, but even then, their guilt plagues them, leaving them half the men they were and with their vilest appetites stilled but never satisfied.
I could have become one of these wretched characters, forever living my life on a knife edge, just one vulnerable young virgin away from my reputation slowly unravelling amid lurid allegations and formal college enquiries. But, through the guidance of a mentor, much wiser and more virtuous than myself, I found a way not only to quell my urges but to replace them with something more fitting for a man with my sickening dispositions and odious tastes.
My mentor will not allow me to shut out my past, just as the women forced to live with the consequences of my pride, lust, and myriad perversions will forever remember their corruption and degradation at my hands. To them, the past brought abandonment, humiliation, and despair, and my mentor has forced me to take responsibility for their tribulations as a step towards atoning for the pain and suffering I wrought upon them.
Often, their faces rise from the deepest recesses of my mind, the living embodiments of my tortured conscience and silent reminders of my degeneracy. Memories of their warm, young bodies as they willingly gave themselves up to me, their minds filled with fanciful romantic notions I did little to assuage, sometimes come to me in the night. But now, with the memories comes the disgust, revulsion, and shame that should have informed my actions at the time, and such thoughts frequently make my stomach heave.
Most suspended their studies, confining themselves at home until after giving birth to their child, but none ever returned, their reputations and musical careers already in ruins. Only one woman stayed, spending the entire nine months of her pregnancy at college. When the time came for her to deliver my child, she did so without any embarrassing revelations concerning the paternity of the infant. Neither did she make one of these tiresome and futile complaints to the college authorities, realising that the word of a long-serving tutor carried much more weight than her own.
Instead, she forced me to accept responsibility for my misdeeds in a different way. She compelled me, initially under considerable duress, to embark upon a corrective programme that would subsequently protect the honour of vulnerable students while cleansing my blackened soul of the many iniquities I had inflicted upon her and many others.
However, having now received her generous instruction for some considerable time, I cannot adequately express my gratitude for all that she continues to teach me. Aside from granting me the self-awareness and self-knowledge I so long lacked, she has taught me that through discipline and training, sexual satisfaction of a higher kind can be achieved. She has opened my eyes to the gratification derived from asceticism, mortification, and pain, and to her, I owe everything I hold dear.
My mentor’s name is Shivani.
**********
I stepped into the long, empty corridor and swung the oak front door shut behind me. The building was illuminated by large church candles evenly spaced along the wooden floor, a path of light guiding my ungodly soul toward redemption. Their flickering wicks and dancing shadows afforded the familiar building an ethereal, mystical glow, reburnishing its faded glory, bringing to life its tired walls, awakening its rich and opulent past.
Debussy’s ‘Claire de Lune’ came to me through the cool night air, becoming increasingly distinct with each step I took along the ill-lit passageway. Shivani’s ability to recite the piece with the melancholic pathos and exquisite timing it merited was unequalled, and I recalled the occasion when I sat, enraptured at the poise and grace of the young woman as she performed her prodigious interpretation for the first time.
Maybe it was the look of naivety and innocence on her young face that day that initially awakened my darker nature, or perhaps I simply wanted to make such an incomparable talent my own; to seize it, twist it, and corrupt it as I had corrupted my own gifts, denying her the opportunity to go the places my talent should have taken me. It matters little now, time rendering my selfish motivations inconsequential in the light of my subsequent, far-reaching, and inexcusable actions.
When I reached the end of the corridor, the door to the concert hall was open, its vast, empty expanse lit only by a single candelabrum on the grand piano where she played. I stood in the candlelit doorway, once more appreciating her timeless radiance, captivating beauty, and phenomenal talent as she filled the domed edifice with her music.
Initially oblivious to my presence, Shivani’s body swayed softly to the gentle andante, her mind and soul seemingly consumed by the notes that flowed effortlessly from her lithe, deft fingertips. Her mane of raven hair gave way to a dark brow furrowed, deep in contemplation, and eyes closed as if in prayer. In these brief moments, she appeared to me as once she had: innocent, unsullied, and alive.
But having played the concluding bars, she paused as the instrument’s reverberations faded, her fingers hovering over the ivory as if resentful of their sudden redundancy. And, as she opened her eyes, her expression became troubled, like that of a child awakening in an unfamiliar room, uncertain and disoriented amidst strange and anomalous surroundings.
I allowed her a moment to compose herself before gently coughing into my fist, thus releasing her from her abstraction and alerting her to my unwelcome presence.
Shivani looked down at me from the stage, but not as once she had. The same dark eyes were now altered, devoid of the joy, gratitude, and passion that had once burned fiercely within them, and as she slowly closed the piano’s fallboard and rose from her stool, I recalled that, only two years earlier, she would have rushed across the room to greet me, wrapping her arms around me at the conclusion of such a flawless recital.
Instead, as she descended the stage and slowly walked towards me, her heels the only sound to pierce the forbidding silence, her face revealed a contempt born of bitterness, anger, and betrayal; it was an expression devoid of empathy and comfort, a look that spoke only of violent retribution.
As she approached, I did not drop my head in shame as I longed to, and our eyes met. In forcing myself to receive her mordant gaze, I made her sorrow, hurt, and loathing my own, acknowledging culpability for my many transgressions and welcoming the penance I knew would follow. Only by taking on her injustices and living the ordeal my wickedness had put her through could I ever hope to receive the absolution for which my soul yearned. Guilt was the legacy of my actions, and restitution the cause by which she had summoned me.
She did not speak. We never spoke, not any longer. Instead, she stood in front of me, raised my chin with one finger, and delivered a withering slap to my left cheek.
I expected the blow - our lessons had all begun the same way - but it did not make the pain burn any less fiercely. I could never be sure whether Shivani intended her blows as a greeting or a challenge, although I suspected it was simply a need to dish out in hot blood what she would soon serve over ice.
Satisfied at my evident discomfort, she turned and walked back towards the stage, knowing that I would obediently follow.
Shivani ascended the stairs, her long black satin gown billowing above black stiletto heels. She silently bid me drag the long duet piano stool to the centre of the stage, and having done so, I stood beside it as she walked to the wings. Presently, I became bathed in the beam of a solitary spotlight, its intensity rendering all but my immediate surroundings a darkened abyss.
Shivani slowly emerged from blackness into the brilliant pool of light. We stood, our eyes locked in a bitter duel of admiration and enmity, until remorse compelled my gaze to the floor. She sneered as she returned to the piano, removed her satin gown, and picked up a riding crop from the music stand.
When she returned to the full glare of the spotlight, Shivani allowed me a moment to appreciate her exotic, forbidden allure. Her black studded leather corset framed the glory of her full, dusky breasts. Slender, bronze thighs met long boots in a tender embrace of fire and ice, and studded black leather panties concealed the twin prey of my erstwhile lust.
Then, riding crop over her shoulder, Shivani drew her eyes downwards towards my clothing, returning them to my gaze before raising her eyebrows and tilting her head impatiently.
She remained in the shadows as I stripped, circling me unseen in the velvet black, the sound of her footsteps on the stage floor an ever-present reminder of my changed circumstances. Once, I had been her teacher, her superior in both rank and musical dexterity. Now, there could be no doubt who held the advantage, and the reversal in our fortunes would soon be laid bare as she once more taught me the three salutary lessons I had been summoned to receive.
First, Shivani would deliver my chastisement: the atonement for my many selfish and unnatural acts and the necessary redress for the heartache my unfeeling actions had caused. She would carry it out with the same callous disregard for my welfare as I had shown for her and her child and inflict as much pain as she considered commensurate to her distress.
Next, my mortification would begin, ensuring that should my libido guide me toward future temptations, my corporeal form would be incapable of satisfying my vile compulsions. Shivani would ensure that even masturbation would cause me such discomfort that self-pleasure would become anathema to me, and the only satisfaction I would gain would be the restorative justice my suffering afforded her.