So, finally, concluding my little series of reveries inspired by my recent business trip to Hungary…
The road back to Budapest airport was lined with advertising billboards for the newly-released version of “Skyfall”, last year’s ever-so-brilliant James Bond film. It struck me as slightly incongruous – given that I was behind the former Iron Curtain, and hence, for much of 007’s career, in enemy territory.
Then I spied an area of woodland, with a couple of slightly derelict, isolated buildings, and the Communist era was duly resurrected in my mind. Those brilliantly-bright, ever-so-pretty lasses who’d been on my course for the previous couple of days? They’d only have been toddlers when the Wall fell. But had they been around a quarter of century before? Yes, they’d have been just the type to have worked bravely and secretly to try to undermine and overthrow the regime.
Word would have reached the secret police, of course. It always did. They’d be watched. But they’d be clever. And eventually the commanding officer’s patience would have snapped: “Bring them in anyway.”
They’d be snatched from the street; bundled into a van. Driven out of town, for what seemed like forever. The vehicle would turn down a bumpy road before stopping; they’d be pulled out and led into a cold, concrete building.
“We know exactly what you’re up to,” the officer would warn them. “We just can’t quite prove it yet. So we thought we’d get on and teach you a lesson anyway.”
They’d be taken away in turn; stripped (and touched); tied to an improvised whipping bench; birched; taken out for their friend to be punished; taken back to be birched again, even more severely. Left, for hours, to recover. And then tied in place once more, this time for the officers to take turns with them in ways more traumatic even than the flogging…
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I almost feel guilty about the fantasy, though. The idea of a ruthless, authoritarian state, its servants quite happy to do whatever necessary to maintain the rule of its often-twisted laws: that’s hot. And imaging rude things being done to people I’ve met in my vanilla life: that can be a turn-on, too! But the combination of the two almost feels too edgy, too close to what might have happened in real-life not that long ago.
Almost guilty. But not quite!
I was behind that wall when it fell, four years old. Had I been older, would I have “worked bravely and secretly to try to undermine and overthrow the regime”? There’s no way of knowing, but somehow I doubt it. There were not that many. Who knows? Maybe I would even have ended up one of those “servants quite happy to do whatever necessary to maintain the rule of its often-twisted laws”. I hope not, but again, there’s no way of knowing.
Most cp fiction is in some way inspired by reality, authoritarian systems (of any kind) work well as a background setting and that’s quite alright. It makes it possible to immerse myself in it, and I have no problem exploring it even when it sends a shiver down my spine.
The edgier bit for me is the involvement of vanilla acquaintances. It happens now and then. When I meet someone I don’t like at all, the thought that “this stuck-up cow just needs to be …” can occur, and it immediately makes me feel guilty (not almost, really). Fortunately, that guilt ruins the fantasy, stops it from going very far and mellows my dislike, so there are plenty of upsides to it.
At the risk of ruining the edginess, I can’t help commenting that, these days, even the Olympic Stadium is enemy territory for 007.
Fascinating perspective, Svetlana. Thank you for that. And it’s a good thing the wall came down or you’d probably not be reading or commenting on a blog like this 😉
Funnily, I rarely think that girls I encounter in real life and *dislike* need spanking. It’s more the ones I like that provoke my fantasies – such as a very cute waitress at dinner last night, or the lass at the next table behaving very submissively towards the gentleman with her (whether father or lover we couldn’t quite tell!).
And as for 007: he was OK in the Olympic Stadium – he had The Queen to help!!