A Study in Dissonance and Harmony

As she carried the switch back to the conservatory, Geneviève's thoughts turned to Anja, always one of her favorite mentees. How could she not have thought of Anja while helping Nora cheat? Anja had always seemed such a gentle soul, a thoughtful and quiet young woman, but her presence onstage that morning suggested a new side of her. "That authoritative presence will serve her well in life," Genevieve thought proudly, still thinking of Anja as a protogée.

Geneviève entered the auditorium with the switch in hand, conscious of the gaze from her studio mates as their eyes' followed her onto the stage. She ceremoniously handed the switch to Anja, who inspected it and skillfully snapped her wrist to give it a test whip through the air, making a distinct swishing sound, amplified by the room's acoustics.

Anja seemed pleased. "It's a good one!" she exclaimed almost gleefully, her German accent breaking through her typically perfect French. She quickly forced away her smile and assumed a more appropriately somber face.

"Are you ready to atone for your breach of trust?"

"Yes, Anja."

"And also for your lover's acceptance of accolades she didn't earn?"

"Yes, Anja."

"Good. Now strip."

"Everything?"

Anja snapped back with a raised voice, her accent becoming more pronounced. "Was I unclear? You can't atone with your flesh if you hide it!"

"Of course, Anja," she replied as the gravity of her unfolding situation became even clearer.

Layer by layer, Geneviève calmly and carefully removed her warm, elegant garments of silk, satin, and cashmere that adorned her soft, voluptuous form, folding each layer ceremoniously atop the lid of the piano before beginning to remove the next layer. Visible goosebumps formed on her arms. After she unlaced and removed her corset, the last layer was a snug silken slip. She paused before unhooking it at her back and her sides, and then slid it from her shoulders, exposing her breasts, then stomach, then hips. Once fully nude, she carefully folded the slip and set it atop the clothing mound on the piano.

She attempted to retain her usual poise but was unaccustomed to this level of exposure. She instinctively looked down and tried to hide as much of her body as she could, but Anja verbally chastised her. "Hands behind your head, eyes straight ahead, and stand up straight."

Geneviève complied, continually taken aback by Anja's new brusqueness. She glanced at Professor Poitier, seeking her approval of how she was handling the situation. The professor nodded and smiled, and then reclined slightly in her chair and placed her hands behind her head, superficially mirroring Genevieve's position, but in a state of total relaxation in contrast to Geneviève's tense, vulnerable stance.

Anja's voice again broke the silence. "Keep your hands there until I say that I am done. Show your face while you atone."

"Yes, Anja," Geneviève replied calmly, her eyes beginning to moisten.

Silent and still, Anja stood behind her tutor for three full minutes, again reflecting on memories of Hilda's use of timing to enhance her own discipline. She caught herself enjoying the anticipation she was building a little too much, surprised at how satisfying it was to stand on this side of the disciplinary experience for the first time. She searched for the strength to remain cool and carry out the disciplinary duty entrusted to her severely but fairly.

Geneviève turned her head backwards and glanced at her, but Anja snapped, "I'll start when I start. Eyes straight ahead."

After another minute, the silence broke with another swish, this time followed by a crack that resonated vibrantly through the room.

"Oo," Geneviève gasped slightly at the novel sensation of the switch's sting biting her exposed buttocks. Her hands descended instinctively toward her rear for a split second, but she quickly placed them behind her head again to comply with Anja's earlier instructions. The initial sting subsided more quickly than she expected, replaced by a low-simmering afterburn. It hurt, to be sure, but was not as bad as she had feared.

Another swoosh and smack quickly followed. It stung more than the first, and the afterburn grew warmer, but she thought this should be bearable after all.

By the fourth or fifth strike, though, Geneviève began to have more trouble overcoming her instinct to move her hands backwards to protect herself, as both the sting and the burn grew stronger. Anja broke her stern demeanor for a moment to advise in her more characteristically soft and sympathetic voice, "it will be easier to hold if you interlock your fingers and try to squeeze your shoulder blades together slightly."

Genevieve followed this advice and nodded thankfully, impressed and surprised with Anja's apparent technical expertise.

Another four smacks followed in quick succession, each generating a sear whose intensity grew cumulatively. "There they are, the vengeful bees," she thought to herself.

As her pain reached a high plateau, a pair of tears trickled down each of Geneviève's cheeks. The accumulated afterburn began radiating from her bottom and gradually enveloped most of her pelvis, then into her stomach, and down through her thighs.

The warmth grew in both intensity and area with each stroke, but the warmth became the most concentrated between her legs. She had not expected that to happen. "Is this why Pauline described this punishment so fondly?" she wondered to herself, as the image of Pauline's twinkling giggle replayed in her mind.

Warmth gave way to tingles, which gave way moistness. The wetter she became, the more she struggled to maintain her posture. Despite her best efforts at restraint, her breathing grew shallower, her hips twitched, and her back arched slightly. She bit her lip in an effort to retain whatever control she could, trying to suppress any outward signs of arousal; she was trying to atone before the studio to regain its acceptance, after all.

"Stand straight," Anja admonished in calm, measured tones, "or say 'cessez.'"

Geneviève tried her best to comply, it became more difficult to control her stance as the strokes continued. As her knees gradually weakened, her weight shifted rapidly from one leg to another in a staccato, syncopated dance from the building confluence of guilt, shame, regret, pain, pleasure, and the determination to persevere.

Eventually, Anja paused. "That was for your own dishonesty and your abuse of your position. Now take a moment to reflect. You will now atone for the theft your lover committed, accepting what was not hers under your encouragement and influence."

Geneviève, her bottom already on fire, winced at the thought that there was still more to come. She and Nora locked eyes lovingly, Nora silently mouthing "I'm so sorry," during this moment of respite, her face conveying her affection and empathy.

"Me too," Geneviève's lips silently replied, unsure how much longer she could withhold the word "cessez." Thankfully, Anja paused long enough for the pain to subside, not quite to a bearable level, but to a level that gave Geneviève some modicum of confidence in her ability to endure.

After several minutes, the silence broke again as Anja delivered five sharp, powerful strokes, about ten seconds apart. Each of these strokes diminished Geneviève's self-control further. After the fifth of these strokes, her eyes' internal dam broke, and her once-restrained tears poured uncontrollably. She tried to wipe her eyes, but Anja was unmoved.

"No! These are your tears of penance! Let them pour! Let them cleanse you! Hands where they belong!"

Nora's own bottom began to ache with vicarious pain as she watched, knowing that her lover was taking each of these strokes on her behalf. She blew Geneviève a kiss of support, which she barely saw through her tears but acknowledged with a nod an infinitesimal smile that she managed to squeeze out.

With the next stroke, though, Geneviève totally surrendered to the punishment, exhausted from her increasingly futile effort to retain control. Her entire being became engulfed in a conflagration of pain, remorse, and sexual urging; she simply gave into the moment that all three became one. The formerly clinched and jerky movements of her legs, hips, and torso became fluid and flowing, and her hands were no longer able to resist the impulse to wipe her tears. The moment of transition was unmistakable.

Anja smiled with pride at that moment, perhaps for too long. She had experienced the same response when she atoned under Hilda's discipline for contradicting her father in front of honored guests. This was the moment was the pinnacle toward which a well-executed physical punishment for the severest of sins should build, she thought. This was the dance of surrender, the flesh's embodiment of the soul's remorse. "No puppeteer could choreograph a more perfect surrender dance," she thought to herself watching Geneviève's movements, feeling gratitude toward Hilda for imparting her with a greater mastery of the art of discipline than she had realized.

But Anja also recognized that she was growing intoxicated with her newfound power. It was more than just pride in a job well done. The wet warmth and rising tension between her own legs belied the extent of her gratification from the control she exerted over her tutor's naked body. Her sexual response became an integral part of her schadenfreude, a thought that shaded Anja's ever-reflective soul with a layer of moral guilt.

Recognizing the effect the discipline was having on her own body and mind, Anja took a break for a moment. The sudden pause left Geneviève in a petrified state of anticipation. Both of their aroused states continued to build in the silence.

Anja, in a tone more characteristic of her usual gentle thoughtfulness, asked if Geneviève needed to say "cessez."

Genevieve struggled but shook her head no.

"Then put your hands back where they belong," Anja ordered more sternly, having allowed Geneviève's compliance to slide during her uncontrollable dance.

Geneviève gathered her last vestige of free will and complied.

Anja paused again, uncomfortably relishing in one last tease of anticipation before landing a final stroke across the top of Geneviève's legs, this one harder than any of the others. It drew an almost growling vocalization of pleasure and pain from Genviève's core as she leaned forward and bucked her hips. That response, in turn, begat a quieter but unmistakable gasp of surprise and pleasure from Anja. She hoped no one noticed.

Anja declared, "that was your last one, but leave your hands where they are."

Geneviève nodded and exhaled in relief, though her agony prevented her from relaxing.

"Now turn around. Show the marks of your contrition."

She complied, revealing to the audience her reddened cheeks with raised welts and stripes extending down the upper half of her legs. After a minute or so, she instructed, "turn back around," and Geneviève complied.

Anja asked, "does your soul feel cleansed?"

Geneviève nodded silently but forcefully, while her tears continued to freely cascade, their saline dew shimmering on her cheeks, breasts and stomach.

Anja turned to the Professor and ceremoniously declared, "She has atoned."

The audience stood and clapped their hands in approval. Anja embraced Geneviève and expressed her forgiveness, while Geneviève, still silent, placed her hands upon her burning bottom, feeling its heat transfer into the cold palms of her hands.

Eventually, she reciprocated Anja's embrace. Once she processed that her ordeal was over and regained her voice, she thanked her. "I cannot thank you enough for helping me demonstrate the depth of my remorse and for proposing a way for me to rejoin this community," she said. Anja patted her bare back gently.

Professor Poitier rose to the stage, hugged both Anja and Geneviève, and gestured toward Genviève's pile of clothes. She nodded, signaling that she could dress herself. As she put her clothes back on, the professor stated, "welcome back to our good graces. Now I will invite each member of the studio to welcome you back personally."

They all rose, lined up and took turns embracing her, as her tears persisted but she gradually regained some semblance of composure. Nora was the last in line. They locked lips passionately under the fascinated gaze of the rest of the studio members. Sarah McCallan cheered as they kissed and all of the audience members gradually joined in applause.

"The salt of your tears taste so good," whispered Nora to her lover.

"Yours do too," Geneviève replied.

After Professor Poitier dismissed the studio, and suggested that Geneviève, Nora, and Anja take the remainder of the day off to recover from their "rather taxing" morning. "I will write a note for your other courses today," she added.

Nora and Geneviève walked together along the edge of the woods. Nora held Geneviève's hand tightly and professed her undying love and her gratitude to her for suffering such pain on her behalf and so that they could remain together. She also confided that although the intensity of Geneviève's physical pain was obvious, "it looked like some of your flesh might have enjoyed atoning."

"Oh my God!" Geneviève replied laughing, closing her eyes and rolling them into her head, while bending forward and placing her free hand below her stomach. "And I think Anja's flesh might have enjoyed atoning mine!"

Nora giggled and imitated Anja's final faint sexual gasp.

Geneviève smiled through her still-reddened eyes and added, "I'm not sure whether it was Anja or I who ventured nearer to the precipice of earthly delight amidst the ordeal, but I know that I'm teetering over its edge right now."

Nora laughed and whispered into her lover's ear, "let me give you what you need."

Geneviève nodded enthusiastically. The couple hastened into Nora's dormitory, where they both shed their clothes as quickly as they could. Once Nora's svelte athletic form emerged from its cloth constraints, she could not keep her hands off of Geneviève's more luxurious curves. They laid naked side by side on Nora's narrow dormitory bed, kissing, biting, and caressing one another in an intense expression of their mutual affection.

But Geneviève had needs. As Nora began to nibble and suckle her erect nipple, Geneviève gently tugged at her long dark brown hair and pointed her finger downward. Nora, understanding immediately, released her teeth her lover's nipple, slid her tongue around it, and then gently traced her tongue in a slow teasing journey down her stomach, below her waistline, and then to the side--to Genevieve's inner thigh, and down her inner leg all the way to her back of her knee.

"Arrrrr!" was all Geneviève could say, in an exasperated expression of pleasure and frustration.

With a delighted chuckle, Nora slid herself off the foot of the bed, knelt in front of it, and tugged Geneviève's legs to place her pelvis directly in front of her face. Geneviève grabbed the two pillows from behind her head, slid one under her hips, and tossed the other to Nora who cushioned her knees with it, all in one unified gesture. For a brief second, Nora gazed up at her lover and mentor who had willingly suffered for them both. "This is my woman forever," she thought to herself.

Nora's tongue then slid out of her mouth to gently separate the soaked and swollen petals Geneviève's rose. She drew tender circles with the tip of her tongue around her lover's flushed and throbbing pearl, savoring the taste and scent of her bodily nectar, the feeling of tension quickly building in her legs on either side of her head, and the crescendo and accelerando of her breath.

It took less than a minute for Geneviève's body to convulse in that long-delayed earthly delight and for her lungs to bellow out a melismatic song of ecstasy that, over the ensuing hour, would echo through the stone walls of the conservatory residence hall no fewer than nine times.

After she could take no more, Genevieve sat up, raised her eyebrows, and playfully poked out her rolled tongue. Nora nodded enthusiastically. No words were necessary as they swapped places seamlessly. Geneviève then caressed, licked, and suckled Nora's body to three powerful climaxes, her first time experiencing more than one in a day.

They napped together in that bed through much of that afternoon, Geneviève protectively cupping Nora's breasts from behind with Nora's hands atop her own, their knees pressed together, and Geneviève's cheek resting between Nora's neck and shoulder in quiet bliss.

After waking, Nora hand wrote a letter disclosing everything to the magazine, including a detailed, if heavily euphemized, description of the discipline that Geneviève endured on both of their behalves and their subsequent tear-laden kiss. Both Nora and Geneviève signed the letter and enclosed Anja's score.

To much surprise, the magazine not only published the letter and Anja's score but featured their tale as its cover story, with a prefatory editor's note explaining its controversial decision to publish such a provocative letter, noting that doing so was essential to its authors' full and public acceptance of responsibility for their actions.

Although Anja's score earned praise from critics, it was Geneviève's and Nora's composition and its aftermath that captured the public's imagination. Their work became a commercial success, gaining the popular nickname, "Prelude to a Tearful Kiss," although it remained taboo to perform it publicly because of its origin tale.

Geneviève and Nora lived out their days together openly as a couple in Paris, though they were not able to marry because of the time in which they lived. Geneviève became the composer in residence for the Paris Symphony, and Nora led a flourishing private composition studio. They both considered the discipline that Geneviève endured to be among the most erotic moments in their lives, and they revisited the memory often during their impassioned lovemaking for decades thereafter.

As for Anja, she went on to become the dean of her alma mater, the Conservatoire d'Elysées. Her reputation for stern discipline preceded her. No one dared cross her, for the entire musical world now knew what she was capable of. She also revisited the memory of that morning in 1901 as frequent fodder for guilt-ridden self-pleasure and continued to wonder whether anyone ever suspected her body's erotic response to the episode while it unfolded.

Twenty years after the fact, in March 1921, she received the answer to that question. Nora and Geneviève returned to the conservatory as guest artists to present a masterclass to its budding talents. Upon their arrival, Geneviève presented Anja with a large, elegantly wrapped gift box. After they retired to their guest suite, Anja opened the box, revealing fine wines, sweet delicacies, and a separate box, long and narrow, within the larger box. The smaller box revealed a hazel switch with a handwritten note: "Revisit sweetest memories? With much love, Geneviève and Nora, Suite 200."

Less than an hour later, Anja knocked on their door. Geneviève opened it, clad in only a bathrobe. Nora emerged from the bathroom seconds later, her hair wet and her body wrapped in a towel. They all smirked through blushed cheeks as Anja presented the tall and slender gift box, nodding affirmatively.

"It's a good one!" she noted, in the same gleeful voice as she had uttered those words two decades prior. "Shall we put it to good use?"

"Yes, Anja," Genevieve replied in mock solemnity, as Nora closed the door behind her.

"Good. Now strip," Anja commanded.

Geneviève's bathrobe instantly fell to the floor.

...