The Seventh Hymn

At home, she read it over and over, especially the poem. Ketchum had printed both the German and his translation for her. His essay was nominally about the translation but moved deftly from the structure of the poem to the contours of Novalis's philosophy. Lacey couldn't wait to see more. She had practically memorized the translated poem and fell asleep thinking about it.

The next day, Ketchum acted as if he had never given it to her, as if they had nothing much to talk about. Frustrated, she finally asked, "Well...is there more?"

He hedged. "You read it. What did you think?"

"I can't tell. Where's the rest of it?" In fact, she loved it, or at least loved that he was doing it. "There must be more?" An hour later he surrendered another folder with another poem and essay. She devoured them.

By Friday, which by tacit agreement had become TD&F day, Lacey had gotten four poems and essays out of Ketchum and learned that there were six total. She had read all four and begun making notes, but then asked for electronic copies, which Ketchum supplied, though he made a show of being reticent about it. "What are you doing? Are you editing? I thought you were just going to read them." He had as hard a time extracting comments from her as she'd had extracting the poems from him.

Rose arrived Friday morning to clean, and they worked in closed rooms -- she in the guest bedroom, he in the study -- as Rose took over the rest of the house. They continued through lunch and by late afternoon were ready for a change. Lacey expected a thrill -- part of the fun of not being in control of sex was not knowing what was coming. Ketchum fretted a bit because he knew she expected a thrill. The more he succeeded in thrilling her, the higher her expectations rose. He had begun to think of 'nympho sex' as Tucker's wages -- something that he owed her -- and did not want to underperform or disappoint her. They weren't lovers so much as co-experimenters. After shutting his laptop for the day, he sought her input. "What's the nympho dream today, Tucker?"

"Where's the box?" she asked.

"In the office."

She left to fetch, Ketchum assumed, a favorite accessory and returned with the paddle and strap, one in each hand. She held them up and said, simply, "Your choice." And went to his bedroom. Ketchum watched her go and his stomach dropped. She wants me to hit her.

Lacey was nervous, too. She waited in the master bedroom, standing quietly in her scrubs just inside the door. Ketchum came in carrying two cuffs, the spreader bar and rope, but no blindfold. "Lose the scrubs, Tucker." She readily obeyed. Ketchum spared her underwear and handed her the cuffs. "On your ankles." There followed a stream of orders; as soon as she completed one, he delivered the next.

"On the bed. Face down.

"Ass up, feet apart." He attached the spreader bar to her ankle cuffs.

"Hands between your legs. All the way past the bar." He used the rope to tie her wrists to one another and lash them to the middle of the bar. The effect was as if she had been placed in stocks with her ass in the air. He pulled her panties down, baring her butt, and picked up the paddle. Then he stood staring at her, patting his palm absently with the paddle.

He stood that way for a while. Eventually, Lacey turned her head to see what he was doing, what was happening. Noting her puzzlement, he spoke. "I've never hit a woman, Tucker."

He was addressing her, obviously, but Lacey was unsure how to respond. "Oh, I guess you could hit me if I were a man?" she asked in an accusing, disgusted tone.

He ignored the tone. "I don't think so."

"Pussy."

It was hardly the response Ketchum expected. "What?"

"Pussy!" she repeated. "Do I need to get a lesbian to do it?"

"What?"

"You heard me. Fucking dandelion."

There followed a loud crack as the paddle slammed her butt cheek. Lacey grunted and waited for another. When none came, she resumed taunting him. "That's it?! That's what you got?!" He landed another blow, harder.

As Lacey spewed profanity, Ketchum overcame his reluctance to spank her. In the course of the spanking she called him, among other things, a weenie cocksucker, a dickless pansy, and a fucking oyster fart. He spoke once, vowing to improve her manners, and otherwise just wielded the paddle. After he was warmed up, he yanked her panties farther down and switched to the strap. Lacey's butt blazed; every inch was crimson. She stopped cursing and just grunted with each hot blow. Then she began to cry. Ketchum stopped and drew a breath. Immediately she resumed swearing at him, though less forcefully and now through tears. "Oh, you're giving up now, you bastard, you fucking clown dick?" she blubbered. What the fuck?! He landed another series of hard smacks and she wailed. Sobbed.

Ketchum tossed the strap on the bed. He was done. He cupped her pussy roughly and discovered she had shaved; also that she was sopping. He had imagined a satisfying fuck after a playful spanking, but this? Dan wasn't interested. Ketchum left the room and returned with the wand. He untied her hands and put the wand where she could reach it. "Knock yourself out, Tucker," he said, and walked out.

This was not the happy, edgy romp Ketchum had been looking forward to. Now, he mostly wanted to leave -- just leave and walk somewhere -- but decided he couldn't until she was up and around. Instead, he poured a Scotch and ruminated on the sofa. He felt like a jerk. He was ashamed of himself for hitting her and angry that he had let her goad him into it. She had certainly asked for it, but shit...

Lacey emerged from the bedroom half an hour later, dressed in her scrubs again. She clasped her hands in front of her and approached him cautiously. "Hey," she offered quietly. Ketchum's only acknowledgement was a blink. "Sorry I yelled at you," she said.

"Huh. Where did you learn to cuss, Tucker?"

"I'm sorry...you know I didn't mean that stuff." She rolled her eyes and made a vague gesture with her hands. "I learned some from Olivia, I guess. Mostly my mom."

Ketchum lifted his eyebrows. "Your mom?"

Lacey nodded. "Mom's family is Irish. She knows some words. Actually, even Mom says I cuss too much. I do kind of let loose sometimes."

Ketchum changed the subject. "Did Olivia do that to you?" He meant the spanking, the beating.

"No. Actually, I did it to her."

Ketchum frowned. "Did she cry?"

"No." Lacey was sure she hadn't, but now she wondered if she had ever hurt Olivia. "I can't spank as hard as you can." Though she thought she had almost elicited a smile, she could tell he was unhappy and she felt guilty. "Hey? I'm okay, honest. Just a little sore." She rubbed her bottom ruefully. "Anyway, I um...I even got off. Thanks. It's what I wanted. I just needed to try it."

"Jesus, Tucker. Is it the pain or the punishment?"

She lifted her hands, hapless. "I don't even know. Really, I'm sorry. We don't have to do it again. I guess Dan didn't go for it."

"No. Dan checked out."

"Can I make it up to him?" she asked hopefully. Ketchum said nothing. "Please...sir?" When Ketchum remained impassive, she pulled off her scrub top. "I think Big Dan likes my boobs," she said with a careful smile. She lifted and stroked her breasts sensuously, then unsnapped and shed her bra. Ketchum surrendered. He parted his legs and spread his arms as if to say 'have at it.'

Lacey eagerly opened his pants. Soon she had Dan stiff and glistening and Ketchum's mood improved. At one point, she left off sucking to surround Dan with her boobs. Rubbing Dan with her girls, she looked up and asked, "How come he's named Dan?"

Ketchum enjoyed the question. "Think about it, Tucker, whoever heard of a pecker named Ernest?" They both laughed. "Dan's a good name," Lacey agreed, and went back to work. She was relieved, almost unreasonably happy, when Dan erupted in her mouth. She waited patiently for all of it, then swallowed. "Mmm, good boy," she said, and gave Dan a kiss before Ketchum put him away.

Before leaving for the weekend, she made Ketchum promise to post the last two poems and essays or send them to her. Leaving, she wished he had hugged her, or she him, or whatever; just a hug. It would have felt nice.

The weekend itself was surprisingly busy. Lacey's apartment was overdue for a cleaning -- a dusting at least. Two weeks of mail had accumulated, which meant there were bills to pay, and she ought to shop for staples. Nevertheless, she texted Olivia and asked about getting together. She was still bothered by Ketch's question about making her cry.

Lacey and Olivia met for coffee and a short walk. Eventually, Lacey figured out how to ask a version of her question -- did I ever hurt you? The answer was no, delivered with a laugh but, predictably, Olivia wanted to know what prompted the question. Lacey told her part of what was happening with Ketch, including that he tied her up sometimes and had spanked her at her request, but she did not mention working as his orderly. Olivia was skeptical -- Ketchum was a man, after all -- and offered to castrate him if he ever hurt Lacey. Lacey laughed, and they moved on to Olivia's news. She had, sure enough, created a new blog -- about cooking, which seemed to be a popular topic -- but of course with a lesbian partner and nude and semi-clothed sexual antics in the kitchen. Liv was finding it hilarious and liked her new friend.

Ketchum emailed Lacey his remaining essays and translations. He realized his project was nearly done, which meant Lacey's gig as orderly-with-benefits would end soon, too, and he figured he owed her one last nympho fling. But what? For his part, he liked seeing her naked and watching her climax (plus fucking, of course, but no more spankings); for hers, she liked pain and punishment, evidently, but also being restrained and exposed (and fucking, too, he surmised). Some research brought to his attention the One-Bar Prison, with which he could restrain her, punish her, expose her, and (probably) make her come, all without hitting her. The sleek British version of the OBP was expensive and wouldn't arrive any time soon. When he saw a knockoff on Etsy for a fraction of the price, he jumped at it.

The Third Week

Lacey now felt almost as much at home at Ketchum's as in her own place; she spent more time there. She breezed in Monday morning, unpacked her things and placed some containers in the refrigerator. They caught up over coffee. She told him she had met Olivia and confirmed she hadn't hurt her. Ketchum was raising his mug for a sip of coffee; he lowered it to ask, "Did you tell her I hurt you?"

"Nooo...of course not," Lacey assured him, then smiled. "But she did say she would do something very painful to your gonads if you ever do."

Ketchum scoffed. "I see. The old lesbian castration fantasy."

"Speaking of lesbians, maybe you should check out her new blog. Naked lesbian cooking!"

"Yum yum." Ketchum replied sardonically. "Did you contribute a scene? I wondered why you were in Brookline so long."

Lacey's eyes widened. "You're tracking my phone?" It hadn't occurred to her. A week earlier, she'd have been annoyed if not genuinely pissed off. Now she shrugged it off.

"You gave up control, Tucker," he pointed out. "Surely you didn't expect a whole lot of privacy. I mean, you let me tie you up naked, but you don't want me to know you're in Brookline?"

Lacey replied with a wry smile, "Point taken. But seriously, sir, you have too much time on your hands. I thought you worked on weekends."

Ketchum ignored the observation and added, "Besides, it works both ways, Tucker. If I can track your phone, you can track mine."

Lacey sniffed. "Like I need GPS to know you're at Scotty's." She steered the subject to work. "You haven't written anything about Sophie. I like the essays, but you didn't even mention her."

"Why would I?"

"She's important, don't you think?"

"She's a half-wit."

"You said that, but I don't see why. I saw that online, too. But people only mention her at all because it makes him more interesting. They're like, 'Oh, look, here's this cool guy, but he fell for a twelve-year-old, and guess what -- she's a half-wit. Ha-ha.'"

"It's not me, Tucker. It's just what's there. Everybody knows it. Read Fitzgerald."

"I admit I haven't read Fitzgerald or all the people you have. But come on, how would they know? She lived 225 years ago. How could they possibly know? I bet they just say it because someone else said it."

Ketchum defended himself. "Well, I only said to you. I'm not saying it in print. It doesn't matter whether I believe it."

"Of course it does! What if they're wrong? What if she's important?" Lacey paused for emphasis. "Do you realize how many females get dismissed as half-wits, Ketch?"

Ketchum surrendered. "What do you want me to do?"

"Do some checking."

"How? I'm not going to find a brand-new primary source hidden in the closet."

"I know, I know. But...what the hell, you read German. You've got all these old books...Just trace it, figure out who said it first. You know, where it comes from, why anyone said it."

Ketchum retreated to his study, where most of the old German books had come to rest. Tucker's point was not unreasonable, but he believed it unlikely to be germane. He himself hadn't taken a position on Sophie von Kühn. Still, he might discover where the standard view originated. Even if it didn't affect his own work, it was an interesting window on others'. Plus, he had an idea about where to start.

He had been reading and making notes for less than an hour when Lacey interrupted. She entered the room carrying folders, which she slid onto his desk. Immediately she was talking. "I started marking up the hard copies you gave me first, but it was easier to do it on screen, so you have both. Sorry. My in-line comments and edits are in the files on the shared drive. Plus a few more in the folders, and I wrote separate notes -- just reactions, really -- on each poem-essay pair. Those are on the drive, too." She stopped to catch her breath.

Ketchum looked at her in surprise as he flipped open a folder with curiosity. The papers inside were extensively marked up. He looked up again. She shrugged sheepishly, then reverted to her talking points; obviously, she had an agenda. "Where are we submitting?" she demanded to know.

Ketchum dropped the folder and leaned back in his chair. "I don't know. The Press will give it a fair look."

Lacey shook her head. "No. I mean, I'm sure they would, but I think you try Oxford first, maybe Cambridge."

Ketchum was amused. "Why?"

"They're going to know Novalis."

"But the Press knows Novalis and me." Then he winked, "This is just a little hobby of mine, Tucker. It's not that serious."

"It is that serious," she countered. "It's good. You need the right reviewers, the right editors, someone who knows how to position this, how to market it..."

Ketchum was flattered by the ambition she had sprouted on his behalf. He played along. "Okay, then why not the Germans? Why not de Gruyter?"

"Yeah, okay, but this isn't German, Ketch. I mean Novalis is, but the whole point is a new English rendering of the Hymns. Your audience is English not German. You need the Brits."

Lacey did not wait for Ketchum to capitulate; she knew she was right and pressed on. "We can submit in a week or two if we get going. I figure we go through the pairs one by one this week. Next week we step back and look at them all together. Clean everything up for submission."

Ketchum continued to look at her with amusement. "Are you my editor or my agent?"

"I'm just your orderly," she said primly. "Let's get to work, sir."

Thus began a week of long days. They began with coffee and ended with Scotch, at least for Ketchum -- Lacey switched to Cointreau. They passed poems and essays back and forth. When Lacey had control of a document, Ketchum worked on the next one or went for a walk; when Ketchum controlled, Lacey cooked and tried to catch up on her own email.

Ketchum set aside his research on Sophie to concentrate on Tucker's responses to his work. They were uneven, but surprisingly good. She didn't know much about poetry, or anything about German Romanticism. But she was a close reader, posed insightful questions, and was unerring in pointing out where his readers would get lost. She also pointed out where he had chosen a questionable word or phrase: 'You said X; did you mean Y?' She grasped the work as a whole, seeing connections between essays and between different poems and essays, that even Ketchum had not seen, at least not consciously. Most uncannily, she could detect the original essence in a poem's translated doppelganger. She couldn't read German, but she sensed instinctively what Novalis sounded like. She would object: 'N wouldn't use this word...' Of course he wouldn't; he wrote in German. But she was right, and Ketchum would search for a replacement.

In short, the good news was that Lacey had done a lot of useful work. The bad news was that Ketchum had to absorb it all and figure out what to do with it. After he went through all of her feedback on a piece, they sat down to talk through it line by line, discussing, clarifying, arguing, modifying, and finally rereading. Then one of them would go back and make changes.

The OBP arrived Wednesday. They were too busy to notice it much. Ketchum fetched it in from the stoop and set it aside. Lacey paid no attention to the nondescript boxes in a corner of the living room. Wednesday night after Lacey had gone home, Ketchum decided he'd better open the boxes and have a look, in case it was missing parts or the accessories didn't fit. He was relieved when everything seemed present and accounted for -- he hadn't the gumption to improvise alternatives. He was, however, sufficiently inspired to locate his drill and stud-finder and place a sturdy hook in the office ceiling. He tested a light chain on the hook; satisfied, he took it down and considered going to bed. No, he could finish tweaking a translation -- it might be quick, and then it would be done.

On Thursday they made a lot of progress and Ketchum stopped feeling guilty about the diversion he'd planned for Friday morning. Lacey wouldn't be tied exactly, nor even fucked necessarily, but he thought she'd have fun and that she had earned it. When Friday arrived, they convened as usual in his kitchen and planned the day's tasks over coffee. At that point, something Lacey said reminded him of Olivia and he had another idea. Would it work? Maybe. If not, no big deal; he'd revert to the original plan.

Rose arrived as usual on Friday and they retreated to their respective offices. At ten o'clock, Ketchum walked into Lacey's and asked nonchalantly, "Hey, can I see your phone for a minute?" Lacey didn't think; she just pointed to it on the bed. "Back in a sec," he assured her and carried it to his office. He soon found Lacey's text thread with Olivia and sent her a message.

- Hey good to see u. R u around? Come at lunchtime?

Olivia replied almost immediately. - Ok. Home?

Shit. Ketchum hadn't anticipated that Olivia would assume Lacey was at home. There was nothing for it but to try. He replied 'no' and typed in his address.

Olivia did not respond right away. Then she texted: - Is that his place?

Ketchum lied. - He's not home.

Olivia was suspicious (good for her, Ketchum thought). - How do I know this is you and not shithead? (perceptive, too).

Thinking quickly, Ketchum replied, - Tammy it's me. 11:30?

- Ok.

Hugely satisfied, Ketchum returned Lacey's phone and checked on Rose, hoping she would be done and gone soon, before 11:00. As soon as she left, Ketchum put his plan into action. He fetched the stool and hung the chain on the hook in his office. He pulled the one-bar prison from a closet and placed it under the chain, then retrieved a blindfold, gag, and nipple clamps. Looking around at his preparations, he was satisfied. He located her cuffs and went to find Lacey.