Master Nate

I stretched out in the grass, the lawn sloping away into an almost epically long view, the trees in a horseshoe at the far side and the city above. sheep meadowKristie was asleep beside me. We had finished our finals, Third Year done, and summer was here. I breathed out lightly, almost happy, my elbow tucked perfectly in. That’s when I saw him surge out of the corner of my eye, my old high school teacher, Master Nate.

“Vicks!” He stood over me, awkwardly perving down my top. “How are you doing? What a day! What a day!” I closed my eyes and wished him away. imagesBut he was still there, his narrow eyes, big nose and lips like Ichabod Crane. “Who’s your lovely friend?”

sleepy-ichabod“Who’s this?” Kristie sat up.

His hand came jutting out, hairier than I remembered. “Nate Doyle. Pleased.”

“Master Nate.”

He blinked hard, dark white spittle at the corner of his mouth. “What’s that, Vicks? What?”

I lurched up, banging the grass off my jeans. “I told her about you, Master Nate.”

His mouth opened and closed, a large-mouth bass gasping for water. “I would have done anything for you. Literally anything.”

“This is the guy?” Kristie zipped up her top. “Jesus fuck.”

“Vicks, no.” His eyes bulged, his chin jutted out. “Literally. Anything.”

“Master Nate masturbates.” I couldn’t feel my arms. I wondered if this was what a heart attack was like.

His eyes looked wild, a rodent in a trap. rat“You’re a good girl, Vicks. I know that. But you’re hurting me. You know that.”

“I should call the police.” Kristie got her phone out of her purse. “Let’s do that.”

“Lit-er-al-ly. An-y-thing.” He punctuated each syllable with a thrust of his hand.

“So what do you do? It’s just 9-1-1?”

And then he turned away and was suddenly crazily running, swerving toward the darkness of the trees.running-away1I thought about having a rifle, lining him up, breathing in, shooting, how he would fall, the little thing he was, and how that would be that.

Vicks stared after him and then at me. “That guy taught you?”

“He was the head of the department.”

The Marquis de Sade’s Wickedly Accurate Condemnation

The Marquis de Sade isn’t much of a writer; his descriptions are tedious, his dialogue static, his narrative almost non-existent and his prose little more than a mask for his sadistic tendencies. The Marquis de Sade's Wickedly Accurate CondemnationHis perverse point of view however can be surprisingly accurate, in spite of his delight in the suffering of others, and is relentlessly damning.

Justine, the eponymous character of his novel, never gives up on her fight for virtue, this despite being subjected to the starling perversions of libertines across France – systematic rape, torture, blood-letting and auto-strangulation – and their passionate arguments. The Marquis de Sade's Wickedly Accurate CondemnationStates the Compte de Gernande: The happiness that the two sexes may find in each other can be found by one through blind obedience and by the other through the greatest possible domination. If it were not Nature’s intention that one of the sexes should tyrannize the other, would she not have created them of equal strength? (176) The Marquis de Sade's Wickedly Accurate CondemnationSays Monsieur Roland: The poor are part of Nature’s plan. In creating men of unequal strength, she has convinced us of her wish that this inequality should be preserved despite the changes our civilization would bring her laws. It would be going against Nature’s wishes to disturb the equilibrium that is the basis of her sublime organization, to work towards an equality that would be dangerous for society, to encourage indolence and sloth, to teach the poor to steal from the rich when the rich refuse to help. (216) The Marquis de Sade's Wickedly Accurate CondemnationSays Baroness Dubois: Our laws wish in vain to restore order and bring men back to virtue. Too unjust to achieve this, too inadequate to succeed, they will take people off the beaten track for a moment, but they will never get them to leave it. When it is in the general interest for men to be corrupt, anyone who is unwilling to become so with the rest will therefore be pushing against the general interest. (220)The Marquis de Sade's Wickedly Accurate Condemnation

Monsieur Saint-Florent concludes: The weak must give in to the desires of the strongest or else fall victim to their wickedness. (248)