The Ventriloquist

SEPTEMBER 8TH, 2006

It was a placid evening at the Lake Wales Hospice, and the community room was filled with interested viewers of "Best of the Ed Sullivan Show"

Tanya, the aide, was leaning against the wall, talking to the Head Nurse.

"God, I don't remember Ed Sutherland at all, but when they showed the Beatles, I know about that."

The girl turned earnestly to the Head Nurse who smiled.

"My gramma went to their first concert in the States."

The Head Nurse actually had been born about a year after the Ed Sullivan show had ended, but she turned to give Tanya a brief history lesson, when she saw an old woman spin from a black-and-white skit on the Sullivan show.

The old woman wheeled herself out of the room—refused to use a scooter, said she wanted to keep her arms strong—and went down the hall into her room.

Oh, dear. That's old Mrs. Grigsby..and her first husband was...she must be overcome with emotion, the poor thing, seeing the old show and she's gone back to her room to cry. That's so sad. I'll have to mention it to the Social Worker tomorrow.

The Head Nurse began telling Tanya about the Ed Sullivan Show and the various skits, and neither knew that old Mrs. Grigsby, formerly Mrs. Sterling Fogg, was in her room masturbating furiously...

JULY 22, 1982

Slave Irma wrestled with her bonds, bumping her head against the top of the chest. Oooh it hurt.

First, because Slave Irma's five foot nine frame was bunched up in a small clothing trunk.

Yes, and secondly, because since Mistress Miranda had ordered Slave Fogg to shave Irma's head, as punishment for the sin of Pride.

Slave Irma's bare head kept slamming against the splintery top of her grandmother's wooden chest.

All her beautiful long curling dark hair. Sure, Slave Irma was in her late fifties now, and she'd had to touch the hair up a bit over the years, but it was quite beautiful still.

It was no picnic either, having your arms and legs bound behind you so you could fit in a tiny trunk like this one, for three hours. Breathing through a few holes, oh God.

Suddenly she heard commotion outside the trunk, and the lock was being opened, and, Oh-Halleluiah! The top opened. The light stung Slave Irma's eyes. She shut them to become accustomed.

Slave Fogg, Slave Irma's husband of thirty-six years, pulled her out of the trunk as gently as he could.

"Mistress Miranda wants to see you." Slave Fogg said, looking earnestly at her through his thick eyeglasses.

"Oh, you poor thing, she put you through the Machine!" Irma said.

And yes, Fogg's buttocks were covered once again in bright red welts.

Slave Fogg's curly hair was quite gray now, and he was a tubby fellow. Really, Irma might have left him by now, but she couldn't leave Mistress Miranda...

Mistress Miranda, beautiful, cool and quite cruel, was the love of Irma's life, and there were obvious issues involving Miss Miranda leaving Slave Fogg behind.

The elderly couple, naked as jaybirds shuffled upstairs into Mistress Miranda's dungeon. There she was, in all her glory, legs crossed and leaning in her little chair.

Slave Irma's pussy became wet as she greeted her Mistress by dropping to her knees and kissing Miranda's tiny feet.

It hurt bending down because Irma's clitoral lips were weighed down by horrible tiny chains attached to spiked balls that dangled and then swung back up, tearing her vagina...because she was addicted to masturbating!

Slave Fogg knelt by the Spanking Machine, a large wheel with a variety of canes, paddles and straps, which thwacked your ass as you bent across a padded sawhorse.

Programmed by a small motor and computer, either of Miranda's slaves would, upon her order, bend into the machine.

Then punch in the number of whacks and lashes that Mistress prescribed, as Mistress Miranda was somewhat disabled in giving corporal punishment herself.

But the Machine worked well, and once had gone a little too fast and had sent Slave Fogg to the Emergency Room.

But now Slave Fogg knelt there, awaiting Miranda's orders.

Miranda said to Slave Irma,

"So you've been given time to think since Fogg locked you in the chest, eh? You don't think you're better than Miranda do you?"

Irma paused.

"Ma'am, I never thought I was! I just was brushing my hair—"

Miranda laughed harshly.

"I'm sorry, Irma, but you're too prideful, and have been disobedient too much lately. In the fourteen years you've been my slave, you've never been worse than in the last few weeks...as if you don't trust Miranda!"

Tears welled in Irma's eyes.

"Ma'am, it's not that way! I adore you...I'd do anything for you! You're my slave mistress!"

She'd spent hours licking and polishing Miranda's beautiful small body, smoother than most, as Fogg had watched in envy.

Irma had gone through so much from Miranda—

Oh, she'd put cigarettes out on her own breasts, carved a tattoo in her stomach with broken glass, whatever Mistress had ordered.

In 1974, while Slave Fogg and Miranda had watched from a table, Irma had picked up a strange man at the bar at Elaine's in New York.

Yes, and she'd blown the guy in the men's room, just as Miranda had ordered!

Irma and Fogg had slept on beds of nails, locked themselves in a puppy kennel in the back yard during pouring rain...

Yes, and even stopped speaking to their adult children, because Miranda needed more attention, and Irma was desperate to please Miss Miranda, but what more could she do?

My God, at the last cocktail party they'd had, Miranda had ordered Fogg and Irma to strip and suck off the penises and pussies of their more liberal friends...

God, it had been humiliating to suck the pussy of her best friend, Betsy Bloomingdale, who had never called Irma again.

"I'm afraid I don't believe you," Miranda's eyes looked cold.

"I want you to have my name tattooed on your forehead...you're an ugly old woman—it won't matter appearance, wise."

Slave Irma gasped, horrified.

And what a hurtful thing to say! But Miranda, who had not aged a whit in all the years, often had taunted Irma for her gathering wrinkles.

Miranda, of course was immortal.

"I-I can't do that, Miss Miranda." Slave Irma protested.

"That would be just too much."

"Why not?" Miranda jibed.

"You're not allowed to leave the house and the gardens—by my order you've not left in seven years.

Who would see you?

Shit, you ugly old bag, you've not worn clothes except once when the exterminator came in eighteen months...it won't hurt you to have a tattoo. You'll do it, NOW."

As Irma's tears ran, Miranda laughed and scorned her, and Slave Fogg knelt silently by the spanking machine.

Irma knew she was very close to being ordered to lie in the damned thing, and get her buttocks blistered by raining straps, canes, paddles and whips.

"I'll...have to do it, then Ma'am." Slave Irma said dolefully.

Suddenly Slave Fogg got up.

"I have to go to the bathroom ma'am. Be right back." Fogg looked at Miranda for permission.

"No!" Miss Miranda shrieked at Fogg.

"I need you here. Hold it, and I'll have you get an enema later."

But Fogg ran desperately to the bathroom.

Irma shook her head. There would be hell to pay for the poor guy later.

She no longer was in love with Fogg, but they were peers in the serving of Mistress Miranda.

The bathroom on this floor was out of order, so Fogg was going downstairs.

There was no risk of him being seen naked, the two of them had fired their domestic staff some years ago, and cleaned the house themselves, under Miranda's direction...

Though when Fogg and Miranda went to work or on business trips, Slave Irma had to clean herself.

Yes, and then Fogg would escort Miss Miranda to inspect for any signs of dust orgrime..and then the spanking machine, of course!

Now that Fogg was gone, Irma tried to reason with Mistress Miranda.

He was so rarely not around, and Beloved Mistress might be more reasonable without the other slave there.

Irma turned up to the blond Val Kyrie, breasts and hips full in her leather outfit. "Please, Miss Miranda...won't you reconsider? Maybe a small tattoo on my neck?

I-I miss my children and I might want to see folks before they die, and I couldn't let them see this... wouldn't you consider?"

Miss Miranda was silent. Was she judging Irma? She was probably quite angry at this display of independence.

"Can't we please talk about it a little more?" Irma looked pleading.

But Miss Miranda kept her counsel, just staring at Irma, as if the slave-girl was a bore to her.

Oh, God she's furious. She's going to tell Fogg to lock me back up in the chest, and then possibly get tattooed by force, that's why she won't speak to me--

And then Irma remembered.

Suddenly, Irma shook her head, and stared at Miranda for the last time. I can't believe this, I'm insane, I've got to escape...

Oh, but if Fogg comes back, and Miranda starts speaking again...I might be persuaded to tattoo my FOREHEAD. And never leave.

Oh God. I've got to get out of here now!

"Slave Fogg?"

Fogg was rising off the toilet when he heard Slave Irma's voice through the bathroom door.

"Yes, why are you down here? Did Mistress Miranda permit you to leave the room?"

Foggy recalled that there was a fuzzy reason why he shouldn't have left the two women alone but...

"Mistress Miranda is furious with you for taking the bathroom break.

She has ordered you to stay on your knees in the bathroom for an hour, actually, don't leave the bathroom until she comes for you herself." Irma giggled for the first time in a decade.

"If that's what she wants." Fogg was always obedient to Miranda.

Twenty minutes later Fiona Fogg pulled her Maserati up to the house, to greet her sobbing mother, who was clad in a pair of overalls—and nothing else. "The only clothes I could find, Fiona." Her mother sobbed in the girl's arms.

"Don't worry, Mom. I'll take you to my house Mike and the kids have been waiting so long to see you, and Skippy and his family will be coming over."

"No, not yet, Fiona...I think you have to take me to a mental hospital."

OCTOBER 12, 1945

Midshipman Sterling Fogg and his wife, Irma finally unlocked the door of their little apartment..

"So, Foggy" Irma said, using the nickname he'd had since they were kids playing stickball in Brooklyn.

"Quite a ceremony, huh? Look at all those medals."

Irma, a curvy brunette wearing bright red lipstick and nail polish gestured at the ribbons and medals adorning Foggy's chest.

Fogg liked the way they looked...

It had given him a lot of confidence. He was an overweight, sweating youth, and his dress blues with their medals made him look a little better to his shapely, gorgeous wife.

"Just luck, honey."Fogg returned.

"Happened to be on the right ship when the Japs surrendered. Hey, guess what?" Fogg grinned. "I think I made a big break for me and Boots Bromberg, my dummy."

Irma smiled as Fogg pulled out the little puppet that he'd been practicing with since junior high.

Irma smiled at the little wooden dummy, clad in pinstripe suit and top hat. She'd not seen him in four years. Sometimes she wondered if she was closer to Boots or Foggy.

"Tell her, Boots!"

Fogg said as he propped the grotesque little man on his knee.

The doll began speaking, as Sterling threw his voice.

"Jeez Louise, Irma, can't see what you want in this bum." Fogg made the puppet gesture towards his own chest.

Irma laughed as she always did.

"Well, you are all hard wood, Boots...I ought to take a look at that!"

There was a look of pain on Sterling Fogg's face as he listened to the two banter.

Irma thought, if you don't want a puppet busting your balls or flirting with your wife, why not throw the puppet in the fire?

"You bet you!" Boots shot back.

"You'd be one lucky broad. Anyhow, the ventriloquist here showed me off at the Talent show at the officer's club in Tokyo, and we met a sergeant who woiks in radio...get me?

We're going to be big! We might even break into that new thing, television...my handsome face for everyone to see...so the bum here don't have to go back to been' busboy at Lindys no more."

Fogg dropped the puppet as Irma jumped into his arms, excited.

"Isn't it wonderful!" Irma said "I always knew you were talented."

Fogg kissed her, and then said.

"But with all the pressure on the battleship Missouri, and then all the medals and talk of my bravery and how I'm a great sailor, has been too much. I feel like I need a reminder of who I am, Miss Irma. I've not had one in four years."

Irma gave Fogg one more gentle smile, and then her brows furrowed.

"Yeah...I bet you've been all stuffed up with being told what a brave sailor you are—think you're something special, do you? A big shot!"

As Irma spoke, she thrust her chest out, and cracked imaginary gum.

Fogg breathed inwardly, staring at his beautiful brunette wife, her bosoms heaving like Jane Russells in a snug cashmere sweater.

"N-no, Miss Irma, I-I don't think I'm a big shot."

SLAP! Irma's long red nails left slight scratches as her little palm crashed across Fogg's face.

"Did you interrupt me?" shouted Irma.

"I see your manners have seriously eroded since you've been in the Pacific.

All my training seems to be gone, and you're just a big fuckin' blob...Remember how the boys called you that? The Blob?" Irma smirked. "They liked me though."

Fogg blushed, recalling how, even when they were going steady, how Irma kept him from feeling her up, but how he'd seen Irma going into the vacant tenement with his two best friends "Goldie" Goldberg and the Otter.

How on their wedding night, she'd disappeared with the groomsmen for a party right after the vows, leaving him to sit with his parents.

Irma pretended to pout. "You didn't like sharing me, honey? Too bad."

Irma looked at Fogg contemptuously.

"You're just a limp-dicked freak.

And now you think you're hot shit because you got some medals 'cause you HAPPENED to be on the Missouri when the Japs surrendered. Well, I'll take some of that outta you."

Fogg trembled as Irma went to the closet and rummaged around, bringing out a large wooden hairbrush. "Your ex-girlfriend Lenore gave this to me, Foggy." Irma said in a honeyed voice.

"I told her I have plenty of fun with the cane and the strop.

Leonore told me how she useta have to beat your bare bottom with this because you'd try to act all macho with her."

Irma grabbed Fogg by his tie and pulled him to the couch, and then began unbuckling Fogg's pants.

"Leonore- she told you that?" Fogg couldn't believe it. But now he had to focus, as Irma pointed to her lap severely.

"P-please ma'am..." But his cock was rising out of his shirtwaist as his pants and underpants were puddled round his knees. "I-I'm not a big-big shot."

Finally, Irma reached up and grabbed Fogg's ear and dragged him down across her lap.

WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!

The hairbrush harshly slapped Foggy's buttocks and he tried to avoid crying by biting his lip, then his tongue. He knew that if he cried, Irma would make fun of him cruelly...

WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! Irma slammed the hairbrush down, taking turns with the cheeks. Fogg's penis hardened against her short wool skirt.

Although he was in agony, he knew he needed this...wanted this. It had been so long. WHACK! WHACK!

Finally, Irma kicked Fogg off her knees and he kneeled on the floor, his pants bunched up around the knees.

Irma noted that Fogg's eyes were leaking tears under his thick spectacles.

"Aaw..baby's crying is he?" Fogg shook his head, but more tears came.

Irma went to the closet and brought out her razor strop.

Setting the evil leather thing on the sofa, Irma pulled off her sweater, revealing her marvelous bosoms encased in a snug T-shirt.

"I'm going to give it to ya with the strop an' then the cane, an' then, I'm gonna put a couple rat-traps on your nipples and your balls...an' make ya scrub the floor with your teeth!"

"N-no please Miss Irma..." But the strop landed again and again on Fogg's defenseless buttocks, bursting the blisters created by Ma's old hairbrush.

Fogg hid his face in his hands and cried like a little girl. Irma laughed harshly.

"Roll over on the couch!" Sterling rolled over so his buttocks were scraping the couch.

He looked so ridiculous in his dress blues with the medals and his pants down...but there was his cock all hard!"

Irma reached down and began toying with Fogg's cock.

"So you like this, do ya? I demand that you make this penis of yours small again." But as she said it, Irma's fingers kept rubbing the shaft, and her red nails shined against the white of the penis. It was even harder now.

"P-please, I can't stop it from being erect—OW!"

Irma's strop landed again and again on Fogg's penis, but it stayed hard, and Fogg screamed, and the neighbors downstairs, irate from the noise, banged the ceiling with their brooms.

As Sterling Fogg cried and Irma raged, Boots Bromberg, the little wooden doll sat on the suitcase and grinned into space.

April 14th, 1953

Irma shook her head.

"Aw c'mon honey" Sterling Fogg said.

"I know you liked Boots Bromberg, but everybody and his brother has a boy dummy...Think I can compete with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy?" Fogg waved the new girl dummy at Irma.

"Look at her, in her miniskirt and all...she's a hot one! I'm going to call her Miranda."

Irma looked depressed.

"Foggy, you've done so well with Boots. Your own radio show for eighteen years, you go on Ed Sullivan...we got to move here to L.A., big house, and our kids are in great boarding schools.

Sterling Jr. wrote from Andover, to tell me that they call him Skippy now...he's a preppie, and t'think my father was a dress cutter. We got a good thing with Boots, and...Miranda looks kind of slutty."

And she did. Limpid painted on eyes, full lips, obscenely large carved breasts and long legs... Suddenly, the puppet spoke.

"Are you going' to let this broad of yours run me down Foggy?

Who you like more, her or me?"

Fogg and Irma burst into laughter.

"Well honey, I guess that's what you want!" Irma smiled.

Fogg said.

"Hey, I didn't say it, she did!"

July 19, 1968

Irma let herself in the house after a day of shopping. Skippy and Fiona were surfing with friends, and the huge house seemed empty. God, we're rich now, Irma thought as she walked through the big house. The "Sterling and Miranda" show, one of the first on that remarkable invention, television, had really brought in the greenbacks.

Sterling Fogg was a household word now. and Miranda, the girl dummy was amazing!

Fogg had her dressed quite often in hippie garb, with headbands and miniskirts...and Miranda was bossy almost...she'd made Fogg go in drag on "Sonny and Cher" and she'd belittled him on "Donny and Marie" Pat Boone had publicly referred to Miranda as a "harlot"

But they were rich!

Suddenly, Irma heard a woman's voice upstairs, and she went up to the second floor, and peeked through the library door. Sterling often practiced with Miranda in there, and it looked like something was going on!

The doll was perched on Sterling's knee, and her little arm, manipulated by Fogg, was lashing his peter, and yes—he was naked as a jaybird! The Miranda dummy was dressed in a little leather outfit and she was shouting at Sterling, who was crying.

"Worthless scum! I wish I could beat your ass! You're nothing, you pig!"

Watching this, Irma felt revulsion. Sterling Fogg was her slave, and now he was making his dummy play games like this with him! Irma shook her head. This was crazy. Irma opened the door and walked in. I'm ending this now.

As Sterling Fogg looked up in surprise, Miranda said "Ah, Irma. We've been waiting for you!"