Friday, May 20, 2011

Castle Schreckenstein

 (Castle Deuna in Thuringia - A drawing that comes
close to my mental image of Castle Schreckenstein.)

Today I would like to share a book excerpt with you that has had a major influence on my kink. It's from a German book series written by Oliver Hassencamp about a school for boys which is located in an old castle named “Schreckenstein” (“Horrorstone”). The boys call themselves knights and have decided to stick to the ideals of the former inhabitants of the castle: fairness, honesty and truthfulness. Their code includes not lying to anybody, not even the teachers, vouching for each other and neither drinking nor smoking, because these are habits that the knights consider lame.

The oldest and most merited boys form the “board of knights“. Their conferences are held in the old torture chamber of the castle. The board of knights is responsible for working out plans if the school faces some kind of trouble, but of course the boys also love to play pranks. The rules are that pranks are supposed to be creative fun and that no one should get hurt.

Castle Schreckenstein is located at a lake and across that lake, opposite to Schreckenstein, there is a girls school named “Rosenfels” (“Rosecliff”). The knights have a love-hate relationship with the girls and they enjoy playing pranks on each other. Sometimes the boys, girls and their teachers also meet officially, for example for lessons in what the boys call “moving cupboards”, which of course means dancing.

When Castle Schreckenstein has to be renovated, the boys are allowed to stay at Rosenfels with their teachers for the time being. Of course, this leads to the one or other strange or funny event. Then a problematic incident happens: A boy nicknamed “Steamroller” (because of his strength), a member of the board of knights, violates the code of honour. When the girls make fun of him, calling him “muscleman with a featherbrain”, Steamroller assumes that Stephan, another member of the board of knights, must have told them about this rarely used and hated second nickname of his. Angrily, he attacks Stephan and gives him a kick in front of the girls. In the evening, the board of knights meets in the barn to solve the issue.

I have translated the excerpt for you into English:

“Do you admit to having embarrassed us with your lack of self control?” asked “Midge” who acted as chairman. Steamroller nodded. Midge continued: “It is difficult enough for our headmaster to defend our special ways here at Rosenfels. Your misdemeanour redounds upon all of us.” Steamroller nodded again. Midge came to the conclusion: “Then let's begin with the torture.”

Under normal circumstances, a knight who had vialoted the code of hounour would have been sentenced to a ritual boxing match. It was an honour to be choosen as the opponent on such an occasion. The matches were only witnessed by the headmaster, the head boy and two seconds. The results weren't published. After the match the whole incident was always forgiven and forgotten.

At Rosenfels, a boxing match wasn't a valid option, though. The inevitable marks on the faces would have caught the girls' attention and they surely would have made fun of the boys in question. In addition to that, the strict headmistress of Rosenfels would probably have accused the headmaster of Schreckenstein of not managing to keep his boys from brawling.

That's why the knights had decided for a punishment on the bottom instead. Steamroller was about to receive 21 cane strokes on the bare, three from each of them. He leaned with his forehead on a pillar, his backside facing the judges. One by one Stephan, Ottokar, Andi, Klaus, Dieter, Hans-Jürgen and Midge stepped forward, took aim and diligently administered their strokes. Steamroller didn't make a sound.

"Hereby the incident is forgiven and forgotten", proclaimed Midge after the last stroke had been administered. "Forgiven and forgotten", repeated Steamroller the ritual formular and shook hands with everyone. His face looked like it were made of stone. After the ceremony he stormed outside and sat down in the snow. "For cooling down", he explained. The others had followed him. Suddenly they heard the sound of footsteps in the snow. An electric torch was lit and a female voice asked: "
What's going on here? Have you killed one of you guys?"

It was Sonja [a young teacher at Rosenfels] and with her came Beatrix and Ingrid [two of the girls who witnessed Steamroller's attack earlier that day]. Klaus and Andi had stepped in front of Steamroller who jumped up and rearranged his clothes as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, Midge detracted the unexpected female guests by involving them in a conversation: "Actually, we thought about sleeping outside tonight", he said. "Oh, in that case we've got a warm blanket for you", answered his sister Ingrid and showed the puzzled knights something that must have been a frozen tablecloth but rather looked like a board, stiff as it was. "We forgot that one outside", Beatrix explained.

Suddenly Steamroller stepped forward: "And you expect us to believe that?" he asked. "Oh, my...", answered Ingrid, "I didn't know that the hot-tempered maharaja was here as well. What was wrong with you earlier?" - "He just reminded me of something...", said Stephan and changed the topic: "Why are we standing outside in the cold? Don't you like to come in?" "Okay", Sonja agreed, "but just until half past nine."

Steamroller ran ahead, put away the cane and positioned two raw wooden benches in front of the heater. The girls stepped in, followed by the knights. Steamroller fetched cups and a boiler and soon they were all sitting in front of the heater drinking hot bouillon. "What a great idea, Steamoller!" praised Ingrid. Steamroller smiled. Now his misdeed was truly forgiven and forgotton. [...] A while later, Steamroller also fetched some soft blankets. "How mindful of you", remarked Ingrid. Steamroller folded the blankets and made sure that he was sitting on a soft pad as well. The other knights understood his act of courtesy only too well...

What I love about this scene is that it is consensual, taking the spanking is a matter of honour, there is a lot of ritual, the reactions are very restrained, there is no talking-off and no humiliation and no hard feelings afterwards. Everything stays among the people involved and afterwards, the misdeed is forgiven and forgotten. The other knights even defend Steamroller in front of the girls.


I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of this spanking, though, because the feeling of having let the others down would be horrible and not sexy at all. But in the role of an observer, I find this scenario very intriguing indeed. Of course, I would have loved to go to school at Schreckenstein, anyway, being the only girl among the knights, living with them as an accepted member of their community, playing pranks and proudly defending their code of honour.

The combination of a kinky scene that had all the ingredients that turn me on with an environment which I felt drawn to and characters whom I loved was a thrilling find. Even today, I very rarely read or watch any kinky scenes that touch me in the way this little excerpt did. Although I had to smile a bit, when I re-read the scene for the translation after so many years, because I thought: That was it? Such a short description without any explicit details?

Speaking of explicit details: Unfortunately I know that a scene like that will most probably never be captured on video. Pandora is already struggling to find two male spanking models who are interested in making a M/M scene for her upcoming site. (Go, Pandora!) Unfortunately I am not able to help out (that's the irony, I can help with every spanking constellation except for the one I'm most interested in as a viewer). And I assume the chances for a scene with so many sweet guys are rather low.

Well, sometimes only having a written description of a great scene also has its advantages! One can visualize the scenario the way one prefers. When I was younger, the scene which I have just shared with you was one I definitely imagined very often and very vividly. It has influenced my kink to this day.

6 comments:

Olli said...

Thank you for this very great posting - I also read the Horror-Rock-books in my childhood 25 years ago. What do I say... I "ate" them.

In my bookshelf there are all 27 volumes, even volume 4 from where you took your excerpt.

And this scene you described influenced me, too, so I can understand your feelings very good. But, you mentioned the discrepancy between the very small description of the scene with less details on the one hand and the influence to your kink on the other.

When I read that I remembered another book I often "read" when I was about 12 up to 15 years old; that book has had similar influence to my kink although there weren't any "scene descriptions" in it. It wasn't a "book for reading" at all, e.g. a novel, but a dictionary: the "Schülerduden Richtige Wortwahl". I had been triggered by items like "schlagen", "versohlen", "verdreschen" and so on.

The pictures in my head had been very impressive - and up to now I feel a little shudder when realising these words in a text...

Karl Friedrich Gauss said...

I wonder if this is any relation to the animated movie character "Shrek"; it's pronounced the same isn't it? Maybe this is where his ancestors hailed from.

Ranai said...

I remember the Schreckenstein series. I borrowed and read these volumes, always hoping there'd be a new council scene taking place in their torture chamber, which, after all, contained an actual rack! A rack which, I seem to recall, even got used to tie down some schoolfellow for a stern talking-to about needing to stick to their code of honour and so forth. Yay!

Although I had to smile a bit, when I re-read the scene for the translation after so many years, because I thought: That was it? Such a short description without any explicit details?

I think it perfectly makes sense. A possible lack of details in a scene is easily compensated by interesting story context details. The scene is integral part of a plot, and involves distinct characters the reader knows much more about. (That's how short kinky fanfiction scenes work for fans: context and characters are known.) Lack of explicit details would be more sorely missed in an isolated kinky action scene where actors were presented as tabula rasa who just show up to spank each other and then fade again into nothingness.

For me, Schreckenstein was not a series I got into that much though, because honestly these weren't characters I found genuinely likeable. So I just read these books once or twice for fun and then returned them to the library. A 'war of the sexes' construction such as Schreckenstein vs. Rosenfels tends to turn me off. I was distrustful of stories that put a lot of work into ascribing certain qualities to boys, and certain other qualities to girls, even when I was a young girl and had zero clue of grown-up words such as 'gender essentialism'.

I've enjoyed stories with equal opportunity game feuds between friends more, such as the playful war of the roses in Astrid Lindgren's Kalle Blomquist (Swedish: Blomkvist) books. No spanking scenes in those, but lots of capture and escape. Perhaps you've read them too?

Olli said...

Hey Ranai,

I read the Kalle Blomquist books, too, and I remember the fine (but serious, I think..) difference between "snakes" and "snakes".

I can't recall the names of the characters, but some children got "Schnecken" and it meant white braed, while other children also got "Schnecken" from their father and in that case the word meant a kind of spanking.

So, you're right, in these books there aren't any spanking scenes but spanking is mentioned at all... ;-)

Ursus Lewis said...

It's sad there is not too much good M/m spanking movies out there. Every once in a while, I'd enjoy it.

Also interesting, when I came in to the scene, I was sure I don't want to play with other men. But as longer I think about it, I'm not so sure anymore. Now, I can imagine to top a youngish man, if the chemistry is right. Let's see what the future brings...

Kaelah said...

@ Olli:
Welcome and thanks a lot for your comment! I didn't expect to get any comments from people who have read the Schreckenstein books, too. :-)

I think you weren't the only one who used dictionaries as sources for kinky fantasies, I'm quite sure that I read about that from others as well.


@ Karl Friedrich Gauss:
I'm not sure whether any of Shrek's ancestors lived at Schreckenstein. They definitely weren't mentioned in the books... ;-)


@ Ranai:
Yep, the torture chamber was indeed cool. Especially “Paule”, the skeleton in the wall closet. And the torture rack was indeed used from time to time to tie down some errant knights and teach them a lesson about the rules at Schreckenstein and the code of honour.

I think I somehow even liked the boys vs girls scenario, maybe because I preferred to be among boys, anyway. And I don't think that the genders were depicted too unidimensionally all the time. For example Sonja often helped the boys and was described as being very cool, then there was the one girl who knew karate and beat Steamroller in a one-on-one fight and so on.

Unfortunately I haven't read Kalle Blomquist, but I've heard the title!


@ Ursus:
Yes, it is indeed sad that there aren't so many good M/M movies out there. It seems to me that “Spanking Central” produces very interesting high quality stuff, but it would be nice to have more producers of high quality M/M scenes.

I think it's cool that you are open for M/M play! It's quite common in our community to have F/F scenes, also between heterosexual women, but unfortunately M/M scenes between straight guys seem to be much less common and M/M play seems to be generally less accepted.