- Graduation Day
I half expected to get a text from Donovan calling off our meeting but I didn't hear from him all day. I did hear from Murph, though. I think there's a fair bit of jealousy hiding beneath that curiosity. There's no reason for it, but you know how subs can be. Possessive of the men who break them in, as if we owe them something because they outdo themselves trying to serve us no matter how much we humiliate them, maybe even precisely because we humiliate them when we sense that's exactly what they need.
It took a long time before we agreed we would never tie ourselves to each other. It took time to get to that point. I remember the day I graduated from college. Damn, that was 11 years ago already! He was there, of course, although I had "suggested" he stay home and wait until we could have some private time together. Nope. No way would he stay home. He rode in with some twink he'd been hanging out with. At least he didn't ask my parents to bring him, so I was somewhat relieved not to have to deal with all that drama.
But let's face it: I was graduating from college along with all students I'd spent the past four years with, friends mostly, most of whom knew I was queer, many of whom knew a lot more than that, some of whom had spent many evenings on their knees or even over mine. In the midst of all the celebrating, there was a bittersweet undercurrent that none of us could deny. Some of us would probably never see each other again.
Three rather special underclassmen in particular tried to cling much too closely as if they could meld themselves to me. I had tried to set them straight and in a couple situations even managed to "turn them over" to the "care' of local Doms who would be more than happy to redirect their devotion away from me and onto them. I told them I had sold them to these Doms and, of course, that turned them on so much that it drew their attention away from me. After all, we were all somewhat desperate, reaching out in hope to anyone who might assuage the loss we know would happen once we all left campus for the very last time.
I made promises I probably shouldn't have made, promises to let them come visit once I was settled, promises to make a surprise visit to campus, maybe even to surprise them to see how they were faring under their new mentors and Masters.
Like I said, emotions were all over the place and, just as I had feared, Murph was not able to understand what we were all going through, having never had this experience himself. College graduation isn't the same at all as high school graduation. Back then we were still children even though we thought we had reached the pinnacle of maturity. Those of us off to "higher education" would quickly find ourselves at the bottom of the pecking order all over again until we managed to find our way. Those who were not going to college would quickly get a reality check the first time they were tempted to "play hooky" from the creepy jobs they had managed to land. We college grads, however, were beginning our adult lives and as usual, adults must to cast off some of the things they had come to rely on when they were kids.
What I'm getting at is that Murph was "on the outside looking in" that day. He didn't know anyone else there. He didn't know how to deal with the sight of my having an entire emotional life that he knew nothing about, a life that he'd never really been part of.
I admit that a lot of it was my fault. Whenever we were together, for whatever reason, I always treated him as he were the most important person in my entire life. In many ways he was, and as the years went on he would become more secure in knowing that. But not graduation day. Definitely not then. however.
I wanted him to stay home because it would be so disconcerting, but I never demanded it because I was so distracted with all the things I had to do to successfully bring my college career to an end. Maybe I have only myself to blame that he had such a hard time that day, but I must confess that he wasn't my top priority in the midst of all the hullabaloo. That's precisely why I wanted him to stay away.
To make matters even worse, that twink who brought him over had this strange idea that I would enjoy having two slaves at my feet as a fitting way to end the day of celebration. Guess again. Need I say more? The entire situation had disaster written all over it from the very first time they showed up. Murph had his first inkling of what the day would be like when he realized he had absolutely no idea where to go to find me and I had turned my phone off for the day.
Ugh. I deeply resented what I felt was an intrusion on a day of rewards that I had earned with four years of hard work, especially since I was one of the major award winners in the class and that meant I was even more distant from most of the other 892 members of my class. I had a special place in the procession, I was seated with the administrators and Trustees in special garb. I was treated like a VIP.
As far as everyone at the ceremony was concerned, I was unreachable—even from my family. This was probably the first time in our lives that Murph ever experienced me as unreachable. It terrified him at first, then infuriated him. He became a petulant adolescent, so fucking irritating that the twink just gave up and drove away leaving him stranded at the cheap motel they had booked a room in. And my phone was off until after the special banquet hosted by the Trustees for the principal award-winners.
When everything settled down and I turned my phone back on I had seventy-three text messages, mostly from him but several from my father letting me know that Murph was stranded in a sleazy motel room and pretty much out of his mind with grief and anger and confusion and the fear that our relationship had come to an end for good. Silly boy!
Needless to say, I was annoyed but knew I had to get out from underneath it or I'd end up beating the daylights out of the foolish kid for doubting me and for being so self-centered that he'd expect my graduation day to be put aside so I could tend to his neurotic needs. No. That won't do at all to give in to my frustration and anger. The boy has been traumatized today and even though it was his own stupid fault I had to be the protective Dom, the one who had the inner resources to be able to deal with him while he was stuck inside infantile temper-tantrums.
I didn't do anything about him until I was finally finished with the many-faceted emotions of Graduation Day. Soon it was over. It was time for me to move on, and that meant leaving campus for good. Now t was time for to deal with Murph. I wasn't insensitive. I realized he was suffering from far more insecurity than I had suspected. Being away for the greater part of the past four years had fed that insecurity.
The day was over. It was time to tend to the boy, not by punishing him, but rather by caring for him. I waited until I was ready. Finally, at 11 pm I sent him an email:
"I had my phone off all day because I didn't want to be distracted and could be free to enjoy all the festivities. What a surprise when I turned it on! Even my father contacted me because he was concerned about you. I can't believe you contacted him in a panic so many times. So anyway, this is what I'm going to do: Tell me where you are. I'll send an Uber to bring you to me. Then you and I will have a nice reunion."
The response was immediate: "Shady Pines Motor Lodge. Room 119." Shady Pines? Wow! I'd better give the child an antiseptic bath before letting him into my bed at the Hilton!
"Take a shower. Clean as thoroughly as possible. Pack your bag then wait outside for the Uber to arrive. He'll know where to deliver you." (I deliberately used the word "deliver" because he knew it was the word I used when I wanted him to realize he was nothing more than a piece of property—even though that wasn't really true.)
"Give them my name at the front desk. I'm leaving instructions for you to be brought to my room. I've warned them that you won't look like one of their usual well-healed patrons. They'll probably assume you're some cheap prostitute I hired to give me a happy ending to my special day. Strip the moment I let you in the room. Crawl to the shower and wash again. Make sure you scrub off all traces of Shady Pines. Once you're clean and dry, crawl to the sitting room and kneel in front of me the way I've taught you to. And, by the way, you'll be the one giving me a happy ending. The first of many."
There. Let's see what I'll need to do once I get my hands on him.
I put all the lights off except for the light in the bathroom so he'd know where to go. I stayed out of sight until I heard the shower going, then I sat down with my bare feet waiting for his mouth. I lit one single candle, and he knew that that meant—the Master had things to teach the slave.
It took a while for him to finish. I was glad. I knew that he was trying to wash away all the dark emotions plaguing him all day. As I watched him crawl to me I realized just how much I loved him—as a friend as well as a slave. He kept his head very low to the ground. He knew he'd been a bad boy. He knew how much he deserved to be punished. I could see the shower did him some good. He'd come to his senses after being out of his mind all day long. Roleplay can be a powerful thing when we're able to slip out of our ordinary identities and take on our roles as completely as possible. This was one of those moments, fortunately, because he needed it so badly. He needed to be reassured that he was still my slave and always would be.
He looked so beautiful to me kneeling there in the flickering candle light. He kept his eyes lowered. He knew he had failed. He had acted like a jealous lover when he had no right to expect to be treated as my lover but rather as an ignorant slave boy who had a lot of lessons to learn.
If you've ever been in such a position, you know well what I mean. And if you've ever had a sub in that position, you know how intoxicating it can be to have the boy totally subject to being trained more intensely.
I had only five words to say, the first words I'd spoken to him all day: "Show me what you are."
It was code. The only possible answer was not spoken but demonstrated. He lowered his face to the ground before me and took my big toe (left) into his mouth and bathed it until I snapped my fingers. He tended to my right toe. He worshipped me for a good long time. I wanted his mind ready for me and this was the best way to do it. Over the past five-six years, he and I had developed an almost liturgical way of communicating without words.
"I know you're not some ignorant slave. I know you realize that whatever you went through today, all those dark emotions during the whole miserable day, are punishment for the fact that you did not heed my suggestion and decided to take matters into your own misguided hands. I hope that in the future, whenever I make a suggestion to you, you will realize it's a polite command that you must obey or suffer the consequences."
Lesson delivered. Lesson learned.
It's really a simple lesson, a lesson that reflective people eventually learn, some faster than others. The fact is that a lot of the things we suffer in life are the result of our own folly. We have no need of a Master's whip. We punish ourselves much more severely than any other Master ever could. Think of Dostoyevsky's novel Crime and Punishment: the criminal suffers more from guilt about his crime than the authorities do by throwing him into prison. We become the prisoners of our own stupidity.
I could have said an awful lot more, but it was late and I was emotionally exhausted. Words aren't always needed. I moved my foot slightly and the boy tended to all my toes, showing me how sorry he was and how much he loved me. It must have been awful to feel that I'd put an end to our relationship. Not at all. Down there at my feet, he realized he was home, he was safe, and all he wanted to do was to please me with all his heart and soul.
Love-making was simply and delicious, as was the sleep that followed, nestled in each other's arms. Yes, indeed, this day had been wonderful and the ending couldn't have been better. Nonetheless, I arranged for him to be punished for all this, but not at my hand.
Wow! I really got lost in that memory. Sorry for the digression. I hope you found it of some value. I'll tell you about how I had Murph punished some other time. It's time to get back to the present because a lot's been happening. Julian, one of the bois I had been working with for quite a while, got himself entangled with a nefarious organization and simply up and literally disappeared. Changed his identity and everything. Told me he'd be in touch with me again "some day."
Needless to say, I need some time to grieve, and also to deal with the fallout from those people he had almost ended up enslaved to.
Murph helped distract me. He wanted a a full report about the third boi I've been training., a tough young kid in his mid-twenties who's discovering things about himself that he never would have thought possible. But that's another story all together. When I told Murph about my last session with the boi (his name is Donovan Lamb), and how I made him piss into a bowl in the tub he howled in laughter. "You've been a lot tougher on me," he pouted. To this day, whenever Murph is with me and we're playing D/s, I make him go outside on all fours and piss like a dog. One day, in fact, when I was in a particularly sadistic mood, I sent him out into the rain to piss. But that ended up with the two of us sharing a nice warm shower and then a long leisurely nap in each other's arms. Yes, indeed, we greatly enjoy how fluid we can be with one another.
So I asked Murph if he was jealous. "Not really. I just makes me remember those first couple steps in the beginning, that way things developed between the two of us when we really didn't know what we were doing. You started pushing and I started surrendering. I guess he's like that now, having no idea where things might be heading, but at least now you know what you're doing. Back then, we were both grappling around in the dark."
"That's what made it so much fun for us. I was all completely natural. I'm naturally a Dom and you're naturally a sub, so that's how we started acting with each other, just seeing it all as a part of our lovemaking."
"lovemaking." Perfect way to describe it. Too bad a lot of guys into this stuff don't see it that way. It's all a way of making love using BDSM to keep each other turned on as much as possible. You know, Murph is hitting the nail right on the head. This makes me think a bit about what just happened with Donovan/Lamb but I'm not going to go into that here.
Murph and me, we're a bit out of the loop. We were connected to each other since high school. Murph is the outside, never accepted by The Firm because he didn't go to college. Fine with me. I like having something that isn't connected with them. Murph and me, we're organic, I think. We just about always existed as a special little side-piece to society.
Damn, I remember how hard it was on the poor boy when I left for college for the first time. He really believed that once I left I would cut myself free from my childhood sweetheart just like most of the freshmen boys do once they get to school. There was nothing I could do to convince him otherwise, and the statistics were definitely against us so I really didn't have a leg to stand on in that argument. All I could do is tell him how much I didn't want that to happen, that as far as I was concerned he was part of me in an intangible way, and that was how it would always be. Don't forget that I was pretty much making all of this up because how the hell did I know about this kind of stuff?
So anyway, the night before I left was pretty intense, and the only way I could get him to realize I was still in his life after I left that morning was to whip his ass so severely that he's be nice and sore for I good week. I usually never touched him back then; he'd been bullied too much in his life before he met me. But that night, I really wanted to beat the daylights out of him to get through to him. And damn, it felt good!
A week later I started to regret what I did and what it meant about the type of person I was becoming. Damn, I knew where I was heading. I'm not stupid. I've been around, even back then, I knew how to get into my uncle's stuff, and I was actually staying over his place one night. I was probably 14. He thought I was sleeping and I overheard a conversation he was having with some sub boy he had brought home, or I thought he had brought home. The truth was that the sub boy was his live-in boy he was training to become his slave. Damn, I got an earful, and yes, I jerked off thinking about it for weeks and weeks—still do sometimes---and I realized that I agreed with everything Uncle Butch was saying to the kid. Kid—he was years older than me but I realize how in my uncle's eyes, he was a "boy" and always would be.
The one thing that stuck out the most in my mind was when he told the kid, "You will always be what you are now—a fresh slaveboy with a whole new way of life to learn about. That will never end. You will always need to be trained. You will always need discipline and punishment. That is simply who you are."
Now, if you're a sub, you most likely got off on reading that. I can understand that. But I had the opposite reaction. I realized something different that night. I realized that I wanted to have a guy in my life sometime who I could talk to like that, a guy who would be completely mine. Wild. And a couple years later, I found the first one. And even thought I'll never own him, there are lots of times when Murph still slips into sub space and calls me Master.
Oh, where was I? I got distracted. I wanted to tell you what it was like when I got to college. Shit, I missed him! But there was now so much else in my life, and right away something woke up within me. I was going to master life. I ate up everything. It became easier and easier to excel in just about anything I turned my mind to. I hardly ever contacted anyone at home that first stretch of time until Thanksgiving, and of course I got hell for it when I finally got back home, not only from family but also from you-know-who, who had figured things were over and was going around looking for a replacement, and now someone who would beat his ass from time to time.
Shit, they were talking about him, some of the guys I got in touch with over that weekend at home. Every name in the book and I realized that he was out of control. When I finally did get him to myself he told me he needed more than one person to take him in hand and also protect him. That was his thing, and I was a big part of it, but not the only part. And much to my surprise, I realized that it really made a lot of sense even though most people would never be able to understand it. "So fucking what?" I'd say to him. "It's our truth. Just ours." I have to say that when I left Sunday afternoon to go back to school, it was a lot easier for us to say goodbye. We knew where we fit in each other's lives, and that was just the way it was going to be.
THAT'S ALL FOR NOW
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