Dreamwork: A Story for J Nexis Pas c 2007 by the author
His stories are the scattered shards of a mirror, glass knives reflecting the fragmented face of the viewer, undulating images caught in rippling water, shadows moving beneath the ice, overheard conversations between two characters who meet and then part. Relationships begin but do not last. The tale ends without a resolution, and the characters wander off into their own lives. A sense of loss is pervasive. He is ruthless with himself and demanding on his readers. Violence, a dominant man, a narrator who wants to be controlled and hurt appear over and over. When I discovered Zed's works, I read them through many times in a frenzy of longing, longing because they do not sate, they do not satisfy. Too much is left blank. There is no ending, only an ellipsis.
I once saw a photograph of two chairs in a park. From the position of the chairs, one felt immediately that two people had recently been sitting in them and talking. Zed's writings are like that--absences and metonymies, images condensed and displaced, inviting the reader to supply the missing elements and complete the story. Two empty chairs on the meticulously mown lawn of his prose inviting the reader to the dreamwork.
When I had finished reading all the stories I could find, I knew that reading alone would not be enough. I had to possess Zed. I had found a new objet d'art to add to my collection. I emailed a note of appreciation to the nom de plume address given with his postings. He replied. We began an exchange of thoughts on writing and reading, on dominance and submission. There were hints of his life in his stories; his emails revealed other facts in passing. It took the clever researchers I use in my work only a few hours to identify the real' person behind the pseudonym Zed used. They compiled a complete dossier on Zed. I did not read it. I did not want to know the real' person.
I employ other, less ethical operatives. Their supervisor read the researchers' file, as well as Zed's stories, and devised the plan for Zed's abduction. Again, I did not want to know the details. The results mattered, not the means. I know only that the abduction was based on themes in Zed's works. Zed accompanied his new lover, his kidnapper, willingly and flew to London with him. There he was drugged and brought to me.
When I first saw Zed, he lay, still drugged but now naked, on a bed. His nipples were pierced, and a tattoo disfigured his left shoulder and upper arm. When I had him turned over, I found that the tattoo continued down his back. I left orders for the piercings and the tattoos to be removed. I did not want evidence of others' temporary possession of him, I did not want evidence of his ownership of his body. When he came to me, his body would be totally naked; all his hair would be removed and his flesh scrubbed clean.
I did not see Zed again for a month. In the interim, I consoled myself by rereading his stories and anticipating the pleasures of owning him. The doctor's reports on the laser surgery were promising. The tattoo removal was as successful as can be expected. When the guards brought him into my office, he was chained and muzzled. Often when an addition to my collection is brought into my presence for the first time, he demands answers to his questions. Who are you? Why are you doing this to me? Tedious questions and threats and pleas. You won't get away with this. Please, please let me go. Few understand the futility of struggle. Most give in after a little training, but there have been occasions when it became apparent that I had misjudged the candidate. That here was a person who would not become an object. Unfortunately we have to put some of them down.
Zed, however, understood the situation immediately. The shackles hobbled his movements, but he knelt and then bowed his head to the floor. I stood up and walked around him, inspecting my property. `Help him to his feet.' The guards lifted Zed by his arms until he was standing again. I touched his body for the first time. Smooth and cool beneath my fingertips. Zed kept his face turned down and his eyes closed. He did not speak but he smiled.
`You make a gift of yourself?'
Zed nodded his head in acquiescence. I raised his chin in my hand and kissed him on the lips for the first time. `You may look at me.'
He opened his eyes and took me in. Not a stare of defiance, but a look of recognition. I was the master now, he was my slave.
`Release him. Take off the chains and muzzle.'
`But, Sir, he could be dangerous.'
`No, he will be obedient. Zed will be obedient.' The name came to me without thought. Thus was Zed christened. The eyes of my new slave acknowledged his new designation. I turned my back while the guards freed Zed from the physical restraints. I knew that the mental bindings were all that I needed. Without looking around, I told the guards to leave when I thought that enough time had passed for them to finish. They protested again at the danger, but I silenced them and sent them away. I remained as I was until I heard the door close. I wanted to see only Zed when I turned to face him.
He was regarding me frankly and openly. I motioned him to step closer. `Please do not move or respond. Become an object for me. I wish to examine you.' He lifted his arms away from his sides and spread his legs apart. I touched all of Zed. At times my hand whispered over the surfaces of the body, barely touching it as my palm glided over the skin. At times I pressed my fingertips deep into the hard muscles and smelled the faint scent of the vetiver soap used to clean my properties before they are admitted to my presence. I licked and tasted for the first time. I bit deep into the buttocks, leaving my teeth marks. All for the first time. Zed was a virgin again.
For me, it was a new experience also. In a sense, I dared to hope that I came to Zed as a virgin. We met as equals. Our prior histories had been erased, we were beginning a new story. He gave himself to me, and I accepted that gift. There would be no barriers, ownership on one side, obedience on the other. It was our bargain, our contract.
Much later, I led him to my bedroom. Those outside our world, and even many within it, do not understand how intimate pain can be. Here, too, Zed was a new experience. Even with many of my long-time properties, bindings are necessary. They want to submit and experience the pain, but their bodies flee it. The willing mind in weak flesh, as the old saying has it. Zed, however, gave himself to the pain. We sat beside each other on the bed, and I put my arm around his shoulders. I held Zed as I played with his nipples, stroking them at first, rolling them between my thumb and forefinger and then pinching them lightly. Zed's former identity had written often about nipples, and I had chosen the nipples for my introduction to the pleasures of Zed. He let his head relax onto my shoulder. Anyone seeing us would have-correctly--identified us as lovers. Zed's cock stirred and then became hard as he accepted the pleasures of the flesh.
When I opened the drawer and lifted out the clamps by their chain, Zed moaned. It was the first sound he had made since entering my office hours earlier. `May I?' It was necessary to have his agreement here, at the beginning. I would not ask again. I would never need to ask again.
Zed smiled and sat up straight. He pushed out his chest to present the nipples to me. Please.' We kissed, delaying the first moment of pain. It was too precious an occasion to hurry. I put my hand on the back of his neck. Beneath my fingertips, I could feel the blood pulsing in the carotid artery. Please,' he whispered again. I put the first clamp in his hand and then closed my own hand over his. I lifted our joined hands and fingers toward his nipple and then pressed the clamp open. Together we closed it around the nipple. As the teeth bit into that tiny bit of flesh, Zed's body stiffened. `Please, accept this gift from me,' I begged. He lifted his face to look into mine and smiled again.
Later still, I entered him for the first time, uniting us for the first time, one body, one flesh, cleaving unto each other.
Months have passed. I have no need of anyone else now except Zed. He comes to me unshackled except for the bonds he closes around himself. His room is next to mine. I ordered that he be given a computer and connected to the internet. He set up the computer himself and created his own passwords. They are known only to him. He is free to communicate with others, to write new stories, to send them to others. He writes occasionally. Perhaps he communicates with others, perhaps others read the story of our relationship. I do not know. He would show me what he has written if I were to ask, but I do not. When he is ready, when he thinks I am ready, he will give the new stories to me to read. Zed must be free to be a slave. It is his submission, freely given, that makes him a slave. If I were to force him to do anything, then he would become a mere possession, simply another object in my collection.
I play the role he is writing for me.