1
Although it was already the end of June, winds like those in March were howling. The banging of the front gate startled Matthew awake. He raised his head from his desk. He had fallen asleep on his book, like a schoolboy during a classroom rest period.
He got up and went out through the back door to the garden. A mist was leaking from the cloud that had settled on the hillside. Summer was slow to come this year and the air was chilly as well as damp. He was glad there was enough wood left in the cellar from the winter to make a proper fire this night.
He passed through the rattling gate and walked along the roadside, holding his jacket close over his chest and peering down the distance for some sign of headlights that did not appear.
He fastened the gate, went back into the house, brought logs up from the cellar, built a fire, and made it roar.
2
Daphne was jealous that Ronald was seeing Matthew, and she became panicked when she saw his overnight bag near the door.
I'm going now, Ronald said to her.
She stood frozen showing hurt and anger. I'll be back in two weeks.
She frowned.
This is important.
You'll sleep with him.
I'm going there to work.
She looked at him defiantly disbelieving.
I'm his editor.
So edit, for chrissake.
Daphne I don't want to leave you when you're like this, Ronald said. On the other hand, and this he did not say, although he knew she knew it anyhow, he did not want to be with her when she was like this, either.
I understand this is difficult, he said.
Don't talk about understanding. If you understood, you wouldn't do this.
That's not fair.
You're talking about fairness.
If you try to bind me to you, it won't be me that's bound to you but a beaten man, and to him you won't want to be bound.
You can do it because you don't have feelings. You have words. That's all everything you say is, only words. There's no heart. There's no connection, Ronald. No feelings! Just words, words, words!
By this time she was screaming at him, and he was paralyzed by the force of her demand. She was challenging him to be cruel. That's the only way he could see to get what he wanted. Doing what he wanted and being cruel had become - she had made them so - identical.
At least, stay until morning. Then go, she said begging, bargaining. I won't make a fuss then. I promise.
He capitulated. But I have to telephone Matthew not to wait for me tonight.
No, she said, blurting it out and pulling it back simultaneously.
Ronald looked at her, and Daphne sensed the anger about to flare and quickly put her hands on his chest. I don't want to share you tonight. I want all of you. I know what happens when you talk to him. She gave a wicked nip to his earlobe.
But when she lay with him later in bed, he did not touch her, and no effort of hers succeeded in exciting him or pulling him out of himself. He lay, hands cupped under his head, staring at the ceiling until, at last, he fell asleep.
She felt sorry for him, and circled her hand on his strong chest as he slept; she was overwhelmed by a sense of love. She wanted to do something for him.
3
So Matthew sat up in Glover, Vermont, not far from where the Bread and Puppet Theater has its Great Outdoor Amphitheater and Pine Forest, waiting for Ronald, who was not coming, at least not this night.
He kept himself busy - he always kept himself busy, feeling there was no justification for being without doing - correcting the galleys for his new book on the role of money, imperialism, and the poverty of culture in devitalizing democracy.
It was about two in the morning, and through the old wavy glass panes of his office windows in the converted barn he saw headlights coming up his driveway.
Thinking it was Ronald - Who else could it have been but Ronald? He was expecting Ronald. Had he suspected it to be anyone else but Ronald he would have been frightened. - Matthew jogged down the steps and stepped onto the porch to greet Ronald. The wind had not died down.
Before he could be frightened, as he realized it wasn't Ronald, he saw that whoever it was had a kindness, a gentleness, a tenderness to him, openly broadcast by a face that was not only movie-star handsome but sweet.
His long, muscled torso was commanding. He wore a tight-fitting black t-shirt; his jeans were tight, too; his thighs were strong and long; he wore English boots.
Excuse me, sir, he said. I saw your lights on, so I got the nerve to intrude.
The wind was mussing his hair.
I need to rest for the night. I'd like to ask hospitality of you, sir. Will you provide me with someplace to crash or at least let me park me and my car here till daybreak? And then I'll be on my way.
Come inside, Matthew said.
Thank you, sir.
He took him to his own bed.
David undressed slowly and let Matthew enjoy looking at him. David smiled at him with warm green eyes as he peeled his shirt off. Matthew looked at his sleek, slim, smooth, tanned, muscled body, naked now but for his black boxer briefs, rich and full with his powerful cock. Matthew's gaze rested on David's shoulders, neck, torso, his ridged abs, narrow waist and the ample pouch. His eyes burst with desire at the strength and grace and definition of David's ass and inner thighs. He admired the strength of his legs and even found beauty in his ankle bone and long toes.
They lay naked beside each other eyes to eyes, breaths intermingling lost in the delight of being hard together, cock to cock.
4
When Ronald arrived the next afternoon - it was after two - he found them in the kitchen wet from the shower with towels around themselves and drinking coffee.
Matthew clapped him on the back and his towel fell to the floor when he stretched, but he stayed in the embrace, naked against the fine worsted silk of Ronald's summer suit, a sandy brown three button Versace with pleated pants. It had a golden yellow vertical chalk stripe. Matthew tilted back a little, and pulled Ronald to him by the knot of his gold and magenta tie with tiny paisleys swimming on a field of pale green. It was a tone darker than his shirt. He gave him a kiss that made him forget the city.
You ok? he asked. What happened?
Daphne...
...rose up and railed against the vice of errancy.
Matthew, put on some clothes.
But let me introduce you first. David, Ronald. Ronald, David. Ronald is an editor who is here to try to make me write another book because, strangely enough, there's money in it. David is a spirit of the landscape that paid a visit to my door last night to remind me that nature is beneficent.
5
Anne's gaze dropped back to earth after tracing the lines of the girders on the globe balanced on the shoulders of a statue of Atlas. Its presence marked the importance of the Fifth Avenue office building before which it stood. Anne's attention came down to street level when she sensed Daphne passing. She had seen the girl several times before in the late afternoon, and she couldn't get her out of her mind.
She took in the girl's full form. She was twenty-three and full of smoldering fire that needed blowing to blaze up. She wore a short skirt that showed her legs, good legs, knock-out legs, shapely legs, graceful tapering ankles, thighs you couldn't help wanting to kiss, to caress, to run up and down with your tongue. She pranced, she danced, she swerved, she curved in stockings and heels. She had hips, she had breasts, discrete, but all there, assured. She wore lipstick and eye-make-up and fixed her long tumbling hair in an old-fashioned way that made her adorable.
Anne became so hungry for her, she began to follow her, making an about face and walking north up Fifth Avenue. She punched in Peggy's number as the children's zoo passed on her left, and spoke as she walked.
Hey hon, I'm really sorry, but there's no way I'm gonna make it....I trust your color sense entirely....No, I promise I won't scold...if I don't like the results....You are?...Ok, Kid, let me get off....See you....next Thursday....For sure....For sure for sure....Ciao.
6
David stayed with Matthew and so did Ronald.
Rather than the two putting clothes on when Ronald arrived, he took his off. He stiffened when he saw that David reacted to him by becoming hard.
The three of them all slept in Matthew's big bed.
David gently began caressing Mathew's scrotum as he (Matthew) kissed Ronald with a kiss that went all the way to the back of his throat. Matthew circled his fingers around the nubs of David's tight nipples and David took Matthew's cock deep in his mouth and Ronald's fingers danced on the column of David's cock as if it were a flute or a clarinet.
They were intoxicated with each other (and when Ronald left two weeks later, Matthew had written three sonnet cycles; one long poem; a sestina; and two songs.
Ronald had not lied to Daphne: he went back to his office with most of Matthew's next book.)
7
Ronald was glad when he found his place empty and with no sign of Daphne around.
She had, in fact, offered to bring Anne there the first time, since the girl she shared her apartment with was at home that night. But when she told Anne it was her boyfriend's place, Anne wanted nothing to do with it and said, I'll take you back to my place, and they got into a cab and headed for Sheridan Square.
Ronald showered after the long trip back, lingering with a soapy finger sliding up and down his anal canal. With his other hand he was caressing his nipples and picturing David's torso. After he ejaculated, he called up Scott Michaelson with the good news that he'd gotten a manuscript out of Matthew and it would be perfect for a deluxe gift edition which could be in the stores in time for Christmas. He read into the phone, picking at random from the manuscript the "Octet":
The heart, grown bitter with disbelief,
Now by this angel presence knows relief.
The eye, pained, seeing nothing it wanted,
Now by images of desire is haunted.
Gift of the night,
Brings me delight.
Body of desire,
Sets me on fire..
8
Anne suspected that despite Daphne's perfect exterior she was less sturdy inside than she appeared as she strode with muscular grace and determination on her high heels through Manhattan streets.
Come here, Daphne.
Daphne was standing by the mantle-piece examining Anne's collection of bric-a-brac. She turned, startled by the assertiveness of Anne's tone and stared.
Come here, Daphne, she repeated with no change in tone.
She connected and Daphne came over to her no longer moving of her own free will but as if obeying a command.
Daphne had stiffened and she was trembling too. She wasn't sure with what. Fear? Anticipation? Excitement?
Sit down.
Daphne took her place in the arm-chair across from Anne.
Are you comfortable, dear.
Yes, Daphne, said.
Say Yes, Mistress Anne.
Yes, Mistress Anne.
That's better
Anne caressed Daphne's abundant hair, tangling it around her fingers like a spider weaving a web with it.
9
You really are a bitch.
Fuck you. Anne said it with a smile.
No you are, Matthew said. She's a confused girl and you're confusing her more.
Where do you come off? I have to admire your arrogance. If there weren't other people in the room, I think I'd hit you.
You aren't using her?
I don't have to analyze, label and define what I do for you, Matthew.
You're playing with somebody's identity.
So what's new? What are you doing right now with me?
With you?
You're playing with my identity. You want to persuade me to be different from what I am.
There's an obvious difference.
You approve of your motives and you disapprove of mine. That's the difference. I mean, what about you and Ronald?
Matthew said nothing.
I suppose that's different too.
I'm not talking of motives but of effects on a human soul.
Do you know what the effects are? and who are you to judge them?
I know the power of your spells, Anne. You close off the possibility of possibility, of development. You don't let her find her own way out of her problems. You're chaining her to an obsession: longing for you, obedience to you, worshipping you.
I do believe you're jealous, Mary.
Now I at least can return your earlier fuck you and reiterate that you are a bitch.
My barb stung. Hit home, huh.
Anne, I wish you would let her loose.
Matthew, my darling, keep wishing. But I warn you, you haven't seen anything yet.
10
Even Ronald himself thought he was crazy for not desiring her when he looked at Daphne. A few times - before he really knew her - he could get into her, but then, it disappeared. When she became "a person" to him, she stopped being sexually desirable.
He looked at her as she circled up the steps from the ladies' room back into the large room of the restaurant. She was indeed magnificent, square shoulders, strong collar bones, a neck like ivory and a gait like a gazelle. He would outdo Solomon. But Solomon had him beat by a mile if the number of his wives is any fair indication of the strength of his heterosexual desire.
What's the matter with you, Ronald that you don't find her attractive?
Anne's question jolted him, for he hadn't said anything about that to her, and here she was just entering into the train of his thought as if it were a conversation with her.
Daphne, however, was seating herself before he had time for any response. A stake of fear stuck in his heart. This woman had a dangerous power, and he was uneasy about when or how she might choose to use it.
It was not to be now, however. Anne did not continue what she had started. His fear was mixed with gratitude that she did not proceed to embarrass him, but gracefully she segued into what seemed to be harmless conversation. 11
Ronald thought to himself, I don't know why Daphne wanted me to meet this woman, but she gives me the willies. I'd never heard Daphne speak of her until recently. And then she became pervasive. Everything Daphne did she referred to Anne: something Anne said or did or thought or advised.
They were sitting in the back of a cab, hurtling down Eleventh Avenue over an old cobblestone section. Anne had managed it so that she was in the center between them. Ronald had the sense that she had wrapped her hand around Daphne's long and perfect inner thigh. But he could not see from where he was, and he felt inhibited about leaning forward and turning his head in that direction and looking.
Then he felt Anne's hand gently cup his genitals, and at the same time he felt the gentle circles of her warm breath on his neck as she commanded in his ear:
Don't move.
Relax.
Let me enjoy you.
Let me use you.
Relax.
It will feel good to please me.
You will like doing what I tell you to do.
You were made to serve Mistress Anne.
You were made to be used by Mistress Anne.
I know what pleases gay boys. It feels good not to have to pretend you're bisexual. I know you.
He shuddered and could not tell if it was from fear or excitement.
12
Ronald stood like a statue, as Anne had directed him to, one arm behind his head the other about to grip his cock, which was standing erect frozen stiff. He was unsure if he was really unable to move or just pretending.
Daphne lay across a long plush velvet couch, the kind whose back rises at one of the narrow ends and is open on both its long sides, on her back, arching her pelvis into the air. She was stiff and naked, propped on her elbows. Her snatch had been shaved smooth except for a center vertical stripe, which suggested the shadow of a moustache overarching her swelled labia and dilated center slit. She had the far-away look of someone in a yoga trance.
In heels, stockings, garter belt and bustier, all black, Anne bent down between Daphne's upraised parted legs and gently tongued her cunt, which was running moist with desire. 13
Ronald was excited and nervous. He was at the waxing salon. Mistress Anne had suggested it, and it became an irresistible compulsion to have his body smooth. All the hair on his body had just been removed. It made him see himself as he never had before when he looked in the three way mirror.
What do you think? Jimi asked.
I'm overwhelmed. Thank you.
Jimi smiled, really pleased.
I can't believe it, Ronald said.
That's the usual response the first time, Jimi said. And so is that, he added pointing to the outstretched cock hard as rock that grew as Ronald looked at himself. Here, let me do one last thing. It's included in the price.
He dropped to his knees in front of Ronald, wrapped his arms around his smooth buns and took his hard cock in his mouth. Slowly at first, lipping only the crown he started to bring Ronald to a frenzy. He took more of it in his mouth, going deeper and deeper until the head of Ronald's cock was pocketed in the depth of his throat and he was chewing on the rod without using his teeth.
Ronald's smooth and hairless body gleamed and glistened with the sweat that covered it. He began to caress his own nipples, moaning cries from the depth of his solar plexus until he found himself shattering in an explosion that sent him out beyond the boundaries of himself. He grabbed at Jimi's head, but the boy was entranced and kept on sucking him so tender now it almost ached. When he finally released him, Ronald raised the attendant and kissed him on the lips.
Thank you, sir, said Jimi.
Thank you, said Ronald.
They showered and Jimi dried and oiled him.
Lady Anne directed you wear these now and that you be at her place at the stroke of noon.
Everything was black, black leather shorts that demanded an exquisite body of whoever wore them, a ribbed silk form-fitting sleeveless muscle shirt, calf-high boots. And a black leather bracelet with a watch face on his left wrist and a three banded silver ring on the middle finger of his left hand. But all these things only served to highlight the bronzed gleaming skin that he showed with pride.
Even on Christopher Street, where they had seen everything, heads turned as he passed on his way to Lady Anne's loft on Hudson, oblivious of everything but the pride he took in his own surrender to her.
She had dared him to be himself, and he felt free. His head was in the clouds.
14
Once again he was playing the statue at Anne's. Ronald's cold hard cock stood like an icicle in the air as he watched her tongue the cunt of his lover. He wore a black leather belt around his waist, a collar, and rings in his nipples.
Anne rose from the sacramental bowl of Daphne's lilacs from which she had been drinking, revitalized.
Come here, Ronald, she commanded and he approached. She took hold of him by his cold hard cock.
Rigid now, your entire body. You will not come, you cannot come though your skin may crawl until it feels like it will tear itself off you, but you will not come, nor make any sound, but in your mind the words circle endlessly: everything I do I do obediently.
15
Ronald stretched immobile, his cock an iron bar inside Daphne, his body stiff and flat as a planed plank of oak suspended above her, head arched back, body weight supported by his open palms and steely toes pressed against the divan. His eyes were wide and staring into a void.
She was just as stiff, her cunt thrust up to him, her inner walls clasping the pressure of his cock inside her. Her chest was taut, her breasts hard, her eyes focused on a blue spot of light on the ceiling in which she saw Anne's face, her tongue straining to penetrate the phantom lips.
Rubbing herself beneath her black lace bikini Anne moaned with pleasure as she looked at the marvel she had wrought and exploded in cascading orgasms.
So much, she thought, for heterosexuality.
16
Matthew held David's head between his hands and looked into his eyes lost in wonder and gratitude.
The sable sand was soft beneath them. The sun beat down out of a cloudless, boundless blue sky. The turquoise Caribbean, a sea that stretches from an infinite horizon, was coming to pieces in white flakes of foam at its edges. It broke against the beach and, rushing, hit the ragged surface of the black rock formation, which stretched at broken intervals along the shore. At that same instant, when its waves slivered into shards of foam, the sea rebounded as so many rounds of spray shooting back into itself.
[When you write, please put the story name in the subject slot. Thanks.]