The feel of the whip against his skin brought surprising tears of gratitude to his eyes.
Erich realized that the transformation he had longed for and had sought with no success until now had finally been achieved. Yellow stars of melancholy that had loomed in the night's pale distance broke in fiery explosions and left him sobbing for joy. Finally, he had been made to let himself be led to what he most had feared, what he always had feared he most had wanted ^Ö what he had wanted despairingly not to want. The thing he had wanted most he always had been most ashamed to want. Now he had surrendered, not only to another man, but to his own desire and to his dominating shame.
When Master Bertran held the whip's silver handle to his lips after the flogging, Erich kissed it with an unfeigned devotion, and licked the leather strap that had caressed his skin, and when he said, Thank you, Lord Master Bertran it was with all the sincerity of his heart, which was finally opened. He experienced devotion. He had never felt such ease and softness. He left the loft transformed. The night's soft wind danced across his skin and swirled away from him to mingle in the air's great ocean, the accumulation of the breath of all earth's creatures, of which he had become one indistinguishable.
Without asking the slave whether it was alright with him or not, Lord Master Bertran had had his nipples pierced that night with two tiny silver rings, and Erich felt still the sting of the piercing as a sharp silver ribbon that glowed in his mind and turned upon itself like a moebius strip of pain and pleasure. Unable to distinguish whether it was pain or pleasure, what mattered was that the sensation signaled he had fallen and was bound to the humiliation that he had always been ashamed he craved.
Now there was no shame in it. He was proud of everything. He walked like a dancer. Before he had been withdrawn and secretive, hidden and bent, hesitant in his associations and nervous with his associates; now he was forthright and open, free and easy with everybody, assertive but not demanding, witty but not vulgar, a magnet to attract all gazes.
At the strangers who gazed at him as he walked through the streets of the Village in a tight black t with tiny epaulet sleeves, skin tight jeans and high black boots, the muscles of his upper left arm adorned by the barbed wire circlet Lord Master Bertran had had tattooed there he looked with the marble arrogance of the proudly conquered.
At Peters, Howard, and Henry, where he had formerly been prickly and resentful and only been tolerated by the partners because of his extraordinary talent as a draughtsman ^Ö although Marcello Howard always seemed to have an eye for him ^Ö he now became cooperative and deferential. He was attentive to the needs of the firm and the demands of his superiors, came dressed in Armani suits, began addressing superiors as Sir, and showed the kind of respect for them which pleased them and now came naturally to him.
His work itself, if that were possible, became even better than it had been. He showed even more precision and insight in problem solving and exercised even finer elegance in the execution of his designs. He received praise with unfeigned modesty. When he was made division chief for urban architecture, his respect for those beneath him earned him their loyalty, and his division came in first in commissions, performance, and productivity for each quarter of the following year.
But that was as nothing compared to the New York Times announcement on the day the firm had won the Wright Prize for the Anderson Tower in lower Manhattan, which Erich had designed.
Every Friday evening until Sunday afternoon, he spent in service at the loft, the property of Lord Master Bertran. He was one of several slaves uniformed in black vinyl knee boots, tight black leather shorts, bare-chested and collared.
Friday evenings began with a re-induction worship trance amid incense and chanting, each slave on his knees, head bowed and repeating the Devotion.
After an hour, each slave's eyes were glazed, and every mind was empty.
White roses in a silver vase stood upon the lacquered black and gold semi-circular table mounted to the white and gold veined pink marble wall beneath a large oval mirror in a frame of withed gilded garlands. The woodlands outside in the moonlight were framed inside the panels of the surrounding windows like many miniature paintings of a larger scene.
Bertran smiled at his own reflection, aware of his own particular beauty and the power he exerted over others, in large part because of that beauty. But not exclusively because of it because, since his early youth, his character, which now exerted as much force as his beauty, had been shaped by it.
Erich stood in his tuxedo casually by the door, at attention in his soul waiting for his master to finish before the mirror before they both entered the reception room, appearing to all the world not as what they were but simply as a couple.
Erich's face was, as always, an impassive mask of obedience and submission, but his heart was heavy with longing, for his master had refused to allow him his Saturday morning service. His lips burned to kiss his master and to take him in his mouth and to lose all awareness of himself as he was transformed into the pure spontaneous undulations of his throat until the seminal power of his master's spirit flooded him and coursing through the channel of his body irrigated his soul.
Applause met them as they entered the reception room. It was for Erich. A scale model of the Anderson Tower stood on a Pernambuco table in the center of the room. A red carpet led up to it from the double doors through which they entered. Bertran let go of Erich's hand, kissed his lips delicately but lingeringly, and then withdrew to the side with all the other guests as Erich walked up to the model. The mayor stood beside it, waiting, grinning and shook Erich's hand. He spoke about the city's regeneration and then handed Erich a check for fifty thousand dollars, which was his prize, and the city contract to the firm, worth something like one hundred and fifty million dollars. Erich blushed.
I'm not very good with words, he said, and you did not come here to listen to me speak but to enjoy yourselves. So, here's the standard disclaimer, but it's true. This award belongs to everybody in the firm, everybody who went through this thing with me, not just me. And me, he added smiling, I belong to a very special firm^Åand to a very firm and special boyfriend. Thank you.
Laughter and applause greeted his shy glance over to Bertran. The orchestra played "Everything's Coming Up Roses," waiters dressed like Roxy ushers appeared with trays of champagne and canapés, and Bertran stood beside Erich, took him in his arms and kissed him, whispered something no one else heard ^Ö you will go home alone tonight ^Ö and Erich felt tears of pain spill from his eyes, tears which all who saw them thought tender tears of bliss. It was ^Ö how else could it be? ^Ö as Bertran said.
Thomas had green eyes and dirty blond hair, and his waiter's uniform fit tight on him but never showed a wrinkle. His smile came from his eyes, and his fingers were long and tapered, His wrists were strong and almost rectangular. His cheek bones were prominent and he was lean but muscled. In his righ earlobe he wore a small pearl ear ring. Despite his job tonight as server, there was nothing about him that was servile or submissive, but in everything he exuded and air of authority and mastery.
Bertran fixed his eyes on him and Thomas knew what it meant but smiled back at him indifferently as if to say, he was not to be conquered.
Erich saw it and understood the game, and knew it was one he never could play since he was already beaten and needy and ready, like a dog, to lap whatever food his master held out to him in his open palm, or to sit begging until he did.
When Bertran had first looked in him, it was fear he felt, not defiance.
In the candle-lit chamber scented with lilies of the valley, Bertran gazed into Thomas' eyes. The boy was stripped down to his glove-tight black boxer briefs. Bertran wore tight leather trousers, boots. His chest was bare, but round his neck he wore what Erich never yet had seen, a collar. Still he held a whip, but when Thomas said, Surrender it now to me, he handed it to him.
In a corner, each wrist cuffed and his arms spread in a Y, Erich was fastened by chains from each wrist to hooks in the wall and watched as Thomas flogged his master and as Bertran stripped and weeping from the whipping rubbed himself red, unable to stop until he came, pouring beads of melted pearl weakly into his own hand and then knelt before Thomas and took him in his mouth and drank with need from his strong fountain.
Erich ached all night as he watched them. More than to be touched, to be loved, to feel the success he had earned and share it with a beloved, to shine in the moment and have the passing moments that would never return shine through him and trace their memory as an eternally living presence in his soul, he wanted to see the power of his master shine through this dark usurpation, but never did.
He ached with desire and with pain and with loss. Sleep eluded him the entire night. He longed for it like a whimpering baby, like a restless invalid watching the dark hours of the night that weigh upon him and hardly pass.
You look like shit, my dear. Didn't you sleep? Bertran said in the morning, teasingly pulling on one of the rings piercing Erich's nipples as he was still pinioned to the wall.
Just then Thomas entered the chamber, a god, no less, clad only in his black boxer briefs.
Erich noticed, with a pain worse than jealousy, that Bertran's entire body stiffened at the sight of him, his back arched, and his eyes became fixed on a point farther away than the walls of the room.
Thomas snapped his fingers for his attention and as he pointed to Erich with a slight motion of his index finger, Bertran unfastened his bindings and released him.
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