Poor Bastard
I. i.
It was as simple as this: he offended me. His disregard for the body, his arrogant know-it-all attitude, his tacky chinos and wrinkled shirts -- everything about him was detestable. He was smug and self-righteous, and he was physically disgusting -- pasty complexion, dirty hair, flabby body, skimpy pubic beard. I'd watched him get undressed for gym: cheesy, loose underwear, milky skin. And I watched him in gym, half-heartedly going through the motions of doing calisthenics. And when everybody else was doing parallel bars, or ceiling rings, or the ropes, or jumping hurdles, or mat work, he did nothing, waited for the period to end, a far away look in his eyes, like he was thinking about something difficult and important and couldn't be interrupted.
And then I saw this same loser in class. He always volunteered answers, always scored top marks. I don't begrudge anybody that. But he was conceited and condescending and a brown-noser. He thought he was better than everyone else. He thought he was hot. It burned me up.
So I decided to do something about it.
I knew he stayed late at the library Tuesday nights, and I made it a point to run into him there.
He was at a table by himself reading Plato. We had to read it for the Freshman Civilization seminar we both had to take.
I interrupted him.
Boring stuff, isn't it? I said, opening a notebook.
He looked up.
I don't think so.
You like it?
Yes, he said.
You know what he's talking about?
I think so.
Tell me, I challenged.
I saw a look of hesitation pass across his face in an instant. He had wavered between telling me to stop bothering him and accepting my challenge. I won. He accepted the challenge. His goose was cooked.
The nature of the soul.
The nature of the soul, I repeated with a hint of aggressiveness in my voice, as if his answer were inadequate. It threw him. Good.
The soul is fragmented and struggles within itself over which part of it is going to prevail.
I just looked at him without saying anything, like I was waiting for him to say something worthwhile. It was unnerving him.
The soul has two aspects, one dominant, one obedient. If the^Å
But I didn't let him finish. I cut him off with a question.
Which one are you?
What?
Which one are you?
What do you mean?
You said there were two possibilities, the dominant and the obedient. Which one are you?
He looked at me blankly.
You've got to make a choice between the black horse and the white horse, right? I mean the charioteer^Å
He looked at me uncertain.
I had him.
Surprised I've done the reading, huh?
No, he stammered.
I smiled like I didn't believe him.
It's ok, I said. How bout we go for a beer?
I^Å
I didn't let him finish.
Come on, I said. You probably read the whole book twice already.
He smiled.
Come on. You need a break.
Reluctantly, he shut the book and stuffed it in a backpack.
ii.
After a few beers and a few soccer stories I knew would bore and annoy him, but which I told so insistently that he had trouble turning his attention away, I looked him straight in the eyes, put my hand on his shoulder with a firm grip he couldn't resist, and said with real sincerity in my voice, You know I'm not gonna let you get away with it.
He didn't know what I was talking about, his eyes blinked in confusion, and he took a big swallow of the beer left in his stein. I signaled Chuck for two more.
You're not gonna let me get away with what? he asked curious and defiant.
I asked you something before^Å
He was blank.
^Åwhich you didn't answer.
He was puzzled.
Which one are you?
Which one what?
The soul, remember. There are two aspects. Which one are you, the aggressive or the obedient?
Each soul is composed of both components.
But the aspects vie with each other and one predominates. Which one rules you?
The rational, of course.
You mean the obedient.
He took another draft and looked at me searchingly.
Rationality is a function of the white horse's being reined in by the charioteer. It's a result of being obedient.
He was looking at me at a loss for words, a little drunk.
It's getting late, he said.
You're sleepy. I said.
He yawned in response.
We should go, I said.
I fished through some coins to leave a tip and started playing with a shiny new quarter that happened to be among them, spinning it on the table top.
Look at that I said, and he did, fascinated by the flashing spinning silver coin until his eyes drooped.
You are sleepy, I said slowly.
It's ok.
Let yourself feel the warm heaviness spreading through your body.
Feel yourself falling, falling deeper into a deep sleep.
So heavy you cannot raise your head.
Feel how heavy the back of your neck is.
That's good.
Sleep.
Now notice than in your sleep you are hearing my voice.
You are hearing my voice and sleeping at the same time.
My voice is making you sleepy.
My voice is making you heavy.
My voice is all you are aware of.
My voice is a road you are following.
My voice is a horse you are riding.
My voice is carrying you, and you will go where my voice takes you.
Sleep^ÅSleep^ÅObey^ÅSleep.
Follow the road in your sleep.
Follow my voice.
Obey my voice.
The commands are warm.
You feel my commands as the warmth of your body.
My commands are a soft cloud you are sinking into.
My commands are a soft cloud you float upon.
He was slumped forward, passed out on the table, for all the world looking like a poor bastard who had too much to drink and just couldn't hold it.
Hey, I said, Jack, it's closing time. When I count to three you'll open your eyes and realize you feel very drunk. You'll be unable to think for yourself and you'll be glad to do whatever I tell you. Do you understand?
Yes, he groaned.
One thing more before you come to, Jack. Whenever I say the words Poor Bastard, you will slip back into this sleep. You will want to do that. You will fall into this deep sleep whenever you hear me say Poor Bastard. Do you understand?
Yes, he groaned again.
Good, one, two, three. Come on Jack, closing time.
He looked up, eyes unfocused.
Oh, he groaned.
You really got shit faced, boy.
Oh, he groaned.
Come on. It's closing. Come with me.
He stumbled, and I had to support him.
Oh, he groaned and lunged to the curb and heaved.
You are one hairy mess, I said, laughing at him. You'd better come with me, and I supported him for the few blocks until we reached the brownstone where I had an apartment.
iii.
I put him back under, took away the sick feeling and introduced one small suggestion: every time he started reading a textbook he'd be unable to concentrate on account of his mind would keep seeing a picture of him kneeling in front of me and sucking my cock.
I know. It was a mean thing to do, and it could have serious consequences. But hey, whoever said I wasn't mean. As for the consequences, well^Åthey were just beginning.
After some sleep, I woke him up.
He looked around, dazed.
Where am I? he said, as if he were coming out of a blackout in a B movie.
You're in my place, Champ. You really got shit-faced last night. I didn't think you could let yourself go like that. You've always been such a smug and up-tight bastard.
I don't know how I got here, he responded, but I know I'm not staying. I always thought you were a dumb jock but I see I over-estimated you.
You've always been, I said with something like pity in my voice, such a poor bastard. His knees buckled, he slumped, he lay on the floor.
There was only one thing to do. In years to come he would thank me for it, he would have -- that is -- had he been able to remember it.
Jack, you can hear me. You are in that warm place again, feeling that wonderful warm sleep only I can give you. You hear my voice. And you want to follow my commands.
When I say, Enough of that; get up, you will open your eyes and start to get up, but when you see my boot right in front of your face, you will be unable to rise. You will feel a desire to lick my boots. It will be a stronger desire than any desire you have ever experienced before.
You will also be ashamed of this desire. You know that if you give into it, as much as you want to, it will mean that you recognize that I am your master, and the very idea is humiliating to you.
He lay on his side. I said, Enough of that; get up, Jack.
He opened his eyes and began to stand, but then he saw my boot near his face, and he could not move.
Jack, close your eyes, I said. Sleep.
He did till morning light, which was only a few hours away.
He woke still in a trance, as I told him he would be.
We left my apartment and headed for the library.
On the steps I told him he'd remember absolutely nothing, that he'd think he'd studied late and gone home to bed and now was returning to the library. But my two suggestions about cocksucking and bootlicking would stay with him. Whenever he tried to study he wouldn't be able to concentrate but would imagine himself kneeling in front of me desiring my cock, and whenever he saw my boots he'd want to get down and lick them. Those were suggestions deeply embedded in his consciousness. I reinforced his trigger and told him that when I said Go, he'd count from ten to one and wake up.
I said Go, ran down the library steps two at a time, leaped a small fence and headed to the gym for a morning workout and a swim before physics class.
II.
i.
I enjoyed seeing how uncomfortable he became whenever he happened to find himself around me, and for the first time, it made me happy to be around him.
He had forgotten entirely what had happened the other night when I took him out drinking and put him under and left him with those two commands lodged irrevocably in his subconscious.
So it was just as strange for him to find me paying so much attention to him as it was for him to find himself unable to concentrate when he tried to study, his attention paralyzed by the fantasy of sucking my cock , or when he went berserk with the impulse to fall to his knees and grovel at my feet and lick my boots whenever he saw me.
He was tongue-tied when I was around, and I took advantage of it.
I approached him when he was hanging out with a coterie of nerds. I picked a fight with him, first about whether Baudelaire was sentimental or not, and then whether Furtwangler's performance of the third symphony of Beethoven wasn't really better than anything Toscanini could do. I put him on edge. He didn't know if I was mocking him or being serious. Whatever he said I rattled him by the way I spoke -- as if he didn't really know what he was talking about -- and then watched him flounder in humiliation at his inability to do what he had always been capable of, shaking, instead, with the tension of suppressing a maddening desire.
When he was down and defeated and looking about him at startled epigones, I'd come in for the kill, leave the realm of academic discourse and intellectual disputation, altogether, and become thoroughly ad hominem.
How come you dress like slob? I'd ask without warning. Why do you pay so little attention to grooming? Do you like being sexless?
He wobbled under my blows, but I went on. You think you don't have to care about others. You think you're better than everyone else. You're not. You're repulsive. He took it with shame, but showed the shame as arrogance, unable to keep his eyes from darting to my crotch and my boots.
The bell rang, the circle broke up, everyone ran to class. He was unable to move, or to fathom what had happened, or to explode in anger. As much as he felt he ought to feel anger, he didn't have the strength to be angry, the conviction, or the clarity, or the justification! Somehow he was implicated in his humiliation. It was his fault. He was, after all, despite the humiliation -- because of it? his head was spinning -- only able to think that he wanted to lick my boots, that he wanted to bow in front of me and worship my cock. And the more I made him miserable, the more he would get an uncontrollable hardon.
ii.
One of the effects of my hypnotic power over him -- I had programmed it during a booster session --was that everything I said had the power of suggestion and would haunt him. When I told him he dressed like a slob and was physically repulsive, it stuck to him. He saw it; he began to dislike himself. He was edgy because of an inexpressible discontent.
Everything crashed. His intellect was failing him. His ability to concentrate was gone. His facility in argument had become embarrassed stammering. And he was aware that his body was disgusting. He had an aversion to the clothes he wore, and he looked at what other guys were wearing. He was aware of their bodies underneath the clothing. When he saw a good physique, he was overwhelmed by envy and desire.
I had messed with his mind but good, and I delighted in watching him disintegrate. His class work suffered. His grades tumbled. The dean called him for a conference. He sat sullen and tongue tied, stubborn in his refusal to acknowledge that there was anything disturbing him that might be the cause for the trouble he was in. He was belligerent. He was fucking up and it looked like he didn't care. Dean Pritchard had called him to his office hoping to help. Now he finished the interview threatening to take away his scholarship and suspend him unless he straightened himself out.
But he didn't. He couldn't. Things only got worse for him. I made sure they did. I got closer and closer to him, leaving him no peace; a real bosom serpent I became.
Every now and then I triggered him with Poor Bastard and effected another turn of the screw.
iii.
When he broke down, I was ready. He had to leave the university; he had no place to stay, no place to go home to. His father had disappeared years ago and his mother had taken to the streets back in Minneapolis. School had been his last chance, and now he had blown it, and he didn't even know how.
Then he was on the street, feverish, dizzy, ailing. I couldn't leave him like that.
I saw him huddled in a fetal position outside the luncheonette in the side alley by the dumpsters.
You can't stay like this, I said standing over him. He made no response. I took him by the arm pits and stood him up.
Poor Bastard, I said. I'll take you home with me.
He hadn't the strength to resist me, even if I hadn't triggered him.
iv.
You wouldn't think, from what you've seen of me so far, that I'd have a maternal streak in me, but it turned out I do. It even surprised me, but I felt a real tenderness for the poor bastard now that he was defenseless against me.
His fever lasted for several days, and I sponged him, changed his bedclothes, sat by him, and fed him. He couldn't take solid food, and I put together nutritious and palatable meals which I juiced and gave him to sip through a straw.
Why are you doing all this for me? he asked when he was beginning to recover some strength. There was a look of anguish on his face and the sound of confusion in his voice.
Why shouldn't I? I responded.
Because I don't deserve it, he said bursting into tears.
You don't deserve it?
I don't, he cried sobbing.
Why not? I asked quietly.
I can't even talk about it, he said.
Yes you can.
And then he could. It blew out of him like a storm at sea.
He confessed everything to me, how he was obsessed with me, how he wanted to bow before me and lick my boots, how he wanted to kneel before me and worship my cock, how he couldn't get me out of his mind. Even after all this terrible stuff had happened, all he could really focus on was how he had an inescapable wish to subordinate himself to me, to become my property and my creature. He begged me to make him over in my image. He said he knew it was blasphemy but I was his god and he wanted me, he implored, crying, to create him anew.
It was a flood of speech whipped to a torrent by a storm of breath and tears.
v.
Things became much easier after that. I was going to make him my slave, and he was dedicated to the possibility that -- if he showed enough devotion, perfect obedience, if he could only please me enough -- I might make him my lover. It was his dream. It was all the same to me. My only real interest was being Master.
Everything I required of him became an opportunity for him to serve me. His only goal was to gain my approval.
But the more I approved of him, the less interesting he became. I had captured him. He had surrendered. What more was necessary? I'm a hunter. That's where the excitement is. It gratified me to put a stratagem into motion, as I had with him, and to take it to completion. And although for him completion meant tonguing my boots and encircling my cock, it did not mean that for me. My project excited me, not the person whom I happened to select for carrying it out upon, nor anything much he could do for me.
He sensed despite my approval, he nevertheless lacked something electric that would ignite me, something to make him proud so that I could admire him.
Once I accomplished what I set out to do, I had a slave. But you don't eat yesterday's dinner tomorrow night.
Granted, a slave is useful. He serves me. Certainly, possessing a slave and putting him on display sometimes can give me a feeling of pride. But although a slave does whatever I command -- that has become his nature -- he never has anything to give but obedience. A slave gives me back my own will.
The slave, actually, receives more than the master. True I possess his obedience. Since, however, he is created by my will, since he exists only in so much as I permit him to -- for without a master a slave has no existence -- he now possesses my will by being its embodiment. His obedience is the proof of the existence of my will. And it is only by the actualization of my will that I establish my identity of Master. And without its actualization, I would fade into non-existence. Thus my existence depends upon him.
All this cerebration is beside the point. I saw him through to the end.
I did. I shaped his body and cleared his mind, emptied it out. I wanted him empty headed.
III.
i.
He was beautiful. He had the lithe, well muscled body of a sturdy young man in his early twenties. He lost himself in the soccer game, scrambling about the field at peak expectation, with nothing else on his mind.
He looked ready to leave the clothing of adolescence behind for tailored suits, fine shirts, killer ties, and expensive shoes.
Up to now he'd been a street corner babe once the sky was dark. That evening he came out of the locker room still wearing tight jeans, shiny boots, a black muscle shirt, bare arms, nicely shaped now, defined by muscle, a straight back, the intellectual slouch gone. A chest that was beginning to have some definition; the flab of that pasty body gone. And his color had flamed, darkened skin from the sun, bright and radiant with health, eyes limpid with a hazel vacancy, hidden behind dark sunglasses, a shock of light brown hair, cut short but thick with electricity, bleached only by the sun.
The people in the crowd we stepped into who could not help looking at him could not know that they were enjoying a peculiar privilege, for he would never be seen again among others looking as he looked this evening.
Once you saw him in a suit, you couldn't imagine him dressed any other way. In a suit he was both regal and casual. Proud and submissive!
ii.
I loved taking him to the ballet, the opera, the theater, a jazz club. He had no idea what was going on and was always bored. The experience would contribute to the deep sense of inferiority and humility I had cultivated in him. His desire to understand and to learn burning in him, but his ability entirely destroyed. He knew his entire sense of existence was based on my domination. He was torn between being excited by that and regretting it.
How far back can you remember? I asked him as I brushed my fingers across his lips. We were riding through the park in a horse drawn hansom.
Everything is dark or empty. I can't really remember anything. I know that I am not like most people, that I am a slave, that I had been imprisoned by a form of mind control which had corrupted my body, and that you freed me, but I can remember nothing. When I try to penetrate the layer of darkness or to see what is beyond the emptiness, I know it is better left alone because I start to get dizzy.
It never puzzled him that by freeing him I'd made him a captive.
Poor Bastard, I said sympathetically and his eyes shut and his breathing became regular.
iii.
I had stripped him of everything. He knew that. He didn't know what I had taken away from him or taken him away from, but he knew that I had conquered him that he had once been something else, and without knowing what it was, he longed for it with an invisible and hopeless longing.
As a sign, as a reminder that he had been stripped of his own identity -- whatever that was -- and was being reinvested with mine I caged his cock. I kept him naked except for a cup shaped silver bauble covering his loss. But he felt my finger up his ass and then my emblazoning cock, and felt his nipples twisted and pictured himself, while I fucked him, groveling at my feet. As he stretched his tongue in longing for my unobtainable boots, his breathing became more uncontrollable.
When he came it was not with the cocky self-assertion of a guy who knew what he was worth and proudly trumpeted his self-hood, but the implosive submission of a captured slave, lost in adoration of his master, fucked into non-existence.
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