Taste of Power

Taste of Power by: Krazytop ---

Part XXVII

I feel I don't have much to learn from Mr. Andrews anymore.

This was a man who once said that the only constant across history is change.

I disagree.

The only constant across history is people being judgmental.

Superficially. Sexually. Religiously.

Puritans fled pitchforks in Britain, only to point them elsewhere in America.

And here we colonized a melting pot, a crucible, where anyone could jump in and pop out equally puritanical.

There are pockets of the world where stringing up sodomites is a fad past its prime. But those days are not bygone, so much as set adrift.

The arc of time has not been a train chugging along toward moral understanding, and if it were ever, it has long since derailed.

I don't think people will ever get it. They are built not to.

People understand tools. People understand pain. People understand desire.

Morals are a game, like everything else. A game of self-assurance. A game of demonization. A game of articulation. A game where the rules change little by little, compelling the players to stultify and accelerate the changes at their convenience.

I will be judged.

If not for sodomy, then for the debauchery of eating ass, for bad words and other blasphemy, for the privilege of apathy, and for playing power games.

So go ahead and judge me.

But you can save the lecture.

Lest the merry-go-round continue to spin, and some self-righteous poser lectures you.

Since I see this, and others don't—does that give me the high ground?

"I pledge allegiance to the ass--of the multifaceted Zane, and to the power it represents, one divine master, unquestionable, with enslavement and judgment for all."

Zane's muscular, smelly ass flits across my mind's eye, and I swallow back drool.

A draft from the vent makes the flag quiver, as though wilting under my heretical thoughts and words.

Not my words. Not really. Zane's words, that he gave me to speak.

It's fun quoting people. It gives those people authority, which I find much more comfortable than taking authority on my own. It lets me borrow authority. Taste authority.

Consider this one:

"To think is to confine yourself to a single thought that one day stands still like a star in the world's sky."

Martin Heidegger.

Or this one:

"History has no arc; it bends toward nothing; we are certainly ill-equipped to harness whatever power it has. Rather, it simply meanders like a lazy river; we are carried along by the current, and we label what we hope is around the next bend `justice.'"

Sean Trende.

Or this:

"Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground. From it you were taken--for dust you are. And to dust you will return."

God.

"Back in Travis-land are we?" Mr. Andrews asks. "How are the Travis-trees in Travis-land?"

If Mr. Andrews sends me out, everyone will see my rock-hard dick.

Should I...even care?

"Evergreen," I say, looking him in the eye.

"You have better things to think about than the rise of the Know-Nothing Party?"

"I don't know, Mr. Andrews."

"If this is the voice of the future, then God help us."

"Yes," Damerae says. "It may be almost as bleak as the voice of the past."

Most of the class laughs—even Cynthia.

Heck, even Zane chuckles.

The way I see him has changed, hasn't it?

Don't get me wrong—he was always a few rungs above me on the ladder. Stronger, more skilled, kept company with Chris...

I feared him.

But he wasn't an obsession of mine.

He barely breached my mind, in the late hours, when my defenses were fuzzy...but now...

My life revolves around him.

His clothes, like the distance between us, barely shield anything.

Everything from his grungy feet to his sinewy legs to his cut abdominals to his dense pectorals to his slicing eyes to his fiery strip of hair.

The sound of his voice. The warmth of his skin.

The smell of his pits.

The taste of his...

There was never any hope for equality between us.

But now...

His superiority over me has become such an important part of my identity.

The status gulf he germinated till it blossomed--and scattered what was left of my old self to the wind.

He'd sculpted my ass into an open cunt; he'd made it the centerpiece of my being.

Stretched—like a muscle—to its limits—broken down in small, survivable bits—so I could heal enough to be stretched—just further.

When class ends, I wait for him outside the door.

"Master," I say softly. "I'll have the money tomorrow."

"Good," he says, thumbing my chin, making me look him in the eye. He squints at my neck—where Chris bit me. This morning, I considered covering it up with a turtleneck, but then I thought better. No point in lying.

I am not a coward.

Zane sneers. "But didn't I say not to bug me till you have it?"

"Sorry Master," I say, turning away. "But they're giving me Valentine's Day off work...so I thought maybe...you could ditch wrestling practice and--"

"Me ditch wrestling?" Zane says. "Maybe you should come to wrestling. Coach is leaving early again, to spend Valentine's with the Missus, if you catch my drift."

"It just feels wrong now, Zane. I'm not one of the guys. I'm a pussy."

"What do you mean?" Zane asks, his eyes glittering.

"Wrestling is about proving who is the alpha—and it's not me. It's an insult for me to pretend it could be. I'm not a man like you. My dick and balls are superfluous...I'm a faggot."

Zane pets my hair. "It's not your fault."

My boner juts up as I look—pleading—into Zane's eyes.

There's no mercy there.

"Start by going to Art Club tomorrow. Then, when it is time, meet the wrestling team in the showers."

The showers? Hadn't we established I didn't belong in that locker room?

I just want to spend Valentine's Day alone with Zane, not get trapped in that snake pit.

That being said...I've learned to obey him.

I look into his piercing green eyes.

"Anything you say, Zane."

"Anything?"

I nod slowly.

My last day at Melt before Valentine's Day plods along.

It's repetitious—almost grounding—feeling the texture of lettuce against my latex-bound palm.

But that can only get you so far. Maybe through the first hour.

I've heard some people call themselves sandwich artists.

The idea makes me smirk.

Einstein worked at a post office for a while, pushing his genius to the background so he could make a living.

How many people would have made great works, if they weren't stuck as postmen and sandwich artists?

I'd like to at least try to be a sculptor. Or a philosopher.

Why teach children to dream, if all that follows is a rude awakening?

I wake up on Valentine's Day with a sharp awareness of my surroundings.

Hiro's book of Escher paintings lies by the bedside. Light and shadow streak along the wall and ceiling in tapered bars, like a web of cracks splintering a mountaintop.

I'd researched the words Hiro had written on the pages in invisible ink.

Introjection.

Not introspection. Intro-JECTION.

The unconscious adoption of the ideas or attitudes of others. Hiro must have felt I was becoming someone else. But who on Earth had fallen as far as I had? Whose footsteps could I trace? Not even Calvin had sunk as low as me. It certainly felt like I was exploring new ground.

The names in the book were dead ends too.

Henry Beecher.

A medic during World War II who ran out of his supply of painkillers. In his desperation, he lied to wounded men, tricking them into thinking a saline solution would dull the pain.

Iwazaru.

A mythical monkey who covers his mouth. The one Hiro had drawn on the front of the book. Speak no evil. His brother, Kikazaru, covers his ears, while the other brother, Mizaru, covers his eyes. Hear no evil. See no evil. But doesn't turning a blind eye just let things fester? Grow stronger in the veil of the darkness?

Jen Li was harder to find. There was a scout named Sun Li-Jen, who had marched at Tiananmen Square. Seventy years prior to the massacre there. I wonder if Sun Li-Jen knew what was to become of the government he defended. A regime that responded to opposition by pancaking protestors with tanks.

I am familiar with the concept. I daresay Zane did something similar to me when I resisted him.

He snuffed out the parts of me that wouldn't do; he broke me; he left a void.

And in that void he nurtured a yearning. He had given me enough pieces of his life to desire him, to love him, and to revere him.

I crave to serve him; to worship him. In the void of what I had been, a new identity takes hold.

I am a faggot slave.

I trace where the collar had run around my neck.

What is Hiro trying to tell me?

When the last bell of the day rings, I meander to the Art Room.

Before I can enter, an arm swings around, the elbow-crook ensnaring my neck in a headlock.

He blows in my ear. "Miss me, princess?"

I nod, my upper lip catching his biceps.

"What are you two fools doing?" Cynthia asks, as her friends shuffle past her.

"It's Valentine's Day. Can't I show a bit of affection?" Zane asks.

"Oh, har, har," Cynthia says.

"What?" Zane asks. "You don't believe Travis and I could be in love?"

"No. You're too much of a Maverick for love."

"Don't you mean badass?"

"I mean freak!"

Zane shrugs. "In some ways, I'm not such a Maverick after all. What do you think Travis?" he asks, exhaling in my ear. "Do you--love me?"

"Yes sir. I love you."

"Oh, shut up," Cynthia says. "He never was into you, was he? He was into my Chris."

"Into `your' Chris? Hmmm. More like Chris was into him. Or—if nothing else—Chris was IN him."

"What does that even mean?"

"Care to explain, Travis?" Zane asks. "Didn't you tell me the other day, how TEMPTED you were to let her know? What's stopping you?" He pinches the red mark on my neck.

"Nothing stopping me," I whisper, as Zane drops the headlock. I turn to Cynthia. "It means your boyfriend fucked me."

"Excuse me?"

"Your boyfriend's cock was balls-deep up my ass."

"I don't think so," Cynthia says. "We're waiting till marriage."

"You are?" Zane says. "He got tired of waiting, I guess. And Travis here is so eager, aren't you?"

"Yessir."

"Travis wouldn't give away pieces of himself like that. And Chris wouldn't take it."

"Travis wouldn't? Travis, get on your knees."

In the middle of the hallway?

Slowly, I drop to my knees. Zane runs his hand through my hair. He guides my head to his jeans, making my face brush against his bulge.

"Eeeww!" Cynthia shrieks. "Go to hell!"

"See you there," Zane says. Then he turns on his heel and heads off to wrestling practice.

I spend the next hour on the wheel, making a shapely vase. Cynthia won't even look my way. She can't seem to look at her painting either, and whiles away the time buried in her phone.

When the time comes, I get up and head over to the locker room, my pace brisk.

SLAM!

My side crashes against the door as I'm thrown to the side. I look at my assailant with disinterest.

"Calvin?" I ask. "I thought you quit the team?"

"I thought you had, too."

"So what are you doing here?" I ask.

"Cynthia texted me. Told me what happened. Are you kidding me, Travis? Just when I thought you couldn't sink any lower."

"Never overestimate me."

"You're sick, Travis. This has gotten—sick!"

"The world is sick."

"So what are you going to do now—suck off the wrestling team again?"

"If Zane wants me to," I say, shrugging. "But something tells me, this time, it will be a bit more personal."

"Well Happy Fucking Valentines' Day, then!" Calvin says.

"Thanks. You too."

I swivel and make my way into the locker room.

I hear the showers running, and make my way over.

Zane catches me out of the corner of his eye, a smile curling across his face. "Strip," he mouths.

I take off my clothes, dropping them in a clump on the bench.

Zane bobs his head, smirking.

I sink to my hands and knees and crawl into the showers.

"Look what's back," Eduardo hoots.

"Shit," Damerae says.

Hiro shields his eyes, then slides his hand down his face, covering his mouth. Now that I can see his expression, it's not shock I see there. Paradoxically, it's as though he's trying to say something.

I bow between Zane's legs, jutting my ass up slightly.

Zane crouches down and palms my ass, running his hands in circles.

"I can't watch this," Damerae says, twisting his nozzle off and storming out.

"He's driven mad by the look in your eyes," Zane says. "The look of faggot devotion."

Hiro clamps his hands over his ears, expressionless, and follows Damerae out, brushing shoulders with Calvin, who is headed upstream.

"Let him go," Calvin says, his voice shaking, his body trembling.

"Travis," Zane says. "Do you want to be let go?"

"No, Zane," I whimper.

"There you have it," Zane says. "Do you need me to make Travis lick my feet again, to drive the point home? Up...too late."

Their voices are echoes; I barely process them in the background.

"Let's fuck him this time," Eduardo says.

"Eduardo—have patience," Zane says, his eyes flashing. "I need a word with Chris."

"What's the meaning of this?" Chris snarls.

"Just thought you should know," Zane says, "We told your girlfriend you've been fucking Travis. You have, haven't you?"

"You wouldn't," Chris breathes.

"They did," Calvin says. "She texted me. They told her everything. She wanted me to find out what else they were up to."

"FUCK YOU, ZANE," Chris snarls, shoving him against the wall.

Zane shoves him back. "Stay away from my bitch, and I'll stay away from yours."

"Travis isn't yours."

"Coin, stop licking my feet," Zane says.

I close my mouth.

"Suck my balls. Look Chris in the eyes...and suck my balls."

I get on my hands and knees and lick his sack before opening wide, rolling his balls around in my mouth, slurping, and turning to look Chris in the eyes.

"God, this fag is unbelievable," Eduardo hoots.

A fire dances in Chris's eyes as he gapes, before he flexes to his mammoth limits.

"I'm gonna kill you, Zane," Chris whispers.

"You are going to fight me for Travis?"

"Yes."

"But I already have Travis," Zane says. "You need to bring something to the table."

"I don't NEED to do shit! I'll take you down right now!"

"No, not right now. You have to go mend things with your girl—it's Valentine's Day, remember? And I have to set a few things straight with my girl, too. It's going to be a busy weekend."

"The hell with Cynthia," Chris says. "This is between me and you. NOW!"

"Hey Chris," Zane says, speaking up. "Remember that time when we were twelve, and you did me a solid?"

Chris's eyes flit toward Eduardo, doing a bit of calculus.

"Chris..you really ought to smooth things over with Cynthia," Calvin says. "She's a wreck. And besides...it's not like Travis hasn't had opportunities to rebel. I tried rushing him, and he just isn't ready. I think we had better to do this on Zane's terms. To have, you know, a hint of order..."

"That's the spirit, Calvin," Zane says, giving him a noogie. Calvin shrugs him off.

"Tomorrow then," Chris hisses, deflating slightly.

"Tuesday," Zane counters.

Chris stares Zane down.

"I'm in too," Calvin says.

"This has nothing to do with you," Zane says.

"LIKE HELL IT DOESN'T!" Calvin spits. "You know this is more about me than it is about—"

"Yes, yes, yes, faggot lives matter, I get it. But you understand that I'm not just going to wager Travis here for nothing? He's a hot commodity." He looks Chris dead in the eye. "So...if you lose, Chris—I get YOU."

"Fine."

"D--don't do it," Calvin moans. "Have me fight him instead."

"No offense, Calvin," Chris says, "You're a decent wrestler--but compared to us you..."

"Suck," Zane finishes. "But I'll accept your offer. Why the hell not?"

"Can I join the party?" Eduardo asks. He sneers at me, licking his lower lip.

"No," Chris says. "I draw the line at Calvin; I'm sorry."

"What--white people only?" Eduardo says. "I was supposed to leave with Hiro and Dom?"

"I don't mind if you come," Zane says, eliciting twitches from Calvin and Chris. "In fact, why don't you come a bit early?"

I'm not sure the others sense the danger in his voice.

Chris narrows his eyes, his expression going blank. "See you Tuesday." It seems to take all his strength to walk out of the showers. He turns one last time at the threshold. "My place?"

"Oh, I don't think so," Zane says. "You've already had home court advantage. It's my turn, isn't it?"

"That won't save you."

"I won't need saving."

Chris turns to go, and Calvin looks around twice before tracing Chris's footsteps.

"Eduardo, make sure they actually leave."

Eduardo hesitates, then, unwilling to push his luck, follows the others.

"You can stop sucking my balls now, Travis."

I let them droop out of my mouth.

His cock flops down and smacks my cheek. I peer up into his eyes.

"Let's take this back to my place," he says.

"Yes, Master," I croak.

He waltzes around of the showers, turning off those that had been forgotten. Then, he beckons for me to follow, and I crawl after him.

He puts my clothes in his backpack before he gets dressed, stranding me on the floor naked.

As he motions to leave, I make a guttural noise, and he turns back. "Ah, I almost forgot. You won't be able to get out of school with nothing, will you?"

I shake my head. Then, he covers my head with the black ski mask, rolling it down my face.

"Now they won't recognize you. You'll have to run fast, though. The dumpsters behind the gas station across the street...I'll meet you there in—exactly four minutes. Sound good?"

He laughs into my blanked out face.

I fly. Mr. Andrews jaw drops when I run past his door; the dance team stops when I thread through their drill; the dead insects watch quietly, still pinned to their poster when I race past their room. The double doors bang open, hitting the walls and echoing back at me; I am through them before they close.

"Stop!" the security guard yells.

He chases after me on his golf cart; he grabs at me; I jump sideways, sliding over the front of his cart and rolling into the parking lot. I get to my feet in a flash, needling my way through parked cars, and towards the open gate.

The guard gets there first, pulling the gates closed, but I ignore him, running to the other side, and hopping up against the wall.

"Get back here!" the guard yells, but I ignore him, scaling up the wall, straining my muscles, pulling myself over and straddling the wall like a horse. The guard is upon me now; he moves to grab my leg; I kick at him and he cringes. I lose my balance and fall off the wall to the other side.

I catch myself on my hands, jumping to my feet again, as my breath tightens. I force myself to run, crossing the street, zigzagging through the honking cars. I circle the gas station and curl up behind the dumpster so no one can see me.

I catch my breath.

Where is Zane?

I close my eyes, my heart thumping, the cold concrete prickling my back, as I hide in the shadows.

Zane's ass flits into focus; I project it onto my eyelids with my imagination. I whimper, nuzzling between his cheeks.

I feel the grunge on my tongue. "What the fuck are you doing?" Zane looms over me, his expression flecked with confusion and disgust. He presses his shoe into my tongue, which had been jutting out.

"Goig moo my happy pluh."

"What?" Zane asks, his tone caked with laughter as he moves his foot.

"Going to my happy place," I say, brushing off, rising to my feet.

"And what's that?"

"Worshipping you."

Zane smirks, his eyes twinkling. "Get in the car, bitch."

I clamber to my feet, sliding into the passenger seat, the leather sticking to my naked skin.

Zane hits the gas and I lurch forward. "Back to your happy place, cunt-face."

I feel his grip on the back of the ski mask as he pulls me into his jeans. He slides my head around there. It's so automatic.

Unbutton; unzip; grope his cock; thread it through the hole to freedom. I open my mouth and wrap it around his fat cockhead, sucking slowly.

"Don't move, faggot. Just hold it in your mouth and suck on it softly."

I slurp on his cock, careful to stay mostly still, losing my sense of self and time.

Zane chuckles. "If only Mr. Andrews knew where you really went in Travis-land."

Suddenly, it's dark.

We are back in the shadows of Zane's garage.

"You can stop sucking my cock, faggot," Zane says.

There are a few seconds where there is nothing but darkness and breathing. I uncoil back into a sitting position. Zane grabs my balls and I gape at him. I still can't control that impulse. I feel Zane's lips against mine. He tongues my open mouth and swirls around playfully. I moan.

He pulls away suddenly. "Happy Valentine's Day, faggot."

"Happy Valentine's Day, sir."

"Go wait by the fireplace on your knees."

I look into his eyes, but all I can see is darkness.

I stumble out of the car, miming my way over to the wall. I use it to guide me as my eyes adjust to the dark. Relieved to find the door handle, I twist and push it open. I hear the vacuum break; the airtight seal exhales. I make my way to the fireplace, sinking to my knees in front of it. WHAM. The door swing shut of its own volition, echoing around the room.

I meditate on Zane.

He enters the room minutes later with a stainless steel pot chock full of vibrant things. The money I earned litters the inside of the pot like confetti, interspersed with gold chocolate coins.

Slowly, he starts unwrapping the coins. "You disobeyed me, Travis," he says calmly. He turns toward me and pulls off my ski mask, leaving me buck-naked.

I peer at him.

"I told you not to get off when I'm not there," he says.

"You told me to earn Chris's trust. To make him remember what he's missing."

"But I didn't tell you to let him FUCK YOU...did I?" Zane lays the chocolate down on a sheet of tin foil.

"Well, what did you expect to happen, sir?"

SMACK!

Zane thunderclaps my face. "You do as I tell you to do, coin. That's what I expect."

"Don't ask me to do something like that again. My thoughts get all tangled near him. You know that."

"The next thing on my list to unravel."

"Do we have to? Can't we just—let it fade? Can't we just—"

Zane collars my neck, and my words choke back in my throat. I pant twice, before letting out a low whimper.

"That's a good puppy," Zane says, gripping me by the hair, running his free fingers through it and scratching my head.

He pushes my face into the carpet and I don't dare to move it. Then he reaches back, the handcuffs clinking against the pot, before he shackles my wrists behind my back.

He lights the fireplace. I look up at him as he strips down to his jock.

His tight muscles glimmer with flecks of water and sweat, lit from the fire, crawling across his chest. His masculine smell overwhelms me. Droplets swim across his fierce upper body, tracing his tattoos. The water half-moon rises above the shard of the fire sun, with rings of their kin at the core, sharing a border that seems to slither in the fire-light. One line strikes his nipple. I cringe, thinking of how it would feel to get that marking.

On the other side of his chest, a black tree flourishes, rising into his pectorals. An apple falls from its branches. The ink there looks a little different to me in this lighting—like smoke. An oblivious man sits in the shade of the tree, the apple slicing toward his head.

Zane flexes, warping the images, before he pokes a log with a fire iron, and I close my eyes.

Then he blows me a kiss, dropping the foil into the fireplace and scattering more chocolate coins on it.

Zane reaches into the pot again, pulling out a dog bowl full of water. He plops it down in front of me. "There's something I want you to have. It's your choice. Take it, and your last traces of resistance will crumble—your mind will collapse. All that will be left will be an intense emptiness. One that only I can fill."

He drops a pill into the bowl of water.

"And at last you will belong completely to me."

Wrestle with your thoughts

Then confine them to dust

You can't know a priori

The risk that you trust

I lick at the water, the pill rolling off my tongue before I can catch it.

"Take it—and you are more than just my slave tonight. Take it—and you are my slave forever."

I lap at the water some more, the pill rolling off my tongue again.

"You are giving me permission to do anything. You are giving me all of your power."

My ass clamps at air; water clogs my nose.

"Well...all that's left of it."

I curl my tongue around the pill, trapping it, before sucking it into my mouth. I swallow, slurping up more water to wash it down.

Zane grabs my neck. "OPEN YOUR MOUTH."

I gape for him so he can inspect my mouth. He sees nothing. He spits inside for good measure.

Then he splays out beside me, playing with my hair.

"That's a good girl, Travis. That's a good—Princess."

The fire crackles, and I swallow again.

He digs the spatula under one of the chocolate coins, which slumps to the touch. Then he flips the coin onto his chest, cringing and growling.

"Care to lick that up, puppy?"

I wriggle toward him, planting my face in his abdominals, slathering my tongue over his chocolatey body.

I dig my tongue into his belly button, displacing the lava that threatened to settle there.

"Good faggot," he growls.

I slurp it up.

Zane drizzles some chocolate into his open armpit, his expression hardening as volcanic goop rolls down, threatening to drip to the floor.

I slither up his body, catching the stream before it stains the carpet, lunging up toward the source, and clamping my mouth down on his grungy, molten pit.

Zane prods my nipple with the oozing spatula.

I shiver. It's boiling! He drags the chocolate across me; I flail and flex; the handcuffs dig at my wrists; Zane holds me into his pit, restricting me. I whine into his pit, but it muffles me; he laughs, dipping the spatula in chocolate and starting on my other nipple.

I hold back tears. The chocolate is pure fire. How did he have the fortitude?

"Burns, doesn't it?"

I nod, whimpering.

Zane pouts, slamming me flat on my back, before chomping down on my nipple, transforming the bite into a kiss.

I whine and stick my tongue out—panting.

Zane reaches into the pot one more time—pulling out a slinking, chain-link leash. He links it to my collar, before rising to his feet.

He tugs on the leash, making my body coil up, then flips me so I'm on my stomach once more.

"On your knees," Zane booms.

I try to fold my body back, but I can't get any leverage. Zane half-circles me, tugging from behind, wrenching me, throttling my neck.

"I'm going to LET LOOSE tonight. No more Mr. Nice Guy."

I gargle, the collar digging into my throat. I feel that my eyes are going to burst out my head; I writhe in place.

Finally, I'm able to push off on my elbows and knee-caps, rising to my knees.

"Good puppy," Zane says.

With a jolt, I sense the uprising in my mind. It's a coup.

Not on Zane—on my own soul.

I gape again, my eyes rolling.

Goblins run around inside my head, cackling, knocking over everything they can find--every last structure, leveled to the ground.

"Do you feel it, Princess?"

I nod, gaping.

"And does it clarify anything?"

I nod again, my eyes alight.

Zane steps out of his jock, his balls and cock dangling out, tantalizing me.

"Bark for me. Bark--if you want to be my faggot slave until the day you die."

"Rouf! Rooouf!" I lap messily at my upper lip, my eyes rolling, before breathing so loud it morphs into hoarse laughter.

He smirks at me, dipping the spatula past the flames, before coating his balls in chocolate.

--- Feedback keeps me in the mood to write and brainstorm and is always appreciated. :) email: krazytop@gmail.com tumblr: krazytop.tumblr.com