by Danny Tyran
“No. He only asks of his slaves what he believes necessary to ask of them and what they can do, never more nor less. And if I don’t go to his place anymore, it’s because he is not allowing me to go.
“Slaves? He called me that once. I’m not sure I liked it. I’m willing to learn everything he wants to show me, but I’m not a slave.”
“Did you tell him that?”
“I... I didn’t dare.”
“Didn’t he ask you to promise not to hide anything from him?”
“Nothing important, yes.”
“This is very important. You have to tell him. Explain your feelings to him, why you go to his place, what you expect from him.”
Mo stayed silent for a few minutes, thinking. “You said that he had asked you not to go to his place. Do you think it’s because of me?”
“I think there’s a connection with your presence,” I answered cautiously. “But that may not be the only reason.”
“Do you hold a grudge against me or him for that?”
I had to smile. “You’re not responsible. And my master may ask of me whatever he pleases.”
“I’m not sure I want to play these master and slave games. I’m not like you. I’ve always been rebellious.”
“So have I. But never with him. And these are not mere games, Mo. He believes everything he tells you. He has experienced it all himself.”
“He told me that. Do you believe him? You imagine him trying to present his....”
“To present his backside to his master for punishment? I confess that I have a lot of trouble imagining it. But then he was younger and more naive in those days.”
“That guy has never been innocent. He was born with cloven feet.”
I laughed with him, good heartedly. “Yes. Perhaps you’re right,” I replied.
We went back to our classroom. I hadn’t said anything that I may have been criticized for. But I hoped that Mo would talk to our master of his doubts.
At the end of master’s next class, he asked me to stay. After I helped Mo store everything away, he approached me.
“You suggested to Mo that he tell me about his doubts.”
“Yes, Sir.”
He stared at me for a long time. I realized that he knew what I was hoping for. I knelt at his feet, legs apart, hands clasped behind my back, and said, my voice vibrating with emotion: “Thank you, my Lord, for this lesson.” Then I leaned over and kissed his feet. I was shaking so hard that if I hadn’t had my mouth pressed against one of his shoes, my teeth would have probably chattered.
“Straighten up.”
I assumed the familiar position, happy to stay on my knees at his feet a little longer. He sat on the lowest bench of the nearby bleachers, while Mo stood there, his gaze flicking from our master to me and back again, as if he was watching a tennis match.
“What would you say, Max, if I allowed you to come back to my place, but asked you to serve Mo as you did me?”
“Master, you told me one day that a slave is a servant of servants. To be a slave of slaves, I’d be an even better slave.”
He reached out and gently stroked my hair with just the tips of his fingers. I turned and kissed them, beginning to sob with relief. Who cared whether I had to serve Mo, his dog or Satan himself, as long as my master agreed to take me back as his slave. As Brel once sang: “Let me be the shadow of your shadow, the shadow of your hand, the shadow of your dog.”
“Stop crying, Max. You’ll ruin everything.”
My tears stopped as suddenly as if his few words had flipped a switch into the off position. I adjusted my position, straightening my shoulders and raised my head toward him.
“Good. Okay, Max. You’ve always had a lot of heart, but also a lot of strength. I’m really proud of your behavior in recent weeks. I asked everyone about you: your teachers, your classmates, even your parents. I asked all of them to promise not to tell you that I had. They all had only good things to say about you. The only less than positive comment was that they thought you’ve been sad. If you had managed to find happiness in the sacrifice I imposed on you, Max, everything would have been just perfect.”
I blamed myself for my doubts and my worries, my self-pity, and jealousy that I had refused to admit. Serving Mo seemed a very small penalty compared to what I had experienced lately.
After taking a shower and changing our clothes, the three of us left for our master’s home. I sat by myself in the back seat of his car. That was where I meant to be, and I was happy there.
Chapter 8
The first time I saw Mo naked, I recognized in him the type of man women call Apollo or how they must see Prince Charming. He was gorgeously handsome. Even his few flaws, his small scars added to his charm. A cross of blond hair was just beginning to show on his broad chest and stomach, where the muscles formed waves. His pecs emphasized his cinnamon tinted nipples that became erect at the slightest chill. He also had a breathtaking ass. His slim waist and narrow hips could have been designed to highlight the splendor of his firm, but still pleasantly plump and round buttocks. His athlete’s legs and thighs were crowned by a bush of curly, sandy colored hair that surrounded a cock perfect in size as well as in shape. Delectable!
I was sure that a lot of people would have happily parted with a fortune to obtain a slave endowed with such beauty, intelligence and sensitivity. But Mo was not really made for this life. He tried to obey our master’s orders, answering: “Yes, Sir” or “No, Sir,” as a slave would, but his heart wasn’t in it. He committed one mistake after the other.
To add to the problem, he rarely managed to endure his punishment as our master demanded: in silence, without changing position, and without trying to protect himself. So, his lack of self-control often earned him extra punishments.
He also found it impossible to use the right he was granted to dominate me. Instead of taking the opportunity to make his life easier, he concentrated on meeting the countless demands of our master all by himself. Perhaps my master felt that Mo had capabilities for command that the young man failed to tap into. But if Mo had such a talent, I never had the opportunity to see it.
At all times, I acted with respect toward my classmate, and I tried to assist him, even when he didn’t ask me to. Sometimes my own work suffered as I devoted time to help him finish his tasks.
One day, while our master was being particularly hard on me and a large part of my punishment was due to Mo’s mistakes, Mo tried to intervene and stop him executing the sentence.
“Max is free to leave whenever he wants to. He’s also free to request permission to explain the cause of his mistakes, but since you didn’t ask him to help you or prevent him from doing so, it’s up to him to decide whether he will assist you or not. But he has chosen to stay, even though your presence doesn’t make his life easier. And, since he doesn’t want to make your situation worse, he continues to help you, even at the expense of performing his own work, knowing that he will suffer the consequences. Max acts as a slave must act. I can’t say the same about you, Mo.”
“So why are you punishing him if everything he does is so perfect? And why do you continue to invite me here, when everything I do is so crappy?”
“I’m punishing him because a slave’s duty is to fully and perfectly perform the tasks assigned to him by his master. If these tasks are not performed as they should be, the slave who is responsible for the task will always receive a punishment, whatever the reason for his failure. I keep on inviting you here because, despite all your blunders and your mistakes, you have gained a lot from what you’ve seen and learned here. You refuse to consider yourself as a slave, yet you continue to call me ‘Master.’ According to you, everything I inflict on you is revolting, but you come back every Thursday and Saturday. Why? You have the qualities needed to become one of the best trainers that the slave market has had. But to develop those qualities, you would have to experience a fairly lengthy period of slavery. Something you’re obviously not prepared to do. You create hu
rdles for yourself. These hurdles are the outcome of all your prejudices against this kind of relationship. Too bad, Mo, I’ve had enough. I’ll drive you home tonight, but that’s the end of your visits here.”
Mo looked as if he’d just been struck viciously. His mouth gaped open. I thought he was going to beg for forgiveness. But he remained silent. He went to the entrance hallway to get dressed and left without waiting to be driven home.
A week later, we learned that he had filed a complaint with the school board of management, falsely accusing my master of raping him. He said he didn’t want to go to court, but he did want my master to be fired. No doubt he sought revenge without broadcasting the entire story to the whole school and elsewhere; thus seeking to protect his own reputation and avoid distorting his macho image. Back in the seventies, even more than today, a man was reluctant to admit to being raped.
Mo had mentioned that he was not the only pupil going to my master’s home. He told them about me. In turn, my master, Mo and I were asked to front the school council and answer questions.
My questions were: “Is it true that you regularly go to Mr. Teka’s place?” “What were you doing there?” “Did he force you, under threat or otherwise, to have sex with him?” The answer to the last two was an emphatic “No.”
I had no trouble imagining the kind of questions that they would ask my master. The ironic thing was he had never made us cross the border between nudity and sexuality. He was more intent on hearing tales of what we did and urging us to pay more attention to the pleasure of our sexual partners. Yet he would probably be treated as a criminal.
Everything could have gone very badly for him if, after the initial round of questioning, he hadn’t requested that the three of us appear before the council together. The board members were initially reluctant, but they eventually agreed.
When I entered the room, Mo was already standing there, facing the table where all the board members were sitting. I stood to his right, but he didn’t have the guts to even look at me. I greeted him all the same. He remained silent, turning his head away. I don’t know what prevented me from calling him a coward and a traitor.
My master arrived shortly afterward. He entered calmly, betraying no nervousness before the board members and stopped on Mo’s left.
“Hello, Mo, I’m glad to see you,” he said in a voice full of sweetness.
I knew, and everyone else could sense that he uttered those words sincerely.
Mo looked down and began to cry silently. He finally said, with a sob in his voice, “I beg your pardon, Sir.”
I placed my hand on Mo’s shoulder and whispered, “If you’re really sorry, why not stop this farce of a trial?”
He calmed down and addressed the principal and the school board Chairman. “I lied,” he asserted. “Mr. Teka never raped me. I was just trying to get back at him for rejecting me.”
“Rejecting you?” asked the president.
“Yes. I went to his place to get more personal training, and he threw me out. I tried to get even with him and Max. I was jealous because Mister Teka is still training Max.”
The board then decided to drop the complaint, but criticized Mo for risking serious damage to his teacher’s reputation and ordered my master to stop coaching students at home. The Chairman proposed, “You can still use the school gym if you need to. Will you comply with this requirement?”
“Yes, Madam,” answered my master in a tone so submissive and totally respectful that, for a moment, I thought that I saw surfacing the slave he had once been.
“No!” shouted Mo. “He is innocent. You don’t have to make him do anything. You don’t have the right to punish him.” He began to insult the principal and the Chairman, saying they could keep their “fucking” gym, and that they didn’t understand anything.
“Enough!” The principal almost shouted in her fury. “Don’t forget you’re the cause of this problem.”
Mo began to call her an old this and that.
Our master cut in saying, “Mo”. He spoke so softly we could barely hear him.
As if driven by an internal mechanism, powerful and irresistible in its force, Mo turned his head toward him and ceased his tirade.
“Apologize to them,” our master ordered.
Mo faced the principal and all the Board members again. He begged for forgiveness for all the mean things he’d said, the wrongs he had done, and for wasting their time. His tone of voice and the way he stood before them, in the familiar waiting position, conveyed his tension, but at least he seemed sincere.
“I see you have a good influence on him,” the principal commented to our master.
Mo opened his mouth to say something, but our master touched his arm and just said, “No.”
I watched Mo swallow his saliva along with all the words that were trying to gush forth.
Mo and I were asked to leave. The Council had obviously some other recommendations to make to our master.
As soon as we were out of the room, Mo blurted out, “I’m a real idiot, huh?”
“You really want me to answer?” I asked, a little more sharply than I intended.
“Ah, I’m so sorry, Max! I don’t know what came over me.”
“It’s fine, but we’ll all have to suffer the consequences now.”
“Maybe he could collect us in secret and...”
“No, Mo. He said he would meet their conditions. He will stand by his word, I’m sure of the fact. Forget it.”
“Oh no, Max! There has to be a way...”
I wanted to strangle him, right there, in the school hallway. He must have seen the anger in my eyes, because he stopped in mid-sentence.
“This is how you tarnish people’s reputations, Mo. It’s as simple as that.”
“But I told them that I lied...”
“There will always be people who think you retracted your statement because you were afraid of what he might do to you if you hadn’t denied it all.”
“I’ll find a way to make them understand the truth.”
“It‘s useless, Mo. It’s best to let time do its work. They will eventually forget. Or our master will need to move somewhere else.”
Our teacher came out of the boardroom and joined us.
“What did they say?” Mo asked.
“It was kindly suggested that I should teach elsewhere next fall.”
“They don’t have the right to do that! This is unfair,” Mo exclaimed.
“You’re not in a position to teach them what is right or wrong, Mo,” I replied, shocked by his contradictory behavior.
The trouble was that, although neither I nor Mo had ever had sex with our master and despite Mo’s vehement retraction, the board didn’t want to risk jeopardizing the school’s reputation, preferring to fire an innocent than keep a teacher who might be tainted by false rumors. I understood their motives, but I was angry with them all the same. As Mo said, our master was innocent and their reaction was unfair.
“Maurice, it doesn’t change anything as far as you’re concerned. I am no longer your master, and will never be. I am not seeking revenge in turn. But this is the result when you act against your nature. And I don’t think you’re ready to act otherwise. As for you, Max, I don’t remember allowing you to speak freely in my presence. Don’t make me regret training you too.”
I asked permission to speak.
“No. Go home now. We’ll meet in the gym.”
As he left, Mo followed him to try to beg him pardon or to change his mind, but he was dismissed. We all left separately.
Chapter 9
I wasn’t allowed to see my master anymore except at the gym. But I was soon going to be eighteen, the age of adulthood. And nobody in the world would be able to keep me away from him then, except perhaps himself.
Mo suggested to our master that we meet at his parents’ newly purchased cottage. His reasoning being that if our master couldn’t receive us at his home, nothing would prevent him from seeing us elsewhere.
Mo had told him that he had done a lot of thinking lately. He realized that he had never been accepted as he was. This world that refused to recognize his values’ worth and forbade him to be himself, that is to say different, revolted him. But everybody had so completely convinced him that his values were wrong and he should be like everybody else, that it was difficult to change course, to truly become himself now. Thus, Mo was torn between the call of his own nature and the world’s will. Our master tried to help him, but this new shift shook Mo so much, he had wanted to destroy the person who he considered responsible for the change and the resulting doubts and anxiety he felt. However, now something in him had been rekindled, and he wanted another chance to try.
“What was our master’s response to your proposal?” I asked him.
“He says it’s the natural order of things to pay for our mistakes, and that I should pay for mine. Now I have to wait until I turn eighteen. But that won’t be for another ten months. That’s too long. Now that I understand and am ready to train, how am I going to wait that long?”
“You’ve been waiting for seventeen years, why not a few more months?”
“Max. Don’t tell me you can bear being away from him, given all he embodies in your eyes.”
“Of course, I’m upset. But, if necessary, I’d wait much longer than ten months.”
The school board informed my parents of the charges against our master. That’s when they discovered that I had been going to his place twice a week and were angry with me for having lied to them for so long. Even though Mo had denied all the charges, they insisted on no more visits to my master’s house. I could only see him at school. I told them how unjust their decision was. What right did they have to forbid me from seeing a man they knew nothing about but who I respected deeply? However, nothing I said would change their mind.
Summer finally arrived. The school year would soon be over. I asked Mr. Teka for a chance to discuss my future with him. We met in an office adjacent to the gym after a class.
I started by saying, “If you allow it, I’ll go wherever you go. I will soon legally be an adult, and then I can do whatever I want with my life.”