by Jay Lygon
“Boy!” My face went red as Hector stomped out of the house. Conversations around the pool died. He grabbed my arm. His aura seethed green and black, and he reeked of whiskey. “I saw you kissing him on TV.”
“Hey, man, it was just a little peck for the cameras. It didn’t mean anything,” Harris said.
Hector’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You stay out of this.” His voice slurred and his moves were clumsy.
“Hector, go home.”
“Oh, I’ll go home, little Boy, and I’m taking you with me. You know what the punishment is for sleeping around?”
People put their heads together and murmured.
I lowered my voice. “Stop this, Hector. You’re making a scene.”
“I’ll do anything I want. I’m your Master, slave. Get down on your knees and start begging for forgiveness.”
My temper flared. “You’re humiliating me,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Is a kiss all you’re giving him, Sam? Or did your editor pimp you out for sex, too?”
I turned to Harris. “I’m sorry about this. I’m sorry, everyone. He’s had too much to drink.” I bolted into the house.
Hector chased me through the house and onto the driveway. “You don’t run away from me, Boy.”
I couldn’t breath, and my pulse pounded so hard I could feel it behind my eyes. I sincerely wished my heart would stop, but it wouldn’t, and my hell continued. I broke free from Hector’s harsh grasp. Not caring if humans saw it, I phased away.
***
The island was little more than a sandbar, one of millions in the Marianas that were too small for anyone to live on. It had a few palm trees and some brush, but that was it. I sat on the beach and watched the waves. Throwing my God power behind it, I cast a spell that would make it impossible for anyone, even a God, to track me down.
I watched the sun rise; I watched it set; I watched it rise again. Hector’s brand blazed for hours on my ass. I ignored it like I ignored my thirst and hunger. The whole scene by the pool with Hector and Harris and all those people at the party replayed in an endless loop in my mind, and each time it felt as raw as the first. In the humid heat of the second day, a blinding headache gave way to a vision of the future, and it was just as miserable as my present.
I don’t even remember thinking much, but when I finally rose and dusted the damp sand off my tux, I realized that I’d reached an important decision.
Chapter 8
Hector was sitting on the couch when I phased into his living room. “Decided to stop sulking?”
I was amazed at how calm I was. “I wasn’t sulking. I was thinking.” I went over to my computer desk in the corner.
“I summoned you.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t come.”
I nodded. There was no denying it. I unplugged my computer and piled cables on the desktop.
“Boy, you better have a good excuse.”
That’s when I decided that I’d do things the God way instead of the human way. I didn’t care how much power I burned. Sometimes the price was worth it.
I walked over and stood before him. I reached up to my neck. He was wrong about one thing. He’d told me that no man or God could ever remove his collar. But I could. It was so heavy in my hands. My neck felt exposed without it on.
“I’m done.”
“What?”
“I’m done, Hector. One hard limit. Humiliation. You humiliated me. That’s it. I’m done.”
I put the collar on the coffee table.
His face was a moving target of emotions. Anger, disbelief, anger, shock, more anger. “You better get down on your knees and start begging for forgiveness, Boy.”
That was the last thing I heard before I phased out of there with everything I owned.
Chapter 9
“This is where I keep the dishes. And that’s where the glasses are.” Brett pointed to an upper cabinet in his condo kitchen.
“Thanks for renting me your spare room on such short notice.”
“Are you kidding?”
I expected him to go off on a rant about how he’d been trying to talk me into leaving Hector for almost three years, but to give him credit, he didn’t.
“What are friends for? Besides, I can use the help paying my mortgage.”
I gave him a weak smile.
“I’m amazed you managed to get everything moved in while I was at work.” Brett leaned against the counter. He didn’t know where to put his hands. He seemed almost embarrassed, as if there was a huge elephant in the room that we were tiptoeing around. He didn’t need to be that careful with me. I was calm, not fragile.
“I don’t have much.”
Brett gave me a look that was almost like old Brett. “Except clothes. My God, man. I knew you had a nice wardrobe, but I never guessed you had so much. And the shoes.”
“I do have a lot of shoes.”
“And all that religious crap.”
The smile slid right off my face. “Those are altars to my Gods, Brett. Not crap.”
He opened the fridge, probably to have something to do. “Want a beer?”
Things were awkward enough, so I played nice. “That sounds great. Thanks.”
“Well, this is your place now, too, so after this, you get your own damn beers.” He was joking with me, but underneath, there was tension. He handed me a bottle. Then he didn’t have anything to do, so he leaned against the counter again. “What are your plans?”
I took a deep breath. “Tomorrow, I call George and make sure I haven’t been fired.”
Brett’s shaggy brows drew together. “Why would you get fired? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“That’s never stopped a company before. It’s all about image. If they feel I’ve damaged theirs, they’ll get rid of me. Don’t worry, though. I can still pay my rent.” I twisted off the bottle cap and took a sip of beer. “Mind if we sit?”
“Oh yeah. Sure.”
We went around the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room. The condo was set up well for roommates. The living room and kitchen sat in the middle. Bedrooms with separate bathrooms were on either side of the shared area.
I sat on the couch with my feet under me. He sat in a recliner. He didn’t have throw pillows on his couch. I wished he did.
There didn’t seem to be a lot to say. I cleared my throat. “I guess I need to buy a bed. I’ll do that tomorrow, too. And go to the market. If you need anything, let me know.”
“I’m good, Sam.”
I suddenly realized what it felt like being there with Brett. It was like a funeral. Everyone on their best behavior, saying nice things, wishing they weren’t there, wondering when the sadness would lift.
“But how are you doing?” He leaned forward, his melancholy, gray eyes full of care.
Definitely a funeral.
“Good as can be expected. Still in shock. Trying to sort things out. But I’m hanging in there.”
“If there’s anything you need…”
He was going to pat my hand and offer me a white hanky. I just knew it. Instead, he put his hand on my knee and squeezed it. It rested there for a bit, and then moved up my thigh. Was he making a move on me? Sheesh. The corpse was still warm. I tried not to make it too obvious, but I moved away from him.
“Hey, Joey called earlier and said he might stop by. Do you feel like company?” Brett asked, suddenly cheerful in a brisk, fifties-housewife kind of way.
“I left my boyfriend. I didn’t get diagnosed with terminal cancer. Tell him to pick up some Indian food and more beer. I haven’t apologized to Harris yet for ruining his premier. I’ll be lucky if he takes my call. I’ll be in my room.” I stood up.
Brett seemed even more embarrassed. “Sam, I hate to ask this, but you’re not going to do anything, are you?”
“Do?”
“Attempt suicide?”
I guess I had that one coming to me. Here I thought the elephant in the room was Hector, and it turned out
to be my past instead. I grinned grimly. “Hadn’t crossed my mind. Thanks for asking.”
***
The first couple days hurt like hell, but even then I guess I was numb, because at the end of the week, a sledgehammer of grief knocked me down. I knew I wasn’t depressed, because it didn’t feel the same as my bouts of depression, but the sadness was bad enough.
I couldn’t get comfortable in my bed. I fluffed the pillow. I tried being on my left side, but that reminded me that Hector wasn’t spooned against me, so I turned to my right. That wasn’t any better. Maybe I was too used to being shackled and couldn’t sleep with my hands free. The idea of shackling myself was too stupid, so I didn’t.
Yeah, the sadness was bad, but what kept me up all night was the doubt. Could I have handled it differently? Did I overreact? Hector always said I overreacted to everything. He used to call me a drama queen. I didn’t feel like one. But maybe I should have talked it through with him. Maybe I should have given him another chance.
My mind simply wouldn’t shut up and let me fall asleep. I stared at the ceiling. I could hear traffic on Pacific Avenue.
I sat up and turned on the lamp beside my bed. Near the door, I’d set up my computer desk. I went over to it, took a sheet of paper from the printer, grabbed a blue pen, and wrote “You did the right thing” on it in block letters. I shaded the letters in with quick scribbles. Then I stapled the piece of paper to the wall where I could see it from the bed.
There. My own little affirmation poster.
It was silly, but it worked. I finally fell asleep.
***
My therapist’s office was an affront to interior designers everywhere. I’d never noticed before how the ugliness assaulted my senses. Or maybe I was just in a bad mood. It had been a rough week. The leather couch slowly hissed air when I sat on it. The deflation continued until I felt as if the cushion would swallow me whole.
My therapist sat opposite me on a similar couch. “You missed last week’s session.”
“Something came up.” Before he could purse his lips or make some dry statement like an academic coughing up a hairball, I laid it out there. “I left Hector.”
“I see.” I didn’t think he did, or at least he hadn’t seen it coming, because it took him a long time to react. “How do you feel about that?”
“Like shit.”
He almost smiled. His thin upper lip disappeared when he did that. “Let’s back up. What were your feelings that led you to make that decision?”
“My feelings then are sort of irrelevant, don’t you think? What’s done is done. Now I have to figure out to how to live with my decision. My brain knows I did the right thing, but my heart is being a big pussy and waffling. All I want to do is get my brain and my heart in agreement so they’ll stop torturing me at night when I’m trying to sleep.”
“Are you having problems sleeping?”
Did he listen to anything I said? “Uh, yeah.”
“How’s your appetite?”
I shrugged. “I eat. Sometimes. Enough to keep going. Brett makes sure I eat dinner.”
“And Brett is?”
”A friend. I’m renting a room from him.” I figured I’d save the discussion about Brett for another session. Maybe I was imagining it, but it seemed to me that Brett was awfully touchy-feely-grabby-gropey since I’d moved in.
My therapist wrote something down. He shook his pen. His hand darted to the cup of pens on his desk, nabbed one, and darted back behind his notebook. I could hear the scratch of each letter.
“Good. Now, let’s go back to the point where you decided to leave Hector.”
Gods. Some people obsessed on the stupidest things.
At the end of my session, my therapist grabbed a card from his desk and wrote something on it before handing it to me. “With your history of depression, Sam, I want you to consider going back on antidepressants.”
I shook my head. “Pills? I have a bad history with pills, as you know.”
“My mobile phone number is on that card. If you start to feel the symptoms of depression, have suicidal thoughts, or even just think you might be in trouble, I want you to call me right away. I don’t care if it’s the middle of the night. Call me.” He thrust the card at me.
“Do you think I’m in real trouble here?”
“No. But things can change fast. Watch your drinking. I know you don’t usually drink all that much, but try to limit yourself to two if you’re out with friends, and try not to drink when you’re alone.”
“You’re spooking me.”
“I’m not trying to, Sam. I’m just being proactive.”
Maybe so, but I left his office a lot less confident than when I walked in.
***
Everyone took pity on me. Brett fondled; Joey humored. Alberto flirted. Harris Smith took my call and accepted my apologies with style. He even asked me to accompany him to an AIDS fundraiser at the end of the month. Angelena and I took a daytrip up the coast to Santa Barbara on our motorcycles. The God of Misery, that skulking, cat-like mist creature, slept at the foot of my bed. George acted as if nothing had happened. I had my job, my friends, a hotline to my therapist, and the world’s creepiest pet. Of course I was a wreck.
I felt as if everyone watched me. What were they waiting for? Total breakdown? For me to crawl back to Hector? Oh, believe me, I thought about it. I convinced myself that it wasn’t that bad with him. Truthfully, it wasn’t. If he hadn’t humiliated me in front of everyone, we still would have been together. That was the problem, though. No matter how much I mind fucked myself over it, I couldn’t convince myself that it was my fault. Score one for my stubborn streak.
About two weeks after I removed Hector’s collar, I decided I was sick of the hushed tones and sympathy. The kid glove treatment grated on my nerves. What I needed was to talk to someone who wasn’t afraid to rough me up a little. So I called Ophir.
Four hours later, I was at his door. It amazed me when he opened it himself.
He answered my unspoken question. “I gave the boys the night off.” He stood back from the door and let me in.
Uncertain, I paused in the foyer.
Ophir smiled. “You’re here as my guest, Sam, not as a boy. There’s no need to strip. Come to the kitchen. I’m afraid we’re dining informally tonight. I don’t have Number One’s cooking skills.”
It didn’t seem right, but I sat at the table in the breakfast nook while Ophir fussed over the stove. Whatever he was cooking, it smelled great. For the first time in weeks, I was hungry.
“Where are my manners? Would you like something to drink? I have iced tea, soda, beer, and wine.”
“Iced tea would be great, Sir.”
“Sugar?”
“Yeah.” It felt so wrong to have a Master waiting on me.
A couple minutes later, Ophir slid a plate in front of me. “I hope you like hamburgers. I sprinkled some blue cheese on top.”
He had no reason to apologize for his cooking skills. It was probably the best burger I’d ever eaten. He cut his in half and nibbled at it while I chowed down. Meat juices dribbled down my chin when I bit into the thick patty. I licked them away.
Realizing he was watching, I ducked my head. “Sorry, Sir.”
“Don’t be.” He sipped his wine.
“Thanks for having me over.”
“I was glad you called.” He leaned back in his seat. “Sam, I’ve known you for how long? Five years now?”
“About that.”
“I’ll admit that I didn’t think much of you when you first started coming here. Oh, certainly you were the most beautiful boy I’d ever seen, but it takes much more than physical beauty to make a good submissive. Your capacity for pain scared away a few potential Masters, I think, and it concerned me, but you seemed to handle yourself well. At one point I almost offered you a position here in my house.”
“Oh?” I never thought he noticed me.
He smiled. “You are tempting.”
; I hoped the conversation wasn’t going to go anywhere down that track. Since I'd left Hector, I had no sex drive, and I sure as hell wasn’t in any shape emotionally to get involved with anyone.
“Then that Marcus fellow tried to kill you. I knew he was bad news. I always regretted not stepping in sooner.”
“I wouldn’t have listened.” The burger was gone, but I was still hungry, so I helped myself to the salad he’d put out.