Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2011 23:04:32 -0700
From: A R <avunculous@gmail.com>
Subject: A Number Of Nights: Chapter 8

This is a work of erotic fiction. All participants are fictional, and are
over eighteen years of age. If reading erotic fiction about adult male
participants that involves sex, sexual servitude, bondage, and pain is
illegal wherever you are, don't read any further. But we have some lovely
brochures on political insurrection that you may find interesting. I welcome
your feedback, and hope you enjoy the story.

A Number Of Nights
Chapter 08

The boy arrived at 7pm exactly to find the Master Ryan already in a booth at
the back of the restaurant. He approached, and waited by the end of the
table, head down.

"Sit," said the Master.

The boy sat down, hands clasped before him, head still down.

"I've brought you here to have a conversation. Relax. At ease, boy." The boy
looked up; the Master was smiling.

"Yes, Sir." The boy seemed to relax, just a little.

"I'll have you know that I've gone to a lot of effort to avoid having just
this kind of conversation in the past," Master Ryan said.

The boy looked puzzled, but said "I'm sorry, Sir. Thank you, Sir."

"And in order for this to go anywhere, you're going to have to speak freely.
This isn't a lecture," the Master said. "Address me respectfully, but speak
your mind."

"Thank you, Sir." The boy hesitated. "What are we speaking about, Sir?"

"I want to begin by apologizing," the Master said. "I pushed you too far,
and too fast, and went places you weren't ready to go. I had my reasons for
doing so, but I'm sorry that I did."

The waitress arrived, bearing glasses of water and two tall mugs of
light-brown iced liquid. She set them down without a word, and left.

"May I ask what Sir's reasons were?"

"I could tell you that I wanted to test your dedication, or see how open you
were really willing to be, but the truth is that I wanted to drive you
away." The man stirred his beverage. "Try it; it's Thai iced tea."

The boy stirred his slowly, and drank. He looked surprised, then pleased,
then he drank again.

"Why drive me away, Sir?"

"It's a long story."

The boy smiled. "I'd like to hear it, Sir."

"Are you sure?" Master Ryan asked. "You may not like what happens."

"How do you mean, Sir?"

"All relationships are built on fictions; we believe things of the people in
our lives that aren't, that cannot be possible. That they're the perfect
lover, the perfect companion, that we love them more than we could possibly
love anyone else. We create fictions around them, and we love those
fictions. Because no matter how hard we try to understand them as real
people, we never can without having had their experiences, knowing what's in
their head. So it's the fictions that we build around those that we love.

"What you know about me, right now, is almost all in your head. Are you sure
you want to mix that up with more reality?"

"Yes, Sir." The slave replied.


THE MASTER'S TALE

Very well then. I'm going to skip all of the childhood stuff. I think you've
covered enough of it in your stories already, to tell you the truth. Growing
up with these urges setting you apart from your peers, being forced to
create a world inside yourself in which you can live. The difference was
that, while some people adopt a surface persona which will get people to
leave them in peace, the face that I presented to the world tended to get me
noticed.

I did well in school, I played sports, and I was always in the middle of
everything. I spent my youth on other people; I volunteered, I joined teams,
I did time in student government, played in the band, even. I had barely a
moment to spare for myself, and I liked it that way.

When I had time to think, I didn't like what I thought.

My parents saw me burn through high school in a colorful blur, and they were
proud; they pushed me to excel, each in their own way. I wasn't the best at
anything, but I was good enough at everything that everyone knew me. Few
people knew me well. And those that did never seemed to wonder why I never
dated anyone.

I figured that my sexuality was a problem for later. If I could put off
thinking about it long enough, maybe somewhere in the back of my mind, I'd
just figure it out.

Great, thank you. And a refill on the water, please. Have you ever had Thai
food before? It's pretty amazing; there are so may flavors, working
together, your tastebuds take a while to make sense of it.

Anyway, yeah. High school. I finished with a good GPA, a small soccer
scholarship to a state school, and no idea whatsoever who I was. Which meant
that when I got to college, I had no idea why I was there.

All around me, people were branching out, exploring themselves, doing the
things they'd dreamed of doing for their whole childhoods; exploring who
they really were. And I had no idea, and was putting a lot of work into not
finding out.

I drifted through the first year or so, getting the general education stuff
out of the way, putting in my time on the soccer team, going to the parties.
I managed C's, instead of the A's and B's in high school. I barely kept my
scholarship. The next year, though, I was expected to take an interest in
something; I had choices to make. I needed to start moving towards my
future. And I didn't want to know what was ahead.

That semester, I stopped caring. The work got hard, and I just quit. I quit
going to classes; quit leaving my room, for the most part. When soccer
season ended pretty miserably, I just sort of gave up.

Nobody noticed. Nobody cared. My friends were all acquaintances; nobody knew
me well enough to know anything was wrong.

One afternoon, there was a knock at my door. It was my English professor,
Mr. Stiles. Picture your standard tweedy English teacher, but with broader
shoulders, and slightly wilder hair; that was him. He took a look at me; I'd
answered the door in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt that I'd worn for I
don't know how many days. He saw the room behind me, dark and squalid. All
he said was to meet him at the coffee shop down the street in half an hour.

It was an order.

I showered, dressed, and made it there on time. He was sitting at a table
outside, grading papers. He put them back in his briefcase when I
approached.

He asked me how bad things were.

I told him. He listened. He asked questions that got to the heart of what I
was feeling; he seemed to understand. What's more, as the conversation went
on, and we moved from the coffee shop, to a walk around campus, to his
living room, he seemed to know what I'd been hiding from the world for so
long.

He never asked directly, he just let me lead myself in the directions I'd
been wanting to talk about, and before I knew it, I'd told him that I
thought I was gay. He let me talk about that for a while; I wandered into
the fact that I thought about older men, sometimes. That I thought about
doing things for them.

He listened, as I tried to make it as obvious as possible that I wanted him
badly, that he could have me however he wanted. He listened calmly, asked
questions, let me wrap up in a way that let me preserve some self-respect,
and brought me home, extracting a promise from me that I'd make all my
classes the next day, and then see him during office hours the next day.

I felt like an idiot. I felt ridiculous, exposed. And I felt better.

I showed up to both my classes the next day. In the second one, I even made
an effort to find out how I could make up what I'd missed. It was a huge
pile of work. I took it back to my dorm room and stared at it; I couldn't
bring myself to touch it.

The next morning, Dr. Stiles found me waiting outside his office; I'd been
waiting half an hour for his office hours to begin.

He let me in, closed the door, and while I was still trying to think of
where to start with everything I wanted to say to him, he told me to sit
down, and shut up.

He told me he'd thought about it, and he was going to make me an offer. That
he trusted me to keep this between us, as even talking about it would put
his job at risk.

He told me he was gay, but not just gay; he was a Master. He got off on
owning a slave. Not just owning them; perfecting them. He liked to take raw
material, and refine them until they shone brilliantly.

He made me an offer. If I turned myself over to him for a year, let him take
control of my life and my body, he would guide me towards being as good a
man as I could be. I opened my mouth, and he told me to shut up again; he
said I needed to think about it. He gave me twelve hours; if I wanted to
accept, I should be on his porch at nine PM.

And he told me to go.

I went to both classes that day, including his; he didn't treat me any
differently at all, but I stared at him the whole time, my imagination
coming up with all sorts of things that he might do to me. I walked around
campus in a fog, wondering what I was about to do.

And at nine o'clock, I was on his porch.

He took me inside, and explained the terms of the deal. I was to be his,
completely, for a year. I was going to stay in school, and he was going to
make sure that I did my best. He was going to use me, sexually, however he
liked, within the hard limits he had me define. He was going to train my
body to be an instrument of his pleasure; he was going to make me a slave he
could be proud of.

We talked for a while, sitting there in his living room, and he let me ask
questions about what was going to be involved. After a while, my questions
dried up, and we sat in silence for a bit.

Then he told me that it was a one-time offer; if I said no, I'd never get
the chance again. And that if I wanted to be his slave, I was to crawl to
him and lick his feet, and beg him for the opportunity to serve him.

That crawl across the carpet took forever. I wondered the whole way across
if this was what I truly wanted, if I was giving up a chance at something
better that might happen this year, I thought about what my friends might
say if they found out. When I arrived at his feet, though, all I found
myself feeling was an urge to kiss them, lick them, to take my place at
them. I begged him to be his.

When he was convinced I was sincere, he had me kneel while he locked a
silver chain around my neck; he said that I would wear it for as long as I
was his. He put a leather one on me as well; he said I'd wear that one when
I was in his house, to signify my status as his slave. And then, with no
ceremony at all, he pulled out his cock and told me to suck on it.

I'd never done it before. but I'd thought about it, and now, there it was,
in front of me. I took his cock in my mouth, marveling at its taste and
texture, and then started to lick and suck at it. My Master must have
figured out pretty quickly that I was new at it, because soon he was
coaching me through it; telling me how to use my tongue, how to not use my
teeth, when to speed up and slow down. I must have learned well; he started
off shooting in my mouth, but then pulled out and jizzed all over my face.

He rubbed his cum all over me with his cock, while he told me that I'd wear
that cum until I got up and showered tomorrow. He told me that I wasn't
allowed to play with my cock, or cum in any way, without specific orders
from him. And he sent me home, with orders to be there the next day after
class.

I was there on time, and he let me in, put my leather collar on me, and led
me down to the basement. It was unfinished; wooden beams across the ceiling,
studs showing in the walls, support columns here and there. There was a
weight bench and some weights in one corner, and nearby, there was a wooden
picnic table that had eyebolts set into it in various places; later I would
see that there were similar eyebolts in various places in the rafters as
well.

He had me strip, and walked around me; he felt me up, everywhere, without
saying a word. Then he handed me a jock; it looked like it had been worn. He
had me smell it; it smelled of sweat, and piss, and cum. Then he had me put
it on.

That afternoon, I did my very first workout session with my new Master. He
told me he was going to give me a hundred lashes with his belt, hard, on my
back and my ass. He waited for me to absorb that, and then said that I would
have a chance to get rid of some of them. He pointed to the weight bench,
where a bar was already loaded up, and told me that for every time I pressed
it, he'd take one lash off.

I got fifteen.

He had me set up for chest flys, with big heavy dumbbells; I got eighteen
that time. A few more sets of various different exercises, with my Master
keeping track on a clipboard, and I was down to twenty-eight, and I was
exhausted and trembling.

He bound my wrists together with rope, and put one end of the rope through a
ring set into a beam at the top of a support pole; he pulled on the rope
until I was standing on tiptoes, with my chest against the pole, and then he
tied it off.

That first lash went across my shoulder blades; it left a welt that took
days to fade from my skin, but has never faded from my memory.

By the end of the whipping, I was sagging in my bonds, crying. And when he
untied me, he held me and told me that I'd done well, that I'd taken it
bravely. That I was a good slave.

I'd never been prouder of anything in my whole life.

He had me suck him off again then, once again telling me how to do it the
way he liked best, and he came in my mouth; he had me hold his cock in my
mouth, along with his cum, and ordered me to jerk off right there.

It took me about ten seconds to blast my spooje all over his legs.
Considerably longer than that to clean up the mess I'd made using my tongue,
though.

I was his slave for a year.

That year, he got my body into perfect shape; when soccer season rolled
around again, I was a god. I did better than I ever had. He got me to
perform better in school, too; every test, every quiz, every paper, he gave
me one lash for every point I got below 100, all saved up for Friday night.
I began the year sore and bleeding; by the end of the year, I had to beg him
to beat me sometimes.

He taught me how to be a great cocksucker, and an excellent fuck. He taught
me how much pain I could handle; it was a lot more than I thought. And he
taught me where my border was between pain that was pleasurable, and pain
that was pain.

I worked my ass off for him. I washed his car, I did his laundry, I took
care of his yard, I cleaned his house. At first, I did all of that so that
we could get to the sex stuff. Later, I did it to please him. Still later
on, I did it because it felt good to do it all well.

I was his companion, his servant, his dog, his slave, his lover, his friend.
He was my Master.

And then the year was up, and he freed me.

You should try the Pad Thai with peanuts, and some of this sauce. Not much;
just a tiny bit, the stuff is nuclear.

I'd known from the beginning that it was just for a year. He never told me
any differently, and he reminded me of it throughout the year. I had fallen
for him totally, though, and I figured that there was no way he could let me
go; I was too good a slave, I was too devoted, I was in too good a shape, I
was too much in love with him. Surely once the year was up, he'd give me a
chance to stay longer. Renew my lease, as it were.

The day came, and he had me kneel, and he explained. He told me that I was
an amazing slave; the best slave he'd ever owned. That he cared about me
deeply, that he hated to let me go. Of course, at this point, my heart was
leaping; I was sure he was about to tell me I was his forever.

He continued to say that, even though I was a great slave, he didn't think I
was a natural slave; I wasn't born to serve, I didn't have it ingrained in
me. He went on before I could object; he said that the reason he thought I
excelled as a slave was that I was capable of excelling at anything. That
the kind of perseverance, intelligence and dedication that I'd learned while
being his slave could be applied to anything. That he was sure that I would
be able to continue on my upward trend without him now.

My Master said that he had no problem with keeping a slave, as long as it
was in the slave's best interest, and he believed that a year of service had
been what I needed, but if it went on any longer, I would lose faith in
myself as anything but a slave. He said I could be much more.

And he took my collar off.

It was a hard night, and a hard month or two after that. I felt lost at
first, but then eventually I realized that I really wasn't. During my year
as a slave I had focused on business in my studies, and had done pretty
well. I was just a semester away from a business degree, with a minor in
computers. My bills were paid up; my life was in order.

I tried to go back to him, but he turned me down gently. I tried being a
slave to other masters as well, but I found that I didn't have the respect
for them that I did for my Master; it wasn't the same. I couldn't get into
that mindset anymore. I'd lost the ability to go there; I felt like an
exile.

So I tried dating; I wandered into the vanilla world for a while. I met some
nice guys, dated them a while, moved on or got dumped. I went out with one
guy for three years. Yes, anyone I was serious with knew my past, and
sometimes we would play B&D games, but they were just games. And for a
while, I was satisfied with that.

But my one long relationship ended, and dating after that was... hmm. How to
explain it.

I found that in every relationship I got into, I was really focused on
making my partner happy. I'd put work into learning him; what made him
smile, what he liked doing, what sort of things cheered him up after a hard
day, what presents would totally make his birthday. I liked doing it; it was
fun to learn someone that well.

But it ruined them. I kept expecting that anyone who I treated that way
would put the same kind of work into me. Instead, they all, to a one, just
gave in and accepted that I was going to take care of them like that.
Instead of reciprocating, they just concluded that they could never treat me
as well as I treated them, so why bother trying?

It would spiral from there. I would get nicer, hoping they would appreciate
it. They would sink deeper into taking things for granted. And finally, I
would give up and leave them. As nicely as possible, of course.

I didn't understand it. I still don't. Maybe my expectations of people are
off; maybe I should have set up a balance sooner, or kept part of myself
back. Been less nice.

But I really don't want to be. It would mean changing who I was; I lead,
just by my nature. People rely on me, they look to me for advice, they come
to depend on me.

I kept finding myself in situations where I was with a guy, he needed my
help, he asked for my advice, and I gave it to him, and... nothing happened.
And months later, after going through hell, he'd take my advice. And for
those months, I'd have to listen to him talk about how awful things were
getting, and offering support, when the answer was right. There. The whole.
Time.

So, I was stuck in a series of relationships where I provided tons of
support, watched it undermine my lover's confidence, and had no say in the
direction their life was taking, and I realized... I didn't want a lover. I
wanted what I'd been for my Master. I wanted a slave.

I'd been trying to do for the guys I'd been involved with what my Master had
done for me; to help them, to show them what they were capable of, to mold
them into something better. It was totally unfair, of course; they were free
men, free to make their own decisions, and the relationships were based on
the idea that we were equal. I had no business trying to direct their lives.

So, I tried slaves. Did some research, worked with another Master, and
started searching for a slave; a full-time, long-term slave. I had a few
respond; I tried some of them out.

Each and every one of them were there because they wanted the pleasure of
being a slave; they wanted the whips, the chains, the orgasm denial, the
stuff you see in pornos. They didn't want to serve. I went through it time
and time again, and finally, I had one slave who thought nothing of getting
gangbanged while being flogged, but balked at washing my car. I was done.

I sent out word that I would only accept a slave for one night, and one
night only. Since then, I've had a succession of beautiful, willing,
submissive men begging me to use them. And I have. I don't expect much out
of them, and they don't disappoint.

And then, there was you."

----

The table was littered with the remains of thom kha kai, pad thai, massamum
curry, and, incongruously, fortune cookies. Master Ryan finished off the
last bit of chicken on the pad thai plate, and looked over at the slave.
"Speak your mind."

"Well, Sir, a long time ago, there was a slave..."

"Stop." Master Ryan frowned at him. "As much as I like your stories, as well
as they serve you, this isn't the time. I want to hear from you. What do you
want to know? What do you want to tell me?"

"Sir..." The slave took a gulp of his water; he seemed to have difficulty
getting it down. "I... can I refer to myself..."

"You're not even wearing my collar," the Master said. "There's just two
adults here, talking. Talk."

"Thank you, Sir. I suppose you know that I'm not really comfortable with
just talking, but this does seem to call for it."

The waitress arrived, and cleared the plates in a flurry of activity and
happy pleasantries. Master Ryan could see the slave gathering his thoughts
as she did so. When she left, leaving the check behind her, he continued.

"I suspected that Sir had been a slave. I've heard that some of the best
Masters have been. I knew, coming into this, that you wanted only one night.
But I also knew that you were known as a decent person, as well as a
trustworthy Master. And I was looking for more than just one night.

"I admit that I've been working hard to try to get you to break your own
rule; I admit that I have behaved manipulatively toward Sir, in order to do
so. This slave apologizes, but without regret. This... I... have had the
privilege of belonging to Sir for a number of nights, and I will always be
proud of serving Sir."

"Go on..."

"I'm sorry, Sir?"

"What is it you want?" Master Ryan asked.

"To serve you, Sir."

"How?" Master Ryan's face was stern.

"However Sir desires."

"You weren't able to do that the last time you served me," Master Ryan said,
gently. "What's changed since then?"

"This... I. I've had time to think about you, Sir. About what you were
trying to do. About how you've treated me. And I've had a chance to
experience life without the possibility of serving you, Sir." The slave took
a drink of ice water. "And I realized... I trust you. I want to learn what
you want to teach me."

"What's your name?" Said Master Ryan.

"...Sir?"

"Your name."

"Alfonso, Sir. Alf."

Master Ryan smiled. "Alf. Interesting. Okay, Alf. Here's how this is going
to work."

"I'm going to give you a shot. I think you've got the mentality that will
make it possible for you to be a slave, and a damned good one, for good.

"It's not that I think that you're not capable of life without being a
servant; you seem very capable. But from what I've seen from you, you've
been focused, each and every time we've been together. If you were asking
for something, it was for the opportunity to serve me further, or more. I
had given up on the idea that such devotion was likely, or even possible.

"What I'm going to do is give you a trial period. For however long I wish, I
will use you as my slave. When I determine that the trial is over, I will
either free you, or I will give you the opportunity to take my collar,
permanently.

"I'm not going to ask you to give up your life as of yet. I am, however,
going to be taking control of every aspect of your existence. I may tell you
to quit your job; I may make you work to succeed in it. I may make you go
back to school. It will take some time to figure out what you're capable of,
and what will make you happiest in my service.

"Yes, happiest. One thing that I will make certain of is that I attend to
your state of mind. I take my responsibility as a Master very seriously, and
the biggest part of that responsibility is your physical and mental
wellbeing. You'll be shaped, and molded, and manipulated, but you'll also be
guided and helped. Turning your life over to me is a gesture of trust, and I
will do my best to deserve that trust.

"I will change the way you dress, the way you groom yourself, the way your
body looks. I will change the parts of your manner and mannerisms suits me.
You'll be trained to serve me, both formally and informally, in whichever
ways I like. Of course, you'll be my sex toy, but beyond that, you'll be my
domestic servant, my pack mule when I go on hikes, my dog... whatever I tell
you to be.

"I will train you to fill all of these roles; you'll be rewarded for your
hard work, and punished when you slack off. If you fail, and you've been
trying your best, you will avoid punishment. If you succeed, but I believe
you could have tried harder, done better, you will be punished. You'll never
be punished for failure; only for a lack of effort.

"I want you to become the best slave I can make you into; I want you to be a
slave I can be proud of.

"In addition, I want you to know that, should you accept, I may not be the
Master that you know now, all the time. In other words, there is a set of
mannerisms, a way of thinking that one has to adopt when one is working with
a slave, and that is all you've seen of me so far. Our lives are going to
get much more intertwined than that, very soon, and you'll see other aspects
of me. There will be times, plenty of them, when I'll be in full-on Master
mode. Other times, I may be relaxed, playful, goofy... not the sort of
behavior that's associated with Masters, at least not in porn. In reality,
though, people have more to them than just one aspect.

"I also reserve the right to show you affection. If you want a Master who's
going to be stern and cold all the time, I'm not the one you want.

"Your turn to talk. Alf."

The slave paused a while, thinking.

"Thank you, Sir. Thank you for offering me the chance to try to be your
slave; thank you for the opportunity to serve you. I would say that I'm not
worthy of this honor, but Sir obviously believes that I am, and I believe
Sir.

"This... I think that from what Sir was saying, there was some concern as to
whether I expected Sir to act as I believe a Master should all the time. I
have the same image of a Master as everyone else who watches porn, Sir, but
I have had that Master, and it isn't what I want. I want to serve a Master
because I respect him, because I trust him, because he is the center of my
universe, and because he deserves it. I don't want to be there because I
feel an obligation; I want to be there because it is my privilege to serve a
great man.

"Sir, I believe that you are that man.

"I look forward to getting to know the different sides of Sir that were
mentioned. I can almost imagine Sir being goofy, and the thought makes me
happy; after all, if I'm not there to make Sir happy, there's no reason for
me to be there. I would not impose my own image of what a Master should be
on Sir; Sir is going to teach me what a Master actually is.

"This... I... This slave wants to belong to Sir, completely. And it will
work towards that, in whatever way it can. It believes that Sir is
remarkable, both in the way it handles this slave, and in the respect that
Sir shows. This slave wishes to become Sir's most valuable property, and
this slave understands that that is Sir's ambition as well.

"If I may be so bold as to ask, Sir... is Sir wanting this slave to move in
with Sir at any point in the future, so that it may serve Sir all the time?"

"Alf. You don't belong to me at the moment. And yes, I'll be finding out if
and when I want you to do that as we go along."

"Sir, I just wanted to have a goal to work towards. I'll bear that
possibility in mind."

"What else do you want to know?"

"Will Sir be sharing me with other Masters? Other slaves?"

"Not to begin with, no."

The waitress approached apologetically, and explained that the restaurant
was closing. Master Ryan apologized, signed the check, and made sure to
leave a good tip, and he and the slave left.

In the parking lot, Master Ryan stopped by his car. "It's late, Alf. Go
home, and be at my house at nine tomorrow night."

"Yes, Sir," the slave said. "And thank you, Sir."

 The Master ruffled the slave's hair. "Good boy."

 The slave moved suddenly towards the Master, and hugged him. After a
moment's hesitation, the Master hugged him back.

 "Thank you, Sir."

 "That's my boy."