Date: Sun, 14 May 2006 18:51:52 +0200
From: Julian Obedient <julian.obedient@gmail.com>
Subject: Between Two thieves

It began unsought and without warning. I met him not in a leather bar
or out on some dark street beside the river after midnight, but in a
well-appointed ballroom at the Hilton Hotel in mid-town Manhattan. It
was the afternoon of the third day of the mid-winter meeting of the
Modern Language Association. He was chairing a panel on Shakespeare's
Last Plays, and because I had written about some of those plays in my
doctoral thesis -- even though since I had become an adjunct at CUNY I
had only taught freshman composition -- I thought I'd go hear what the
people who had the luck actually to be teaching Shakespeare had to
say.

As usual, I was disappointed, and I may have been a bit belligerent
when, during the question period I pushed one of the panelists to find
a connection between Lear and Prospero that seemed obvious to me,
about how Shakespeare had transformed Lear, a hero who was destroyed
by tragic forces, into Prospero, a hero who triumphed because of his
mastery of magic forces.

You oughtn't be so hard, Ben said to me without preamble as I found
him walking beside me as everyone was leaving the room.

I'm sorry, I said. I forget where I am sometimes when something is
important to me.

You can't let things get to be that important, he said with a generous smile.

That's easy for you to say, I responded.

Do you feel like explaining that? he said, but without belligerence.

Well, you've got tenure, I said before I could think, a professor at
Columbia. Everyone in the field knows your name.

And in my voice -- even I could hear it -- there was an edge.

Oops, I said. I'm sorry, I said. I think I did it again.

It's okay, he said, placing a strong hand on my back. I understand.

No hard feelings? I said.

None whatsoever, he said. And to prove it, let me buy you a drink.
Have you been to the place across the street yet?

No, I said.

Well, what say we go? he said. I wonder, he added, holding the door on
to Seventh Avenue open for me, if they didn't deliberately choose a
hotel that would have a gay bar across the street from it.

Are you! I said.

Isn't it obvious? He responded with a laugh.

Nothing is obvious to me, I said.

Well, he said, his palm still pressed against my back, we'll have to
do something about that.

I must confess that during the panel, and especially when I was
speaking from the floor, I hardly saw Ben -- or anything else, for that
matter -- and would be at a loss had I been asked to describe him, but
now, standing with our sides pressed against the bar and as I was
taking it slower with a second vodka martini than I had with the
first, I got to look at him and register what I saw.

Unlike me -- I was wearing jeans, brown loafers, a black turtle-neck
and a three-button grey, blue, and brown herringbone jacket -- he was
wearing a suit and tie and looked like he had stepped out of a men's
fashion magazine -- or was ready to be photographed for an ad in one.
It was a charcoal brown suit, pleated trousers and a three-button
jacket tapered at the waist. The shirt was a pale plum color; the tie
a pale pearl. His eyes, however, were anything but pale. They were of
an intense and disconcerting blue that I found myself unable to look
at even though he fixed them easily upon me.

Did you intend to go to the plenary session this evening? he asked.

Probably, I answered.

Why don't we skip it," he said. I'm hungry and we can have dinner
together instead.

Okay.

You sound reluctant, he said with a smile. Is it me?

Oh, no, I responded. But, I'm afraid we travel in different circles
and my budget would not allow me to go to the kind of restaurant I
imagine you are accustomed to eat at.

It's on me, he said, touching my cheek.

No way, I said, smiling.

Ok, ok, he said, withdrawing his hand.

Look, I know a great falafel place on Seventy-Second Street, he said,
and then we can go over to my place on Central Park West, for coffee
and brandy, if you like.

Deal, I said.

***************

It must get frustrating, he said, sitting across from me in a dark
brown leather deco club chair the twin of the one I sat on in his
study, term in, term out.

I take what I can get, I said with a shrug.

A little more brandy? he said as he handed me the joint we were
passing back and forth.

Sure, I said, eager to go where I thought he was taking me but unable
to make the first move myself.

So where do you see yourself in five years? he asked with a laugh.

You sound like a job interviewer at the MLA, I said.

I know, he said. Answer the question anyhow.

God, was he handsome.

To tell you the truth, I said, I don't look that far ahead. There's no
job security and I live frugally. I try to save as much as I can.

He raised his glass to me in a silent toast.

It was late and when I stood up to leave, he took me in his arms.

I knew when I saw you this afternoon, that I wanted to have you, he
said in my ear and then kissed me.

His kiss broke something in me then, and I knew that I had been trying
not to see what had been perfectly obvious from the start. He was my
heart's desire and I had been afraid to acknowledge that. But now that
he held me in his arms and pressed his lips to mine, everything
changed. The world was a new world. I was a new man. I gave myself to
him because I wanted to, desperately, because he had already taken me.
I gave myself to him because I knew I was, in fact, his. He was
everything I wanted. He was everything I wanted to be and knew I
wasn't.

He had already loosened his tie earlier and taken off his jacket.

Unbutton my shirt, he said, and my fingers obeyed as he probed my soul
with his tongue.

My hands held on to him, feeling his smooth chest, his muscled
stomach, his hard nipples, his washboard ribs. Had I let go, the earth
would have swallowed me. I fell to his feet and kissed his ankles.

He squatted; taking me by the chin with his thumb and index finger, he
lifted me back up with him and kissed me gently on the lips as we
rose, and brushed them with his tongue. Through my turtle neck he
softly tortured my nipples.

Let's shower before we go to bed, he said.

I pulled off my turtle neck and shivered when I saw by how he was
looking at me that he liked how I looked shirtless.

I think I'm never going to allow you to wear a shirt again, he said,
and gently caressed my nipples, gazing into my eyes. It was exciting
to look at him and to get lost in locked eyes.

There's a big difference between the way tenured faculty members with
a rank of professor live and the way adjunct lecturers like me live, I
said, pulling myself back from the edge. This is all dazzling.

Relax, he said. It's just the beginning.

We climbed a winding marble staircase inside the apartment from his
study up to the bathroom.

He caressed the back of my neck.

You don't know how turned on I am by your innocence, he said.

Not as much as I'm turned on by you, I responded. Forgive me, I said.

It's okay, Julian, he said. I like it. I want you to be turned on. I
want you to feel that I have a power over you like no one else ever
had.

*****************

I stayed with him that night and he made love to me. He made love to
me. Understand the emphasis. He took me. He accepted me. He brought me
to life. He made everything happen.

He overwhelmed me.

As we sat at breakfast, he told me he wanted me to move in with him.

But we just met. We hardly know each other, I said; but as I said it,
I felt it was irrelevant.

This has nothing to do with knowing each other, he said. It's about
who we are. I know enough to know exactly what you are, and I want
you, and I know that you want me the way you've never wanted anyone.
And I know, he said, smiling, that you are a submissive.

I repeated the last part of his sentence as if to deny it simply by
repeating the words.

A submissive, I said.

But he stopped me.

You don't need to deny it, sweetheart. There is nothing to be ashamed
of, and you know it is true.

As he spoke I was fascinated by the strength of his jaw, how it was
both square and angular. I wanted his mouth on mine.

You see, he said, that I, he continued, am naturally dominant. I have
known it since my childhood. Instinctively, people are drawn to me,
and they want to do what I want. I've seen it working all my life. I
get what I want. I always do.

If that's the case, I asked, why me?

I never, he said, demand reasons of myself. When I sense I desire
something, I do not question why. I simply satisfy my desire. And that
is what I am doing now. If you wish to continue teaching a few
classes, he added, I have no objection. But it is not at all
necessary. As you have yourself noticed, my income is more than
adequate to allow me to keep you. If that makes you uncomfortable, you
might think of yourself as my assistant. It will be a lot more
interesting for you than marking freshman themes. I usually publish
one book and half a dozen articles a year. I can use the kind of help
I know you can give, from doing library research for me to serving me
coffee and brandy.

It was useless for me to resist him; I was flattered; and I did not
want to. This is what I had been daydreaming would happen for years.
Now it was.

The western sky stretched outside. He stood and came over to me. I
stood. He slipped his hand inside the long, thick terry robe he had
given me, and cupped my chest and I felt his palm against my nipple.

We kissed with exquisite gentility, slow, largo kisses. Great fields
of sky unfolded in my inner vision.

I moved in with him, gave up teaching at the end of the fall term -- a
matter of weeks -- and became his assistant.

**********

The importance of ritual, he said as we walked through a snowy Central
Park one late Friday afternoon, goes unrecognized in secular society
and has been robbed of its vitality and been rendered soporific in
ecclesiastical contexts.

It was obvious, too, he said then as he had said more than once, that
I was a submissive, eager to serve a master who could reach into my
heart and reveal my identity to me.

It was not difficult for me to realize that he was my heart's master,
my perfect image, my guiding force, the direction my heart yearned to
follow.

But it was difficult for me to contain the overflow of love I felt for
him. It was like being on the brink of an explosion, always about to
burst. The world was rich and full and the illuminated towers on
Central Park West in the twilight all seemed to be mine. The city
itself was embracing me.

Through the cold night air of January, I told him that was how I felt.

That is why discipline and ritual are important, he said. That is why
I am going to put a leather harness on you. It symbolizes the
restraint, the control you require and that I am able to provide.

I was dizzy. This was about power, the love I felt for him; our
relationship. It was about the greatness of his power and how it
dominates me. I began to feel a vital strength directing me -- his; I
knew it -- that I had never experienced before.

********************

It was not marriage, and yet there was a frenzy preceding our new
arrangement that must be like that which marks the time leading up to
the social ceremony of a marriage and the private encounter of the two
beings thus locked together as they confront each other as naked
sexual beings traveling through their mutual erotic territory in their
first complete embrace.

He bathed and shaved and anointed me, and led me to his bed-chamber. I
had to wear a black silken robe loosely tied and showing my naked
chest, my vulnerable throat, my well-muscled, lean legs, and the
black, skin tight, mini boxer briefs he gave me to wear. The room was
illuminated by a dozen wax candles; it was scented with the
exhalations of a multitude of cut flowers. As I lay stretched out, my
arms above my head upon his bed, naked but for the narrow leather
bands that served for a collar round my throat and bracelets for my
wrists, slowly he caressed my flesh, at first with the greatest
gentleness, gradually increasing the strength of his touch until
finger tips became nails and kisses became vampiric bites, and indeed,
my lips did bleed, and I screamed in ecstasy when his teeth pierced my
nipples. But he muffled my scream with his mouth over mine and
penetrated me with his fingers, pulling me upwards towards him and
then piercing me deep inside till he was buried all the way in me. I
yielded to him with great sobs as he entered me and withdrew and
entered me again. I throbbed and pulsed, begged for him with my body,
drew him in, released him and then drew him in again, panting in
frenzied undulations.

He pushed himself so deeply within me that I was transformed into him.
I felt the beginning of becoming as his spirit pulsed within me and
drowned me.

****************

Pain is as necessary as pleasure, he said, between kisses, as we lay
on the hot soft sand, and he gently brushed my lips with his tongue.

The sun beat down from a cloudless, boundless blue sky. The turquoise
Caribbean stretched to an infinite horizon and broke to pieces in
white flakes of foam against the beach.

He was dazzling: his long muscular body, bronzed, extended beside
mine; his face like the face of a divinity.

Pain, I said.

Pain, he repeated. Agony and suffering. I want to take you to the
edge. I want to feel you writhing and suffering, needing to come and
not being able to. I want to hear you scream and beg and plead with me
to let you come and feel you clawing my skin and biting me in your
agony. I want to keep you in that condition for days until you beg me
to do anything to you, but to release you from your agony. You want
that don't you?

I couldn't breathe. I was painfully hard. I grabbed him by the
shoulders with hands that had become claws and kissed him as if I
wanted to devour him.

Oh, yes, I said.

No matter how much intellect and sensitivity, he said, holding me away
from him and smiling, underneath there's always the greedy whore.

It struck a discordant note. I was taken aback. Did he mean it?

You're only a greedy whore, aren't you?

His tone was changing. He wasn't smiling. It sounded like he was
serious. There was a threat in his voice and something frightening.

You're just a greedy whore who needs to be fucked.

I looked at him in confusion.

Say it, damn it. Admit it, he said. The other couples on the sand
around us were looking now as he slapped me.

Say it, he said, I'm just a greedy whore who needs to be fucked.

I couldn't believe this was happening. I felt another slap pull me out
of the daze.

Say it: I'm just a greedy whore who needs to be fucked.

I began to cry, but I saw in his eyes it would be impossible to defy him.

I'm just a greedy whore, I said, who needs to be fucked.

*************

What right do you have to torture me like this, I spit out in
rebellion, that night when we were in our hotel room.

No sooner were the words out of my mouth but I realized my mistake.

The blow was swift and sharp and stung on the cheek. It came from a
thin wisp of a reed he played with. I was mortified.

Kiss it now and say thank you, he said. I knew it was more than a
game. It had been going on since that afternoon on the beach.

I glared at him unbelieving.

He understood me, but would not explain, and would not tolerate
resistance. I felt another whiz of the stick upon my cheek. It burned.

Now, he said, holding it to my lips, kiss the stick; or would you
prefer another kiss from the stick?

I could see from the blackness in his eyes that he was serious. The
threat was real.  I was shivering, although it was hot in the room,
and, to my shame, my cock was standing stiff.

I kissed the stick he held to my lips, waiting for him to relent, to
end the game. But he didn't.

Say thank you, sir.

The words broke out of me in painful fragments.

Louder, he commanded touching the stick to my shoulder.

Thank you, sir, I said with tears in my eyes.

Scratching the edge of the stick against my bare skin, he dragged it
from my shoulder down to my nipple and then pressed my aroused nipple
with its rough point. I gasped.

Silence.

I bent my head in submission.

Again he pressed the stick into my nipple and twisted it.

A wave of electricity shot through me. I kept my breathing even; my
belly contracted.

Do you like the pain?

I could not speak.

Answer me, he said, with another prod of the stick against my nipple.

No, I said.

Without warning I felt the cut of the stick against my rib cage.

He repeated the question.

Yes, sir, I said, hoping that would prevent another blow.

But one followed immediately.

I understood.

Sir, thank you, sir, I said.

Gently, as if rewarding me, he pushed the stick into my nipple.

And then he touched my penis with its point and slid its length along
my shaft as if measuring something. And then I clenched my eyes shut
as the swift whip of the stick cracked the hard bone of my cock. And
then a second blow.

To stop it, I say, Sir, thank you sir.

Ask for more.

No, I cried.

Another blow.

And another.

With each blow the bone of my cock grows harder; the skin, hotter

This will go on forever until I am cringing on my knees and bent to his will.

More, sir, please, sir, more, I cried as he struck me.

I thought I said that as a ruse, as a way to get him to stop, but as I
heard the words coming out of me, they sounded genuine, and I knew,
with certainty, that i meant them.

With all your heart, you will see, you will beg me to hurt you, he
said, finally stopping,  touching the stick to the tip of my chin and
raising my head with its point so that I was looking up into his eyes.

Later that night, I lay sobbing in his arms as he kissed me gently and
told me how much he loved me. My heart melted and I told him I loved
him,  too, as I had never loved anyone,and when I kissed him I felt
myself evaporating.

------------------------

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