Mishka, Ky, Kirin. These were just some of the dearly-loved and faithless ones among kith and kin that had over time fallen by the wayside and, like the seeds of the written parable, got swallowed up by the rest of the world. I wondered if any of them knew anymore what loyalty meant. I had believed them when they had all said, "But of course, I love you, Han, I'll always love you." Had it all just been in my mind?
Mishka, the half brother I loved and would lay down my life and limbs for, was 38 in my sophomore year of college. About six months before, he had shattered my world with his ten-word telegram message. (The realms of cyberspace communication were still an uncharted frontier in my technophobic family.) Mish was joining the ranks of hoi polloi contentment through conventional wedded bliss, he had said in the telegram. This day had been a long time coming. My stepbrother had been sitting through countless number of matchmaking ceremonies from the time he was ripe for harvesting at 24, and counted among the village's most prospective and eligible catch. But Mish had delayed his ineluctable date at the marriage licensing office until now.
My defacto Ky, and former lover and tutor, had been on a research fellowship in some lauded university in Paris for about a year now. It got so that I was not to see him for more than a week at any time. Even our vacation time together was fleeting, and when we were lucky enough to be together, we spent the time resolving old crises that could always evolve as new conflicts so that our relationship became an epic cycle of conflict resolution and evolution. Now he had escaped to Paris, and was reunited with his French mother who had been estranged from the family for twenty years. Ky was realizing two of his dreams at the same time.
As for Kirin, my beloved friend who was also my father's grandnephew, the last time I checked, he was in untamed Africa with his father, both angling for an early and happy retirement from closing one of their biggest financial deals to date. I fancied opening up 'Forbes global' one day and finding their picture on page three.
And this is the summary of my paragons of authority - the triumvirate that ruled my head and heart like an autocracy. Indeed I hadn't much say as far as where I stood with them. Each had been my surrogate father, disciplinarian and spanker at some point of my youthful life, but all were as distinct in ambition and destiny as they were worlds apart now in different continents. But their ambition and destiny had denied me the fulfillment of the promise they had made me. 'Love me forever' was a fragmenting reality as elusive as the oft-quoted glass-ceiling allegory that was forged in the crucible of the feminist movement.
I was bitching from a pain and suffering point of view to my therapist again. Bob had lifted his thick-rimmed glasses to peer eagle-eyed at me and say, "You're still looking for love in all the wrong places. Give others a chance."
Perhaps I should.
It was October and Hex month at my college. Over a lunch of club sandwich, fries, hot chocolate and Prozac, I finished composing my mordant polemic on loyalty. I had crusaded to make my letter censorious and caustic. I licked the back of the envelopes and sealed in my letter, which I had triplicated. These would soon be posted to my cruel and faithless triumvirate.
"You don't really need that," someone said to me. A finger was also pointed at my bottle of Prozac and then the bottle was scooped up into a hand.
I looked up, annoyed at the intrusion. That's none of your business, I thought rudely.
"Doctor's orders," I said politely.
Of course such a friendly reply could only encourage the intruder's unwanted overtures further.
And encouraged he was.
"Is this seat taken?" he asked, returning my Prozac to its original place next to the limp fries.
Feeling more secure, I nodded in reply. "Yes, by you, I guess," I said coyly. I reached quickly for my emotional crutch and pocketed it, just in case my handsome intruder seized it once more and decided to retain it.
But instead he had reached into his concealed jacket pocket and drawn out a bottle of his own.
"St. John's Wort," he said, putting his bottle down under my nostrils. "It's being spun as the definitive pill of the new millennium," he continued, "better than Prozac. Its discovery is said to be the moribund of all other anti-depressants."
"Right," I smiled, unconvinced. "You're depressed?"
"Ah! Who isn't these days?" he observed, and then suddenly remembering, he added with a hand extended to me, "William Bryce Kessler. Friends call me Bryce."
"Hi, I'm Han," I reciprocated, shaking his hand, and then suddenly remembering also, I added, "and I'm a guy."
Bryce's eyebrows rose heavenward.
"People have been confused before," I explained.
"Oh?" he replied, pointing to my neck. "Even with that Adam's apple?"
"You think," I chuckled. "Go figure."
The ensuing ebb and flow of our conversation swept ashore what Bryce described was the flotsam of his life: his teaching position at the Drama and Speech School right here at this college, and his doctorate dissertation on the American stage. He was 39 years old, single and a member of the Gay and Lesbian Club and had seen me at the club's meetings many times. Although his area of academic study was drama, his real interest laid in photography. He aspired to a Met gallery opening, he told me. I aspired to a New York Times' book review, I told him. We toasted my hot chocolate and his Cappuccino and drank our toast to our aspirations.
"I'd like to photograph you," he said without warning, helping himself to my soggy fries.
I asked him why.
"You have an interesting face," he said. "It's the vital cord that connects the observer and the aesthetic form on a human level, giving the form a humanistic veneer. You'll see. Come by and visit my loft some time."
I gave Bryce's soft-sell overtones my characteristic shrug of ambiguity and then told him that I wasn't sure I was ready to model for anyone. But I didn't let on that I was curious enough, for the idea tuned in very well with the exhibitionist element I knew was latent within me. So I told him that I would think about it.
The following week, after my last class, I found myself wandering to the wing that housed the School of Drama and Speech. I checked the directory on the wall and found Bryce's name. His office was on the fifth floor. I pushed the arrow-up button beside the elevator doors. The doors parted at the center for me. But I developed the obligatory and predictable cold feet, and retreated from the building.
I hastened toward the union house. Along the way I found a bench that was secluded and claimed possession of the communal space. I was sure why I had come but was a meaningful relationship with Bryce going to be as elusive as the others had been? The idea that I might be on the rebound did cross my mind and this was a sure recipe for a disastrous relationship.
"You're not ready for a new relationship," I said, self-chiding. I was also studying my shoes for a very long time. Suddenly I found myself studying a second pair, Sebago wing tip suedes, across from my worn-out moccasins. Their owner plopped himself down on the bench beside me. Our knees touched.
"Saw you from my window. I'm glad you came," Bryce said cheerfully, the duck pond behind me reflected in his huge brown eyes. "I had hoped you would. Give me just a minute to tidy my desk and pack up my things, okay?"
I nodded. "Okay."
As Bryce half-ran, half-trotted on his partially-impaired legs back to his office, he hollered in his mid-western accent: "Don't go away! Wait for me. I'll be back before you can say Jack O'Lantern."
But Bryce was taking his time to return to me. "Jack O'Lantern," I whispered to myself over and over. Bryce finally appeared again on my eighty-third Jack O'Lantern.
Bryce opened the door to his floor-through and led us inside. His loft, situated about six blocks from the college, was gorgeous, and just the yuppie setup I imagined owning myself. Bryce went to the fridge, took out a bottle of wine and some gruyere cheese and set them down on the counter. He opened his pantry and removed a box of crackers and some dainty little saucers. We sat on the bar stools and ate. And spoke about the people we admired: Le Corbusier and Marcel Proust, Pachelbel and Constable, Robert Mapplethorpe, George Clooney, Reynolds Price.
Later, I pointed to the portraits on the wall. They were mostly male nudes. "Did you do them?" I asked Bryce.
He nodded. "From my series of erotics. Which is what I want to expand and explore with you."
I stared hard at him.
"You'll probably just be a little uncomfortable being lensed in the raw at first," he said assuring me, "they all were - those models you see - till I eased them gently to that final stage where they were completely nude. Don't worry. I'll be gentle with you."
"You mean you'll take off my covering a bit at a time?" I suggested more pointedly.
He nodded, speaking in a matter-of-fact tone: "Kind of like doing a strip tease. I want to photograph you at varying degrees of undress."
And then when he smiled, my penis extended between my thighs.
When we had cleared away the plates and glasses, Bryce invited me to the settee. I noticed his cameras perched on their tripods. More wine followed and I started to get tipsy. Bryce had edged closer to me and I watched through slightly heady vision his arms reached out to my torso. He removed the buttons of my shirt and parting it at the front opening, he pulled it back off my shoulders leaving much of the fabric loosely draping down my back. Next, he loosened the top buttons of my Levis. He parted the fly until three inches of the top of my underwear were exposed. He fingered the bits of my pubic hair peeking from the top of my brief and gently coaxed the strands out. He pressed me back against the settee, and my head dropped slightly for I was quite inebriated. Bryce lifted my face back up by my chin. He parted my knees farther and stepped back toward his camera. He lifted the camera to his face. Click, whirr, click, whirr, click.
I didn't attempt a smile, or any expression for that matter. I was only barely aware that I had just fallen into my debut.
Returning to me, Bryce squatted at my feet and removed my moccasins and socks. I was drunk enough to pay only minimum attention to the smell of my unshod feet. I felt Bryce pushing me onto my stomach. Click, whirr, click, click, whirr.
"Look at me," he ordered. Click, click, whirr.
Bryce returned to me once more and digging his fingers under my groin, he pulled apart the opening of my jeans. He pulled my jeans down to my thighs. I felt his hand patting my brief-covered bottom. I looked nervously at him. Click, click, click, whirr.
My jeans were next being completely removed. I soon became undone in just my underwear and unbuttoned shirt. Bryce urged me onto the carpet, drawing up one of my knees and stretching out the other. My hand instinctively went to my eye and I hid part of my face, bashful to be exposing my underwear to the lensman. Click, click, whirr. Next Bryce grasped my wrist and pushed my hand into my brief, resting my fingers flat against my crotch. I found my shaft; it was hard and erect. Click, click, whirr. After that I was prostrate on the floor, my arms folded under my chin. Bryce had taken my shirt off completely. My nipples had hardened considerably as well. I stared nervously at the camera once more. Click, whirr, click.
Bryce came back to me yet again and I felt his hands on the elastic top of my brief, about to remove my underwear. I turned over and placed my hands on his, stopping what he was about to do. "There's something you should know," I told him.
"Yes?"
I swallowed hard, got up and slowly rolled down my brief, leaving it there just under my testicles. I turned my back to Bryce and looked over a shoulder at him.
"That's beautiful," Bryce said. "Hold that pose."
"No wait," I started, but too late -
Click, click, click, whirr.
"Don't," I grimaced. But Bryce simply snapped away, helping me to forget that I had a caned bottom I had wanted to confess.
"Lay on your stomach," Bryce ordered me now. I found myself obeying. It was getting easier.
"Very nice," he said, and snapped away at my naked, welted bottom. "Now turn over. Good."
Bryce stood over me while I lay prone with my brief still beneath my private parts, exposing my nude genitals to his lens. My arms flew to my eyes. That pleased Bryce all the more. I drew up one knee and let it cross over my groin, partly shielding my genitals. "Very nice," Bryce said.
Click, click, click, whirr.
And then for the next hour, I simultaneously followed Bryce's orders and posed for his camera. Okay, sweetie, he said, take off your underwear. All the way. That's right. Now place your hand lightly on your _c_o_c_k_. Lie on your side. Lift your head up. No, honey, put your head on your hand. That's it. Bend your knees a little. Good. Look up, sweetheart, very good. Now give me a doggy kneel. Part your knees. Wider. Turn your head back. Look at me, baby. Nice, very nice. Now crawl over to that table there. Perfect.
Click, click, click, whirr, whirr.
My triumphant debut was celebrated with bosoms molded into each other like long-time buddies, configured like a Granny Neva pretzel. Very much sinfully later, after cutting to the chase to declare his intent on pursuing and possessing my heart, Bryce drove me back to my apartment, on the nadir of a hunchbacked fog, in his silver '88 Chrysler.
As promised, I was back at Bryce's apartment a week later. I had made my own way there for appearing available and mobile was socially important. We were on the final gasp of Hex and tonight was Halloween. Neither Bryce nor I had wanted to attend the college party since we had plans of our own. Bryce greeted me at the door. He was masquerading as Count Dracula. I was a puny Spiderman. Bryce had wanted me to wear a jock strap and arrive with my crotch shaved tonight.
"I have to ask you," he said as we tricked each other with white wine and treated on buttered pumpernickel bread on his couch. "How did you get those welts and bruises?"
Unrattled, I knew that question was coming. It was just a matter of time.
"Self-inflicted," I told him. I was not astonished at my own frank admission for, after all, I was going to tell him that the previous night when he had tried to remove my underwear. Besides, the old cane welts had not bothered him in the least that time. In fact, he had found them intriguing and elevated them to a dubious aesthetic rank by exploiting them in the snapshots.
"Really?" I heard him ask. "Why do you spank yourself?"
"There's nobody else," I replied cryptically.
"You do this often?"
I nodded.
"You're into spanking?"
I nodded.
"What do you use?"
A short cane, I told him.
"And you have your clothes taken off?"
I nodded.
"Everything?"
I nodded.
"Pants and underwear, too, so you're naked?"
"Yes."
Bryce boldly launched into a litany of queries of a personal nature I wasn't really sure our relationship was within close and polite parameters to permit: other fetishes? No. BD/SM? No. Body piercing? Scat? What about toe-sucking?
No, no, no, I said.
Bryce then requested that I showed him how I had spanked myself.
I giggled.
But now Bryce had assumed a solemn posture. He ignored my laugh and proceeded to strip off my superhero veneer. I was left almost naked in no time, clad only in my white strap, to pay the penalty for my non-compliance. Bryce turned me on my stomach, twisted my arms behind me and crossed them at the wrists. He pressed them down against the small of my back. My penis stirred and hardened under my strap. Bryce's free hand went to my bottom cheeks, stroking them and tracing his fingers along the ridges of my welts. And then he left me stretched out on his couch in just my strap, pulled taut into my crack. I heard the familiar whirrs of the camera's mechanism while Bryce perused it once again.
"Seriously," Bryce said suddenly, putting down the lens, "show me. What do you need?"
He went to his armoire and buried his head in its musty recess. Shortly after, he returned to me with a ping pong bat.
"I don't have a cane but would this do?" he asked, handing the bat to me.
I gripped the handle of the bat tightly. As I did, I felt restored to the old longing for the pure pain of my boy bottom being spanked, which would gradually ebb and transport me to that well of joy that ran over inside my being only I understood.
"I don't know, Bryce," I dithered, in spite of myself and the longing in me.
But Bryce had pulled me up to yank down my underwear. "Do it," he said, giving his voice a commanding edge.
I felt tears beginning to well in my eyes. But something about a man's dictate could always compel me to obey and so I lay on my back and parted my thighs. I knew I was exposing my recently-shaved private parts to Bryce as I threw up my legs and used the wall to pillar my feet. I gathered my genitals in my left palm and held them away from the path of the ping pong bat.
WHAP! I felt the bat slam against my own left bottom cheek and I hollered.
WHAP! I slammed the bat against my right cheek. It was weak for the reduced leverage in my swing caused by the shortness of distance between my spanking arm and buttocks. I let out a tiny wince.
WHAP! WHAP! WHAP! WHAP! WHAP! I must have spanked myself about five minutes for my arm was straining and I was weeping. But now Bryce had taken away the bat and turned me over his lap. He took over the spanking and was doing a better job of it than I had.
I felt his fingers under me next, and they were twirled around my genitals, both my erect penis and testicles together. And then Bryce pulled out his own massive tool from the top of his black trousers. He forced me down on his own erect eight-inch and I did my best to eat him up. At the same time, he continued to spank my bottom with the bat. It occurred to me that Bryce was no stranger to what I had thought was a kink he could never understand and might find repulsive. He was spanking my bottom very hard and expertly though it caused little damage to any part of my body. In time, my legs started to buck and I was yelling for him to stop.
Bryce stopped the spanking and turned me under him, pinning me down with the weight of his entire body. Then he clamped his mouth on my six-inch and surprised me with fellatio. My bloodlusty vampire turned my pain into pleasure and made me come after his lengthy foreplay. I spurted cum into his mouth, and then I heard him thank me for being vulnerable and submissive to him.
"How long have you been spanking others?" I asked Bryce while he reloaded his camera.
"How long have you been spanked?" he asked in reply.
"Since I knew how to be bad," I said naughtily.
"Ditto," he said, winking at me.
We went on to take more nude portraits of me, exploiting as many niches of his loft for backdrop as Bryce felt was creatively suitable. He had reworked proletariat homily as luxury, draping my nude landscape over a wrought-iron bed head and Formica countertop, and immersing me in his tub of dissolved bath salts from the Dead Sea. He had parodied as burlesque but indispensable humor sleeping in the buff astride his neck roll, my private parts humping his neck roll. He had high-styled scatology as an artistic expression, suggestively abandoning my jockstrap around my ankles while my bottom wondered at the seductive prowess of his bidet. It became quite wild and I regretted not having met Bryce and done this earlier. I had enjoyed my embryonic pseudo-romantic introduction to Bryce's hobby, posing naked and flirting dangerously risquely with his camera out of an excess of my own enthusiasm for exhibitionist art.
It was four o'clock in the morning when I left Bryce's protective arms and warm nest, with the promise of a third session with his camera the next day. I arrived extremely late and elated at the apartment I still shared with my defacto, Ky.
"Where the heck have you been?" someone bellowed as soon as I stepped into my living room. Startled, I cried out in fright.
"Do you know what time it is?" the voice continued about the same time that the light came on. The dim light pored over the handsome mien of my oldest stepbrother.
Oh _d_a_m_n_ation! I had forgotten about Mishka!
"Mishka!" I cried, and then flew into First Brother's bosom. Mish gathered me into his arms and embraced me. But then all of a sudden, he drew away from me and ordered: "Take all your clothes off. Everything you've got on. By God, little brother, are you going to get it!"
Double _d_a_m_n_!