Brad's Diary
It's Friday. I had just left a conference with Tristan, Keith and Stephen. In a return of matey solidarity, they confirmed my resolution concerning the protection and the nurturing to complete health of our friend, and my lover, Jeff.
The resolution embodied the following courses of action: (1) Engaging another friend, Matthew, a clinical psychologist, and an associate of Tristan's, to provide professional therapy that would help Jeff regain his health and memory. (2) Deploying security personnel, the best from Steve and Keith's agency, to fortify the security of the house and provide discreet round-the-clock protection. (3) Ensuring that Jeff was never on his own at any time, day or night. I had invited Tristan, and he had graciously agreed, to stay as a guest for the duration of time it was going to take Jeff to recover completely, and he would be in charge of the house and its management during the time I should be in the office. (4) Engaging additional help for the running of the household, including a housekeeper and majordomo. (5) Redecorating the house to facilitate Jeff's treatment and therapy, including transforming a guestroom into a clinic and new bedding arrangements. Unhappily, I agreed that Jeff and I should not share bedding until he felt absolutely comfortable with it and our relationship. Our bedroom would be his for the time being whereas I should move back to my former room.
It was going to be a huge sacrifice, the separate rooms and beds, but it was worth the investment of the time, emotions and attention it would take to make Jeff well.
This account is being entered into my diary partly as an apology to him. For he's unwell on account of my bad judgment.
Perhaps I should start from the beginning.
I'm Brad Hunt and I'm a spanking man. This isn't the apology about which I'd just made reference. On the contrary, spanking is a proclivity I have for which there's never been any necessity to make phony apologies. Similarly, Jeff's proclivities are bondage and being spanked – activities to which he responds very well and for which he has also no wish to apologize.
Jeff was a certified spankophile-in-embryo when I first knew him. It was a condition he'd known about himself since high school but had closeted and feared. I took him under my wing, nurtured his fetish from my stockpile of knowledge foddered from a ten-year experience, first as a bottom and later a top, from Internet research and from journals circulated by the East Coast Spanking Club to which I belonged. I had him recruited to the club and we attended spanking meetings and workshops together. I introduced him to people with like interests and fetishes, among the first, Stephen and Keith. I taught him what he was all about and why he simply derived pleasure from pain, discipline and control. Several months after we started casually dating, he moved in to be my roommate and shortly thereafter, we became lovers.
About the same time, our proclivities went through an evolution. Because we were lovers, I had felt it proper, and he had affected it satisfaction, to spank him in _s_e_x_. Later, when the proprieties had been observed, and our relationship became defined along discrete father-son lines of identification, I evolved spanking into his discipline regimen: failed grades, unfinished chores and infraction of common rules of courtesy all warranted a trip over my knees and a severe spanking with my hand or a slipper. Nothing stopped me before I saw and felt his bottom burn scarlet under my hand.
But Jeff was insatiable and because he was insatiable, I hungered to satisfy him. For as much as a bottom served his master faithfully to earn his steadfast favor, a top provided indefatigably for his boy's entire needs to earn his unwavering respect. Consequently, spanking was employed to encourage and reward acceptable and decent behavior: if he brought home a glowing report card, or made a sumptuous meal for us, or showed initiative at a college project, he was promised a spanking over my lap. But always I made him wait for it. This was to assert my right of control over him and the situation. He absolutely loved the cat and mouse game: being subjected to domination heightened his desire and he orgasmed potently when the time came for his trip over my knees.
Corner-time followed a spanking, sometimes a _d_i_l_d_o_ or rectal thermometer was thoughtfully administered, sending him wild with excitement, and afterward I'd put him to bed. I'd take the time to soothe him while he cried shamelessly but elegantly in my arms. This moment of intimacy was an appurtenance of the spanking context and equally important to him.
But, ah, how he would use to keep me busy. Sometimes I had my suspicions that it was he who was the master of these ceremonies and I the slave. He kept me on my toes, subtly pushing me to the limits of my imagination to invent endless opportunities and excuses to spank him. It was what he needed, wanted and craved. He appreciated this extraordinary, often unconventional, life he shared with me and to which he could come home daily: it was his way to explore and understand the side of his personality that was real but often confusing.
Let's face it: most societies marginalize fetishists as people suffering from a physical disease, a mental problem or outgrowths of demonic possession. But every one of the varieties of contexts in which I spanked him – the make-believe games, the foreplay, the discipline and reward – was an affirmation that built upon each other and each day of how his ability to connect pleasure with pain was so relevant to his identity.
And so, there was no doubt what I wanted to do for him when his nineteenth birthday approached. I was going to spring him a surprise spanking party. And I was going to make it a party to remember.
Simply for observation of social decency, I had sent out invitations to my guests in the quaint old form and antique conventions of handwritten cards. As Keith opined, it was such an anachronism in this convenient age of electronic mail and bulletin board announcements. But it was just another example of the extra mile I would go to make my Jeff feel special.
My guest list formed an intimate company of our friends, people, both men and women, gay and straight, who, like us, were members of the East Coast Spanking Club: Stephen and Keith, of course, were going to be there, as were Tristan and his Welsh husband, Sean. Others were our pals, Todd and his boyfriend, Dylan and Jason and his wife, Penelope; the exciting dominatrix, Linda and her Russian girlfriend, Natassjia; my cousin, Chris and his boyfriend, Mark; a former boyfriend, Brian and his Japanese lover, Takeshi; and Jeff's best friend and former roommate, Kevin and his African-American girlfriend, Samantha.
Indeed, I had deliberately selected friends who were already in some form of romantic relationship with someone. I did this to eliminate that awkward social obligation which always befell a gentleman attending a party, even a predominantly gay party – rescuing wallflowers when the dancing began.
I had also orchestrated the entertainment for the night. Actually, Steve and Keith had been delegated to coordinate this aspect of the party. Bearing in mind the party's spanking theme, and the cultural tolerance and sensibilities of our guests, they had constructed these marvels of a hodgepodge effect.
The warm up was the perennial and cross-cultural favorite, Strip Poker. It was the icebreaker intended to tear down all forms of modesty. It was going to be a non-partisan and aesthetically pleasing event, for there wasn't going to be a single clothed person at the party by the time the next game was introduced.
Which was going to be the other perennial favorite at any gay roast party – the improvised 'Pin-the-tail-to-the-donkey'. Of course, Jeff was going to be the donkey. A martyr to the sport of exhibitionism, he wouldn't have allowed anyone else to do the honors. The rules were well known: a leash led the donkey, in this case, Jeff, to the middle of the living room where he was stationed, kneeling on all fours, his naked bottom turned and facing the party. The guests were asked to blindfold themselves and, as soon as Jeff was ready, take their turns to pin the tail, in the form of a rubber _d_i_l_d_o_, to his backside. Each guest was granted one attempt to insert the end of the _d_i_l_d_o_ into Jeff's anus without the benefit of eyesight, and no one was permitted the additional advantage of touching him in order to find his rear end.
'Twister' was scheduled to follow. From the hyperbolic angle, I thought it was going to be such a hoot to get all the nude bodies in a twisted and mangled bind over one another. Another favorite, and since it was Jeff's best game – he'd always had a flair for the artistry of calisthenics and had been a gymnast in school till he grew too tall – his star was simply going to shine.
The piece de resistance was any child's party ubiquity – our version of the Piñata. We had planned to play this game in the soundproof basement cellar, which I was going to declare a free territory where lawlessness could be presumed to go unpunished. It was also to avoid neighbors bringing in the police and guests wrecking the living room in the middle of a delicate (_s_e_x_ual) witticism. Nevertheless, like 'Pin-the-tail-to-the-donkey', this sport was another testament of the irreverent way the gayset had created the license for substructures of pleasures and dangers associated with _s_e_x_ual excitement.
Jeff was going to be the Piñata. This closed sport should sufficiently feed his bondage fetish for the night as we restrained him naked with the wrought-iron ceiling chains that would lift him up about 5 inches off the floor. A small fee registered a guest as a participant who would then be given one chance only to administer a single spanking to Jeff's buttocks using a ping pong bat. A single spanking was specified as the token twenty smacks with the stipulated spanking implement. The Piñata was declared broken when a participant was able to spank Jeff to a multiorgasmic level of pleasure. By this, Jeff must be seen to have ejaculated no less than five times from a single spanking.
The night's winner was the one who collected the highest cumulative points from all the games. And the prize: an old-fashioned OTK spanking delivered to the bared bottom of our birthday boy. All this was going to be videotaped as a form of anticipatory nostalgia. I was going to provide the camcorder, and my cousin, Chris, the technical expertise. Ah, Jeff was simply going to love his fifteen minutes of fame.
Of course, as Steve had intimated to me on the sly, the games were going to be rigged. The diabolique was unavoidable: Jeff would otherwise be so incensed to find out he wasn't going to get a spanking on his birthday by his own master. For this matter, I couldn't honestly feel at ease to watch my boy being spanked by another person, even in fun.
As for the other party requisites, I had catered for finger food to prevent too much kitchen commuting during the party and heavy duty cleaning afterward. I had already placed orders for a new Damask tablecloth and flag-sized perfumed napkins from Spiegel's, and a behemoth of a chocolate velvet cake that was going to be done in a spanked-bottom motif. It was going to be sheer thematic overkill. But it was also a conspiracy toward tongue-in-cheek. No one was supposed to take things too seriously.
However, to prevent a neighborhood scandal, Keith had requested that Nigel, a souz chef who was also his brother-in-law, bake the cake for us. I already had a cornucopia of flatware that needed to be taken out for its once-a-year airing. But, as it turned out, only the silver forks were going to see daylight since knives would have been amply applied to the food in the caterer's kitchen.
The surprise party had seemed tailored for success. I remembered that I must make Jeff scarce when Steve and Keith put the house through the rigors of a temporary cosmetic makeover. Our guests also needed sufficient time to arrive ahead of Jeff. This wasn't going to be difficult. It was a Saturday, and as always, he had a study group meeting at the university library that would go on through evening.
"I'll come for you about half past seven," I had told him as he got off the car.
"That late, huh?" he had objected, noticeably flinching from the suggestion. He slid back gracefully into the car. "You know how it gets here sometimes. The library will have closed and it gets fairly deserted."
I put my hand on the back of his head. "I know, sweetie, but I don't think I'll be able to get out of my own meeting any time before seven," I lied uneasily.
"But it's my birthday, remember?"
"Yes, I do remember. And I got us dinner reservations for half past eight. We shan't be late. That's a promise."
He had looked a bit disappointed. I wasn't sure if it was at the fact that I couldn't promise to come for him sooner or at the ordinary present he seriously believed I had got him. He shrugged his shoulders.
"Okay," he sighed. "Pick me up here?"
"Mm-hmm."
We kissed and I watched him disappear among the brush.
The next time I was to hear from him, he had called on my cell phone. I'd been caught in bad traffic, the result of a terrific twenty-car pile-up, and was already more than half an hour late for him. _d_a_m_n_! He was just going to be so cross and I knew I was going to get it.
He had just time to tell me on the phone that he felt silly but afraid. I asked him why and he said he thought someone was following him.
Something unnerving stole over my mind and body. I believed him. Of late, gay bashing, catalyzed by the senseless slaughter of Matthew Shepard, had become the catchall for other homophobic mischief in our neighborhood.
"Someone's following you?" I replied with a measure of concern. "Where are you now?"
"Inside a phone booth," he answered.
I immediately told him to get off the phone and return to the locker room of the library. I was still informing him to wait there, that I would look for him there as soon as I arrived, when I heard an explosive crash and then the line all but died.
Jeff wasn't going to make it back to the locker room – I knew that already. I don't think I've ever known fear as I knew it the second that I heard the explosion. Nor when I arrived at the scene. The police were already questioning the drunken youth that had run his Chevy into the phone booth. That was where Jeff had placed me his final call. The youth could not recall seeing Jeff or hitting him, just the booth. And that had been razed to the ground.
What took place from the time of the accident and Jeff's disappearance has been a mystery till today. Only Jeff is able to solve the mystery, but not right now, for his memory and all that emotional part that goes with it have been effaced.
I'm well aware that the other person who may be able to provide some answer to the mystery is Coutts, the man who abducted Jeff and kept him a prisoner for the first four weeks of his abduction. However, I remember also that it was Coutts who started the notoriety. He was responsible for Jeff's life of comfort and security vanishing so precipitously during his abduction, for taking the warmth and homeliness out of his life. I despise him and in this state of mind, I feel capable of homicide. For his own sake, he ought to remain in hiding. That had been the latest word from Steve and the police: Coutts and Stoner had become outlaws on the FBI's list of America's most wanted men. Society imitating fiction? You figure.
And so, since that awful night, I have felt responsible for what poignant agonies Jeff has had to endure in the hands of his captors, and continue to shoot through every fiber of his body and mind, even now as he lies behind me sleeping on our bed. No doubt, he's been found but I feel a lifelong debt to him. You see, he hadn't wanted to wait so late at the library. He had swallowed all his pride to express his fear even then but I hadn't paid him more than cursory attention.
My consolation is the fact that although his memory loss is frightening, at worst, and trifling, at best, it's not irreparable. Tristan has given his assurance that, one day, Jeff will be restored to the primal and innocent landscape that we all take for granted, but is so precious, because elusive, to him. And when that day comes, I just have little doubt that he'll be hurt all over again, this time by his recollection that I'd been responsible for saddling his life with the current adversity.
But, I guess, we masters must always find an opportunity for our beloved boys to be one up on us, huh? For what's life if our boys didn't have the opportunity to say, "I told you so", at least once in a while?
I heard him rousing. I left the lectern and approached the bed. I sat beside him, watching him intently. His body seemed racked and wrenched with an insupportable anguish.
"Hot," he murmured, suddenly, kicking away the quilt.
His pajamas were damp. I observed the sky outside and realized from the glimmer of twilight that was spreading over the dome of Greenwich Village that he'd been sleeping for the past 26 hours. Tristan had said he needed to make up for the accrued sleep debt of the last two months.
I proceeded to remove his sweaty pajamas and afterward wipe away his sweat. I got up after that to adjust the thermostat on the heater. That accomplished, I drew out a lightweight quilt from the closet and furled it gently over him.
I stretched out beside him the next time. I knew there was a risk that I might frighten him: he could awaken and I could find I had accidentally stepped on an emotional landmine, but I had to be certain rather than speculate all my life. I wasn't the one with amnesia; I hadn't forgotten being in love with him. I couldn't stop how I felt for him, how I longed for him, even for all of Tristan's hypotheses that his memory had been detained on traumatic and sorrowful events.
But he didn't seem aware I was lying beside him. He had started murmuring instead. I hushed him, saying something about his having a dream. "Just a dream," I told him. I coddled him and his eyes sprang open. They were congested with tears. He looked at me momentarily, appeared to have registered recognition of me and shut his eyes once more.
As if on reflex, my hand went behind him. I caressed the ridges of the fading stripes of his last caning, their undulations resembling those of a snake. I went on to stroke his buttocks and, shortly after, started to pat them softly, as a mother would a nursing infant.
He responded. He was breathing deeply in time with every pat. He wasn't awake but he was edging closer to me, snuggling up to my armpit. I felt encouraged. I relaxed and shut my own eyes.
My other hand remained spanking his bottom, softly and incessantly, like the hum of Yellowjackets around the privet.
© 1998, 2001, JRK & BWK.