Tristan's Transcript
7 years of good harvest and 7 of famine. I remembered the story of Joseph as I counted the second week of drought in Jeff's therapy. He had been enjoying 7 months of mental harvest before this. But the euphoria of those months appeared to be dispersed in that moment of depression that had engulfed him a little before he regained his memory of the club where he used to work.
Matthew had also reported another week in which Jeff's progress had been slowed by the depression. It filled his wakefulness with the horror that his recent haul of images had all but vanished into a dark background.
By the end of today's therapy session, he was on his tether. I took compassion on him. I tried to precipitate his concussed memory to an assimilation frenzy by surrounding him with more of his prized possessions, mostly gifts from his family and friends amassed over the past ten years. My measures failed miserably. They neither prospected comfort for him nor defined the scope of his memory squalor. Finally, he dropped everything back into the cardboard box and scattered a few others onto the floor as he got up.
"Nothing," he cried in frustration, "there's nothing. It's like looking for a needle in a haystack. Why do you keep persisting? Just admit it. This is it. I'm not going to remember any more."
He had even rejected my offer of the jar of jellybeans.
"No," I said. "You're giving up. You can't. It's just a phase ... "
"I won't listen to this anymore," he yelled. "You've made me this promise before. I believed that time. Not anymore."
He fled.
"Come back, Jeff," I called him.
He raised his hands to his ears, semaphoring disbelief. "No, I'm tired of this," he exclaimed. "They're nothing but games. Stupid games."
"It's not time," I reminded him. "Our session isn't over."
"It is for me," he replied. "Just leave me alone."
He bowled into his room, shutting himself and his troubles inside. A warning burst suddenly clattered over my head – a silly paranoiac fear that he might do something to himself – and I rushed in. I found him tearing down the photographs Brad had posted on the walls. He was manic but unharmed.
"Stop that," I scolded. I grappled for the photographs. "Stop it, I said."
He spun round facing me. "Give them back to me," he screamed. He attempted to usurp the photos. I divined something akin to fear in his behavior, but fear of what?
"What's wrong, honey?" I asked. "They're just photos. Come now, you'll hurt Brad's feelings."
"I don't care," he said. "Anyway, where is he? He promised to be home .... look, it's almost five. Where is he?"
So this was what it was all about. But I'd seen it, hadn't I? It had been developing from the time Brad last spanked him, this love he was feeling for Brad that seemed to feed on the metaphor of a spanking. This love that was of a psychological dimension far advance of conventional relationships.
He turned back to the wall to finish what he'd started to do.
"Stop it," I told him, holding his wrists crossed over each other.
"You stop this," he said. "Let go of me."
I swung him round. He'd already started to weep.
"Come on," I persuaded, "he's probably on his way. Maybe he's caught in bad traffic."
"I don't care about him," he replied. "He obviously doesn't care about me."
He found a clear passage to the opposite end of the room. He checked the driveway from the window, found it empty, and drew back the drapes, angry and desperate. I studied him, searching for signs of a weakening from his exertions. But I found none that would get me off the hook. It was still up to me to help him relax.
"Okay, young man," I ordered. "That's enough. Go to sleep now."
I pulled back the quilt for him to get in. "Go on," I continued. "Undress and get in."
"I don't want to sleep," he snapped brusquely, picking up a point for aggression. "You do this all the time. Sleep, sleep, sleep. When you feel a conflict on the way, its 'go to sleep, Jeff'. Well, I'm not going to sleep. I'll sleep when I want to and not because I'm told to."
"You're fatigued," I told him, rising above his rudeness. "You'll feel better after a rest. Believe me."
He swore under his breath and lurched off to the stair landing.
I went in the opposite direction.
When I returned from my room, I had a syringe in my hand. It had been my last resort – subduing him – and I had detested the decision.
I found him in the living room, looking out of the window. The ledge had collected little rivulets of tears in the few minutes he'd been standing there.
"It'll help you to relax," I said, advancing to him. "You can get some sleep then."
I had made no attempt to hide the syringe and he had been thrown in a panic. "Please, Tristan, don't give me that."
"You need to sleep," I said. "You're tense and hurting. I'm not trying to harm you."
He darted fearfully from me, his eyes saccadic about my hand, and then he cried: "Put that away, please."
"All right," I said, "I'll put it away. But you must come upstairs with me. You will get some sleep."
"Put that away first."
"Promise me you'll come up with me."
"No," he said, "I don't want to sleep. I don't want a shot. I want to be left alone."
"I can't leave you alone," I said, taking a step toward him once more.
He stepped backward. "You keep away from me."
"I'm going to give you a shot," I told him. "You leave me no choice, all right? Now lie down on the couch, please."
He started to pace the small perimeters of the window area, adrift in a slow, liquid motion. All his lines of defense were wavering and he knew it.
"You made me a promise." [A last ditch effort to beat me.] "You promised no more needles."
[And a polite method of blackmail. But it wasn't going to work with me.]
"No, honey," I said, "I never promised you this. Remember? I said if you needed it ...."
"Put it away!" he snarled. [A defeatist's angst.]
But all of a sudden, with a look of defiance in his eyes, he sank to the floor, folding his legs under him. He began to thresh his hands about the carpet, pleading hysterically: "Don't I have rights? Was this how I lived before, without any rights? And always in submission to others' rules and punishment edicts? Didn't I have any rights, Tristan? Tell me!"
Unexpectedly, Brad walked through the door. His face wore the grace and restraint of a saint, his eyes the fixity of attention.
"Hello," he said. He saw Jeff first on the floor, his clothes rumpled, his hair tumbling over his eyes, his face wet with tears. Yet the presence of the boy, however much in torment, seemed to emit a vivifying ray that lit up his face.
"Jeff," he smiled, "what are you doing on the floor?"
The boy put his arms out in front of his chest. "You promised, Brad," he whispered, "no more needles. Tell him. Tell Tristan you promised me."
He sank to his knees beside the troubled but precious one. He gathered him into his open embrace. While their eyes glanced level, he gave his boy's struggles all his attention.
But after a long time, it was apparent that not even his lavish heart could provide his boy a sense of safety. He implored me next. His face was full of melancholic compassion for the boy, whom he had folded into his chest, completely enveloping him in his heavy coat.
"My God, Tristan," he pleaded at a depth in plain terms, "he's trembling. Is the needle really necessary? He's really frightened. He won't stop shaking till you promise him."
I felt unmanned. I wanted to explain what had been happening but changed my mind. I didn't want to grieve my friend unnecessarily.
"I did promise him, Tristan," he added, hugging his boy tightly.
If nothing else, it was deference for his position that eventually compelled me to concede to him. He was, after all, the boy's master and mentor. He was also the sole bearer of Jeff's moral conscience. Although being the boy's doctor put me in a position for pillaging ranks, I could affect it no notice.
"All right, I promise, no shots," I said. "But he needs to sleep. Maybe you can convince him."
I felt a presaging of tranquility come over Jeff as soon as I'd given my word. I was familiar with these simplifications of feelings which prevailed between the two men I knew and loved. Where Jeff was concerned, Brad, though well bred in exercises of discretion, could be partial, indulgent and overprotective. Under their circumstances, I could forgive his purblind eyes. Besides, his showing up at a time he was most needed had been well timed. I hated being the bad guy, glad I didn't have to hurt Jeff further.
I left the tormented boy and my best friend in a cocoon of breath and skin they'd spun around each other.
II
He had sought me shortly before dinner.
"I'm sorry," he apologized, sitting beside me in the drawing room. "I didn't like undermining your professional judgment and authority, and I was the one who had come to you, imposing on your time and expertise the care of Jeff. I had dishonored that."
I touched his face. Brad, my ex-lover and bottom. How I had loved him once upon a time, before we were respectively ousted by our current lovers, in his case, Sean, in mine, Jeff. I had loved the tender and beautiful face I still enjoyed beholding. I had taught him everything I knew, hadn't I, about being a bottom and now a top, Jeff's top? And how well he had turned out, surpassing my imagination and hopes.
In fact, he would be such an exemplar for all the new age masters and a good master to Jeff. His balanced sense of imperviousness and compassion had been on the fey – I hadn't taught him this. He'd always used to say that he wanted his entire life as a master to be built around the premise of competence and control. For sure, he was nearing his goal.
"Jeff's very dear to you," I said to assure him. "You did what you had to for his sake. How is he now?"
"Much calmer," he replied. "He finally managed to fall asleep. He's starting to ask a lot of questions now, why this, why that. It's my fault. I broke a promise to him."
I asked him why he'd been late home.
"Some problem with a cheating case," he said. "I can always count on someone to knock my timetable off."
He was talking about his students. Brad had a chair in the university's law faculty and for that reason, had been finding himself in a pedagogical posture for the past year. I'd heard that he was very popular. His lectures were full houses. My own itinerant teaching work at the medical center, where NYU med students interned, had put me in cognizance of the buzz that surrounded the professional grapevine: of late, Brad was becoming something of an institution in the law faculty.
So imagine the ramification for the faculty of his forthcoming intention, spelt out to me in our on-going conversation.
"I'm tendering my resignation," he had said. "I'm going back to strictly practice. I'm not much into the education kick, anyway. Jeff needs me to be with him. That's what's caused this afternoon's problem. He lost control. He admitted fearing I no longer loved him. This, as well as not getting anywhere with his therapy. I think he needs a break and I should take him away. Perhaps go to the family lodge. I'm not sure, yet. But as I was saying, I'm going back to the practice and I'm going to work from home till Jeff's fully recovered his memory."
"You know you have my constant support," I told him. "Time with you is probably what Jeff needs. His problem is no different from all the cases I've handled before. The last event that traumatized him is what's made him block out all the rest. Recalling that particular event will be the key to unlocking his memory. If you spend more time with him, he may recall that night when you'd been the last person to talk to him."
He nodded and thanked me for my support.
"This brings me to my next point," he went on to say. "I need a favor from you."
I asked him what it was and he told me in plain and simple terms what he needed from me.
"It's important to Jeff," he concluded, "to know that integrity exists in our relationship. I've wronged him. He needs to know I'm sincere and mean to keep future promises to him."
"Are you sure it's not penance you think you ought to pay him?" I asked.
"It's that, too," he replied. "You taught me all about the multi-leveled purpose of a spanking: penance, correction, motivation, reward. It's all that. I was taught by the best. But, my God, Tristan, he's expected to live by my rules, obey my dictates, conform to my schedules. What do I give him in return? Only my time and I hadn't been able to do that very well. I had promised to be home earlier and I hadn't been able to honor that. That's not fair to him. He has rights, too."
'Rights', I thought. I was hearing a sudden fructifying of that word.
"Don't be so hard on yourself," I told him. "You can't control what your students get up to."
"No, but as Jeff pointed out, I was only a phone call away. So, please, Tristan, do this favor for me."
I gave him my word.
The time came for Jeff to be roused for dinner. And for the favor to be done. Brad nudged his boy gently.
Jeff rubbed his eyes. He seemed embarrassed about something. He turned to me and said: "I'm sorry, Tristan. I behaved like a spoilt brat."
"When you're stronger, it'll be paid back in full," Brad told him. "I'm writing it into your log book as an infraction of the rule of courtesy. It was unmannered of you to speak in the way you had spoken to Tristan. You're due for a spanking from me. But later. In the meantime, I've also committed an infraction of a rule, that of a man's honor toward his promises. So I'm due for a spanking. And it'll be meted out now. You are witness to it."
He left his boy and came to me. He stood upright, surrendering himself to me.
"Brad?" Jeff called out.
"I didn't say you may speak, did I?" he scolded his boy.
Jeff's eyes filled up.
"All right, Brad, remove your clothes," I commanded.
My former slave ran his fingers through his tastefully streaked blond hair and pushed it back from his forehead. In the conventions of the spanking ritual that I had taught him not so long ago, he began the stripping process.
He cast his eyes on the buttons of his work shirt. His fingers rose to the buttons to push each one through its hole. The front opening of his shirt parted and he stripped himself of it. Remembering his old training, he folded the shirt and placed it on a bureau.
What an example he was setting for his boy who was observing without a batted eyelid.
His fingers next went to the top of his black pants. They nimbly unfastened the hook in the waistband and later unzipped the fly in the crotch flap. They pulled apart the fly and pulled down the pants. He let the pants fall to his ankles. He kicked away his shoes and stepped out of them. He let his socks alone. Then bent down, picked up his pants and folded them. Not breaking with conformity, he let these accompany the shirt on the bureau.
He approached me for the final ritual – removing his last piece of clothing. There was no escaping a naked spanking. In the master/slave subculture, ranks and roles were considered in relative terms and operated according to the rules of relativity. A boy, whatever his age, was always spanked naked. Ditto Brad, who, relative to where I ranked, was now a boy. My boy.
I gripped the top of his underwear, black lycra jock strap, and peeled it slowly down his groin, carefully maneuvering it past his pubic hair and genitals and finally easily negotiating it off his legs. He stepped out, bent to pick it up and discarded it with the rest of his jettisoned clothes.
He straightened up. I observed few defects in his naked 31-year-old anatomy and skin.
I gathered his 9-inch and twin testicles in my palm and, giving formality yardage, I pronounced aloud his infraction and punishment. I proceeded to sit down on the edge of the bed, and in doing so, I had earmarked the space on my lap as the spanking setting. As big as he was, I had wanted some intimacy with him that day.
He lay himself across my knees and waited. I sensed the tension of the sacrifice he was making growing in his buttock muscles as they flexed under my eyes. His heart slowly began to palpitate, throbbing against my thigh. And then he clutched my ankles to announce that he was ready.
I worked first my palm on his buttocks, administering 20 smacks, and then later the slipper, administering 30. In making use of the latter, I had relaxed my swing, for the impact of the heavy sole was far more convincing in the timing and pacing rather than the swing. On my part, I had distributed equal energies, time and attention to both his bottom cheeks while, on his part, he had escalated the dignity of his punishment by enduring his pain with a saintly sufferance.
Neither had he forgotten the legacies of his proud past. He had counted off between smacks, and interwoven into the count promises to keep his word to Jeff.
And what about Jeff? Indeed, he was a palpable witness and juror for not a sound had proceeded from him during his master's testimonial spanking. I believe he had received Brad's point loudly and clearly, for he was still weeping beautifully.
His master, now my boy, had also wept becomingly when I finally lifted him from my lap. It was all over. But now, as was in our sacrum, I must send him to take corner time. Because he had asked, I first let him kiss Jeff before I had him committed to a corner of the room, facing the window.
"You will stand here till Jeff and I have finished our meal," I commanded him, gently rubbing the sting out of his spanked backside.
We kissed each other, and as he thanked me quietly, he whispered, "May I speak, sir?"
I nodded, concerned for the sublime lines of pain that crossed his elegant face.
"Please take Jeff to bed with you tonight," he said with a naissant foreboding. "He's going to have questions."
Jeff did, indeed, wake me up in the middle of the night. I turned on the table lamp and queried his tears while unencumbering his burden with my arms.
"He cried," he answered sorrowfully.
"Does that trouble you?" I asked him.
He shrugged his shoulders with a tortured ambivalence.
"You know," I continued, "he wept every night of the two months you were missing."
"Why did he let himself be spanked?" he asked.
"I think you know," I said.
I gave him time to search his mind for some assimilation. Not long after, he nodded. "I think I remember," he said.
I asked him what it was.
"The anti-villainous dictum: there's honor even among thieves," he said.
"It's analogical. In our case, it's 'honor among slaves and masters'," I clarified. "You asked earlier if you had rights. I hope you got your answer."
"Yes," he replied. "Brad's honor. That's the premise of all my rights."
I nodded. "Brad has always honored the choices you made, honey. From the beginning, you freely chose this life of submission, as you called it, this life as Brad's exclusive boy, because you trusted him. In fact, you chose Brad to be your master and top after the two of you became equal lovers, not before. You made your choice because you knew he was able to give you what you had always wanted and needed. He's never let you down. And now, just as in the beginning, you also have the right to leave this life. Brad will honor that."
He shook his head. "No," he said instantly, boyishly, "I don't want to leave. I never want to leave."
Funny how I had felt no surprise to hear him say that. I kissed his lips.
Brad might not realize this, but his precious boy was on the road to mending his own psychological crevasse, and that must promise a transformation of himself.
© 1998, 2001, JRK & BWK.
(Next: Past Imperfect 11)