Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2007 00:30:25 +0200 From: Julian Obedient Subject: The Straightness of A Tree in A Winter Field It was not easy to go from being a person who always had his way to someone who could be completely ignored. And yet, it happened. Randolph often left me naked on the back porch even on chilly autumn days when the sky was lowering and the wind was shaking the last sere leaves off the maple trees. I learned that no amount of acting out, whether banging on the door, or screaming, or crying would get his attention or get me into the warm house or near the fireplace. Of course I'd get sick after being kept out like that. For days I'd sneeze or cough. My nose would run. My joints would ache. Sometimes I had a fever. Sometimes I'd have chills. But it was all beside the point. I still had to present myself in my black mini-boxer standing at attention with a smile plastered on my face, my chin high, and my eyes focused on an imaginary spot on the floor as near my toes as possible. I no longer felt any pain in my pierced nipples, except when Randolph would give a sharp tug to one of the little chains that hung from the circles pushed through the piercings. I'd learned to stifle the gasp that was automatic when he did, but I never could control the erection he caused and that I was forbidden to touch. Lester Weber rang the bell and I answered it, eyes cast down, but he always took me under the chin when he first entered and raised my head so high that I had to see his face and meet his gaze for a moment. It always penetrated me and sharpened my breathing. That's enough, he said and took his thumb away from beneath my chin. Lester, my master cried, extending a hand to the guest and pulling him close enough for them to fall into a warm kiss, erotic and sensual. My master, lean, fit, and rugged, while not old, looks mature. He has a full strong crop of hair, for example, but its brown is turning silver. Weber is ten years younger, in his late twenties, a professional swimmer with a great back and a handsome torso that is always sun-bronzed. He gave up competitions for a life in banking, but he has kept up his swimming. He is as marvelous in an Armani suit as in jeans or a speedo. My blanket was laid on the back porch and they locked the kitchen door after they put me out and settled on the divan in the library in front of the fire. O'Malley let me in a five-thirty the next morning. Get yourself washed and shaved, he said, unlocking the downstairs bathroom for me. The hot shower water softened my stiff joints. I've never gotten used to sleeping on the floor and fantasize, rather despairingly, about the day, the night actually, when I'll sleep in a bed again. I let the hot water beat on me as long as I could drawing its heat into my cold bones. I felt the energy building within me and establishing pressure points in my nipples and cock, and all the way through the canal that leads into my center. But I kept my hands away from all these points. They had been made off-limits to me as Randolph had made them his property. I stood holding the silver tray keeping my place behind him as O'Malley opened Randolph's bedroom door and silently walked in. I followed. He signaled me to place the tray on the bedside table. I did and we both left as silently and quickly as we had come. For the two lords on the bed, it was as if we had not even been there. They remained in the oblivion of a kiss throughout our presence, magnificent in their passion. I spent the rest of the morning polishing the silver, knives, forks, spoons, ladles, platters, goblets, candle sticks. In the afternoon, I was turned out doors to brown in the afternoon sun. Three days after Lester spent the night, Tom Broughm called. He was flying in from Santa Monica and needed to see Randolph personally. It's Broughm, Randolph said, turning to me as he placed the telephone receiver back on the cradle. I want you to come. I did not look up from the boot I had brought to a radiant shine, but I did say, Yes, Sir. The name Broughm was vaguely familiar, but whenever I got near to focusing on an actual person to connect it too, thought eluded me. I kept forgetting what I was thinking about and had to force my eyes together and squeeze my brain pan, as if memory were like lemon juice and could come from pressing. You'll need to be dressed. I'll have O'Malley take care of it. You'll need a new suit. You are leaner than you used to be. There was a surprising tone of tender affection in Randolph's voice, as if he were remembering the past pleasures we had shared after he had first enslaved me, when I was still a fresh delight and he had not grown tired of me. Come over here, he said. I did and stood at attention before him with my palms clasped behind my neck. He pulled me to him by one of my nipple chains. A gasp stuck in my throat and met his strong tongue as it tented the depths of my mouth. His powerful fingers clawed at my chest and tore at my nipples. He filled me with his breath and I tumbled through an infinite space until I felt him enter me, his gaze like a nail that fixed itself in my skull. I screamed and he slapped me hard on the cheek as he rode me bucking as I was in an agony of desire. I sat somewhat glazed-eyed as they spoke about numbers and it was beyond me why Randolph required me to be at this meeting or allowed me to be clothed, and so exquisitely, since I was properly to be left naked. But I did not trouble myself about it. Every now and then I drew in some smoke from a cigar I was given and turned it slowly around in my mouth and then exhaled it in a great release. At times Randolph put his powerful arm around me and grasped me to him with great affection and pride. I fell into it as into a gentle river and just swam inside of him, easily extending myself until I felt a grace of nature that made me move one with it. I don't know what O'Malley did with all those clothes once I was out of them and back in my Adamic condition. I never saw them again. It was one of the few times, when he undressed me, that O'Malley was permitted to use me sexually. Randolph hardly paid attention to me, only kicked me a few times when I seemed to be in his way, no matter how unobtrusively I held my place in the corner. Finally he ordered O'Malley to lock me out on the back porch, without my blanket. No matter how hard I made my body, pressing it to be as resistant as possible, I knew I'd at least have sniffles and a running nose by the time I'd be let back in. But that did not faze me. I had long passed the time when I had even the slightest inclination to pity myself. The truth is, something about all this rather tickled me. I had transcended something that claimed to be me but that was crushing me inside a world of capital and accumulation, of expensive clothing and false smiles, a world I needed to rescue myself from. Randolph opened the back door. For the first time I saw him as a man who was less imposing than I had seen him to be, but no less desirable. More so, actually, for now I wanted to cradle and caress him as much as I wanted him to absorb me. What had not changed was that the feeling in each case was equally worshipful. Why do you look at me like that? he said, standing outside the situation. I shook my head as if I did not know what to say, as if I were saying that the thing that is, is the only thing that can be. Come inside, he said, bending a little, slipping his finger through my collar and pulling me into the kitchen. O'Malley was standing near the sink, only wearing a sleeveless black undershirt, cut away jeans, and tennis shoes. Wash and dress him, Randolph told O'Malley and went into his study. An hour later, I appeared before him in faded jeans, boots, a long sleeve black t shirt, a black wide-brimmed felt hat and a leather motorcycle jacket. Randolph was not alone. Lester Weber was there, too, stripped to the waist and holding a switch. Randolph had never physically beaten me. His training had been an exercise in mental and emotional domination. He had commanded my flesh by mastering my spirit. But that was different now. There was going to be an end to the delicacy that had not seemed at all delicate at the time, but now seemed exquisite. I stood at brace, waiting. Lester's rod touched my nipple. Outside the police sirens sang their eerie whine. But that had nothing to do with what we were doing. [When you write please insert story name in subject tab. Thanks.]