It was one of those ridiculous only–in–San Francisco bar conversations that happen on dateless Saturday nights. The topics vary, but that night’s included worst play parties ever attended, most lackluster boyfriend, the tiresome and predictable dishing of titleholders, and the cheap pop psychology that explains every fetish.
“Some people are what they are,” I said.
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning I’m a top because I’m a sadist,” I said. “I’m a sadistic man. I enjoy having people under my command. I enjoy inflicting pain. It’s what I do.”
I was responding to Randall: little, blond, and balding Randall. I suppose you could add “pathologically obnoxious” to that description, but it was clear that to him such obnoxiousness was part of his bar persona; how it aided him in getting laid was beyond me. Clayton and Tom, in full leather like me, stood with us, enjoying the ambiance of the bar’s patio.
“I are what I are, and what I are is an illusion,” sang Randall, drunkenly.
“So there’s no training?” asked Tom. That was his specialty: training bottoms.
“Well, no,” I said. “There’s training. There’s always training, there have to be rules. You always have training in any relationship, no matter how brief.”
Clayton nodded. He was only marginally good-looking, but came from a rich family, very old San Francisco, was very well off, and didn’t need any of our help to find a playmate. He spoke very little, probably to hide his voice, a pure and sweet tenor, but which I often suspected he thought girlish.
“But are you a sadist because you’re a top?” asked Randall.
I wanted to smack him. “It’s not that commutative,” I said, dryly. There was a reason we confined such conversation to bars. I don’t think any of us had ever seen the inside of one another’s homes. Playrooms, perhaps.
“Oooh,” squealed Randall, “commutative.” He reeled and brought himself suddenly upright.
“There was a boy I trained once,” said Tom. “He could take anything.”
“Anything,” I said, raising my eyebrows, “is an awful lot.”
“He’s definitely a different breed,” said Tom. “Very much his own man, very self-assured, self-reliant. But he trained admirably.”
“He sounds like a gay Boy Scout,” said Randall.
“He just takes the pain,” said Tom. “Takes it and takes it.”
“What does it mean for him?” I asked.
“It means he can take pain,” said Tom. Clearly he was being dense to tease me. But Tom knew what I liked. “I could introduce you. I saw him here earlier.” Tom excused himself, and walked into the bar proper.
“Now you’ve done it,” said Randall.
Randall must have wanted me to hit him, wanted me to live up to my reputation as a mean top. I started thinking of excuses to leave.
Tom reappeared a few minutes later with a clean-shaven man barely into his thirties. Far younger than me, but age is not pertinent among leathermen.
“Blake, I’d like you to meet—”
“My name isn’t important,” I interrupted, setting the appropriate tone. I wanted to find out how much his muscled flesh could take, if he was everything Tom said he was.
“No, I suppose not,” said Blake, grinning sheepishly. He extended his hand for a shake.
“Tom speaks very highly of you,” I said, gripping his hand firmly, its gravity evident through my glove.
“Oh,” said Blake. He looked at Tom. “He didn’t say anything about you.”
“All the better,” I said. Randall had pissed me off, put me in a foul mood, and this boy could be just the release I needed. “Shall we take our leave?” I asked.
Blake looked at Tom, divined something in his face that said it was all right, that I would do nothing untoward or unnegotiated. He said good-bye and started walking with me. Halfway through the bar, I corrected him. “You walk behind me. Five paces behind me,” I said.
“All right,” he said, nonchalantly, almost cheerfully. He waited for me to gain the lead, then followed. Obviously Tom hadn’t trained him properly. If this arrogant pup’s reaction was a muttered “all right,” if he had no prompt respect for his elders, then Tom had failed. But it was nothing I couldn’t remediate.
Blake spent the drive home in the bed of my pickup, secured to the dog tie-down. He stayed there for a few minutes after our arrival; I wanted to be sure he knew his place, as well as get myself a beer.
We stood in my garage, sizing each other up. His features were rugged, as if just emerging from chiseled marble. “Is there anything you won’t do? Any limits you want to tell me?” I asked.
“No, sir,” he said. At last: sir. He said it too easily, though; it left no sting of respect in his mouth.
I slapped him hard with my gloved hand. “That’s because I like you,” I said. He lowered his gaze to my boots. Perhaps Tom had trained him right.
I led him to the playroom adjacent to the garage. Originally it was a den, but I remodeled it extensively after I had moved in. The light was indirect, full spectrum but subdued; the room’s features were plainly visible. A St. Andrew’s cross dominated the far wall; various floggers hung from pegboard; the windows opposite were painted the same black as the walls. A dingy junior hutch held other necessary supplies; there were TV trays scattered about the room. He gazed at the room with a lowered head. He looked toward my boots, then toward the door-less water closet in the near corner.
“Later,” I said. There was a drain in the concrete floor in case he pissed himself. “Remove your shirt and boots.” I stepped to the toilet to relieve myself, my back to him, sure that I was making his bladder ache sympathetically. I’ll let him hear me piss, but I’d be damned if I’d let him see my cock right away. He’d have to earn that.
“Step up to the cross,” I said, zipping myself up. Half naked, he stood at the cross, and raised his arms over his head; hair stretched from armpit to armpit, and ran a tight line down his belly. His torso, like his face, was agreeably sculpted, a pleasing ratio of muscle to bone. I secured his wrists with padded restraints, and slapped his chest when I was done.
I took a Foley catheter, a clothespin, a bottle of alcohol, and a rag from the chest of drawers and grabbed a tube of K-Y that was lying on top of it. I stood close to Blake, put my face near his, and inhaled. I smelled only healthy sweat. “Did you bathe tonight?” I asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“I think parts of you could be made cleaner,” I said. I opened his belt and fly; he wore white briefs. “How charming,” I said. “They make you look like a little boy.” I pulled them down, exposing his cock. Average in length, but circumcised and pleasantly veined. The hair was clipped but not shaved.
I poured some alcohol directly onto his cock. His balls contracted slightly as it dripped down. I wiped away the excess with the rag and made sure his cockhead was scrubbed clean. I took the cath from its wrapper, smeared a little K-Y on the tip, and slipped it into his pisshole.
Blake held his face toward the ceiling, but I was sure his eyes were closed. Bit by bit, I slid the catheter in, lubricating short sections of the long latex tube as I eased it further in. His breathing deepened again. His cock swelled, but did not harden.
I grabbed the clothespin and clamped the cath. I wasn’t sure when I would hit his bladder; usually there’s a telltale obstruction, a sphincter that needs to relax before insertion can be completed. But I couldn’t feel it. As if Blake knew when to relax without my telling him.
I attached a length of rubber hose to the cath and held the end to his face. “Am I there, boy?” I asked, waving the end near his face. Before he could reply, I removed the clothespin, and moments later a gush of urine sprayed over his lips. I clamped the clothespin again and inflated the bardex to secure the cath. “Be a good boy,” I said, “and hold this for me.” I put the tube in his mouth. My black gloves glistened with K-Y and Blake’s piss.
“Any idea why you like this treatment?” I asked.
“Sir?” The tube in his mouth forced him to lisp slightly.
I ran my hand across his taut belly. “Why you’re into this?”
“I enjoy it, sir.”
“Is that all?”
“Sir, when I was a kid, sir, I liked comic books, sir. I daydreamed about superheroes, sir.”
“Did you have a favorite?” I asked, looking for a shaving kit in the hutch.
“The Phantom, sir. I liked his hood, sir.”
I grabbed a hood hanging next to the floggers and held it to his face. “Like this?” I said. “You like the smell, the look, the feel? It makes you sink into yourself, takes away your face? Gives you a new one?” His only reply was his hardening cock. I took the tube out of his mouth and quickly slipped the hood over his head, the worn leather molding itself against his flesh, his eyes and lips pale against the black. When the laces were cinched and tied, I put the tube back in his mouth and turned to the shaving kit.
I shook a healthy amount of powder onto his chest, and razed the hair in neat, short strokes. “I didn’t read comics as a child,” I said. “My parents forbade them. But they let me watch sports. My father’s heroes were football players.” The hair fell around Blake, some clinging to his skin. “They said comics were too violent for my impressionable young mind.” His muscled pecs, no longer obscured, were impressive. I wanted to pound them right then. “Mine were boxers. I idolized Cassius Clay.” I stopped. “Do you know who he is?” “Muhammad Ali, sir?”
“Good. You know your history.”
The line of hair trailing down his belly came off quickly. The powder left his skin smooth, lustrous in the dim light. I put the razor down, made a fist, and punched him lightly on his right pec. Blake jumped, more startled than stung.
“Cassius Clay,” I said, landing another punch. “ Sonny Liston,” I said, and popped him hard on his left pec. “Ingemar Johannsen,” with a quick, solid jab, dead center of his chest. “Floyd Paterson,” thump, “Eddie Machen,” thump, “Sonny Banks, Marty Marshall, Julio Mederos,” and three quick jabs to Blake’s gut. I felt my blood throbbing in my fists. His pecs glowed nicely, a thin crest of sweat on the skin bringing out the red that would surely deepen to a bruise by morning. “Archie Moore,” I said, and sent a hard roundhouse to his right pec, slamming him against the cross. “Tommy Jackson,” I said, “Yvon Durelle,” with each name landing a fist on his chest. “Watching all that boxing made me something of a brawler in the schoolyard,” I said, smiling. I wound up and punched him hard in his gut; his abs tensed against my fist, but I still shook him good. A flicker of nausea wavered across his eyes, but Blake kept his head up. Tom had certainly trained Blake’s endurance; that he could hold up was impressive.
I stood back and studied him for a moment. He seemed ready to sink into the restraints, let them hold him up. “And John Summerlin,” I said, giving Blake an easy but solid roundhouse to his left cheek. His cock was fully hard, straining against the weight of the cath. I unclamped it and spat on his leather-covered face. His piss ran out his mouth, coursing down his chin and neck, washing away errant hairs and powder on his chest and belly. His piss smelled vaguely of beer and Cheerios. He’d been holding his water a fair while. He breathed hard through his teeth, slurping at the thick air.
“And you’ve always liked this?” I said. I took the tube out of his mouth, clamped it, and let it trail down slowly toward the floor.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
“Would you say you were born to it?”
“Born to it, sir?”
“Yes. Nature,” I said, punching him hard, slamming him into the cross again, “…or nurture.”
“Don’t know, sir.”
“Don’t know?”
“No, sir.”
I punched his cheek again. “Men are born to it.” I walked over to the floggers. “But any man can be made queer for anything. Even for pussy.” Blake saw where I stood, and straightened himself up, standing at full attention. Abruptly, I walked to the hutch, opened a drawer, and withdrew some sterile needles, changing course to keep him off guard. “I went queer for this,” I said. I stood in front of him for a moment, then grabbed the alcohol and poured it over his chest and belly.
“Doctors lie,” I said, tearing open the packaging for the needles. “They always say this won’t hurt. Steel always hurts.” I grasped a nipple carefully in my left hand, and, with a needle in my right, stabbed it through in one quick, smooth stroke, right to left. I took another needle, grabbed his other nipple, and ran it neatly through his flesh.
I could see Blake’s clamped jaw through the hood. “You have been pierced before,” I said.
“Yes, sir. But not much, sir.”
I took another needle in my hand. “And it hurts good, doesn’t it?” I said. “Fucks you up fast.” I pinched his left nipple vertically this time and ran it through, making crosshairs of the needles. A high, almost voiceless whine came from the hood. I quickly pierced his right nipple a second time. A thin line of blood trickled down from it.
Blake’s hands were shaking. “Sir, how do you mean ‘made queer,’ sir?” He was struggling for focus, always a good sign to me. Shows me I’m getting through to him, and not just some means to his selfish end, that I’m not here just to get him off. That it’s my playroom and my show and I’m the one in control.
“I was a fat kid,” I said. I pinched the skin on his chest just below his left nipple and ran another needle through. “I got teased. So I fought.” Blake shivered, no doubt due to the endorphins coursing through his body. “I was a wrestler in college,” I said, adding another pinch, another needle, another and another, until there were spidery metal ladders running parallel down his torso. “I was too clumsy to be a boxer,” I said, splashing more alcohol on his stuck and bleeding skin. I put my face to Blake’s. “But here I am, beating the crap out of you,” I said. “I always liked it. My parents unwittingly fostered it, but they didn’t instill it. I was queered to channel my instincts. What did your parents do?”
“Sir?”
“Your parents. What did they do?” Blake was acting stupid. I knew he understood me. Maybe that was part of his game, part of bottoming for him.
“My dad was a surveyor, sir.”
I slapped him hard. “No,” I said. “I mean how did they treat you?”
“Fine, sir.”
“No forced enemas from Grandma? Mommy didn’t wash out your mouth with lye soap?”
“No, sir.”
“Just you, reading comic books as a boy to having leathersex as a man?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Like I said. You were born to it. And Tom trained you?” “He introduced me to a lot of people, if that’s what you mean, sir.”
Tom had hardly trained him well enough if he says so many words before saying “sir.” “Do you need those jeans?” I asked.
“Sir?”
“Do you need those jeans?” I repeated, a sharp tone in my voice.
“No, sir.”
I took a Tanto knife from the hutch and quickly slit open the seam of his Levi’s. The denim sighed hoarsely against the steel blade, and fell to the floor. I slipped the point up under his balls, giving him a little thrill before cutting away his briefs.
After a quick search, I found a pair of tweezers in the hutch. I grabbed Blake’s balls in my gloved hand and inspected them closely. The hairs were short, clipped maybe three weeks prior. Holding his scrotum tight, I slowly plucked out a single hair with the tweezers. “The Greeks had an interesting standard of beauty,” I said. “They thought pubic hair was vulgar. Big dicks were unsightly, too. Ugly. Only barbarians had them.” I plucked more hair, watching the thin flesh stretch into a small red point, then release the follicle. “The Greeks knew about masculinity. Knew what made a man a man. Knew how to run their schools. Regimented the boys. Taught them philosophy, athletics, how to make war, how to fuck.” I plucked relentlessly, enjoying the busywork. “Not like today. There’s no regimentation, no sense of group purpose. There’s no conforming to community. In my day, you were teased. You were called names. You fought back. It was healthy. These days, you get shot. Where’s the social principle?” I heard him breathing low and steady, the plucking a slow and steadily building irritation. I dribbled some alcohol onto his sac; he hissed as myriad small wounds were cleansed, the liquid fiery on his flesh.
“I’ll be back,” I said. I went upstairs to the kitchen and grabbed another beer from the refrigerator. The tiled walls looked elegant in the moonlight, and I thought it was a shame Blake wouldn’t see them—not this time, anyway. When he was truly a guest, he’d see the rest of the house. If Blake responded appropriately, if he bottomed as he’d been trained, he’d be welcomed back. I may have a reputation as a mean top, but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy entertaining. I drank my beer and gazed at my reflection, ghost-like in the kitchen window, distorted and distressingly jowly, not at all what I know I look like. I’m no hot commodity in a youth-obsessed culture, but age seldom matters in the leather world.
When I went back downstairs, I removed the cath. I wanted to get physical with this boy, wanted to hurt him good, see how far I could take him. When the cath was finally out he asked, “May I piss, sir?”
“You can try, but you may not need to,” I said. The blood from the piercings had dried, dotting his torso with tiny crusts. One by one, I took the needles out. Blake kept his head still the whole time, not making so much as a whimper— contemptible, I thought.
“What did Tom tell you about me?”
Blake answered quickly. “That you were a mean top, sir. That he knew you, sir.”
Tom didn’t know me. I mean, we knew each other in the bar, but he didn’t know me. Obviously. Tom had never been to my home. Maybe he set this up, sent this boy home with me to tease me. “What else?”
“Nothing else, sir.”
“Who taught you how to bottom?”
“Taught, sir?”
“Yes, taught.” I punched his gut for emphasis. “Who taught you?”
“Sir, you said I was born to it.”
Another punch. “Don’t argue with me, boy.” I stepped close to him so that he could feel my breath in his face. Suddenly it was clear that Blake couldn’t answer that quickly if he were bottoming properly. “Don’t you find some private part of your mind during a scene like this?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, it’s time someone sent you there,” I said, punching him hard in his gut. Blake slammed against the cross and started coughing, as if afflicted with dry-heaves. Perhaps I’d finally taken him by surprise. His cock stood straight out from his groin. “I’ll show you how to take pain.”
I left him panting for a few minutes while I went to the corner and picked up a small wooden box with a crank on the side and two long wires coming out, which I placed at my feet. I grabbed a butt plug speared with a length of copper tubing capped at the end and held it to his face. “Ever play ‘Telephone’ as a kid?” I asked. I smeared the plug with some K-Y. It felt cold in my hands. “Spread,” I said. I reached through his legs and guided the plug up his hole. “Things always feel colder shoved up your ass, don’t they?” I said, but Blake remained silent. A drop of dickspit oozed out of his hard cock.
“In case you don’t remember, ‘Telephone’ was the game you played by saying something in someone’s ear,” I said, attaching an alligator clamp to one wire. “They’d repeat it to someone, for however many people were playing. By the end, it was usually something different from what was originally said.” I attached the clamp to his balls, sinking the teeth slowly into his scrotum flesh. The other wire I attached to the copper tube sticking out of his ass.
“We’re going to play a variation of that game,” I said. “We’re going to play ‘Tucker Telephone.’ Warden Tucker, as the story goes, was a small-town Georgia jailer, who used a generator just like this one to teach those in his custody some respect.” I picked up the box. “Every time you say something that I think is a lie, you’ll be corrected. Do you understand?
“Yes, sir,” he said.
“Good,” I said. I fingered the potentiometer dial, made sure it wasn’t set too high. “Who trained you?” I asked.
“Tom, sir—Tom Beauchamp, sir,” said Blake.
“How did he train you?”
“He introduced me to people, sir.”
I gave the box a single crank and Blake jumped. Electricity must be new for him. The plug stayed firmly in his ass. “How did he train you?”
“We played, sir.”
Another crank, and Blake grunted sharply as the juice hammered his balls. “How did he train you?”
“He flogged me, sir. He paddled me, sir. He—”
Two cranks. Blake threw himself against the cross but didn’t cry out. “How did he train you?”
“Sir, I’m not sure I understand the question, sir.”
Two slow cranks sent a sustained electrical kick to his nuts. “Quit playing stupid!”
Blake panted a few moments. “He saw my potential, sir,” he said, more as a question.
“Potential?”
“As a bottom, sir.”
“Why?”
“Sir, I can’t speak for him, sir.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “Did you appreciate your training?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What did it accomplish?”
“Sir?”
I turned up the potentiometer and cranked once. Kicking any man’s nuts should be this easy. Blake yelped and jumped, tugging at the restraints. “What did it accomplish? What did it do?” The plug jumped up his ass every time I cranked, rubbing hard on his prostate. His cock dripped freely.
After a long pause, Blake said, panting, “Made me a man, sir?”
“Bad answer,” I said, cranking as I replied. Blake screamed, full-throated, but his cock held hard, bobbing as his body thrashed against the cross. A few floggers tapped sympathetically against the pegboard.
“Did they call you ‘faggot’ in school?” I asked.
“No, sir.”
“You lie.” I made a great show of dandling my hand on the crank.
“Sir, no one called me ‘faggot,’ sir,” he said, hurriedly.
“Every boy who grows up to be a gay man is called ‘faggot’!” I shouted, and turned the crank angrily. Blake screamed and writhed against the cross, his body a mass of motion. His cock seemed stock still in relief to his body and its frantic spasming, as if it were a stake impaling him in the crotch, which was no doubt what he felt from the juice coursing from his ass to his groin. “Being called ‘faggot’ defines our community!” I yelled, cranking to underscore my point.
I set the box down, yanking the clip from his balls. “You young people,” I said, grabbing his throat, “you take what we made for you and you have no appreciation for it.” I socked him hard in his gut. “We laid out a beautiful plan for you,” I said, bringing my knee to his groin, “and what do you do?” I doubled my fists. “Whatever you want,” I said, punctuating my words with three hard blows to his chest and face. I expected to hear Blake cry inside his hood, but he didn’t; his cock remained hard as ever, with what looked like a drop of jizz leaking from it. “We gave you a community,” I said, landing a punch on his ear, “and you squandered it.” I stood for a moment to catch my breath.
“I don’t understand, sir,” said Blake, softly, but assuredly focused. All this abuse and he was still unmoved, still gallingly present. I went to the pegboard and grabbed a long singletail whip.
“You wouldn’t, would you?” I said. I cracked the whip once into the open room behind me, but Blake didn’t react. Of course he wouldn’t; he had no appreciation for drama, for ritual. I would make him react, force his will, take him down, break him, and make him new where others had obviously failed.
I lashed the whip on his shoulder. “Never called ‘faggot’,” I said, lashing him again on the shoulder, adding a stripe parallel to the first. “Never teased,” and the singletail whistled through the air, striking bright red on the shaved skin of his belly. “Never tormented.” The lash landed this time on his right pec, leaving a sliver of a welt. “You don’t join clubs.” Crack. “You scoff at titleholders.” Crack. “Both your parents loved you.”Crack, in the little well under his throat. “You don’t earn your leather.” Crack. “You simply wear it.” Crack. “You’ve only known safe sex.” Crack. “Always had your perfect existence.” Crack, under his left nipple, leaving a dot of blood that blossomed on his ribs, a sight that made my own cock throb for the first time that night.
Crack. “You always had a family.” Crack. “You never feared for your job.” Crack. “You never feared for your life.” Crack, right above his navel, a wide diagonal welt, yet Blake made no noise, his cock bobbing in the air, hard, fat, defiant, and insulting. “Never had your masculinity questioned.” Crack, left thigh. “Never had your home threatened.” Crack, right thigh. “Always living in your secure, well-adjusted little world.” Crack, askew of his girdle of Apollo, the tender flesh welting brightly, something for his fist to hit when he jacked off for the next week. And still Blake made no noise, resolutely taking everything I gave him, absorbing blow after blow. How I hated him for it.
I put down the whip and realized I was panting. I could smell his blood where it leaked out of his skin. I was determined not to lose my composure, but just as determined to teach him how a scene is done. “Would you like a beer?” I asked, calmly.
“Yes, sir,” he said, totally aware of his surroundings, serene and comfortable.
“I’ll be back.” I went upstairs and grabbed a beer from the refrigerator. Then I went into my bathroom. Hidden in plain sight, in the medicine cabinet, was a bottle of roofies, a memento of a former boyfriend. I crushed two between a couple of spoons and dumped them into the beer. I waited a few more minutes for them to dissolve.
Downstairs, I poured the beer down Blake’s throat. “That’s a good boy,” I said, as if cooing to a pet. He had no trouble swallowing, but some still spilled down his leather-covered chin. A half-hour later he was slumped against the cross, dangling from the restraints.
He had provoked me. He’d get what he deserved. I took him off the cross and laid him on the floor. His ass was dimpled, sculpted like the rest of his body, and yielded the plug easily, the copper pipe glinting in the light. I pulled my stiffening cock out of my pants and snugged on a rubber; I would have him, but he would not have me, not my flesh, not my load. He disgusted me. I smeared more K-Y on his hole, already slick with sweat, and laid my full weight on him as I shoved my cock in.
“You’re my sweetmeat now, aren’t you?” I said as I fucked him roughly on the floor. His chin and cheek dragged across the concrete, leaving a trail of drool from his open mouth. “You’re my bitch.” His hole was pliant against my hard cock, rapt yet relaxed, ministering to my thrusts, a hole that knew it was meant for cock, and opened accordingly. “Can’t stop it now, can you?” I said. “Taking your Daddy’s cock, your coach’s cock, your brother’s cock, your drill instructor’s cock.” I punched his kidneys hard. “Your teacher’s cock, your priest’s cock, your doctor’s cock, every cock you’ve ever seen, every cock you’ve ever known, every cock you’ve ever wanted,” I said, and spit on his back. His eyelids fluttered. “Fucking that hole like the faggot-whore hole it is,” I said. When I came, I hammered his back with both fists; a rib cracked.
He was still unconscious at daybreak. I dressed him in his boots, an old pair of sweats, and a ratty T-shirt. I tied a leather cord around his neck, not as a symbol of his interest in leathersex, but like tying a festive package with a colorful ribbon. I dumped him into the bed of my truck, drove to the bar where I picked him up, and deposited him in the entryway. They opened at six, and could surely find a home for him. He wasn’t welcome in mine.