Gould and I lived on the first floor of a neat little brick duplex near downtown. We had a stone porch, arched doorways, three bedrooms, and a bunch of plants and colored lights, courtesy of Gould. The living room looked out onto quiet Wayne Street—where Miles swore crack dealers lurked in the shadows—and the kitchen was roomy enough to accommodate the massive lacquered dining table my dad made me before he and my mom moved.
Gould was reading on the living room couch when I got home from the café. I’d been monitoring him closely since last night, but so far he seemed okay.
“Hey,” he said without looking up.
I left the front door unlocked and went to the couch. Leaned over the back to drape my arms around his neck. “I met with GK and Kel.” I spoke into his hair. “To talk about Bill.” No point in keeping it from him.
He stiffened. Slipped a parking ticket into his book to mark his place, and twisted to look up at me. “And?”
I stared at the book. “Did you get a ticket?”
“No, you did. Last August.”
“Oh. Right.”
“You ever gonna pay it?”
I kissed his cheek and let him go. “Probably not.”
Gould set the book—I Hate My Hips: 50 Ways We Sabotage Ourselves with Negative Thinking—on the arm of the sofa. I headed to the three-legged table under the window to sort through the mail.
“So GK and Kel said what?” Gould asked.
“They’re gonna let him keep playing there.” I tore a credit card offer in half.
“No.” He didn’t say it angrily. Just a simple, quiet no.
“I know. I’m sorry. I gave them hell, though. I figure we can—”
“No, they can’t.” Gould so seldom raised his voice that when he did, it was terrifying. For a second I was back in those days after Hal’s death, when I’d seen a side of Gould I hadn’t known existed.
Kamen walked in from the kitchen, carrying a huge plate of toast. “Wait, Bill’s still allowed there?”
“Kamen, Jesus.” I took a deep breath. “I had no idea you were here.”
Kamen plopped on the couch next to Gould and sent the book crashing to the floor. “I wanted toast.”
“Can you not make toast at your place?”
“You guys have the really good bread.”
“You are aware this bread is available to the general public? At literally any grocery store?”
Kamen took a bite of toast. Crumbs fell all over his lap. “Why’d they let Bill back in?”
I tried to think of a diplomatic way to phrase this. “Because he wasn’t convicted of murder, and they think he deserves a second chance.”
Gould was staring at the carpet.
“So I figured we could drop our memberships to Riddle,” I added quickly. “We don’t need to hang out there anymore.”
Kamen licked butter off his finger. “Ricky wanted us to take him this weekend.”
Ricky Chuy. People called me a twink, but Ricky made me look like Tom Selleck freebasing Rogaine. Vietnamese, 5’5, hairless, and so thin he could have worn a wedding ring as a belt, Ricky was new to the scene. And so, so eager to learn. We’d taken him to Riddle on occasion to help educate him, but it was like bringing the goddamn Little Mermaid to a bondage club. Every implement, every piece of furniture or costume—he wanted to know what it was called and how it worked. It was exhausting. He’d charm some dom out of a genital whip and add it to his collection of whosits and whatsits galore. He’d pick up a Wartenberg wheel and use it to comb his hair. The most magical thing I could envision would be if a sea witch stole his voice. Permanently.
“Maybe we could take him to Cobalt instead,” Gould suggested. I could hear how carefully controlled his tone was.
I went back to opening mail. “What if Kamen’s mom’s there?”
“Aw, shit,” Kamen said around a mouthful. We’d all stopped going to Cobalt long ago. It actually had a bigger gay contingent than Riddle, but Kamen’s mom frequented Cobalt, and we’d decided it just wasn’t worth the risk of running into Mrs. Pell and her string of fuzzy-chested play partners each time we went. Plus, Cobalt was like the White Castle of fetish clubs.
I opened an envelope from the electric company. Stared. “Gould. Our electric bill is almost ninety dollars.”
Gould propped his leg up on the coffee table. “Quit leaving all your shit plugged in.”
Kamen slapped crumbs off his lap. “My mom’s not usually there on Sundays. She has church.”
I checked the name on the bill to make sure it really was ours. “Well, we can’t spend our lives avoiding her.”
“I do,” Kamen mumbled.
“You don’t. You’re such a mama’s boy.”
“We should just be mature about it,” Gould said. “She has needs, just like we do.”
Kamen picked up another piece of bread. Butter ran down his fingers. “Ugh, don’t talk about her needs.”
I plunked myself between Kamen and Gould, bill in hand. “It is kind of awkward seeing her at the club. She feels too much like our mom.”
Kamen paused with toast a few inches from his mouth. “That’s awesome. Do you seriously think of my mom as your mom?”
“No,” Gould said, at the same time I said, “Well, she did buy us that slow cooker.”
I tossed the paper over the back of the couch, then leaned against the cushions, staring at the ceiling. “What are we gonna do about this Bill thing?”
Gould glanced at me. “Well, you just threw it on the floor, so I don’t—”
“No, the Bill Henson thing.” I sat up.
“I don’t know, man.” Kamen licked his finger and used it to pick crumbs off the plate and eat them. “Maybe we should keep going to Riddle. To show that we’re, like, not gonna let Bill ruin it for us.”
“Buddy.” I caught Kamen’s eye and nodded toward Gould.
“Oh, shit!” Kamen said. “I forgot. Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Gould didn’t look at either of us. “You guys are allowed to talk about it. I don’t care.”
Bill had taken out a restraining order against Gould a year ago due to an incident we generally took great care not to mention.
I shifted. “If we wanna club, I say we go to Cobalt.”
“You two can still go to Riddle.” Gould sounded irritated. “Seriously, it’s fine.”
Kamen crunched his way through another piece of toast. “It just sucks that GK and Kel let that douche bag back in.”
I sat up suddenly. “Douche bag!”
Kamen and Gould both looked at me.
I stood and hurried to the kitchen to get my laptop. “That’s who was at the club.” I brought the computer over and set it on the coffee table.
“What?” Kamen asked.
“There was this mountain man guy there on Friday.” I fired up the laptop. “I, like, wanted to have his children and shave his face but also feel his mustache sanding my balls and have him teach me how to smoke venison. It was a bounty of contradictions.”
Kamen’s brow knit. “You want to have children?”
“No, not at all; I want to die alone and unloved. Anyway, I thought he looked familiar. It was the Disciplinarian.”
“Ohhh.” Kamen leaned forward as I brought up Fetmatch. “That guy’s legend.”
I logged onto Fet and found the Disciplinarian’s profile. Yep, the picture was Pornstache—rugged, virile, and glowering at the camera with his pale-blue eyes.
“He’s meant to be a total hard-ass, right?” Gould let his leg slide off the table. “You have to, like, bring him the head of a dragon to even be considered for a session.”
I cleared my throat and read the profile statement out loud while Kamen looked over my shoulder.
“‘Obediance,’” I read, “—spelled wrong—‘is what I expect. I see boys by appointment only, and I train them in the art of obedience. I use corporal punishment to do this. Under my tutelage, many boys are transformed. If I select you to do a scene with me, I will expect your absolute submission. I am experienced with a variety of whips, canes, paddles, etc. You will be subject to my rules and my decisions.
“‘I am dominant in all areas of my life, and I do not tolerate disobedience, rudeness, or negative attitude. You are unlikely to find anyone as skilled as I at administering the discipline you need. But know that my training will not be easy.
“‘You must be under 30, in good shape, and able to hold position through a long punishment. You must also be able to think creatively about the ways you will satisfy me.
“‘If you are interested in a session with the Disciplinarian, please fill out the attached questionnaire. Serious inquiries only.’”
Below the profile summary was a six-item questionnaire for potential applicants, as well as requirements for answer length—between three and five sentences—and formatting. Dear Sir was the required salutation, and boy the sign off.
Oh my God. To think I’d wanted this fucker to spank the seat of my fantasy bell-bottoms.
I brought up the questionnaire.
1. Why do you need to be punished?
2. Were you physically disciplined as a child? How?
3. Are you prepared to surrender complete control to me during a disciplinary session, and to allow me to determine the length and severity of a punishment? To submit to punishments that include: spanking, corner time, mouth soaping, enemas, body scrubbing, writing lines, housework, denial of bathroom privileges, figging, scolding, chastity, forced exercise, and rectal temperature-taking?
4. Do you understand that “punishment” is intended to be unpleasant—no chickening out and safewording?
5. What do you hope to get out of a session?
6. What are your feelings on the outdoors?
“Dave, that totally sounds like your thing,” Kamen said. “All the punishment stuff.”
“Uh, yeah.” I scrolled through the questions again. “Except for the safeword-equals-chickening-out bullshit.”
“Oh, right.”
“What a dick. I can’t believe I wanted to feel his mustache in all my secret places.” The man’s profile reminded me of the stories I’d heard from other subs about Bill Henson. How Bill had liked to “push limits” and demand “real submission.” But underlying my anger was the uncomfortable knowledge that this man, with his demands and his arrogance and his use of the word “tutelage,” actually was the sort of guy I would have jumped on a couple of years ago without a second thought. Bill Henson himself I’d found incredibly unappealing, but I’d played with guys like him. Guys like the Disciplinarian. Guys who thought they were the shit. I’d liked that.
“Mmm, the outdoors,” Gould said. “Maybe he wants to make you sleep outside.”
I reassembled my righteous outrage. “Under thirty and in good shape? He’s not either of those things.”
“He’s kinda hot, though.” Kamen nodded at the profile picture.
I eyed Kamen’s plate. “Buddy, that bread’s like five dollars a loaf. You’re really not gonna eat the crusts?”
“I am! I’m just eating them last.” He picked one up and stuck it in his mouth to demonstrate. Looked at the screen again. “I thought you were into guys who take charge.”
Kamen was right. That kind of role-play—I’m gonna beat your ass and I don’t care how hard you beg me to stop—had always been my thing. I’d seized on any opportunity to rile doms up, to cause trouble. I wanted to be punished. Wanted an ass-whipping that would leave me sore for days. Wanted my hole jackhammered by some bear while he told me what a spoiled brat I was.
But the past few years had changed me. One of the first workshops I’d attended at Riddle had been on the topic of mutual respect in a scene. It sounded dumb, but it was the first time I’d really thought about getting to know someone before I played with them. Prior to joining Riddle, I’d mostly cruised the leather bar downtown. I’d go up to any daddy in there and pout and whine and stick my ass in his face and demand he buy me a drink until he took the hint and pulled me into a dark corner to show me who was boss.
Formal BDSM—negotiations, red-yellow-green, do I actually like this person?—had been fairly new to me. To Hal too, I was pretty sure. I sometimes thought if Hal had come from a more informed background, he might still be alive. Maybe his determination to play with Bill that night was a vestige of the days when it wasn’t so easy to get online or go to a club and find safe, responsible gay doms willing to have an actual conversation before a scene. Hal had seen a good-looking guy. The good-looking guy had wanted to do more than Hal could handle. Hal had gone along with it because it had meant he’d get laid.
“I’m gonna apply,” I announced.
Gould turned to me. “Are you kidding?”
“No. Because here’s what we need to do. We need to play with some of these dick doms, and we need to call them out on being so . . . what’s the word?”
“Dickish?” Kamen offered.
“No. I mean, yes, but there’s another word . . . Miles would know. Entitled, maybe?”
Gould kicked at a fly on the coffee table. “Yeah, entitled’s good.”
“Like, think how many times we’ve all received messages on Fetmatch from doms who act like we’re already their sub. No ‘Hi, how are you?’ Just, ‘. . . once you’re on your knees, choking on my cock . . .’”
“Guys usually ask me how I am,” Kamen said.
“Of course they do. Your profile sounds like little orphan Annie grew up and married the sun and they had a child made entirely of the unblemished souls of infant animals.”
“What?”
Gould propped a foot on the table again. “Your profile’s so nice, guys probably can’t help but be nice back to you.”
I half listened to Gould and Kamen talk about their profiles while I went to work on the Disciplinarian’s questionnaire. I was humble, simpering, and anything but honest in my answers. I used Dear Sir and signed off with boy, as instructed. I’d met enough asshole daddies to know the kind of shit they liked to hear, and I was confident I’d be accepted. When I was done, I hit Submit and closed my laptop. “There.” I felt quite smug.
Gould looked up. “You seriously did it?”
“Hell yeah, I did it. God, can you imagine what a pain in his ass I’ll be? He doesn’t tolerate rudeness, attitude, and disobedience? He won’t know what hit him.”
Gould opened his mouth, then closed it again. I knew what he wanted to say. Be careful. We thought it now, all the time. But we never said it.
I gave him a brief smile. I will.
Let the games begin.