By david stein

Part 1

The room is about 12 feet on a side and 10 feet high, the walls faced with roughly dressed light-gray stone. The floor is covered with thick black rubber and slopes gently toward a drain in one corner. On the ceiling there’s gray acoustical tile.

Light is provided by glowing tubes all around the top of the walls, just below the ceiling, that are controlled from outside the room. They dim for part of each day to allow sleep and are on full the rest of the time. There are ventilation grilles low on two walls and in the ceiling, and the temperature is kept at a constant mid-70s. At least, it never seems too cold or too warm despite my always being naked.

There are no windows. The door is a steel slab with a small spy hole set into it. It has no handle on the inside; this, too, is controlled from without. There’s a video camera in each corner, up near the ceiling, as well as several microphones. I never know if anyone is watching or listening, or which camera is live, but I have to assume that anything I do or say can be seen or heard.

Toward one side but still away from the wall is a slab of dense foam as wide as a twin-size bed. It’s covered in black canvas, with a zipper at the end to remove the cover for cleaning. The only furniture besides my exercise equipment is an antique-style wooden armchair, intricately carved, against the wall next to the door. Its seat cushion is covered in a rich, red velvet, the only spot of color in the whole chamber, and the wood is stained dark brown. It looks like it came from the Doge’s palace in 15th-century Venice.

The chair is not for me, of course. The chain padlocked to my leg irons and bolted into the opposite wall isn’t long enough for me to sit there if I wanted to, reaching only far enough for me to kneel in front of the chair and service the Master when he sits there, licking his boots or sucking his cock.

Thick, 2-inch-wide metal cuffs are fastened onto my ankles and wrists, and a collar in the same style is around my neck. The edges of the steel bands are smoothly rounded, and the welded connecting chains are long enough for me to wash myself or exercise, but they can be shortened with clips or locks whenever the Master wishes. Every move I make is accompanied by the loud jangle of chains, almost the only sound in this place. At first it was exciting, and then I thought it would drive me mad, but by now I hardly notice it.

Near the floor drain is a seatless metal toilet, and a pipe set into the wall next to it has a long hose connected. The hose is usually terminated in a nonadjustable shower head, but that can be replaced by a douche tube if required. There are no faucets inside the cell to control the water temperature or flow, nor is there a flush handle for the toilet. All that is regulated outside. But the Master is not cruel, or thoughtless, and he has the toilet flushed several times a day so that there is sufficient clean water for me to drink.

All of the hair on my head and everywhere else is clipped as short as possible once a week, and then my head, pubes, and ass crack are shaved smooth. The Master seems to enjoy doing it himself rather than having me do it. I enjoy his doing it, too. He also seems to enjoy seeing the growing fuzz on my face and body between clippings, knowing that it always makes me itch. There is no mirror in the cell, so I can’t see how I look, only feel the smoothness or fuzz.

A padlock joins the thick PA in my circumcised dick with a guiche ring further back. I can manipulate my cock to some extent, but I learned early on that it wasn’t worth it. I can’t come without being erect, and if I start to get erect the pain soon deflates me. I can’t even have a wet dream, because the pain wakes me up. The Master has hinted that he will allow me to come eventually, but I have no idea when, nor if there is anything I can do to hasten the release. The horniness tormented me at first, but after nearly two months, I don’t think about it much one way or another — not more than 20 or 30 times a day.

Of course, I also don’t know exactly how long I’ve been here. At first the Master deliberately manipulated the light and his own comings and goings to confuse me and destroy my grasp on mundane time. Even now that he has settled me into a routine, I have no way of being certain if it’s daytime outside when it’s light in the cell, or nighttime when it’s dim in here. As the Master works out of his home and thus can visit me whenever he pleases and spend as much time with me as he wants, I also have no way of telling weekdays from weekends. But I do keep track of my sleeps, and as near as I can tell it’s been between 50 and 60 days. Otherwise, the only way I can gauge the passage of time is by my own pulse, which is slow and steady except when I’m exercising.

i don’t know how long I’ll be here, either. The Master certainly has the resources to keep me here for the rest of his life, if not mine, but somehow I don’t think the experiment will last quite that long. Probably less than a year, though that’s just a feeling. The arrangement is open-ended.

 

***

 

The routine I currently follow is quite simple in its outlines. In the “morning,” or what I assume is morning, the light tubes brighten, and I rise from my pallet. I take a drink from the toilet, release my piss, and go through an extensive exercise routine, first stretching, then calisthenics, free weights, and finally a half hour on the treadmill. The black-finished steel and rubber treadmill is the largest object in the cell. It’s programmed by the Master to tell me when to speed up, slow down, and stop. The time readout has no hour indicator, just elapsed minutes and seconds, and it goes back to zero whenever I step off.

After exercise I kneel by the shower pipe. Eventually the water will start pouring through, and I will cleanse myself. There is no towel or washcloth, just a squeeze bottle of liquid soap. I wash quickly so as not to be soapy when the water stops. The moisture level of the air is low enough that I tend to dry quickly.

When I’m clean I kneel in front of the Master’s chair and wait for him to come in. During this time I am required to repeat aloud, again and again, a short “slave’s creed”:

 

I am a slave. I live to serve and obey the Master. I own nothing. I have a right to nothing. I control nothing. Everything comes from the Master and by his will. What makes me happy is to obey. What fulfills me is to be used for his and other men’s pleasure.

 

These are the only words I am permitted to speak when I am alone in the cell. I do not rebel against this or the other rules, nor provoke punishment to enforce them. This is the life I asked for, and I do my best to follow the program.

Generally the Master makes me wait a while, but eventually he will enter and set a dog bowl with my food down beside the chair. It is always the same, a dry formulation that he will moisten with his piss so I don’t chip my teeth on the hard pellets, which also serve in lieu of a toothbrush. He has assured me it contains all the nutrients I need.

In the “mornings” I am not allowed to eat immediately, however, even though by then I am always very hungry. First I must recite my creed once more, this time addressed directly to the Master, and when that is done I am allowed to lick his boots. If he is in the mood, he may also allow me to service his cock and balls, or to lick his ass. This is no hardship: the Master keeps himself fit, and he is still an attractive man. Besides, he’s well hung. I also have no worry about catching any disease from him — no one is more scrupulously careful, and I know that he would never put me at risk. But at 64 his libido isn’t what it was, and some days he doesn’t bother to use me.

He has another slave, Stephen, who’s been with him for five years or so, as well as several part-time slaves he trains off and on, so perhaps he saves himself for them. Stephen is certainly young and handsome enough to be worth focusing on. The intimacies the Master grants me are more a reward, or encouragement, than a service to him, I suspect.

The Master says little to me at these times, indicating by a nod or a gesture, or a single word, what he requires. And, of course, after my creed is repeated, I have no call to speak to him nor to look at him — my eyes stay fixed on the floor between his legs unless I am servicing some part of his body. His morning attire is usually casual, just slacks or jeans and a shirt, maybe a vest — plus boots, of course. He favors lace-up logger boots or cowboy boots for the daytime, motorcop or engineer’s boots at night. Even before my confinement, I’d never seen him without boots on. I suppose he takes them off for sleep, but the only times I ever slept in the same room with him, I was hooded or blindfolded.

 

Part 2

 

After I worship his boots, and then render any sexual service he requires, the Master flogs me. A selection of flogging implements, a muzzle and gag, a hood, and other pieces of gear he likes to use on me are stored in a small, locked case set against the wall behind his chair. Usually he makes me stand against the wall and clips my wrist and ankle cuffs to rings set there for that purpose, my arms above my head and my feet stretched as far apart as the leg chain permits. Sometimes he has me lie down on my belly on the sleeping pallet and clips my arms and legs to the rings set in the floor at either end, or he’ll restrain me to the bench I use for weightlifting. It seems to make no difference in the severity of the flogging how I am restrained, just a whim of the Master, though I imagine the vertical position is easier for him than bending over me.

In either case, he always straps the muzzle over my face and inserts the thick leather plug gag inside my mouth. I am allowed to scream as much as I need to during the flogging, but it does not please him to have his ears assaulted by my noise, and it makes no difference anyway in how many strokes I must take. The number varies according to some formula known only to him. It’s always at least 50 and usually much more. I’m grateful to be gagged and not required to count them out. I can sink into the rhythm of the ever-changing now and stop thinking. My back is heavily calloused, of course, yet I still feel the impact of his blows. They’re about as painful as a deep-tissue massage, which can be very painful.

After my flogging, the Master will release me from the wall or floor, take off the muzzle and gag, and allow me once again to bathe his boots in my saliva and tears. I always thank him profusely for the discipline, which he has made very clear has nothing to do with punishment. It’s not even because he enjoys flogging me, though he clearly does most of the time. Even if I’ve sucked him off before the flogging, he’ll usually be erect again by the time he stops. Sometimes he even fucks my ass before releasing me from the wall or bench. No, these daily floggings are a matter of basic discipline.

“A slave needs to be flogged regularly,” he’ll say in his brusque, no-nonsense voice, “and that’s all there is to it. It’s like taking a dog out for a walk or rubbing down a horse after a run, something an owner simply has to do.” Before leaving, he wets down my breakfast, pats my head, and gives me my journal pages. I am free to eat once the door shuts behind him.

It is when the Master comes back late in the “evening” with my second and last meal of the day that he talks to me and listens to anything I wish to tell him. He usually wears either a police uniform or full leather, but once or twice a month he appears in a tailored suit or even tuxedo and black tie, with black dress boots, having come back from a formal dinner or cultural outing. He allows my eyes and tongue much freer reign at these times, seeming to enjoy my admiring glances, my nuzzling, and my compliments on his appearance. He lets me curl up between his legs and rub my face against the cloth or lick the leather covering his thighs. It’s not exactly passion between us, but comfort with each other and with our respective roles.

After I eat, we talk. The conversations we have as I sit at his feet are wide-ranging — we are both well-educated men with many interests. The Master will tell me what he wishes me to know about the state of the world outside, which is generally little, as he has gone to considerable expense and effort to allow me to focus inward, on my own body, mind, and spirit.

That is why I am here. It was my idea, actually, but it was his gift to enable me to realize my obsessive fantasy of nonstop bondage, solitary confinement, and total control. It’s designed as a test of whether such a narrowly circumscribed life, free of the usual distractions of earning a living or interacting with the non-Master/slave world, can move me further along my destined path. I know that I was born to serve and obey a Master, but all too often, out in the world, I lost sight of that clear goal and became caught up in other commitments or concerns.

We’ve been friends for a long time, the Master and I, much long–er than I’ve been a slave, let alone his slave. It often goes the other way: two men come together first as Master and slave, and over time their growing intimacy and affection make the roles too awkward to continue. The Master is too experienced for that trap. He won’t even allow a boy to call him “Sir” until they’ve known each other for a couple of months, sexually and otherwise, and he’s never taken a live-in slave after less than a year’s probation.

As for me . . . I’ve experienced enough to know what I want, what I need. After several Master/slave relationships that ended sooner than I wanted, I have few illusions left, about slavery or about myself. But I do have resistances, self-doubts, and, above all, habits of self-regard that make it hard for me to go deeper. Thus this experiment in deprivation and regimentation. For the Master to move me into his house as a servant would prove nothing — been there, done that (though not with him). Call this experience boot camp for the soul.

The truth is that I chose all of it, every detail. The Master and I discussed the arrangements exhaustively for more than a year. After all, orchestrating a long-term confinement as rigorous as mine is not a matter for negotiation over drinks in a bar or a few online chats. Everything had to be planned, all the contingencies allowed for, the appointed space constructed and equipped. I had to quit my job, vacate my apartment, dispose of or store my possessions, and notify my friends. One half of my savings went to the Master to defray the expenses of my upkeep, and the other half was safely invested. I had to be absolutely sure that once I entered this cell, I wouldn’t need to leave it again until the Master decided I was ready. And I had to be sure that he wouldn’t soften if I lost my nerve, or exceed his mandate, or allow the experiment to end prematurely because of the cost of keeping me here, submissive but idle.

The daily floggings, and any other torments I suffer, are intended to purify my submission and to wean me from my ego. For the same reason, though the Master permits me to use the first person in my journal and when I talk with him, he never uses my old name, or any name. I am just “slave” to him and anyone else I come in contact with, even his other slave. But he tempered my initial enthusiasm for a much harsher regimen, with far less space to move around in. i’d had in mind something like an oubliette, a small underground hole where he’d throw food down to me, piss on me, periodically hose me off, and otherwise leave me alone.

“And what would I get out of that?” he asked, laughing. “I wouldn’t even have your warm mouth to piss in, or your conversation to while away the evenings. What a supremely selfish idea! If you expect me to give you room, board, and bondage for an extended period, you’re going to have to be available for my use — and that of selected friends, too. You’ll spend plenty of time alone, don’t worry, but you’ll also earn your keep, sexually and otherwise.”

The logic was inescapable, of course, even more so than this cell I inhabit. The Master convinced me that the kind of confinement I’d fantasized about wouldn’t prove anything more or achieve any quicker results, just bore him and ruin my health and mental balance, reducing my value as a slave.

As time passes, it is obvious that he was right. A greater harshness would have activated my defenses, delaying my acceptance of his control, or else pushed me into that apathetic passivity many mistakenly equate with submission. The way I live now is certainly harsh enough, restrictive enough, and barren enough compared with my former professional-class lifestyle, and yet it clearly suits me. In terms of health and fitness, I’m in better shape than I’ve been in years, and my mood is farther from depression or despair than when I had the whole world to move around in.

Within these gray walls, I have no worries or fears. I am well taken care of. I fall asleep easily, sleep soundly, and wake without regret. Naturally, I miss music and art, and daylight and colors and trees and animals, but I have a well-stocked memory of these things. I miss books — oh, what I would give for a single box of those I put in storage! — but I don’t miss TV or newspapers or most people. An hour of the Master’s company is worth days of useless chatter with others.

All in all, I’m more content here than I ever was outside. Oh, that’s not to say I’m never bored or never chafe at my restrictions. Of course I do, who wouldn’t? But such feelings pass quickly, more quickly than when I had a whole city’s worth of amusements to choose from. If all else fails, I kneel in front of the Master’s chair, at the limit of my chain, and repeat my slave’s creed. The peace that descends as I repeat the familiar words assures me of their truth, and I gratefully embrace the strict conditions of my confinement once again.

The fact is, I would miss my daily flogging if I didn’t receive it, and I’d probably gag on a conventional meal if offered one. I never liked wearing clothes, and my collar and chains are as much a comfort to me as a constraint. They make me feel wanted, valued, secure. If I were suddenly placed in a crowd of people, I would run to the nearest small room and lock myself in.

Servicing the Master day after day, with no release for myself, I’ve come to displace my sexual response onto him, so that when he cries out in orgasmic joy, my own body spasms and relaxes. I still remember my name, I’m pretty sure I do, but would I even respond if someone called me by it? If he held open the door to this cell, and I weren’t chained, would I make a move toward it?

 

Part 3

 

For most of each day I am usually left alone, to pass the time however I can. At first it seemed to stretch endlessly ahead of me, and I wondered how I could make it to the Master’s next visit without screaming and smashing my head against the wall. But I soon learned that my sense of duration is very flexible, and I can control it by my attitude. Once I stopped always looking forward to “what’s next,” anticipating, and learned to live in each moment, five hours came to seem much the same as five minutes. I have all the time I need, all the time there is, no more nor less. I suspect all long-term solitary prisoners learn this — at least those who survive.

Much of the day, of course, I spend in meditation — classic Zen sitting or walking (once I became able to tune out the rattle of chain), and I also think things through in more conventional fashion, patiently testing and rehearsing my ideas in my head before writing anything down. I receive five blank sheets of paper a day, no more, and each evening the Master takes with him whatever pages I’ve filled as well as any left blank. The next morning, along with my breakfast, he returns to me Xeroxes, on bright yellow paper, of the finished pages, keeping the originals. So I have my completed work for reference, if I need it, but there is no way I can alter my words retroactively.

The Master gave me a wooden lap desk to write on and a good ballpoint pen, a far cry from the elaborate computer setup I used to write with but sufficient to my needs. Because I cannot erase anything, and I am reluctant to disfigure my manuscripts with cross outs, I think much more than I write, and I write very slowly, pausing before almost every word to be sure it is the right one to express my meaning. While my physical world has been pared down close to a minimum, my mental world is unlimited. I find that my memory is much better than it used to be, strengthened by hard use and the absence of electronic crutches, and my powers of concentration are greater.

What do I write? Musings, recollections, how I am feeling, debates with myself or the Master, little essays about slavery and its discontents — or its joys. The writing has no goal, no overall structure. It’s a snapshot of my mind at a given time. And yet I always come back to one point: the persistence of choice in even the most inescapable captivity. No matter how much is taken away from me, I always have choices to make, if only where to direct my eyes or focus my hearing. Even naked and chained in a solitary cell, I am learning just how much I still have left to surrender.

The Master jokes that in its disconnected way my journal amounts to a “critique of pure submission,” like Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. He says that when it is done — when I am done with this confinement, when he decides that I have no more to learn from it — I should edit it down and publish it. “Tell them all the truth for once,” he says. “There’s too much nonsense about slavery going around, with folks trying to re-enact the Old South or Ancient Rome or some such silliness. They miss the point and waste everyone’s time.”

 

***

 

For the first month or so of my captivity, I never saw anyone but the Master, and then usually just twice a day. From time to time, though, he’d look in on me unexpectedly, and he might demand my service, if only as a urinal, or amuse himself by putting me into some more stringent bondage, installing a butt plug or catheter, or placing clamps and clips on my body. Anything to reinforce that I am not in control of my bodily functions or sensations, only how I react to them. Now that my routine is well established, he sometimes sends his house slave instead to check on me and carry out whatever he’s planned but doesn’t care to do himself — I assume he watches on the video to be sure all is done to his standards.

Sometimes he sends in visiting friends of his, other Masters or Topmen, to amuse themselves with my body or to make use of my holes. He insists they use condoms with me, even for oral sex, and a latex barrier for rimming. There’s a container of rubbers and oral shields next to the cell door, kept full by the house slave. There are probably also some other limits he’s set to keep me safe, but it’s out of my hands — I have no safeword, no way to draw a line. The Master’s good will and good sense are my only protection.

It is absolutely forbidden me to speak to these visiting Tops, or to the house slave, not one word, and this is enforced if necessary by gagging me. The only choice I have is to cooperate and endure whatever they wish to do with me, or to resist and have to endure it anyway in the end. Because of my love and respect for the Master, I would never resist his use of me, however painful, but I’ll still balk at times if someone else interrupts my meditation or writing for a fuck or a piss stop. It never does any good, of course. The chains put me at their mercy.

The rule of silence was very hard on me at first. Some are men I would have been drawn to in any case (others, alas, not), and I yearned to communicate with them, to convey my respect and my appreciation for their blows, their piss, their hard cocks filling my holes. But at the first word, even “Sir, thank you, Sir,” they stick in the big plug gag, filling my mouth, and tightly strap it around my head, or else the ring gag that stretches my jaws wide to receive their offerings. Only my eyes remain able to express my feelings, except when these, too, are covered.

Some men — a surprising number — find it unnerving to look into the eyes of a bound slave they are using and need the depersonalization afforded by a mask or hood, or at least a blindfold, while others look back at me with a fierce joy and a clear conscience, sure of their right to dominate. For me, the feelings are ambivalent. While it is good to be hooded and used as a nameless slave, just a body with convenient holes and parts available for torture, it is also thrilling to be in the hands of a man who really seems to want me — me in particular — and to take pleasure in my helplessness to resist him.

 

Part 4

 

Although I had become used to occasional visits from Stephen, the Master’s trusted house slave, either to check on me while I was in stringent bondage or to release me from it, I almost balked the first time he came in to initiate a session of immobility. Oh, shit, not now, I said silently to myself as he entered the cell carrying several large hanks of rope. I was in the middle of writing a very closely argued paragraph and didn’t want to stop.

But as he came toward me — the thick, man-size cock bouncing between his lean, muscled legs, an eager grin on his boyish face — I lost all desire to resist. It would be, I think, like smacking a puppy for being friendly. So I smiled back at him, put my writing materials aside, and got onto my knees, resting my manacled hands on my thighs.

Although I had been introduced to Stephen before my confinement, and he knew my name, once I was locked up here his demeanor changed. Instead of a fellow slave’s sympathy, what I sense from him now is a Topman’s relish for my vulnerability. Despite his nudity and the padlocked chain around his neck, he carries himself less like a slave than like a young Master. Maybe it seems that way because the Master leaves his chest, pubes, arms, and legs unshaved.

In his late 20s, more years younger than me than I like to admit, and a few inches taller, Stephen has a dark complexion, short black hair, a small goatee, and bright black eyes. At the front his hair is longer and trained in a stylish upward flare. Like me, he has thick silver rings in both his nipples and the head of his cock, which is uncut, but on him they seem decorative, not marks of possession. Since his earliest visits he hasn’t been completely nude but now wears heavy black lineman’s boots laced to his knees. And on this occasion he’d added studded leather armbands and tight black leather gloves.

While my chains prevent some rope-bondage positions, such as a classic hogtie, Stephen worked with them and methodically immobilized me. He roped my upper arms and elbows tightly behind my back, pulling my manacled wrists to my sides and pushing out my chest, which he crisscrossed with more rope until my whole torso was rigid. My cock tried in vain to become erect as his gloved hands moved over me with rough efficiency. I said nothing, of course, just looked at him as he bound my legs at the thighs, knees, and ankles, and then roped my feet back up to my arms. His usual eager expression had changed into a fierce concentration. I felt like a wild hare transfixed by a snake or bird of prey.

When he set me back upright on my knees, tightly bound from shoulders to feet, I could barely hold my balance without his hands on my shoulders. I stared into his sparkling eyes.

“Fuckface” he whispered to me, as soft as a lover’s sigh. “Such a good fuckface.” And then he clamped my head between his hands and did just that, fuck my face with his dick.

I was shocked — what would the Master think? — but Stephen seemed to have no compunctions about using me for his pleasure. “Trust me” was all he said when my eyes widened in alarm at his failure to put on a condom, and, confident that the Master would not own an untrustworthy slave, I did.

He came quickly, gushing out his cum after only a few strokes once his fat, uncut cock was lodged in my throat. Then he pulled back a little and smiled as he filled my mouth with his piss. After I’d swallowed his whole bladder load, he astonished me again by kneeling and kissing me deeply, passionately, and for a long time. He could probably still taste his urine on my tongue — I certainly could! Finally, he stroked my eyes closed and wound more rope around my head to form a blindfold and gag. He laid me down on my side, rubbed my shaved head between the ropes, and left the cell.

At least, I think he left — for all I knew, he could have stayed and watched me for the hour or two I lay in bondage. But there wasn’t the slightest indication I wasn’t alone. The only sound was my own breathing, an occasional slight clink from my chains as I shifted position, or tried to, and a periodic whoosh from the ventilation ducts. I think I’d have lain there for a long time even if I hadn’t been bound so tightly, overcome by what had just happened to me. More than merely being used by this young man, I’d been possessed by him.

The bondage eventually became painful, of course, and then I went mostly numb and stopped feeling it. All I could think about was Stephen’s taste in my mouth. His cum, piss, and spit, I’d had them all in one go. The only things left to taste were his sweat, tears, blood, and shit. I felt that I’d as soon pass on the last two, but I fantasized giving him a tonguebath after he’d worked up a good sweat flogging me. As for tears, I couldn’t imagine what might cause him to cry in my presence, and I didn’t want to find out, either.

When he returned (assuming he’d left) and released me from the ropes, rubbing my arms and legs with his gloved hands to restore full circulation, I just kept looking at him, marveling at his youth, his confidence, his deftness in handling me. The deference I accorded the Master did not seem to apply to him, a fellow slave, and yet his use of me had placed him far above me. Even without my rule of silence, what could I say to him? My feelings were still too new, too confused to articulate.

Stephen was in no such confusion. He held my head and kissed me again, then smiled and pressed my face down onto his boots.

“All right, slave. Show me how you lick boot leather.”

It was as if he’d thrown a switch, releasing me to show the feelings I couldn’t speak. I slobbered all over his tall boots, covering them with my spit and happy tears, rattling my chains until he finally put a stop to it, saying, “That’s enough, bootdog, enough for now. You’ll have plenty more chances to worship my boots. I’m nowhere near through with you.”

That was a turning point between us, especially after I reported the incident to the Master in my journal and he made no comment. Stephen was clearly acting within his limits, so in serving Stephen I was also serving the Master. That’s all I needed to quiet any misgivings about being a slave’s slave.

Stephen visits me now almost every day, and he always uses me before he leaves. It isn’t always oral service, either. A few weeks ago, after gleefully tormenting my nipples for an hour or more, he turned me over and fucked my ass for even longer, again with no condom, just like the Master.

He’s also training me to take larger and larger toys up my chute, and now when he leaves he usually installs a butt plug, which I wear until after my evening session with the Master. I am allowed to remove it when the light dims for me to sleep. After I take a last drink from the toilet, I wash the plug there, along with my hands. Stephen (at least I assume it is him) always flushes the toilet again before my morning drink.

He isn’t always affectionate, though; sometimes he seems cold and almost brutal. I hate those times, and when he leaves I vow to stop responding so eagerly to him, to make him work harder for my submission. But then the next day he’ll saunter in, smiling devilishly, and kiss or stroke me before he starts, and I’ll melt all over again.

 

Part 5

 

I think Stephen is following his own inspirations in binding or torturing me, not just carrying out the Master’s orders. He brings whatever he needs with him, sometimes more than he needs. He’ll lay out a whole repertoire of implements on the floor before choosing what to use. But there is none of the tentativeness in his handling of me that novice Tops often show, because they can’t quite believe they can actually do such things to another person.

Stephen knows he can do whatever he wants with me, though of course he’d be answerable to the Master if he injured his charge. Perhaps the Master is training him as a Top — he already has an amazing degree of skill for someone his age, as well as the inner fire. I like to think that Stephen is inspired by my increasingly deep submission, my total vulnerability. Unlike that first time, I go to my knees immediately when he enters now, bowing my head in respect as I do for the Master. He seems to expect no less.

More and more often Stephen comes in with the Master in the morning, and it is his piss that moistens my breakfast and his hand that gives me my regular flogging while the Master watches — or even leaves to go about his business. Also, it’s usually Stephen who clips and shaves me once a week now, rather than the Master. He never sits in the Master’s chair, however, always remaining standing or crouching, unless he lies down with me. He is obedient and deferential to the Master but does not kneel to him in my presence.

Stephen does make mistakes at times and has to back up a move or two, particularly when he’s trying out a new technique, but he usually works on me with a sureness almost equal to the Master’s, as if everything he does had been practiced to perfection in advance. But on whom? Himself?

The only hesitation I’ve noted, on occasions when he’s left my eyes uncovered, is that when he has me stretched out, tied into a bundle, or strung up to the wall, he’ll step back and just look at me for a while. His eyes sparkle and a half grin plays on his lips, as if he’s wondering which torment would be the most fun to inflict. Will it be needles this time? Or electricity? Things that pinch, or things that sting?

Why do I stand for this? Why don’t I complain to the Master? I’m no pain pig, and our experiment never envisioned regular torture, just a simple daily flogging. Is it his eyes? His smile? Surely it’s not simply lust for his cock! I’m not really a dick pig either, just a man who needs to obey and serve.

That must be the key: I am serving Stephen in his coming out as a Top. Thanks to me, and to the situation created by my need that makes me so available to him, he’ll gain as much experience in a few weeks or months as most new Tops acquire in years of cruising and tricking. Are his kisses and gentle strokes anything more than gestures of appreciation for my service to him? Why is that important to me? Does it still matter so much whom I serve, as long as I serve well?

Except for screams and involuntary cries, I honor the Master’s rule not to speak to Stephen, but he talks freely, vocalizing a running commentary on his use of me. Early on, I almost laughed, because his name-calling was so reminiscent of bad porn. Since then I’ve grown accustomed to his growling, muttering, boyish sex talk.

He calls me “dickhead,” “fuckwad,” and “pissdump,” or worse, but there’s no edge of malice in it, no contempt, more a kind of roughhewn affection. It’s as if I’m his pet and he’s encouraging me with words I can’t really understand. Perhaps he just needs to underscore the difference in our status, since he, too, wears a slave collar. For how much longer, though?

Much of the tenderness he shows me could be chalked up to a Top’s empathy, not the deeper affection of a lover or owner. He may gently stroke my face before he starts slapping me, or lightly kiss my ass cheeks before laying into them with a belt or paddle. But there are hints of something more.

Recently, for instance, after he kissed me on the mouth — hungrily, demandingly — he allowed me to lick his face before pushing my mouth into his armpits, and thence to his crotch. And though my tongue has been inside his ass crack and hole more often than in the Master’s (he especially likes to have me lick along the taint between his balls and asshole), his has been in mine almost as often, gently opening me up to be fucked. I often daydream about his taste and smell, so sweet and rank at the same time, and wonder if he thinks about mine.

I find it increasingly difficult to concentrate on anything else but his visits. One day my journal pages contained nothing but the words “Stephen’s slave” repeated over and over again. Five pages of it. The Master couldn’t help noticing what I’d done when I wordlessly handed the papers to him as he was leaving that night, though he usually leaves reading my journal for morning. He scanned the pages, his eyebrows dancing, and then sat down again.

“Is there something you need to tell me, slave? Or ask me?”

“Master,” I said, on my knees before him, “are you planning to give me to Stephen?”

“Maybe. How would you feel about it if I did?”

“Master, I’m not sure. He can wrap me around his finger, Sir . . . ,” I said and stopped, confused.

“And? What’s troubling you, slave?”

“Master, is it any more than sex? Would I trust him, Sir, if he weren’t your slave, Sir?”

“I’d say that’s a pretty good reason to trust him.”

“Yes, Sir, of course, but I don’t really know him, Sir, not the way a slave should know the Master he gives himself to — not the way I know you, for instance, Sir. But if you think it would be good for me, Sir, to serve him, I will follow your lead, Sir.”

“That’s a hopeful sign, slave, your trusting me in that. Maybe this experiment you cooked up is working!”

“Sir, thank you, Sir.”

“Nevertheless, I won’t make that decision for you. When the time comes, it must be your own free choice.” He sighed heavily before continuing.

“I never planned what’s been happening between you and Stephen, slave, and it’s damned inconvenient for me! It’s an accident that our experiment coincided with his blossoming as a Top. Or maybe not — maybe you’re bringing it out in him.”

“Sir, it’s nothing I’ve done intentionally, Sir.”

“I know that, slave. I’ve known for more than two years that Stephen would turn Top eventually — before he knew it himself. It’s just that I thought the process would be slower, giving me plenty of time to replace him as my house slave and business assistant.”

He stopped and sighed again, shifting in his seat.

“Stephen certainly didn’t show any eagerness to switch before. I let him watch me train other slaves, or do scenes with experienced bottoms, and I explained a lot of the techniques I used. He would assist me in the dungeon whenever I needed him, but he hung back from doing anything solo, even when I offered him opportunities.

“Then you came, and he begged me to let him help take care of you. Now he’s spending most of his free time in here with you, or planning what he’ll do to you next. He’s driving me crazy with his questions!”

He paused in thought, then continued.

“By now he’s gone through every piece of gear I own, asking how to use it, what dangers he should be aware of, how heavy it’s safe to get with it. I’ve looked at the tapes from his sessions with you, and it’s remarkable how good he is already. But you should be able to tell if he has real feelings for you or is just using you like a practice dummy.”

“Master, most of the time he acts like he cares for me, but then occasionally he’ll be cold and distant. So I don’t know what he really feels, Sir.”

“Well, you’re a captive slave, not really anyone’s property, and he’s a Top in training feeling his oats. I’m not surprised if he enjoys keeping you guessing. But I think he does care for you. He’s never seemed happier than since he started having regular sessions with you. He glows with the energy you feed him.”

“Master, thank you for telling me that. Sir, Stephen makes me happy, too, even when he gives me terrible pain. Sir, I endure it for his sake, because he wants it so much.”

“That’s good, because he was a heavy masochist as a bottom, and he’s turning into an extremely sadistic Top. But also a good one, a careful one — one you can trust, slave.

“And more than just a Top: he’s aiming at Mastery. I can tell by the questions he’s asked about you. He wanted to be sure your food was really adequate and healthy, for instance, and he’s the one who makes sure your toilet gets flushed without fail half a dozen times a day. He’s made suggestions to me about your exercise regimen, and he wanted to know all about the terms of our agreement.

“No, he’s not just a Top interested in unconnected scenes. He’s learned that owning is better than renting — if you can handle the upkeep.”

“Master, do you think he can? Sir, how much could he know of life from being your slave?”

“Don’t sell him short, slave!” he said almost angrily. “Somehow you talked me into setting up this experiment in long-term confinement, but my other slaves do real work — they’re not just toys to play with. Stephen has had as much experience dealing with the real world as most men his age, if not more.”

“Yes, Master. Begging your pardon, Sir.”

“That’s okay,” he said, looking kindly at me again. “Why do you think I can afford to stay home so much of the time? It’s because I send him out to represent me, sparing me the trouble. And his experience being a slave can only be an asset for a Master. It’s more than I had, more than most Masters have. He’ll make mistakes, sure, but he won’t have to guess what it feels like on the other end of the leash, or the whip. He’ll know, and you won’t be able to put anything over on him. He’s bright and he’s sensible, and with the right slave he’ll learn from his mistakes rather than becoming spoiled or giving up in despair. Can you handle being his slave?”

“Master, I don’t know. But if he wants me, and if we have your blessing and counsel, I’ll do my best, Sir.”

“We’ll see, slave.”

 

Part 6

 

If I expected anything dramatic to come of my talk with the Master, I was disappointed. Weeks have turned into months, and things are still much the same as before. Little changes happen, though, such as when Stephen — it’s always him in the morning now, not the Master — shows me a new exercise or resets the treadmill program to push me harder. One day he brought a tape measure and took a complete set of measurements of my body, with no explanation. He’s also taken urine and blood samples and sent them off for analysis.

“You’re healthy as a horse,” he told me after the results came back. “A strong draft horse. It’ll be a lot of years before you’re ready for a rest home.”

Within the framework of my relatively fixed, but slowly evolving, routine at the beginning and end of each day, the middle varies at Stephen’s whim, or perhaps according to changes in what the Master needs from him. Some days he might come in for no more than a quick blow job or piss break, followed by a kiss or a pat on the head. Other days he’ll spend hours with me, orchestrating elaborate bondage or torture scenes, culminating with a long fuck and then cuddling until I come down from whatever cloud he’s put me on.

More often now he’ll simply lie on my pallet and talk while I massage him or tonguebathe him, or sit on the bench while I lick his boots or nurse at his cock. He pours out his dreams and hopes — the kind of house he wants, the kind of work he wants to do, the additional education he needs for it, what he wants to accomplish in five years or ten. He says little about becoming a Master, just occasional references to “my slave and I” and the life he expects they’ll build together. His self-confidence is breathtaking, and very seductive.

Under my vow of silence, I make a good listener, and he usually keeps my mouth busy anyway. Even lying down, his hands are always in motion as he talks, and they’re never out of contact with me for long, always stroking or teasing or pinching some piece of my flesh. He doesn’t say, “I love you” or “I want you,” but he makes me feel it many times a day.

It’s been a long time since I gave up the idea of coming, and my body has found a way to give me wet dreams without erections. The dreams are always about Stephen. In real life, he has the oddest look on his face when he fondles my locked-down genitals, and I shiver, wondering what he plans for them. He has no guiche piercing, so apparently the Master never harnessed his sex the way he did mine.

 

Part 7

 

Today Stephen arrives full of even more energy than usual.

“Hello, slaveshit,” he says. “I call you that because today I’m going to beat the shit out of you, and since you’re a slave, you’re going to take it and thank me afterwards. Isn’t that right?”

Staring at him, open-mouthed, I automatically nod assent. I’m way past being able to deny him anything.

He uses no additional bondage for this session, just the chains I already wear and his gloved hands moving me into position and holding me there. He begins, in fact, by sitting on my pallet and laying me across his knees. Using his hands, a paddle, and a folded belt, he turns my flesh flaming red from my neck to the soles of my feet. When my backside is “done,” he turns me over and does the front the same way. I am whimpering long before he finishes, but he is unmoved.

Finally he dumps me onto the floor and stands up. I have a brief hope that he’s finished, but no: now that I’m “tenderized,” as he puts it, he starts in on me all over again using his boots. He kicks me, stomps on me, rolls me this way and that. The excruciating pain is eased only slightly by the knowledge that I am being pulverized by the same boots I’ve worshipped so often.

When he’s done all he can with his boots short of causing me internal injuries, he lowers the rarely used hoist from the ceiling, hooks my manacles onto it, and pulls me up to my feet. Then he starts using me as a punching bag!

Ungagged, I scream bloody murder, but Stephen never wavers, not even after I break my discipline and start sobbing out clear pleas to stop.

“Please, Sir, no more! Please stop, Sir! Please, Sir!”

Instead, he grabs my skull and starts slapping my face, hard.

“You don’t really mean that, fuckface! You don’t want me to stop before I’m damned well good and ready, do you, shithead slave? Do you? Answer me, asshole!”

“Sir, it hurts so much! Please, Sir!”

He slaps me some more before answering.

“It’s supposed to hurt, slaveboy. I enjoy hurting you. Haven’t you got that through your thick skull yet?”

“Sir, yes, Sir. As you please, Sir,” I force past my bruised lips.

“Damned right, dickhead. As I please, not you.”

At least he moves away from my face after that, and in my agony I realize that his heavier blows are all aimed at well-padded spots on my body. Although I hurt everywhere on the surface, and down into the large muscles, inside I’m okay, just shaken up and pumping out adrenaline and, finally, enough endorphins to turn the pain into ecstasy. I cross over into a masochist’s nirvana on a wave of natural opiates, my brain’s response to the stress of the beating.

Finally, when I’m too blissed out to care, he lets me down and half drags, half carries me over to my pallet, where he lays me out and fucks me royally. There is no more pain — I’m flying.

Before he comes inside my bruised ass, he bends over and says right into my ear, “I want you, slave. I never knew it could be this good. I want to own you and keep you for myself. I don’t want to share you anymore. And I want you to want me, too. I’d let you come now if I could, but the Master hasn’t allowed me the key to that lock. He will, though. He will.”

After he comes with a triumphant shout, he lies on top of me, his dick still inside my ass. We both doze for a while, but when I swim back to consciousness, he’s talking again.

“You want me, too, I know you do. I can see it in your eyes when you look at me. You know who you belong with. You know it’s time you started serving for real instead of in this zoo. I’ll take care of you all right, but you’ll cook for me, and clean my home, and wash my clothes and oil my leathers. You think I don’t have any of those things, and it’s true, I don’t have much — not yet, just the things I’m wearing now, the boots and armbands and gloves. I bought these for you, so you’d respect me even though I still wear a collar. “

He caresses me gently and kisses the back of my neck before continuing.

“It’s been years since I’ve had any clothes of my own, anything besides what the Master gives me so I can run errands and do business for him. And the only home I know is this one, the only space of my own the one room he lets me use. But I have plenty of money — he’s been saving it for me since I’ve been in his service, and he showed me the total — and I have marketable skills.

“All I need to make it worthwhile is a slave to come home to. I’ll be able to support you, dickhead, don’t worry about that, and maybe you can even earn a little on the side. The Master said he would free me if I mastered you, and when he sees you tonight, covered with bruises I gave you, and you kneel at my feet and kiss my boots in front of him, he’ll know that I have.”

He licks my ears and the back of my fuzzy head. I’m sure I look like road kill, yet in my heart I feel at ease. What needed to be said has finally been said. I don’t have to speculate anymore about Stephen’s intentions — or my future.

Relaxed and obviously feeling good about his conquest, Stephen lies half on me, half on the floor, and lightly strokes my shoulders and arms. It tickles and I shiver. He thinks something’s wrong and immediately reassures me.

“It’s okay, boy, you’ll be all right. It’s over now, and you did fine.”

Turning my head, I flash him a grin. He laughs.

“Guess you are okay, asshole!”

He lays his head on my shoulder again and rests for a while, but he can’t keep quiet for long — there’s so much he wants to say to me.

“I’ll bet you think he made it too easy for me, pissface, because here you are, all chained up and available, with no way to resist me. But I know you, slave. I’ve read your journals, too. You could have resisted me in your head if you’d wanted to. I could have been no more to you than some jerk who interrupted your precious meditation. But no, you bent your neck to me the first time I reached out my hand. You knew I would take you, and you wanted me to.”

He’s right, of course. He reads me perfectly.

“And you egged me on by the way you responded,” he continues. “I don’t think you even realized what you were doing. You could have laughed at my inexperience, or my presumption. But you loved it, dickwipe, you loved my using you, fucking you, beating you. You love it now, don’t you? You’re aching in every limb, and you wish I’d never take my cock out of your ass, don’t you?”

If he never took it out of my ass, he couldn’t put it in my mouth. I grunt ambiguously, and he laughs again.

“Yeah, I know you can’t talk to me, can’t tell me you agree — or that you don’t! That’s okay, cocksucker: you’ve talked too much in your life anyway. Now I’ll talk for both of us, and you can listen. Your body language is telling me all I need to know.

“I own you already, asswipe. I just have to make sure that the Master accepts it and lets us both go. I know you’re older than me, and better educated. That’s good; you can help me avoid mistakes. But I don’t think you’re smarter than me, not about anything real, and I’ll always have the balls to keep you in line when I have to. I don’t think I’ll have to punish you much, though. You’re well trained, give the Master credit for that, and you’ll obey me because you know it’s what makes you happy.

“Get your head around it, slave. I’m going to leave here soon, and you’re coming with me.”

The pain in my cock as it tries, and fails, to become erect is all the testimony I need from that quarter. Despite all the pain Stephen gives me, he wants me, he wants me badly, and that’s always been my chief aphrodisiac. The Master clearly doesn’t want me the way Stephen does, or need me. Confining me was a gift from him, because the experiment intrigued him and he enjoys our talks. But it was my obsession, not his, and he’ll probably be relieved to end it. This cell will get plenty of use from his tricks and other trainees.

Stephen pulls out finally, his cock still half hard, and goes to his gear bag for the ointment he applies to my welts. Lying there as he gently rubs the cooling salve into every inch of my bruised skin, I find my mind drifting. It feels so good just to let him take care of me. His spate of talk seems to have run out, and he is as silent as me. We communicate only by looks and touch, the eternal languages of love.

Nonetheless, sometimes I shiver when Stephen strokes me gently, almost preferring his slaps and kicks to the confused emotions his tenderness arouses. His rough but confident handling feels so right. Why should I have any doubts? I do want to please him. I can easily see myself cooking and cleaning for him, helping him off with his boots, polishing them, running his bath, turning down his bed, sleeping on the floor at his feet. I’m a slave, after all — more of a slave now than ever before — and serving a dominant man is what I need to do.

And he’s right that I need to serve him in real life, not in this arti-ficial environment the Master created for me. This isn’t the essence of slavery at all, but a parody of it! I can see it clearly now: my fantasy of open-ended confinement, of being nothing but a sextoy and urinal, is actually extremely selfish. Here I am, serving both my Masters sexually, taking their piss, absorbing their blows, but unable to work for them. I’m not carrying any of their burdens. Time to be real again!

Stephen fucks me once more, very gently, before he leaves, and then lets me clean him with my mouth until he empties his bladder down my throat. He says not another word, just kisses me deeply and rubs my scalp fuzz. After the door closes behind him, I lie back on my pallet and — exhausted, happy, hurting, confused, hopeful — soon fall asleep.

 

Part 8

 

When the Master comes to me that evening, I’m not surprised to see Stephen with him. It’s Stephen who carries my food bowl and crouches over it to moisten the gritty meal with his piss so I can eat it. The Master sighs and watches, saying nothing until I finish. When I thank him, still on my knees, he tells me to stand up and slowly turn around. I do so, barely suppressing a groan — I ache everywhere! The Master checks the bruises left by Stephen’s beating.

“Down, slave,” he says at last. “You may speak freely. Stephen did this to you?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Did you want him to?”

“No, Master. It was all his idea, Sir.”

“But you enjoyed it?”

“No, Master, not exactly. But he enjoyed it, and that made it okay.”

“I see. Do you feel that he went too far, exceeded your limits?”

“No, Master . . . .”

“Go on, slave.”

“Thank you, Master. It was the worst beating anyone’s ever given me, Sir. But as you can see, Sir, I survived in one piece.”

“I see. What did Stephen say to you, exactly, about why he did this?”

“Master, he said that you told him that he’d be freed if he mastered me.”

“And do you feel that he has? A beating alone is not Mastery.”

Now my eyes move over to Stephen standing beside the Master’s chair. His bare arms are crossed behind his back, his booted legs spread, his cock half erect, to all appearances a perfect slave. He raises his bowed head just enough to hold my eyes and pull them down to his boots. I know exactly what he wants from me, needs from me. His fate is now in my hands. I could say one word, “No,” and he’d remain a slave, and probably be barred from my cell so I would have nothing to fear from him. He’d be just another slaveboy who got above himself and was slapped down again.

No way can I do that to him. I might not be totally sure yet that he’s the right Master for me, but what do I have to lose by trying? A few more months of solitude in my cell? I’m suddenly eager to move on and try real slavery again.

A second or two was enough for these thoughts. The Master sees only the barest hesitation as I shuffle on my knees toward his slaveboy and bend my head to kiss his boots. As soon as I do so, Stephen reaches down and hooks a finger through one of the rings on my collar, pulling me upright between his legs. I kiss his cock, too, now proudly erect.

“Let it be so,” the Master says, and I swear he sounds pleased. “Stephen, come here.”

Quickly, my new Master releases my collar and steps around me to stand in front of his Master.

“Kneel, boy, for the last time.” The Master pulls out his key ring and unlocks Stephen’s collar chain, then rises from his chair and they embrace, hugging each other with every evidence of considerable affection. I see all this over my shoulder, as I don’t dare move without permission.

The Master kisses Stephen and holds him at arm’s length, looking him up and down as if for the first time before speaking again.

“You’ve grown so much in the past year. I never intended this outcome when I agreed to this slave’s proposal. I’m going to miss your smooth running of this house and all your help in my business. But it feels right. I think it’s what you both need.

“This slave’s greater age and experience will help you mature and develop into a fine Master, as long as you never lose his respect. You may not stay together long, or you might be a match for the ages — there’s no telling yet. But right now I think you’ll do very well together.”

“Sir,” Stephen replies, still giving the Master the respect he deserves, “unless you wish us to leave immediately, I’d be happy to continue here for another month or so, while I make other arrangements. My slave can do my chores, under my direction, and I can help you find and train a new assistant for the business.”

“Stay as long as you like,” the Master says. “But won’t you find your room too cramped now?”

“It’ll be good for the slave to get used to it, Sir,” my new Master says, grinning as he steps over to me and turns me around with a touch on my shoulder. “You’ve been too easy on him, Sir, letting him have all this space to himself. At least he won’t need any of my closet — I’m going to be filling it with my new clothes.”

“Very good. Take this key and unlock his leg chain from the wall. Do you want to take off his collar and cuffs, too?”

“Thank you, Sir, but I’d like to keep them on, with your leave, for as long as we stay in your house. I’ll give him a new collar when we move to my own home. Meanwhile, your chains suit him well, I think. Don’t they, fuckface?”

So ingrained was the rule against speaking to anyone but the Master that I hesitate to reply.

“You can answer me, slave,” Stephen says. “I am your Master now.”

“Sir, yes, Sir, thank you, Sir!” I say in a rush, and bend to kiss his boots again.

“Silly slaveboy!” he says, grinning down at me. “It’s going to be fun training you all over again.”

He squats down to disconnect me from the wall chain, then pulls me to my feet and into his arms. I wince as he hugs me, because of my bruises, but there’s nowhere else I want to be.

“Looks like our experiment is finished,” the Master says, “but given such a wild card as Stephen here proved to be, I’d have to call the results inconclusive. What do you think, slave?”

Glancing at my new Master for permission, I answer firmly,

“Sir, it was a wonderful experience, and I am deeply grateful to you for it, but it’s time I faced my responsibilities. Sir, I’m ready to be a slave in the real world again, Sir.”

“Good boy!” the Master says.

“Woof!” Stephen says, and kisses me hard. “C’mon, dickface,” he says at last, grinning widely, “and I’ll show you where the real slaves around here live.”

“Yes, Master.”

 

THE END

 

Metalbond would like to thank his friend david stein for allowing this story to be published on this site.

 

© 2009 by david stein; all rights reserved. From david’s story collection, Boots, Bondage, and Beatings (Perfectbound Press, 2009); see perfectboundpress.com for details and to order a copy. An earlier version of this story appeared in Men on the Edge edited by Christopher Pierce (StarBooks, 2008).

 

The illustration is by Axel, copyright 2009, artbyaxel.com