By slaveobjectx

I flew from London to Atlanta. Atlanta airport is something else! Huge. For whatever reason, I was pulled over for a search coming through Customs. My suitcase was mostly taken up with my leather gear and boots but the black lady sifting through my stuff must have seen it all before. Not even the hint of a knowing smile. Finally I was waved through and there was Mike waiting for me.

I knew that The Center was not actually in Atlanta but I had not expected it to be some thirty miles north, through a commuter town and then through countryside until we arrived at an area filled with up-market, large houses, most with swimming pool and very much sitting cheek by jowl. One was overlooked in all directions. We parked and entered through the main door to the house. How different it used to be for the inmates of The Academy! The illusion of jail was maintained through picking them up at the airport in a prepared van with blackened windows. As such they would have seen nothing of the seeming normality of the setting of The Academy in an oasis of respectability.

The house was large and fitted out with Persian carpets and 18th century antique furniture. I was shown to the largest bedroom I have ever seen, containing the largest bed also. It was about 8 feet wide by ten feet long. I showered, dressed in normal clothes and went downstairs to meet Charles, who as I have said, was a perfect gentleman, cultured and refined. Courtesies dealt with I was taken downstairs to the basement to see the famed Jail.

The first impression was simply how big it was. In London most action took place in bedrooms. One was lucky to find an equipped cellar, usually small. This would have been a small jail, of course, but it was convincing in every detail. Incidentally, it contained nothing of the dungeons I was used to. There were cells with simple iron beds and really nothing else. However there was a changing room for the guards which contained cupboards holding uniforms, prisoners’ orange suits, drawers containing hand cuffs and leg irons, a number of strait jackets. But none of the whips and paddles, or esoteric bondage devices, or slave collars etc that one would see in a BDSM play space.

I spent the next few days with Mike getting to know the place intimately, walking it endlessly so that finally I could find my way around blindfolded, knowing just how many steps it took to go from one cell to another; accustoming myself with the locks to the cells so that locking and unlocking became a matter of routine; becoming used to American locks on handcuffs, so different from the British ones I knew from London; and getting Mike as quickly and efficiently as possible into a straitjacket. I really wanted to become as like the professional guards as possible. We even spent the evenings watching The Academy videos to pick up tips.

I had ten days to do all this before the planned weekend event took place, days I spent learning how to make use of the place but also in being a tourist, Mike acting as tour guide and showing me the beauties of the Georgian countryside. One amusing detail… Charles would accompany us, in the back seat, wearing a slave collar and leg irons and handcuffs. He was totally happy!

So the Friday arrived and we waited for the various inmates to show up. We had two last minute cancellations — possibly genuine, possibly cold feet; but almost always the case when something is offered free. Had we had a charge — at least to cover expenses — we might not have been let down.

Maybe because this was a kind of test weekend but I felt the atmosphere was too relaxed. Had I been in charge, I would have tried to emulate The Academy is some ways — by admitting the inmates to the basement rather than the house; by inducting them, processing them, to give them a sense of what lay ahead. Instead it was a very laid back holiday atmosphere that Mike created. Though The Center had provision for six inmates, we were down to three. The last showed up around dinner time as he had driven from Philadelphia. He had only recently left the Marines and one noticed immediately how superbly fit he was. His looks were striking — he looked very mean and tough — but he could not be described as conventionally handsome. He was also extremely shy. We were to learn that not only was The Center to be a new experience for him (no matter how much a sense of rules and discipline could chime with life in the Marines) but so was being the company of out gay men, indeed of out gay men with strong tastes for all aspects of BDSM.

So it was a relaxed evening of getting to know one another and building trust — perhaps that was Mike’s aim — and we all retired to bedrooms, rather than locking the inmates in cells. That all started on the morning — admittedly after a casual and easy-going breakfast. Then we started the induction process. But I felt that Mike and I had lost some gravitas by having been so friendly. I have strong opinions, not shared by all guys by any means, on establishing a BDSM ‘reality’. I dislike acting. One minute being an ordinary kind of man and then when the cue comes stepping into role. It is for this reason that my style does not encompass the snarling, contemptuous kind of Top action that one sees in porn and that indeed one can see in The Academy videos.

I want to be the same person both in and out of BDSM activities. I do not want to act. I want to tap into those elements within myself that are genuine and project them outwards. Admittedly, this can be useful if I am working in conjunction with someone who is more overtly domineering. I tend to project the kind of menace that Christof Waltz did in Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, seemingly civilised but cold as ice. I guess it is very much the good cop/bad cop routine but it is fun to see our victim realise that he has got it very wrong and that it is I who turns out to be the bad cop.

We had a really good morning and afternoon, including valuable periods of rest for both guards and inmates. But then they were all released for the evening and we had dinner and chat as before. However, after dinner, we all got into our bar gear and headed off to a leather bar in Atlanta! Well, I must concede that there was no risk of boredom that weekend! The bar was very circumspect compared to the leather bars of London, Amsterdam and Berlin! However, it was friendly and I got to meet some real Atlanta leatherman. I also had a long chat with “Bill,” the ex-Marine, who had never been in a gay bar before, let alone a leather bar. He was terribly on edge, and nervous, not at all at ease; I suspected he was drinking heavily — his eyes were restless, and he couldn’t meet my gaze. One of Mile’s friends came back to the Center with us, bringing a slave he had just picked up.

It was late but we were up for play. I was having a very good scene in one of the cells with one of the weekend guests, when I heard a heck of a lot of shouting, even screaming coming from another section of the Center. I rushed to investigate to find the new slave from the bar, tied to a chair, his Master standing by totally unsure of what to do — and a very verbally abusive, homophobic Bill, screaming anti-gay stuff at the poor lad who was terrified and with tears running down his cheeks.

Mike and I showed up at the same time. We moved in, trying to get hold of Bill, but the ex-Marine was as I said in superb physical shape and though not really a tall man, very muscled. He shook us off easily. What to do? Luckily Mike had been in the services himself and he simply went into officer mode. He firmly and calmly ordered Bill to attention and to my amazement, Bill immediately complied. Mike walked round him, dressing him down then ordered him to continue standing at attention. Then calmly he wandered over to me and said to me that there was more to this than met the eye and that could I deal with things in The Center while he took Bill upstairs. My own feeling was to make use of The Center and march Bill into a cell and leave him for the night. But Mike said, ‘He’s out of his head on drugs. We have to approach this differently.’

And so it was, Mike marched Bill upstairs and I and his Master got the weeping slave out of his bondage. I told them that they could of course stay the night but the lad wanted desperately to go home so the two of them set off to Atlanta again. The other inmates were also very much on edge but I told them they must go to bed, but to lock their doors! I tidied up and went upstairs. I stood at the open door to Bill’s bedroom. He was in bed, wild-eyed and shaking but no longer physically abusive. Mike invited me in and went on talking to Bill quietly but firmly, telling him that he had better behave or he would be taken in charge by me, than whom there was no meaner, bad-assed bastard in the world. Bill’s head to turned to look at me and the fear in his eyes was immense. It takes something to make me abandon my usual methods but this was certainly one and I hope I rose to meet it. I used to be a university lecturer in drama. This has actually been of immense value in my BDSM activities because I know how to construct a scenario, how to pace it and how to reach a climax! But in this case, I decided that acting was the best policy and with icy coldness I outlined a series of exemplary punishments he would meet where he to leave his bed or indeed move an inch before we came to get him in the morning. He agreed to anything and everything I asked of him.. And we left, Mike locking the door.

Well he and I stayed up half the night discussing all this. In retrospect it all made sense. Bill’s lack of experience in the gay world was all too new for him. He took the drugs to try to get through it all but he took too many and he flipped. The one thing I really got out of all this was that in Mike I felt I had found a friend but, more than that, a brother. And even if we did have to act in order to get though a terrible new reality, I think it was a good double act!

Released from his bedroom on the Sunday morning, Bill was deeply ashamed. Mike took the other inmates to the dungeon for more prison action but he said later their hearts were not in it. I spent the time with Bill, listening to him as he poured out a tale of woes and repression, and a lot of time going on about his ‘ugliness.’ I disabused him of this. I told him his ‘look’ was far more interesting than being handsome; that if I had chosen anyone from the bar the previous evening it would have been him. I meant it too. We discussed a lot of related issues — his time in the Marines, his own homosexuality, his need to be shouted at and forced to be submissive. I told him about my own experiences and suggested that in time he might make use of his experience in the Marines by learning from the bottom as I had and perhaps he too would make the transition to being Top.

He kept in touch with me and he did get involved in leather circles and he even found love with someone not into leather but who recognised Bill’s needs so they had an open relationship.

The rest of my trip was anti-climatic in a sense after these shenanigans. Yes, I had a great time and lots of action. But Mike and I also had many a discussion about how to handle things in the Jail Center and he agreed that, as with The Academy, discipline must be instilled from the outset.

Mike went on with The Jail Training Center, and I believe it did well for a time — but actually in attempting to make it a Temple of Delights for all BDSM activity, I believe it lost its focus. Suddenly, I stopped hearing from him. A few years ago in Berlin I bumped into the unfortunate Master from Atlanta who told me that The Center had closed, Mike had left, and he knew no more about him. I do often wonder if that large house still has a Jail in its basement.

Metal would like to thank the author, slaveobjectx, aka Cager, for this write-up!