Green Pastures 4

Green Pastures 4

Milton watched Tilden’s stiff back and rigid shoulders; disapproval and anger radiated off Tilden. He’d never put Tilden in a corner; somehow standing this painfully correct man in a corner like an errant child had never seemed appropriate. Milton was honest enough with himself to know that cornering someone was a huge power trip, not a benign exercise in diffusing temper. There was little sexual fission at starring at paint and paneling. He supposed anticipation might work for a certain type of submissive, but Milton had never had one. Austin and Sheldon both loathed the corner and both saw it as a blatant power trip on Milton’s part. If he wanted to calm either of them, he put them on the floor and drew them close. Power with physical contact made them both pliant and pleasant, Austin especially who had none of the cultural hang-ups that Sheldon had about resting his head on Milton’s thigh and being petted to kingdom come. In a certain mood Sheldon would sputter that he wasn’t the family dog, but Milton knew social cover versus true desire. Sheldon relaxed on the floor at Milton’s feet.

Mike had been a different story. Truly angry at Mike, Milton would strip him of all the trappings of the power imbalance. Cornering for Mike was a signal that the game was on and that he could play it to the degree of harshness he desired. Sitting at the table with a pitcher of water between them was a sign that Milton meant business in all the real ways of an adult relationship. The boy had serious deficiencies on how to handle himself. Volatile by nature and understandably insecure, the boy had been hard work. At his core, Mike was soft and clingy, but it took a battle ax to get there. God, he hoped he was doing right by that boy. Mike was more than the hard playing submissive he presented to the world. Did that Hawthorne guy even have a clue? He was clever enough with the tools of the trade and sadistic enough to capture Mike’s interest, but did he have any idea what came with Mike’s contract? Mike needed a lover and a partner, not just a dominant. He needed someone who captured his interest as a person, not just as the holder of the whip.

Mike was spectacularly awful at lifestyle submission. His interest ended when his bruises healed, and he fought Milton’s care taking impulses. Milton curled his fingers tight, almost reveling in the pain as his nails met his palm. Tilden wanted a caretaker or so he said and Milton wouldn’t give it. This was crazy. He failed with the one who only wanted beaten for pleasure, and he failed with the one who was revolted by pleasure beatings.

Tilden’s shoulders were softening. He’d lost his stiff lines, and his feet had shifted wider. Milton rose and stood behind him. He kissed the fair hair and stroked the back of his hand down Tilden’s cheek. 

“Are you ready to talk now, boy”

Tilden’s head shot around at the word boy. He’d never become comfortable with the term. 

“If you want me to make decisions, you are a boy. If you want to mouth off at me and have it washed away without threatening the very foundation of our relationship, you are a boy. What will it be, Tilden?”

“I want…” Tilden swallowed, his eyes tracking Milton, his adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. This was Milton’s most articulate partner, and he was trapped in a morass of silence of his own making. “I’m not—“

“Don’t you tell me that you’re not kinked. What do you think it makes me when you insist it isn’t about a sexually driven power exchange? It makes me an abusive bastard. Would you beat a student for failing to learn verb conjugations? Would you be OK with your father hitting your mother for getting distracted and burning dinner?”

“It’s not the same.”

“Really,” Milton let the sarcasm bleed into his voice.

“It’s not.” Tilden raked his fingers through his hair. 

“Tilden, you sat through me explaining it to Austin, you’ve heard me a dozen times with Luke, and you have to have my prattle memorized to the would be submissives who troop through the Green Mountain Boys and run away in terror. It’s not some sort of archaic and brutal behavioral modification. You know how to be a decent human being, and if you didn’t I sure wouldn’t be teaching you by hitting you.”

“You mean that I shouldn’t do this.” Tilden reached across the counter and threw a plate filled with iced-cookies.

Milton dodged, his reflexes honed by years with Sheldon. The plate shattered on the floor, pink hearts, gold stars, and purple flowers scattering everywhere.

The back door opened, and before Milton could shoo the person away, Sheldon’s head popped in the door. “I’ll corral Luke and Austin and we’ll have boys’ night out.”

“Sheldon.” Milton turned to face his slave, wanting nothing more than to bury his face in the flaming red hair that seemed resistant to age. 

“I’ve got this. You need space tonight.”

“Use the money in the top drawer. You know where it is.”

“Of course, Master. I picked it up from the bank yesterday.”

Sheldon did almost all the errands now. Technically he had no money, but he carried the household credit card as well as having all the passwords for Milton’s accounts. His penniless status was a choice the boy enjoyed, a chance to ask and be granted the needed coin.

“Choose somewhere sensible.”

“With Luke,” Sheldon said with an exasperated sigh. “He’s old before his times. My mother is more daring.”

Milton clicked his tongue.

“Well you were the one being the mother hen.” Sheldon grinned and stuck his tongue out for an instant. “It’s hard to get in much trouble when we’re all teetotalers without our lord and commander’s permission. We’ll have the senior special and a pot of tea. Maybe we’ll be daring and get chocolate sauce on our ice cream.”

“Go, brat,” Milton said with a wave of his hand, knowing that Sheldon was trying to raise a smile and his master’s mood. 

“On second though I’ll get candy cane ice cream. The stripes on the candy will match the ones on my ass.” This time Sheldon did raise a smile.

“Get.”

Tilden had started to pick up the mess as Sheldon and Milton talked. The shattered plate and scattered cookies were already in the trash, and he had a broom in his hand. 

“Sheldon’s a good man,” Tilden said. “For a long time I thought he was a lunatic, but he isn’t really, is he?”

Milton favored Tilden with a thin smile. “He would consider you the lunatic. A first case class of bratting and cleaning up before I twist your arm. The entire purpose of this sort of thing is getting me to react.”

“He doesn’t do it much anymore.”

“He has other ways to get what he needs.”

“At least he gets something.” Tilden banged the dustpan into the trash.

“What do you want?” Milton grabbed Tilden’s collar, jerking him around. “Do you want a scene with a naughty boy spanked over my knee? Do you want a beating? Do you want to talk like two lovers in a complicated relationship?” Milton leaned into Tilden, threatening him, pinning him to the wall. “Do you want me to make the choice?”

“Yes,” Tilden said in a small voice.

“Do you have any idea how insanely dangerous this is?” Milton tightened his fingers in Tilden’s hair and jerked his head back. “Do you?”

Tilden was silent, looking at Milton with huge round eyes. He licked his lips and swallowed, but he made no sound. This was the man who could tell Milton to stop in a dozen languages, and not a word left his lips.

“Lose your pants and over the table.” 

Milton jerked his belt from his waist and wrapped it around his hand. He didn’t do this with Tilden, not with a belt. The man was soft, not a masochistic bone in his body. Milton had seen the frightened look at the unmistakable sound. He drank in the view of the prone body, the fingers clinging to the table, the ass cheeks clenched in panic. Tilden had a safeword. He could damn well call it if he didn’t have this in mind. The man wanted punished; Milton wasn’t going to remind him of the niceties of this exchange. 

The belt leapt through the air and snaked over the vulnerable flesh. The red wheal bloomed. The gasp from Tilden was shocking in its rawness. He’d never been hit like this. There was no mercy in Milton’s blows. Blade would need help to find the headspace for these blows. Milton was offering no help, no mercy, no kindness. These were to hurt. The man wanted punished; he was going to get punished. 

Ten and there was a trace of blood on purpling skin. One after another, not distributed along the target, only a scorching line of fire. Tilden was crying, wrenching gulping desperate sounds. The leather skipped over the flesh again.

“Joburg.”

Milton dropped the belt. Tilden’s safeword, the nickname for the gritty South African city, a tribute to Gordon in his own way. 

“It’s about time, you fool.” 

Tilden groaned and muttered something unintelligible. His fingers still clutched the table, his shirt stuck to his sweaty back, and his chest heaved with the effort to draw air into his overtaxed lungs. The wails that had risen from his throat with each blow had quieted to choked, exhausted sobs.

“No more pain.” The reassurance was a lie, and Milton knew it. Tilden was going to physically hurt for several days. The belt had ravaged a line into the flesh, but the physical pain was going to be nothing compared to the emotional shakeup. He’d forced his friend to safeword to stop a savage beating. Minutes ago it had seemed like a good plan, but maybe it was more halfcocked than good. He couldn’t think about it now. He had to tend to the physical needs of a wounded submissive.

Milton pried Tilden’s hands from the table’s edge and guided him to an upright position. Tilden’s bedroom was only down the hall. They’d never moved all the bedrooms to the second floor when they became six instead of two groups of three. He supported Tilden in the laborious walk to the bedroom. Tilden’s feet were moving by blind muscle memory, each step stumbling and painful. 

“Face down. I’ll get painkillers and ice.”

Tilden fell onto the bed. He grabbed a pillow and buried his face. “I’m such a wimp.”

“No, I wanted you to be far more of a wimp. Let me care for you then we will talk.”

The nod was almost imperceptible. 

Milton brushed his hand over the sweat soaked hair. He was still trusted. After deliberately ripping Tilden’s world apart, the man still trusted his torturer. Milton touched his lips to the back of Tilden’s neck. “I am in awe of you.” 

“Why?” Tilden’s voice was plaintive and hoarse with tears. “I safeworded.”

“You were brave and wonderful and right. Let me take care of you.”

“Right?” Tilden twisted, trying to see Milton, and winced in pain.

“Let yourself rest.” Milton brushed his fingers down Tilden’s neck. “You will see it. You already know it. I’ll be back.”

Milton hurried from the room. He should have been prepared. He needed water, ice, pain killers, antiseptic cream, loose fitting clothes. His brain went through the list on autopilot. This was Tilden. He’d done this to Tilden, and he was completely unprepared. This was the man he’d loved for so many years. Why could he never think or act clearly around him?

At least he was prepared enough to have a stocked first aid box. He had two, the ordinary one and the special one for misjudged bdsm play with stout scissors and several sizes of wire cutters, the largest looking like it had been lifted from the fire department. He grabbed a well-worn and faded shirt from the closet. He was bigger and broader than Tilden. It would cover enough until thin and loose boxers weren’t agony. From the kitchen he collected ice and water and Austin’s lunch bento box that Mace had prepared for tomorrow. Mace indulged their pickiest eater with the cafe’s newest craze for young, homesick college kids—pretty, tasty, and trendy with a sweet morsel for the young and spoiled.

Tilden had curled onto his hip and was looking toward the hallway as Milton came in. His eyes followed Milton as he set down the supplies.

“Will you let me tend to you?”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to. Do you trust me to do it?” Milton dreaded the answer. Tilden could say no. He had every right to say no. His limits had never been unclear to Milton, and he’d intentionally crossed all of them.

“Yes.” 

It was the sweetest word in the English language.

“Take these.” Milton shook two pain killers out onto his palm and bent over Tilden. “They’ll help with the swelling and make it easier to sleep.”

Tilden swallowed the pills and sipped the water. 

“Let me get the raw spots cleaned and some anti-septic cream on you. I brought you a soft shirt.”

“Stop fussing.” Tilden reached for Milton and entwined his hand in Milton’s thicker fingers. “I know why you did it, and you stopped the minute I managed to open my mouth.”

“We’ll talk about it after you’re cared for.”

“No.” Tilden gave Milton a wan smile. “I safeworded. You can’t order me around right now. I do know the rules.”

“Tilden—“

“I know what you were teaching me. I control this. I loan you the power. I am not helpless or pitiful or less fit. That was the lesson, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Milton said in a soft voice. “A hard lesson.”

“For you also,” Tilden said very gently. “Take care of me, please.” He collapsed back against the pillow.

Tilden relaxed was always pliant, a man who enjoyed reading with his head resting on Milton’s shoulder or walking with Milton’s arm draped around his waist. He was more than pliant now, limp and without resistance. He winced when Milton put ice wrapped in a towel on the livid marks, but he didn’t try to crawl away or hide himself. Finished with the chores of aftercare, Milton took off his shoes and stripped to his boxers and t-shirt before climbing on the bed. He pulled Tilden’s head into his lap and stroked the soft hair.

“I like this,” Tilden murmured, his voice rough from the earlier tears.

“Just rest. We can talk later.”

“I’ll lose my nerve. Don’t go.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” 

“I like this,” Tilden murmured again.

“I know you like to be petted. You’re a tactile man. I don’t need to beat you to give you this.”

“No not that. I feel weird, like it weird.”

“Tilden,” Milton said with a snort, “should I give you a Gordon lecture on the proper use of the English language?”

“Spare me.” Tilden nuzzled into Milton’s lap. “I just don’t care right now, what people think, what I’m supposed to do. I think I’m high.”

Milton shook his head. He kissed the cheek that was still red from earlier crying. “You always surprise me. I wanted to make you take control and you have an epiphany about your submission. Rest now. I’ve got you.”

“Milton, I know what I give up to be with you. I know you, Milton, maybe sometimes better than you know yourself. You used your dominance and your sadism to teach me a lesson. You say you can’t. That it’s never real, that it’s too dangerous when it’s real, but one word and you stopped. I know I have that power, Milton. You don’t have to make me drink the bitter draught every moment. I’ll use it if I need it.”

“You don’t like much of my dominance.”

“I’m not sexually aroused by pain. Is that what you mean?”

“Yes.” Milton fingered Tilden’s hair and tried to arrange his thoughts. “I’m not even sure you’re sexually aroused by the power. That scares me, Tilden. What are you getting out of this?”

Milton thought Tilden might have fallen asleep as the silence stretched between them. 

“You’re not blackmailing me into this if that’s your concern. I want to submit. I am a submissive. I like being protected and shielded.”

“It’s not about that. I just showed you—“

“Milton, I know. You showed me that I can take back control if I want to, but look at yourself. You were teaching me that with all the tools of your dominance. That is what I love about you. I won’t let you go too far, but I want that controlled and dominating care taking. I don’t want to go into the world alone. I don’t want to fight my demons without you. You want to give that. You do give that. It’s not just about a pliant body in the bed or you would have left with Mike. Look at Sheldon.”

“He gets off on it.”

“Yes, but he’s getting a lot more, and you damn well know it. Same with Austin. He has hot guys drooling after him, and he’s at your feet. You’re the one who makes him feel cherished, loved, protected, safe. You do that for me also. I love you. I love you because you’re dominant, not in spite of your dominance. Getting beat with a belt is about as sexually exciting for me as driving over my foot with the car, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t get something out of it. I get cared for. That’s not more wrong than wild sexual fantasies, and giving you my ass does have its pleasures. You make me feel good, inside and out. I’m not your victim, and I won’t be your victim. I know there has to be certain rules. I can’t pretend the rules don’t exist. You demonstrated that by burning it into my flesh. I know there is an exchange. I accept that.”

“The belt’s a hard limit now.”

“That’s fine with me. It’s not like I want to repeat that.”

“I punish you on my terms, my parameters, my whims.”

“I understand, Milton, and I stop you if it’s wrong for me. We can write it all down tomorrow. I’m too tired now.”

“I’ve been telling you to sleep.”

“I know. I’ll behave now.”

“You will. Now sleep. You need your rest. Tomorrow I’m going to make you report that I beat you into safewording.”

“I’m not dealing with Ryan. You weren’t out of control.”

“Maybe.” Milton paused, his throat tightening at Tilden’s trust. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t safeworded.”

“I did, you stopped, end of story.”

“No, I was too close. I want you to know what to do. Gordon, Landon, and Sheldon, also are on the safety committee.”

“Sheldon?”

“He’s the highest ranking submissive in the Green Mountain Boys. He’s good at it. Pity the abusive bastard who doesn’t realize he has a head on his shoulders and the convictions of a crusader. He also turns on the bratty charm and makes a hesitant and scared submissive confident and talkative.”

“I don’t want to tell him what happened.”

“He already knows. He read us both in the kitchen.”

“Maybe,” Tilden said his voice doubtful.

“Tomorrow you will choose one of them even if it’s by drawing a name out of a hat. My decision. Now sleep.”

*

The door opened, just a crack. A light glowed in a distant alcove, muting Sheldon’s red hair into a somber amber. He was in his pajamas, meaning he wasn’t looking for a quick fling in bed but companionship. 

“Master,” he said, not entering.

“It’s OK. I’m awake,” Milton whispered, his fingers stroking Tilden’s fine hair. He’d been stoking the hair for hours, comforting himself more than his sleeping lover.

“You OK?” 

Sheldon was far too perceptive now. Years of living with Milton and he could read every glance and raised eyebrow, every line on his face. 

“It’s been worse.”

“But it’s been better also,” Sheldon said, slipping into the room on silent footsteps. “You love him very much.”

“I always have.”

Sheldon bent and kissed Milton’s forehead, an automatic and perfunctory gesture of comfort from so many dominants dispensed with mechanical aloofness, but from Sheldon the meaning was much richer. He was offering real comfort, real understanding, real forgiveness for Milton loving someone else.

“Is he still with us?”

“I think so.” Milton’s eyes travelled down to watch the rise and fall of Tilden’s chest. 

“How hard?”

“I forced him to safeword.”

Sheldon was silent for a moment. He sat on the bed, careful not to shift Tilden and leaned into Milton. “What can I do?”

“Tell me I’m not a monster.”

“You only have to look at me to know the answer, Master.” Sheldon traced his hand over his slim collar. “I’m here with you.”

“I spend an inordinate amount of time hurting the ones who I love.”

“Milton.” Sheldon rested his chin on Milton’s shoulder; his hand traced down Milton’s back. “Love is not easy. It has to be worked at. What you ever saw in my twenty year old self I’ll never know; I’m only glad that you saw something.”

“Even with all the hells I put you through?”

“I’m sure I put you through more.”

“They weren’t hells. They were adventures.”

“Always the optimist. I know I was impossible. I’m old enough now to see what you and your friends did for me. Landon, he’s almost thirty years older than me. He didn’t need to make me his friend. He was a successful man with an entourage of people around him who didn’t have moments that made a twelve year old look mature. How often did Gordon use his influence and money to get me a job and keep me employed? I was terrible to him the first few years.”

“He understood.”

“They all understood. They all made space for the red-headed hurricane because you were infatuated.”

“I think they hoped I might grow out of it.”

“But you didn’t, we didn’t, and they moved heaven and earth to keep us together.”

“Gordon is old-fashioned that way.”

“So are you. You never let go.”

Milton turned to look at Sheldon. He couldn’t tell from his voice alone if it were a good thing or a bad thing. 

“It’s a good thing, Master, a very good thing.” Sheldon touched his lips to Milton’s, a chaste kiss that said far more than any words.

“You’re too good to me.”

“Just paying down some of my debt.”

“You have none.”

Sheldon smiled, his green eyes infused with a gentle warmth. “Only you could say that, my saint of a master.”

“I’m no saint.”

“You do not listen to your young dominants enough.”

“Young dominants always grumble. It has to do with being young and dominant. I used to think Gordon was impossible.”

“Impossible, but not a saint. Five boys and you haven’t buried at least one of us in the backyard.”

“Four now.”

“With your blessing, protection, and security. That is hardly a normal breakup. You can’t completely change his spots.”

“He’s a good boy.”

“Only for you,” He’s a self-centered bastard when he thinks he can get away with it.”

“Sheldon.” The warning in Milton’s tone was clear.

“I’m not angry with him for leaving. I like Mike, better when he’s at a distance, but he is what he is. You know that.”

“He’s insecure. He has good reasons.”

“It’s not your fault that his parents should have won the asshole of the year award. It’s not your fault that he muscled his way into this relationship at the very start. Tilden and Luke make sense. Mike was just a houseguest who never left.”

“Don’t be cruel to him.”

“Sometimes you’re blind to people’s faults. You’re so damn generous that you assume everyone else has the same motivations. He would gladly have imploded the entire relationship to get what he wanted. Don’t give me that look. I know I’m being harsh.”

“You’re painting only one side of him. He loved us all in his own way. Two generations older and he would have done well with Gordon and Landon. He’d have been a beautiful boy for them.”

“And Hawthorne?”

“He’s no Gordon. He plays well, and his style suits Mike.”

“But…” Sheldon said, knowing all too well that there was a but.

“Mike sometimes needs set down outside of the play scenario. I have no idea if he’ll manage it. I couldn’t always do it.”

“Mike respected you, listened to you. He knew when you were angry at him for real.”

Milton raised his eyebrows.

“He talked to me sometimes. We didn’t always fight. I loved the guy even if I sometimes wanted to bang his head into a pile of rocks. I had good parents. I had you to myself when I was young. It made a difference. I get where he’s coming from. I’m just frustrated by him. I think he threw out the best thing that ever happened to him for something he’ll never find. What if he never finds it?”

“And you think I’m a saint,” Milton said, a rumble of laughter in his voice.

“He is a submissive.”

“Sheldon, the patron saint of all submissives. One of G and L’s subsidiaries will give him a job that brings him back to Vermont. It’s one that Mike won’t connect with them. They’ll get him in their clutches and go from there.”

“Machiavellian.”

“Don’t you dare ever mention it.”

“Cross my heart. He’d be furious.” Sheldon rubbed Milton’s shoulder. “He should be grateful.”

“Fire breathing furious is the accurate description.” Milton lowered his head and let Sheldon have better access to his neck. “I do understand. It’s a form of control when I’ve released him from his contract. He has the right to be furious.”

“It’s also love.”

“I hope,” Milton mumbled under his breath.

“I know.” Sheldon kissed the back of Milton’s neck.

“I’m too tired for anything.”

“Not asking. Just relax. You’re doing good, Milton.”

“And you sound like Landon.”

“He’s not a bad man to sound like.”

“What does my wise guru say I should do with Luke?” Milton asked, groaning as Sheldon’s fingers worked a sore spot in his neck.

“I wondered how long it would take you to get there. He was a chatterbox tonight.”

“Luke?”

“With Austin. It seems they both have an interest in some collectable card game. There was a new game shop next to the restaurant. I didn’t get a word in edge wise. They were like puppies with a new bone.” Sheldon paused for a minute, his fingers lighter now on Milton’s neck. “They’re both so young.”

“Luke’s older than Austin.”

“Chronologically, not emotionally. He needs what you give Austin, what you gave me when I was twenty.”

“He doesn’t understand it, and he’s terrified of me. I feel like the ax murderer every time I get near him. He has to talk to me, and he won’t. I’ve tried everything I know how.”

“You’re the dominant. Don’t give him a choice.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Better you than some asshole who is going to hurt him. Lost little boys get hurt. They attract all the wrong sort. You won’t hurt him.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“I am. All he wants is what you’d give any floundering young person, a shoulder to lean on, a push in the right direction, a stern talking to when he’s being an idiot.”

“Tilden does that.”

“You’re the top of the hierarchy, and no matter how confused Luke is about his submission, he is a submissive. Parent him a little bit.”

“He made it very clear that he wasn’t playing daddy and his boy. He’s thirty years old; he doesn’t need a parent.”

“Sometimes we all need a parent. You go to Gordon.”

“It’s different.”

“You verbally spar with him. He argues and then when you’re still being stupid he threatens to beat it into your stubborn hide. Sounds the same to me.”

“I understand the rules.”

“So does Luke. He’s not an idiot. He might never verbalize them. It took me long enough, but he does understand them. He knows what he wants.”

“I’m not that sort of dominant.”

“Milton,” Sheldon said with a muffled laugh. “Do you have any idea how paternalistic you are? That’s who you are. No wonder Luke is confused beyond belief. You do one thing and tell him another. Even your stubbornness about this arises from your paternalism. You’re protecting him from himself. Stop it.” Sheldon bowed his head. “Sorry, Master,” he added as he realized an order had just come from his lips.

“I never told you not to speak freely. You have nothing to be sorry for.” 

“You’re tired. This isn’t the time.”

“There is never a good time. I’ll think about it.” Milton wrapped his free arm around Sheldon and pulled him close. “I love you. Remind me tell you that often.” He kissed the red hair of his beautiful man.