Green Pastures 8

Green Pastures 8

The house was thankfully quiet. Tilden had to be somewhere, but Luke didn’t see him. He turned to head toward their room. 

“Stay with me.”

What? They were home now. What else could Milton want?

“I told you that I was going to make it very clear that you understood your place in this family. You stay with me please until I tell you otherwise. Do you need the bathroom?”

Was he going to invite himself in? Supervised potty breaks.

“Luke?” Milton asked when Luke hadn’t answered the question.

“I’m fine.”

“Good. Come with me.”

Luke avoided Milton’s study. It was very much Milton’s domain. It wasn’t austere or dark, but somehow it had always felt as if it were the master’s domain. The curtains were thrown open, and the sun poured into the room. Milton’s tastes were different from Tilden’s. His furniture was Victorian, oversized and in blue and green velvets. Tilden’s study was homey, a kitchen table for a desk and a clutter of boxes and knickknacks. Milton had a large and heavy desk and kept his books in the bookcases. The only knickknacks were a few framed photos. 

“Sit.” Milton pointed at the floor.

He was serious. Luke had seen this plenty of times with the others, even Tilden sometimes draped himself at Milton’s feet when he was relaxing, leaning against Milton’s legs and looking way too comfortable.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“What I tell you, boy.”

“I have work to do.”

“Your work is to sit.” 

“Fine.” The other words Luke kept under his breath. With the expression on Milton’s face, he wasn’t sure if something far worse than sitting might be in the offering. He’d sit. Milton would have to get tired of this soon.

Famous last thoughts now. It had been three hours now. The damn clock kept him well informed of the time with bongs at every quarter of an hour. Luke had moved once when Milton had walked him once to the bathroom without asking him and stood outside the door. At least he hadn’t come in. One small indignity not suffered. Milton had put him back on the floor, much closer with his back against Milton’s leg if he relaxed.

Feet raced up the stairs. A flash of a naked body ran by the door.

“Sheldon?”

“Master, I was covered in mud.” Sheldon stood at perfect presentation position, naked, his cock and balls swinging in the breeze. His eyes met Luke’s and he smiled, an easy confident grin. “You in trouble?”

Sheldon was the naked one, and Luke was the one who felt the flush rising up his neck.

“Luke’s fine, taking a break from too much working,” Milton said.

“Master,” Sheldon repeated. “Your beard.”

“So you noticed,” Milton said with a laugh. “Do you like it?”

“Yes,” Sheldon said with a wide grin. “No more father time whiskers. I thought I was going to have to start to introduce you as my grandfather or sneak hair dye on it while you slept.”

“You, brat, come here.”

Sheldon scampered over, pretending to stay out of reach, but within arm’s length when Milton stood and caught him easily. The swat on the ass was light and playful. The kiss was deep and affection. Sheldon ran his fingers down the smooth cheeks, lingering for a long moment against Milton.

“Shower and dress. You’re way too tempting like this.”

“Master,” Sheldon whined and Luke realized if he wasn’t sitting here that they would have both gone into the shower or the bed. 

“I can leave.” Luke started to stand.

“Sit. Neither Sheldon nor I will turn into a gnome if we don’t have sex this very minute. In fact if my redheaded temptation isn’t in the shower in thirty seconds, he’ll have a cock cage as his newest accessory.”

Sheldon fled in a flurry of running feet. 

“You really don’t like that, do you?” Milton’s voice was a soft rumble overhead.

“No,” Luke said and bit his lip. He wasn’t saying more. How could Milton have done that right in front of him? Didn’t he have any boundaries? Tilden loved the man, but Tilden would never ever act that way.

“You’ve lived with me a long time. I won’t do that to you if you don’t like it, but Sheldon and I like it. I think we should be able to enjoy ourselves in our own home in front of our family and lovers. Do you understand?”

“I’d rather not have a front row seat.”

Milton studied Luke for a long minute. “If you truly feel that way, I’ll be more careful. You don’t have to be prim and proper about your sexuality with me.”

“I am prim and proper.” Luke knew he was red to his hairline. He wanted out of this. Tilden understood this. Luke wasn’t some sort of crazy sex fiend.

“Your sexuality and your submissiveness are not heavily entwined,” Milton said softly, almost as if he were giving himself a lecture on some novel topic. “It’s why I’ve always given you space. You don’t get hot when I press on you. It’s not just that you don’t much like pain; submission is something different for you. You really want me to tell you what to do, not play at it. You want the security, the sense of belonging, and somehow it’s all tangled up with submission and discipline. You’re not just prim and proper because you’re living under some cloud of outside pressure. Oh, Luke.” Milton bent down and kissed the top of Luke’s head.

“Milton, I’m fine. It’s nothing I’m just shy.” Luke wrapped his arms around his knees. Suddenly he didn’t want to get up, even though he knew that Milton wouldn’t tell him to sit down. “I know you and Sheldon were just teasing.”

“Luke, I don’t know.”

“Stop! Don’t go there.”

Sheldon had burst into the room. He was only wearing a towel. Water was pooling around his bare feet and dripping off his hair.

“I thought I told you to shower and dress. You’ve only managed half of that,” Milton said dryly.

“You did, but then I realized you were going to blow it. This isn’t nuclear physics. Luke wants to live under your power, but he’s not crazy about giving you a blow job. Fine. It took you years to get me in a cock cage, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t agreeing to have you beat my ass.”

“Luke doesn’t—“

“He’s vanilla in bed. Don’t you think I haven’t noticed? He’s a proper gentleman, not a graduate of the Landon school of sexual desire. Fine. He doesn’t get off on that part, so you don’t mess with it.”

“He doesn’t get off on it period.”

“Oh yeah he does. Before I gave him a flipping heart attack, he was leaning on your legs, purring like a kitten. He wants ordered around. He’s had ten years to tell you to fuck off and he didn’t. You’re not coercing him. You’re not emasculating him. Now get over yourself and your morals that only make sense to you and get on with dominating him.” Sheldon ran his hand over his wet hair and shot Luke a half smile. “I’ll go find the cock cage. He will use that on me, and I just bought myself a week of celibacy.”  He turned and marched out.

“Sheldon.”

“Master, I know. The cage lives in the top drawer.”

“You don’t need to.”

“If you’re calling this dressed, you need to visit the eye doctor. I’ve got it. Deal with Luke. He needs you with your brain engaged. He does know what he’s buying. He might want to pretend it’s only about teaching and protecting him, but he knows it’s about power, and he’s good with that. You’re not crippling him or torturing him. Negotiate the hell out of it. Drag Gordon or Ryan down to verify everything.”

“You can do that,” Milton said. “I’ll be in the kitchen. We’ll do this in thirty minutes.”

“Oh, God, it’s not even New Year’s and I’ve got to do this.” Sheldon reached out for Luke’s hand. “Come on. Let’s see if we can find a way to endure this torture.”

****

Luke ran the peeler over the potato. It was rather crazy how many potatoes they ate. Hundreds in a month it seemed. Saturday night and Trent and Mace were making standard weekend fare, formal dinners, classic American cooking. Tonight it was a massive roast with all the trimmings. The house already smelled of the cooking beef and of the two apple pies that were cooling on the counter. They’d have mountains of mashed potatoes and lakes of gravy as well as several vegetables, a concession to their health needs and Austin’s on again off again vegetarianism. 

Luke couldn’t remember if this was vegetarian month, raw foods only month, or dairy products will kill you month, or whatever new health rage that Austin was trying. Milton ignored it. Luke could only remember one offhand comment to eat enough not to pass out. Luke thought that was during Austin’s fruit eat only phase. That hadn’t lasted too long. He’d been so famished that Mace had made him an entire pan of lasagna and two loaves of garlic bread.

Trent nagged Austin about his eating, good natured as always and half fatherly, half offended cook. He also collected an array of cookbooks featuring a cornucopia of ingredients that everyone but Austin detested. Wheat germ did not need to be served at every meal.

“Hey potatoes.” Mace flicked Luke with the towel. “You’re spacing on me.”

“Sorry.”

“You OK, cowboy?” Mace put his hand on Luke’s shoulder and peered into his face for a moment. “I heard Milton order you to stay here when he grabbed Austin to fuck his brains out.”

“Mace.”

“Come on,” Mace said with that wide smile of his. “You and I both know that’s what he does when Austin’s having a stress attack. The kids a mess about his exams for med school, and Milton’s probably popping Viagra like candy.”

“Not an image I want,” Luke said with a shaky laugh.

“Come on, you’ve seen that well fucked look when an hour before stress was coming off of him like electricity. Not a bad gig for a man of Milton’s age.”

“Mace, really, let’s talk about something else.”

“You with Milton and Sheldon took up my kitchen for an hour when I needed to be cooking. Pretending to not know what’s going on might not be your wisest choice.”

It had been bad enough during round one. Luke had no desire to rehash it. He had a contract now, signed, witnessed, and tucked into Milton’s filing cabinet. Sheldon had done the heavy lifting, Luke would have sat in the chair like a robot with a broken voice box if Sheldon hadn’t known how to lead the conversation.

Luke had always considered Sheldon an overgrown and hyperactive nuisance. It wasn’t that he disliked the guy; it was impossible to dislike someone who exuded effervescent good cheer. Only he’d never felt all that real to Luke, a class clown who hadn’t realized school was out years ago. He’d pigeon holed Sheldon as Milton’s sidekick and thought not much more about him. He’d thought he’d known all sides of Sheldon, but today at the kitchen table, he’d been unquestionably Milton’s equal, not a foil or a sidekick, or a redheaded sprite. His green eyes had never once dropped from Milton’s deep stare, his voice had never wavered, and he’d never looked seconds away from tears or an explosion of temper. Luke had felt desperate, going from stomach dropping coldness to his face ablaze with fire and back again in micro seconds.  

Sheldon had been the blunt one. “Tell him what, when, and how, and Luke will be a happy camper. He doesn’t want pretty marks all over his ass, not that you can’t try to convince him later. You know as well as I do, he gets off on the cane if it’s not too hard.”

Luke didn’t want to remember the heat on his face at that moment. He might have been able to cook dinner on it without a stove.

“He wants stability, consistency, someone to have his back. Those traits have your name all over them. You live by rules. Gordon beat them into you. He wants that, only a little less brutality than Gordon. He doesn’t suffer from your legendary stubbornness or mine for that matter,” Sheldon had added with a grin and a wink at Luke. “I am right, aren’t I?” Sheldon had added in a much softer tone. 

Luke had only managed a nod, his mind too adrift by the craziness of the entire situation. 

“Luke, I watch you. Being adult and responsible has never come easy for me. I understand the idea of wanting someone to keep you on the straight and narrow, to protect you from the world and from yourself. Family does that, Luke. In different ways, but we all do that.” Sheldon had stopped for a minute, his eyes so kind that they had made Luke almost gasp. “You want the lines colored in a bit differently from many. So do I.” Sheldon touched his collar. “I’m a slave. I’ve given my sovereignty to Milton. He is my friend and my lover and my master. He hurts and bleeds and makes errors like all of us, yet I’ve given him the right to control me, to own me.”

Luke had never thought anyone looked less owned than those few moments where Sheldon spoke with his eyes fixed on Luke’s face. 

“He can’t make the world perfect. He can’t promise to never hurt you or to make wrong choices. All he can do is try. You must trust and surrender, but you must also understand that you can stop it all. You hold the emergency stop. Use it wisely. Servitude and submission is voluntary. You must wear his chains voluntarily. He can wrap them tight, step into all those areas that smart, accomplished men are supposed to handle on their own, but you must give it to him.”

Luke had handed his rights and sovereignty over. He watched as Milton had written the terms down in his careful penmanship, as he’d read it through, made a few corrections, and read it again. He’d labored through copying out the paragraph that Milton had insisted that Luke must memorize and understand, that Milton had power over him in ways that didn’t involve making him a better person or teaching him to survive in the world. It was power for the dominant to enjoy.

“Luke, as your dominant, I will promise you many things: protection, love, security, fulfillment, but I won’t promise not to enjoy the power. A submissive serves me, Luke. I’m not here to only service you. You are giving me the right to walk all over your life, and I will. Make sure you understand what that means. Ryan explained it once to Sheldon at its most naked and most brutal when I brought you and Tilden into the relationship. Either leave or ask how many beds to make up. When you sign this, you hand me that power.”

Luke had signed it, his signature scratchy and irregular as his hand shook. He signed it and been ordered to help Mace with dinner. He was now a prisoner with a mountain of potatoes in front of him and Mace’s eyes way too knowing on his face.

“What did you give to Milton?” Mace’s voice broke the stillness of the kitchen. “Everything?”

Luke nodded. “I think so.”

Mace’s smile was crooked and gentle. “He seems to have that effect on people.”

“You?”

Mace straddled a chair and leaned across the table, silent for one long moment. “I was so fucked up when I first met him, them really because it was Josh who was the heavy with me, that I can’t really tell you what happened. Josh jerked me around pretty hard. If I wanted to be a whining, pitiful boy, he could give me something to whine about. He takes politically incorrect to a whole new level.” Mace scrubbed his face with his hands. “He showed me it was OK to be weak and to beg and to want to lean on someone, and then pointed out that hiding and pretending was the real weakness, or at least weaker than me dropping my shit on Trent. I never do totally swallow the happy juice and agree that throwing your shit in the air and hoping some damn dom will catch it is a good idea.” Mace grinned, grabbed a potato, and tossed it in the air. “I can juggle these for about three seconds then I either drop one or Trent makes noise about food safety and government agencies. Not that it matters.”

“Am I crazy to stay here?”

“Whoa.” Mace held up his hand in a stopping motion. “If you’re getting this serious, I’m not the best person to be sorting it out.”

“I’m not asking Milton, and I won’t get between him and Tilden.” Luke snapped his head away and blinked back the moisture in his eyes. Milton’s words had hurt, more than Luke would ever admit. He’d been all the things he hated— a jealous, fearful bastard. Any idiot could see the relationship between Milton and Tilden. He couldn’t be so greedy to want to destroy that; only he was. 

“Luke,” Mace said, his western drawl thickening as he fought for time, “Milton’s all over you. He doesn’t do that with a boy he expects to disappear over the horizon. He wants you.”

“Mike’s gone.”

“That was Mike’s stupidity. If he could have gotten his head out of his friggin’ ass for one second, he could have figured out that Sheldon wasn’t the enemy. It was Sheldon who got shafted in the original deal, not dearest Mike. Mike got what he wanted, a dom hard enough to rattle his back teeth, and he left because he couldn’t figure out Sheldon, the man who wears his emotions like an advertising slogan.”

Luke picked at the placemat. It might have been red many years ago, but it had faded to rose. “We both got shafted.”

“How? You got a dom who’s versatile enough to accommodate you, and you kept Tilden. That sounds like a good deal to me.”

“I don’t want Milton as my dominant.”

“Then leave.” Mace grabbed a peeler and tore a strip off the potato.

“It’s not that simple.”

“It is, but, buddy boy, you like being Milton’s. You like the scary Vermonter with the deep growl when life forgets to be a bed of roses. Your only problem is you keep trying to hide from it. You’re a submissive. It’s not a dirty word. Suck it up and do what your dominant tells you.” Mace stood up and took the three steps back toward the stove, the slight hitch in his gait evident to those who knew him well. It showed more when he was upset and forgot to hide it.

“Mace—“

“I don’t have anything else to say. Peel the potatoes.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you.” Luke ducked his head, wishing he still had the long hair to hide his face. He was no good at the people skills thing. He always made a mess of it.

“You didn’t. Only I want to eat before midnight.”

You lie, Luke thought, but could think of no more to say. He bent back over his potatoes.