Austin's Diary - Poor Boy

The Poor Boy

I woke to an empty bed. Both Milton’s and Sheldon's places were cold, and someone had opened the curtains in a vain attempt to convince me that it was well past the wakey-wakey stage. I might have pulled the blanket over my head, but I had to piss like a race horse. Relieved, I took a quick shower and made my way downstairs.

The one weekend a month I didn't get drafted into some building project with Josh was a blessed relief. I'd about cooked myself with the electrics last week, forgetting to throw the breaker. Holy shit, that man can get scary! Yeah, I had been stupidly careless, but he didn't have to make me spend the rest of the day sitting cross-legged with my hands on my lap. I would have preferred he spank me, but the homeowner was across the hall. I guess the contractor can't have screams coming from the work area. 

I loped into the kitchen, glad for my freedom. Blade was leaning into the refrigerator, drinking juice straight from the carton. His T-shirt was plastered to a sweaty torso. He wiped his face with his sleeve and turned around.

"Good, you're not a top. Drinking out of the carton and all." He gave me one of his great grins. "Milton hates it even more than Ry." Blade wiped his face again, pulling his T-shirt up to show his chiseled body. "God, am I stiff! Ryan and his runs to loosen you up. I'm not training for the Olympics. I need a handicap for welts." Blade spun around and lowered his shorts over one hip. "Pretty neat, huh?"

Neat probably wasn't the word I'd use. They look damn painful. Welts and light bruising in all directions.

"Flogger and whip. It's impossible at school. Most of our fellow teachers and staff, who don't have scrambled eggs for brains, know we're a bit kinked, but beatings tend to send the good vanilla folks screaming into the night, and the screaming is my job."

Blade had pulled his shorts back up and reached into the fridge for more juice. I wanted to ask how badly they hurt. Shit, they looked painful, but Blade was bouncing around in fantastic spirits.

"Kid, the big boys want a chat with you. I think they're in the living room."

That didn't sound inviting. I hoped they hadn't materialized Gordon. Milton and Ryan were enough on the über-top list.

"Gordon's not here," Blade said, seeming to read my mind. "Tilden's with them. He'll protect you from the lions." Blade ruffled my hair in a nearly identical gesture to his partner. "They're not on your case. They just want to talk to you about last night. They cornered me also, and Milton grabbed Ryan for a few words."

They were lined up in the living room looking scary. “Well, OK, they were reading the paper and eating some of Mace’s blueberry muffins. I guess that isn’t scary behavior. One submissive, three tops, do I have to say any more? Milton stood up, all formal, and pointed to the armchair closest to him.

“Come sit down.”

Into the lair I went.

“Austin,” Milton said too gently. When he spoke that gently, he was usually far more concerned than was good for my health, not that it would end in a thrashing. It just meant he thought I was over my head and was going to have a spectacular crash and burn. “I need to talk to you about Zach and Bruce, not only as my cub, but as a young man in a power exchange relationship and as a responsible member of both this household and of the Green Mountain Boys.”

I swallowed hard. Milton was being so serious. I looked around the room. They all looked serious, like some sort of three man jury. Ryan must have caught my nervous glances because he smiled and winked at me.

“What our esteemed head of the Green Mountain Boys is saying is talk freely. You won’t be subject to any repercussions for what you say, unlike me who he freely lectured on being more circumspect and less judgmental.”

“Ryan,” Milton said with a snort.

“My ears are still red from this morning. I’m surprised they don’t have blisters on them.”

“You and Blade deserve each other.” Milton was making no effort to hide his smile, and I drew a deep gulp of air into my lungs. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath. 

“Austin,” Ryan said. “What did you think of Bruce and Zach?”

Well, Bruce was easy; the man was a prick, not that I would say that with Milton almost in striking distance. Zach was tougher. Wallflower didn’t seem to be a nice thing to say. Ghostlike. Invisible.

“Sheldon doesn’t like Bruce.” That was an easy an obvious comment to start.

“We’re aware of that,” Milton said. “But what about you?”

“He went on about my age, but so does everybody. I’m used to that now.” I looked over at Milton, who had a concentrated look of blandness on his face. “He was patronizing, like he thought submissives were less than capable or needed swaddling or something. And that wasn’t just toward me. I get that I’m young. I bring that out in a dominant.”

Tilden leaned forward, a glass of tea resting on his thigh. “You’re very young. I understand the strong drive to protect and nurture you. I don’t feel that is inappropriate.”

“Zach’s a lot older than I am, and you don’t suffocate me,” I said hotly, knowing I wasn’t expressing myself well.

“How do you mean suffocating?” Milton asked, ignoring my flair of temper.

“Zach didn’t say two words. He didn’t eat. You saw it.” I glanced over at Ryan for support. “He doesn’t understand his submission.”

Milton smoothed an imaginary wrinkle in his blue jeans. They weren’t wrinkled; I’d ironed them twice because the first time hadn’t met his highness’s satisfaction. “Can you elaborate?” Milton asked.

“It’s not about the fucking peas,” I said, paraphrasing Ryan’s words.

Milton frowned at my language, but didn’t correct me. “And what does that mean? In your own words, please.”

“You’re always telling me it’s about submission. You know.” I shook my hair across my eyes, a habit Milton detests.

“I don’t know,” Milton said crisply. ‘You know’ was another one of those habits in the detest pile. His eyes said everything, I was expected to do better, to be more articulate, to be a rational and well-spoken adult.

“Ryan asked him about dinner.” I was desperate to say something intelligent with all those eyes on me. “He hadn’t eaten, but it was clear he wasn’t supposed to ask for something else. You wouldn’t make me eat something I didn’t like.”

“I’ve sent you out of the dining room to eat cold sandwiches.”

I grimaced. “I was behaving like an idiot. I can tell you I don’t like something.”

“I would interfere if one of my boys tried to exist on a solid diet of potato chips,” Tilden said.

“And your boys would be able to articulate the difference between a common sense demand now tied into their submissive role and God only knows what,” Ryan said sharply.

“I’ve heard your view,” Milton said in a tone that made submissives quiver and swear to behave perfectly.  

“Ryan’s right.” I was shocked to hear my own outburst. “Zach didn’t get it. There was no play. He wasn’t baiting Bruce by not eating or looking for a way to get something.” I wasn’t brave enough to boldly state get a spanking. I’d watched Sheldon several times do a complicated dance of getting Milton to punish him because he was bothered by something or other, but not just playing like Ryan and Blade. I couldn’t do it yet. Asking for it seemed a little much, and Milton heated my rear most mornings anyway in a preemptive strike.

“And you don’t think it was camouflaged under the guise of dinner etiquette?” Tilden asked. “Not every dominant is going to be as outspoken as Ryan or Milton.”

I shook my head. I’ve seen Mike and Luke with Tilden prodding them to eat something besides pizza. It wasn’t like that. “Zach denied he was a submissive.”

That got Milton’s attention. He turned toward Ryan. “Did you have any question that Zach was a submissive?”

“He is in the submissive role, and I believe that is his natural place in a power exchange relationship, but he’s only a submissive if he so identifies. He doesn’t understand it well enough to identify. His dominant,” Ryan practically spat the word, “has chosen to keep him ignorant with some excuse about guiding his behavior. The poor boy was practically catatonic. He’s convinced he’s broken. He’s an unaware submissive, not broken, not a child, not a man who can’t decide what he’s eating for dinner. There was no joy, no celebration of his submissiveness.”

“Not everyone will be as demonstrative as you and Blade,” Tilden said. “Some submissives are quiet, and I don’t see how we condemn Bruce for being boring or for hiding his dominance in a ritual that doesn’t suit our tastes.”

“It’s not boring; it’s smothering,” Ryan countered. “Bruce has destroyed his boy’s confidence. I realize my training was more focused toward play, and I realize that Gavin is particularly opposed toward disguising the rituals of domination and submission behind any type of training for good living, but this is absurd.”

“Ryan,” Milton said sharply. “I agree with you, but the question is can we do anything. He’s not beating his boy bloody; not letting him eat ice cream is hardly a crime. The average person would be far more alarmed by the welts from shoulders to knees on Blade than Bruce hand spanking Zach no matter how aware we are of the perversion of the dynamic or at least the dynamic as we practice it.”

I knew it had felt wrong, but Milton was angry, maybe not as angry as Ryan, who looked like he wanted to snap someone’s neck in his big hands. Tilden was studying his suddenly volatile companions with a look of dismay.

“What is our plan?” Tilden asked in a voice that was all too reasonable. “I didn’t meet Zach, but from all the evidence I think we are in agreement that Zach is mismatched and uneducated about his submissive role.”

Milton ran his hand down his beard and gave me a surprisingly wry smile. “Having our cub hear all this is probably not in the code, but someday you won’t be in my immediate protection, and you will have to make decisions about your own partner and dominant. I want you to understand all sides of this dynamic. It’s my responsibility to you, and your responsibility as an adult in a power exchange.” Milton stood and placed a hand on my shoulder. “I think Austin here would gladly have joined Sheldon in the tea throwing ritual, but that is hardly a solution to our current difficulties.”

“Our first duty is toward the submissive,” Tilden said, looking at Milton. “That is always what you taught me.”

“And you were always a good student.”

I see Milton and Tilden together everyday, but I sometimes forget how close they really are. The deep affection was obvious in the quiet smile in Milton’s eyes, and the easing of his shoulders just at Tilden’s words.

“What would Gordon have done?”

“Either taken Zach outright with threats of financial ruin or engineered something to send Bruce to Timbuktu for a great job where he couldn’t take Zach. He’d never admit it, of course.” Milton smiled. “But I saw plenty of his rescue submissives.”

“There is always kidnapping if nothing else,” Ryan said dryly.

“Or exile to Siberia,” Tilden added.

Ryan shook his head. “I thought I was the dreamer. The kidnapping would be delicious, but all we can really do is educate and hope Zach comes to us. I failed with Zach, but he might go to Austin. He’s the youngest and the least threatening.”

“You didn’t fail with Zach,” Milton said, his voice rich, full, and reassuring. “Zach wasn’t ready to hear. He can hardly understand the answers when he doesn’t know the questions. He saw and he heard. Now we must wait.”  

****

Milton caught me that afternoon, moping and replaying the conversation in my mind. Moping is on the long list of bad behavior for his cub, and he jerked me off the sofa and dragged me outdoors armed with a toy laser gun. Yours truly was the victim again: killed in the bushes, killed behind the science building, and chased pellmell into a grove of pines where I died the final time. He dragged me panting from my bed of pine needles and kissed me hard.

“Don’t brood over it, Austin. We’ll watch out for Zach, and I’ll go begging to Landon and Gordon. They can move mountains.”