The front door clicks open, and a wave of dizziness overcomes me, followed by the rush of nerves and adrenaline at my Master’s return. Even when he’s across the room, it’s as though I can sense his breath on the back of my neck and feel the deep timbre of his voice in my bones. For now, I inhale the rich aroma of his cologne mixed with sweat, a masculine musk. I imagine the phantom scent of his skin after he fucks me and the pungent odor of his groin smeared with cum. I’ll lick him clean tonight if he lets me.
He clears his throat, testing me. I know the rules, and even though I desperately want to glimpse his handsome face, I’m not going to falter now. Not when I’m so close. I keep my eyes lowered, my posture relaxed but unmoving. He likes to see me like this; he knows what a struggle it is to keep my body still. He trained me on precisely how he wants me to greet him, and he appreciates these small sacrifices I make. I know because he tells me.
His expensive Italian leather shoes come to a stop right in front of me. I would lick the heels of his Louboutin’s if it would please him.
“Giovanni,” he says and offers me one hand. I kiss each knuckle, slowly and with reverence, including the gold signet ring engraved with an “A” that once belonged to my grandfather and now signifies his own head position in the family. I turn over his hand and use his palm to cup my face. This is how I show my gratitude and demonstrate my obedience.
“Smells good in here,” Master says to Rico, testing me further, his hand not leaving my cheek.
“Spaghetti Bolognese, Boss,” Rico says. “Still needs to simmer. Noodles will only take a minute, whenever you’re ready.”
“Thank you, Rico. How has my boy been behaving today?”
“Real good,” Rico says, sounding proud. “Followed his schedule to a T. He must know a reward is coming.”
I am sometimes awful and very badly behaved. The demons, you see. But every day is a new opportunity to please my Master. He doesn’t hold grudges. He punishes me and then all is forgiven. Even with my Catholic upbringing, I have never known the solace of absolution before him.
There’s an exchange about business, which I tune out, followed by their parting words. I concentrate on my Master’s callused thumb stroking my cheek, then my lips, dipping inside so that I might worship the pad of his thumb, cherishing the knowledge that I am desired, I am loved. Even after Rico leaves, Master makes me wait. With the sharp toe of his shoe, he nudges my cock and balls where they lay against the pillow as an offering. He won’t hurt me here, like this, but the tremor of fear sends a rash of goosebumps across my bare chest, causing my pierced nipples to tighten. I keep my eyes lowered, spine straight.
“Very nice, Gio,” he says softly. He tips my chin so that I might finally gaze into his deep, brown eyes. My Master has the piety of a saint, like Jesus’s most beloved apostle John. If I were an artist, I would lovingly recapture every plane and angle. Every wrinkle that lines his face represents wisdom, stability, trust.
“I’ve missed you,schiavo,” he says at last. His name for me is the softest caress said with a deep affection
“I’ve missed you, Master.” My throat is tight, my voice a breathy rasp, as if these are the first words I've ever spoken, saving all my utterances for him.
“Andiamo, splendore,”he says and I follow him into the bedroom. We have a routine, and it’s more for me than it is for him. I begin by removing his suit jacket and hanging it in the spacious walk-in closet. I loosen his tie next. Today he’s wearing the silk Gucci one that I gave him, black with gold accents that remind me of the flecks of amber in his eyes. I drape it on a tie rack, pausing to lift onto my toes and showcase my ass.
“You’re teasing me, Giovanni,” Master warns, but he likes it. He removes his leather holster himself and hangs it on a hook in the closet. As for the gun, he discharges the magazine and stores them both in his safe. “Tell me what you did today.”
He knows my schedule already because he helped me create it, but this is how we become reacquainted after our hours spent apart. Master never makes sexual demands upon entering the apartment, though it is entirely within his rights to make use of his slave however he sees fit. Even so, he knows that my trust is something he must continually seek and be granted.
While unfastening the mother-of-pearl buttons on his nice dress shirt, I tell him that I started my morning with a swim (always in the building’s heated pool), then relaxed in the sauna with Rico while he told me about the beefbraciolahis wife cooked for him the night before. He’d spoken about the meal with a kind of reverence, as if describing a sex act or a sacred rite.
“I haven’t hadbraciolain a while,” Master says thoughtfully. “I should get her recipe and make it for you sometime. What’d you do after your swim?”
I tell him that I practiced one of Chopin’s Nocturnes on the piano for an hour or so, that it’s almost ready to be added to my repertoire. Then I had lunch. After, I read from one of my many texts on classical studies, which was my undeclared major at NYU when my drug habit became unsustainable, but I still find mythology and religious lore fascinating, as well as the works of philosophers and poets in antiquity. There are endless mythos and cultures to explore, but Greco-Roman studies remain my favorite. I’m always looking for earlier iterations of the myths, obscure translations of the original texts, and academic papers on what the scribe’s true intent may have been. I’m obsessed with human nature in all its glory and grotesqueness.
“What did you learn?” Master asks as I remove his belt, roll it up, and place it in the top drawer of his wardrobe. He’s shirtless now, and I admire his broad chest, his thick pelt threaded with silver. I love to run my hands through his body hair. His hirsute physique is a testament to his virility and manhood, a fitting contrast to my hairless one. I am a boy, and he is a man, something I remind myself whenever the urge to rebel rises within me. The only disadvantage to our age difference is that I may outlive him, but even if that’s so, I’ll go soon after. I want to be buried with my Master like the servants entombed with their pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, so that I might serve him in my next life.
I’d never tell him that, though. He’d get mad at me.
“Today I read a psychological analysis ofDaphne and Apollo,” I tell him, “and the writer said something that resonated with me,we see the world not as it is, but as we are.”
“What do you think that means?” Master asks, while his fingers graze my smooth jaw, another contrast to his own which is now spiked with bristles. Even though I shave his face every morning, his shadow reappears by mid-afternoon, but I like knowing my hands were the first to touch him upon waking.
“The writer used it to illustrate the point that everything in life is a kind of theater. The words that we say, the actions we take, the people we associate with, that these are all informed by our moral character, or lack thereof, and more oftentimes, it’s the image we wish to portray, rather than who we really are.”
“Remind me of this myth,” Master says. I’ve told him all of them before, and I’m sure he knows this one too, but he likes to indulge me, so I recount the story of Apollo and Daphne, how Apollo was boasting to Cupid of his recent victory in slaying the monster Python. Cupid, incensed by his arrogance and wishing to humble him, shoots Apollo with an erotic arrow, and Daphne, a nymph who had sworn off all physical attention from men, is struck by an arrow of repulsion. A chase ensues, or more like a hunt, and rather than be caught by the lusting Apollo, Daphne begs her father to turn her into a tree, to protect her virtue and save her from the degradation of man. And he does.
“I have seen this scene depicted in Bernini’s sculpture in Galleria Borghese in Roma,” Master says. “Quite illuminating.”
The unspoken promise is that he’ll take me to see it when I can prove myself trustworthy. He likes to spoil me in that way.
“There’s something else about the story’s analysis that I find interesting,” I tell him. “Even after Daphne is transformed into a tree, Apollo touches her still. She shivers and recoils from him beneath the bark, but Apollo shows no remorse or compassion for her plight. Instead, he declares that the laurel tree will now behistree and uses the branches for a crown. In this way Apollo completely erases Daphne as a person or even a memory, supplanting her existence entirely with his own ego.”
“How does that make you feel, Gio?” Master asks with a light touch to my bare hip.
I contemplate his question while he waits for an answer. Patience is a virtue of both the Master and the slave.
