“I’ll write to you while I’m away,” Master says, sounding wistful. “I hope you’ll write to me too?”
“Of course, I will.” Master has decided that letters and care packages are how we’ll keep in touch. I have my burner phone too, so that I can call Master in cases of emergency and he might contact me as well. Silvio will send pictures to Master as evidence of me demonstrating my virtues and update him regularly on my behavior. I don’t really know how it’s going to go without Master here. This slave can only concentrate on what’s immediately in front of him.
“I’m going to be very lonely without you, Giovanni,” Master says, and for the first time, he sounds torn about his decision.
“You could stay.” That’s what I want, and he knows it.
“I wish that I could,tesoro, but I must honor your grandfather and see that all of the sacrifices he made were not in vain.”
There is a kind of arrested development trauma victims experience due to their lives being violently interrupted. I think that I suffer from it, not only because of my tantrums and regressions, but because in this moment, I can think only of myself and my own selfish desires. My instinct has always been to satisfy my most immediate needs and to hell with everything else. Similarly, I want Master to abandon the family business and the men who have come to rely on his leadership and authority. To hell with their livelihoods and their safety and the empire my grandfather has painstakingly built, the same one Master has devoted his life to serving. I want him to choose only me, here and now.
This is how I know I’m still only a boy in the service of men.
11
We spend the next day lounging around Master’s bedroom suite where he pampers me like his little prince and serves me breakfast in bed. My asshole is too sore for fucking, and my throat is still raw from taking Silvio’s monster cock, so Master blows me, then spits my cum into my mouth so that I may swallow it like a good boy. He kisses me too, slow languid strokes inside my mouth and soft nibbles at my lips. This sort of open affection is rare for him, and I lap it up eagerly.
And with each hour that passes, his departure approaches like a looming executioner. It helps that he seems sad about it too, but my feelings go deeper than sadness. My entire identity has been constructed around servicing my Master these past three years. He makes all my decisions for me—what I wear (or don’t), what I eat, how I part my hair… Who am I without him? What is my purpose when there is no beloved Master to serve?
Silvio sits down with us the morning before Master leaves to go over my written schedule again as well as my limits. When I inquire about following Master’s rules, he tells me to do my best, but that Silvio is in charge of amending them in his absence.
“Gio needs clear instruction,” Master says to Silvio. “He has to be able to depend on you to not only for your guidance and reassurance, but to enforce the rules you’ve set.”
“Yes, Valentin.” Silvio nods and squeezes my hand.
“Remember your virtues, Giovanni,” Master says while we’re waiting for the ferry that will take him back to the mainland. “I expect you to stick to our routines. And call me if you need me.”
“Yes, Master. This slave will try to honor your teachings in your absence.”
I try to keep a stiff upper lip when he boards the ferry, but I end up crumbling all the same. Master kisses my forehead and tells me that he loves me and that he’ll miss me, then steers me over to Silvio who wraps me in his thick arms and holds me together while Master becomes a blurry speck in the distance.
I am subdued back at the villa. Silvio has agreed to move into Master’s manor in his absence, which is mainly for my comfort as all of my things are here already, and my routines revolve around the safe spaces Master has created for me.
Silvio and Anthony make dinner—grilled amberjack that he caught fresh off his boat and wild rice, but I can only pick at mine. The demons are quiet for now, but they are only biding their time.
I ask to be excused early and Silvio grants me permission, eying me with concern as I depart to Master’s bedroom. He sends Anthony along with me and says he’ll join me in a bit. I go through my nightly beauty ritual, even though Master isn’t here to appreciate the softness of my skin or the silkiness of my hair. I think about where Master might be right now, on a train to Rome where he will depart for New York soon after. With each passing hour, he is traveling farther away from me. Is Master missing his slave or is he relieved to not have the responsibility of taking care of a boy with so many needs?
Silvio comes in a little while later to find me still sitting at the vanity, staring blankly at the mirror. I don’t really see myself at all, and I wonder if I ever have. Who am I but Master’s ideal of the perfect slave boy made flesh? Like Geppetto’s puppet Pinocchio. Who is Giovanni Ricci but a made-up identity for a made-up person?
Silvio’s hand on my shoulder gently squeezing reminds me that even without my Master to serve, I may be useful still.
“Would you like me to service your cock,Signore?” I ask in a flat tone. I am grasping for a purpose, and Silvio must know it judging by the sympathetic way he looks at me. He doesn’t want a dead-eyed fuck toy. Some men might, but not him.
Silvio shakes his head slowly and says, “How about bed? You’ve had a long day and could probably use the rest. Don’t all princesses need their beauty sleep?”
He’s trying to make me smile, but as I hang up my robe and slip nude between Master’s expensive sheets, lying next to a man who is practically a stranger, I think the worst feeling for this slave isn’t to be mistreated but to be undesired.
I wakeup the next morning alone. I pull back the covers and smooth my hands over the sheets next to me as if to prove that Silvio is not here. Was there some emergency? Where could he be? When will he come back? How will I maintain my schedule?
I consider calling Master but with the time difference, it’s the middle of the night there after a long day of travel, so I swallow the lump in my throat and determine that I will carry on as if nothing is amiss. Master told me to stick to our routines, so I’ll pretend it’s a workday for Silvio just as if it was for Master. I unroll my yoga mat and do my Sun Salutations, feeling anything but grateful for this new day I’ve been given.
Breakfast is a disaster. The eggs turn out runny and pellucid, the toast is burnt around the edges, and the coffee is going cold because Silvio still has not arrived. Anthony is hovering around me like a mother hen, so I ask if he’s seen him.
“Not yet this morning,” he says.
Useless, as always.
I pace the length of theloggiawhere I’ve set up breakfast and consider skipping it altogether in favor of a swim, but Master wouldn’t want me to exercise on an empty stomach, and I haven’t earned my breakfast yet because no service has been given.
