Master takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, but what I want him to do is put me in my place. “It’s important that we have these check-ins,tesoro, to make sure that what we have is still what we both want.”
“It’s obviously what I want,” I say, my panic rising, “but what about you? Has this slave served its purpose?”
“No,” Master says sharply. “Don’t take that tone with me, Giovanni. This is a man-to-man discussion that I’d like to have with you without you assuming the worst of me.”
“The worst is you leaving me or kicking me out. The best is keeping me forever. I’ve felt this way since you brought me into your home, and that feeling multiplied when you made me your own. You trained me to be yourschiavo, and when you discuss the possibility of me being anything but that, it makes me feel unwanted, and I don’t feel you are demonstrating yourgratitudefor this slave’s sacrifices.”
We stare at each other for a long while. When Master falters, and it’s usually only on this particular point, is when my demons start to chatter and scheme, and he knows this. So, if he truly doesn’t want to be rid of me… “What is the purpose of this conversation?” I ask, feeling far too bold and not at all charitable.
“I don’t want you to look back in ten years and have any regrets,” Master says with a note of sadness. “That you spent so many years of your youth in the service of an old man.”
In this moment, I wish there weren’t this ocean of years between us. Because this is not something either of us can overcome, and as Master gets older, I fear his concerns about our age difference will only get worse. I’m also frustrated because I don’t know what else I must do to prove myself to him. My daily acts of devotion should be enough—more than enough—to quell his insecurities.
“That willneverhappen.” I stand from the table, towering over Master in my youthful arrogance and say, “Man-to-man, I suggest Master work on his pride.”
I storm out of the courtyard and jog down to the beach where I sit in the sand and stare at the water, getting lost in the cadence of its rhythms until Anthony comes down to fetch me for dinner. Master doesn’t apologize and neither do I; we just glance at each other warily from across the dinner table, two scorpions circling one another.
It’s like that sometimes, even between Master and slave.
20
Master and Sir have worked out an arrangement. During the week, I will live at the manor and serve Master; on the weekends, I will live at the boathouse and serve Sir. When we do scenes, I will submit to both men, and they’ll alternate in planning and executing the details of the scene. To that end, I don’t need to know whose idea it was, only that in Master’s house, I obey Master, and in Sir’s house, I obey Sir. Sir’s only rule so far is that I must learn some of his beloved mother’s recipes and cook dinner for him like a housewife, which includes wearing a ridiculous-looking apron. When Sir interrupts my cooking to bend me over the counter and spank me with a wooden spoon, then fuck me with the lubrication of his very own brand of olive oil, I think Sir might have some kind of domestic servitude kink.
And even though I don’t know who’s the architect behind our scenes, I do have my suspicions. Sir is slowly working me into bondage, first by simply draping ropes over my body while Master uses whatever implements they've decided on, and later, by tying my legs in ways that spread me for he and Master’s convenience. The only parts of my body Sir avoids altogether are my wrists, which is my hard limit.
After a rope scene, Sir is excellent with aftercare, massaging my muscles and rubbing out my tight joints. I understand how this kink befits him because it combines the control element with the hands-on type of affection he favors.
One day, as I’m being escorted back to Master’s, and after Sir has kissed me goodbye, I find that Master is not at home and neither is Anthony. When I call his phone, he doesn’t answer. He’s usually waiting on my return and if not that, he tells me where he’s going and when he’ll be back. The car is not here either. I wait for an hour, then two, and then I think to check the safe because if Master left the island, he likely took his gun with him.
The gun is there, along with the clip and then I notice, shoved deep into the recess of his safe, is a pill bottle. I pull it out and study it closely. I don’t recognize the medication, and it’s not one of the ones I dole out every week in his pill box. I look up the name on my phone to find that it’s often prescribed for something calledamyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS, which is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord.
ALS, which causes tremors and clumsiness and slurred speech, things I’ve noticed and pointed out to Master, and he’s blown off as low blood sugar or fatigue or having had a little too much to drink. A disease for which there is no cure.
Fatal. Not years into the future, but two to four years, if we’re lucky. When was he diagnosed? How long has he been keeping this from me? How long do we have left?
Master is…
Master is leaving me?
Your precious Master lied to you,the demons whisper excitedly,and Sir lied to you too.
I sit there, dumbstruck at this deception. The demons don’t rage because they don’t need to. They’re smug in their righteousness. They’ve been right all along.
When I come backto myself, I’m in the living room. Master is sitting at the edge of his recliner, watching me intently, waiting for me to return. Sir is holding me in his lap and stroking me somewhat frantically.
I scramble away from them both and retreat to the far end of the couch.
“I was going to tell you,” Master says, which means that it’s true—his disease as well as the fact that he and Sir have been hiding it from me. My Master… I cannot live without my Master—I don’t want to.
“How long have you known?” It’s my own voice but the demons are behind it, tugging on my vocal chords like a puppet’s strings.
“Awhile,” Master says.
“Months or years?” I plead.
“Since New York.”
Since New York when he asked me about the family business, the drawn look on his face, nearly a year ago. He knew way back then, and he said nothing about it to me.
