“You lied to me,” I accuse, then turn to Sir. “You lied to me too.”
“I know and I’m sorry,” Master says.
“Man-to-man, Dom-to-Dom,” I say in a sing-song voice. The swaying starts. I can’t help it.
“Do you need to go in your box?” Master asks.
“You need to go in the box,Master,” I hiss but the demons say,don’t let him put you in the box. You’re going to get even.
“What are the voices saying, Giovanni?” Master asks and I want to scream at him not to use that condescending tone with me. I want to roar and wail and claw at him and bite him, but then he will put me in the box for sure, and the demons need me to be smart this time.
“I’m going for a swim.” I stand and start to walk away but Sir grabs my arm.
“Giovanni,” he says, and I turn on him so fast he startles and falls back against the couch.
“You lied to me.” I point an accusing finger in his face. “Traitor.”
In the pool, I try to reach a meditative state, but the demons are chattering too loudly, gleeful in their excitement.He lied. He lied. He lied. He was never going to tell you. And Sir lied for him too. They took advantage of your trust and they lied…
Sir tries again to placate me when I get out of the pool. I look past him until he realizes he’s not getting through. I hate him and I hate Master for what they’ve done. Made me trust them and manipulated me while doing it. Just like my mother.
“I’ll be in my box,” I tell Master who is waiting for me in the bedroom when I get out of the shower. “You can have Anthony bring me dinner there.”
When Anthony comes later, I open the door only long enough to take the tray before shutting it again, cutting him off mid-sentence, something about what Master wants.
“You can tell Valentin to go fuck himself,” I tell Anthony through the glass. Let him prove his manhood and use my exact words.
I pretend to read with the waning evening light and then I lay with my hands behind my back and stare up at the glass ceiling of my box.A boy in a cage,the demons whisper.Always waiting on his Master to tell him what to wear, what to do, who to talk to, how to act. Are you a boy, Giovanni, or are you a man?
The demons sometimes goad me in this way. I try not to listen, but their points are valid. Meanwhile Master’s refrains haunt me as well—this is a conversation between men, Giovanni.It is not the concern of this slave to question, only serve…He trained me to be incurious, to blindly trust that he knew what was best. Curiosity is not the virtue of a slave, and boys are not privy to the conversations of men. I don’t feel humble, I feel humiliated and so, sofurious.
Master comes in the nighttime to invite me to bed, but I have only two words for him.
“You lied.”
When Master is finally asleep,after a long span of tossing and turning, I slip out of my box and shut the door silently behind me. I collect my car keys from the kitchen and take the convertible into town. Ischia isn’t a bustling city in the wee hours of the night, but I know where I can go. People have offered to get me high before, because I’m young or attractive or because I have an artist’s soul or because they saw the scars on my arms and thought me a kindred spirit. Like attracts like.
Why didn’t I tell Master? I liked knowing there was a connection in the event I ever needed the release. Addicts are liars in case you didn’t know. It’s what we do.
I go to one of the restaurants that also has a bar and ask after Paolo, a cook who works in the back. He gets off in an hour or so, so I decide to order a drink, a shot of tequila to show the demons that I am indeed my own man. In for a penny, in for a pound. The demons lap it up thirstily and beg for more. I started drinking to deal with my social anxiety and even now, I appreciate the mellow mood that descends, allowing me to care just a little bit less about everything else, including my Master’s betrayal.
Paolo comes out a while later and I tell him what I’m looking for. He says he’s got some real good stuff back at his apartment in Naples, but I tell him I need it now, just one hit. He has a little he’s been saving that he wouldn’t mind sharing and the manager’s left for the night, so we can use his office. Paolo suggests I have another drink while the rest of the staff leaves, and he finishes up in the back. I ask for tequila over ice so that I might pace myself because I don’t want to be wasted, even if it is what the demons want.
Paolo returns a little while later to collect me from the bar and I follow him back to the manager’s office where he invites me to relax in the boss’s own chair. Paolo has offered to blow me before, and he looks like he wants to right now. Maybe he’ll wait until after I’m high to make a move. I try to muster up some feeling about it, but there isn’t any. I tell him I’ll pay him later and he waves me off. He isn’t a dealer, per se, but my experience has been that most will give you the first dose for free anyway, knowing it’s a small investment on a much longer return.
He tosses me a length of elastic rubber and I deftly wrap it around my arm, using my teeth to hold one end as I tie it off easily around my bicep, remarkable how one’s muscle memory lasts. He clears a spot on the desk and lays out his kit. I watch with a kind of detachment as he goes through the process. The demons are giddy with excitement because they are about to get what they’ve been begging for these past few years, but my mind has tuned them out and is singularly saying,fuck you, Master.Sometimes our goals align.
Paolo presents the prepared needle for my inspection and I pump my fist, offering my vein. Seeming to have second thoughts, he says, “Giovanni, you seem like a nice kid, and you’ve got a good thing going with your uncle over there in your palace by the sea. You sure you want to fuck that up?”
“He’s not my uncle,” I tell him.
“Yeah, no shit, but still.”
“I want this,” we say, the demons and I both. “Give it to me, please.”
Paolo agrees but there is another voice who says no.
“Jesus fucking Christ,”I grumble when Sir barges into the room. “How the fuck did you find me?”
