He grips my hand and opens it, presses something small and flat into my palm before closing my fingers around it. I bring my fist to my face and open my hand to find a razor blade. He must have removed it from my shaving razor.Damnit.I place it on the far nightstand and roll him over so he’s facing me. I survey his arms for any new cuts. He doesn’t resist, just watches my inspection with blank detachment.
“What are you supposed to do when you’re feeling this way?” I ask, trying so hard to be careful.
“Go into my box.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because the voices told me they’d leave me alone if I cut just a little.”
“But you didn’t?”
He shakes his head.
“Are they still very loud?”
He nods, tears springing in his eyes, and he whispers, “They’re so mean to me.”
I swallow my own emotions as they rise to the surface. It won’t do for us both to start crying. He needs me to be strong, to be practical. “They’re wrong you know.”
He shakes his head. He doesn’t know what to believe, so I continue, “They’re wrong because I’m right, Giovanni. You’re kind, intelligent,worthy. You’re my most beautiful boy.What have I told you about these things in my apartment?”
“Precious,” he says in a whisper.
“That’s right. Precious and irreplaceable. What have I told you about my beloved possessions?”
“I’m not allowed to break them?”
“You’re not allowed to hurt the things I treasure. That means this too.”
I rub my thumbs along the span of his arms, over the ridges and scars from his drug use and past self-harm, including a particularly nasty one from when he almost succeeded in taking his own life.
“This skin is my skin, this body, my body. Only I have the authority to mark this beautiful canvas. I am stronger than the voices because I’m here with you, touching you.” I squeeze his upper arms and my one hand snakes around to the back of his head to tug at his hair. “Do you feel this?”
He nods. “Yes, Sir.”
“That’s my hand pulling your hair, and it’s my voice telling you to kneel, not them. When they tell you to hurt yourself, you tell themno. You tell them you’re not allowed. Because what will happen if you do?”
“You’ll be upset,” he says.
“I’ll beveryupset. I might even punish you for it. Because you’ve allowed them to take that away from me. It’s my right to care for you and pleasure you and hurt you, not theirs. Repeat it back to me.”
He’s crying now, quiet and muffled, but he gets it. Whatever reinforcements I can provide him in this battle, I will hand over readily.
“It’s your right to hurt me,” he says, landing on that one aspect alone.
“That’s right, Giovanni. Only I’m allowed to hurt you.”
That weekend,I whip him for the first time.
What is the impetus, I wonder? What am I trying to prove? That I am louder than the voices in his head, that I alone rule him?
He’s against my St. Andrews cross, not strapped to it but gripping the handholds. I’ve buckled the kidney belt around his waist and a thick leather collar around his throat, even though my aim is precise. The implement is called a Devil’s Tongue, a short whip with a nasty bite. We’ve gone one round already as a warmup.
“Pain level?” I ask because I need some gauge of what is too much.
“Three.”
He’s underestimating it. “Is this more or less painful than the flogger?”
