“It is through your Master’s pride you are able to demonstrate your humility.” And because I know he’s been studying languages, I go on to say, “The word ‘humility’ comes from the Latin wordhumilis, meaning ‘low,’ which derives fromhumus, meaning earth or soil. You might consider yourself to be the ground upon which I tread, the very foundation of our dynamic. Your body is the soil, nourished by my seed. I feed you from my loins, and you in turn provide me with a bountiful harvest.”
“Master’s words are very provocative,” he murmurs, already testing the confines of his cage.
“These virtues are unique to our dynamic. This is not a training I’ve done with any other submissive. I created it only with you in mind.” I designed these lessons according to his needs and my own. What will bring him security and comfort? What will draw out the best in his behaviors? What can he fall back on when the voices get too loud?
“I’m truly honored, Master,” he says with a slight bow.
“Allow me.” I hold out my hand and he places the plug in my palm as if it were a small plum. I spread his ass cheeks while he braces himself against me. I stroke slowly in and out of him with two lubed fingers, intimate on so many levels. Giovanni moans his arousal into the fabric of my shirt.
“This is to remind you that even when I’m not inside you, you’re mine still. This treasure trove belongs to me and me alone, as does your mouth, your skin, your cock and balls, anything I can touch is my domain, all that I can see and even some places where I cannot. All of it, my kingdom. Understand,schiavo?”
“Yes, Master.”
I secure the plug, nudging the blunted end against his prostate a few times to remind him that bundle of nerves is mine too.
“Tonight, you’ll focus on the virtue of patience. Both a slave and their Master must have patience with each other’s emotions and their bodies. I might hurt you in a scene, but if I don’t have the patience to let you heal, far worse damage could be done.”
“You wouldn’t,” he says, offended on my behalf.
“I might if I didn’t know better or if you didn’t tell me. If you begged or tempted me in the way you have a habit of doing, I might give in. It’s why we both must cultivate our patience and know the delay of pleasure now will bring far greater rewards later.”
“What does it mean to be patient with emotions?” he asks.
“That means we assume good intent. We communicate openly and honestly. We don’t play mind games or try to make the other jealous. We treat each other with respect, and we hold each other’s hearts with the utmost care. We show gratitude for the gifts we give each other and the sacrifices we make.”
“I love you, Valentin,” he says as though he cannot help but proclaim the words. His delivery is somewhat halting because while I demonstrate my love for him every day, I vocalize the sentiment far less often.
“I love you too, Gio.”
He glances down at himself, shining from head to foot like a real-life golden statue. “Does this mean prosperous times are ahead?”
I adjust his hair, which has fallen in his face. “It means that of all the treasures I have collected in my long life, you are by far my most extravagant and beloved possession.”
I freely admitI am indulgent in many ways, hedonistic too. A sexual being for sure, as I have been since adolescence. Others may attempt to stuff down their impulses in shame or in fear, but I have always invited my desires to the surface to interrogate and examine up close. As the Greek philosopher once said,know thyself. It’s one of the reasons why the safe, sane, and consensual framework has always appealed to me. Because the demands of my profession are so often outside the bounds of social mores, the lines are often blurred. The orders I give and the decisions I make in my professional sphere are nonconsensual, the things I’ve done or have ordered done to people truly despicable. Always deserved in my mind but horrid, nonetheless. Therefore, I hold it paramount in my sexual endeavors to seek consent, if only to balance my sins, if such a thing were possible. I don’t contemplate my fate in the afterlife. My soul will be weighed as gold or ash, and if it’s found lacking, so be it.
Therefore, in this existential rat race we find ourselves running day in, day out, I take the time to appreciate beauty. Art is perhaps the only true virtue of mankind—an opinion Giovanni and I share. I cultivate beauty where I can and seek it when I must. Since Giovanni entered into my life again, I find myself at times overwhelmed by the abundance of beauty, not only in his physical appearance but in the inner workings of his mind, and in his submission. All the ways he’s willing to bend and stretch in order to bear my passions.
I sip a bottle of Pellegrino on my expensive Bellini sofa surrounded by the people I’ve known for years as brothers and lovers and gaze upon my heart’s delight, my beautiful golden boy. He stands nude on his pedestal with a wine-colored cloth draped over one arm, the same hue as the velvet rope stanchion that surrounds his platform, a physical barrier that couldn’t make it any clearer to guests that my slave is to be admired from afar.
“You’re smitten,” Simeon says, coming to take the seat beside me. I’ve had nothing alcoholic to drink, but there is a warmth inside me that I can only attribute to the influence of myschiavo.
“Yes,” I admit freely because I am beyond discounting my feelings for him, and any pretense would make me sound foolish. As we are bordered on all sides by men fucking to a chorus of lusty grunts and moans, I feel as decadent as Dionysus at the harvest.
“I’m jealous,” Simeon says, and I turn to him at last, prying my eyes away from my stunning young man. Simeon’s normally placid expression looks pained, his face drawn and his eyes sad. For anyone who doubts that loneliness isn’t also a physical affliction, I can attest otherwise.
“Your luck will turn,” I assure him because aren’t I living proof?
“It’s hard to find everything in one person,” Simeon grouses. “Compatibility, chemistry, shared values. Christ, even finding someone to have a halfway decent conversation with is rare these days. I’d rather pay for a nice dinner with a man than ten blowjobs.”
“There are services for that too.”
“It’s all artifice,” he says with a wave of his hand. “And I’m not getting any younger. Money used to be enough to hold a man’s attention. Not anymore.” He takes a sip of his cocktail and sighs morosely. My attention returns to my beautiful boy. He’s watching our exchange, so I offer him an encouraging smile and gesture for him to switch poses. There are ten altogether he will cycle through at my command, partly as a way for us to check in, but also to focus his attention to the lesson at hand. We brainstormed them together, all based on famous sculptures. Currently he’s modelingGod from the Sea, which could be either Zeus or Poseidon, according to historians. Giovanni likes the ambiguity of what the bronze sculpture would have been holding in their raised right hand. For Zeus, a lightning bolt. For Poseidon, a trident. Giovanni, still staring at me intently, parts his mouth in the way he has a habit of doing right before he takes my cock.
“What of the men I’ve introduced you to?” I ask Simeon.
“They’re attractive enough and very well behaved, but there is no spark, nofrisson de la passion.”
“Perhaps you haven’t met him yet, but might I suggest you put yourself out there a little more, rather than always relying on escorts to satisfy your sexual needs? Speaking from my own experience, they are a great temporary relief, but ultimately left me feeling rather hollow.”
