“Easy for you to say when you have a ready boy warming your bed every night.”
I smile because I can’t deny it. However fleeting this thing between us, I am a man in love. “The view from the mountaintop is spectacular.”
“Braggart,” Simeon jabs but it’s with good humor.
Keller plops down on my other side and says in his big, booming voice, “Hello, gents, what’d I miss?”
“My pity party,” Simeon readily admits.
“Pity party?” Keller asks. “How can you be pitied when we’re surrounded by gorgeous, naked men ready to satisfy our every sexual whim?” For as melancholy as Simeon tends to be, Keller is the eternal optimist.
“Years of practice,” Simeon says glumly. “I’m getting another drink. If I’m not in the mood to get laid, then I am certainly going to get drunk.”
I don’t push him. When Simeon is in a sorrowful state, there is no talking him out of it. When it’s just Keller and I on the sofa, and after I’ve instructed Giovanni to shift again, this time intoDiscobolus, the discus thrower, Keller says, “I still don’t see a collar.”
“We’re not in any rush,” I say mildly.
“Clearly.”
His judgement on my competence as a Dom couldn’t be more apparent. “Speak plainly, Keller.”
“No disrespect, Valentin, but I’ve never known you to be so wishy-washy.”
“I’m not being wishy-washy, I’m being cautious.”
“You shouldn’t punish your current sub for your former sub’s bad behavior. That’s something you told me once.”
“How impertinent,” I scold. “Remember you are still several years my junior, young man.”
“Are you going to put me over your knee?” he says with a big, booming chuckle.
“Hardly. You’d enjoy it too much. As to your other point, Giovanni’s still in training. If all goes well, he’ll be collared by his next birthday.”
“Have you told him that?” Keller asks.
I turn nearly all the way in my seat to look at him. “Why are you pressuring me so much on this? You’re not usually one to involve yourself in my personal affairs. That’s Simeon.”
“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “I just like seeing you happy. And there’s something about this one. I mean, look at him.”
So, I do. There are no words to describe the way he makes me feel—youthful, energized, focused. I gesture again and Giovanni shifts intoAugustus of Prima Portawith one arm raised in a rhetorical gesture to signify the emperor’s skill of diplomacy. Giovanni told me Roma’s first emperor is always depicted as a youthful man in his prime. Even in antiquity we worshipped beauty and youth.
“He’s more than just a pretty face,” I tell Keller.
“I’m not talking about his looks but the way you’ve decorated him and propped him on an altar. You’re worshipping him, Valentin, literally. There are men all around us fucking like barnyard animals and you’ve hardly noticed.”
I smile at Keller’s observations, all true. “Vieni,Giovanni,” I call with a raised hand. He lowers his arm and dismounts the pedestal with careful grace. Rather than climb inelegantly over the velvet ropes, he unclips one from the metal post to walk through, then refastens it again. He lays the wine-colored fabric on the floor to keep the gold from staining the white carpet, then prostrates himself before me inobeisance, a deep bow with his arms outstretched and his face to the ground.
“Kneel,” I command, and he rearranges himself with his knees spread wide and his palms laid open, offering me a spectacular view of his caged cock nested in a soft bed of bare testicles, the very picture of boy’s subservience.
“Master?” he says, and it’s as if everything between us is conveyed in that one simple utterance.
“Are you stiff?”
He glances down at his cage, a small smirk playing at his lips, even though he knows I meant his muscles. “This slave is happy to sacrifice his comfort for his Master’s pleasure.”
Keller makes a face that is somehow both smug and delighted.
“You’ve made your Master very proud in demonstrating your virtues,” I tell him and place my hand lightly atop his head. Giovanni leans into it, always seeking more.
