“I cannot be your everything, Giovanni.”
He stares at his plate, lower lip protruding. I worry he may cry. These aren’t the sort of tears I crave.
“Do you know the story of Echo and Narcissus?” he says at last.
“The guy who fell in love with his own reflection?”
“That’s Narcissus, but before he met a tragic end, he was pursued by the wood nymph Echo. Echo was cursed by the goddess Hera, who made it so that Echo could only repeat the last words of another. When Narcissus came as a hunter into her woods, Echo couldn’t make her feelings known to him. Eventually, after a maddening back-and-forth between them, she leaves her hiding place and comes face-to-face with him. But Narcissus was incapable of loving anyone but himself and he rejected Echo cruelly. She fled to the caves where her beauty faded, as well as her will to live.”
I wait for him to continue but he doesn’t.
“That is a very sad story,” I say at last. “Am I Narcissus in this scenario?”
“No, but I am Echo. Whatever you desire, I amplify and echo back to you. Your voice is the only one that matters to me.”
“Your voice matters to me, as do your desires.”
He gives me a perturbed look, as if I’m being purposefully difficult. “Your voice is my voice. Your desires are my own. That I am appealing to you is the extent of my potential. I don’t contemplate the future beyond today. And I don’t want more.”
“Do you believe yourself cursed?”
“Yes, but not by you. You are my god and my savior.”
“But I’m not, Giovanni. And I have weaknesses—health, mortality.”
“Red,” he says, the first time he’s ever used that safeword with me.
My eyes burn because I love him so much and he breaks my heart at every turn. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“I love you, Giovanni, and that’s why you must understand, I am only a man.”
Nothing changes.Everything changes. Our rituals and routines remain the same, but we are careful with each other. Polite to the point of formal. Giovanni is subdued, even when servicing me, trapped inside his own head. I know our recent conversation is the reason for it. I have destabilized him. Some discipline would likely help, but I cannot bring myself to do it. I want more from him—a promise, a declaration, some sign of ambition. I want to know that he will survive me.
I need the perspective of an experienced sub to point me in the right direction, so I ask Johann if I may take Rupert to lunch, and there I pick his brain on what I should have done differently, what I can do better.
“It sounds like you’re not honoring his desires,” Rupert says, never one to mince words when it comes to what a sub needs from their Dom.
“Can you explain what you mean?”
“It’s like this, when Johann and I first got together, he would ask for my consent constantly, to hold my hand, to talk dirty in bed, whatever it was, and it finally got to a point where I had to tell him to stop asking. I have my safewords, and if I want to use them, I will. Otherwise, he’s just condescending me by repeating himself over and over, as if I can’t end whatever it is we’re doing at any time.”
“So, I should have more faith that he knows what he wants?”
“Yes. And you shouldn’t assume the things you want out of life are what he wants. You said he deals with addiction and trauma, so it’s no wonder he wants to limit his interactions with outsiders. If he’s healthy and mentally stable, who cares if he wants to be your slave to the exclusivity of anything else? What’s more important in life anyway? Being happy or being a ‘success?’”
What would success look like for Giovanni? To become the most powerful man in New York as his grandfather once was, or to serve me from on his knees? I suppose the point is that it’s not up to me to decide.
“I should stop pushing him?” I conclude.
“It’s good to push him into therapy and communicating his needs, but you can’t create a drive to do something where there is none. Think about it, you asked him to be your submissive 24/7, and now you’re telling him he needs to do more? What is it you want from him, exactly?”
“I want him to outlive me.” This is the honest-to-God truth. “His life revolved around his grandfather, and when his grandfather passed, he fell apart. I don’t want him to self-destruct if something happens to me. I want to know he’ll be cared for, even if I cannot be the one who does it. The thought of him…” I take a deep breath and rub my temples. “The thought of him hurting himself keeps me up at night.”
“I understand that, but you can’t control everything, Valentin, as much as you’d like to. He’s his own person. Focus on making him feel secure and confident right now. You’ll figure out the rest later.”
He makes it sound so simple.
I return homethat evening to find Giovanni…
