The Pleasure Boy 26

No matter what you plan or worry about, life keeps on happening. Less than a month after this conversation with mother, Natasha Sorkin was run over and killed instantly by a drunk driver as she was walking home from a late night at the library. I got to see him flogged in our city’s Punishment Park and then enslaved and sold at auction for impaired driving under the terms of the terms of Canada’s Indenture and Penal Servitude Act, (corresponding to the 34^th Amendment, familiar from Joe Doe’s and Carl Bradford’s stories). Accustomed as I was to corporal punishment, both giving and receiving, it was a wrenching experience to witness this punishment. Judicial CP is now administered most scientifically – at the neuronal level, so that a naked culprit is made to feel the agony and shame of public correction in every fibre of his being, and for as long a time as wanted to teach an unforgettable lesson, without being physically damaged or reduced in market value in any way.

The culprit danced and howled under a simulated lash. Through tricks of make-up technology and lighting, an audience could watch and find some closure in his suffering. He would be thoroughly punished in ways he would remember and dread for the rest of his life, but no physical harm at all would come to him. Ten minutes after it was over, the executioners unstrapped him from the whipping frame and helped him walk, past all the spectators, back to a cell at the training facility where he’d be schooled to instant and automatic obedience to every order given him. Witnessing and contemplating this criminal’s fate was an education for me, in its contrast with the joyful and pleasurable service that I’d been trained to give. For the next 30 years or more, until his amnesty at age 75 if he behaved well, obedience would be a torment of constraint for him, not the privilege of known and voluntarily accepted duty that it was for me.

On another level, though I took a grim satisfaction in watching this idiot pay for his crime, I felt guilty myself for the relief I felt from my advisor’s untimely death. Much as I had respected her, appreciated her as teacher and thesis advisor, and enjoyed sexually pleasuring her and teaching her to Domme, I had not allowed myself to love her, and had been losing interest in the petty pedantries of academic life. When Sorkin had set me to work on a sound, safe thesis topic, I had gone along against my real inclination to write a geisho’s book on “Fun and Comfort in History.” I knew she was giving me good career advice – if what I wanted was an academic career – but my heart was not really in it. It had become clear to me that I could have more freedom and fun as a geisho than as a college prof, and that Eurasian history would be more rewarding for me as a hobby than as professional expertise.

And there was more. As I’d discussed with my mother, Natasha Sorkin had been falling in love – though not so much with me, as with my services as her submissive – and she’d been hoping to keep me around as a permanent assistant and life mate. While I could have welcomed such a life under the right Mistress, even in the academic world, there had been a coldness in her that had repelled me. I had been eager and happy in our contract as we’d written and signed it, but not in its implications for a long-term relationship. Not as these ran in Natasha’s mind, at any rate.

For the rest of that semester, I mostly moped, going through the motions while thinking as little as possible. I turned down escort gigs from Monique Allard, telling her that I was mourning a loss and not yet ready to offer proper service to her clients. But I resumed spending a few hours a week as a professional sub at Master Thomas’ studio. When he asked me once why I was letting his clients spank or cane me much harder than before, I told him that I felt guilty about something and actually welcomed the punishment. He frowned but said nothing further, allowing me to mourn Natasha and atone in my own way for declining to love her.

My academic career did not end abruptly, but it began to peter out. As Sorkin’s assistant, I had had access to her teaching notes; and when I turned these over to her department head, he’d asked me if I’d be prepared to take over her classes for the rest of that term, until she could be replaced. I agreed, and made a competent job of it, but my heart wasn’t in this work. By the time summer came, I knew I had no further interest in an academic career and would not be continuing as a graduate student in Central Asian studies. What would come next, what I now wanted for myself, I had no idea.

With her accustomed tact, my mother had left me alone to recover from the death of my teacher, pupil and thesis advisor in my own good time. She had attended Sorkin’s funeral when I invited her, and I’d continued to visit my family almost every week; but she’d refrained from asking questions about plans that she knew I did not have and was not ready to make. It was only at a Sunday dinner in mid-August, with Dad and Lisa at the table, that she finally raised the subject of my future. “Are you planning to finish your doctorate?” she asked me, bluntly. “Or, what do you have in mind?”

“Why do you ask, Mom?” I responded. “I think you know that I’ve made no decision yet. Writing a thesis now is easier said than done. I’d need to build a relationship with a new advisor, and agree with him or her on a new topic. And I’ve lost most of my interest in an academic career. One thing I learned as a grad student is that if you’re not a narrow specialist at heart, the university has drawbacks along with its advantages as a place to think and learn. I’m still fascinated, as I was three years ago, by Russian and Central Asian history, but lack the patience, the detachment, to think and write about it for academic credit, in a neutral, scholarly way.”

“I’m thinking of falling back on my geisho credentials, earning my living with those, and doing history as a hobby in whatever free time I have. But, truth be told, Mom, as I think you know, I’m not really thinking of anything yet. Mostly, I’m drifting, living on money I earned this Spring by teaching Sorkin’s courses while knowing I’ll be going back to escort gigs soon unless something else comes along. The truth is, I’ve been postponing all the decisions that I’m not ready to make.”

“Yes, I did know you were drifting,” my mother said, “but that’s why I’m asking – like this, at our dinner table, with Lisa and your father listening. We’re all concerned about you, and we want to help.”

“Mother, I don’t think I want your help now, much as I value the advice and assistance you’ve given me in the past. Mostly what I need now is just time – free from external pressures to figure out who I really am and what I want to do with myself. Both as a geisho and in the academic world, I think I know what my options are. But I don’t know which one (or ones) I want to pursue. Until I know that much, help from others is just a distraction. When I know where I want to go, I’ll know whom to ask for the help I need.”

“Then you’ll be the first I come to, as you always have been. But, until then, what I ask now is that you leave me to find my own way.”

“Dearest son,” my mother answered, “We understand that pressure to make decisions is the last thing that you need now. You should know that your family has talked about your situation, and are completely agreed: We love you no matter what. Any assistance or support you need will be available on your own terms, whatever you decide. Please feel sure of that.”

“But our lives have been changing as yours has, and some of the changes might affect you. In particular, they allow us to offer at least two options, not previously available, which might help you recover and get on with your life. Just let me mention them. Then file them away for future reference, if and when you wish to discuss them – either one of them – further. We promise not to bring them up again unless you do.”

I said nothing, just looked at her, and waited for her to continue. Mom just smiled and gazed back, waiting for a sign of permission. Lisa and Dad were silent too. Finally, I nodded at her and she went on.

“First,” my mother opened, “you must hear Lisa’s news.”

“Dear Jim,” Lisa began. “You and I were close when we were training with Mistress Lotte, but she set me up to Domme you as an exercise for both of us and we never developed a romantic relationship. Then you got involved with Natasha Sorkin and I helped you write a contract with her when I went to work for your mother. I’m sad for you that she was killed and that you find yourself without a mistress.”

“I’m getting married in a few months to a young man whom you’ve never met. Frank Morris (that’s his name) is a tax lawyer, working very hard and doing very well. He was just getting into BDSM as a Dominant when, as your Mom’s employee, I was assigned to train him for lifestyle D/s; and I became for him something like what you were for Natasha Sorkin. The difference was that I loved him, and I accepted when he proposed to me. I want you to meet him soon and be friends with both of us. You will, of course, be invited to our wedding. He accepts my work and relationships as a geisha; and, like you, sometimes plays with other men though he is basically straight. I think you’ll like each other.”

“Both of us are Dominants and switches, so in our sex life, we take turns as Top and bottom. That’s been working very well, but we’ve agreed that as a working couple, both Dom and with a double income, we need two live-in submissives – a houseboy and a cook – to run our home and serve us both. Subject to his approval, I’d love for you to be our houseboy – under a contract to be negotiated among the four of us. It will be a real job for a real salary with room and board thrown in; but it will not be terribly onerous. So long as you and the girl keep our home comfortable and are around when we need you, you will be free to do other things.”