The Virgin Master (20 page)

“
I don’t know what you think you saw, but I’m just f
ine;
Jeremy and I are just fine.”

“That’s funny. I see the same look in Jeremy’s eyes, only he isn’t nearly as practiced as you at hiding it. What in the world is making you both so damned miserable?”

Evan had to get away from Jeff before he told him something. “I just remembered I have a lunch meeting.” He stood. Jeff stood up with him, grabbed him and pushed him back into the chair.

“
It’s nine o’clock, Ev.”

“Uh, the meeting is on the other side of town and it’s an early lunch, so…”

“
Evan, you have to talk to somebody. If you can’t talk to me
,
and you and Jeremy can’t talk it out, there has to be somebody you trust enough to talk to.” Jeff tried to catch and hold Evan’s eyes. He watched as Evan unconsciously fisted his hands so tightly that his knuckles glowed white. He wanted to take the man into a hug, but he didn’t want to get slugged. He let Evan process. He could wait.

Evan finally relaxed and looked up at Jeff. “Can I really
trust you?”

Jeff cocked his head to one side, “What do you think?”

“I’m scared, Jeff. I’m not used to being scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“Myself.”

Jeff’s mind raced. The change in attitude had happened
right after the discipline inspection. Jeff had also come to being a Master late and he and Moira had been inspected, too. He hadn’t thought about that time in years. He remembered how sick he had been to have to cause her pain. He had actually vomited
immediately after the Inspector left. He had held Moira and they had comforted each other. Could Jeremy be blaming Evan for hurting him? No. That would be stupid and Jeremy was one of the brightest people he had ever met, and seemed to truly love Evan
. Oh
.

“Does it bother you that Jeremy cares for you?”

Evan looked up at him sharply. “I thought you hadn’t talked to him.”

“I don’t really have to talk to him to see that he adores you. I don’t have to talk to him to see that this distance you’re keeping from him is killing him.”

Evan’s eyes welled up. He dashed the tears from his eyes abruptly and angrily. “Why should it matter to me how my slave feels?”

Jeff laughed. “This is me you’re talking to, remember? I know you don’t think of Jeremy as a slave, no more than I think of Moira as a slave. I noticed this change in attitude suddenly and immediately after the discipline session. What happened?”

Evan turned deathly pale and lowered his head. He spoke so softly that Jeff strained to hear him. “I liked it.”

Jeff stared at Evan. “You liked
it. You liked hitting Jeremy.”

Evan slumped over and put his head on his desk. “Yes.”

Jeff didn’t know what to do with this. “Does Jeremy know you liked it?”

“
No. Maybe. If he did, how could he ever trust me again?”

“Is there any possibility he might have liked it just a
little bit,
too?”

“I can’t talk to him about it.”

“You have to. Look, you know why you had to buy Jeremy; you remember that, right? Your mental health evaluation is next month. I would guess you haven’t slept with Jeremy in a couple of weeks…”

“I’ve never slept with Jeremy.”

“Excuse me?
”

Evan looked out the window, fiddling with a pencil.
“I’ve
never slept with Jeremy, and I never will.”

Jeff once again found himself with his jaw dropped. “So you, what, thought you’d just buy him and pretend and get by without having to be intimate with anybody?
Ever
?
”

Evan shifted nervously. “That part of my life is over…”

“Good God, Evan. You’re twenty-six. You have needs and wants just like anybody else. That’s what this was all about in the first place
. Y
ou were becoming a mean
,
mono-focused machine. You really were ready to crash-and-burn when your Dad suspended you. I know he sent you to counseling
…
did you fake those visits, too?”

Evan looked at him with guilt shining in his eyes. “I don’t
  
want
to give Justin up
. I
t would be like going through his
death all over again. He was it for me
,
the first and the last. There will never be anyone else. Period. The counselor wanted to just focus on getting me past it, on putting Justin behind me, making him just a good memory. He was my life, Jeff. My whole fucking life. When he died, I should have died, too.” Tears were falling freely now, unacknowledged
and, perhaps, unnoticed. “The counselor was happy to take my money and fake office visit reports.”

“Evan…do you think you’
re the only person in the world
who ever lost someone who was their heart and soul?”

“No. But
I’m
the one who has to live
my
life. I can’t if everybody is going to insist that I give him up.”

“What does that have to do with the sudden change in temperature after the discipline….oh.  Something happened. You felt horrible about hurting Jeremy and even worse that it turned you on. And he’s Jeremy, so he forgave you and tried to make you feel better while he was standing on wobbly legs bleeding. Something happened.”

“Something
almost
happened. I can’t let him get that close to me.”

“But, Evan
h
e already
is
that close to you, whether you shove him away now or not. He’s under your skin. You’re punishing him for what you perceive to be your own weakness. That’s not fair. You either need to accept your feelings
…
and his
…
or you need to sell him. I’m sure you’ll find someone who’ll take good care of him and give him the love he needs and accept the love he needs to give.”

“Sell him?” Evan’s voice cracked with anguish.

“Can you sit there and tell me with a straight face that you believe it’s fair to make him live with you in this icy silence? The man’s in love with you. Can you imagine how he feels?”

“Oh, yes. I know exactly how he feels.”

Jeff grabbed Evan’s head and turned him so that he couldn’t avoid Jeff’s eyes. “I bet you do. You love him, too. Accept it. Take comfort. Justin forgave you. You have to forgive yourself or you might as well be dead. I know, you think that’s what you want. But for those minutes or seconds or however long it was, when something almost happened with Jeremy; how did you feel? You don’t have to tell me, I know how you felt. You felt whole, and healed and happy
,
just for a second. Didn’t you? And you think you have to deny yourself those feelings
. T
hat you don’t deserve
them.”

Evan scoffed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I do.
Give Jeremy a break, please. He hasn’t got anything in the world, if he doesn’t have you.”

Jeff got up and walked back into Jeremy’s office where he found him, still as death, in the same formal kneeling posture.

“Evan said it was okay to talk to me.”

“I think I have to hear him say it.”

“
God damn it. You both deserve each other. I give up. I’ll send you a really, really detailed email, then.” Jeff heaved a disgusted sigh and went back to his own office, hoping that something he said might have gotten through to Evan.

Chapter
Fourteen

Evan’s head hurt after talking to Jeff. He had been astonished that Jeff hadn’t hated him for admitting that he had gotten some pleasure out of the discipline session. He had also been surprised at Jeff’s suggestion that Jeremy might have gotten some pleasure out of it, too. He clung to his walls, though. If he let Jeremy through again
he’d never be able to let him go. He needed more
input. He needed to talk to some other people he trusted who had personal slaves.
             

Evan called some of his old friends, and felt pleasantly surprised that they were glad to
hear from him. He went to the park for a pick-up basketball game after work, leaving Jeremy behind in the apartment.

Most of Evan’s friends
owned personal slaves. They all

knew how his family felt about slavery. Even though he had
 
known most of them since kindergarten this was a subject they just never discussed.

Many of his friends got slaves as gifts from their parents when they turned sixteen. Naturally, a great deal of discussion and trash talk preceded and followed these gifts. Evan always wandered away whenever the conversation turned in that direction
feeling dirty and sick for hearing any of it. After a while, his closest friends noticed and just refrained from discussing sex with their slaves when Evan came around. This whittled his circle of friends down to a handful. But these were the people he felt closest to anyway.

Now, though, he hoped to talk about what he felt with his closest friend, Christian Knox, who owned a male and a female personal slave. He couldn’t think how to bring the topic up. Chris had always been sensitive to Evan’s feelings about discussing slaves; he never brought either of them with him anywhere he knew Evan planned to be.

Today, however, Jason, Chris’ male slave, played ball with them. He was very good, but never said a thing and didn’t participate in the trash talk or the banter. He was just there, competently and efficiently
p
laying his position. When the game broke up, Jason walked over to where Chris had thrown his bag and knelt, head down, waiting passively.

“Evan, dude, four years and nothing.
Now
you call. Don’t get me wrong, I was pleased as hell to hear from you, but, why now?”

“I had to buy a personal slave.”

“You
had
to?”

“Yeah.” Evan quickly filled Chris in on his Dad’s and the board’s fears concerning his Mental and Sexual Health evaluation and the effect that would have on investors. When he expressed his distaste for the Satisfaction Center, Chris laughed and agreed with him.

“So, your personal slave, what’s he like?”

“Well, he was feral, so I’ve had to train him. Well, really we’ve been training each other.”

Ch
ris stopped moving. “Feral? As in free up until you bought him?”

“Yes. Chris---he has an MBA from Stanford, same as me. He’s, well, he’s unbelievably hot…”

“Same as you.”

Evan blushed and rolled his eyes. “He’s my personal assistant at the office and he’s so damn good at it that I have increased my work output by a factor of three in less than half the time.”

“But?”

“You know how I’ve always felt about slavery.
”

“It’s not like you were up on a soapbox or in my face or anything, but yeah, I always knew.”

“
I’m having a really hard time adjusting to some of the things I’m learning about myself.”

Chris eyed him. Evan blushed harder. “What kind of things? Sexual things?”

“Maybe.”