The Virgin Master (3 page)

“Uh, are they going to take my sexual orientation into consideration at all?”

“You mean, only offer you to sell to women if you’re straight? Nope. You don’t get to have a sexual orientation anymore. Anyone who wants you can buy you and put you to whatever use they want.” The IRS agent said that with particular relish, as if the thought of someone made to perform against his gender orientation aroused him somehow.
J
eremy began to panic deep inside.

Better you than your sister. Remember that. Take it one day at a time, or even one minute at a time. This is for your family.

Chapter Three

Evan lay awake through the night alternately fuming about the invasion of his privacy and mourning Justin again. Emptiness stretched out in front of him as far as he could see. He got up, showered, shaved and dressed. Leaving the apartment, he headed around the corner hoping to bribe or persuade his secretary to let him in his own office. His secretary, a perky little brunette, appeared to be cleaning out her desk as he rounded the corner.

“Sandy. What are you doing?”
Surely, Dad wouldn’t fire my staff!

“Mr. James? I was told you wouldn’t be in for quite a while. Leave of absence?” Sandy wouldn’t quite meet his eyes.

Evan stared at the floor.
This just kept getting better and better.

“But... where are you going?”

“I guess you never got through the pile of messages and paperwork I left on your desk at the beginning of the month? I gave two
weeks’ notice
, Mr. James. I got a job with the IRS
."

“Sandy…I… I just hate to lose you.”

Sandy looked at him wide-eyed with disbelief. “Really?
I didn’t think you remembered I was alive.”

Evan stared at her, shocked. “But…we spend so much
time together…”

Sandy laughed. “I put in time here, that’s for sure. Mr. James….not everybody’s cut out to work endless sixteen hour days. Not that the money
isn't
good
,
but my husband got tired of never seeing me. Do you realize that I worked through Christmas, Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July last year? And every weekend except one? I can’t work like that anymore, sir. I don’t really think you should either.” She hoisted up the cardboard box she packed and tried to put a small potted plant on top. Evan stepped forward.

“At least let me help you with that.” He took the box and the plant, and smiled gently at Sandy, whose words were still ringing in his ears.

“Anybody else on the staff I abused?” he asked light
ly.

Sandy huffed, her eyes dull. “Everybody? Didn’t you notice the turnover in the department?”

Evan hadn’t. As long as got the information he requested in a timely manner he didn’t care where it came from. He sighed. Maybe his Dad had a point. He realized that, in an attempt to get away from his grief, he had been living in an abstract fortress in his head built of strategy and accounts analysis. Laser focused on his targets, one after another, each deal more complex in structure and imagining, he had lost contact with every other human being in his vicinity. He
t
ried to
remember the last time he had talked to his sister or his brother
mother.
Reality crushed him as he realized he hadn’t been home for
Christmas
or any other family occasion for
the past four years. He
recalled
deleting his voicemail every night without listening to it until it
until it
became habit. He thought about Justin.

One of the last things Justin said to him while he was still lucid
;
“Ev, you have to promise me that you’ll try to have a happy life.”

“I
can’t.
Not
without
you.”

Justin sighed. “I know, baby. I know. I’d stay with you forever if I could, you know that, right? I can’t stand the thought of how you’re going to feel. I know how I’d feel if I was losing you. You have to promise to try for me, okay?

I won’t have any rest until I see you happy. ‘Cause you know if I can, I’m going to be keeping an eye on you.”

Evan had cried then and clung to Justin. He was pretty sure he’d never be happy again, but if Justin needed him to say he’d try
...
that’s what he was going to say. “I’ll try. Just…not too soon, okay? I never thought I’d
have this kind of love; and I don’t know what I ever did to deserve to have what we had. Oh, God, Justin….I need to die with you.”

“
No, Ev. Promise me. What if you try to follow me and that’s all it takes to separate us forever? Don’t take that chance. If I can, I’ll be waiting, Ev.”

He rested his head against Evan’s and they kissed for the last time
,
long and loving and gentle. That night Justin’s pain grew to the point that it could no longer be controlled by medication. He spent the next three days out of his mind, screaming in agony, writhing in Evan’s arms, begging to die, until he became so exhausted he lapsed into sleep which turned into a coma. Evan thought several times about pressing a pillow over his lover’s face, but he knew that the small hemorrhages suffocation left in the eyeballs as a signature would indict him. Every agonized sound, every tensed quivering muscle cut more of Evan’s soul out of his body. Forty-eight hours later, Justin was dead, and Evan might as well have been.

The opening of the elevator door at the lobby level jolted him from his sorrowful musings and he silently carried Sandy’s little box of personal belongings and her plant into the garage and helped her put everything in the trunk of her car. He took a good look at her. She had

worked with him for over six years, ever since he had started with the company. She had known Justin. One more link to the past, to Justin, broken.

“Sandy…I’m sorry. I’ve been crazy with grief and I just forgot anybody else even existed. I’m going to miss you, but I don’t blame you at all for leaving. You know, this isn’t a planned
leave of absence
?
M
y Dad suspended me until I get it together
.
”

“No!” Sandy’s face creased with worry. “I’m not sure
that’s such a good i
dea. What are you going to do?”

“I guess I’ll try to meet his conditions to let me come
back as
  
fast as I can.”

Sandy put her tiny ha
nd on his forearm, gently. “Mr.
James…Evan…I can’t say I know how you feel, but I can imagine how I would feel if something happened to Chad, or little Janie. It’s just….other people love and need you, too. You’re too smart, and too gifted to just wall yourself away from the world with your grief and stop living. I knew Justin pretty
well. We used to hang out while he waited for you to get out of your never-ending meetings. Remember when you used to hate those? Instead of scheduling them? He loved you past any doubt.
He’d want you to live your life and try to find some measure of happiness, wouldn’t he?”

Evan felt tears falling from his lashes. “He said that.
Right before…”

“So
honor his memory. Live for him. D
on’t die for him.” Sandy patted him once and peered up at his face until he met her eyes.

“Promise me?”

His attempt to smile at her resulted in a crooked grimace. She seemed to understand. “Call me when you’re ready to work human hours again and need a good secretary.”

“
You’d really come back?” Evan was astonished. “You don’t hate me?”

“I remember you from before when you were the best boss ever. Sure I’ll come back when you rem
ember how to be yourself again.
"

Evan watched as Sandy backed out
and left the parking structure.
Then he stood there for a long time. He really didn’t have any place else to be. Finally, he got out his new phone and made an appointment with the nearest Satisfaction Center.

*****

Once Jeremy climbed into the car with the IRS agents his life changed with dizzying speed. The agent who took custody of him had him sign some papers on a clipboard
while he rode in the back seat.
             

“What is all this stuff?”

“
Don’t worry about it right now
. T
hey
'll
explain everything to you at the Transition Center. You have to have signed all of them to get in. Even if you don’t like some of the provisions they won’t let you negotiate your contract
...
so you need to sign them all, as is, or we’ll just have to take you and your family to the Farm this evening.”

“What would happen at the Farm?”

“First of all a medical evaluation
...
that will happen at the Transition
Center,
too.
Then work assignments and housing assignments.”

“Housing assignments?”

“You wouldn’t be allowed to stay together. You would likely never see any of your family again. That sister of yours? She’s over sixteen, right?”

 
Jeremy swallowed hard. He felt as if his body and his head were no longer connected. “She turned sixteen last week. Why?”

“They would most probably assign both of you as sex workers.”

“
What does that mean? I mean, I know what you mean, but…
."

“That might even be on the low side. It
is
better money than your parents will
earn working in the fields. You
might earn out your share of the debt in twent
y years or so; if you survive.”

“If I survive?”

“You would have to satisfy any client. You couldn’t say no to anything
. S
o if you got someone say, really into
breath play
or something; accidents happen.”

“
Breath play
?”

"
You know
...
strangling you while in the act?”

J
eremy
didn’t know. “So I guess it would be the same deal there? I mean, I’d have to, uh, satisfy, anybody who paid for me?”

The agent sighed. “The days of you having any choice at all, other than going to the brothel or belonging to one person, were over the minute you lost
the ability to pay your debts.

“And I guess most of the customers at these places are men?”

"
I’d say nearly all of them are. Look, selling yourself like this
you have a good chance to have someone reasonable buy you, I don’t know
,
you might luck out and your new owner could even be a wom
an. You’ll live in a nice place and
eat regular food. Sure some of the masters are sons of bitches, but after a month or so you’ll at least know what to expect. Most of them don’t even use their personal slaves as
party
favors or anything. You stand a much better chance of having a life you won’t just hate.”

“How much do I have to bring in to at least get my sister out?”

“I’m not sure yet. They’re going to sell your family
home and all your personal effects, so that will be applied to the
debt. Of course the IRS will get a twenty percent bounty and there’s sales tax and licensing fees to be added back. After that, they set a base price equal to fifty per cent of the total debt for a buy now price. Your best bet will be to actually get to the auction floor. You’re actually quite attractive
. Y
ou should do well enough to cover a third of the
outstanding debt
and
you can choose who you want to apply it for. I guess your sister?”