Master of Two: Nascent Love (7 page)

Both of my parents are gone now; killed in a
small plane crash. My father piloted the little Cessna, but I don't
blame him for the accident. He was a rock-solid guy who got me
through some difficult moments growing up. Randolf didn't say much,
but his actions were loud and clear.

I remember in high school, how I was the
smart guy to whom people turned when they couldn't understand the
homework or needed an answer to a problem with a girl. I guess I
was like Cyrano de Bergerac, writing love letters that would bear
another man's name. It was an awkward time for me. But eventually,
I found a girl who wanted me for me. Teenagers that we were, there
were constant issues to be dealt with. After a while, I had to step
away from that relationship because her behavior was too emotional
and erratic and began to be something I had to manage more often
than I liked. I took control of the situation, but I was still
pretty green, and my ham-handed arm chair psychology left us both
unhappy and alone.

But in college, I tried a few new things
with the girls I dated. After a while they weren't so callow, and
there was more order than chaos.

I had a lovely girl my sophomore year. Her
name was Tasha. She was a beautiful woman, with soft, light coffee
colored skin and bright sloe eyes. I thought I was in love with
her, and maybe I was. At the time, I didn't know what love for a
woman really meant – my parents were fractious and sometimes
distant with each other. My mother got a wild hair up her ass one
year and adopted my baby sister, Loretta. I was thirteen at the
time. It was a crazy, emotional decision, but my father went along,
so there we were, suddenly a family of four. That took some getting
used to, but I adapted.

After I got into Princeton, Tasha and I
spent more than a few hours babysitting Lori as she moved beyond
babyhood, and I have to say, if I've ever loved anyone, truly loved
a person for everything she is and the potential she has, I loved
my baby sister.

That kind of love came more naturally to me
than the kind of love Tasha was trying to find, and although I felt
some emotion for her, I don't know how I'd label it–or for that
matter, whether a label is even necessary.

Tasha was a very sensual person. She loved
sex—everything about it. And, with a young man's raging hormones, I
was ready, willing and able to indulge her. There were things I'd
seen during a trip to Amsterdam with my father, magazines and adult
comic books, that left a lasting impression on me. I was drawn to
the sadomasochist stuff the most—not blood and destruction, but the
expressions on the faces of the participants pulled me in. I wanted
to try some of those things with Tasha, and she was more than
willing to accommodate me.

The first time I spanked her, she took to it
like a sea turtle to water. Even though it made her cry, she was
wet and ready for me to fuck. Her breasts were firm, the nipples
hard and, before I took her, I pinched rather roughly and found
that, not only did she react with enthusiasm, but I enjoyed it
immensely. Her moan, the arch of her spine, the suffering on her
face, and the way she bit her lip as I slowly twisted those
nipples, turned me on so much, I nearly came right there on her
belly.

I tested other aspects of sadomasochism,
gently at first, then with a little more force. I found out what I
could do that gave her sensual pain, and learned what would cause
bruises—bruises that I felt guilty about afterward. I didn't want
to go that far. It wasn't sexy; it was brutal. My morals and my
sense of self-control kept me from doing things I would regret
later. Giving Tasha a spanking, pinching here and there, wouldn't
harm her, and always made her come harder. Me, too.

Now, maybe, as I experimented cautiously, I
was hard on her. Her nipples were my playthings and I was rough
with them. She could come from my pulls and twists on that tender
flesh. I let her, exploring the limits of my sexuality by observing
her reactions to the strength of my pinches and twists. She'd arch
into my hands and say encouraging things. "Yeah, baby, harder. That
hurts so good."

Tasha was a talker in bed. There was never
any doubt in my mind what she liked and didn't like. In that way,
she was perfect for a young man with minimal experience with sex.
"Do it, do it, do it," was her mantra more often than not.

But the more eager she became, the more I
wanted to control the situation and parcel out the treats in my own
time. I loved to listen to her beg for orgasms.

I'd fuck her hard and fast, sometimes to the
point where the head of my prick would feel a little battered the
next day, but if she was near to coming, I'd withdraw. She'd beg me
to continue, plead with me and coax, so I'd relent. She learned to
say thank you for each and every orgasm I allowed her to have.

There’s a strange scent that wafts from a
woman in sexual pain, and I found out that it shoots right to my
hindbrain. I absolutely loved the perfume of her pain when we
delved into sadomasochistic territory. She smelled like wet female,
clean sweat and something else—something subtle and sublime. It
turned me on, and as I look back on it now, if anything could be
pointed out as central to the evolution of my sexual sadism, it was
that fragrance, and the effect it had on me. Even today, nothing
makes me hard as does that special smell.

All of our play was consensual and I knew
she'd back me up on that, but sometimes she'd beg for more than I
was willing to give, and I had too much to lose. I was knee-deep in
schoolwork, trying to make the best grades in order to get into the
economics program at the Chicago school. Coming from Princeton, if
I could manage the highest grades, test scores, and class
placement, I had a decent shot at it. Any kind of legal hassle
would put all of my plans in jeopardy. So I avoided bruising her at
all costs–should a routine medical visit put her bruises in view of
a medical professional, my academic career would have been in
serious jeopardy.

I gave her most of what she wanted, but not
all of it. We'd live out some of the fantasies I cherished from
those Amsterdam books, but within the limits I set. Tasha would
pout and cajole, but my limits were hard limits.

One day, she begged me on hands and knees to
slap her. I'd spanked her more than a few times, and, at her
request, slapped her breasts and pussy. The pain excited her to a
very high degree, so high that I realized she'd be as excited by my
rough sexual practices as if I was to truly harm her. Harm her, I
would not do–that’s not the way I was raised. Not only didn’t I
want to cause harm, I felt strongly that it wasn't right to do
damage to another person that way. Seeing her in pain excited me,
but there's a certain point where the idea of going past harsh into
something sick makes you pause and take a step back.

She knelt there, begging me to slap her, her
eyes were glistening, all deep purple-brown and excited. Her hands
were on my denim-clad thighs and her freshly spanked bottom was
resting gingerly on her heels.

"Don't make demands on me, Tasha," I told
her. It irritated me when she tried to take charge of the
situation. She knew I would take care of her needs within limits
and yet she constantly tested the limits.

"Slap my face," she said. "Slap me and make
me feel like the naked bitch in heat I am."

I was definitely not going to slap her face.
That was way beyond what was reasonable, and it suggested she had
some kind of emotional problems. To slap a person in the
face—especially a woman—was the lowest form of disrespect. I told
her no firmly, and turned to walk away. She grabbed me by the leg
and begged.

"I'm a cunt, I'm a whore, I'm shit," she
said wildly. "I need you to teach me a lesson. I want to be
better."

It took a lot of self-discipline to
disengage her from my leg, but I was so disgusted by her behavior,
I knew that I had to pull back, pull away emotionally or be sucked
down into the riptide of her illness. For illness it was. It was
beyond a sexual need to be roughly stimulated and deep into the
realm of self-loathing. She needed help, not sadomasochistic sex
play.

Once I'd disengaged her from my leg, I
pulled her upright and held her in my arms. She cried, sobbing and
begging me to strike her, make her clean again. But, of course I
wouldn't. I held her and told her how beautiful she was, how
perfect and fresh and desirable. I tried to counter all of her
self-hatred with affection and respect. After a while, she quieted
and apologized.

I accepted her apology, but that was the end
of our relationship. I talked her into seeing the campus mental
health professionals, and stood by her through the difficult first
two weeks of her therapy. At times, her doctor would stare at me
curiously, and I knew she'd told the man about our sadomasochistic
sex, but he never said a word to me. I guess it was telling enough
that I'd brought her for help and tried to be supportive while she
was getting it. I might have been sexually sadistic—I was; I knew
it—but I was not a monster. I had morals and a sense of right and
wrong.

Tasha was embarrassed by the entire episode
and there was no way I was going to get back into the same
situation again, so there was no place for us to go as a
couple.

I found other women while at Princeton, and
had vanilla relationships. I was attractive enough, I guess. They
tell me my gray eyes are appealing and that I have a good smile. I
was boxing regularly, so maybe they saw physical strength, too.
Those vanilla relationships were much less satisfying, but I had
been burned by the fire of Tasha's unhealthy masochism and didn't
think I would likely find a masochistic woman who didn't have deep
psychological problems. I limited my behaviors to spanking during
sex, and slightly rough fucking. It was hard to keep my hands from
wanting to tug ungently on nipples and labia, and I really had to
work to lave a swollen clit with my tongue gently and not nip at
it. But I kept myself under tight rein.

Eventually, I graduated from Princeton, and
to my delight was accepted right into the PhD program at University
of Chicago's school of economics—the most prestigious program, some
said, in the world of economics.

I was twenty-four and had the world on a
string, as they say. It was a lot of hard work, but I knuckled down
and did it, letting much of the rest of my life wait while I ground
through the economics program relentlessly.

It took me five years, but I got my PhD,
and, having graduated at the top of my class, was recruited by some
big economics consultancies and brokerage firms. I took the one
with the most potential for networking and prominent projects. The
money meant less to me—money is part of my family heritage—but I
was happy to live in Manhattan and rake in the bucks that were
offered.

I was arrogant and believed that it would
all keep getting better and better. But I was wrong.

Three days after my thirtieth birthday, I
got a call from my father. My little sister, Lori, was in the
hospital. Apparently a gang of vicious girls had attacked my
beautiful teenage sister and she lay in serious condition at Cedars
Sinai hospital in Los Angeles.

I flew home at once, of course. Lori had a
fractured skull, pieces of which had lodged in her brain. One of
her arms was broken and ligaments were torn in one of her ankles.
There were deep purple bruises all over her. She was incredibly
lucky to be alive.

My parents and I sat vigil there at the
hospital, praying for her survival and hoping with all our hearts
that there would be no permanent damage from the attack. The
doctors kept her in a medically-induced coma for a week.

When she opened her eyes and began to
communicate with us, our hopes were dashed. The bone fragments and
brain swelling had caused brain damage. My sweet sister, only
seventeen years old, would be crippled for life.

I cried. I railed against a God who could be
so cruel and heartless. I found the best lawyers and made sure they
prosecuted the girls behind the attack to the fullest extent of the
law. One of them finally confessed to the crime. Her excuse for the
violent attack was that they thought Lori was "conceited."
Actually, Lori was shy and bright. If she seemed to have her nose
in the air, it was likely a symptom of shyness rather than
something more egotistical.

I had no pity for those girls, for their
difficult, some might say traumatic, upbringings, for their loss of
control and mob mentality. No pity. I wanted them punished, and the
punishment needed to be equivalent to the damage they'd done.

It took two years, while Lori learned to
speak in a slurred voice, minus several IQ points. She had to
relearn even simple things like drinking from a cup, as her hands
and feet were twisted with unpredictable muscle spasms. She was
often in pain and the drugs they gave her for it made her dopey and
lost. The little sister I knew as Lori was gone and a shadow of
Lori was in her place.

While she was fighting her fight, I moved
back to Los Angeles, leaving everything but my network of
colleagues and clients behind in Manhattan. Fortunately, I had the
distraction of working on a unique economic model that had the
potential to make some important people a great deal of money.

I dated, but my heart wasn't in it. There
were plays, parties, always something that knocked on the shell I
built around myself. I joined a private, exclusive and
most-importantly, low-key BDSM group that called itself Boys With
Toys and learned a lot about myself and my place in the world of
BDSM. But for all my experimentation with the women at Boys With
Toys parties, nothing really affected me–the intensity and intimacy
just weren’t there. There was my work, there was Lori, and the rest
were temporary distractions that were shallow footprints quickly
erased by an incoming tide. Eventually, I finished and leased my
economic model and money flowed in. It gave me a feeling of power
and success, but it was hollow.