The Academy (36 page)

“But—how does a trainer work when they’re also a slave?” Michael asked. “Do they only train people that their owner provides? How can you maintain competition with spotters? What about training facilities, housing—who supervises them?” Two days of listening to people discuss slave management gave him dozens of questions all at once, and they spilled out of him. “How can they be sure that their owner won’t interfere with training? Or that the people they’ve been told to train are even—suitable? What if they want to reject someone that the owner picked? It’s all so—complicated!”

“Same way the owner of a master chef leaves the guy with the kitchen staff and doesn’t go in to add parsley to the soup, kiddo. You got an instrument like that, you better be prepared to let it do what it does, and don’t get in its way.”

“It’s hard to even imagine,” Michael said. “It’s hard to imagine a lot of the people here as slaves, really. Even though I know all about the older training methods now, it just seems so unreal sometimes. I mean, everyone here is respectful and knowledgeable and they can make slaves—but they all seem so damn—I don’t know. Confident. In control.” He paused and added sheepishly, “Dominant.”

“And you’ve never met a dominant slave?” laughed Fi. “Lucky you, I run into ’em more times than not!”

“Well, you know, there’s a reason why we never mention one without the other,” Paul said. “Sadomasochism, right? S/M. Slave and Master, dominant and submissive. For lots of us, it’s just as right to do one or the other. For some of us, it’s a matter of where we really want to be at any given time. I did my time in a collar, sure, and I don’t care who knows it. But I couldn’t do that now. I don’t want to do that now. It’s not in my blood any more. I changed, you know?

“Some people will never change. Lifelong slaves until they retire to Florida or something. But what happens if you can’t leave this life? What if all your friends are here, what if this is the only world where you feel like a complete human being? Then you do what you have to do to stay in it. You train because your owner says to train, and then you’re fulfilling your service. See?”

“I guess,” Michael said. He picked at some wasabi, mashing it, and moving it around his plate.

“Doesn’t look like it. Maybe I’m not explaining it well, I’m no story teller,” Paul said. “Well—lemme see—there was this guy... OK I can tell you about this one guy, because he’s not here.” Paul thought for a minute and accepted another cold glass of Sapporo from the server who whisked away his old one. “In fact, I don’t know if any of you have met him. Let’s see, what to call him...Mr. Benjamin.” He snorted, choking back a laugh. “Yeah, he’d like that.”

by David Stein

At precisely eight o’clock, I took a deep breath and rang Mr. Benjamin’s door buzzer. I’d been waiting there in the foyer of his brownstone for ten minutes because I didn’t want to risk being late—or a moment too soon, either.

The door buzzed in response. I pulled it open and walked inside, my heart pounding. A year ago, I had no idea who he was, had never heard the name. But a year ago I barely knew who I was, or what I needed. I’d come a long way since then, racked up a lot of experiences with some very talented topmen, and a few with other bottoms, too. I’d thrown myself into the S/M scene several years earlier, in my mid-twenties, with the eagerness of the newly converted, and the more I tried, the more I wanted.

The feelings that flooded through me at the beginning of a scene, those first moments when I knelt in submission, or offered my wrists to be cuffed, were so exhilarating, so fulfilling, that they were almost enough to make up for the typical let-down at the end, after I’d been tormented, fucked, and allowed to come, then released from bondage. That’s when the men I’d worshiped and served turned into buddies—anxious to be reassured that I’d had a good time, and was I going to the party so-and-so was throwing next week?

I forced myself to smile and chat like a regular guy, when inside I wanted to scream with frustration.
Is this all there is?
I wondered.
Just a complicated way to get off? Didn’t it mean anything that I’d crawled on the floor and licked their boots and drunk their piss? Was it all just an act we did for each other, this whole apparatus of dominance and submission?

From the first, I’d never felt like I was acting. I felt more real, more me when I was naked and chained, with my tongue on a man’s boot and my ass burning from his belt, than I ever felt in the office where I worked or the apartment where I ate and slept. Which was the act and which was real?

Finally I started to ask people who seemed to know what they were doing, who’d been around the scene a lot longer than me: Is there anything beyond playing? Is it possible to submit for real, not just a scene? Or is that only another fantasy?

“Well, if you’re serious about this, you should see Mr. Benjamin,” I was told again and again. “He can help you, if anyone can.”

Was I serious? Of course I was, I insisted—to myself as much as anyone else. It wasn’t a game to me anymore. Been there, done that. I was less and less interested in a weekend’s sport. I wanted to put my life on the line in a way that would matter. I wanted to become a real slaveboy, not just a Stand&Model Chelsea boy.

Eventually I met a man who knew a man who could get in touch with a man who knew Mr. Benjamin well enough to pass on the message that I was interested in training with him. He responded eventually by e-mail, and we corresponded for a couple of weeks—mainly, I answered his questions, including filling out a very detailed questionnaire that covered everything from my financial status to how often I jerked off, and what I thought about while doing it! Whatever questions I asked him he deflected, saying only that there would be time enough to explain things after we met in person. He did make it clear that despite all the information I’d provided, he wouldn’t decide whether to take me on until he saw how I responded in our first session.

It’s almost laughable, I thought as I climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. A man so hard to reach, you’d expect him to live in Trump Tower or some mansion, not this slightly rundown apartment building in Manhattan’s West Eighties. When I arrived at his door I took a few moments to pull myself back into a more respectful, receptive mood. Before I could press the bell, however, the door was pulled open.

I’d been warned what to expect, but the man who looked coolly up at me, as if reconsidering whether I was worth his time after all, was unimpressive by the usual standards of the gay world. I towered over him, and if he had a physique sculpted by Nautilus, the three-piece suit he wore hid it well. Not even boots, for crissake, just well-polished black dress shoes.

His thinning hair was trimmed very short, and his clean-shaven features were of the pleasant but undistinguished kind you can’t remember five minutes after the person leaves the room. So this was the elusive Mr. Benjamin? If he’d been a blind date, I’d have turned around and left immediately, muttering lame apologies. But this isn’t about sex, I told myself firmly. If he can teach me what I need, it doesn’t matter what he looks like.

“You must be Jeffrey,” he said with the bare trace of a smile. His voice was firm, quietly commanding.

“Sir, yes, Sir,” I answered crisply, louder than I’d intended.

“Come in, then.” He waved me past him into the hallway, shutting the door behind us. “Take off all of your clothes here, and place them neatly in this closet.” He opened its door to show me. “You’ll always undress here when you visit me. You may not wear clothes anywhere else in my home. Understood?”

“Sir, yes, Sir!” I said with alacrity. Now this was more like it!

“Drop that military affectation, boy. A simple, ‘Yes, Sir,’ will do, if a response is necessary.” I was about to answer when his raised eyebrow forestalled me. “And don’t apologize, either,” he said, “unless I demand one. Just listen, remember... and learn. When you’re stripped, go down the hallway and through the first open door on the right. Wait for me there. Do not go anywhere else. And don’t dawdle.” With that last injunction, he walked away down the hallway—and at the end turned left.

How quickly he’d taken control of me! I shrugged out of my leather jacket and hung it up. I deliberately hadn’t worn anything too flashy, just enough leather to make a good impression. All wasted on Mr. Benjamin, apparently. I took off my chaps, then sat on the floor to unlace my black lineman’s boots, then pulled them off, followed by my jeans. Would he make me wear suits, too?

I hadn’t worn briefs, of course, so the last thing I had to remove was my tight gray T-shirt, the one with the neat little “In training” logo on it. I wondered if Mr. Benjamin had even noticed it—probably better if he hadn’t!

Taking a couple of deep breaths to calm myself, I padded down the parquet-floored hallway in my bare feet. The hallway was bare, too, with no pictures or bric-a-brac, and the large room through the open door on the right certainly wasn’t a typical home “dungeon” or “playroom.” Only a few items suggested that it was used for anything less innocent than a quiet evening of leisure reading.

Most of the parquet floor was covered by a beautiful oriental rug, in deep reds and golds, thickly padded—my feet sank into it as I walked toward the overstuffed armchair covered in dark-brown leather. A low table stood next to it and a reading lamp behind it. The only other furniture was a matching ottoman, a tall brass-bound Chinese apothecary’s chest against the wall, and a torchiere floor lamp that filled the room with light reflected off the ceiling. The one window was completely covered by dark curtains, the far wall by floor-to-ceiling mirrors. If there was a closet, it was behind them. The wall with the door, however, held a number of strategically placed rings, chains dangling from them, and a steel-barred “puppy” cage hulked brutally on the elegant carpet.

He hadn’t told me where to wait, or how, so I stood there, naked, and pondered the matter. Was this a test? He knew I’d read all the usual stuff and had some experience. Wouldn’t he expect me to know enough to kneel?

I was just arranging myself on my knees, facing his chair from a yard away, when he came into the room.

“On your feet, boy. You don’t know how to kneel yet.”

I leaped up, my cheeks reddening in embarrassment. I cast my eyes down as he came toward me. Nothing was said as he slowly circled my naked body. He was behind me when I felt something thin and hard tap my inner left thigh. It tapped again, on the other side.

“Take a wider stance,” he ordered. “Feel where your shoulders are and where your knees are. Whenever you stand for inspection, or wait in readiness, there should be a straight line from each shoulder through the corresponding knee and down to the floor.” I shifted my legs outward in compliance, and my cock started to get hard.

“Now put your hands behind you—no, don’t clasp them, just cross them at the wrist... . Higher. Higher. Yes, hold them right there, above your waist. Always leave your ass clear and unobstructed... . Yes, good. Now bend forward at the waist.”

I heard the unmistakable rustle behind me of a rubber glove being pulled on, and then my ass cheeks were pulled apart and a finger was inserted in my hole, un-lubricated. I relaxed as well as I could to permit the invasion. He fingered my prostate, and I sprang a boner.

“You’re used to being fucked, I see. Good control, though it’s always possible to do better. A well-trained slave has complete control over his anal sphincters and can relax them completely or tighten them like a vise as required. Straighten up.”

He came around in front of me again, and I saw that he carried a pointing stick, rather like an elongated conductor’s baton. It was slim and looked smooth, but I figured it could give quite a sting if he chose to hit me with it.

“The way you’re standing now is my ‘Ready’ position for a slave,” Mr. Benjamin explained, pulling the used rubber glove inside out and off his hand as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. He stepped over to the table and dropped it, then turned back to me and continued in the same calm, even tone. “The same position but on your knees is called ‘Presenting.’ Normally you Present first when you enter a room, and you take the Ready position after you’ve been acknowledged, unless some immediate service is required. Please keep in mind that there are many styles of posture training; this is the first you must learn. If you prove to be satisfactory, I may instruct you in others.”

My cock was still hard, and he couldn’t help but notice it.

“Well, well,” he said, lightly tapping it with his stick. “So the boy likes being inspected and probed. Is that true, Jeffrey?”

“Yes, Sir.” It was true. I was pleased with my body and happy to show it off. And I liked being handled like a piece of property. That’s why I was there!

“You realize, don’t you, that not all Masters will appreciate this? Some will require you to suppress your erections, or They’ll do it for you. If you always respond like this to being dominated, you’ll need to look for a Master who likes that in a slave... But we’re getting far ahead of ourselves, boy. You’re no slave yet. You’re just a boy who thinks he wants to be a slave. And you came to Mr. Benjamin to find out for sure, didn’t you?”

“Yes, Sir... Please, Sir—train me, Sir?”

“We’ll see. Now pay attention.” He tapped my balls with his springy stick, not hard enough to hurt—much. “The reason to keep your legs apart is to expose your balls and asshole. When you’re a slave, they won’t belong to you anymore, and you’ll have no right to protect them or withhold them. Remember that you’re supposed to be vulnerable and exposed. In time, you’ll feel strange and uncomfortable when you’re not naked and spread, when you have to wear clothes, for instance, or sit normally in a chair instead of standing or kneeling with your legs apart.

“Take this as an example,” he said, sharply tapping my chest, my nipples, my abs. “There’s a reason for everything I’ll teach you, and it all comes down to helping you stop thinking like a free man and start thinking like a piece of intelligent property. Some of the reasons will seem obvious, and some will be obscure. Don’t worry about them. You don’t need to understand all the reasons behind what I tell you. All you have to do is accept and obey. It’s not about acting like a slave; it’s about being a slave. The two are totally different. Understand?”