The Academy

by Laura Antoniou

  “Boy are you lucky Chris isn’t here to smack you for that one,” Paul said genially. “This is like some Americanized chain restaurant like Monaco is like Las Vegas.”

  Michael shut his mouth as the dinner was served. The chefs were in fact not much like the somewhat tired but showy men he had seen the last time he was dragged out for “Japanese steak.” They were acrobatic with their knives, yes, but didn’t rely on tricks like banging things loudly to startle the diners. And even though he had been very good about accepting the variety of raw seafood available to him on this trip, the sight of still living shrimp hitting the grills and actually wriggling for a moment was a little troubling.

  And when a server gave him what looked like one slender cut of really rare meat, sliced into a three-section fan onto a special little plate and bowed with a flourish, he raised an eyebrow to his table, afraid to ask.

  “Kobe beef,” Ken purred. “Do not even chew. It is like heaven.”

  “Massaged and fed beer all day, that’s the life for a cow, huh?” Fi said, shamelessly requesting another serving. “You have to hand it to the Japanese—they know how to live it up.”

  Ken shrugged. “They live in houses smaller than a cat’s eyebrow. They work more hours than almost anyone, oui? If they find that massaging cows is what makes them happy—” she shrugged again. But ate the slices of beef slowly.

  Michael ate in silence, mostly, afraid to open his mouth again. The tender, fat-laced beef did indeed melt on his tongue, and he almost groaned in pleasure. But when Fi brought up the afternoon debates, he cautiously raised his eyes.

  “I tell you, it’s a tough one for me,” she said thoughtfully. “I understand what Parker’s saying, and I agree—somewhat. But I figured I was gonna vote against it, because, well, I don’t like being managed, you know?”

  “I know,” sighed Ken.

  “But now—I dunno. I have to think some more.”

  Ken snorted in frustration and neatly decapitated some of the shrimp that were brought to her at her special request with their heads intact. (Michael had preferred his naked of all reminders that they had been in swimming shape before being grilled alive.) “It is an awkward thing, when one who is your ally arranges to embarrass one, that is true.”

  “Well, I warned you, Ken,” said Paul. “But really, we’re not allies as much as we’re coincidentally on the same side. We don’t have to take responsibility for what he said.”

  “We do not? I disagree. I choose my friends. I choose my politics.” She ate one of the heads thoughtfully. “Right now, I am considering my choices.”

  “Excuse me,” Michael dared. “But—I thought that maybe Geoff got a little strong in some language—but—what was the big deal? I mean there have been three debates over this, hasn’t everything been said a dozen times now?”

  Matalino looked surprised. “No one suggested that we are better than the clients, the slaves, before today,” he said.

  “Did Geoff?” Michael asked. “I don’t remember him saying that.”

  “He said that we were trainers, not slaves,” Paul prompted. “He implied that because we are trainers—and spotters, I suppose—that we didn’t deserve to be treated like slaves. And Mike—that was fucking out of line. I understand what his point was—the old-fashioned ways of training trainers aren’t for everyone. But he insulted every former and current slave in that room. By saying that old-fashioned training is abuse and some people don’t deserve abuse—do you see where that goes? That somehow, the slaves deserve to be abused. Idiot.” He shook his head angrily and stabbed at the last piece of beef on his plate. “And I guess Ken is right, if it looks like we’re on his side, that we let him talk for us, then we’re fucked, too.”

  “Current slaves? There—there are trainers here now who are—really slaves? Right now, in service?”

  “Always,” said Ken strongly. “There are always slaves among us. Once, more than half of all trainers were themselves owned. Now there are fewer, yes, but they are here.”

  Michael thought about his next question carefully. “But how can you tell?” he asked finally. “Everyone is so dressed up, no one seems to be wearing a collar. And although some of the junior trainers respond like slaves—when they’re being good,” he added with a grin, “I don’t think I’ve met one who said that they are in service and owned.”

  “We are first trainers and spotters here, not masters and slaves,” Ken said indignantly.

  “But sometimes they forget,” laughed Fi. “They’re still talkin’ about the year that Andorjan, that Hungarian fellow, told Nelka to fetch him a drink and then put her mouth to proper use between his legs. By God, she nearly ripped his lungs out.”

  “You mean it’s like a secret?” Michael asked.

  “No, it can’t be a secret,” Paul answered. “After all, we can all look up sales records. But think about it—lots of trainers are former slaves, whether they’re old guard or not. Spotters, too. Nowadays, some large houses own their own trainers, and then there are owners who like to own and then lease a trainer to other owners. Not to mention trainers who are just so happy being slaves that the only way to keep ’em is to keep ’em collared.” He laughed and shook his head with a shrug. “But it’s—impolite—to mention someone’s status as owned or not when we’re together. You know.”

  “It is simply not done,” said Joost firmly. “We already operate on formal manners to try and keep the peace together; imagine how complicated it would be if we had to consider the rankings of slaves as well? When the Academy gathers, we are all trainers and spotters, and we have status based on what we do, not who we might belong to and what we might do in private.”

  Paul nodded. “So when Negel said that the old training styles were abusive and cruel and that we—the trainers—didn’t deserve to be treated that way—well—he dissed a lot of important people, Mike.”

  “More importantly, he—dissed? He dissed many good people,” Ken said. She worked her mouth carefully around the slang word. “Dissed. He disses? They diss? I don’t like that word, it sounds stupid.”

  Michael tried to control his urge to look around the room and try to figure out who might be a slave and who used to be one. But apparently something gave him away, and Paul clapped him on the back. “We are not telling you a thing, Mike. And neither will Chris.”

  “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.”

  Chapter Nineteen: In Service

  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, h
owever, 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.