Episode 1 #5
Mr. Reevesworth half laughed and shook his head at Collin.
“I liked what I saw. I liked how you worked. And émeric liked my imagination when I came home each evening. So I had the background checks run. I read your papers for your professors. I read all your social media posts. I called your mother asking for background for a newspaper article for scholarship award winners.”
“You called my mother?”
“Yes.”
Collin swallowed, hard. “That’s…invasive.”
“Yes.”
“I see what you mean by highlighting the difference in our power dynamics. I barely know you. And you’ve already seen me naked.”
“I wanted to know who you were. I look for certain things. Sometimes, after all this, I make a job offer. My companies are filled with people who caught my eye, and found their place in one of my offices, perhaps without ever meeting me. I mentor and look after my people like a gardener. But in a few people, like Damian, like you, I find myself wanting more. And I find myself believing that offering more would be an honest exchange.”
“Damian said it cost him his dignity, his secrets, his time, and the luxury of hiding from his fears and his rage.”
“Damian has a way with words. And he also speaks the truth. I want a dominant-submissive relationship with you. Something of a modern-day, ancient-Greek arrangement between a younger man and an older man.”
“I serve you sexually, and you, what, help me get started in the world?”
“More than that. I shape you into your full potential, and you trust me, and together we use our combined abilities to make you the greatest force for change and good that you can be.”
“And this includes sex and submission, which I don’t fully understand, but I think I get.”
“I want you to live here. You will work the hours I set you; you will have a salary for the hours you work.
You will keep that salary. You will finish your degree, though perhaps at a slower rate than you are currently going.
I will pay for your medical care because you will be receiving medical care that matches my standards, not what you can afford.
You will eat what I tell you to eat, in consultation with a certified nutritionist, at least until you receive a perfect bill of health.
You will work out, based on goals you want for yourself and your ideal physique for yourself with my personal trainer.
You will wear what I tell you to wear. You will meet the people I deem it important for you to meet. I will give you structure and support.
“And I hope, as the last few days have shown us, that there will be affection. I want access to your body. But you do not have to give it to me. At any time, you can say no.”
“I don’t know how I would be able to say no, sir. Not when you’re offering all that.”
“At the beginning of each of these contracts, I set aside three months of living expenses, including the cost of a new residence, in a bank account, and give you exclusive access to it, to be released if you leave The Residency. I will never let it be said that someone sold me their body for a place to live. I don’t want there to be a shadow of doubt in your mind, before, during, or after, that if we engage in sexual play and/or intercourse that you are doing so freely. ”
Collin swallowed convulsively. His eyes had drifted up to Mr. Reevesworth’s face during this speech, and they were fixed there now. “You find me attractive, sir?”
“Yes. Mind and body, Collin.”
“I don’t know if I’m even good at sex.”
“Everyone can be trained, and this is not just sex. This is dominance and submission. It’s learned. You likely weren’t any good at using your phone the first time you held it.”
“Well, no.”
“And yet it’s practically instinctive now even with a new model.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Collin, I am extensively skilled in sensual arts. And I am skilled at getting what I want from a submissive partner, no matter their background.”
Damian sauntered into the room, a pair of lounge pants slung low on his hips and a silver necklace around his throat but nothing between. His abs rolled, each line cut, as he moved. “If he could get through to me, he can turn you into a sex kitten.”
“You’re out of turn, Damian. Sit.” Mr. Reevesworth spread his legs and pointed to the floor. “Maybe I should muzzle you tonight.”
Damian smirked at Collin and slid down between Mr. Reevesworth’s knees.
Collin stared. Damian in a suit had been distracting. Damian in jogging gear had been a threat. Damian half-naked and lounging submissively on the floor was short-circuiting synaptic impulses.
Mr. Reevesworth trailed his fingers around Damian’s throat. “You’re enjoying this.”
Damian tipped his head back to look up. “Of course I am, Master. I want to play with the blushing puppy as much as you do.”
“He hasn’t given his permission yet.”
“He will.” Damian shot Collin a look. “He needs you as much as I did.”
Mr. Reevesworth slid his hand over Damian’s mouth. “Hush. Collin will make his decision without you speaking for him.”
Damian wiggled his chin out of Mr. Reevesworth’s palm, then nipped the man’s thumb lightly, and dragged his tongue across it.
“Collin needs to know that he can be enough. When one has never been enough for anyone, he doesn’t have a reason to believe in himself.
He’s just going to think you don’t understand. ”
Mr. Reevesworth looked down, studying Damian’s eyes. He slid his thumb inside Damian’s mouth and stroked his tongue. Damian melted.
“You want more in there, don’t you?”
Damian leaned into his leg.
Mr. Reevesworth shook his head. “It would be very bad form, my boy, to strip you right now and take you across the foot of Collin’s bed. Besides, Collin isn’t ready yet.”
Damian wrapped his tongue around Mr. Reevesworth’s thumb and sucked, eyes locked on his master’s face.
Mr. Reevesworth smiled and shook his head, laughing as his shoulders relaxed. He pulled his thumb out of Damian’s mouth. “Go get your gag, and then you can stay.”
Damian flowed to his feet and disappeared. Within seconds, he was back, a black leather muzzle in his hands. He settled on his knees in front of Mr. Reevesworth and held still while the other man buckled it around his head. Then he slumped, seemingly content, against Mr. Reevesworth’s thigh.
Mr. Reevesworth ran his hand over Damian’s crown and turned his gaze back to Collin.
“There are reasons I take so much care in choosing boys. For example, Damian here, when he travels, when he works, he represents me. He represents what I stand for. In time, I’ve come to trust him with my image, my money, and my reputation.
And I’ve incorporated his vision into my vision.
I’ve handed him power and extended my power to join with his abilities and energy to create a greater vision.
Someday, like other boys that I’ve had, he may want to stand on his own.
Or have a boy of his own or take a different role in life and be a father with a wife and children. I will still be there for him.”
“Mr. Moreau is your husband, but…but you also have boys.”
“Yes.”
Collin swallowed and looked down at Damian and then away, out the window. “Damian is more than me, sir. I can’t be like Damian.”
“Damian has support and resources to be and present the way he shows the world now. And he has me to anchor him, rein him in, force him to take care of himself. He doesn’t work three jobs and live off of instant noodles.
He doesn’t have to figure out how to get his laundry done in the one or two shared machines of his apartment building when he’s barely ever home to even check to see if the machines are open.
He doesn’t wash his own sheets. He doesn’t cook his own food.
His hair stylist has a regular appointment, prepaid for and scheduled by Damian’s virtual assistant.
The amount of decisions and labor that Damian doesn’t have to do so that he can present the way he does and spend his time doing what I ask him to do is exponential.
You could never be Damian as you are now because Damian is a composite of the resources and efforts of hundreds of people, focused on one presentation in this one form. ”
Mr. Reevesworth squeezed Damian’s shoulder.
“Just like I could not be who I am without dozens of Damians. And this city could not be what it is without dozens of individuals like me throughout history who have made it what it is, who stand on the top of a pyramid of individuals and are able to focus all that will and power into a vision that marches into the future.”
Collin sat staring out the window far into the night petting Artemis. Mr. Reevesworth’s words repeated over and over in his head, a litany and a chant. Why had he never considered that before? Why had he always felt less than because he couldn’t be what those shiny, put-together people were?
In a folder on the side table was a contract.
A lengthy one. That he couldn’t yet read.
It was there, though, for when he could read it.
There was no official decision to be made yet though.
Mr. Reevesworth had said they had to wait.
A decision made so soon after a head injury could be considered suspect.
But he already knew what his answer was going to be.
He wanted what Mr. Reevesworth could give him.
He would accept his offer. If for nothing else, then because of his curiosity.
Could he be everything he’d told himself he would be one day?
Could he walk into a room and command respect, instead of being hustled to the side to carry the suitcases, to park the car, or to pour the tequila?
He had nothing to lose. And potentially everything to gain.
Damian might have said this road would cost him his pride, but Collin’s pride was somewhere below the streets in the gutter anyway.
To have access to the kind of safety and rest that he had felt, pinned down under Mr. Reevesworth’s leg for those hours he had been there, was a dream.
If Mr. Reevesworth wanted to tear him apart and put him back together again into someone who wasn’t this afraid, who wasn’t this trapped, who could care for his family, then he could do it. Collin would help him.