Farewell to the groom

Farewell to the groom

I step out of the elevator into a sunlit hall full with doors. 

A hotel. The kind of hotel with wide halls and modern pictures in them. This is a really nice hotel. I could ride a bike on these carpets and not leave a mark. Not that they would let me ride a bike here, of course. Unless I really asked.

How does the movie say? "Grand Hotel. Always the same. People come. People go. Nothing ever happens."

There is lot of nothing happening in the rooms and halls I pass by. It's something to the people living it but nothing to me, just like I'm nothing to them. There is just one room here where something is happening, the only room that matters.

The carpet is so thick I can't hear myself walking down this corridor, all I can hear are the happy voices ahead of me. There is not a sound in the world that can compare to the joy of men celebrating they own manhood, and here they are celebrating a love that freely gives itself. Or that's what they think

I hate location weddings. It's like wasting the best parts of a vacation trip because you have a wedding in the way. When I go on a trip I want zero pressure, and if I ever get married it will be as low—key as I can do it. But the guy I'm coming to see, I understand why he would want a wedding in place like this: He wants to escape from me.

And he can't. 

That's why I am here: He won't be able to escape from me unless I let him do it, no matter how hard he tries, and it's time to make him realize it.

The door is open and there's half a dozen men in the room in various states of dressing up. Damn, I love men in suits. They aren't in a rush yet, just joking around and getting ready for the big moment that will take place in a few hours and simply being men, and in the middle of the room is him, already dressed and playing with his shoelaces.

Time to let him know I'm here.

— Hello, Alex.

He raises his face to look at me and it's like life is sucked out of him. He goes pale and silent and his mouth opens but no sound comes out. 

— May I talk to you for a moment? I feel I really have to.

The groomsmen already noticed his reaction and give us a puzzled look and I can see how they're getting ready to throw me out if Alex doesn't stop them. But he does. He sighs and turns his head to the best man and nods, pointing towards the door with his eyes. The best man looks at me with a sudden glance of understanding. He knows. 

Good. 

— Are you sure? — he asks Alex in a voice so low that I can barely hear him.

Alex is not sure. He actually looks terrified, but he knows he has to do this. I asked, after all. And he cannot escape me unless I let him to. He nods again.

The best man is one of the finest male specimens I've seen and he completely fails at being threatening because I know I could get him naked and on his knees if I wanted to. But after he ushers the rest of the groomsmen out he still tries to threaten me. 

— I know who you are. If you do anything to him...— and he suddenly finds himself unable to continue, because he's looking at me in the eyes and I want him to stop. He doesn't know how much in danger he's putting himself right now.

— I won't. Please leave us and make sure we're not disturbed. This won't take long.

He stiffens like he got punched in the gut and leaves the room as fast as he can. Let him rationalize it however he wants to, he just got a small glimpse of my power and maybe he will realize if I really wanted to do something to Alex there would be nothing he could do to stop me.

The door locks and I turn to Alex, who is sitting there with his face in his hands looking crushed. We're alone. I knew I had to do this before the wedding. 

— I'm just here to talk. Will you look at me?

I phrase it as a question, but in his mind it's still an order. He uncovers his eyes and looks at me and falls in the old patterns almost instantly. He looks at me, but not the way you usually look at a person. He really, really looks at me, and he sees the picture still living in his mind, a picture we built together, of me as his Master and him as my slave.

The fear starts vanishing and he stands and is looking at me again. 

He stands just like all the times he did it for four years, with his full attention on me and ready to hear my words and have them be his reality. Even if he's resisting as hard as he can his body and mind haven't forgotten.

Five years ago I made him my slave because we both wanted it. He asked to be my slave. Even if he was straight and would never stop being straight, he responded to the power of me that he could perceive, that called to his own submissive nature, and he came to want it and crave it and begged me, first to simply hypnotize him, then to fully make him my slave. 

— Did you come here to stop me? — He asks, trying to hold my glance and failing. And he's not scared: he's terrified. He knows I can stop him if I want to.

He was one of the best subjects I've ever had. He would respond to anything I wanted almost before I had finished giving him my orders. After the first year I could make him go under with a few words. After the second year I didn't even need to use words, I would just look at him and his eyes would unfocus and his mind would immediately become a feather I could blow in any direction I wanted. 

And the sex... he was straight and he never stopped being straight, but it didn't matter. Even if at first he said he'd never do anything with a man because he was just in this for the thrill of the hypnosis, the need to serve me became so strong that he simply let go of his own sexual orientation. He knew I wanted to fuck him, and what I wanted was the only rule of his existence.

Yes: he let me fuck him. I had warned him that it would happen, and yet he decided to do it believing it wouldn't happen to him, he would be different, he was only in it for what he wanted and there were lines he'd never cross... until he crossed all of them willingly.

Because he was my slave and because he knew I wanted him and giving me what I wanted became an impulse he couldn't resist. He fucked me. He let me fuck him. He sucked me. He let me suck him. He gave himself to me in ways most people can't even imagine, so completely that in some moments of complete submission it was like had stopped existing, that all of him was only what I'd made of him. He was mine, body and soul, for all these four years...

...and then he disappeared.

I didn't know why or how because I was a part of his life he kept apart from the rest and this was the one line we never crossed. He belonged to me when he was with me, but he belonged to himself the rest of the time.

I tried to ask what was wrong and he never replied and then blocked me and hid from me, and I was left ransacking my brain trying to find out if I had done something wrong and found nothing. But if he wanted me gone, I would be gone.

I am not the kind of guy to impose his presence and desires on someone who doesn't want them, but this changed when one of my other slaves, one who also knew him, told me he would get married. And then I knew I had to see him one last time, even if he didn't want me to. 

— No. — I say. — I came here to make sure you're okay with what you're doing right now.

— I was okay before you arrived. — His voice is full of anguish. — Can you please go?

— Are you? — I ask. — Look at me, Alex.

His eyes instantly focus on mine and he gets lost again. It's just so easy. Even after a full year of not hearing my voice a simple instruction from me is all it takes for him to go down that path we both know.

— Why did you leave? —

— I had to. — he sighs, more than says, and then continues. — I met Bianca half a year before I left and it was instant. I'd never believed in love at first sight until it happened to me, and then it just... did. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, but at the same time I belonged to you and I could not balance it. When I had sex with you I thought about her, but when I made love to her I thought about you. Still do. And it was killing me. I had to stop and this was the only way.

— So you love her?

— More than anything in life. With you I always felt out of balance, like I was almost at the edge of falling. I know I asked for it, but with here I felt on solid ground for the first time in years and I couldn't live without it. 

— And why you didn't tell me? 

— I couldn't. I tried. I wanted to tell you but I knew you liked me. I wanted to ask you to release me, but I was afraid. 

— Afraid?

— That you would say no. I knew how much you enjoyed having me as... as your slave. And I was afraid that if I told you I wanted to be with someone else you would tell me to stop and keep me just for yourself.

Oh. 

That was what happened, then. 

This is probably my fault. No, definitely my fault. No matter how clear you think you are, try double. Then double that. And still there will be room for doubt sometimes.

— When we began this I told you that you could be out anytime you wanted to, all you had to do was ask. Any limit you set, I kept it until you decided to cross it, and this would be the same thing. You saw me release any guy who asked it. Well, except Kevin but he's different. You were never getting punished.

— I thought maybe this time would be different. I know how much you liked me.

Well, he's right about this. 

I put my hand in his shoulder and he shivers so much I take it off immediately.

— It wouldn't have been. I never kept with me any guy who wanted to be released. I just wish you had asked. 

My touch did something to him. I know what it did. He lowers his head and kneels down not daring to look at me. And I know that his head is spiraling in that last sentence, amplifying it and making it fill his thoughts until he speaks in a low, regretful, defeated voice.

— I'm sorry, Master. — 

— No, I'm sorry. I should have done this better. No matter what, I should have made sure you understood. This is my fault and I'm really sorry. Stand up, Alex. Stand up and look at me.

He obeys and returns my glance and I can only imagine all the turnmoil inside him. This is a rollercoaster and he's about to crash if I don't do something.

— Do you really think you can get married this way? You're still carrying me with you, and this is not something you want to inflict on other person. You said it yourself, you still think about me when you're with her. You're not free right now.

— She... she knows. — He stutters. — I told him when we were getting serious, and she has been very understanding. That's one of the reasons I knew she was the one. And Richard knows too, he has been supporting me on this.

— Do you want me to release you?

He looks at me and with a sudden flash of hope in his eyes. Yes, he wants it. He thought he would have to work for this all his life and maybe still not get it, and not it's being offered to him for free, and all he has to do is reach with his hand and take it.

— Would you? After all this?

— After all this. Precisely because of this. I think I owe it to you.

I'm not lying to him. I have a lifetime of practice on letting go and I know how hard it is, but at the same time how necessary. If he wants to leave all I can do is say goodbye and open the door, because he only belongs to me as long as he wants to. 

— Yes, please.

— Look at me, Alex. Look deep into my eyes, get lost in them...

It takes only a couple seconds before he's completely lost. Gone. A beautiful thoughtless doll I can do anything I want with. I've seen him like this before more times than I can count and it's always the hottest he's ever been.

This is the most dangerous moment, the final test for me. I could order him to drop everything and return to me. I could turn him back into my slave, make him even forget once upon a time there was a girl named Bianca that was the love of his life. He would return to be my slave and he would love every second of it, and it would just be so easy... all I'd have to do is speak it into existence.

I could.

But I won't.

Not when he put himself in my hands like that, when he's surrendering to me simply on a promise of freedom even if he knows perfectly what I could do to him because I've done it to him before.

— Can you hear me, Alex?

— Yes, Master. 

His voice is flat and emotionless, the kind of voice a marble statue would have if it could talk.

— Listen to me, Alex, and pay attention. I'm giving you back your control of yourself. You will not need me, you will not want me, you will have your own will and your own thoughts and these thoughts will belong only to you. You will still be unable of doing anything that could harm me, but other than that, all your decisions are yours. Your will is yours. The focus of your desire is what you want to be. Once I count you out of this trance, you will be free from your need to please me. Do you understand?

— Yes... Master.

That slight hesitation shows that he's starting to feel it. Deep down his mind knows what's happening and is ready to jump and extends its arms to the sun. 

The door is closed, and I give into the last shred of temptation. I close the distance between our bodies and kiss him, and he would kiss me back but he's way in too deep for that, he just lets me kiss him and feel the warmth of his body, and I try to fill my memory with the scent of that cologne that smells better on his skin than it would do on any store. 

I grab his handkerchief and put it in my pocket as a memento. At the end when each one of my boys leaves me, and they always do, this is all I'm left with: a memory to keep me warm on the cold nights until another boy comes. 

Because they all want me, but none of them loves me with the kind of love that doesn't need mementos. I could tell them to, but it would be playing make believe, and even if they didn't know I would. I can create desire, but this kind of love needs to happen on its own to be worth it. And I'm okay with that, because I love them in my own way and it's also not that kind of love. I aspire the scent of him once more, and then I count him out this trance, the last I will give him.

His eyes focus again and he looks at me but can barely notice me, immersed in the reality of the sudden freedom he's feeling. He knows it, he feels it, and now he's ready to join the love of his life and, hopefully, live happily ever after.

No, this won't be a happy ending for either of us. For him it's not an ending... and for me it's not happy. But I'm okay with that.

— Well, this is it. This is what I came for. Now go grab your happiness with both hands and don't let it go.

And he hears me give him an instruction and recognizes that it's no longer an irresistible command. It's just words, and if he will do it it will be because of his own will, not mine. He smiles and nods.

— Thank you.

And he doesn't call me Master. 

— Good bye, Alex. It was a pleasure having you in my life.

And I walk to the door, with a kiss in my lips and a handkerchief in my pocket, and when I open the door Richard lets me pass and leave and he doesn't know things are okay, but they are, he knows when he walks in and sees Alex smiling in a way he'd never smiled before to him, and that smile is the last thing I see before I walk out the door.