Fetish

I wasn’t sure if he did that to fuck with me or if he did it to fuck with me.

The kiss.

I still remember it on my forehead.

Ordinarily someone might take something like that as sweet. Maybe even doting.

Dvar didn’t dote.

He didn’t love me. But he cared.

I remembered him running to me. Feeling my body slump into his strong arm. The sound of his voice fading into nothing.

“Pretty Boy! … Pretty Boy! Shit…”

Then I was gone.

How could I spend my life terrified of the only caretaker I had? Or would ever have?

More importantly… why was my only caretaker a sadistic bastard that wanted to violate me in every vile way he could think of?

I saw it every time he looked at me. Like food.

Like he was taking me. In his mind.

The mental image shook me. His big hand around my throat from behind. The sound of his masculine pleasure.

I didn’t want to live in that reality.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like men.

I just didn’t know what they were to me.

They were power. Control. Order. Father figures…

I liked the way they looked sometimes. But was that confusion? Was that my trauma?

My trauma, sitting on the couch with a hard dick, waiting for me to come give it pretty mouth hugs?

I didn’t like the thought of a dick in my mouth.

And I hated that I liked the thought of being controlled.

I loved and hated the notion. I wanted autonomy but I also didn’t want to have to deal with… life.

When you spent your existence in a regimented program where there was no ambiguity. When you knew every day where you’d be. What you’d eat. Who you’d talk to.

It informed your world… Being controlled was... how I knew how to function.

Either way, I was definitely on edge. It took me another day to get up out of bed, and when I did it was a weak affair. I spent two days eating liquid meals because my stomach shrank while I was out.

Three months...

But I got protein in liquid chocolate form!

I really liked it.

I never had chocolate milk before. Guess if I didn’t know what it tasted like, chocolate protein goop was the same thing, right?

I had nurses waiting on me hand and foot. It was actually odd. Way different than I was used to. Usually right out of the tissue clinic I’d go in the box, or be in meditation for hours.

Pretending to have a breakthrough.

Pretending to see…

But then I actually saw.

This time was different.

The thing I saw when I was in that coma. I could barely hold the image in my mind, I just had the feeling. The overwhelming feeling…

Like the secrets of the universe had been revealed to me… only I couldn’t remember them. Another cosmic punchline in the life of Uno Kelevra.

Kelevra… Whoever that person was.

The One Logic.

I felt it. It was real.

Not just as an ephemeral bandage, or glue holding reality together.

It was a thing.

An all.

An it.

A none of the above and all of the above.

I was struck.

And once you’ve been struck you cannot be unstruck.

The knowing, I mean.

It took me several hours to bounce back from ego death. To shake the feeling of wanting to weep in the presence of it. To feel like my body was mine again, and not part of the ever present consciousness in everything.

I thought about that. My eyes slowly tick-tocking around.

“Arms up…” His voice startled me.

The tailor.

I blinked several times.

Realizing I was standing there staring out of the window. Into the courtyard of Dvar’s estate. That zen garden that made up the center of his house.

Oasis in a square shaped palace.

Somewhere on the grounds I registered there was a dojo. I could see its crest from the street when we pulled up. It wasn’t just the house. It sat behind it.

Or adjacent?

Was that the word?

I dunno.

I got a basic level education.

The rest I learned ducking punches and having people play dominance games with my survival.

Always dominance games.

My arms lifted mechanically as the tailor finished checking his measurements. Making sure my jacket fit well. The black, ornate thing… a smoke gray really.

Dvar picked it out. With Wild Petal asymmetrically on one side. Dark slacks…

He wouldn’t let me wear my concorde 11s.

Which sucked. By the way. I just got those.

But he didn't get too fussy about my black Chuck Taylor Allstars. I smiled down at them, wiggling my toes.

“I don’t approve of the shoes,” The tailor said.

“I don’t approve of you sliding your hands up my nuts, but you did.” I shot back.

“I was measuring your inseam,” He said with a stern stare.

“I know. I’m just fuckin’ with you, Buddy,” I shrugged playfully and he took a deep breath.

“Well. One does,” he offered, turning to collapse the rest of his fabric, starting to pack his tools and measuring instruments away.

I looked around Dvar’s living room space. Deep orange, tan… earthy colors. Fucker even had those little log slices for coasters.

Y’know, the little cute ones you find hand crafted at those county fairs?

They were cool. I liked them.

I could tell he was married.

His house was too posh for a guy to do it. Everywhere I looked was subtle, reserved, eastern beauty.

I felt so out of place…

I bit my lip nervously. Let it slip free when I had to address the tailor.

“Dvar said he’d pay you… I saw you writing numbers over there… I don’t make that kinda money, man,” I shook my head with a shrug.

“No. You don’t. I don’t suspect you ever will either, young man. Have a nice day,” he said, rounding up the rest of his things and…

No other way to say it.

Sashayed his way out of the door.

“Alright, Sugar Shack. No need to get feisty,” I said, letting my amber eyes drift around the room as he left in a huff.

I kinda had to wonder about a guy at the age of sixty-somethin’ who still walked like a gay peacock.

Dignity? A little?

Then again, I could be biased. I kinda liked my men to act like men.

Even if they looked like me.

Wait. Does that make me gay too?

“You look cute,” His familiar, masculine tone hit my ear.

He used the word cute properly.

Short. Curt. Informative. Factual.

I heard him. Then I smelled him. My eyes drifted slowly shut as I took that deep breath, half appreciating his scent and half realizing my day just got worse.

I turned around to see him float towards me in a dark gray suit. Vest. Silk tie.

Loafers were fuego.

Not gonna lie.

Peanut butter. Bold choice.

Bright red Wild Petal boutonniere.

And the hint of orange and mandarin peel I came to associate with that feeling in my chest. The rise of excitement and fear. Of a need for heightened awareness.

And he rewarded it.

Taking both of my braids in his hand, moving them behind my head and using them to walk me backwards.

My head tilted back, forced to look up at him. Forced to walk back until he had me pinned against the living room wall.“You’re not wearing your third eye.” He said, those intense eyes moving over my face.

My amber eyes moved away.

Slowly.

I got the game immediately.

I'm the mouse.

He's the big cat.

My mouth opened just as slowly to say something.

He leaned in close.

He was coming for it.

For my mouth and I avoided him. Turning my head away.

I felt him smile against my cheek with a soft laugh against my skin.

“C’mon, man…” I whispered. Suddenly aware of just how big he was.

“Look at me.”

“No…”

“Why?” He asked, unbothered.

“Cus you’re tryin’na sneak me. I’m not dumb, man.”

“Why do you think you have a choice?”

That question rang in my head… like a bell.

“… I guess I … don’t. I just kinda hoped …”

“Hoped what?” He asked after my silence. His left hand released my braid, sliding up my neck.

That single digit found my chin and forced me to look at him.

“Mm?” He blinked catlike at me, leaving that single, deep intonation as punctuation in the air.

“I guess I kinda hoped you’d give me a choice.”

“Mm…” He intoned again, tilting his head. “Those eyes are lethal.”

Not paying attention to anything I said.

Fuck. Ignore me.

I took my eyes from him with a blink, retreating from his stare. My only ability to defy him. I slowly let my gaze tick-tock around his space, trying to forget he was so close.

“Thanks…” I whispered back, starting to space out at nothing.

“No… bring them back." His words brought me back.

I took a deep, slow breath, coming out of an attempted rabbit hole. My mouth opened to protest, my tongue stopping on the edge of my teeth.

I relented and blinked my eyes slowly back to him, letting him have my high beams.

“Fine," I whispered through a sigh.

“God damn…” He shook his head. Staring into my eyes like he needed them.

Our eyes danced back and forth for as long as I could stand it before I bit my lip and looked away.

“C’mon… this isn’t my-…” I started to say.

“I know,” he cut me off. “That’s why I like this game.”

His words tumbled down my neck like a bucket of ice. Crashing into my stomach with the unmistakable waves of doom. That wavering, rippling icy wobble of fate. When you know somewhere in your life a series of bad choices brought you a bad outcome.

And the outcome arrived.

Dvar Olmedo was my consequence.

I thought about every time I’d shot my little mouth off.

Every time I had to be told I was out of pocket. My refusal to shut up and be a clone.

Looking away again, my head turned from him, mouth opened to say something…

His finger slipped into the corner of my mouth, hooking my cheek, gingerly pulling my attention back.

His middle two fingers pushed into my mouth.

“Cm-ohm…”

“Shut up…” He whispered. “Get that cute mouth open… let me in it. Fuck your lips are soft.”

I wanted to bite him. My amber eyes blinking slowly as I frowned, throwing my gaze at the wall while he dug around in my mouth.

He searched it.

Played around in it slowly. Rubbed his fingertips over my tongue while I heard him breath quiet, satisfied breathes.

I tried to avoid his fingers but it only seemed to encourage him. Playing with the tip of my tongue as it curled and moved about. Forcing me to lay it down so he could pet it.

“Ahh…” I let out as he forced my mouth open wider.

“That’s it… Push that sexy tongue out. Over your bottom lip. Thaaaat’s it… Good boy.”

I was revolted that his praise set my head on fire.

I pushed my tongue out far enough to make the dimples in my cheeks implode for him. I wasn’t blind to what he wanted.

I just didn’t want to give it.

“Aahh…”

“Oh my fucking god,” He softly intoned while his finger curled and stroked my tongue surface. Cherishing it.

A drop of spit dripped from the bubblegum pink of my tongue tip.

I dared throw my eyes back at him. To see his face.

He glanced up at my eyes, drinking them in before he concentrated on my mouth again. So deeply it made my stomach turn.

He was fetishizing my face.

“That’s my little toy.”

That insult did my head in.

Heat flashed up my neck.

Fuck!

Why did I need more of that?

Why am I this fucked up?