Suffering for the pleasure of others is nothing new to me. I have even begun to find a certain equine pleasure in it. -- Leo Tolstoy, "Strider: The Story of a Horse,"
And like a laughing string whereon mad fingers play amidst a place of stone, be secret and exult because of all things known that is most difficult. -- W.B. Yeats, "To A Friend whose Work Has Come to Nothing."
Nick Basin bit his tongue and sucked in his breath. He touched the tip of his colored pencil to his lower lip.
He quickly withdrew it and fashioned the wings of the angel hovering above the sleeping body poised as if to fold that body into its winged embrace. It was an image that had haunted him for years. He daydreamed about that angel and saw it in his sleep. He often imagined it raising its head as if to speak to him but it always remained silent and ineffably sad.
Snow was falling outside and he remembered how it had been when he was a child and his older brother had pushed him head down into the already-fallen, by-then-soiled snow and pressed him by the neck, and forced him to take some of the dirty snow into his mouth when he gasped for breath.
Maury was older now, selling real estate in Missouri, the father of two girls and two boys and dominated by a sharp-nosed wife. Nick knew he often wished he could leave her, but he was painfully weak. He was, poor guy, a coward. With the boys he remained a bully still. It was sad more than it was angering. But it was angering too, for the boys were being scarred.
With the girls he tried to be the ideal male, stern but loving freely when obeyed. The girls, too, were being scarred. And it was worse than angering to see him with them. He was smug in his petty vanity.
Maury had not found the quiet center in himself. But Nick had located his many years ago, and despite the vicissitudes of fortune, lived there always.
Nick lived on the Jersey side of the Hudson on the twenty-seventh floor and had a magnificent view of the Manhattan shore line. He was forty-three, five foot eleven, a hundred fifty-three pounds. He was lean but he had carved his body handsomely through years of gym discipline. He still had all his hair, and it still was thick and dark brown. His well-trimmed moustache, however, had traces of gray in it.
Every morning as he shaved, he wondered if he ought not to shave it off. But he had not done that yet. Although he had not been with a man in many years, he still imagined the possibility, and for that reason, he kept it. It was for his own delight when he gazed at himself, however, that he kept his legs and chest hairless and trimmed his pubic patch into a neatly manicured triangle. His eyes were dark and set deep beneath strong brows. His features were regular. His lips were full; his jaw, square. His fingers were delicate, the nails professionally cut and polished with a clear lacquer. His hands were strong.
It was not because of his looks that he was alone but because his soul was quiet and serious and closed.
But his heart was open. He was generous to friends and kind to everyone. He worked in the photo archives of a national picture magazine and had published a coffee table book on Vincente Minnelli which had enjoyed some success.
He had been to Paris and to Prague and to London and to Vienna.
In Paris many years before, he had spent what he thought of as his honeymoon with Larry. They'd embraced on the great marble concourse at Trocadero with the Eiffel Tower not far in the distance, across the Seine, against the infinite sky. They danced close there in each other's arms, in the center of the plaza, to an inaudible music that was mutual to them as tourists passed by furiously snapping pictures of that emblem of endless longing and impossible desire which looms above the Field of Mars.
In London, Nick came down with a fever after they had gone around, non-stop, visiting swank shops, going to the theater, drinking in the gay pubs at Earl's Court and sheltering from the rain on a chilly, foggy day, inadequately dressed, on the portico of the British Museum.
At Faberge earlier, Nick had held the Russian Imperial "Diamond Trellis" Easter Egg in his palm. The proprietor had lifted it from the purple velvet pillow upon which it customarily rested and delicately placed it there.
Nick spent three days afterwards in bed. Larry sat at his bedside nearly the whole time in their little bed sitting room. Mrs. Pruallen, a lean, washed out widow with a shrill voice and an impossible cheeriness, brought tea throughout the day and Horlicks at night, and expressed her nervous assurance that everything would be well.
She's right out of Dickens, Nick said in awe.
As he changed Nick's sweat-soaked flannel pajamas for the last time, after the fever had broken, helping him into the new black silk ones he had gone to Harrod's and bought for him, Larry caressed him by the scrotum and said, This is my Imperial Egg.
I worship you, Nick said, choked by an emotion that could have suffocated him had Larry not brought his mouth to his and taken his breath away.
But now Larry was dead, like so many others. And Nick's soul was closed.
When Nick finished the drawing he saw he had achieved something he never yet had done. The angel gazed at the sleeping body below, and Nick saw tenderness in that gaze he had never before been able to represent. A great feeling of sleepiness overcame him. He yawned and stretched and gathered up his pencils, laid them neatly in their box, centered the drawing on his drafting table and switched off the lamp that hung above his work space.
He stripped down until he was only wearing his black silky microfiber boxer briefs. At the bathroom sink he brushed his teeth. Before bed he did his nightly routine of thirty-five push-ups and thirty-five crunches.
He got into bed still wearing his boxers, pulled the quilt over himself, cupped one hand over his genitals, lay the other upon his breast, and fell asleep.
He dreamed he was in Prague, sitting above the city, watching the church steeples catch the morning sun, while bells rang out the first calls to early Mass. In the Hradcanske Square he saw the changing of the castle guard. The Vltava became a ribbon of apricot and silver. The metallic sounds of streetcars above the cobblestone streets, and the rumbling of the metro beneath them, provided the treble and the bass notes of the city's music. In a delicate saucer on the marble topped café table, there was a cup of coffee. A sweet roll waited on a pale blue plate fringed like the cup and saucer with a wreath in gold leaf circling its edge. Beside it lay a silver service and a sparkling linen napkin.
He was not alone. Larry was there beside him and he reached out to touch him. Nick extended his hand to take his but he was not there and the bells of Prague were banging in his ears and that woke him.
He rose and saw the hawks that nested in the tower across the way swooping in arcs through the air, presumably in search of their breakfast.
He showered and took some breakfast, too, in just a fresh pair of boxer briefs. He dressed, casually for work, but trim: pale Dresden gray-green slacks, a pale red cotton shirt without a collar, brown suede clogs, a silver chain around his neck, a four-button Edwardian jacket he left unbuttoned.
The sun was bright and glistered on the fresh snow. He pulled a brown leather belted overcoat from the closet, checked that the papers he needed were in his briefcase and set out for the tube station to Manhattan.
After work, he trudged over to Madison Avenue and took the 4 train down to Union Square. In an old brownstone off Thirteenth Street, Support-in-Action occupied the top two floors. He had begun to volunteer at S I A a year after Larry died and had been there ever since. Easy going, cheerful, attentive, friendly, non-judgmental, perhaps slightly repressed in the expression of his feelings in a public sort of way, he was someone everyone trusted, relied on, confided in. Over time, in fact he had been offered a paid administrative position and took on, in addition to his face to face work with clients, much of the work it entailed, but declined the salary.
I have enough, more than enough, he apologized.
It was almost six years ago now that he had been introduced to hypnosis and first gone into trance.
He met Ross Barnstone at Crazy Benny's in SOHO on a Friday evening after his shift at the S I A. He was on his second vodka martini, sitting at the bar and he was thinking of Larry again, both of their first years together, their long honeymoon, he called it, and of the bad years that followed when Larry started coming home stinking drunk after long nights out...how he had walked out on Larry when the torment and the teasing and the betrayals got to be too much, how he stayed with him when he got sick and there was no one else around for him.
Ross had been looking at him from across the way, and realized that Nick was very far away.
Hey, he said, approaching and taking the stool next to his. Got room for anybody else in there?
Nick roused himself from his reverie and blushed.
The pull of the tide of memory, he said.
It can drag you far out into the deep and away from the shore of the present, Ross said. Believe me. I know.
It can be a drag, Nick said, smiling apologetically.
What are you drinking? Ross asked. Vodka martini, no? Davy, he said, two more.
Hey, Nick said.
It's ok, Ross said putting his hand on Nick's arm to prevent his going for his wallet.
Thanks, Nick said. The next one is mine.
I think I know what you're going through, Ross said after Davy had set down their drinks.
What? Nick said.
I think I understand where you are, Ross repeated.
Yeah?
Yeah. You've lost someone.
Does it show?
I know what it's like.
It's very common these days.
How long has it been?
Seven years.
That strong.
What can I say? I'm a faithful puppy.
When Benny's closed they trudged through the snow to Ross' loft on Mercer Street, frozen despite their parkas, and Ross made Irish coffee and they sat like two old gentlemen drinking that powerful brew and contemplating the orange glow of embers dying in the fireplace as they spoke of their dead husbands.
Come to bed with me, Ross said rising. It is late.
Naked under down comforters, Ross took Nick in his arms and their flesh warmed each other's flesh.
I have not, Nick said softly in his new friend's ear, since Larry.
I will be gentle, Ross said, caressing his slim chest.
It is more than that. Although I want to, I cannot. My ability has gone.
I understand, Ross said, kissing him. Go to sleep in my arms.
And quietly, gratefully, Nick fell down into a dreamless slumber.
Are you familiar with hypnosis? Ross asked him in the morning as he sat facing him in bed cross-legged as they sipped their mugs of coffee.
I have often thought of it, Nick said.
But have you ever yourself been hypnotized, experienced the trance-state?
No, I haven't, Nick said.
Would you like to?
Yes, Nick admitted I would.
They took a cab together that evening to the Upper West Side. They got out at 78th and Broadway and passed under the great arch and through the black iron gate of the block-long Apthorp, the stately Renaissance Revival apartment house with an atrium at its center. Every Saturday evening Ross told Nick a group of students gathered there in Franz Vyvyan's penthouse to learn about hypnosis, be hypnotized, and meet like-minded folk.
Nick struggled to control the trembling excitement that made him shiver in the taxi. He was overawed by the carved figures in the limestone as they approached the building: graces and cupids.
Dr. Vyvyan was a pleasant looking man with graying hair and a well-trimmed salt and pepper beard. He dressed in tan corduroy trousers, loafers and a dusty Dresden green turtle neck with a kind of multi-colored Navajo vest hanging loose over it.
Within minutes after the circle of young men had gathered in comfortable chairs around him in a room scented with the delicate scent of the aromatic candles -- which were the only source of illumination -- all of them, guided by Vyvyan's mellifluous voice were drifting downwards into a delicious trance, deeper and deeper, surrendering to the voice they knew they wanted to obey until they were feeling a gentle relaxation and their minds were empty and they slept beneath the gates of trance and entered into the state of trance and surrendered...as they went deeper and deeper, surrendered to Vyvyan's seductive induction. It felt so good to obey the voice that gently pulsed inside them.
When Nick realized he was asleep, he awoke and saw the roomful of young men like himself rousing themselves, yawning and stretching. And he saw Dr. Vyvyan rising from his seat and, taking a cigar out of the pocket of his vest, light it. And although he did not usually like the smell of cigars, there was something so gently fragrant about this one that he took a deep breath and felt a convulsion of gentle pleasure twist the inner stem of his body. And when Vyvyan offered him one he gratefully accepted it and smoked it with pleasure.
It seemed quite natural to address him as Sir. Everyone did. And to perform the little tasks Vyvyan requested of him, bringing hors d'oeuvres to the table or clearing the ash trays and rinsing the dishes. There was something erotic about it. And although he had just met Dr. Vyvyan, as he was leaving with Ross and an older man whom he had found himself increasingly attracted to, when the hypnotist bid him good-bye, inviting him to return the following Saturday, it was not at all odd to kiss the hand Vyvyan extended, bringing it to his lips as he shook it.
Reginal Hox was the older man.
Where do you live? he asked Nick as they stood outside the Apthorp on Broadway.
Across the river, he said pointing west.
A wordless look from the gentleman.
In New Jersey.
Surely you're not going to go back to New Jersey tonight?
Why not? Nick asked, smiling at the inverted provincialism that commonly met the news of where he lived.
Because I should prefer it if you'd accept my hospitality for the night.
That's very kind, Nick said.
No strings attached, of course.
Thank you, said Nick, who found the man compelling.
No strings, he repeated with a wink, although, a few chains if you like, he added, and then laughed at his own joke.
He hailed a cab and the three got in. They let Ross out in SOHO and continued on to Brooklyn Heights.
Reginal Hox was a soft spoken, intelligent man originally from Argentina, who had been living in the States since his boyhood. When they were alone in the cab, taking Nick's hand, he said he was an investment broker by day and a skin trader by night,.
Nick sighed and felt his body grow limp, and when Reginal leaned over and kissed him, he yielded softly, inhaling his smoky breath, melting.
When he awoke the next morning beside the older man, he felt a tingling throughout his body that was new to him. The sun was shinning through the bay window. From the table in the dining room as they took their coffee, he could see the Brooklyn Bridge in the distance.
I'm sorry," he said as Reginal sipped his coffee.
No need to be, the stronger man said tenderly. I don't need you for that. You don't need to be hard for me to be inside you, do you?
No, Sir, I don't, Nick said. Thank you.
And you liked it when I was inside you?
More than I can say.
Then let there be no more of this foolishness. You know exactly what I expect of you.
Yes, Sir, I do, Nick said, looking into his eyes.
Come here, Reginal said.
Nick replaced his coffee cup in its saucer and walked over to him.
Reginal took him in his arms. Tell me, he said, what you want.
I want to please you. I want to be pleasing to you.
And what will you do after I dismiss you, he said, stroking Nick's lips with his thumb, when you no longer are pleasing to me? Or necessary.
Will there be such a day? Nick asked.
Yes, there will, Reginal replied as he gently teased one of Nick's bare nipples.
A current of desire shot through Nick. He could not tell if it was because his nipple was being teased or because of how he responded to the idea of the suffering he would experience when this man abandoned him.
I want you inside me now so badly, I don't know how I will live if you do not take me.
You will suffer. That will be the last way you will be pleasing to me, after you have given me every other kind of pleasure. You will give me the greatest pleasure: you will find it unendurable not to see me, not to hear me, not to feel me touching you, not to feel my strokes. But you will have to endure it, and you will know it pleases me that you are in pain, and that will make it worse. You will hate me and you will love me and you will hate that you love me, but you will not be able to stop loving me and desiring me and wishing that you could still be pleasing to me. You will understand nothing of what has happened or why, and that will only increase your suffering.
All the while, Reginal punctuated his words, which he whispered breathily, blew them, really, into Nick's ear, with gentle strokes against the side of Nick's neck using his long, warm, soft, strong finger tips.
Reginal was a gentle master and a persuasive master, and Nick enjoyed being hypnotized by him and guided through greater and greater depths of a sleep he had never experienced before. It was a dream state without the dream content. It was a heightened awareness of nothing to be aware of. It was a profound loss of himself and of sensation.
He longed to feel it when Reginal touched him, but he had become desensitized.
You are ready, Reginal told him then, as he hovered over him, holding him by the eyes as he slowly moved in and out of him. You are ready for the whip. It will let you feel again. You will love the whip and beg for it and eagerly kiss it when I put it to your lips before and after each flogging.
For a moment he was afraid, and then he could not remember of what he had been afraid. His mind was empty.
Reginal gave him thigh-high, calf-hugging, high-heel vinyl boots, to wear, and low rise short leather shorts.
He had his nipples pierced and tiny silver barbell pins inserted through each one. A leather choker circled his throat and iron wristbands clamped his wrists. His eyes were lined with coal black. His hair was cropped quite short.
His wrists were shackled to a bolt suspended from the ceiling, and his feet spread and cuffed to spikes in the floor. Reginal used a triple-stranded chamois whip with an ebony handle. He began by caressing Nick's body with the whip and then intensified the strokes until he was crying. And afterwards in tears, Nick put his lips to the ebony handle and worshipfully kissed it and looking into Reginal's eyes, said, Thank you, Sir.
After almost a year, it was as Reginal had said it would be...almost. There was one difference. After he refused to see Nick anymore, the pain Nick experienced was not for him. The pain of loss was still for Larry. He had been entranced by Reginal, and he had surrendered to him, but Larry, he worshipped.
And because of that, finally, the angel had appeared to him in a drawing, like a dream, and although ineffably sad, had conveyed the mystery to him. It was the mystery he needed to penetrate in order to endure. It was a mystery that granted him the knowledge, akin to magic, that became his because he had been true to his suffering.
When joy is irretrievable, what pains the senses and the flesh may, within the soul, be turned to pleasure.
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