Dahran

This is the twenty first chapter ex twenty two of a novel about present day slavery and gay sex.

The Dahran trilogies are composed to date of 6 novels:

Trilogy one:

The Changed Life

The Reluctant Retrainer

The Market Offer

Trilogy two:

The Special Memories

The Dahran Way

The Dahran Rebuttals (this novel)

Keywords:

authority, control, loyalty, slavery, punishment, retraining, submission, gay, sex

This story is entirely a work of fiction and all rights to it and its characters are copyright, and private to and reserved by the author. No reproduction by anyone for any reason whatsoever is permitted.

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Chapter 21 -- The assumption of family

Be warned! On good taste, there is no argument. You either have it, or you don't. You either recognise it, or you don't, and even in recognising it, there is simply no guarantee whatsoever that it will be matched in the appreciative minds of others. However, be also warned, you may well be overwhelmed by the good taste of others. But on taste, we make the most extraordinary assumptions in real-time and have to wait for future times, until our assumptions are proven to be true or false.

David Tuttle flew with me up to Bahrain and then on to Kuwait, where we `did' the arts galleries. I felt uncomfortable in the galleries. The Middle East offers beautiful and intricate design in its buildings, and in-built decoration in their interior. If you are finely tuned into such matters you will be able to appreciate the differences in Arab art as it stretches from Morocco and the Atlantic to Pakistan and the Arabian Sea, and all parts in between.

In a word, I was not impressed with what the galleries had to offer, and kept my chequebook like my gunpowder reasonably dry. What I did however find in a small gallery in Kuwait were two Egyptian sculptures, a head and shoulders, not quite a bust, and a sitting figure in the style of Egypt's fifth dynasty. They were described as an overseer and scribe, and for some reason, they clicked with me.

By pure chance, as I was leaving the gallery, I spotted a sculpture being unpacked of a most striking seated figure. It was a work in granite of Senui, which the gallery owner told me was based on a sculpture in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the consort of the ruler of Siut in ancient Nubia. The face showed serenity, wisdom and strength, and for some reason, I could already see those qualities place in those of us who would live in the new Lemon Palace. The three qualities embodied all that was needed for the running of my new and future home.

Even though David was enthusiastic about other items, I felt that every single piece, like every single slave, should be at home in its location and not out of place.

We had booked into a single suite at a four diamond hotel in Kuwait. On reaching our quarters, I told David to undress and meet me in the bath where I was going to have a long soak and more.

When he arrived suitably prepared, as I found his lubed back passage to be, I had him sit down on my half-submerged erection in the bath.

`Remember Scotland?'

`I shall never forget Scotland, Jonathan.'

I let my hands play double-bass up and down his chest and he raised and lowered himself on my hardness. When I felt him come close to his tension, I soaped my hands and with my left cupping his balls, my right conducted a symphony of moans and gasps until an arc of semen splattered the end of the tub and David fell back against me.

We both slept soundly afterwards.

I came home quite exhausted after two days of shopping with little to show for it, apart from half a dozen pieces, including my new sculptures. I asked Aziz what he thought of them when they had been unpacked and he ignored the paintings, but stood before the sculptures and finally said, `Jonathan, you have chosen well,' and simply walked off. I took that to be approval of the sculptures. I looked at the pictures, some desert and mountain scenes, and thought to myself that I had a better view out of any of the windows of the Palace -- at far less a cost.

I went over to the swimming pool and Klaas who was massaging the back of a slave, smacked the slave on the backside to get him off the table, and made ready to give me a session. Klaas was still a little quiet as a masseur. Vitali used keep up a patter. Klaas would just let his fingers and hands and the odd elbow do their work.

I liked the whole swimming pool area at the Lime Palace. Rolf had both it and the gym area well organised and slaves were coming and going all the time, ticking off items on two large green chalkboards.

`What are they doing, Klaas?'

`They are marking that they have done their swim times, Master. Each of us has our own programme from Rolf, which we follow for at least an hour a day. We swim. We train in the gym, or vice versa, to be beautiful in your eyes.'

`And what is your programme?'

`This month, Master, I am running five kilometres each day in the gym and I am learning the backstroke in the pool. It is hard.'

Two of the slaves had finished swimming and were doing press-ups on the side of the pool. I looked closely and saw that they were Igor and Basili, the two Byelorussians, who help looking after the cactus gardens. They were really working hard at the press-ups, and various of the other slaves had stopped to watch.

`They are showing off, Master, because you are here,' Klaas whispered into my ear.

I beckoned the two over, as Klaas elbowed his way down my spine.

`Are all those press-ups in your gym programme, Igor?' I asked, when the two were kneeling in front of my face, as I lay on the massage table, my fingers interlocked under my chin. They had adopted the kneeling position with legs wide apart, their genitals gently sloping out and down, and their hands behind their necks. It was the position of submission to a Master -- a position which allowed their bodies to be seen at best advantage.

`Yes, Master. We are trying to improve our bodies to be able to please you better in bed.'

`And not just your body, Igor, your Arabic is improving as well.'

`Basili's as well, Master.'

It has always struck me that the path of life is sweetest when shared. Igor and Basili had been lifted together. They had themselves sold together to me, by Igor's conniving. They worked together in the cactus gardens, got up before the rest of humanity, to find a flowering cactus for me each morning, and clearly enjoyed each other's company.

`Okay, let me see some more of your gymnastics and training.'

The two grinned at each other and then went through a five minute session of moves which ended up with Basili doing press-ups on Igor's back, which drew a round of applause and laughter from everyone who had stopped to watch the sport.

But enough was enough, I had things to do, so I beckoned the two over and said `Well done. Now walk back with me to the Palace. You can show me what you have been doing in the gardens.'

I had forgotten just how much a moment of attention from a Master can be of such importance to a slave. The two slaves quite literally bounced along at my sides chatting about this and that, about the other slaves, their work and the small things that made up their daily lives.

I had actually seen their section of the gardens various times, having walked there in the evenings on occasions, but for their benefit, it was as if it were my first visit. What pleased me most was that they knew their agaves from their aloes, their cacti from their more simple succulents. Neither had a report done for him by the Buddy Foundation and I resolved to find out where they were in the pipeline.

Igor's and Basili's buddyship was not sexual, but of companionship. I asked them what language they spoke when they were alone together, knowing full well that it was Byelorussian, and it was like talking to little children, as Igor used his foot to scratch an imaginary line on the pathway -- `Our native language, Master. Are you angry?'

`Not in the least. We speak English before midday and Arabic after midday with others, but among our own, we can speak and do speak our own languages, do we not?'

`Yes, Master,' was chorused with a type of relief.

`So, your gymnastics are to help you to be better in bed with me?'

`Yes, Master.'

`Tell Ben that you will be with me tonight.'

`Yes, Master. Thank you, Master.'

I was beginning to wonder if the Police Captain's warning had been over the top. More than a week had gone by since he had warned me outside the Bank. Each night the Palaces were locked down and all-night vigil sentries put on the roofs, with the water cannons at the ready. And yet, nothing happened.

Deep down, I trusted the Police Captain. He had always turned up trumps before and certainly, had never let me down. So, we waited and waited.

Each day our `defence committee', as I was coming to regard it, met briefly after breakfast and the weeks since the warning I had only spent two days at the Bank, letting my partners, for once, take the brunt of the daily action.

I find that so many actions, like juggled oranges, can be up in the air at any one time, and then all of a sudden, a single week can see the resolution of any number of issues.

Josh Green stayed only his minimum three days at the Lime Palace and reversed his flight footsteps to London, Atlanta and Georgetown on the New Concorde and connecting flights. He was as discreet in his personal life at the Palace, as he had been in his dealings with me over the phone and by fax over the previous years, and I liked that in a lawyer.

He swam in the pool -- with togs -- `Maybe, I'll be a bit more adventurous next time,' he said. He availed of a massage and a sauna, but what intrigued him most were the colours of the desert and the Dahran skies, particularly in the evenings. I have always said, the colouring is spectacular. Josh confirmed my view.

Josh Green had just departed when Iñaki and Donnie, the two slaves who had done the photography and text for The Cacti of Dahra came to me saying they had an idea.

`So what's next on your agenda, Donnie,' I said, half in joking to him and Iñaki, not expecting a reply.

I burst out laughing when he replied immediately, `Master, I want to record the three Palaces, in black and white and also in colour.'

Even Iñaki Ergoitia smiled at Donnie's earnestness and enthusiasm, so much so that I gave them the go-ahead on their project.

It was a week of surprises as the Palace's Doctor, Yves Fournier, delayed one of the evenings after dinner, as he usually does, when he wanted a private word.

`Jonathan, I may have some good news, which may also be some bad news.'

I looked at him quizzically. Scientists in general, and medical Doctors, in particular, can rarely state a fact without shrouding it in caveats and lots of throat-clearing.

`You know I have been conducting some research into the fertility of the slaves for almost four years now, since those first slaves who were infertile on arrival here, became fertile after some time.'

`Yes, I remember. You said you could not understand it.'

`I think I may have found the cause. I thought it might be the food, or lack of modern foodstuffs rather. I even thought it might be the fact that the slaves are well exercised, naturally heated in the sun and naked with unclothed genitals. I looked at each factor and now I have concluded that it is our water. Or rather, what is in the water.'

I was looking at Yves in amazement: first and foremost, at the fact that he had so single-mindedly pursued his study of a minor problem for over three years. Secondly, that he modestly claimed a possible cause, and three, that the cause might be in the water which we get out of our two wells at such enormous pressure. I had regarded the problem as minor in that were he ever to have discovered any solution, it would do nothing for the slaves' reproductive capacities.

`Do you know, Jonathan, that 4% of ordinary men are infertile -- either dead sperm, or little or no sperm? Our slaves are no different. We had 33 slaves, slightly above the international average, to date who are or have been infertile. Some twenty one of these, who were infertile, are now fertile. These now prolific slaves have been here over a year and I will bet a bottle of good Bordeaux that the eleven who arrived in the past year and who are sterile now, will be fertile with the next twelve months.'

`So what miraculous thing is in the water, Yves?'

`Not a thing, Jonathan, things -- plural. There are minute traces of a series of four trace elements in the water -- selenium, bromine, terbium and gadolinium, along with four very ordinary other elements oxygen, fluorine, sulphur and chlorine.'

`Yves, you're losing me. The first four I never heard of and the last four are very common, if I remember my schoolboy chemistry.'

`The ones you heard of, Jonathan, oxygen, fluorine, sulphur and chlorine are essential for life. The others affect our metabolism. There has never been proof what terbium does, but I think there now is a case for it. I think the eight of these elements together -- the ordinary ones and the trace ones, putting it quite simply, are making the slaves and all of us very healthy. I just happened to notice it with the fertility issue. A thousand litres of Palace water and you're fertile. I have also done tests on water from the capital city, and the trace elements are not there.'

`And why would this be bad news for us, Yves?'

`If the news gets out, Dahra could, at the very least, be the new spa centre of the world. Four per cent of men in the world are almost a quarter of a billion men. I think Dahra would get a little crowded. And just a point of interest, when were you last sick in the past four years, Jonathan.'

I looked at Yves Fournier. Dahra is a small country. The sort of health tourism such a discovery would create would destroy the very nature of Dahra and create a business as large as its gas industry.

`Are you going to publish, Yves?'

`Most likely not. Even if it did, it most certainly not with any hint of location. But it's nice to know that, in at least one matter of medicine, I may have contributed something.'

`You say that fertility returns after about a year.'

`Ten months has been the earliest, sixteen months the latest.'

`You tell the slaves?'

`Yes.'

`And what do they say?'

`They say little. I have never said more than it's the good and healthy lifestyle.'

`Does the fertility disappear?'

`Not so far.'

`It is fine if you tell them, Yves, but don't expect them to share your scientific enthusiasm. Some may be glad to hear the news, but please remember what you are effectively telling them: they are now able to have children, but they never will.'

`Yes, I know, I try not to get carried away. Perhaps, in a way, I have become so fond of this project because I know that I will never have a grandchild.'

I did not know what to say. What do you say to a man, to a friend and employee, whose only son is your slave?

`Do not worry about it, Jonathan. It is better this way. If Jean-Pierre had fathered a child in France, what sort of father would he have made? He thought about nothing but his drugs, and how to get the next dose. Even worse, imagine if the mother had been an addict, too, who might have poisoned her child during pregnancy and neglected it afterwards. It would have been a disaster from the beginning. My son is here, he is alive, and by the looks of it he is very healthy, too.

`So, really what you're saying, Yves, is drinking up to a thousand litres of our water over a period of time and you're back on the road to health.'

`In summary, yes.'

`Yves, it's up to you.'

`There is something else you should know. Jonathan. Cal spoke to me privately that night I had mentioned my project after dinner. Maybe he was sorry for attacking me from this unexpected angle. Anyway, I had attacked him too, and we finally got around to talking about our situations.

Cal told me he has accepted now that he is, in fact, a stranger to his children. If he did not receive an envelope with their photographs every few months, he would possibly not even recognise them, not in their first years at any rate.

He said that it was the only feasible way, to acknowledge that this family was not his family, because he is not interested in spending time with them beyond those yearly visits. His wife welcomes him as a lover every year. She enjoys her time with him, as she does with other lovers, and when he leaves, she waves him goodbye. She has never asked him to stay. She does not need him. His brother-in-law does not need him. The children do not need him. They all welcome him as a loved guest.

Cal explained that once he had accepted his status as an interesting visitor from far away, with tales about sand dunes and camels, and stopped imagining himself a `father' with the responsibility it implied, it worked for them all. Maybe I should not pass all this on to you, Jonathan, but it helped me realise where I stand myself.'

There was a deep melancholy in Yves Fournier's expression. He looked at me and made a brave effort to smile. The smile did not reach his eyes though, which were overshadowed by an expression of profound regret.

`Please understand this, Jonathan. I know that the life of Jean-Pierre rests in your hands now. Children grow up, and we have no control over the choices they make. We can only stand by their side, and do our best. I failed to do my best for my son. I see now that not only did Jean-Pierre abandon me to seek artificial happiness. I abandoned him, too.'

`You can't really believe that, Yves. I remember how you were worried sick about your son when you first mentioned him to me. You went to visit him in prison. And as for making him a slave to save him from his road to self-destruction, it was my decision alone. You did not even know about it until you found him here.'

`That is what I kept telling myself, Jonathan. But not any more. I need to look back at what I did, and what I did not do. I can not bear it if I keep lying to myself.

When I spoke to him in prison, the only thing I thought about was to get him to acknowledge me, to make some kind of commitment to me because I was his father and he my only son. I am a doctor, yes, but beyond the neurological basics I know nothing about the drugs he took and the effect they had on him. I should have gone where the competence is, spoken to colleagues and social workers who know about addictions. I was too proud. I thought: `I am a doctor, I am his father. If I don't know what is best for him, and he does not even listen to me, no one can help him.' If I had arranged a stay at a therapy centre, he might have cooperated. He might not have cooperated, or gone back to drugs afterwards, and eventually died. But I did not even try. Instead of going where the competence was, I went where the power was. You.'

`You did not ask anything from me, Yves. You only told me about Jean-Pierre because I inquired what you were so worried about. You did not even know that I spoke to the Minister of Justice. And much good that did, in the long run! As soon as he was out of prison, he was on his way to his dealer. Not what I would call gratitude.'

`Please don't be unreasonable, Jonathan. It only makes it more difficult for me. How can you expect anyone to be grateful for an act they are not aware of? But I am not talking about Jean-Pierre, I am talking about myself. Why wasn't I there on the day when he got out of prison? And if I was afraid that he would just walk past me, why did I not even ask one of my friends in Lyon to wait for him at the gates? I did nothing, because I had taken his indifference as a personal insult. He probably meant to insult me. I did not want to risk rejection again, so I abandoned him. He came out of prison, and he was alone. So he decided to seek solace where he had sought it before, in drugs.'

My memory went back to the al-Qatim slave centre. A flash of bright new titanium on Jean-Pierre's right ankle. His body spread-eagled over a table, ready to receive his first flogging. The nauseating smell of camel and human piss. Just from thinking of it, my stomach turned again.

`If you had not intervened, Jean-Pierre might be dead now, therapy or no therapy. I did not know what you were going to do, but I knew what lay within your power. Maybe, in my heart of hearts, I hoped that you might do what you did, remove the weight from my shoulders, and remove my last vestiges of responsibility. I was a coward, and in a way as narrow-minded and as self-absorbed as he. When he rejected me, I convinced myself that he would reject everyone. Now I don't know if he would have accepted someone else's help. Maybe yes, maybe no. I will never find out.'

`I told you that I saw myself as a caretaker, Yves. I will listen to your advice, and we can both protect your son. He will see how much you love him, and love you in return.'

It is nice of you to say so, but I think it is not possible. I can not be a father to him, because he is a slave. How then could he love me as a father? He seems to be fond of, perhaps even love, this slave Fernand who is his buddy. No, I should say this other slave, Fernand.' It is still difficult for me, Jonathan. Sometimes I imagine I still have a son in France. But insofar as being my son, it is as if he died.

The only thing I can hope for is that one day Jean-Pierre may love you, as a slave loves his Master. I do not know it is possible, because he knows that you deliberately took away his freedom. I can only hope that he will.'

`Yves, please tell me honestly. Do you think I should not have made your son a slave?'

`The only thing I am sure of in this matter, Jonathan, is that what I think is of no consequence. In this respect I am like all relatives of all slaves, of all Masters I have worked for as a doctor here in Dahra. The difference is that I know what has happened to him.

When he spent all his money on drugs, he financed warlords, farmers who cultivate drugs instead of foodstuffs, criminal chemists and businessmen, petty criminals like himself. Now his work contributes to your income, and indirectly, to mine. Isn't it ironic? I am profiting from my own son's enslavement.

Jean-Pierre has a new life now. You own him, and I do not make any difference in his life any more. There will be no more choices for him, beyond the ones you grant him. And for me, there will be no family.'

I thought about Jean-Pierre and Fernand standing before me, seeking closeness and friendship in someone who spoke their native language. My slaves give each other human warmth and sexual happiness. They have a new family now at my Palaces. Because they are slaves, it is a family of one generation.

This is what Cal told me, Jonathan, he said: You know how easily it happens that we try to compensate for private difficulties in our work. For a dentist, it is not so dangerous. But you should face the danger you are in yourself. Please continue and finish your project, but look at it as research alone. Investigating fertility will not give you your family back. You can not compensate for your private loss, neither scientifically, nor symbolically. If you love and care for Randy, treat him as your valued assistant. Don't try to make him the surrogate son he can never be. Don't torment yourself, and please don't torment the slaves, with chimaeras about fertility. If you want to be kind to yourself, and to them, you have to look reality in the eye.' I think I have found the courage now to follow Cal's advice. My project is finished. I am proud of the results. And I know that their fertility will not make any difference, neither for your slaves, nor for myself.

That is all I wanted to tell you, Jonathan, so that you know where we stand now. Good night.'

I bid him a good night as well, and Yves Fournier left me, to maybe put his scientific and private reflections aside for the night.

Biological parenthood happens easily to those who are fertile, have heterosexual intercourse, and don't use any contraceptives. For a father, there is no pregnancy, no biological tie beyond the transference of genes. If he wants to, he can disappear from the scene before the child is even born, and never be a father in the social sense. Mothers and fathers can desert their children, or in grave difficulties deliberately give up their children for adoption in the hope that someone else may take better care of them. Filial affections may grow from interaction with a parent who is present and attentive. It is in social parenthood where the true test lies.

My slaves have no freedom, no children, no social responsibility. For those of my slaves who had children prior to their capture, it lies within my power to make a contribution to their former families' economic standing. My slaves have no influence on the lives of those who biologically are their children. I allow them to have news of them with the help of my overseers Tommy and Geoff. Any activities of the Buddy Foundation are my decision as Master, and mine alone.

Regardless of their physical health, which is of great importance to me, all my slaves are de facto infertile in the biological and in the social sense. Their status has removed the happiness, the responsibility, and the worries of social fatherhood from their reach. They may find happiness in the companionship and love of a buddy. My wishes and my pleasure are their sole responsibility.

I retired to seek my own happiness, with Dmitri Soliduk, my new Russian gift-slave.

End of Chapter 21

To be continued . . .