After the Kidnap

Christian woke and reached over to the other side of the bed to find it empty. Yes, right, he thought. Chuck, his bodyguard, who did far more than guard his body, would be off running the Mill Beach sands below the Pacific Ocean cliff on which Christian's Sandy Lane Circle Brookings, Oregon, house perched. Christian was still in the position in which Chuck had left him, on his back, legs splayed and bent, and a heavy pillow under the small of his back, raising his pelvis. Chuck's cum dribbled out of Christian's hole. It had been over a year since they'd bothered with condoms.

When he'd turned his head, thinking he'd see a sleeping Chuck, Christian saw the glass of water and packet of sedative pills. Chuck would check to make sure Christian had taken them when he returned from the beach and either went to work out in the gym in his quarters over the garage or left for the gym over on nearby Railroad Street. Chuck was always working out and had the Mr. Universe body to show for it. At twenty-nine, he was tall, bulked up, blond, tattooed, menacing, formidable--just what you'd want in a bodyguard. In stark contrast, twenty-four-year-old concert pianist Christian Haskil, was small, albeit perfectly formed, no more than five-seven on his tippy-toes, dark, shy, sultry, docile, and easily controlled, with or without the sedatives.

When Chuck was on top of him, inside him, his thick dick working Christian's channel deep, there was no denying the man--it was never a good idea to try to counter Chuck in anything--not that Christian would try to deny him. Christian had found, two years ago, even before the kidnapping, that he liked having a man's dick inside him. It had come as somewhat of a revelation. Christian had never done much of his own thinking. From a New York family of billionaires who had found Christian was a child prodigy on the classical piano at the age of eight, Christian had always had someone else to do everything for him, make every decision for him. "I'll take care of that. Just go practice your piano," was the mantra at his house. And he had done so.

He was only really alive at two times--first, when he was on stage, with an orchestra, and at the piano, making beautiful music and, second, during those few seconds when a man was on top of him, inside him, and was jerking and releasing his seed. Christian was most alive when receiving a man's seed. Chuck may only be the bodyguard, but he was Christian's master. He provided what Christian wanted and needed.

Chuck was a virile man. He covered, jerked, and released his seed inside Christian at least daily. This and the continuous application of sedatives had been the answer given to Christian's recovery from the kidnapping. It had at least kept the young man in limbo for two years and it had not gotten in the way of his stage appearances with orchestras on the piano. In any event, there was no financial impediment to continuing life this way. Or there, at least, had not been until Christian's family back on Long Island decided he needed to be jolted out of just floating along like this.

Christian rolled over the still-warm spot Chuck had vacated and sat on the side of the bed while he took the sedative with the water. Chuck would know if he didn't--not from the medicine still being there but from Christian's lack of lethargy, a state he'd been in for the last two years, medicating so as not to be overwhelmed of the experience he'd had. The doctors had reached a level with him where he could function without it affecting his piano playing. It was all about his classical piano career now--and had been since his late teens. This balance was acceptable to Christian. He saw nothing better to be gained by not taking the sedatives.

He showered, dressed, and, in somewhat of a haze, floated through to the back of the house where the living-dining-kitchen area was located, the house ending in a wall of glass overlooking a gorgeous view of the Pacific Ocean and, below the cliff, interesting formations of rocks jutting up out of the surf.

His housekeeper, Lilly Wang, hired by Chuck when the bodyguard had arranged to move them out to the West Coast, out from under the doting Haskil clan in the Hamptons, and efficient, quiet, nonjudgmental, and absent most of the time, was in the kitchen area, finishing up a casserole to leave for dinner. She made toast and set out orange juice when she'd heard Christian in the shower, in the bedroom wing at the road side of the house.

Christian, barefoot and barely dressed in a loose athletic T-shirt and athletic shorts, stopped at the kitchen island long enough to down the orange juice and grab up a piece of toast and the coffee Lilly was pouring for him and padded, with a slight limp, out toward the ocean, through the sliding glass doors, and onto the deck, set right at the edge of the cliff.

"Don't forget you have a journalist coming this afternoon," Lilly said. That was quite an event. They didn't get visitors here. Chuck even discouraged any of the family coming from the East Coast to check in on Christian. "I've prepared this casserole; in case the journalist stays for dinner. Mr. Taggert won't be here for dinner. I'll leave direction on the counter on how long to heat it and at what temperature."

The young man grunted his understanding as he reached the glass doors to the deck. Lilly couldn't be sure he would carry through with heating the meal up--she didn't really know what the young man ate when she wasn't here to prepare it. She liked Christian and she loved to hear him play the piano, which is just about all he did in life--there was a concert grand Steinway dominating the living area--but she was afraid if she got any more involved with this setup than she did, Taggert--Chuck--would give her the sack. It must be the sedatives, she thought, but the young man was as limp and yielding as an old pet cat. It didn't affect his piano playing, and he seemed to live for nothing more than that.

She didn't like the idea of the sedatives, but they had a doctor's name on the bottles and it wasn't her place to get more involved in this. The young man obviously was buried in his work. He probably wasn't any more outgoing without the sedatives as he was with them. Besides, he'd been through a harrowing kidnapping a couple of years previously, with him shot and his kidnappers dead in the rescue.

Christian stood at the deck railing, drinking his coffee and looking down onto the Mill Beach, where several people were walking and running. The surf here was too rough and the seabed too rocky for anyone to be going into the water, but the beach was well populated. He didn't have any trouble picking out Chuck jogging down the beach, though. There were several fit bare-chested men down there, but there was only one Mr. Universe type. While Christian watched, he saw Chuck stop and talk with a young man in a Speedo. This didn't surprise Christian either. This was as usual. Chuck did as he pleased. Chuck took care of Christian's sexual needs, but he covered other young men as well. His control over Christian was such that Christian never complained about this. Shortly after meeting up, Chuck and the young man headed up toward the beach parking lot.

Christian reentered the house, assuming he'd hear the rumbling engine of the Corvette he owned even though he didn't drive and didn't have a driver's license, and went to the piano. He'd engage in multiple, highly disciplined, deeply engaged two-hour practice sessions each day. This would be the first for this day. He only left the house to meet his professional obligations. He had two concerts coming up, accompanying Dvořák's New World Symphony with the Oregon Symphony in Portland and Rossini's opera The Barber of Seville with the Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra and Opera further south, in California.

Sure enough, he hadn't been playing long when he heard the Corvette returning. Chuck would be otherwise engaged in his apartment--a bedroom, a living room tricked out also as a gym, a kitchenette, and bath--above the garage. Christian wasn't jealous. If anything, he was a bit relieved. He just floated along. Chuck's role in his life was just what it was. With Chuck here, Christian wasn't expected to make any decisions. He could just play the piano and otherwise be submissive.

Two hours later, Lilly was standing by the piano. "I'm leaving for the day now, Mr. Haskil," she said. "The journalist you have an appointment with is here now. I left your dinner in the refrigerator and instructions on heating it up on the kitchen island."

Christian was deep into practicing Figaro's "Largo Al Factotum" opening aria from The Barber of Seville and didn't respond. Lilly said it a second time before reaching over and putting a hand on Christian's on the piano, bringing the music to a stop. The young man gave a little jerk and came out of his reverie. He wasn't angry, though. This was a much-used method by Lilly in bringing him back into the world.

"Oh, yes. Please have him come in."

"Mr. Saunders is already here," she said.

A very handsome and well-put-together man of about thirty stepped forward. He was smiling. "Hello, I'm Richard Saunders," he said. "I arranged through your parents to do an interview with you on your current life here on the West Coast, if you recall. I'm been here for several minutes, but I didn't want to interrupt your playing. It is divine."

"Is it?" Christian said, his voice a little vague, but his smile genuine. "Thank you. I enjoy having Rossini's music enjoyed," he said. "Music has become my whole world, I'm afraid."

"Yes, your parents told me that. We must see if bringing the world to you will help bringing you back into the world."

Christian's smile remained, but Saunders could see that there was bit of reticence--and perhaps a hint of fear--behind it. The young man was looking beyond the journalist, though, his attention first arrested by the departure of Lilly Wang, but then moving over to the French doors into a darkened study, where he could see that Chuck had positioned himself in the shadows, where he would not be noticed but where he could hear everything that was said. Chuck had not wanted this interview and had railed against what he called the interference of Christian's father in insisting on it. But he had not done so directly to Christian's parents. Chuck knew who paid the bills here and he didn't want them to have any idea how much he controlled their son.

* * * *

Christian smiled as they settled for the interview, but the smile was a surface one. He was a bundle of nerves and Saunders could almost sense the shutting down of sections of the young man's life despite this supposedly to be an opening-up exercise. This was more than just a music magazine interview of an elusive child protégé in his later, successful career. This was an effort to open Christian up--to help him recover from trauma. Christian's concerned family a coast away from Oregon had arranged for this interview, which was as much a wellness check as fodder for a magazine feature.

Saunders couldn't pry the young man away from his piano but he did get Christian to turn around on the piano bench. He pulled up a lounge chair to face him. He understood immediately that he had to lead with all of the questions--Christian wouldn't volunteer information.

"First, this isn't a feature for a specific magazine yet. We'll have to see what we have. Several have expressed interest, including BB Music Magazine, The New Yorker, and Harper's." The translation was that, at this point, Saunders was working for the Haskil family in New York. Whether or not there was a feature article depended on Christian opening up, but the magazine article was an excuse for getting Saunders into the house, not necessarily the end goal here.

He went on. Christian was looking at him, not away to the stacks of scores on a small table next to the Steinway grand. That, in itself, was a small victory. Saunders knew that it was because he was a strikingly handsome and expressive man, a ginger golden redhead, with an engaging small and a well-cut body. Saunders knew Christian was gay and a naïve submissive. Christian's parents hadn't told him that; the family's lawyer had. Sauders had been engaged by the lawyer, who was willing to tell him more than the parents would--or even, perhaps, that they knew. Saunders also knew the role of the bodyguard in this situation. He was not being encouraged to bring that out in any subsequent feature article, though. "As I understand it you started showing promise on the piano at age eight. True?"

There was a pause of silence. "Is that true, Christian?" Say something was what was screaming in the interviewer's mind. Open the door.

"Yes, that's right," Christian said. It was almost a surprise, he was thinking, that the talent was there. His parents, filthy rich, had decided he had to have a talent in something and they threw tutors and coaches at him, searching for something. It had been a miracle that it was the piano and that he had taken to that, taking to it at the time more as an excuse to avoid everything else being thrown at him.

"And you entered in Julliard's piano program at the age twelve, and were playing with the New York Symphony by age sixteen?"

"Yes." Again, it had taken a huge family donation to get Julliard to take him, Christian was thinking. Imagine the surprise of all that he actually could--and did--master the program and the transition to the orchestra stage.

"And everything was going well until, and we do have to cover this in some fashion--we can't avoid it--until two years ago--the kidnapping on Fire Island."

Christian's eyes flashed momentarily but then dimmed. He didn't say anything and there was a hint in the tensing of his muscles that he was going to rise from the bench and leave, but Saunders extended a staying hand and said, gently but firmly, "No, please, stay. We won't speak of it much, but we do have to deal with it." Dealing with it was his entire reason for being here.

The voice of command and extended hand had its effect. Christian was conditioned to physical and mental direction and constraint. The mere mention of the kidnapping and Fire Island set off a flood of thoughts he usually sought to--and was able to--suppress.

The trip to Fire Island from New York two years previously in itself had been the catalyst and turning point. Had it only been a bit more than two years ago that he had come to grips with his sexuality? Twenty-one and still a virgin and with no idea of who he was sexually or emotionally. He had been low-hanging fruit for Xavier Rojas. Debussy's Le Mer. That had been the three-piano concert at Carnegie Hall in a New York Philharmonic Orchestra program. Xavier, Spanish, early forties, charismatic, all touching and flirting, had been on one of the other pianists.

The concert had been a triumph, Christian had been acclaimed, put in the spotlight as he never had been before. He was overwhelmed. Rojas was attentive and commanding. He fucked Christian for the young man's first time in the dressing room after the last concert. He hadn't asked Christian to go under him; he had informed Christian that was what he needed, that he needed it from Xavier, and that he knew from Christian's responses to his flirting that Christian wanted it from him.

He had been right at least that Christian would take command from him. He put the young man under him on a studio couch, holding him close, covering his mouth with one hand, and then mounting, penetrating, and fucking. Paralyzed like a deer in the headlights, Christian didn't resist, Xavier taking lethargy and submissiveness to command as desire and acquiescence. The Spaniard was experienced and knew what to do and how to do it. Christian accepted that, yes, it was the sexual connection he desired, and slowly but surely it melded to it and rocked with the fuck. In subsequent couplings, all Xavier had to do was to run his hands up Christian's inner thighs, and the young man would lie back, open his legs, and take the cock deep inside.

Then he took over Christian's life, briefly, and Christian, moving into a new life he never imagined he had but still conditioned to do as told, when he was told, let him. The trip to Fire Island and a weekend of letting their hair down in the gay community there. A gay bar, with pool tables. Christian standing near one, admiring the play of three muscular men, men who included him in their banter and pulled him into the game, one, with a particularly well-developed body hovering close over Christian as, holding the young man's wrist in one hand and Christian's hip with the other, he showed Christian how to hold the cue and make a shot.

Xavier still at the bar, flirting with the barkeep, not noticing when and how Christian had left the bar--with the three men.

Christian bound and gang banged in a small house with bars on the windows. Held and fucked for four days. Only later did Christian learn it was a kidnapping and that a ransom had been paid. All along he'd just thought it was a rough-sex weekend, something he was supposed to be enjoying.

"It must have been traumatic for you," Saunders said, unaware of what was surfacing in the young man's mind. "The two men holding you for four days, demanding ransom, the papers front-paging it because of the family fortune the Christian's musical talent."

"Yes, the two men," Christian murmured. But there hadn't been just two. There had been three. And they hadn't just held him, bound. They'd fucked the shit out of him--repeatedly. And he'd enjoyed that part of it. It had made him feel so alive--well, less numb to life. "I didn't know ransom had been demanded," he said.

"These men--while they held you--it didn't come out in the papers, and it most certainly needn't come out in the article. But, these men, while they had you, they molested you, didn't they?"

Christian looked away and didn't answer. Could it be a molestation if he'd done it willingly if they'd only asked? Because he would have.

But Saunders had already figured that out.

"You didn't say anything at the time and you can't say anything now because on some level you enjoyed it, didn't you? In some way it freed you. Don't be concerned. I know how it is. I am gay, although I cover men, I'm not a submissive."

Christian shuddered but still didn't answer.

"It opened you up to something, enhanced your talent, didn't it? What's important is admitting something freed you up at this point, not what it was. For the article I don't have to say it was because you enjoyed having a man--two men--inside you, but it will be helpful to be able to note that the kidnapping itself brought some changing, some enabling element, alive inside you. The men fucked you, didn't they, Christian?"

"Yes," Christian answered in a weak voice. "I had practically no experience. I thought it was just a typical rough-sex weekend for those men--that they just wanted to do me... again and again."

"Both of them together."

"Yes." There had been three, but never in a million years would Christian admit that.

Saunders changed the questions. "Does it bother you much? I see that you are still limping a bit."

A flash of fear race across Christian's face, and being afraid he'd gone too far, too fast, Saunders reached out and touched the young man on his forearm. The phrase, "It could have been your hands or one of your arms" flashed through Christian's mind along with the extension, "it still could be." But the touch of Saunder's fingers, brought him up several layers of consciousness and he smiled at the interviewer.

It didn't bring him up all of the way. The way the kidnapping had ended. The police finding the house, rushing it. The bit of gunfire that ensued. The two men found with Christian dead, but Christian wounded too. Just a flesh wound in the leg, but still causing a limp two years later. A constant reminder that it could have been his hands or one of his arms. He might never had been able to play the piano again--certainly not as well as he did now, not as he total reason for living.