He is Your Master Now Pt. 15

Ambrose has some uncomfortable explaining to do to Manuel. Cassilda's influence wanes and soon appears to be non-existent; for how long, they can't know. The absence of Cassilda's presence gives them both a measure of hope, allowing them to come to an understanding as to how to proceed with their relationship. Ambrose experiences an extraordinarily powerful epiphany.

He is Your Master Now Pt. 15 The Transcendent Euphoria of Ambrose Sweet

"What yellow sign?" Manuel, unsure if this yellow sign was a good or bad thing, maintained a vague smile. His smile slowly evaporated as Pippi and Ambrose stared at him blankly and the tension in the room began to heighten.

"What's this about a yellow sign?" he asked more insistently.

Ambrose Turned to Pippi searching for clues in her eyes as to how to explain. Unfortunately, Pippi likewise appeared to be looking to him for guidance. Their mouths opened and closed several times in what appeared to be panicked confusion.

"Look," Manuel was no longer amused, "you two are acting... Something's going on... it looks like I'm not going to like it. I thought we had a special night, now I'm not so sure it was all that special, so I better start getting an explanation."

"It's complicated..." Pippi began before Manuel cut her off.

"No. I want to hear it from 'Ambrose'," he put heavy emphasis "Ambrose".

Strictly speaking, Ambrose was not trans, and "Amanda" was still a novelty he had yet to fully accept. Anyone else calling him "Ambrose" did not carry the same weight as someone deadnaming a trans person. But the icy way in which Manuel pronounced "Ambrose" made him worry. The absence of the preceding "Miss" doubled that worry.

There are many times in life when one wishes for some way, magical or otherwise, to turn the clock back and choose a different path. Sometimes, soon after the catalyzing moment, the sense of regret is so powerful that the mind, if for a moment, refuses to believe that time could not be unwound and a new path chosen.

Ambrose recalled that, in his first day in Carcosa, he was explicitly told by Governess Bishop that he could change the past by merely desiring to. Because he was being led stark naked to his fate by the four stern Governesses... while Stephen the chauffeur mocked his predicament, he had every reason to do so. If he had simply made that decision, it would be as if he had never met Cassilda and all that had occurred after that fateful meeting would have been replaced with different events.

He tried to convince himself that such a thing was impossible; that he was being set up for some cruel taunts followed by harsher treatment. But by that time, he knew that Cassilda was not just some wild, freaky, sex crazed chick. He knew changing his past was possible.

Now, being confronted by Manuel, he didn't know if he could trust his memories any more than he could trust the morphing layout of Carcosa. But he now recalled the sense that Cassilda was vaguely present in his mind; verifying that he could change his past up to that point, even as she was engaged in an orgy, fused with her maenads into a huge amorphous form of convulsing female flesh with oddly protruding bones threatening to pierce through the flesh.

Now, confronted with a whole new reality, he understood that he faced a vital inflection point similar to that when he first chose to go with Cassilda. But instead of changing the past, the next few moments would change the future. This is of course the natural consequence of all decisions and courses of action, but some decisions have a strong sense of gravitas, and some have massively greater gravitas. He was sure that the path immediately laid before him would reverberate at some point in the future.

He likened the possibility to that time, during the fateful ballet lesson, when he imagined seeing himself getting fucked by Manuel from a third person vantage point floating above and looking down on them.

He later saw the exact same image in the form of a reflection in the mirrored ceiling, when Manuel fucked him last night for real. He existed simultaneously at two different points in time as both observer and a participant; as both a reflection and as a living being.

The decision to go with Cassilda when he met her had been flighty and influenced by lust. The momentous decision that faced him now, he recognized, was a matter of the heart. He began trembling slightly as he spoke.

"No matter what," Ambrose began breathily through quivering lips, "I love you. I don't think you can understand how impossible, how miraculous it is that I got to this point. I'm telling you, a man, a man more manly that I could ever hope to be, and even kinder than I could ever be, that I love you."

His voice and bearing became more emotional. "I think I loved you the moment I met you and that's what scared me.

"You make me feel safe, warm, wanted for my body and wanted for my heart... wanted for me. I want to be protected by you..." he began to sob. "I want you to tell me that everything will be fine and that we'll always be together." It was not the sobbing of a man ashamed to find himself in this position, but rather the way one sobs when they fear losing everything.

Manuel was transfixed. Pippi just stood there uncomfortable as Ambrose began to unburden himself.

He explained that he was an angry asshole for so long because he was fighting himself; forcing himself to be something he wasn't.

He recounted the many times his father, a virulent homophobe, had expressed his disappointment in him after some heavy drinking. He would explicitly doubt his manhood and hurl epithets at him: "faggot," "sissy" "fudgepacker". He had a seemingly endless supply of such words; some that Ambrose had never heard of.

"If that was the only thing between me and my father, I probably would have found myself sooner... just as an act of angry rebellion."

But that had not been the whole of their relationship. On occasion, when he was sober, there'd be a snide remark here and there presented as edgy humor not to be taken seriously. But then there were the other times when, though he never explicitly apologized to Ambrose, he would make his regrets known with typical father and son bonding rituals. He was a great father when he wanted to be. Some of Ambrose' fondest memories where of moments shared with the man.

Ambrose, wanting to please his father, adopted an internal strategy that involved suppressing his true nature. He now understood that his own misogyny was a sham attempt to become the kind of man his father would approve of, because of course his father did not always have a high opinion of women or most things feminine really.

There was also the problem that his father was something of a bigot and, there too, Ambrose sought his approval. But since Ambrose was white, he could never be the target of his father's bigoted hate. As a result, he never fully followed his father's example. Whatever marks it left on Ambrose was due to the desire to please, or to diminish the brunt of his father's drunken insults.

All of this spilled out of Ambrose as if he was piecing it together for the first time on the spot.

With the Yellow Sign momentarily forgotten, Manuel couldn't help but soften, somewhat. But that last revelation signaled a disturbing implication that needed clarification.

"So, what am I to you then? A way to get back at daddy?" He tried to sound incensed but couldn't summon any real anger due to Ambrose' emotional state. He sounded more hurt than anything.

"No no no..." Ambrose said pleadingly. "That's not fair. I don't like that my father believes all that shit. I wish I hadn't believed it either... but I never really did... He's my father and I still love him. I wish I could change him because I don't want to hurt him. I don't want to hurt anyone, especially you."

He paused for a long moment. Neither Pippi nor Manuel wanted to intrude on his thoughts as they both sensed that Ambrose was working things out for himself. Pippi, however, noticed his nose was beginning to run. She grabbed a paper towel from nearby and was about to hand it to Ambrose but thought better of it and handed it to Manuel while gesturing to Ambrose.

Ambrose who had not noticed the silent exchange absent mindedly took the paper towel and blew his nose. The gesture had more of an effect on Manuel.

"Can't you see, I didn't just fight against my nature, I sabotaged my chance at a happy life by running as far away from it as I could. If the old me could look into the future and see me now, he would be deeply ashamed, he'd call me all the names my father called me. I would become an even worse person. But now, thinking about my old self... I'm more ashamed now that I used to be that person. For so long I could have been happier and a better person and I just... didn't have the strength..." he trailed off.

"How Cassilda treated me was wrong. It was more than wrong. I hate what she did to me. But I wouldn't do anything different knowing that I'd be with you. Cassilda broke me, but she also fixed me."

Ambrose was so close to blubbering that the last remnant of his former self, a phantom that presented itself as a massive, toxically masculine beast rippling with bulging muscles, mocked him with all the hate it could muster. He was a single leaf in the face of it, barely clinging to a nearly desiccated twig as the air forced out of the monster's mouth with the force of a gale.

The last pieces fell into place when his true, frail little feminized self, all soft and sweet smelling, weak and wanting to be held and protected, summoned up all the girl power he could muster, shoved the beast into the same closet from which he emerged and barred the door with all manner of chains and locks. Let that part of him to be the one to hide and hopefully die.

A sudden calm appeared to overtake Ambrose with all the subtlety of a first-year theater major lacking any sense of nuance. Manuel was taken aback and even a little frightened of what struck him as psychotic girlfriend behavior.

"None of us are in control here," Ambrose said angrily; his voice raised. "I know it, Pippi knows it and you can't possibly not know it yourself. All you need to know from me right now is that you took my virginity. My second virgi... you know what I mean." The words hung heavy in the air.

"You took my virginity, you popped my cherry, you deflowered me" Ambrose said dramatically. "It was my choice and my choice alone, and it was very important to me that you be the one to... make a woman out of me." said Ambrose with deliberate conviction.

"Let me be clear, I deliberately chose you to be the one to take me the rest of the way; to change me in the most important way that matters, and I chose you because I fell in love with you. Nothing else matters.

"You want to know what the Yellow Sign is?" he asked defiantly, "fine. You're going to hear it from Pippi."

He walked over to the sofa and sat angrily as Manuel and Pippi watched him with surprise.

Manuel's concern regarding Yellow Sign diminished slightly. He had no doubt that Ambrose loved him. In a strange sense, he felt honored to be Ambrose' first man. He too loved Ambrose, but until his little Miss Amanda declared their love for him, Manuel suspected that what he felt was mostly the novelty of taking a new lover. Ambrose had just obliterated any doubts he may have had about the nature of his own love for little Miss Amanda.

"Well," Pippi said flabbergasted, intruding on Manuel's own self-discovery, "the uh... Yellow Sign." She took a sharp intake of breath. "The Yellow Sign... um... that's going to take a little explaining so please hang in there. We don't know yet if the Yellow Sign will be good news or bad news for Ambrose."

Pippi went through an exhaustive explanation of the Yellow Sign; including speculations based on what she had been able to concoct over time.

From the moment he asked about the Yellow Sign until Pippi launched into an explanation, Manuel had forgotten he was completely nude. When Pippi was done explaining, he gawked at her for a few moments and promptly headed to the bedroom.

Pippi and Ambrose looked at each other; Ambrose was crest fallen when he heard what sounded like Manuel gathering up his clothes. When he emerged, Ambrose was relieved to see that he wore only a pair of pants. For the moment, the big man was not going anywhere.

Manuel took his previous position in relation to Pippi and resumed talking to her as if he hadn't just gone anywhere.

"You know? considering all the crazy shit I've already seen. I believe it." He turned to Ambrose. "So, if you see this sign when someone is fucking you, they become your master? Did I get that right?"

Ambrose said nothing. He merely turned to Pippi; his eyes imploring her to explain.

"Yeah, I said as much. I also said that the control wasn't all that complete."

"No, what you actually said was that there's some kind of give and take between the two. What if he sees it when he gets fucked by an egotistical narcissist... a... a... psychotic, abusive, narcissist creep who won't let him go?"

"I wouldn't be with someone like that," Ambrose rose and walked up to them.

"But you might not have a choice, right?"

Ambrose said nothing.

"And you want me to be your master?"

Ambrose stared at the floor. He was frightened, but not so much that he couldn't respond.

"I already made it clear that I want to be with you always. I don't want to be with anyone else. I want to see the Yellow Sign with you. I know you'll be sweet and gentle. If you can love me, the Yellow Sign won't matter."

"None of us knows what's going to happen Manuel," Pippi offered as if testing a point, "but there is a way to increase the odds that Ambrose sees the Yellow Sign when he's with you."

"And what's that?" he asked, his anger diffused by confusion and uncertainty.

"You fuck each other's brains out every chance you get," said Pippi with a testing smile.

A chuckle was forced out of Manuel, but it was more derision than an expression of humor as he recognized the comment as an attempt by Pippi to diffuse the tension.

Pippi's expression turned darkly sober. "It's really the only chance you have right now. I mean, do you really care about 'Miss Amanda' or are you just getting off on just the idea of caring for her.

"That doesn't even make any fucking sense!"

"It makes a lot of sense. I have no doubt that you have strong feelings for Ambrose. But you two really don't know each other. Sometimes people think they're really in love with someone, when they're, I don't know, enjoying the idea of being in love, like they're getting some kind of dopamine rush."

Manuel, taken aback that Pippi could doubt his feelings, paused before answering.

"Of course I care about her. How can you even ask me that," he said belaboring the point.

"OK, I believe you. But you're in a fucked up situation with only once chance. I wish I could tell you that constantly fucking Miss Amanda is a solid thing but it's a lottery, a roll of the dice, a flip of the coin... the capriciousness of fate. All it does is increase the odds that you'll be the one. So get over yourself. How do you think Miss Amanda feels? I've never seen anyone pour their heart out like that. Do you have any idea how frightening it was to do that?

"This Yellow Sign thing probably has her terrified. She doesn't know who's going to be the one. But what she does know is that she wants it to be you."

Ambrose nervously sidled up to Manuel and grabbed his hand. The big man easily deflated, lowered his forehead to Ambrose' and closed his eyes. Ambrose did likewise in a symbolic mingling of their spirits.

At the end, the big man cupped the smaller man's face in his hands. They stared into each other's eyes finding a safe port in their mutual gazing before Manuel lifted Ambrose off his feet to plant a long kiss.

*******

The next four months were heady for Ambrose and Manuel. At first, they prodded at the possibility of cohabitation with Manuel visiting Carcosa often and spending the night. During the day they'd go out often enjoying all sorts of activities. Before long, Manuel was spending nights at a time at the manor.

Despite the fact that it had been some time since Ambrose had last seen Cassilda, he was too often aware of her existence. That awareness may have been attributable to the often-present awareness of the Yellow Sign and its inevitable manifestation. Ambrose couldn't be sure one way or the other. It was even possible that he didn't feel her at all and that she just loomed large in the center of his life. Maybe it was a matter of time before he stopped feeling her in the way that the pain of an injury fades.

Whatever the case, the lovers weighed the benefits of living at Manuel's apartment against the possible consequences. Fear of how Cassilda might react made it nearly impossible to decider; this despite the fact that they discussed the matter at length while they were away from the manor on their outings.

Within a month, Ambrose had moved in with Manuel.

He went on shopping sprees, amassing a respectable and varied feminine wardrobe and he no longer wore men's clothing of any kind. He even avoided clothing that was remotely unisex or androgynous in style. Such was his dedication to his feminine journey that he developed a nuanced sense of style and weaned himself away from slut-wear, though not completely.

He found it fascinating how various forms of apparel affirmed his femininity in qualitatively different ways. He further explored this facet of feminization by dressing in a multitude of different fashions such as a girl at the gym, trad wife shopping for groceries, a femme fatal wearing tasteful gowns on special occasions or to classy restaurants. He even bought himself professional attire of the type that gave off powerful business woman vibes.

He began to see himself less as a sissy and more as a woman. There was one simple outfit, if it could be called so, that made him feel especially girlish; wearing nothing but panties and one of Manuel's dress shirts, especially after Manuel wore it, and before it was laundered.

He would crumple it up to his face, breathe deeply through his nose, take in Manuel's scent and put it on. Wearing it made him feel safe and protected but best of all, it made him feel like a possession. He imagined that any scent of Manuel's that lingered on him because of the shirt was akin to a territorial marking.

He didn't always wear it before or during sex, but when he did, he'd button it beforehand. He enjoyed when Manuel unbuttoned it. It reinforced the feeling of being Manuel's possession. Manuel would then caress the soft feminine body underneath, letting his hand rove intimately over Ambrose tiny breasts.

Wearing Manuel's shirt was the reason he couldn't completely abandon thinking of himself as a sissy. It was a man's shirt; wearing it symbolized to Ambrose that he had been a sham as a man. The act of Manuel unbuttoning before sex was an oft repeated metaphor symbolizing Ambrose discovery/acceptance of his true self with Manuel as the catalyst. Occasionally, he became so heady he fancied himself as Manuel's creation; a sort of Galatea to Manuel's Pygmalion.

There was lots of sex of course and Ambrose initiated most of it as if he was making up for lost time, trying to catch up and surpass in number the sexcapades he should have experienced by then. Sometimes it proved too much for Manuel, but that was fine with Ambrose as long as they cuddled.

They loved going out in public together though some concerns were ever present, even if somewhat faint. A large, muscular black man holding a sexy white woman's hand in public would have been far more problematic in past eras, but there were still the occasional looks of displeasure.