Idolatria Ch. 20

I thought Levi would say something, anything, in response to this man addressing him as "pet", but he didn't. His face was very pale, the indigo shadows below his eyes turning black in the room's warm light. His mouth and brow flattened in irritation as he looked up at the blond man, but there was a strange, cold spike of something odd about his face... something I could only read as fear.

A light trace along my shoulder startled me, and I looked up to see the other man smiling at me rather fondly. "This is yours?" he said. "I'm surprised. Last time I saw you, you said you were still single... and that you had no intent of coming to these shindigs, for that matter. Did you pick him up on the way here, or did you lie to me?"

"I wasn't under the impression that anything I do is your business," Levi replied sharply, his voice very dry.

The man's eyes gleamed over his unwavering smile. "It was, once," he said. "Used to be you couldn't even sit down without begging my permission. And even recently, you'd tell me when you had a new partner... To prove to me that you were acting like a proper Master, or something like that."

"I'm not looking for your approval," said Levi. "And you're not threatening anyone by dropping hints that we've been together. It's not news."

"No?" the other man said, raising an eyebrow. "So you've told this one about your submission to me? All the gory details? Does he know the ways you've debased yourself for my pleasure?"

"Just cut it the fuck out already," Levi spat bitterly, rolling his eyes. "I'm not doing this stupid dick-waving shit again."

"And since when," interrupted a hard, girly voice. Leah had returned, slapping both hands on the table beside Levi and glaring at his attacker. "Since when is being a submissive some kind of humiliation, Blondy?" she demanded. "Being your sub is only humiliating because you're such a terrible top. And Levi was smart enough to see it."

"And instead he threw himself at the first leather daddy who gave him the time of day," he sighed, shoving his hands in his pockets with an exaggerated shrug. "Some old guy who gave you this delusion that you're suited to dominance instead. What a waste. Your friends here never got to see the fervor you exhibit licking my boots."

"Ugh, shut up, already," Leah groaned. She took me by the shoulders and ushered me back into my seat beside Levi, avoiding the man's eye. "Ignore him, Ash. He's seriously just trying to get a rise out of Levi. That's all he ever does."

Levi didn't seem about to introduce me, but in the whirlwind of this conversation, I'd gathered enough information to fill in who had just fondled my collar and followed me back to the meetup. Levi's ex.

"My Master. I was his slave."

Not submissive... he'd used the word slave. Something he had never called me. Was there a difference?

Leah had called him 'Blondy'. It sounded like a title, rather than an affectionate nickname. And maybe a little silly of a name, but paired with his oppressive aura, I couldn't find it funny.

And through this muddy realization, the image of Levi's horrid scar came floating up to the surface. Malicious incompetence.

He'd been warning me that this man was dangerous. If I told him that Blondy had grabbed my collar, what would he do? I decided not to start a scene. Instead, I obeyed Leah's suggestion. Flat-out ignoring Blondy, I passed Levi's drink and wallet to him and gave him a short bow of my head.

"And you ignore him, too," she added to Levi, loudly enough for Blondy to hear as she sat on my other side. "This always happens. He'll give up if you don't give him anything."

Levi turned himself to the table and opened his mouth, but Blondy interrupted, stalking over and planting himself on the edge of the table. "You don't need to give me anything," he said silkily. "You were mine for long enough. You think I can't read you already? You didn't want your toy to see you like this. You're fucking embarrassed that I'm here."

"Who wouldn't be?" Leah said pointedly.

I snorted out a laugh, then quickly tried to stifle it. Beside me, Levi was still and silent... and then, abruptly, he laughed too.

"I mean... yeah," he admitted. "I'm embarrassed that you think this is gonna scare off my boy again. Is this all you came for?"

Blondy shrugged. "It's nice to see you again," he said simply. "Do you really think I need to expend effort to 'scare off' your toys? Nah. I just miss stepping on your throat."

"Ooh, so bad," Leah huffed. "Fuck off already. We were having such a good time without you."

Blondy's spiked smile widened again, and he leaned over Levi with his hand on the table between us. "Next time, stand up to me yourself and don't wait for the little girl to rescue you," he hissed, just barely enough that I could hear. Levi said nothing. With that, our interloper shoved himself off the table and sauntered off to the opposite corner of the room, where a small group actually looked happy to see him.

Leah poked her head past me and pawed at Levi's hand urgently. "What did he just say to you?" she demanded.

"Nothing," Levi muttered. "It's not worth repeating."

"Lee... just stop letting him--"

"I know."

"You know he's just trying to--"

"I know," Levi repeated forcefully. "I know. It's stupid. I'm fine."

Leah looked about to add to this, but was quickly distracted by the re-entry of Miss Red with two girls in tow, both of who descended on Levi in the same way that Leah had. "You just missed it," said Leah.

"Missed what?" asked Red.

Leah recounted what had just happened while Levi was visited by admirer after fervent admirer, forcing the smile back to his face through the conversation. Time and again, the attention drifted to me, and I was swarmed with affection that seemed directed more at my owner than myself before their chatter returned to him. But he had been right. This really was more of a meeting than anything else. I heard small snippets of people discussing BDSM -- showing off collars, discussing past and future parties, making private plans -- but more often, I heard people talking as if among normal friends. Many times, I was tugged into the conversation that floated around Levi like a pleasant but powerful fragrance... but I found myself often too shy and overwhelmed to say much.

Overall, though, I couldn't help but notice the way everyone looked at Levi, like he was a shimmering, magnetic presence among his peers... and each time I caught one of those gazes following him, I felt my own reverence bloom until it left me feeling incredibly small beside him.

It was very late at night when we finally left. Levi slipped us both out when a majority of the group had departed, after we'd all been hugged and fawned over by Miss Red, and after Levi adamantly assured her he would give thought to going to Wulf's next play party. I couldn't even imagine it just then. The meetup had been enough as it was.

But Levi was oddly quiet after that. He said nothing as we walked back to the car, his pace just barely outstripping mine so I could only follow after him like a puppy. Halfway there, I began to feel strangely ignored.

"Did I fuck up?" I asked him timidly, jogging to even our gait.

He didn't respond.

"I mean... I'm sorry I was so quiet. There was a lot going on. Did I say something wrong back there or anything?"

"No," he said hoarsely. "I'm not upset with you. You didn't do anything wrong."

As we drew near to the car, I scurried to the drivers' side and made to open the door for him, only to realize it was locked, and I had to awkwardly shuffle out of the way so Levi could unlock it.

When I got in on my side, Levi was frantically fishing for something in the console. He made a guttural noise of disgust as he tossed aside whatever it was he wasn't looking for, before retrieving a half-crumpled box with a blue label. A cigarette box.

"You smoke?" I asked, surprised.

"Not anymore," he muttered. He poked dejectedly inside the box and, apparently finding it empty, gave up and tossed it in the backseat. "I quit forever ago. God dammit." He paused, staring at the steering wheel, then suddenly slammed his fist on it, repeating the expletive. I jumped.

"Are... are you okay...?"

Levi groaned and slumped against the wheel with his arms crossed under his forehead. "Sorry," he mumbled. "I'm sorry. I don't like what he turns me into. You just... you weren't supposed to see him. I never wanted him to see you. I'm sorry. I thought I'd been careful enough. And the first goddamn time I bring you out, he's just... like... right fucking there. Every fucking time."

I didn't have to guess who he was talking about. "Y-- I -- you mean that guy, Blondy or whatever?"

"Yeah."

"That's not, like, his real name, is it?"

"No."

"Like Cass is Miss Red." I paused, watching Levi with his head still on the wheel. "Do you have a, uh... Dom name?"

"What?" He lifted his head and stared out at the sloping road before us. "No... No, I never used anything like that. I mean, I have a username on the online group... but nobody calls me that."

"Why's that?"

"Because I don't need you to worship a persona," he said sullenly. After a moment of silence, he straightened up a bit in his seat and stretched out his hands on the steering wheel, taking a deep breath. "I let you call me 'Levi' because it's me you're serving. Collar or no. When Blondy was my master, it was Sir Blondy I belonged to. He made that persona his full-time life. I gave up the persona entirely. This is just my life now."

It went quiet again. Levi sounded like he'd just now revealed this to himself as much as to me. "It's hard to imagine you subbing to him," I said offhandedly.

"I know... I don't look like the sub type. Cass tells me..."

"Not that." I shook my head, toying with my fingers in my lap. "I don't think I have trouble imagining you as a submissive... although I can picture you... well, having that same look in your eyes regardless of whether you're... on top or whatever. I just can't imagine you under him."

Levi only breathed out slowly in response.

In the silence that followed, I tried to think of a more valid reason than the one I had. But I couldn't quite verbalize it. "He's kind of a prick."

Levi coughed out a laugh and bowed his head briefly. "Yeah," he sighed. "Yeah... he is."

After a beat, Levi turned the car on at last and threw the stick. I decided to go on. "I feel like I might need to know, like... a little more about this guy if we're gonna be together," I said tentatively. "Like, I don't think I knew he was still this present in your life."

"He's not," Levi said sullenly.

"Are you sure?" I asked. "Cuz that's not what he made it sound like." I paused, remembering something I'd heard that had started to make sense. "Did he... visit you at the Tannery some time recently?"

Levi only briefly glanced at me as he drove. "What gave you that idea?"

He hadn't said no. "My brother was fucking with me and said he'd seen some guy with you outside the store... I figured it could have been anyone, or he was just full of it, but..."

He sighed. "Yeah. Okay. He comes by from time to time. I don't let him in my apartment. Nothing happens."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing outside what you've already seen. He stands outside the store and smokes. He taunts me. He implies he wants to fuck me. I tell him to go away. Eventually he does."

"How often is 'from time to time'?" I asked reproachfully.

"I don't know. I don't keep track... every couple of weeks since he found out where I moved to, I guess?"

"Levi, that makes him sound like a stalker..."

"We've been friends since grade school. And we're..." He sighed again and twisted his mouth. "We're guys. If all he does is come to the public space around my store, I don't think there's much I can do. It's not like he's gonna assault me. I've already got half a dozen people who I know would literally kill him if he tried."

There was quiet in the car as we pulled onto the highway. The traffic was scattered and steady, a sparse stream of red taillights. "And based off what you just told me," I said carefully, "you don't think he's a big presence in your life right now?"

Levi hesitated again, then let his breath out slowly. "Okay. Point taken. What do you want to know?"

Given the free pass, I tried to figure out where to start. There was probably plenty that Levi wouldn't want to discuss, but I needed the basics, at least. "This is the guy you knew in grade school, right? Were you... together the whole time?"

"No," Levi said dismissively. "We fucked around... stupid kid shit. And that stuff, not really until we were in middle school. You don't wanna hear those details."

"I... I mean, it depends how graphic..."

"We were both in the same grade, same school, and the same Boy Scout troop. Shit happens."

"Oh." My mind doubled back as soon as I'd tried to move on. "Boy Scouts?"

"Yeah. Boy Scouts. Pretty sure that's where the rope thing comes from," he said casually. "As soon as you learn how to make knots, you start practicing on your friends. At least my friends did. So that's probably where everything started. Blondy was... really proud of his skills in that department. And he liked the humiliation aspect he got from me."

"Was that where you guys started...?"

"No. I mean, not in my mind. That's probably where he considers the whole thing starting from... For me, it was him coming up with excuses to be intimate with me. 'Hey, girls will hate it if you don't have experience kissing, so we should practice --' Shit like that."

"For real...?"

"Mm. I think he already knew he liked guys back then... Boy Scouts will do that to you, too. Well, for my part, I just realized after enough practice that I liked kissing him. And then he just... kept going. He got ideas from TV we watched together, stuff we shouldn't have been watching. Porn. Anime. Really terrible shit that gave us both the wrong idea of what we were doing... But we were teenage boys and we thought we were all that, and that knowing this stuff made us more mature. It didn't."

"You never got involved with, like, adults, though, did you?"

"No -- god, no, thank fuck. Not when we were kids," he sighed. "It was just dumb shit. Buying dog collars from the pet store, rope from the hardware store... He took shit way too far on a regular basis, but I never got seriously hurt. He made me wear that dog collar to school when we were dating. I got suspended over it once." There was a long silence again. The leather of the steering wheel creaked slightly as Levi tightened and relaxed his grip. "But there's a lot that happened that I don't wanna talk about. None of that is important. What you need to know is that Blondy thinks he's the best Master out there, and he uses his experience to prove it, claiming that he's been a Dom for fifteen years."

"That's... kinda weird, I guess?"

"It's incorrect," Levi said briskly. "We got our ideas on BDSM from anime and Wikipedia, and personal blogs on Livejournal and shit like that. We knew safe words, we knew symbols and abbreviations, we knew how to tie shibari, but that's it. I admit most of everything I knew back then was wrong. I didn't realize how wrong it was until we were both twenty-one and actually got to go to a club. That's where I met Wulf, and saw how people with real experience practiced kink. And how embarrassing it really was being with someone as stupid as Blondy, who based his practice off Ai No Kusabi."

"I... have no idea what that is."

"Don't... don't worry about it. Good anime, but not what you'd consider instructional."

Levi went quiet again, taking a deep breath as if he'd gotten an enormous load off his chest. But there were still unanswered questions for me.

"Was that when you guys broke up?" I asked. "When you met Wulf?"

"Sir Wulf," he corrected. "Basically, yeah. That night, we got in an argument, he left me with no ride at the club, and Wulf drove me back home himself. A very long way out of his way, for that matter. All the way back to my mom's place in Roxborough. And the next day, I got in touch and told him I wanted to learn how to be a real submissive. I was done being Blondy's slave."

"So why..." I chewed my lip, trying to word what I wanted correctly. "Why is he still obsessed with you being a sub, then?"

"Because it hurt his pride when I told him he wasn't good enough to own me anymore. And once I became a Dom, he named himself a Dom Breaker, just so he could still try to claim me back."

"Dom Breaker...?"

"It's not important. Nevermind that he can't legally do the shit he fantasizes about, outside of roleplay... and he's never tried with me. Believe me, that's something I wouldn't let slide. So all he does is posture and taunt me and remind everyone that I wore his collar for who knows how long."

"Why does that even bother you?" I said irritably. "I mean -- I -- sorry, it's just..."

I trailed off, sinking into the low rush of wind outside the window. That sounded like an accusation. One that I wasn't sure I had any right to make.

"No," Levi replied. "No, you're right. The thing is, I've been conditioned to see him a certain way, and so when he does something to threaten and emasculate me, it just... works. You and Wulf both have told me how stupid it is."

"I didn't say--"

"It is, though. But here's the thing..." He paused, then laughed softly. "You laughed right in his face. I don't think you even meant to."

"Oh... I'm sorry."

"No. I'm glad. That same trick, he's used it to intimidate every guy I've collared since I left him. And eventually it worked on them. But you..." Levi smirked and chuckled as if to himself. "You don't know enough about the lifestyle to take him seriously. You can't see the behavior he's trying to emulate. You just see some guy being a high school bully, and you beat him by being an innocent vanilla boy who's just happy to be in my collar." He sighed. "Thanks. I needed to see you laugh at him."

I folded my hands between my knees and stared out the window, unsure what to say to this. The lights of the city were fading away on the black pit of the Delaware River as we rode across the bridge. This interrogation had gotten me a lot of information... some I needed, and some I didn't want. But there was an unanswered question still. "Levi."

"Mm?"

"Did you at least have fun at the meetup?"

Silence again. Was he thinking it over or choosing not to answer at all? At long last, he said, "Actually, yeah. I missed that."

I smiled and released the tension in my back.

And... that's it. I never finished Chapter 20 and I likely never will.

I consider Idolatria to be abandoned at this point.

... In its current form.

The thing is, I have some wonderful beta readers and editors who have given me feedback, and I have clearer ideas of who Ash and Levi are right now. When I started this project, I wrote Chapter 1 with the idea that Levi WAS actually a demon sent to tempt Ash into sinning, with the result being that they both fell in true love. That plot changed very quickly, but unfortunately, I was never able to tie the whole thing together. All I've had was a series of events that were disconnected from each other, and I was using tape and string to pull them into a line.

Ash is not who I want him to become. He's aimless and to be honest, the tennis thing was only so I'd have a reason for him to be athletically built. Levi as well is not the man I think he can be.

I have plans, but they require me to scrap everything I've written so far and start over from scratch, keeping the themes and imagery that I badly wanted to carry. It's likely that you will see a Version 2.0 of Idolatria - or whatever Idolatria becomes - in the next year or so.

Until then, Matteo Polk's Hematoma is available elsewhere and I will be doing my best with my boys.