Martinsville Mask

Maybe there would be more to life in Martinsville than just an embarrassed retreat from my more sophisticated world in Richmond--and from the exposing press which, I feared, would put the end to my cushy and comfortable marriage.

* * * *

I had grown tired of unpacking that evening and, just in athletic shorts and sandals, had spread out my work on the desk of the combined Living and dining rooms of the log cabin. This room was in a section protruding out into the garden. There were glassed French doors on the two long sides of the room and two smaller ones on either side of the rock fireplace in the end wall. The garden had been planted with a profusion of flowers, giving the room an airy, outdoor vibe. The room gave the feeling that it could be made part of the outdoors just by opening the French doors. The two bedrooms, with a kitchen and a bathroom/laundry room combination spanned one side of the living-dining room, giving the cottage a T shape from above. All of the rooms were small. That was OK with me. I had always felt I was in a hotel resort in the Richmond house. That was Vivian's house. It was part of her Vivian Royal mask. I preferred it when she was Maggie Pearson.

The entry door was in the crook of the T of this cottage and one entered from a deep porch in the angle of the living-dining room and bedroom arms. A patio table with two café chairs abutted the bedroom wall of the T and two Adirondack chairs sat on the edge of the porch looking out at the side garden. The city lot was large for a central-town location on Church Street and was enclosed by a basketweave fence that made my new world private. I had no idea yet whether the mosquitoes would let me use the covered stone entryway porch. I made a note to pick up smudge pots at the local hardware store because I had every intention of including the garden in my living space here.

I had two books running and the materials for both on the desk, including the Miles Martin In the Silence adventure thriller that came before the one I was now researching--no working title yet--with In the Silence. I had notes the gay male erotica one I was researching, The Glass House, on the desktop as well. My erotica line came out under the authorship of Mike Miles and was kept completely separate from my mainstream writing. It was The Glass House that I had been researching when I was caught up in the Gabe's Roadhouse raid. This BDSM sex book, one of my few "on the edge" GM works, revolved around a totally glass, ergo open and transparent, house on Italy's Lake Como, which, conversely, hid a sexual torture chamber in its rock-foundation base. My trip to the leather roadhouse in A. P. Hill had been to steep myself in sexual sadism to be able to write The Glass House with conviction.

I couldn't honestly say that my mainstream novels sold as well as my gay male erotica works did.

An after-dark knock on the door revealed the Realtor hunk, blond and tanned and built Ted Compton, bearing a bottle of scotch, two glasses, and a duffel bag.

"We didn't take time to celebrate your purchase this afternoon," he said. "Everyone should celebrate a change in lifestyle. I didn't know if you would have unpacked glasses yet, so I brought two. Are you going to invite me in, or do I stand out here until the neighbors see a man at your door after dark?"

The innuendo, and how did he know I was changing lifestyles in buying a small log-walled cottage in a hick town?

"Yes, of course, come in. I have glasses, though. I'll get them. Yours are shot glasses and it's been a bigger glass for scotch than that kind of day."

We both laughed. He looked good. Very good. I hadn't had it since the night of the A. P. Hill base roadhouse raid, and Ted had been signaling since earlier in the morning when we'd first met at the lawyer's office.

When I returned from the kitchen with the glasses, he was standing by the desk, looking at book material I'd spread out there. He wasn't dumb.

"So, it's true," he said. "We now have the novelist, Miles Martin, in our midst. We've become a literary town."

"I suppose," I said, holding the glasses out for him to fill, "although I didn't come to slap my name on the town."

"With a name like Martin in Martinsville, that could be what's understood," he said, and we both gave a little laugh at that. I hadn't thought about that connection. I wondered if the name of the town had been any part in my picking this isolated burg for a retreat. I didn't think so. I'd seen the house on the Internet first, I think. I don't think I was thinking about location at that point. But one never knows with a writer and the way a writer's mind works.

"And you're Mike Miles, as well," Compton said, "picking up my written notes on the gay male erotica book. I must admit I did wonder and speculate."

"You know Mile Miles and what he writes? You read those books?"

"Of course I do. I'm sure you know I would." He gave me a smile. There wasn't any more question that he was gay and was interested in me.

"So, you knew. And I suppose you know about the roadhouse raid up at the military base north of Richmond too."

"Yes, but that came later. I do financial research on prospective clients. Your name--and photo--came up with a connection to the actress, Vivian Royal, under the Marty Miller name. That led to your books under Miles Martins. It led to photos and some other scuttlebutt, and I formed hopes."

He paused there, giving me a pointed look to see if I got what he was signaling. I did.

"Some deeper research came up with your other line of writing--the Mike Miles books. And, yes, I already was a reader of your gay erotica. And then I saw the press stories on the raid up at the base by Bowling Green. And I wasn't surprised then that you would be interested in buying something private and isolated in a place like this. I wonder. Who are you hoping to be here? Marty Miller? Or can I hope there will be some Mike Miles in your life in Martinsville--and some of what got you in hot water up near Bowling Green?"

"I'm hoping I can wear the Marty Miller mask here in Martinsville," I said. "I would like to be just that here. I hope I will be permitted to be that."

"Oh, I won't tell. And there's a lot going on below the surface in this supposed sleepy little town. I'm sure you can be Marty Miller here. It would be lovely if some of us could have a taste of Mike Miles and books like this one you're working on. There are a group of us managing our lifestyle very nicely here. You'll fit in if you want to."

The paper he was holding had some very steamy BDSM passages from The Glass House manuscript.

As I moved to get in the tub of water, he pushed me down at the tub's side, on my knees and forced my head into the water. He grabbed my blond hair with his fist, pressing my chest into the side of the tub with his other hand on my back, and dunked my head once, twice, six times, seven, in the water. I sputtered for air, gasping as Hoffman pulled my head out of the water each time. He continued dunking me until he felt me completely collapse, no fight or independent movement left in me at all. Then he dragged me away from the tub, put me on my back on the bathroom floor, and put my ankles on his shoulders as he knelt between my open, spread, vulnerable thighs.

Was there a hint of blackmail here, I wondered, or was he just trying to establish his interest and sounding me out on whether I could help him with that? It was clear that he was actively gay and searching for a hookup. There was nothing in the way he looked that made him undesirable.

"If you're interested in having Mike Miles moments here, I can help you with that," he continued. "The best club to go to--a roadhouse like the one up in Bowling Green, but not as leather every night--is down on the state line in Price, off Route 220." He laughed. "The building itself straddles the state line, so that guys move out of one state to the other if they have to without spilling their drinks. Guys go down from here and up from Greensboro and Winston-Salem, North Carolina."

"Uh, thanks for the tip," I said. He had equated it with Gabe's Roadhouse--with leathermen bars. I wondered if his interest was... and then I saw that it was. He was opening his duffel bag and taking out restraints and a hand whip. "Listen, Ted, I don't think--"

"Yes, indeedy, depending on your interests I can keep real quiet on who you really are and what you really like," he said.

So, the question on whether he would be willing to blackmail me to get what he was interested in was being answered.

"Listen, the A. P. Hill roadhouse was research. I don't submit to--"

"I want you to dominate. I want to submit."

Ted Compton made clear that wanted to be abused and then used. He had some sort of network of like-minded men in the state that had conveyed more about how I had been dressed and what I had engaged in at Gabe's Roadhouse when it was raided. He got the impression that those were the services I liked to provide, not that I had been researching for the book, draft pages of which he held in his hands. I decided to give him what he wanted to the extent I could.

"I'm not sure I know what to do."

"I know what I want. Just give me what I beg for."

Among the toys he'd brought in his duffel bag was a contraption of leather leads that fit under the mattress of a double or bigger bed, with the leads, with restraints on them, coming out from the four corners of the mattress. He had me bind him at the four wrist and ankle points with this, naked and face down on my bed, a bolster under his belly to lift his pelvis. He had a great body. I had no trouble getting up for him. He had a ball gag in his mouth and I had the hand whip he provided in my hand.

At his insistence and direction, I whipped him on the back, buttocks, and thighs and then mounted him from on top, penetrated, and fucked him. We both got hard; we both got off; I enjoyed it much more than I thought I could or, certainly than I thought I should. I vowed that after I finished writing The Glass House, I would go a lot tamer with my work. I didn't want to enjoy this; I didn't want to get involved in this to the point that I needed it to get off, as Ted Compton seemed too. We both did get off.

As I worked him, wording for scenes for The Glass House reverberated through my brain.

When Derek had come, the satyr pulled his fist out of the young man's ass, exchanged it for his monster cock, and fucked the stuffing out of the German. Derek loved this too. Derek even loved it when the man released him from the restraints on the bed but only to carry him across the foyer and back into the sexual torture dungeon, where he hung Derek on a St. Andrew's cross, facing the brick wall; whipped him on the back, buttocks, and thighs, and then saddled up behind him, palmed the young man's belly, pulled his pelvis back, mounted him, and fucked him again. Derek was puddled at the base of the X-frame, on the stone floor, panting and purring for twenty minutes before finding out that he was all alone. All three men who had manhandled and sexually tortured him from the morning into the afternoon of his twenty-third birthday were gone.

Afterward, we floated back into a sense of reality. "You've got a great body and a huge cock," Compton said. "And you did me well--for what's available here in Martinsville. I admit I have to go to other places--even beyond Jack's, the place on the state border I told you about, to get it like I wanted it. It sounds like I would have liked Gabe's Roadhouse. But I don't think your heart was really in it."

"No, sorry," I admitted. "It wasn't. I was researching this new book when I got caught in that raid. I'm not really into that. Sorry." I hoped I could convince myself of that. Both at Gabe's and here, with Ted, I got more into it than I told myself I wanted to. Whipping Roy had made me hard; whipping Ted had made me hard... no, I didn't want to think about that too much.

"Oh, well," Compton said at the door. "I think you'll find what you like at Jack's in Price, on the state border. We'll keep in touch. Who knows, maybe someday you'll want... you've got a great body and you're a very interesting man. Here in Martinsville--"

"Yes, we'll need to keep in touch," I said, moving the door shut enough to give him the hint.

"Don't worry. Here you can be just Marty Miller, if you like, here for whatever reason you have. I'll tell people you're just dull."

"Thanks," I said, before shutting the door on him. "That's the Martinsville mask I'd like to live here."

"But you'll keep seeing me, won't you?"

"If you wish."

And it was. It really was. With these two experiences, I could put life into my sex scenes in The Glass House. I wouldn't write such scenes in the next Mike Miles book, though. Maybe I'd want to write another one of those... someday. The experiences certainly got me hard and bothered.

But I hadn't shut the door on continuing it with Compton.

* * * *

After two weeks alone in the Martinsville house with no communications from anyone in Richmond, because they didn't know where I was, or from my wife, since she was in a tent somewhere in Egypt, I had been left in peace. I had made great progress on both the mainstream and erotica works I was researching and beginning to write, and I was going catatonic over the lack of sex.

Vivian and I moved with quite a fast crowd in Richmond. I was used to getting casual sex at least weekly--most often from Charles Vine, a too-rich-to-work piano player who anchored all of our impromptu parties. I think Viv liked Charlie better than she did me--she certainly had known him longer and he amused her--so the arrangement was fine with her and she was accustomed to finding him in my bed the morning after we'd caroused all night.

But I wasn't in Richmond. I was here in Martinsville, and I needed to lay someone. I couldn't call Ted Compton, because he wanted something different from a man than I wanted to learn to need. But thinking of Compton reminded me that he'd mentioned a place south of here, down on the border with North Carolina, in a place called Price.

I drove down.

Jack's bar straddling the Virginia-North Carolina line was similar to Gabe's Roadhouse in most respects. It was located in what once had been a farmhouse off a rural state route with nothing much else around. The parking area was behind the house and was set off with an eight-foot wooden fence to hide the cars from view from the road. The first floor was a bar. I never saw what, if anything, was downstairs or upstairs, however, because the major difference between the two gay clubs was that this wasn't a leather bar--at least not on this evening.

There was a platform for a band, but no live band was playing this night, and a dancefloor and a few tables. Jack's had more space devoted to pool tables than Gabe's had had and that's where most of the guys were gathered on this night. Jack's was just as smokey as Gabe's had been. Instead of a band that night there was a jukebox, and a few of the guys were slow dancing on a small dancefloor. There was a whole range of ages and body types. The uniform of the evening was low-rise worn jeans and white T's. Some, like me, had tank tops on--those who had a musculature they could be proud of. Not a lot of the guys had sculpted bodies, though. Mine was good enough to where I got a lot of attention when I entered and bellied up to the bar.

I ordered a beer and turned with my back to the bar, casing out the patrons. It wasn't a real busy night. The best of what was on offer were at the pool tables. I zeroed quickly on one young ginger top in his early twenties, slender and with a good face. He was playing pool with grace, moving like a dancer, doing well with the stick. He looked vaguely familiar, and from the time I entered the bar, he frequently looked over at me. Backed up to the bar, I looked back.

When he finished his game, he turned his stick over to another guy and sauntered over to the bar.

"Surprised to see you in here," he said, as he reached me. "Playing pool builds up a thirst. Buy a guy a drink?"

He was telling me he was available to me and that he was a sub, and he wasn't wasting any time. He also acted like he knew me. He gave me a smile and I realized that there was a reason for that. He had been the electrician working in my house the day I took possession--the guy with the inviting butt cleavage.

"My name's Cory. Cory Jenkins," he said. "I've seen you. You were--"

"Taking possession of the log house in Martinsville the day you were checking the wiring," I completed his sentence. He clearly was pleased that I remembered him. "I'm Marty Miller," I said.

"Yes, sir, you are. You sure you know what kind of bar this is, Mr. Miller?"

"Yes, I do."

"You pitching or receiving."

"I like to give a good sub a spin."

At that moment, the bartender, who had been on the phone, hung up and clanged a captain's bell behind the bar. I was startled. The others in the bar started on the move.

"Call from the Ridgeway firehouse, guys," the bartender called out. "Sheriff's cars coming through. You have about six minutes."

"Guess I don't need that drink," Cory said.

"You remember where I live? Church Street." I asked. "I'll stand you a drink at my house."

"Great," he said. "Yeah, I remember your place. Cops are coming from the Virginia side. Drive into North Carolina, down to Madison, turn east over to Wentworth, and back up into Virginia through Eden."

"Thanks for the tip," I said to Cory's back. He was already on his way out the door to the parking lot.

I fucked him on the sofa in the small living room of the log cottage, our beers untouched and going warm on the coffee table before us. He was yielding and I was a lover with him, covering him in kisses, my hands exploring everywhere, as I undressed him, lay him out under me along the sofa cushions, and, as he gasped and moaned but didn't resist, slowly worked my way inside him. I was thick enough to stretch him to the limit, stopping to feel him opening more and then giving him more. Arching his back and moaning, he embraced me with his arms, hugged my hips with his knees, and rocked with me in a deep fuck.

Then I fucked him on my bed, Cory on his belly, grasping the brass rails of the headboard, slightly raised on his knees as I mounted him from above and behind and rode him and rode him. Later I lay on my back and he straddled my pelvis and rode me.

We fit and moved like long-time lovers, giving and taking, demanding and yielding, coming together--again and again through the night.

He never asked me who I was beyond Marty Miller, who lived in a neat little log cabin in the center of Martinsville and wrote some sort of books. I wore my Martinsville mask for several more weeks. Cory came whenever I called for him, and he lay under me whenever I asked for it.

He made no demands. It was whatever I wanted. He was just what I needed in that time and place.

My writing flourished. My world was content.

* * * *

I had been in Martinsville for four weeks when my cellphone buzzed. My wife, Vivian Royal to her fans, Maggie Pearson to me, was calling me.

"I'm back in Richmond. You aren't here."

"I meant to tell you before you left for Egypt. I bought a little cottage down in south-central Virginia, in Martinsville."

"I never heard of Martinsville."

"Few have," I said. "That was rather the point." We both laughed. "I want someplace to go when the writing gets tough."

"Charlie misses you, and he asked to tell me that it's a vital part of you he misses. I won't pretend to I don't know what part that is. You've been gone from Richmond so long, though, that I guess you found someone else to fuck."