Chapter 10: Forests and Trees

The conversation with my dad went pretty much the way Allison had predicted. Then I had to start researching what to get. Windows based notebooks pretty much rule the business world, but the academic community has always favored Mac. The Windows models had a ton of software pre-installed, most of which I would never even use. A basic MacBook came with everything I would need and since all the software was controlled by Apple, the system tended to be more stable. The real clincher was my dad suggesting I call Bob and ask if he could get a discount as a teacher. My only issue with that was that it would mean he would have to buy it under his name, which technically was cheating the system a little.

"Not at all, Jimmy," he assured me. "You can actually buy it in your name and still qualify. You are in fact a student. Normally you would order it online and wait a week or so to get the discount but I think it will be a lot easier if we just go over to the college bookstore and see what they have.

Turns out somebody up there likes me; what they had was several units on closeout pending the arrival of the new model for this year. The newer one would have a larger hard drive and a slightly bigger screen but I didn't really think I needed either. I especially didn't need to spend the extra $500 bucks.

One thing I'll say; compared to getting my PC up and running when Dad bought it way back when, the MacBook was a users dream. I only had to register once instead of wading through twenty-seven different user license agreements; just turn it on, plug it into the internet and off you go. I was back to the house by noon and up and running before one o'clock. The largest part of the delay was that the unit had been sitting in the box and needed to be charged up for a while, but even that wasn't a big problem since I was really only using it in my room right away. I don't run into that many things that I really need the internet for and I had managed to go this long with a wired connection, so I really couldn't see trying to talk Dad into the extra expense of a wireless router for something I didn't plan on using that much. I could use the wireless features if I had to go out someplace and needed them, but for now it was everything I needed in one convenient little package.

CSI was a real eye opener. I watched the first three episodes Bob had tagged before dinner, and the last one after. It took me a while to figure out what Bob and Lizzy had been talking about. I was about two thirds of the way through the first episode with Lady Heather when what they had been hinting at finally hit me. Still, it was obvious there had to be more to it, or they wouldn't have been so insistent that I needed to learn and understand. Heck, if this was all there was to it I could have stopped after the first episode. Let me make one thing clear, I'm not a big television watcher, never have been. I find most of the sitcoms border on the retarded and bear no resemblance to life at all. I have never really found that many characters that I felt were really, really, well done by the actors portraying them. Melinda Clarke should be immortalized. Lady Heather has to be one of the most real characters I have ever experienced. She fascinated me, mesmerized me. It was obvious to me why Grissom's character became so enamored of her. I don't know what other material Bob had in mind for me, I assumed it pertains to what they wanted me to do, or thought I should do, but the message they were sending me was pretty clear.

Amber was a submissive, also called a bottom as I learned later.

That was not a bad thing in and of itself, but she didn't know it. Worse, she had discovered it in a bad situation and didn't understand it. What had happened to Angela, the kidnap, confinement, torture, and rape, was beyond horrific. The fact that she had been rescued no more than hours before death was worse. The reality that she had enjoyed any part of it was tearing her apart. On the final night of her captivity I had seen a hint of it and never even realized it. Bound to a bench by a leather and steel collar, cut and bleeding from struggling against the handcuffs, her captor had forced her to orgasm using a vibrator to stimulate her. When it was over she collapsed against the bench, cried and finally, after almost a month of struggling, gave up. I assumed that it was the shame of being forced to experience pleasure under such circumstances. I now knew that I had been wrong. It was shame, that part was right, but it was shame on a different level. She felt ashamed that she had enjoyed it. Some part of Angela craved the domination. The bondage and feeling of helplessness only heightened the sensation for her. I don't believe she enjoyed the torture, especially considering the extent of the damage, but on some level, a part of her had not only enjoyed it, but really gotten off on it, and the guilt was slowly killing her.

Okay, so now I knew what the problem was, so what do I do now? As I said, there had to be more to it than just knowing the problem. I wasn't really that close to being ready for bed so I started making notes about things that stood out in what I had seen. I even went on-line to start looking around for information. Apparently there is a whole subculture out there that I didn't know about. Not surprising considering I'm only sixteen and just getting started. This wasn't exactly beginner's stuff.

In the show, Lady Heather had stressed empowerment. At first that confused me and it took a while for it to filter through. This dark new world that I was supposed to learn about, apparently needed to learn about, was all about trust and control. The weirdest part was that the ... victim if you will, the person being tied up and, not so much tortured, although some times that was clearly the case, but dominated, that was the person in charge! He or she wielded the ultimate control over the situation. With a single word spoken at any time, everything stopped. That was the control, and their knowledge of that power, that control, was a powerful tool, allowing them to push to their ultimate limits. But the trust! How could you trust anyone willing to do that much to another human being? To give yourself over to them and let them do whatever they wished, trusting that if you spoke the safe word, all would stop and you would be released, cared for as necessary, and from what I saw, some of the more extreme cases must have needed medical attention at some point. To trust someone capable of inflicting such pain and damage to stop at the mere exhalation of a single spoken word; that was trust on a level I simply did not comprehend. The thought that Bob and Elizabeth wanted me to somehow be involved with Amber in this way, for the more I thought of it the more it became clear that this was indeed what they were hinting at ... Could I do it? I'm a nice guy; I don't hurt people, not on purpose anyway. Could I tie her up, dominate her, possibly even cause her pain, and have sex with her at the same time?

I practically jumped off the bed as a voice somewhere in my mind seemed to say, "You would if you loved her."

It's not that the voice was loud and screaming at me, it was nothing like that which made me react the way I did, but the knowledge, even the thought that this was true startled me. I settled back down and stared at the computer screen as the screensaver forced a never-ending stream of fractal patterns across the display. How could anyone think of this as love? How could you do this to someone you loved? The answer came on the heels of the question. Isn't that what love is about? Wasn't it doing something for someone else without regard for yourself? If this was the road to bringing someone you love joy, then should you not, out of love, walk that road? If for no other reason than to keep them safe? In all my sexual relations, including the times with Angela, I strove to bring my partner as much pleasure as I could. Just because this particular playground was something I was not interested in for myself, did that give me the right to deny it to my partner even though I knew that deep down it was not only what she wanted, but what she craved?

I really needed to talk to someone. Unfortunately, my usual go-to girl for intelligent conversation and analysis I couldn't talk to. In fact, I now understood why they had said I shouldn't, couldn't, talk about it. It was part of the trust. You kept the secret. This was the kind of thing that got you shunned in polite society, excommunicated from the church, locked up in a ward somewhere and labeled as a freak if word got out. I, along with Bob and Lizzy, knew Amber's secret. I could talk to Bob and Lizzy because they also knew, but no one else unless and until Amber gave me permission to do so. I suddenly realized that somewhere along the way I had made the mental turn, or shift that Allison had been pushing me toward. When I thought of the past, it was of Angela, when thinking of the present and future, I thought of her as Amber.

Trust was everything in this world, to break trust ... if you were the tormentor and your 'victim' spoke the safe word and you did not stop, you would never, ever, be trusted again. In fact, people that trusted you in the past would do everything in their power to see you destroyed. Arrested, tried, convicted, locked up and left to rot for the rest of your life. Which probably wouldn't be long; I don't think you'd last long in most prisons if word got out that you tortured and raped people, and that's what it became if you didn't stop. As long as they had control, it was consensual. If you kept going it wasn't. In most places they didn't care if it was consensual or not, and just being involved in something like this would get you locked up and branded a deviant for life. Great, so now I had to confront Amber with this and get permission to talk to someone and try to figure out how to help her. Was this even something she really wanted? How could I be sure I was reading this correctly?

Again, the question answered itself, prom night we had done a little rough-edged role playing at one point. Angela had enjoyed it so much she passed out. I attributed it to a side effect of my gift, or maybe a part of what makes it work, I don't know for sure. It was something Allison had suggested that Bob had yet to accept but also couldn't refute. She had suggested that maybe I was subconsciously projecting my emotions onto the people I was in contact with and that this was the reason that the girls frequently passed out having sex with me, that I pushed my emotional energy, in this case pleasure, onto them until they overloaded. There were other ramifications but we hadn't come up with a safe way to test them. For now we just accepted the possibility. It was as reasonable an explanation as any other we could come up with. But what if that was not the answer, or only part of the answer? What if Angela passed out because it was just that good for her? I needed to talk to someone; this was not an area that I could afford to make a mistake in. I had to be sure, absolutely sure, that I was right. I really needed to talk to someone.

A check of the clock confirmed that it was still way too early for bed. I was starting to think in circles and every lap was getting a little worse. I needed something to distract myself, take my mind off of all this so it could settle and I could look at it rationally. I realized then just how much I had come to rely on Allison. Just talking to her always seemed to help. She would sit quietly and listen until I was out of words, then she would think for a moment and start asking questions. These always helped to clarify what I was feeling, open the doors that the pressure was holding shut, take away the confusion and pain and let me ... I stopped suddenly in mid thought. Take away?