The Middle Ages

"I'd know that ass anywhere," a smiling man said from behind me. I stopped, turned. He was naked as well. A tongue of foam washed over my feet, before drawing back. The tide was coming in.

"I'm sorry," I replied. "Me?" There were other men on the beach, naked or in faded Speedos, but none was close by.

"Yeah, remember me?"

He had a dark beard and dark hair flecked grey. He was shorter than me, and bulkier, and well hung. "No, sorry, I don't."

Was he an ex-lover? A sex-partner? A casual encounter from the gay sex personals? Someone I'd blown? Or been fucked by?

He came closer. I still had no clue. "You came over a couple of times. I spanked you, paddled you. You loved it. But then... you up and disappeared."

I had a habit of doing that.

"Where do you live?" I wondered.

He told me. A city within the same county that bordered the Gulf. I lived the next county over, to the east. "And I came to your place?"

"My apartment, yeah. You were kinda noisy," he smiled, "so I had gag you."

"You're a Dom?"

"Sometimes," he grinned. "For you I was."

"I frankly don't remember that," I told him. "How long ago was it?"

"Not long. Couple of years. You find a new Dom or somethin'?"

No, I thought. Yes. No.

I'd had a couple of Doms before, but not one lately. Did I want one? Yes. Did I want to be punished? Definitely. I was getting an erection. I was embarrassed.

"I don't ever remember having a regular Dom over in this, um, county."

"I wouldn't call it regular. You came over twice. That was it." He came forward and extended a hand behind me and ran it over my ass. My left cheek. "It was definitely this ass," he more-or-less concluded. "I never forget an ass I whipped."

Spanked, paddled. And now whipped?

His hand now in front of me, he gave my erection a stroke. A single one.

"We better go out in the water before you turn around and embarrass yourself."

I swallowed. This self-certain guy intimidated me. I liked to be intimidated. "OK," I agreed. And we waded out, side by side, to sea. When the water was nearly at chest level we stopped, turned. Other men on the beach were watching us. Jealous probably.

"Tell me you know me," he said, "and I'll give you a hand job."

He was already giving me a hand job.

"I'm sorry, but..."

His hand pulled away. "If we were at my place I'd beat it with a ruler till it went down."

Now a ruler was added to the mix. It sounded like he had quite a repertory of torture instruments. "That could be fun," I heard myself say.

"You like to be hit in the cock?"

"Yes. Well no... I never have been before."

"There's always a first time," he again grinned. "I remember whipping the crap out of you. Or paddling you, one. I forget."

I remember. I forget. Is this guy mentally stable? I began to wonder. Some kind of whack job?

He resumed stroking me. I guess, in his mind, I'd as good as confessed to having once been his sub.

"You like to be kicked in the balls?" he now asked. "I've recently added this to my torture routine. Saw it on a porn site."

"You have other subs?"

"Let me worry about them," he said. "Right now you're my sub.

"You like to be kicked in the balls or not?" he persisted.

"I... I never have been."

"Hit with a ruler? Or a spoon?"

"A spoon?"

"A bamboo one. Convex side. The pain's... delicious." He made it sound like a gourmet meal.

"None of those things," I admitted, as I tried to still his hand. "I'm a quick cummer."

"Is that why your wife left you?"

Now he was delving into my marital history? Pretending to know it? "My first one did," I confessed. "Not my second..."

"Did your second know you were gay?"

"I wasn't gay then. Yet."

"Of course you were. You were just hiding it. You've always been gay. A latent one. Like a spy, or a mole, who's hidden in plain sight for decades, before being activated by his controller."

Now he was a regular John le Carre.

"Women always know," he went on to say.

Despite being up to my chest in water, with waves breaking gently against my back, buffeting it, my mouth was dry. If it had not been salt water I would have dipped my head beneath the waves and swallowed some. Washed my mouth out at least.

I nearly drowned once and remembered looking up through the lake water at the blue sky above. It was a beautiful, cloudless day and I was going to die beneath it, as I struggled to free my legs and feet from the rubber wading boots I wore.

Eventually I did, and I surfaced.

"Why am I pleasuring you," the guy said, as his hand resumed its motion, "when I should be punishing you."

My head turned, evasively. "Well..." There were a dozen or more men on the beach, some of them watching us. He seemed to read my mind.

"They wouldn't care," he said. "They'd all gather around and watch. Like in the Middle Ages or something."

He added, "I knew I should've brought my paddle. Just in case you showed up again."

Again? I'd been to this gay beach before but it had been years. Just as it had been years since I was last tortured by a Dom.

"Your ass is flat, you know," the guy remarked. "Flat and pale. I'd know it anywhere."

"It's flat, yes," I agreed. "Sorry."

"But once I get through with it it'll be flat and red." Emphasis on red.

Is this an offer? I wondered.

"We could go to your place. Afterward," I ventured.

"But I know you. You'll cum, now, and lose interest and swim away. And that'll be that."

I was on the verge. I again stilled his hand. "So don't make me cum."

"Some of these other guys know me. I have a certain... reputation around here. One or two of 'em will go home with me and I'll take turns with 'em, paddling or whipping them and making 'em--"

I let out a cry. Then a second, lesser one. It could've passed for pain but instead announced unwanted pleasure.

I was now alone in the water, having swum yards away. Toward the shore. I'm already exhausted. An effect of nearly drowning, dying, and an after-effect of my struggle to free myself from rubber boots that had filled with lake water. From the air the lakes look black.

A man, a complete stranger, a fisherman I'd noticed, on a dock in the direction of my house, is rowing furiously toward me. Or toward the overturned canoe my errant dog now clings to, or scratches against. "I'm comin'!" he again shouts, having heard my cries. Responded to them.

The rowboat belongs to a neighbor. It isn't even his. His "oar" a sawed-off piece of timber. His rowing motion nevertheless relentless, furious. He's a big man. Black.

He'll pick up my terrier, at my urging, and then paddle ashore and rescue me. He's a true hero. Other neighbors have come out on their sloping green lawn, freshly mowed, to the south, to watch. A cop has joined them. He appears to be smiling, enjoying the show. We will row there. I feel like I'm about to have a heart attack. Or a stroke.

My wife, furious at me, full of disdain, is by now marching down our block to the house in question. She'll look at me lying helpless, and breathing heavily, exhausted, on the ground, cast a final glance of disdain and collect our wet terrier under her arm and march back home. Perhaps EMS should have been called. The cop stands over me, still smiling. Contemptuous.

Unlike my first wife we never had S&M sessions. She never tied me up and whipped me. Or peed on me in our bath tub.

I stumble ashore, still breathing heavily. Not as young as I used to be. Spent.

Meanwhile my ersatz friend, or sex partner, or presumptive past torturer, stands on the shore to my left, west, talking to a couple of other middle-aged naked guys. Perhaps lining them up for a session later in the day.

I'm too tired, and full of self-disgust, and guilt, to feel jealous. I dry off, and dress, and collect my things, and head out through the barrier of mangroves to my car.

I didn't know what to do, or how much was appropriate, but I ended up buying my--our--rescuer a hundred dollar gift certificate at a sporting goods store. He could buy new fishing equipment with it if he wanted.

A hundred dollars for saving a life? Two lives?

I wave goodbye. His back is to me down the shore.

I never learned his name.