Indiscreet Box Set

Chapter 1-1

Chapter 1Donald K. Drummond, founder and CEO of Drummond Real Estate, strode into his Trenton office shouting, “No calls” to Sally Tierney, his long-time administrative assistant. Sally had been with Donald since he opened his own firm fifteen years before. When he decided to leave his old firm to open his own office, she packed her desk with composure and told Donald he would need her in the coming weeks while he prepared to open.

Donald told her he could not afford to pay her right away, Sally Tierney cast him one of her looks and said, “You’ll be able to pay me soon enough, Mr. Drummond, and then you’ll pay me more than I could ever get anywhere else.” With that, she handed her resignation to the receptionist on their way out the door.

Donald laughed at her. Moved by her loyalty, he repaid it many times in the intervening years. He tried to promote her, but his attempts failed and Sally’s rear remained firmly planted on the seat just outside his office. Sally proved right, as always.

She earned one of the highest salaries in the firm, and he listened to her scolding and advice when no one else dared to challenge him in his den.

Confident he would remain undisturbed; he set down his briefcase on the king-sized executive chair and walked the few steps from behind the desk to the floor-to-ceiling double hung windows, covered in cherry wood plantation shutters. His large strong hands, with their blunt manicured fingers, absently stroked the burgundy watered silk papering the upper non-brick, portion of the wall. The brick wall bisected from the rich paneling at the bottom by a highly polished, chair rail, carved from the same wood.

Donald caressed the smooth texture of the silk as it slid beneath the pads of his fingers. He loved the look, feel, and texture. It reminded him of watching silk as it glided over the hard planes of a lean torso and the bubbled cheeks of his former sub, Antonio’s, perfect ass while its owner un-wrapped his package for Donald’s exclusive attention. The unwrapping was a form of dance enticed with its undeniable decadence. The thought of silken shirts and satin sheets abruptly ended his reverie. He refused to think of that bastard, Antonio, now.

Donald took several calming breaths and put the morning into perspective. He peered out the shutter slats to a busy street below. Trenton was becoming fashionable again and Donald Drummond and Drummond Realty played a huge role in helping to make it happen. He drew some satisfaction from that. What he failed to comprehend was how a man so successful in his business endeavors remained so inept on choosing a life companion.

Another unsatisfactory interview, I should be used to the disappointment by now. More than a dozen interviews and not one produced a candidate who could even aspire to become my boy. I know Reed believes that I am too picky, but in this, I will not settle, ever again.

To Donald, his boy was real. He lived in Donald’s head and starred in his most private and flagrant fantasies. Donald Drummond belonged to Indiscreet, a private gay b**m club converted from a 200-year-old farmhouse in a rural corner of Monmouth County, New Jersey. Until the nasty business with Antonio, which made him both the ultimate fool and cynic, Donald “The Bear” Drummond, was the Master Dominant at Indiscreet. Bear was Reed’s silent partner at Indiscreet, and the only aspect of the business Bear insisted he handle was the position of Dungeon Master/Master Dominant-Trainer for every Dom who aspired to membership at the exclusive club.

After Antonio, he had no patience for training cocky tops that, in their abject ignorance, would irreparably harm a submissive with real potential by making the boy into either a pain slut or a brat.

Following that, the top would ask him to retrain the recalcitrant submissive, when in truth it was the god-awful Dom who needed some sense beat into him.

Donald remembered Antonio as a perfect example of the problem. He took the ebony-haired Latino with his fine bones, smooth olive skin, and fiery dark eyes as a live-in submissive. His goal was to retrain the boy his master claimed to be incorrigible, and prove a point. Even if Antonio was not that Sir’s boy, it was possible to train him to become someone else’s boy. He kicked his Lobb Oxford shoe on the molding, despising his own pride, weakness, and stupidity.

I thought I could make him into the perfect submissive. I thought that with my training, any boy could be “my” boy. Antonio made all the right moves, he acquired the look, stance, and mannerisms of an extremely well-trained boy and was adept at the subtlety it took to hint at the fires that raged within him.

Even so, Bear was experienced enough to know that Antonio was all show and no go, and Bear was about to pull the plug and find the boy a more suitable placement.

It was ego, as well as sheer laziness and a lack of self-discipline on my part, which kept Antonio longer than the six weeks it took to make an assessment. Antonio was smart enough to read the prevailing winds and took off with an older and much wealthier rival. Cutting him loose without a settled position and contract was never my intention. He ran straight into the arms of a well-heeled club guest whose proclivities as a Dominant made the Marquis De Sade a pacifist and gave me permanent regret.

The Brat irrevocably changed Bear.

He violated Bear’s trust, attempted to steal money, which, under the circumstances, he would have received when Bear ended his contract. Antonio, however, did not possess an honest bone and therefore did not trust the initial promises Bear made to him should the match sour. At the first sign of Bear’s displeasure, he took off with what he thought was a richer, more amiable sucker he had been scouting.

The man was not an official member of the b**m scene, and wasn’t registered with any of the tri-state clubs. He lured Antonio to him with the promise of no rules to follow or expectations to meet. He said to Antonio that he wanted his gorgeous Latino as an indulged pet, a beloved new toy. The man claimed he only wanted a young stud on his arm to play with and adore.

Antonio thought he was clever, but was in truth foolish, gullible, and vain. He left Trenton and Bear for the bright lights of the Big Apple. Six months later, Bear received a call from the Sixth Precinct of the NYPD to come to the city and identify the body. The police found Bear’s address clutched in the hand of a boy dumped in an alleyway off Seventh Avenue behind Weng-Feng Wok, a local Chinese restaurant. The owners, Misters Weng and Feng, discovered the body when they took the kitchen garbage out to the dumpster after a three A.M. closing. Bear vividly remembered the scene.

A Detective Sergeant by the name of Patrick O’Malley, a wiry Irishman from Homicide, brought Bear into the squad room.

“Take a seat, Mr. Drummond. As I explained to you on the telephone, we found your address clutched in the victim’s hand.”

“Have you ever seen this before Sergeant O’Malley?” asked Bear.

“Unfortunately, this young man is not the first found in that condition in this precinct,” O’Malley responded. The Detective Sergeant laconically pointed to the pictures of young men pinned to a corkboard on a wall of the room, visible from every desk. “All of their faces were beaten and cut to a point beyond recognition.”

Bear grimaced.

“You can make the ID from a photo,” O’Malley suggested sympathetically.

“No, I’d rather see him and be certain,” Bear said as he silently prayed the man in the photo was not his former sub.

They took a squad car for the silent ride to the City Offices of the Chief Medical Examiner. Bear was in a fog of guilt and remorse. O’Malley ushered him into the cold room followed by one of the assistant coroners.

Bear shivered. The bodies of the victims were stacked in drawers that were piled four high and consumed the entire back wall of the room.

O’Malley spoke, “Drawer sixty-seven.”

The assistant opened the drawer and slowly drew the sheet from the body.

Bear gasped, and then gagged. O’Malley grabbed his arm.

“Do you recognize the victim?”

“Yes, it is Antonio Rialto.” It was Antonio, but an Antonio Bear would not have been able to identify save for a birthmark on his lower left abdomen.

O’Malley spoke again, “You’re sure.”

“Yes I am sure, I remember the crescent shaped birthmark, it was unique.” Bear gazed at his former sub. The dark Botticelli angel’s face was riddled with deep cuts made by a serrated knife.

Both eyes were black, and even after time in the cold drawer, swollen shut.

The assistant coroner spoke, “The autopsy showed every rib was broken and the lung perforated. They shot out his kneecaps and his whole body is covered in welts. He was whipped.”

Bear was lost in thought, tears coursing down his face, more poignant for his silence. He did not notice his wet cheeks. The beautiful boy in drawer sixty-seven was provocative, mischievous, and so very alive in his memory. He recently turned twenty-six. The toy had failed to please.

O’Malley grabbed Bear’s arm and ushered him out of the room handing Bear his handkerchief. Bear was thirty-two years old and had not cried since he was sixteen. He made a silent vow, after this, I will never cry again.

Bear turned to O’Malley. “You’ll get this bastard?”

“With your cooperation…” O’Malley countered.

“Anything you need,” Bear replied between clenched teeth.

On the ride back to Trenton, the tears coursed down his cheeks as he repeated his mantra, I will never cry again, I will never cry again, I will never…

* * * *

The next morning Bear was on the phone with Reed, co-owner of Indiscreet. “We need to talk.” Bear said, “I identified Antonio’s body last night at the city morgue.”

“How bad?” asked Reed.

“Bad enough that I was about to puke. Someone pummeled his face and then cut it repeatedly with a serrated knife. The bastard shot out both his knees so he couldn’t run and whipped him until the skin was hanging in strips. It took a long time for the kid to die.”

“f*****g son of a bitch.”

“Yeah.” Bear answered as his fist came down on his antique desk.

“What now?”

“Now we set up the best security system on the coast so this never happens to one of ours again,” Bear replied with cold determination.

“Whatever you think. Are you all right?”

“I don’t know if I will ever get over his face looking up at me from that cold drawer out of my head. But, it is never going to happen again on our watch, you hear me Reed…never again.”

“You have a plan?”

“Would I have bothered to call you this early in the morning if I didn’t?”

“Shoot.”

“Every candidate for Master must undertake a four weekend training course, no course, no admittance to the club. He can take it at several different clubs or all the lessons at one. With one proviso, all testing is done at Indiscreet. That is non-negotiable.”

“That’s not going to go over too well at the Shore Clubs,” Reed replied.

“We are the biggest, fancy-assed club in the area. If the Doms can get an entrée here at a reduced membership fee for completing the course, they will come and since I own so much of the Shore Real Estate, I can back up my threats.”

“Okay, what about references?” Reed asked.

“We standardize the reference form and procedures for all the Shore area clubs, each newbie needs a background check and three members to vouch for them. Transfers have to undergo a complete background check and carry a written, verifiable reference from their former club.”

“Will the others go along, do you think?”

“Since all of the clubs want boys trained here, I think they’ll comply.”

“When we meet to explain the new procedures, I’m asking O’Malley from the NYPD to come down and show photos of the New York victims. After they finish puking, they will sign up.