Manning Up (Part 5)

The next morning, we talked. It was slow going, because he had to try and dance around whatever was blocking his tongue, and he also didn’t quite have the mental sharpness he’d had before all of this, but I got a better sense of what was going on. It was clear that there were details he couldn’t reveal, but something was indeed happening to him, and it was something relating to college, or someone at college. He told me that I had to promise him, that no matter what happened, I’d take him back to college on the first day of school, at the end of August. We marked the day on the calendar, and I told him I would do as he asked. He seemed relieved, but he was also…still scared, for some reason. It seemed like he was scared of me, or maybe he was just scared of the entire situation. Still, it was only a couple of months–whatever this was, it was strange as hell, but I told him we would get through it together.

But he kept getting worse and worse, as the next few weeks passed by. I would give him lists of tasks to do around the place, like usual, but he wouldn’t follow them–I’d get home and find him masturbating in a puddle of his own piss, or worse, he’d have disappeared. Those were the worst feelings, when I discovered he’d run off. I knew where he’d gone, of course–always the rest area a few miles down the road to suck cock–but every time he went missing, some icy hand gripped my heart. I was afraid that I might lose him. For a few days, I agonized over the possibility that I was falling in love the the lug, but that wasn’t how it felt–it felt more like I’d misplaced something of value–an object, not a person. Was Brock just a thing to me? That should have worried me more at the time, but if anything I felt relieved that I could keep an emotional distance. Still, it was clear that I couldn’t afford to leave Brock alone anymore, for his own safety, of course, and so I told the foreman that I had a friend of mine staying with me, and asked if he could work on the project for a month or so for a bit of cash. We didn’t really need another worker, but he owed me a favor–so Brock started coming with me each day I went to work–but that…well, maybe if I hadn’t, Brock would still be Brock, but I’m past regrets now. I can’t change what I did, so why worry about it?

Like I said earlier, I worked in heavy machinery, so I spent most of the day sitting in the cab of a backhoe. Brock, on the other hand, was going to be a grunt–fetching and carrying and that sort of stuff. For a few days, it all worked out fine, or at least, it seemed to be working fine, until I noticed that I wasn’t seeing much of Brock out and about the construction site. I watched closely the next day, saw the foreman–Aaron–call Brock into the trailer early, and neither of them came out for hours. That icy hand on my heart–it went from fear straight to jealousy. I busted in there and found Brock on his knees in front of my boss, sucking him off, and I was so fucking furious that this fucker was using my fucking property without even asking my permission–I don’t know what the fuck came over me, but I fucking howled at them, tore Brock away, and tackled Aaron to the ground, beat him and rolled him over, fucking his ass raw. Brock tried to crawl away in fear, but I ordered him to just stare at the wall until I figure out what to do with him, and he did, shaking and quivering, but unable to resist the command. When Aaron finally broke down and shot a load onto the floor of the trailer, I pulled out, dragged Brock outside, bent him over a sawhorse in front of everyone on the crew, and fucked him too.

“This thing is mine, you fucking hear me?” I screamed at them, spittle flying, “You wanna use him? You fucking ask. But he’s mine–anyone tries and take him from me–go see what shape Aaron is in, and think fucking twice.”

We left that evening, and I knew I was going to be in deep shit when Aaron got his act together and called the police, but I didn’t care. Brock was trying to talk to me, trying to apologize, trying to tell me that he couldn’t help it, but I didn’t want to hear any of that. I hauled him inside my trailer, made him face the wall and whipped him with my belt for his fucking uselessness, and then fucked his ass again. He couldn’t look me in the eye for the rest of the night–he was terrified of me, but his cock was rock hard all the same. Good, I thought. Let him be scared, and let him be horny. Those two feelings should be married in his fucking idiot head–but mostly fear, He should be fucking scared of me, they all should. If they feared me, then they’d respect me, and my property.

In my head, I knew it should be the other way around–that he should scare me. Fuck, he was six foot four, and probably close to 300 pounds at that point, most of it bulk. He could have beat me easily in a straight fight, but he’d never do that. I could tell, somehow, that he would never be able to hurt me. Sure, I could tell him to hurt someone, if I wanted to, but I owned him, and he knew it. Still, I was waiting for the knock on the door, for one of the deputies to ask about how I’d assaulted and raped Aaron earlier that day–but no one came. The next day, I thought about not going to the site…but I couldn’t let myself appear that weak, right? So I got Brock ready for work and we drove over–a bit late, in fact–and discovered the entire crew just standing around, looking nervous and unsure of themselves. None of them could look me in the eye, and Aaron was nowhere to be seen.

It was an argument over definitions from the start, namely what can be found in the dictionary vs your idiosyncratic, emotionally charged meaning of the word.

Ah yes. You, objective. Me, emotional. I mean, you certainly *seem* emotionally stable and well balanced.

I mean, you’re just the person who is still sending me asks about this, the person including at least one ad hominem in every message. You seem incredibly detached from this emotionally, absolutely unaffected by this entire conversation. That’s probably why you haven’t actually bothered replying to any of the arguments I’ve laid out–because you’re just too rational to deal with any of this silly, emotional, philosophy. You could probably walk away, and never think about this ever again, if you wanted to–but it seems that you don’t want to.

Why is that?

I mean, why do you care so much about this? See, we keep coming back to this question, Anon. Why does this claim–that wage labor (i.e. “jobs”) is a fundamental part of, and was created by, the Capitalist economic system–bothers you so much, that we still need to have this conversation a week later? Still, since you mention dictionaries…

Here’s Merriam Webster: “A regular remunerative position.” – that is, regular labor for a regular wage or payment.

Here’s the Oxford English Dictionary: “anything one has to do…spec. a paid position of employment.”

Google’s built in dictionary: “a paid position of regular employment.”

etc. etc.

I am using the definition of the word you find in a dictionary–what the fuck are you using?

Those mental gymnastics are very amusing but at the end of the day the term ‘job’ has an established definition. Tt means exactly the same thing as the word ‘occupation’ which predates XVI century. Wage labour, jobs, occupations have existed way before capitalism, and if a philosophy student can’t think of some examples then my only question is why did you skip out on the first month of your classes?

I would argue that the two terms, “job” and “occupation”, have different senses myself, that an occupation is a broader scope term than job. That is, I could say that one of my current occupations is writing erotica, but I wouldn’t say that writing erotica is one of my jobs. A job, in my mind, implies a social relationship with an employer. I suppose you could say that I am self-employed in some sense, but even that term implies, to me, a more formal relationship between a person their work. In any case, though, my point stands. You aren’t taking any real issue with my argument, you just think I’m using words wrong. At this point, you just want to have an argument over definitions, which isn’t interesting to anyone.

While we both write in the same general genre we have VERY different styles. I have wondered, whats you’re thought on wish fulfillment, and why do you shy away from it in your stories? Just an issue of there’s already so much of it out there?

My main beef with wish fulfillment is that, at a fundamental level, stories which rely on it generally lack conflict, and I think that conflict is a necessary component for stories to be good. That probably sounds super harsh, since wish granting is kind of your “thing”, but you do a really good job with it, or at least, as good a job as can be done with it.

The issue, with a bit more detail given, is that stories are composed of a protagonist, and that protagonist in generally pursuing something, a desire or goal or what have you. Something puts obstacles in the protagonists way, usually some kind of antagonist, but in a wish fulfillment story, the antagonist usually doesn’t even appear. The stories, especially bad ones, tend to just read as “Character A wanted to be X, and he became X, the end.” There’s no room to develop a story there, all we have is a description of a change. For the most part, wish fulfillment is just window dressing around a description of a change, in order to avoid doing the harder work of constructing a conflict to make the change meaningful.

But beyond that, I also just don’t find it to be all that arousing at all. My stories, at their cold, dreary black hearts, aren’t about people getting what they want–they’re about people getting what they deserve. Punishment, as opposed to reward. My approach has it’s own problems, of course, and can be just as empty of conflict if done poorly. Mostly, it’s a question of motivation–I’m still granting wishes, it’s just the wishes of people who hate Character A instead.

In the end, yeah, I think wish fulfillment is a lot more popular, and there is a ton of it. I’d probably be more successful if I used it more often, but whenever I’ve written them in the past, usually for a commission, they just bore me to tears. I usually just openly reject them now, if people request them, because I have so little interest in writing them.

I feel like complimenting you; I dislike about 80% of your subject matter and over time you seem branch out less, but I stick around because your writing is so good, and every once in a while you get commissioned or sometimes even write the stuff I like, and it’s incredible.

Thanks, I appreciate that, and I totally get the backhanded frustration too.

I get the feeling that I’m stuck in a rut almost all the time, honestly. I mean, especially after doing this for as long as I have, at the constant clip I work, the stories can tend to feel like they’re all blending together into a single mass. I rely pretty heavily, on my regular commissioners to force me out of my comfort zone and into subject matter I haven’t done much with. For example, I had a really great time writing “Idolized”–I really need to do more stuff with orcs, even if I find them to be a bit frustrating as far as subject matter is concerned (along with a lot of other fantasy themed topics). I’m also really happy with “Manning Up”, and that too, is a commissioned piece. 

So trust me, I get it, and I’m sorry. I do my best to force myself to vary things up as best I can, but I have my favorites, and my tropes, and my crutches just like most writers do. Thanks, in any case, for sticking with me! I’m glad that I can please you 1/5 of the time, at least, and that you get a good amount of enjoyment out of it. 

A tumblr question or comment signed “anon” has always perplexed me. If you’ve got something constructive or positive to say, wouldn’t the recipient want to know the online “you”? And if you’re going to be a troll, own your shit, don’t hide behind two layers of anonymity. Although with some of the amazingly depraved and awesomely kinky content posted on this blog, perhaps they’re afraid of being outed as a reader. I’m not. This blog has helped bring out my inner pig and I’m grateful for it.

Well, I leave it on for a reason, because I do think some people don’t want everyone to know they follow me. I understand the shame, but I also think that a) most people probably don’t give a fuck what you’re into, especially around here, and b) the only way to get over it is to push through it, right?

You’d probably know a thing about that, right? You small dicked little faggot? Every anon on here is still more of a man than you’ll ever be. 

You know, I always submit questions as Anon when people want asks, so they can take all the questions fairly. Also, bam, straight back into terminology I guess.

There’s nothing wrong with asking questions as an Anon, but if you ask a question anonymously and then also say that you’re looking to promote yourself…

But honestly, I like it when people come off Anon, because I like actually engaging with people. It’s more interesting to be able to put a little more personality behind the names/pics of people I see liking my stuff. It’s a little less like shouting into the void that way. I’d like to think I’d be as fair answering question on anon as I would be off, but I can also see how my sarcastic and caustic demeanor would have people thinking otherwise.