The Ages of Greg Sanders, part 3
Mar. 4th, 2007 08:05 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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nickngregTitle: The Ages of Greg Sanders
Rating: R, possibly NC-17
Spoilers: Play With Fire
Warnings: BDSM and sadism. VERY dark stuff.
Disclaimer: I don't own them, and I don't profit from them. (If I did, I wouldn't let this sort of thing happen!)
A/N: We had a death in the family, or I would have posted this last week.
“Hello?”
“Papa Olaf? It’s Greg.”
“Ah, Greg! Where are you?”
“San Francisco. I’m home, Papa. Can I come see you?”
“Of course. Do you need a place to stay?”
“Maybe for a little while. I need to talk to you first.”
“Well, come along, then.”
“Thanks, Papa. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
It takes me less time than I thought to get to Papa Olaf’s. When he lets me in, there’s coffee brewing, and the smell makes me grin. He had given me my first cup of coffee when I was 12, and I’d ended up drinking it out of a beer mug because there wasn’t enough room in the coffee mug for all the milk and sugar I had to put in it to make it drinkable. These days I drink coffee black most of the time.
Papa Olaf doesn’t beat around the bush. “So. You look awful. What happened?”
Oh, I don’t want to tell my 70-year-old grandfather these things. But he has to know what made me what I am now. He was the first person I ever told I was bi, once I figured it out. “I…did things…in New York. Nothing illegal, though. I went to clubs and danced all night, and slept all day, and went to parties, and met people.”
“Of course. Your mother would never have allowed that.”
“Some of the people I met were into…well…into sex clubs. And I was curious, and they took me along with them, and I liked it. I found out I liked belonging to men who wanted to own me.” I can’t look at him; I don’t want to see the disgust and anger in my heart reflected on his face. I play with my coffee cup instead.
“I was stupid and naïve. I was willing to do anything for the thrill of it. I let them do things to me because I thought it meant they wanted me. I knew it didn’t, but I let myself think it did.”
“You let someone hurt you. yes?”
“I was his slave, Papa. My body belonged to him.”
“And he hurt you. How did you leave him?”
“He put me in the hospital. They wanted me to press charges. I could have had power over him, but I just wanted it all to go away, so he released me to somebody else.” Dave. The man I couldn’t think about without wanting to cry. “He was the nurse from the hospita. He…retrained me. And I left him for it. I…I wanted to belong to him too, because I wanted to need him, and it scared me, and I ran…” Now I really was crying. “I don’t know what to do with myself any more. I don’t know what I want, I don’t know what I need, I don’t know if I want what I need…I don’t know who I am!”
“Then you need to find out. You need to listen with your soul, not your heart or your brain or your ears.”
“How?”
“There was a very wise man called Thoreau, and he said he went to the woods because he wanted to live deliberately. I think if he had lived here, he would have gone to the ocean.”
October 1998
I’ve been living deliberately on the beach for a couple of months now. Papa Olaf let me stay with him for a week or so, while we figured out what I was going to do for money. Papa Olaf gave me a small slice of the college fund he had set up for me when I was little, with the understanding that when I had sorted myself out, I would finally go to college. For now, I’m pretty much living on the beach. I’ve discovered some things in the past couple of months. I still like early mornings and late nights as long as I can sleep during the day; you never forget how to surf, but you can forget how to be good at it; if I wear a sleeveless wetsuit, nobody has to know about the scars on my back.
“Hey, Greg!” Justin. He’s about 18, and like me, he spends every possible minute in the water. He’s into surfing like I was into clubs – for the thrill of it.
“Hey. Aren’t you supposed to be studying or something?”
“Nah. Midterms aren’t till the end of the month. Besides, calculus isn’t going anywhere. It’ll still be the same when I get back to it.”
“So what are you going to do with it?”
“I don’t know yet. Statistician for the Giants, maybe.” Justin’s other love is baseball, but the Giants didn’t make it into the postseason this year. “Hey, I can dream, right?”
“Sure.”
“What’s up, man? Having a bad day?” He means surfing. He doesn’t know what kind or bad day I was used to.
“Been thinking, that’s all.”
“You gonna think all day, or we gonna go ride?” He’s only five years younger than I am; why do I feel so much older?
I pick up my board and follow him out into the surf, still thinking.
Unfortunately I still don’t know what I want in the long run. I know that I don’t want to surf the rest of the year away; it gets chilly for that sometime around the middle of November. Maybe I should start applying to colleges. There has to be someplace that will take a 23-year-old starting in the second semester.
That’s the first plan I’ve had in a long time that feels absolutely right.
Rating: R, possibly NC-17
Spoilers: Play With Fire
Warnings: BDSM and sadism. VERY dark stuff.
Disclaimer: I don't own them, and I don't profit from them. (If I did, I wouldn't let this sort of thing happen!)
A/N: We had a death in the family, or I would have posted this last week.
“Hello?”
“Papa Olaf? It’s Greg.”
“Ah, Greg! Where are you?”
“San Francisco. I’m home, Papa. Can I come see you?”
“Of course. Do you need a place to stay?”
“Maybe for a little while. I need to talk to you first.”
“Well, come along, then.”
“Thanks, Papa. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
It takes me less time than I thought to get to Papa Olaf’s. When he lets me in, there’s coffee brewing, and the smell makes me grin. He had given me my first cup of coffee when I was 12, and I’d ended up drinking it out of a beer mug because there wasn’t enough room in the coffee mug for all the milk and sugar I had to put in it to make it drinkable. These days I drink coffee black most of the time.
Papa Olaf doesn’t beat around the bush. “So. You look awful. What happened?”
Oh, I don’t want to tell my 70-year-old grandfather these things. But he has to know what made me what I am now. He was the first person I ever told I was bi, once I figured it out. “I…did things…in New York. Nothing illegal, though. I went to clubs and danced all night, and slept all day, and went to parties, and met people.”
“Of course. Your mother would never have allowed that.”
“Some of the people I met were into…well…into sex clubs. And I was curious, and they took me along with them, and I liked it. I found out I liked belonging to men who wanted to own me.” I can’t look at him; I don’t want to see the disgust and anger in my heart reflected on his face. I play with my coffee cup instead.
“I was stupid and naïve. I was willing to do anything for the thrill of it. I let them do things to me because I thought it meant they wanted me. I knew it didn’t, but I let myself think it did.”
“You let someone hurt you. yes?”
“I was his slave, Papa. My body belonged to him.”
“And he hurt you. How did you leave him?”
“He put me in the hospital. They wanted me to press charges. I could have had power over him, but I just wanted it all to go away, so he released me to somebody else.” Dave. The man I couldn’t think about without wanting to cry. “He was the nurse from the hospita. He…retrained me. And I left him for it. I…I wanted to belong to him too, because I wanted to need him, and it scared me, and I ran…” Now I really was crying. “I don’t know what to do with myself any more. I don’t know what I want, I don’t know what I need, I don’t know if I want what I need…I don’t know who I am!”
“Then you need to find out. You need to listen with your soul, not your heart or your brain or your ears.”
“How?”
“There was a very wise man called Thoreau, and he said he went to the woods because he wanted to live deliberately. I think if he had lived here, he would have gone to the ocean.”
October 1998
I’ve been living deliberately on the beach for a couple of months now. Papa Olaf let me stay with him for a week or so, while we figured out what I was going to do for money. Papa Olaf gave me a small slice of the college fund he had set up for me when I was little, with the understanding that when I had sorted myself out, I would finally go to college. For now, I’m pretty much living on the beach. I’ve discovered some things in the past couple of months. I still like early mornings and late nights as long as I can sleep during the day; you never forget how to surf, but you can forget how to be good at it; if I wear a sleeveless wetsuit, nobody has to know about the scars on my back.
“Hey, Greg!” Justin. He’s about 18, and like me, he spends every possible minute in the water. He’s into surfing like I was into clubs – for the thrill of it.
“Hey. Aren’t you supposed to be studying or something?”
“Nah. Midterms aren’t till the end of the month. Besides, calculus isn’t going anywhere. It’ll still be the same when I get back to it.”
“So what are you going to do with it?”
“I don’t know yet. Statistician for the Giants, maybe.” Justin’s other love is baseball, but the Giants didn’t make it into the postseason this year. “Hey, I can dream, right?”
“Sure.”
“What’s up, man? Having a bad day?” He means surfing. He doesn’t know what kind or bad day I was used to.
“Been thinking, that’s all.”
“You gonna think all day, or we gonna go ride?” He’s only five years younger than I am; why do I feel so much older?
I pick up my board and follow him out into the surf, still thinking.
Unfortunately I still don’t know what I want in the long run. I know that I don’t want to surf the rest of the year away; it gets chilly for that sometime around the middle of November. Maybe I should start applying to colleges. There has to be someplace that will take a 23-year-old starting in the second semester.
That’s the first plan I’ve had in a long time that feels absolutely right.
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