Chapter Text
“I think you should leash him,” Jacob says.
Joseph looks to and considers his older brother. He’s sure he can tell when Jacob is joking.
“You sound serious.”
“I am serious. I think he used to be into that.”
That much Joseph agrees with. The partners John picked up at the kind of parties he frequented would never have been satisfied with only sex. John may have had nothing but spite for the rich, but his relentless search for sensation would have led him down every open avenue.
Yet…
“Aren’t you the one familiar with leashes?”
“That’s why I don’t trust myself not to hurt him. If I make somebody my dog, I’ll use a heavy hand.”
Joseph considers the proposition. He never would have thought of it on his own, but there’s no option he’s unwilling to explore to relieve his brother of his burdens.
“You don’t actually think I should have sex with John?”
Jacob shrugs beneath old camo.
“It doesn’t have to be a sex thing.”
“For me, you mean. I’m not sure that would be true for him.”
*****
The tricky aspect of negotiating John is he will say ‘Yes’ to anything and everything. Joseph has no intention of coercing him into his former lifestyle. He broaches the subject over dinner, treating it as unexceptional as he loads his fork with mashed potatoes and picks up peas in the same forkful to build in a little extra time.
“You must be familiar with bondage and domination practices.”
John looks as baffled as would be expected but swiftly conceals it.
“Sure. Very familiar.” He takes on a calculating expression. “Did you find someone you’re planning to try BDSM with?”
As incredulous as John may be, the subject is clearly a mundane one.
“I may be considering it. Did it ever really interest you, or was it part of your persona?”
John answers with genuine laughter.
“I fucking love that stuff.”
Joseph has an awkward feeling that from here the direction of the conversation will quickly become obvious which he only barely suppresses from creeping into his voice.
“If you had the chance, what would you like to do?”
“Depends on the person. It may be a little sacrilegious but I’m using some of what I know making sure our converts stay with me. You know, keeping them on track when the sensation gets heavy.”
“Then, you don’t prefer to be on the receptive end.”
John snatches the point from the tension slowly saturating the air between them.
“Did we mix up some bliss in the water?” He raises his glass to tilt it under the light as if checking the color of the clear liquid inside and sets it back down. “Unless I’m hallucinating, this sure seems focused around me.”
“Jacob thinks it might be healthy for you to find more ways direct your energy.”
“And that’s what you think?”
“I’m curious about your preferred orientation.”
John slings an arm over the back of and leans back in his chair, stretching his legs out under the table, tensions abandoned. He locks Joseph into his penetrating gaze.
“I like to take orders. I like to get tied up. I like to get spanked. Caned. Flogged. I like some dirty talk. I like needle play. I like hot wax and, if they’re freaky, fire. I always got a little squirrely about letting people choke me, but I’d let you.”
“Jacob brought up collars.”
A snort.
“Of course he did.” John tips his head, considering Joseph from an angle, a smile creeping onto his lips. “I’d like it if you put a collar on me”
Joseph reconciles himself to being utterly out of his depth. He calls constantly on John’s legal advice and deep pockets. He can recruit what John knows about this.
Assured by John’s ability to articulate himself, he offers his brother what he knows he’s looking for.
“May I begin with collaring you?”
A cheshire cat grin spreads across John’s lips.
“Yes.”
*****
Joseph has seen enough photographs of pin up girls over his lifetime to know there are collars meant to be attractive to partners which are surely made to be comfortable to wear. He remains in deeply rural Montana with no easy access to any kind of boutique that might sell something photogenic without many hours’ drive.
What he has easy access to are dog collars. A wide variety. No one looks once when he purchases a number to examine in private from the local variety store. The Project keeps a stable of security dogs.
He sorts through them at his cabin, trying them on his own neck. He understands their appeal to John, who likes to obey, but he doesn’t feel it himself. Nonetheless, he won’t tell him to wear something uncomfortable.
He chooses a plain, attractive leather collar as dark as old oak and softly flexible.
They meet in his cabin on Sunday evening after the day’s services. That much is normal for them, the two of them retiring together or with their other siblings. Usually, Joseph would cook something — John’s cooking is abysmal, and he mostly eats at mess. Perhaps, later, he still will.
Tonight, the collar and leash on the side table next to Joseph’s old leather chair capture John’s attention immediately upon entering the door. Joseph hadn’t told him he intended anything besides dinner, only asked him to stay the evening, but John’s perspicacity alerts him immediately to the salient change.
Joseph suspects of himself that he chose tonight because he’s buttoned up in his preacher’s dress shirt and wearing his jacket, layers of distance that will help separate this from a sex act. If it ever will be — he can’t see the future so clearly in all its particulars — it won’t be tonight.
He asks John to sit in one of the adjacent chairs, barely younger than the leather one, wood framed with cushions of rustic-patterned fabric. He has let John buy him clothing, properties, trucks, and a vast amount of equipment from radios to guns, but his private furniture is selected from the same bulk secondhand sales that outfit the rest of the Project. He can’t imagine being comfortable putting on airs after a lifetime of poverty wages.
He gets them water – it is always either water of coffee – and sits. There’s no reason to keep John in suspense. He isn’t theatrical in that way.
He picks up the unbuckled collar. He thoughtfully draws the leather through his hand.
“I may disappoint you. You’ve had other partners much more knowledgeable than I am.”
“Start where you’re at. With that.” John gives the collar a nod. He leans forward, looking cheeky. “You know, you could say you were already my dom.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
John gestures broadly with the glass in his hand.
“You control all my money. That’s some people’s kink. I’m getting out my wallet and I think, ‘Damn, I’m Joseph’s pay pig.’”
Joseph’s sure he’s never heard those words strung together in his life and could have lived out his years without ever hearing them.
“We see the world in very different ways.”
Sitting back, John sips his water.
“I hated the Duncans. I hate their money. I know how to manage it, grow it, but I’m happy you took control of it. It was a yoke.”
“‘For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?’”
“Exactly. And your yoke is much lighter. So let’s make it real.”
While Joseph remains clothed, John strips out of his coat, his vest and his shirt, leaving them hanging over the back of the chair. He walks to the center of the carpet, dropping to his knees in a controlled fall, tipping his well-groomed chin up, eyes happily, wickedly alight.
Joseph comes to stand before him with the collar and leash in hand, unfamiliar seeing John so obsequiously positioned.
“I’d put it on from behind me, just like Jacob would a dog.”
He sees the wisdom of having the broad flat of John’s neck to fix the buckle on.
“From behind you, then,” he concedes graciously. He has no insecurity about acting out John’s script. It will take time to claim real mastery over the role he’s agreed to play. He thinks of the long awkward years he spoke of the Voice to others without skill in the pastoral arts. He first became a man others made themselves obedient to with John’s coaching, although he perfected himself watching Jerome.
He draws upon John as from a well, and kneels behind him, albeit without the flourish of dropping directly to the floor.
His breath catches as John tilts his head down, exposing the nape of his neck inviting him to fasten the buckle over his unguarded skin. Joseph presses the tongue through the punched hole and slides the leather through buckle and loop, bringing John under his will.
His brother reaches up, gently turning the collar until the buckle sits comfortably while Joseph’s fingertips rest just beside it on his shoulder.
This is a ritual, and though Joseph has no training in its liturgy he chooses his own words:
“You’ve always been obedient to me, John. Today, I claim you as mine.”
The small, happy sound from John’s bound throat gifts pleasurable assurance.
He takes up the leash, thumbing back the bolt of its simple metal clip, and hooks it onto the collar’s steel ring. The bolt springs back into place with audible percussion. John sighs in relief, relaxing as if he’s been unburdened of some invisible weight.
“Now we move straight to fire,” he teases.
“Now, you offer somewhere reasonable to start.”
“I like to be used as furniture.”
The idea baffles. But now, here’s John, his shirt yet stripped off, on his hands and knees in front of his chair. He has never seen him so still. It surprises him as he reviews letters from his flock to look down his legs and see his own shoed feet, crossed at the ankle, resting on his little brother: collar around his neck and leash hanging from it, demonstrating an extraordinary determination not to disturb him that has never revealed itself a single time in their shared history.
The pleasure of his submission seeps in like standing water rising. He suddenly possesses a capacity to still John’s endless agitation as easily as directing him to do something this mindlessly simple.
He finishes his letters, takes up his leash, and lets him stretch. He tells him how his obedience impressed him. He asks him how his back is. He overlooks how obeying him has obviously made John hard. He makes him dinner before he leaves. They eat together.