"Jack" Series, Part 1: Jack Arrives

7. Prequel: The Proposal

Rocky first raised the topic on a quiet evening while he was on duty with Tiran.  They were alone together in the living room after dinner and Tiran had no immediate plans to go anywhere, so Rocky thought it was as good a time as any.

"Hey, Tiry," he began, perhaps a tiny bit plaintively, as he brought Tiran a beer and lit a cigarette for him.

Tiran glanced up from the television and accepted both.  "What?"

"Can I ask you something?"

Tiran frowned slightly and waited.

"We were wondering, the boys and I ... if we could have a little meeting with you, say some time next week."

Tiran's eyes narrowed.  "What do you mean, a meeting?"

Rocky grew nervous already.  "Only a very brief – brief … discussion, my darling.  To … talk to you about a little proposal we'd like to make."

Tiran's mood had switched abruptly from bored to annoyed.  "Oh yeah?  And why do I have this strange feeling I'm not going to like this proposal?"

In response to Tiran's obvious antipathy, Rocky grew more nervous, and that made him more formal.  "My beloved Tiran must know we would never want him to do anything he didn't wish to."

"Who are you trying to kid, asshole?  You’re always trying to talk me into shit.  What the fuck are we having this meeting for, if it's not to talk me into something I don't want?"

"If my darling would ..." Rocky began, then abruptly stopped, realizing that the formal third-person approach was not helping.  He paused, moved closer to Tiran, knelt and dropped his head, stroking Tiran's foot gently.  "I'm sorry, Tiran, you know what – it’s nothing.  Could you please just forget I spoke?  It was stupid, the last thing I wanted to do was piss you off.  It was only an idea we had and we wanted to run it by you to see if it might appeal to you.  But it’s so not worth arguing about.  Please, can we just forget the whole thing?  It was stupid of me to make such a big deal about it, I'm really sorry.  Please forgive me, Tiran, and just go on with your night ... It's totally not worth ruining your evening for, I promise."

Tiran leaned back and considered Rocky through half-closed eyes.  "What time is it?" he asked abruptly.

Rocky glanced down at one of his hands resting on Tiran's shoe to check his watch.  "Eight-ten, sir."

Tiran frowned.  "I hate when you call me that."

"I'm sorry, Tiry.  Please forgive me."  Rocky spoke simply, trying to convey pure submission.

"I don't have to be anywhere till ten.  Go get the boys and you can give me your little pitch right now."

Rocky looked up at Tiran in surprise and started to open his mouth.  Tiran cut him off impatiently.  "I'm not sitting around for a week wondering what's going on while you guys work out some elaborate song and dance.  You have something to pitch to me, then go.  Now.  Go get them."

Rocky stood up quickly.  "Yes, my love.  If you'll allow me ten minutes, I believe I'll have everyone here."

When Tiran nodded, Rocky hurried out of the room, pulling out his phone.  True to his word, he had everyone rounded up and waiting outside the living room door in ten minutes:  Gabe, Pat, Adele, Tom, Rusty, Blackie and Dusty.  When they were all there, Rocky led them tentatively inside to where Tiran had returned to the television. Tiran turned at their arrival and surveyed them all sardonically.  "This is quite the crew.  The whole gang, isn't it?" 

"Yes, si... darling," Rocky answered nervously.

"I'd tell you all to sit down, but this is a business meeting isn't it … so I have the feeling we should all be sitting around the board room table."

Rocky flushed.  "Oh, come on, I'm sorry, Tiry, I didn't mean to suggest that ..."

"Whatever … you did."  Tiran got up.  "Let's go."

He led them into the large meeting room across from his office and seated himself at the head of the table.  Rocky wanted to resume his position at Tiran's feet, while the others edged towards the wall and began to slide down to the floor, but Tiran cut them off abruptly.  "At the table.  All of you.  Move it."

They quickly took seats, glancing at each other in alarm.  In the pause after they sat down, Gabe spoke up quietly.  "May I thank you for giving us this opportunity to talk to you, my lord?"

The others murmured their agreement, but Tiran deflected the comments abruptly.  "Let's go.  Rocky, this was your idea, get started."

Everyone turned to Rocky, except Tiran who looked down to light a cigarette.  Gabe slipped over quickly with an ashtray, then returned to his chair.  Rocky looked at Tiran uncomfortably and began to speak.

"Tiran … thank you for letting us talk to you about this, sweetheart.  I’m sorry it’s started out so badly.  I know you’re annoyed with us – well, me – already."

Tiran snapped his lighter shut and waited coldly. 

Rocky leaned forward, taking a breath.  "You know that as well as being your friends  - and maybe lovers – we’re all … deeply indebted to you.  We all need to serve you.  I mean, I know the … extent varies – of course there’s a difference between someone who’s your property, like Gabe, and someone who’s also your – your best friend … like me.  But we’re all trying to find that line and walk it for you." 

He paused and looked away, trying to gather his thoughts.  Around the table, the others were watching him intently, occasionally stealing looks at Tiran, who remained unmoved. "Tiry, we know we don’t do it very well.  We’re not, you know, real subs.  We’re just – we’re just your friends, your family – who happen to owe you our lives, or our happiness, or who depend on your mercy every day not to lose everything we know and love.   We love and worship you, but we’re not trained, like slaves should be.  Even Gabe is … well, self-taught."

At the end of the table, Tiran was starting to look impatient.  Rocky saw it, and sped up.  "We screw up, darling.   We aren’t good at serving you the way we should.  We piss you off.  Tonight’s a perfect example.  There you are, enjoying a quiet evening at home, I’m supposed to be there to look after your needs … and what happens?  I fuck up, do something stupid, you’re pissed, your evening’s ruined, and – and here we are.  It happens way too often."  Around the table now, the others were nodding.  Rocky looked around at them.  "I know I’m an asshole, Tiry, but I bet the others could all give just the same kind of example."

Tiran snorted.  "You don’t have to convince me."  

"Good – I’m glad, thank you boss.  So, that’s our problem and we’ve been trying to figure it out for a long time.  Of course it might not be a problem if you were a different kind of person – a different kind of master, I mean."

Tiran stared at that, but Rocky, following his train of thought, didn’t notice.   "I’m sure most masters would never have tolerated this, they would’ve beaten some sense into us years ago.  If that was your style, I’m sure we would have learned long ago …"

"Master – " Gabe interrupted suddenly.  His eyes had never left Tiran’s face, and he’d watched as Tiran’s expression grew blacker and blacker.  "Master, he doesn’t mean it like that.  He doesn’t – we don’t mean to suggest it’s your fault."

Rocky stopped in mid-sentence, looking shocked at Gabe’s outburst, then swung his gaze to Tiran.  "Tiry!  You can’t think – you don’t think I meant that?"

Tiran was up now, and stalking around the room.  "Of course it’s my fault!" he railed sarcastically.  "I know what you’re saying – it’s my own fault for not keeping you all in line.  ‘A real master would -’  I could have stopped Patrick before he got out of hand, I should have just taken Gabe back - before you threatened me, Van … You think I should spend my fucking life training and disciplining you and …"  

Rocky was on his knees at Tiran’s side by now, and Gabe and Pat, trembling, and the others, too, were falling to the ground where they were.

"No, Tiry,"  Rocky’s voice was forceful but surprisingly calm, cutting off Tiran’s rage.  "I don’t.  We don’t, we don’t think that for a second.  We know you have no interest in training us.  And why should you?  Why should you waste that kind of time on us?  We’re the ones who owe you – who begged for the chance to serve you, to make things up to you.  We’re the assholes who can’t serve you properly without fucking up.  It’s our problem, not yours."

To their palpable relief, Tiran stopped moving and paused, containing himself, watching them suspiciously.

"What I meant to say," Rocky went on, very carefully, "Was that a different kind of master would get off on it, would enjoy teaching us what to do, disciplining and punishing us.  But that’s not you, it’s not fun for you.  I mean - it’s not like you don’t punish us occasionally – we’ve all been knocked around a few times, as we deserve, and we’ve all spent time with Mr. Boothesby or whatever.  But training slaves takes more work than that, and why should that fall on you?"

"Why should it?" Tiran agreed petulantly.  "It is work, and I’ve never enjoyed it.  You guys should consider yourselves lucky I don’t get off on kicking the shit out of you."

"We do, Tiry," Rocky soothed.  "We appreciate it very much.  But it does bring us back to the original problem."

"You just said that was your problem, not mine," Tiran said irritably.

Rocky hesitated.  "It’s our problem to deal with, for sure Ti.  But we worry that it becomes your problem in effect.  I mean, it’s just like I said, I screw up, your evening’s ruined.  I’m afraid you do suffer from our incompetence – don’t you?"  He paused and looked up, still kneeling on the floor beside Tiran.

Tiran half-raised an eyebrow, reserving his answer, but lowered himself back down to his chair.  Rocky went on gently, "And you know it’s worse than that.  After we do that, after we fuck up, we make it worse.  I see it happen with the others and I know I do it myself – we want to apologize and beg forgiveness and make big speeches and … and cower in a corner or walk on eggshells all night with you, and then, well, then you’re really pissed off."

Now Tiran was looking at him with something close to amusement.  "It is really fucking annoying, Van.  Especially when you’re supposed to be my friends."

"Of course it is.  And I’m so sorry.  But what else can we do?"

"I’ve never understood why you can’t just let it go, after something like that happens."

"Because we know we need to suffer for it.  I’m sorry, Tiry, it’s our needs bumping up against yours.  And I know yours should come first – of course they should – but we really need to feel that there’s some consequences to our actions.  I mean, it’s …"  Rocky stopped and put out his arms helplessly.  "You have these moments of – of sort of lightning anger, and then you’re done.  But for us - we need to learn from our mistakes – and somehow atone for them.  To just let it go, after we know we’ve done something wrong and angered you, it’s – it’s really hard for us."

Tiran wasn’t looking amused anymore.  "That’s your problem.  It’s not my job to humour you when you piss me off."

"Absolutely, boss.  Completely, absolutely.  It’s our problem to fix.  And believe me, we’ve tried.  We’ve tried punishing ourselves, we’ve tried punishing each other …"

Rocky glanced around the room, and Tiran followed his gaze a little quizzically.  "You do?"

"We did."  Rocky sighed and looked at the others as if seeking confirmation.  "It just didn’t work very well.  We – we don’t know how to … modulate.  There’s no consistency, we feel like hypocrites, we end up frustrated with ourselves and each other.  We …"  Rocky paused and looked straight up at Tiran.  "We really think we need someone objective to look after it for us."

Tiran looked down at him, puzzled.  "Objective?  I’m not objective."

"No, Tiry, not you.  We … we thought … maybe we could hire someone."

There was a pause and a collective holding of breath as the room waited for Tiran to take in the idea.  For a moment there was no response; then, under their intent gaze, Tiran’s expression slowly changed, and faintly, around the table, came the sound of breath being let out.

"Hire someone?"  Tiran repeated.  His voice was neutral, but they all knew that neutral was a lot better than hostile.

"Yes, boss … that’s what we’re thinking.  Someone who could, you know, take on the boring parts of being a master.  Provide discipline and punishments, whip us into shape."

"Who would they work for?"

"Well, you, sir.  He’d have to work for you.  But it would be for our benefit, for sure."

"And you’re saying he’d be paid?"

"Of course.  It’s like you say, it’s a lot of work.  We couldn’t expect anyone to do it for free.  It would be more like a full-time job.  I mean, if you agreed.  It’s up to you, obviously."

Tiran frowned.  "So I’m hiring him for your benefit."

Rocky quickly got what he meant – not that the money mattered, but clearly the principle rankled.  "We’re not asking you to pay the salary, Tiry.  Well – at least, not as a new cost.  We want to pay him ourselves, of course.   It’s just unfortunate that our only source of income is you.  So – so … what we thought is that we’d pay him out of our allowances, that you so kindly give us.  Um, we … we did some calculations and we think between us we could manage a pretty respectable salary."

Tiran was still looking at him curiously, so after a moment Rocky went on, "I’m sorry, I have no idea what a professional disciplinarian would expect to be paid but … but whatever it is, we’ll work it out.  We’ll manage it."

"But how would it work?  What would he do?"

Rocky looked down and then stole a glance around the table.  He spread his hands again.  "We haven’t worked out all the details yet, Ti …"

Across the table from him, Gabe spoke up quietly.  "Master, it can work however you want it to.  It’s completely up to you.  We knew we’d need your approval to even start to consider this.  And if you do approve it, of course all your preferences will need to be accommodated.  Do you want us to go away and work out some options and then come back with a more developed prop – suggestion, master?"

"No."  Tiran was starting to look thoughtful.  "Look, guys, I don’t know if you understand what you’re suggesting.  Professional doms take their work very, very seriously.  I know you guys feel guilty when I get pissed and you all want to be pretty little slaves when you feel like it … but this isn’t a game.  These guys aren’t fooling around."

Rocky looked sober, and so did the others around the room.  "We know that, boss."

"A professional will fuck you up.  You’ll get seriously hurt."

"That’s what we need, Ti."  Rocky looked down, shaking his head a little.  "I mean, we don’t want – well -- it’s up to you of course, but we weren’t thinking of someone who would just cause pain. A professional provides discipline as well as punishment, right?  We want – we’re hoping for someone we can learn from.  I know we’re lightweights, Tiran, but we really need to improve.  It’s not just a matter of, you know, soothing our guilty consciences.  We need to learn.  We need to do better, for you.   And we really do think serious discipline would help.  How else do slaves learn?   We need someone who will put the time and effort into training us and we know it shouldn’t be you.  Why should anyone do it, out of the goodness of their hearts?  That’s why we want to pay for it.  To make it a professional relationship."

For a moment Tiran was silent.  He reached for Rocky and ran a hand through his hair, looking down at him with something like warmth, or sadness, in his eyes.  "Rocky," he said quietly.  "You’re still my best friend.  I need you to be.  I need you to keep being my best friend."

Rocky moved into Tiran’s hand, leaned against his legs.  "I will always be.  Nothing will ever change that.  Tiry, I promise this won’t change anything between us -- only, hopefully, make it better."

Tiran continued, still thinking.  "It won’t be easy to walk that line.  And I’m not going to help you."

Rocky looked up at him, speaking softly.  "I don’t need you to.  It’s for me to work out.  I promise, I’ll take it all on myself.  You won’t have to deal with a thing."

Now Tiran looked around the room at the others, his lips tight.  "All of you.  You’re all my friends.  I don’t want to lose anything.  You know I need friends I can trust."

They nodded collectively, but that wasn’t enough for Tiran.  He looked at them each individually.  "Gabe?  Patty?"

Gabe only needed to nod and say, "Master," with his usual quiet submission. 

Pat cleared his throat and spoke shyly.  "Master.  I’d be so grateful for the help.  I – I know I’m not a very good servant or a good friend to you but truly, I think a professional would help …"

Tiran couldn’t help but smile a little, despite himself.  He continued around the room, and each of them spoke small words of solemn assurance.  When he reached Tom, Tiran asked, "Have you asked Paul about this?" and Tom nodded quietly and said, "He’s given his permission."

Then he finished, and the room fell silent again as everyone waited, eyes on Tiran, who still looked concerned but now deeply thoughtful as well.

"So who would it be, this person I hire?"

Rocky shook his head.  "We have no idea, boss.  I guess we were … hoping you might have some ideas."

"Well."  And there was a far-away, slowly growing look of anticipation in Tiran’s eyes.  "I think I might have someone to suggest."

END OF PART 1

*** A/N: This is the end of Part 1. The story resumes in Part 2, "Jack Adjusts", which is posted separately here. ***