“Crazy, I know. But that was my life. Well, he told me I should check out Erotic Mayberry. That he had a brother living there and didn’t know shit about it, but if I wanted to know more he could have his brother contact me. I had to go through all kinds of tests and evaluations, I had to donate a million dollars to buy a home, and I had to bring a pet in with me. Or at least within six months of moving in.”
I’d never heard anyone talk of how they entered as an owner.
“I knew my friend was still working as a waitress and was struggling a lot. She had no attachments to the outside world. So I brought her in as a pet,” he said.
He didn’t have to say it. I knew what he meant and I was stunned.
“Suzanne was that friend,” he said. “She came in as my first pet.”
I understood their connection now. They had a long history.
“And she left you?” I asked. “How does that even happen?”
“The Harvest Festival,” he said, “Which is coming up soon. There’s a drawing, like a raffle, and the winning pet is given a home and allowed to be an owner. I thought she’d turn it down. I thought she wanted to be with me, but she won and she chose to be an owner herself.”
“I see.”
“And I’m so sorry I hurt you,” he said. “It’s not what you think. It’s strictly physical. I’ve been doing this since I was ten years old. It’s all physical. I don’t think it was ever that deep with Suzanne. She’s beautiful but with her it was always like I was trying to do her a favor, bringing her into this lifestyle to help her escape the shitty one she was living. I think she sensed that too and wanted to get away and do something for herself. But she calls me up sometimes and asks me to fuck her. Just like that. She calls and says, “Come fuck me, please. I’m having a rough day.”
“I’m assuming you were the one to take her virginity?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, “And for that reason, she identifies with me on a different level. Sex is more to help her cope with life than it is an act of love. It’s something only I can help her with. When she was in college I was her first with most other sexual stuff so I think she feels safe with me.”
“What about Pasha?” I asked.
“He fucks her too,” he said, “The kid is a beast in the sack.”
He laughed.
“And she uses him plenty,” he added. “But with them it’s purely ph
ysical, a need to come. When I’m there it’s more like therapy.”
“Do you love her?” I asked.
“In a different way I suppose,” he admitted. “But not in-love like I am with you. It’s more like an old friend, a sisterly kind of love.”
“But with fucking involved,” I was quick to add.
“Yes,” he said. “I know that must have hurt you when you saw us on TV. If you could try to imagine it like someone might have felt seeing you on screen when you were acting. It’s that same kind of relationship. Only you got paid to do it and I do it as a way to, I don’t know, take care of my ridiculous urges.”
“But it’s so fucking one-sided,” I said. “I’m a pet. You’re an owner. That means you get to fuck whoever you want whenever you want. I have to be given permission or invited into it by an owner. What kind of shit is that?”
“The community at one point went through a very dominant/subservient phase. I’m talking serious BDSM shit. Everyone was into it. That’s when the whole pet/owner thing happened and it stuck. This happened long before I lived there but apparently Kendall, the one in charge, thought things were getting out of hand and wrote that into the rules and regulations so someone would be in charge of each relationship instead of complete sexual anarchy. But I promise you this. I’m not perfect. I will stray. I don’t want to. I tried not to. But it’s the way I’m wired and I think you’re wired the same way. You will stray too. So I’m inviting you to stray. If you let me know you want to fuck someone, I’ll say go ahead, then you have that bullshit owner permission you’re talking about. I really do want you to get it out of your system because I know once you let loose, you’re going to absolutely love living in Erotic Mayberry, and it’s my hope, like I told you before, that we’ll grow old together, fuck whoever we want, but come back to each other’s arms each evening and sit on that front porch drinking sweet tea.”
“You want me to let go like that?” I asked.
He had no idea the beast he was about to let out of the cage.
“I think you need to,” he said. “I honestly think the reason you tried to kill yourself is you still felt guilty about your desires. Yes, your man died of a drug overdose, I know that. But that’s not what really set you off. You felt guilty, gross, bad for the lifestyle you were living and the fact your man went out the way he did only confirmed your ideas that life wasn’t how you wanted it to turn out.”
He might’ve been right. I’d never thought of it that way.
“I want to fuck Pasha,” I said out loud.
He was quiet for a second and then laughed.
“That actually hurt a little bit,” he said.