“..for now we see through a glass darkly..”
Marcus explained how Dr Zim had called him to a private meeting on the morning of my 30th birthday. Told him, in a very matter of fact way, that the “Jayden Conner experiment” was ending soon. He had been offered a highly prestigious job in California, at Stanford. Then, Dr Zim had very briefly explained the truth to Marcus. That I was legally Jacob Ellis, and always had been.
‘Jayden wasn’t delusional, nobody was delusional.’
Marcus then read to me from a very short memo Zim had prepared for him by way of explanation.
Memorandum for Mr Marcus Hale: 4th March 2033
Following our discussion, I wish to clarify the position regarding the legal identity of Jayden Conner.
The individual presently known and functioning as Jayden Conner remains, in law, Jacob Ellis. This reflects administrative history rather than psychological reality.
My assessment remains unchanged. The evidence continues to support the view that Jayden Conner represents the authentic personality, whilst the Jacob Ellis construct is best understood as a compensatory false consciousness, developed through prolonged social conditioning and sustained participation in a series of alienated environments: family, academic and professional.
Accordingly, the legal identity should not be mistaken for the authentic identity. The persistence of the Jacob narrative should be interpreted clinically as intermittent relapse into a previously conditioned mode of self-understanding, rather than evidence that the Jayden identity is artificial.
I appreciate that this distinction may initially appear counter-intuitive. Nevertheless, I believe it accurately reflects the evidence gathered throughout the course of the experiment.
— Dr Elias Zim
Dr Zim had explained to Marcus that the research had proved invaluable. However, with him leaving his post in London and going overseas, the medication flow would cease. He thanked Marcus for all his help and, as recognition, had already arranged the transfer of a bonus sum to his bank account.
‘There are also a few documents I’ve sent to you Marcus. You may want to share them with Jayden. It’s all yours now Marcus, you’re in charge. But, and it’s just my observation, it’s probably best all round, if he stays as Jayden Conner, I’m sure you understand.’
Yes, I’m sure Marcus understood matters only too well.
So there we sat, at our kitchen table, in our flat, a man who’s just discovered he loves someone who doesn’t really exist, or not properly, like a person normally exists. And me, sitting there, knowing full well who does and doesn’t really exist, but not having a clue as to what to do about any of it. For a moment, the thought did cross my mind, ‘lets pretend we don’t know. Call the client back, say it’s ok to come, then prep myself up, take the meph, open the door, smile, the whole routine.’
But that’s all over now isn't it?
Marcus was the first to speak, taking charge as usual.
'Jaydie, will you marry me, become Jacob Hale?’
I just looked at him. Open mouthed, and not for the first time, was at a total loss as to what to say. Although now it was not because of the medication, although that never helped, but because the suggestion was so unexpected, so outrageous. And why “Jacob Hale”?
‘Think about it Jaydie, take your time, read the stuff that Zim’s sent, it explains things. I’ve also got some things for you, it might help. You should know it all Jaydie, everything.’ Then more silence. Lots of silence. There is a clock in every room in our flat. Marcus bought them all, with my earnings. I could hear the kitchen clock ticking, it has a very quiet, solid, comfortingly rhythmic ticking, ‘click click burrrr, click click burrrr’.
‘There’s also a diary, Jacob’s diary. Zim had your flat searched, took things away. And there’s this he gave me.’ He handed over a clear plastic bag. Inside I could see a smart jacket, shirt, chinos, all neatly folded up. A pair of polished shoes. An ancient looking phone, keys, and a wallet.
There was then another long silence, just the sound of that clock’s rhythmic ticking. Then the clock by the front door chimed the quarters, a quarter to six, three chimes; outside it was sunset. That clock has a delicate sound that can’t normally be heard. It isn’t a replica, it’s the real thing, an 18th Century antique. Marcus couldn’t resist things like that.
Then he took out his wallet, and took a small laminated card from it. He put it on the table, face up. He pushed it towards me. It was the picture of a smiling teenage boy, an unconsciously free smile, open, you could see blue sky behind him. ‘Jaydie, when I was teenager, at school, there was this boy. We never did anything, not like you and me Jaydie, but, but, I..’ This was the first, and only time actually, that Marcus ever mentioned his past, who he was. ‘He died then Jaydie, before he grew up, a long time ago fella. A long time ago. Thirty years ago.’
Marcus didn’t say any more about the boy in the picture. He put the card, very carefully, tenderly even, back in his wallet.
It was completely dark outside now. We don’t have curtains on our kitchen window, it’s not overlooked in any way. I could see our reflections in the dark glass; both of us sitting at the table, our hands on the table top, like two men having a seance.
What will become of us?
‘Boss, shall I sort us a rollie each, maybe spliff?’ I would never normally make a suggestion like that. That was Marcus’s domain, the idea, the handing out of the tobacco, and the spliff.
‘Yeah Jaydie, good boy, you know where it’s kept?’ He handed me his bunch of keys, ‘this one Jaydie’ he said very quietly, ‘with the blue dot.’
We sat in silence at the table as I rolled one. I lit it, handed it to Marcus who took the first draw. He handed it back to me, and I inhaled. Suddenly, there was a beating of rain against the window. ‘Storm’s coming Jaydie, look.’ He showed me the thermometer reading on his phone, synced with the one outside the window, ‘four degrees celsius, fucking freezing.’ I thought how warm it was in our flat, in our kitchen. I didn’t know where to start.
‘Your meds Jaydie.’
‘Yes Boss.’
‘About two weeks left. Then..’ And he looked at me. Just stared at me. Then something I never saw before, and never saw again. He cried. He got up and just walked out of the kitchen. Then I heard the flat door open and close, quietly. I was on my own now. Suddenly I got the munchies, so I unwrapped my birthday present, and ate some of the chocolate.
I must have dozed off on the chair, because I came to with a start. Spliff and the medication will do that to me. I took the clothes out of the packet and held them up. Those trousers, proper smart pants with a belt, the label saying they had a 28 inch waist. No point in trying those on. I’ve worn trackies for years, even if they are always too small. I wouldn’t fit into those smart pants. The shirt, the same. I looked in the mirror. It didn’t really match. The wallet. An old note in there, a ten pound note with the head of Queen Elizabeth II on it. I see a lot of bank notes in my line of work, but I haven’t seen one of those for years. ‘Fuck it,’ I said to myself, and I put everything back in the bag, and shoved it in the bin. ‘No point,’ I said to the empty kitchen. 'No fucking point.’
Later, Marcus came back. He was much calmer, much more his old self. ‘Think about it Jaydie, you know, about what to do.’ I slept as well as I always do that night, the medication sees to that.
Business as usual?
That next day, well, that started as all the others had. My alarm at 06.30, and out of habit, I got up, prepped, and was at Marcus’s bedside in position at ‘present ideal’ before 07.00. ‘Good boy, come on, get on my cock.’ After I had got him hard, he fucked me, came inside as he always does. I sucked him clean, and then, as per the protocol, I put a ball butt plug up my anus, so the Boss’s cum would stay where it belonged, inside me. Then he gave me my meds, then I made him his breakfast and I stood by the table in position, at ‘present standing relax’. He was on duty that Saturday. I noticed Zim hadn’t authorised any time off. ‘Back at five p.m. Jaydie. Remember you’ve two clients today, one at five-thirty, another at seven. You know the score.’
‘Yes Boss, I’ll be obedient.’
‘Good boy, see you later.’
It was like nothing had happened. Everything going on just as it had. Perhaps it was better that way?
I spent that day trying to read the various documents that Marcus had given me, both Zim’s and his own papers. I wasn’t used to reading, so it took me time. I’m not sure I processed it really. Even on a low dose of these meds, they fog the mind. Anyhow, what was the point?
There was an appendix to a report Marcus prepared for Dr Zim in September 2032, my sixth anniversary with him.
Supervised Community Integration Annual Report: Jayden Conner - Appendix 3 “sex work”
Prepared by: Marcus Hale, Senior Psychiatric Nurse, Designated Support Worker and Community Supervisor.
Date: Friday 3rd September 2032, Six years Post-Release from Greenford House. Recipient: Dr. Elias Zim, Senior Psychiatrist, Greenford House Mental Health Facility: Progress Update on Jayden Conner under Section 136 Care Plan
Summary
As in previous years, Jayden’s primary occupation remains sex work, servicing male clients. Client flow remains steady at approximately four a week. My forecast is, as in previous reports, circa 200 clients a year. Over the past six years he has serviced well in excess of one thousand men.
- Substance use: Continues to take a 100mg mephedrone nasally for compliance. Given the strictly limited usage, controlled by me, there appears to be no tolerance. Jayden actively submits to substance use.
- Professional demeanour: In line with the demands of his sex work he demonstrates a very high disgust threshold. Clients have differing standards of personal hygiene and Jayden deals with this in a very matter-of-fact manner, undoubtedly assisted by the mephedrone. He is entirely comfortable with anal contact and has maintained his oral-anal (rimming) skills, to a high standard. He will lick feet, armpits, genitals etc and services clients cheerfully and willingly as ordered. He will happily drink a client’s urine if required.
- Clients: Continues to be particularly popular amongst closeted men of South Asian and Arab heritage. Many have described his obedience and submissiveness as highly emotionally satisfying, as is his reflexive naming of body parts using feminine terms such as ‘man-cunt’, ‘tits’, and referring to his caged penis as ‘my clit’. Although very masculine in himself, Jayden presents no challenge to the masculinity of any of his clients, indeed, he enhances it.
- Income: With approximately 200 clients at a typical rate of £200 per session, Jayden has comfortably exceeded his income target of £40,000 over the past twelve months.
END.
Forty thousand pounds a year! I was shocked to read that. Much less than my old job at the bank of course, but it’s not nothing is it? That said, Marcus paid all the bills out of that, the skunk and the mephedrone, the lot. Plus I got to live in a nice Housing Association flat, rent free, more or less. I say ‘more or less’ because I had no choice but to get fucked by any man Marcus ordered me to strip for.
Marcus even kept accounts. Later he showed me. ‘Look Jaydie, there’s £30,000 in a deposit account, it has your name on it.’ Thirty thousand pounds for six years of spreading my legs and opening my mouth. Well, would Jacob Ellis have done any better, had any more to show for six years of spreadsheets and an endless, anxious grind in a bank? I don’t know. At least I have somewhere pleasant and safe to live. And our flat is a nice flat; I like living here.
Two clients that evening: five-thirty and seven o’clock.
The two clients were on time. Both were what I called ‘hard trade.’ Both wanted it rough and intense in their way. Even after seven years, I don’t think I could have done any of this without the medication and the mephedrone. Certainly not with the submissive attitude they were paying for. And I could not have calmed down afterwards without smoking the strong weed, letting it swallow my mind and taking all the bad feelings far away.
As the first client was coming up the stairs, and Marcus was telling me, ’sniff the powder Jaydie,’ he added, in a very matter-of-fact way, ‘he’ll want you to take his piss first Jaydie, so use the shower.’
As soon as the door opened, the guy just stood there, looking at me. He was about mid 30s, maybe six foot tall, reasonably fit build, a bit of a belly, authoritative. He was perhaps of North African or Arab heritage, olive skin with short, black curly hair and blue eyes. Good quality smart casual clothes. Dark. Somehow I thought he was an off-duty policeman, or something like that? His first words, a calm statement: ’I need to piss boy.’ So I led him to the bathroom, took off my tracksuit bottoms and knelt in the shower, mouth open, looking up at him, respectful and willing. The truth? In that precise moment I was both those things, that’s what the mephedrone can do for me. At that exact moment, I wanted nothing more than to serve this man and drink his piss. I needed it!
He stood in front of me. In complete silence he unzipped his pants, took out his cock, semi-hard, and put it into my mouth. My lips closed over it. I knew what to do, Marcus had seen to it that I was properly trained up for stuff like this. I felt him relax as my mouth filled up with his piss, warm, with a sharp taste, probably quite concentrated. I knew to swallow fast, to take it all, whilst I kept eye contact. Guys like him, they like it that way. He didn’t speak when he’d finished pissing in me, and he didn’t zip up, he was fully hard by now and couldn’t. He reached down, held my chin and said, ‘open it.’ With a guttural sound he coughed up some phlegm and spat it out, directly into my mouth. Then he gestured for me to get up and turn around. He bent me over slightly, spat again, this time I guess onto his cock, and just started to fuck me, with sharp, rapid strokes. Luckily I was already well lubricated and my rosebud took him easily, but with its nice thick lips it also had a good grip on him and I milked his cock. I could feel he was enjoying himself. He still said nothing. Then he came, four hard beats, with his big hairy balls smacking against my shaved, smooth arse cheeks. He pulled out, and gestured for me to kneel down again. I knew to lick him clean. All this time I kept eye contact, me looking up, submissive; him looking down at me, cold and indifferent. He left a tip, an extra fifty pounds.
After the first client left, Marcus laughed, ‘you won’t need to lubricate that man-cunt of yours Jaydie, nice and wet eh boy!’
‘Yes Boss, I counted them, four shots, lots of cum.’
‘Good boy, don’t waste it Jaydie.’ And he patted my arse cheeks. ‘No need to shower Jaydie, next one says he likes man-smells. He’ll also want to face-sit. Now, you get a second bump on top the first tonight, lucky boy!! Snort it now Jaydie.’
The second client was one of those well-built, muscular, middle-aged South Asian blokes with a belly. He wore a dark blue turban, possibly a Sikh? A tall man, maybe 6’4, easily a foot taller than me. My guess, a married van-driver, working in the area, looking for relief. The distance and the job an excuse for a missing hour. He wasn’t dirty, he just smelt of his work, and van sweat. He liked my smell. He gave me sniff, like a dog sniffs a bitch on heat.
‘Mmmm, fuck you boy, you smell like a fucking whore!’ I smiled up at him, cheerful and willing. Yeah, that wasn’t faked either. On the mephedrone, I wanted him to fuck me, for him to do what he wanted with me. I needed it, I needed that cock inside me.
He told me to undress him, down to his grey work socks; I saw they had an orange company logo on them. ‘Socks stay on boy, yours too. Ok, lie on the bed, gonna sit on your face for a bit, wanna feel that tongue of yours.’
He was a hairy man, with thick black hair between his arse cheeks. Marcus had trained me to use my hands to guide punters like him so, as they sat down, my tongue would make contact with the hole, and to keep my hands there so I could breathe. It’s a real skill to get that right. His hole smelt musky. With the second bump of mephedrone I was loving this. So fucking hot! From his grunts I could tell he was enjoying himself. ’That’s it boy, nice and deep..’ I was enjoying it too.
Eventually, he got up. ‘Ok boy, kneel and spread your legs. Fuck, what’s that you’ve got in there boy?
‘It’s my man-cunt Sir’
‘Mmmmm, it’s a proper fucking cunt! Juicy! Lube it up!’
I reached for the lube and massaged some in, although I was already well prepared. I moaned gently for him, they like that. I could tell he did. Fuck, I so wanted his cock inside me, I needed it. I was so high.
‘Spread your legs boy, good and wide, yeah! Fuuukkk! Goes in easy boy, nice, tight cunt too! Hey, you’re a real fucking pro aren’t you!’
He was so turned on by then. Me too. I clenched my inner muscles around his cock, backing onto him, hitting his rhythm straight away. It only took a few strokes and he came. I was good at doing this. As the man said, I was real fucking pro! I felt proud of myself.
Because of his manner, I could tell he was the sort who, once he’d cum inside me, just wanted get all that over with, and then steal some affection. Clients like that? In the end, I think it’s more the kissing and the hugging than the fucking for them. He smacked my right arse cheek, hard, and then told me to lie down next to him. I positioned my face in his arm pit, kissing it. I guessed correctly that he would like that. We lay there for a while, me absorbing his smell, his sweat, tasting it. It felt good, like this was all that mattered, all that had ever mattered.
At the time, I know I was loving every minute of it, the rimming, the fucking, the licking. My medication, and definitely the mephedrone, made all this so easy. When I was high, I wanted it. In the moment, all I wanted was to please each guy, it was as simple as that. I loved having this stranger’s cum inside me, feeling his heat, having his body smells on me. Another line of mephedrone and I would have done it all over again, for free. No problem at all. He said he was turned on because he could smell his own arse on my face when he kissed me. That turned me on too, tasting and smelling his arse sweat on my face.
Before I finished with the 7.30 client, he wanted me to sniff and lick his armpits out, and to thank him for his cum. As he was leaving he paused at the door, he looked down at me and ruffled my hair, ‘you’re a proper little bloke aren't you fella? All man, even though you’re a short-arse little whore!’ Then he rubbed his hand on my face and smelt it, ‘mmm, I can still smell my arse on you boy!’ And he laughed as the door closed behind him.
Towards the end of each hour-long session, and as the mephedrone was wearing off, I wondered could I have done any of this unmedicated, and sober? Drink a total stranger’s piss? Lick his arse hole out. Let someone I’d never met, like the 7-30, kiss me deeply, intimately, and me be totally responsive and please him in return? But that’s what a good whore like me is trained up to do isn’t it? To get satisfaction simply from pleasing the client, anticipating what he wants, giving it to him, generously, giving myself. I think it is true, part of me did get that feeling of accomplishment from a job well done, getting a punter off like I was the best. Sometimes I even felt this way when I was sober.
‘You’re a professional sex worker now Jaydie, a proper trained-up whore, and you’re good at it. You should be proud of that Jaydie.’ That’s what Marcus often said. And he was right, I was good it, and sometimes I was even proud of it too. I knew that I, or Jacob, had a history degree, from years ago. I think that sometimes I was more proud of being a good whore, serving guys and getting tips and return clients, than any other paper qualification I’d ever earned.
Although each of that evening’s clients had been hard work for me, both were pleased and had sent Marcus a positive text. My pleasing them was not an accident. It was because I was fully trained up. Marcus was a strict and methodical teacher, so I had learnt well. Marcus also made sure I kept up-to-date with my skills. He was pleased to hear me tell him later how I’d drunk the 5.30’s piss without spilling a drop. ‘Good boy Jaydie, now, time for some more practice eh.’ And he’d led me to the shower, and, before I cleaned my self up, I was ordered to swallow his. ‘Take it all now Jaydie, no spills, good boy!’
‘Till death us do part?’
That evening, I was sitting on the floor between Marcus’s feet, with the spliff, my mind drifting far away. He had his legs wrapped round me, possessive and protective at the same time. He knew it had been two hard sessions.
‘Jaydie, listen, if you marry me, become Jacob Hale, you know your name goes on this flat. You understand what that means Jaydie? It means if I die Jaydie, or anything happens, this place is yours. It’s yours anyway, but that makes it legal. Proper.’
‘Yes Boss.’
What was pretty clear was that, even if I did marry him, very little apart from my name would change, at least for the foreseeable future. I would still be a sex worker, whored out, whether I liked it or not. And Marcus would still be in charge of me; I think I minded rather less about him being in charge. I liked Marcus being in charge.
Even to this day, I have never asked Marcus why my married name had to change to Jacob Hale. My guess is it was because Marcus felt instinctively that part of Jacob still existed somewhere inside of me. Whilst Jacob Ellis no longer exists as he did, and the old Jacob, the trainee banker, can’t be resurrected, Jayden Conner is still just a kind of living ghost, a role I inhabit; even if, at times, I cannot tell the difference myself. Which is more real then, Jayden or Jacob? Maybe both of them are parts of each other? But as Jacob Hale, as Marcus’s husband, that’s real, something to be. Even something to be proud of? That’s perhaps closer to the truth. I was Jacob for a lot longer than I was ever Jayden, and you can’t conjure history away. I half remembered a text from the Book of Ruth: ‘..where thou lodgest, I will lodge.. may the Lord do thus to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.’
Conditioning
Dr Zim was right, it was the sex work that did it. That’s the thing I see clearly now, sitting here in our kitchen while the late March rain hits the window. Maybe you can fight a thought, and maybe you can fight a pill, but you can’t so easily fight your own skin, not when it’s burning hot and screaming for touch.
Over a thousand men. Think about that number. One thousand times my body was pushed into the mattress, my mouth filled with cock, my arse lips stretched wide. Every single time, just minutes before the knock at the flat door, Marcus would give the order and I’d take that line of mephedrone up my nose. That burn in the sinus... it became the countdown. My heart would start to hammer, my skin would turn electric, and by the time the client stepped inside, the drug had already turned the horror into a craving. I wasn’t faking that big, wired grin for the punters. My brain was genuinely flying. The truth is that I looked forward to them coming because my nervous system associated their hands, their sweat, their piss, their smells, their feet, arses and cocks, all of it, whatever they wanted, with the absolute highest state of pleasure I’d ever felt.
The relentless sex work completely broke the back of whatever disgust Jacob Ellis was trying to hold onto. One thousand men. The trainee banker in me worked it out: if each cums about a teaspoon, or 3.5ml, which is average, then I’ve absorbed around three and half litres of spunk into me, my man cunt and my mouth, over the years. Three and a half litres. Or as Marcus might have put it, ‘over six pints inside of you Jaydie! Lucky boy!’
I remember how Dr Zim had looked at me in that clinic room, his fingers steepled under his chin. He didn't ask if I liked it. He asked ‘how much I liked it; how much I was enjoying my return to the sex work.’ And my slurred, foggy brain, swimming in lorazepam and the memory of the mephedrone, just looked for the pleasure. 'Yeah, Doc, the blokes love my hole... it's proper mint.' I said it because the high made it feel true. It was true.
That’s how the cement set over those seven years. Every client was a hammer hitting the same nail, driving the neural pathways of Jayden deeper and deeper into my brain until the tracks for Jacob just grew over with weeds. The sex and the chemicals rewired me from the inside out. Now the medication pipeline is gone, but the tracks are still there. My body knows exactly what it is made for. It’s a machine built for Marcus, built for the estate lads, built for the punters. It’s a natural whore’s body now. And it’s much too late to rebuild a banker out of a body that’s been used like this. Anyways, would I really want that? Fuck it, I look forward to the mephedrone and the sex, that’s hot too, it’s part of who and what I am. And when Marcus milks me, he gets me to tell him how much I fucking love it. Maybe, after all this time, it’s what Jacob Ellis would have chosen, had he only known?
Jacob Hale
Boss was very matter of fact when I said that I did want to marry him.
‘May I speak please Boss?’
‘Sure Jaydie, go ahead.’
‘You said about being Jacob Hale..’
‘It’s ok Jaydie, I’ve got all the stuff, the papers, even got us booked in, next week.’ As he got up off the sofa, he pressed his hands on my shoulders, so I knew to stay where I was, cross-legged on the floor. He went over to our sideboard to get a folder. ‘See those marks in pencil Jaydie?’
‘Yes Boss.’
‘You sign there, like a good boy, and it’s all done. Then we go to the place, see the man, and boom! You’re Jacob Hale.’ Suddenly Marcus seemed slightly bashful, not like himself at all, embarrassed. He knelt down on the floor next to me. In a strangely self-conscious way, which reminded me more of a teenage boy than a big man in his early forties, he produced a small blue box. ‘Look Jaydie,’ he said, in a quiet voice, ’I’ve even got us each a gold ring, 22 carat gold. Whatever happens, whatever they call you, you’ll always be my Jaydie. Remember that, and I’m always your Boss.’
I didn’t look at him. ’Yes Boss, always yours. Always your Jaydie, forever.’
Looking for Jacob
I got a lot more than I bargained for; and I should have been careful about what I wished for seven years ago. But despite everything, I don’t believe I ever actually became Jayden Conner. I was immersed in the role, and learnt to inhabit it. For days I could even forget Jacob Ellis. The audience was convinced to varying degrees. Dr Zim may have believed his experiment had worked, the notes I saw suggest that he did. My clients believed it. The police certainly believed their own records as truth. The most complicated question is Marcus. Did he always believe I was Jayden? He never answered my question, why he wanted me to marry him as Jacob Hale, rather than Jayden Hale. Perhaps he knew that inside, I was still a form of Jacob, and he was anchoring that to himself, honouring me in truth?
But what might have been true for Marcus, and Dr Zim, the police, the clients and anyone else, wasn’t what was true for me during those seven years. I have always been completely clear about who I was, right from the start. I am Jacob. It might have passed from my mind for days, weeks even, who I was, but I always came to back to it, one way or another. I could remain myself for seven years whilst all the world insisted I was someone else. I learned to be Jayden Conner, but I didn’t mistake Jayden for me.
I don’t deny the power of the experiment. The changes are real, the consequences are real. It might have even been easier to be Jayden than to be Jacob Ellis. I am not who I was, my accent is not recognisable, and physically I’m certainly not what I once was. And I have skills and a trade, if you want call it that, that Jacob Ellis never possessed, nor would have dreamt he could. But I am still Jacob, and will be, as Jacob Hale. I don’t think anything can change that. I am Jacob.
An early change of career
‘Jaydie, listen, something’s happened.’
In the late autumn of 2033 Marcus turned 45. It meant he qualified for a full medical. The news wasn’t good. Thirty years of smoking had left high blood pressure, and dangerously high cholesterol. So now he had decided we were both going to give up tobacco. And it was also his decision that I was going to give up the mephedrone, and the cannabis, which meant I was going to give up the sex work. Marcus seemed to have had enough of it. So had I. Neither of us liked having strangers in our flat. I got a job as a cleaner at Greenford House, and elsewhere. He drove us both to Greenford each morning, and then back again. I noticed that I stopped falling ill quite so much. Another thing, I gave up the ankle tag. Marcus always knew where I was anyway. I was happy with that.
The cage
By that autumn of 2033 I had worn a chastity cage for seven years. It was always taken off once daily, under Marcus’s supervision, for inspection and hygiene. As regular as clockwork, Marcus milked me and brought me to orgasm once a month. It was a ritual. He was in charge. I even wore it when I was unwell. I know that initially I hadn’t wanted to be caged-up, and I remembered that time at Greenford House; I told the truth when I said I wanted it off. But, over the years, it had become part of me, a badge of my submission to Marcus.
Discipline, obedience and submission: I discovered these were also parts of Jacob’s nature. In my way, I am naturally submissive, not in everything of course, but I am to Marcus. Marcus is a naturally dominant man, he looks and he listens, he understands me. He cares. So I kept wearing the cage. I was happy with that.
A private diary entry by Jacob Hale on Wednesday 7th March 2063
‘It is 8 o'clock in the evening. I turned sixty this weekend gone, but I didn’t celebrate it. Marcus was buried today, in Manor Park Cemetery. A cardiac arrest. Retirement hadn’t suited him and he’d drifted back to smoking, and drinking. Heavily. He’d become anxious, especially if I wasn’t there, so I had stopped working too, to look after him. That’s ok, he was very easy to look after. He had become as predictable, as quiet and as regular as the clocks in the flat. Except, unlike his best clock, the Georgian one in the hall, whose gentle chimes I can hear as I write this, he wore out.
I wear two gold rings on my left hand now. I always will.’
As a submissive man
The protocols with Marcus had long since ceased by the time of his final illness. In fact, many things about the old days and Jayden Conner had faded away over the years. As Jacob Hale my accent now sounds much closer again to standard BBC English. As to other things about Jayden, time did its work, perhaps more effectively than a doctor could have done. The teeth were repaired, the fillers slowly dissolved, the piercings healed up, more or less. Scars fade eventually, only traces remaining that begged no questions.
I also started going to the gym regularly again and recovered my fitness, I think better than before because I had lost my anxiety, and slept well. More definition, I look good for a middle aged man. As for the ink, fashions change and nobody notices tattoos in the middle of the 21st century, they are everywhere, on people of all classes.
Even the cock cage was eventually left off, ‘no need Jaydie, I know you’re a good boy.’ So almost everything about Jayden eventually receded into the distance until it was barely visible, like the dot of what might be a ship on the horizon, far out at sea. Receded, that is, except for one thing: I still called Marcus “Boss” to his face. I still do actually, in my mind. I always will, even though he’s gone.
A private diary entry for Thursday 4th March 2083.
‘It is 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Today is my 80th birthday. The weather is like it was in the old days in London at this time of year, cool, and bright. A typical spring day. As if the climate had never changed. But the last several summers the temperature has exceeded 50 degrees Celsius in London, day after day. Marcus would have been fascinated by that.
What did I do for my birthday? I drew up a will this morning. Our flat, of course, reverts to the Housing Association, but everything in it will be sold, and any money left over, along with my papers, will go to the archives at University College London. They have an organic super artificial intelligence called “Jeremy Bentham XVII”. The instructions are for it to analyse the papers. I wonder what it will find? I went to an open day at Gordon Square about it the other year. They are interested in this sort of thing, apparently it’s the latest fashion in personal social history. But in reality, as the man speaking described things, ‘it’s just old wine in new skins.’ In essence, it is just old-style archives and documents but looked at differently.
Is it true, and how do you know? That’s the double question I remember from my days as a history student. Historians will always find new ways of interpreting the archive to answer that. New documents emerge, new perspectives, fresh agendas. Old mysteries are solved and solved again, each one a bit different. I wondered to myself: is Jacob true, and how do I know? What type of wine am I, what type of skin?’
The end
Jacob Hale got up early on Tuesday 21st July 2093. At 06.30. Old habits, as he would have said, die very hard. He had slept well but was strangely tired that morning. That was not the heat, because although it had never dropped below 35 degrees celsius outside that July, and the day ahead would reach a punishing 54 degrees, the air conditioning inside his flat was efficient. It always had been.
The antique clock in the hall chimed the hour. ‘Good morning Boss,’ Jacob said to it, with a smile. ‘I’m not hungry today, no breakfast, so just tea I think.’ Then Jacob felt tired again, and he lay down on the old sofa. He felt cold, and went to cover himself with the blanket, the one that was always kept in the drawer nearby.
‘Jaydie? You ok fella?’
‘Ok Boss, just tired.’
‘Good boy, stay put, I’ll look after you. Just you and me today.’
Epilogue
As stipulated in Jacob Hale’s will, his ashes and those of Marcus Hale are interred together in a niche at Manor Park Cemetery. Above them is a memorial plaque:
“Enjoy life with the one whom you love, all the days of your vain life that He has given you under the sun.”
(Adapted from Ecclesiastes 9:9)
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