The Game's Master

Chapter One

Greyness.

Dim, oily, greyness.

The staleness of morning.

He moved. It was a mistake, his brain rattled around within his skull like an overripe peach in a washing machine.

He breathed almost silently, wiling his head to spin so violently that it burst, thus ending the nauseating agony of a violent hangover. It was all a mistake, he decided, the drinking, the sleeping, but most of all the waking up.

Slowly, he moved his head until he could make out the illuminated numbers on his digital alarm clock. The bright blue glare strained his frazzled perception, but he still had over half an hour to go before the alarm was due to go off. He turned back, hoping in the half hour left before the world reclaimed him, that his head would start to clear, or better still, that he would find the strength not to wake up.

Pain pierced his head.

“Hang on.” He called as loud as he dared, and then realised that it was the insistence of the alarm telling him to get up, and not the doorbell.

Fumbling in his haste to switch the alarm off, he sat up and surveyed hi image in the full length mirror attached to the wardrobe door opposite his bed. His mid brown hair was stuck up, pointing in every direction but the correct one, and did not disguise his receding hairline.

“But at least I’m not grey,” he conceded, “in fact, I’m not in too bad a shape, considering.”

He wasn’t, his face, which would have been considered shallow but pretty fifteen years earlier, had mellowed into that masculine beauty that comes with the thirties and not the twenties. The only feature that marred his face was the hauntingly sad emptiness of his piecing blue eyes. His torso was of the kind that Michelangelo's David’s would have matured into, the kind of solid, protective beauty that comes of nature rather than a bodybuilder’s narcissism. His eyes travelled lower, his feet, as well shaped as feet can be, considering their natural plainness, dangled from thin ankles that rose into well shaped calves, past un-knobbly knees to become well shaped masculine thighs. The folds of skin around his pleasantly large testicles suggested a generously roomy scrotum, although this could not be seen for certain, as it was resting on his thighs. Springing determinedly from a tidy tangle of curls, rose the sceptre of his masculinity, in keeping with the rest of him, it’s generosity was aesthetically pleasing, rather than grossly stupendous.

He let his eyes linger on it for a moment, a vague smile playing around his lips.

“Well, at least one part of me wants to stay alive.”

It twitched in reply.

“You’ll have to wait, the rest of me’s not in the mood.” He continued, as he made his way naked into the bathroom.

The bathroom, crisp, orderly, almost aseptic in its lack of personality, by its contrast with the fogginess resounding still in his head, helped him to start to pull himself together. Gasping, he stepped into the cold shower, washing the final remnants of last night away. Looking down, his erection undaunted by the cold water, he continued his conversation with himself.

“Stubborn today, aren’t you. I don’t see why you should get what you want, when I don’t, so you’ll just have go without.”

His senses refreshed, he turned the hot water on, and started soaping himself, his hands gliding languorously over his smooth chest as he relaxed and began to enjoy the pleasure his body was willing to give. Its determination eventually overcoming that of his mind.

“Oh, I give in. You win.” He grumbles, changing his stroked to caresses, “but not just yet.”

With a sensuality that spoke of long years of solitary pleasure, he allowed his fingers free rein. With a gentle circling motion of the thumb, he coaxed first one, then the other large brown nipple erect, while caressing his armpits. With a slow deliberateness he moved lower, working with a feather light touch over the edge of the groin, setting off the almost electric sensation that particular spot gave him. Passing lightly over his lower groin, he delicately fondled his balls, feeling them tighten and relax several times in response to his fingers probing. Looking down the tip of his cock was stretched tight and shiny, the bluish cherry colour indicating that he could take little more without direct action. Grasping himself in his right hand, he started to massage the end gently at first, and then a little harder. He stopped and let his hand make long deliberate, twisting strokes down to the base of his throbbing organ and back to the top, increasing the pressure as he did so. After several passes he speeded up and squeezed harder, his eyes closing as he bared his teeth. A slight moan escaped his lips as his body jerked rigid and a stream of thick white liquid arced into the plughole. His hand continued the strokes as his body relaxed into its normal position. His cock relapsed gracefully into the flaccid state as he finished his shower.

Dried, he stood naked in front of the sink and stared at his reflection in the mirror, a tiny network of veins transformed the usually clear whites of his eyes into a vampiric parody of intricate lacework. The emptiness in the blue eyes un-assuaged by the physical relief his body had just enjoyed. Small creases around his eyes served to convey an air of dissatisfaction. This was not physical, physically he was fully sated, he knew how to give himself pleasure well enough, rather it was a moral dissatisfaction. He was annoyed at his weakness in giving in to physical desires. His mind should have been in control of his body. It was also partly due to an upbringing that had seen all sex as disgusting, and although he had outgrown this inheritance and obtained a degree of practical excellence in the field, he was still plagued by an occasional nagging sense of guilt.

“Yes, you may well be ashamed with yourself, after that edifying performance,” the mirror refused to reply, “and as for last night.

“Well last night was different, I suppose.”

Lathering his face he continued silently, “pathetic more like. How could I have let myself get into such a drunken, sorry state, in public as well?”

He returned to the mirror, “it’s no good berating yourself. You know full well why you got like that. In fact to a certain extent you enjoyed it. All that wallowing in self-pity, like some self-indulgent hippo in the mud of its own isolation. It is you’re own fault you’re alone. You chose to be celibate, and now you have got to carry the consequences.”

He continued to shave, but knowing the brutal truth didn’t help him. It was the reason for the previous evenings descent into gloom and drunken stupor. That his celibacy was not the outcome of a deficient or non-existent libido has been shown by his masturbatory prowess. rather it was a conscious decision, brought about by his growing dislike for the hollow pleasures of a life of promiscuity. Not naturally a promiscuous person, he found one night stands little more satisfying than a good wank, and decidedly more depressing. His affairs being little more than glorified one night stands, he had decided one night over five years ago to give up entirely.

Give up that is, until the right person came along. Now five years later he was despairing of that ever happening. As his dissatisfaction with promiscuity grew, so had his sense of isolation from the circle of people with whom he had mixing. Now all but a few of his close friends had gone, and thus cut down his opportunities for meeting people.

He’d finished shaving and begun to assemble the Martin Beresford that the rest of the world knew, the confident happy untroubled successful department head in a large comprehensive school. The dark well cut suit giving him more the appearance of a prosperous merchant banker than a history teacher with an excellent degree, whose main hobby was researching into the breakdown of the feudal system. His armour now on, he was ready to face the world, although dealing with it would be another matter.