Interview with Eric Tide

The “interview” that follows derives from a difference of opinion between Eric and me over the posting of the two-part Chapter 6 of Joshua. Eric’s Part 1, which he sent me first, was what subsequently became Part 2: the story of Dylan’s fascination over a picture of a guy in stocks, the making of the stocks by Logan and their first use by the two brothers. There was no mention in Part 1 of Joshua at all. I was bewildered. It was as if an unpublished chapter from David Copperfield had suddenly popped up in the middle of Great Expectations.

 

When I said this to Eric he told me to wait for Part 2, and of course when Part 2 arrived a few days later, everything became clear. But I was unhappy about posting the chapter in Eric’s order, and suggested that he either write a short intro to his preferred Part 1 (“Before I continue my story of Joshua…”) or simply juxtapose the two parts, in which case no explanation would be needed. Eric eventually did accept my suggestion, if reluctantly. He preferred to place the sections in their original chronological order.

 

“Readers should be able to figure out the connections without insulting their intelligence,” he wrote.

 

I replied that it had nothing to do with insulting anyone’s intelligence; that while I loved both parts, my initial reaction to the confusing placement of the two parts—misplacement, I felt—especially without prior warning—was one of annoyance, a feeling of being played with by the writer, which risked me losing sympathy with him. I didn’t care how he’d place future “flashbacks”, as long as people were prepared for them to happen.

 

This mollified Eric, who told me he intended to use a lot of flashbacks during the series.

 

I’ll let Eric take up the subject from here:

 

Some of the flashbacks have a direct connection to my Joshua experiences, as should be clear in this first one. But others will seem less direct. I still want to include them, though, because I want to continue bringing in my time with Logan, Dylan, and [their cousin] Graham without the slowly developing, chronological saga I had been writing.

 

So I want to move on but still harken back to the good old days with Logan and Dylan. My relationship with Joshua is best understood in light of my experiences with them. I see the flashbacks as a way to continue sharing experiences I had with them without completely returning to the saga.

The flashbacks may not be in chronological order, but I think readers may find the exploits interesting.

 

Logan and Dylan and I had a bondage relationship that lasted nearly two decades, and I have only shared about a year-and-a-half of it. There was so much more we did, and many of those activities continued to manifest themselves with Joshua and with others I would meet in the future, including the present day.

 

I really enjoyed playing with Logan and Dylan and we spent an incredibly large amount of time doing it. But things evolved. They grew up (I guess I did, too, at least physically). They had families and careers, and we gradually slowed down our activities until Logan abruptly stopped them altogether after he hurt me pretty badly one night. I tried my best to get him to continue, but he was done. But even before that happened, along came Joshua…

 

I’d wondered if Joshua was similar in any way to the brothers, especially Dylan.

 

If you take away the desire to fuck me, lick my ass, give me blow jobs, and want me to reciprocate, then Joshua was almost Dylan's twin. I recognized that early on, and while my activities with Logan and Dylan were waning, I saw Joshua as a way to keep them alive for years to come.

 

On the other hand, with Logan and Dylan, especially Dylan, you did engage in some sexual acts.

 

My relationship with Logan and Dylan was not sexual, but we did dabble into grey areas. They made me masturbate a lot. Dylan made me take his dick in my mouth on at least two occasions, but completely without the knowledge of Logan. Dylan did a few other kinky things with me, but it was always because he knew how much it humiliated me, not for sexual reasons.

 

But Joshua was obsessed with sexual stuff. It frustrated him, even angered him at times, when I wouldn't succumb to his sexual desires. But occasionally I did. I tolerated it, in order to continue experiencing the activities I really wanted—namely to get tied up, tortured, and physically abused. It was sort of an understanding between us.

 

And were you successful?

 

I did my best to “train” Joshua what to do to me without coming right out and telling him that was what I was doing. I gave him ideas to use on me to recreate my experiences with Logan and Dylan. My hope was that he would become more interested in those things and get away from the sexual stuff. That did happen to a certain degree, but I suppose a leopard never really changes his spots. Still, our relationship became a lot more gratifying for me.

 

A lot of what Joshua and I did grew out of the stuff Logan, Dylan, Graham, and I did. I shared with Joshua some of my experiences. He wasn't stupid, so he quickly figured out who did this stuff to me—our town was small and though he was ten years younger he’d heard the rumors that Logan and Dylan and I were more than close friends. That was one of the first things he’d asked about when he started the “anonymous” calls. But I never admitted it to him, as I always categorically denied the rumors.

 

To go back a little: In Chapter 2, when Joshua asked you to be his sex slave, did you ask him to explain what he meant by that? To me, in a way it might not be to you, to be asked to be a young guy’s sex slave would be a dream fantasy wish come true, but I’d definitely have a lot of questions for him before I said yes or no.

 

I didn't need to ask Joshua what he meant. Remember, I’ve left out a lot of the backstory I’ve already shared with you. Joshua called me “anonymously” at all hours of the night for three years before we ever met face to face. The first words he ever said on the phone to me were “I want to fuck you.” He continually repeated his desires to me before we ever met in person.

 

It was the other things he said that made me continue accepting his late night phone calls. He said he wanted to dominate me, to tie me up, torture me, whip me. As you can imagine, that interested me.

 

But he did want more…

 

He wanted me to be a sex object for him, to be used any way he desired. He wanted to give me blow jobs, and I was open to that. But he wanted to fuck me anytime he wanted. He let it be known that he didn't like using condoms, either (although....well, don't let me spoil it too soon). Plus, he wanted me to give him blow jobs. In short, he wanted me to be his property to use at any time in any way.

 

I wasn't ready for that, back then. But oddly enough, I signed a slave contract this past January, where I gave a man free reign over me for life. We even stated in the contract that he can use me sexually any way he wants. I’m not totally comfortable with that, but when you want to be owned and controlled, you can’t hold back. Sometimes you have to do things you really don’t want to. It’s not about being comfortable. It’s about letting someone you trust have total control over you. At least, that's what it’s about for me. I may write about my experiences at some point in the future, but that will be another saga.

 

I guess, part of the reason I am sharing all of these experiences is to show how my interest in bondage has evolved over the years. I started out being tied up by my next door neighbor when I was in kindergarten and I liked it. Now, I’m a slave under contract and subject to the desires and wishes of my Master, whatever they may be.

 

Since more recent readers may not know about your earliest bondage experiences, would you care to recap them for me now?

 

My bondage interests began when I was five years old. That’s when my next door neighbor first tied me up. I was scared when he took me behind the shed to tie me up, but strangely I ended up liking it. I was a strong-willed child. I wasn’t really aware of that at the time, but adults brought it to my attention as I grew up. I’m not a psychiatrist, but I guess even then I liked the contrast between my normal life, where I was a dominant boy, and my secret life behind the shed (or in the woods) where I was subdued by an older kid. Whatever the reason, Gary the neighbor boy tied me up a bunch.

 

Over the next few years, until I moved away, Gary and I began to play war games with other neighborhood kids where we started including some mild torture of our prisoners.

 

I met Logan when he and I were in the tenth grade, and soon after meeting him I became his slave, and his brother’s, for the first time. I have detailed the first year or two in my stories, but as I say, we went on for many years. Logan and Dylan worked my ass off, bossed me around, bullied me, tied me up, tortured me relentlessly. I didn't love any of that—except being tied up—but I craved it. I can't explain it. I mean, who loves being tortured senseless or being whipped mercilessly over and over and over? But in a way I felt I deserved it. I had to have it.

 

In some ways, as we’ve discussed in the past, you and I are very much alike. But I couldn’t take the kind of punishment you crave, and need. A spanking, a slap across the face, yes, I like that from the man who asserts his dominance over me, but I don’t like it going much further than that. It makes me writhe just thinking of it. On the other hand, I understand and respect the fact that others may need it.

 

Again, I’m not a psychiatrist, but I tend to think it’s because my father physically abused me from as far back as I can remember until I was sixteen. For some reason, I believe that abuse has conditioned me to think I deserved harsh treatment, and that the world is not right unless I get it.

 

Do you know that in all the years we’ve been corresponding, I don’t recall you ever before telling me this? You did once say, I believe, that your father teased you about going barefoot—which Logan and Dylan ordered you to do—but very little more. Your mother got more mention, but your father got so little that until you told me he said something related to you being barefoot, I’d wondered from time to time if he was even around during the years you were Logan and Dylan’s slave, since he seemed so out of the picture.

 

I know I haven’t talked about him much. Actually, he wasn’t around much and I don’t like talking about him. His absences were just fine with me. He wasn’t much of a father in my opinion. I hated his guts most of my life, and I was scared of him. He lost his brother in WWII and fought in the Korean War himself. I think those experiences did a lot to him mentally. He didn’t spend much time with me, and I got the sense I was mostly a nuisance to him. I never did get the impression he loved me. About his only role with me was to punish me, which he did brutally and often. He wore me out with the belt a lot. Several times a week it seemed. Sometimes he made me cut a switch and he would beat me with it. If the switch wasn’t thick enough, he made me cut another one and beat me even more—occasionally he would draw blood. If you notice from my accounts with Logan and Dylan, they used to do some of that. They got the suggestion and the encouragement to do so from me.

 

That gives me a new understanding of a lot of things I’ve wondered about.

 

My father was always angry when he beat me, yelling at me while saying hurtful words. Sometimes he would spank me with his hand. Almost always he made me take off my clothes when he punished me, at the very least making me strip from the waist down. I alluded to his abuse of me in Joshua 2 purposely. In his mind, he was raising me to be respectful. In my mind, he was teaching me to hate his fucking guts.

 

The way he punished me would no doubt be considered child abuse these days. If the physical punishment wasn’t bad enough, it was the emotional punishment I got. I told you about how he mocked me whenever I was barefoot, but he mocked me all the time about something. He mocked me to his buddies in my presence. He probably thought he was just being funny, but you don’t treat kids that way.

 

We never did family things together. In fact, I remember when my mother mentioned my father once around a group of ladies. One of them, who knew my mother pretty well, said that she thought he was dead. That should give you some idea how much he was around. He spent all his time working and playing golf. He never ate meals with us. He never went to church with us. I can remember going on maybe two vacations, and both of those were miserable because he clearly didn’t want to be there. He beat my ass in his spare time as a hobby.

 

What you say brings up a memory. About a year or so before Bound & Gagged suspended publication, we got a former colleague of my spouse Lee to come up from Atlanta and try to prepare our company for sale. She was a powerhouse of a woman, at the time between jobs, and happy to help because she liked Lee and respected him, but she hated what we did. Having been badly abused in her early years she thought that the only people who could possibly enjoy bondage must have had abusive childhoods. We contradicted her, but she didn’t believe us. 

 

We never did sell the company, but some time later, after she had returned to Atlanta, we were sitting around with a bunch of friends, and the subject came up about bondage fascination possibly stemming from childhood abuse. I think there were eight of us present, and it turned out that not one of us had been badly abused, or even abused at all, by our parents (though some of us—not all—had been bullied at school). The majority of us had never even been spanked.

 

Of course I knew that this would not be true for everyone. A dear friend of mine, who though basically a bottom tied me up for many years, had a father who treated him much as yours treated you, stabbing him through the tongue with a fork on one occasion, keeping him locked in his room for a whole summer because he wouldn’t confess to having done something he hadn’t done, and only ending the physical abuse when, taking a punch at my friend, my friend ducked, and his father broke his hand on the radiator.

 

I’m not trying to make comparisons here. I suppose there are as many reasons for people wanting to be tied up (and sometimes beaten) as there are people who want to be tied up (and beaten).

 

My father beat me until I was 16. I was so terrified of his authority that I never challenged him. Until one night he actually struck me with his fist. I grew a spine and fought back. He was shocked, became furious, and came after me slamming me down on the bed. I kicked him in the chest with both feet hard enough to stop him. He got control of himself, and I could tell he was sorry he had lost control. I stood up, looked him in the eye, and told him if he ever laid a hand on me again I would kill him. I meant it, and he knew it.

 

At some point my friend, too, warned his father that if he ever touched him again he’d kill him.

 

My father and I had our moments from time to time after that, even until I was in my thirties. But he never abused me again physically or mentally.

 

Curiously—to me at least—my friend was overwhelmed with grief when his father died.

 

Maybe your friend, like me, noticed his father begin to change over the years. The last three or four years of his life, we grew much closer, the way a father and son should be. He smoked, developed lung cancer, and died when I was 35. I felt such pain and remorse at his death because I regretted that we only really got to know each other for a brief time. I wish we had had a close relationship all my life. Things would be so much different.

 

The side effect of all that is that I have been programmed to believe I am worthless and deserve to be punished brutally. I hate it, but I must have it. I have been successful in my career and have had dominating roles in real life, but deep down I have been programmed to think all that is wrong. I shouldn’t be successful. I should be strung up in the garage all day and whipped endlessly. I should be tortured, then forced to my knees and made to suck someone’s dick. I should be humiliated until I just want to crawl in a hole and die. At least, I think that is what drives me to seek out this sort of brutal punishment.

 

It’s personally sad to me to think that you should find sucking dick such a shameful punishment. It’s always been one of my favorite activities, one of those things I may fantasize as being against my will, but really want to be “forced” to do, to be forced to deep throat till I gag. But then again, I love cocksucking, I love all sex with guys, even without bondage or sm.

 

In chapter 2, I thought you were going to tell me that you didn’t love the part where I was ashamed about Joshua humping me. I was going to suggest we reword it if it bothered you, but in reality that was how I felt at the time.

 

That certainly didn’t bother me, coming from you. In a straight man’s world, there’s probably nothing more humiliating and violating than to be fucked anally, to be used like a woman. And you clearly grew up in a very straight man’s world. I’ve known that about you for many years now, so when you wrote about being ashamed by Joshua humping you, I understood perfectly, and would never have dreamed of asking you to reword it.

 

Being used sexually still shames me, although to a lesser degree now because I feel it is my duty to submit and obey whoever controls me. It’s just that I was just beginning to experience new things with Joshua, and he took me to places I never thought I would go. Those experiences were important in leading me to where I am now because most people don’t mind dominating me in the ways I want, but in return they expect some sort of sexual favors. I’ve just learned to accept it.

 

And that acceptance started with Joshua?

 

Joshua was all about sex. He loved dominating me, but really he was after the sex. Joshua and I were on opposite ends of the spectrum where that was concerned. But I crave abuse so much, that I was willing to let him do things to me I once considered unthinkable. I laid down some strict ground rules when we started, but after a while the lines blurred until the rules finally just went out the window. As the story unfolds, you will see just how far I let him go.

 

Did you ever learn what really made him tick? In the story you say he never gave much away about himself, but I can’t help wondering if you learned more than he actually told you. Because there was a lot going on inside that boy. For example, did you ever learn how he came by his knowledge of sexual BDSM so young?

 

Unfortunately, I never really fully understood Joshua. I sensed that his story was much like mine. He was very, very secretive about his previous (and maybe contemporary) BDSM activities. I know that most people had no clue about his secret life, as I hope people have no clue about mine. He didn't want to talk much about his experiences, but every now and then he did let something slip out.

 

l remember asking him how many people he had “played” with. He always told me, “You're the only one.” But I knew that wasn’t true. He was too good and too experienced. But I lied to him just as much. He was always asking me if Logan and Dylan tortured me or had sex with me. I always flatly denied any BDSM activity with them.

 

I was extremely concerned that he might tell other people he met with about me. I didn’t want to be outed. He promised with all his heart that he would never do that. After we had been meeting for a couple of years, in response to my expressing that fear he once asked me, “In all the time we’ve been together, have you ever heard anything about us?” I had to answer no.

 

Once, he asked me, “Do you know Joey Archer?” I told Joshua that I didn’t, but really I did know who he was. Joshua told me, “He likes the same things you do, except he lets me fuck him.” That was the first admission that he played with someone else. But I suspect it was more than just Joey. Joey will play a part in the narrative later. I’ll wait to discuss that.

 

How long did your relationship with Joshua go on?

 

More than eight years.

 

What happened to end it?

 

I prefer to keep that to myself, for now. I may decide to share that later, but we'll see.

 

And since then?

 

Since then I’ve had relationships with several guys, including long relationships with three men in particular. I’ll call them James, David and Stan. I had briefer relationships with lots of other people interspersed throughout these three relationships.

 

It’s with Stan that I have now gotten to the point where I signed a contract promising to be his slave for life. He can do anything with me he wants, including using me sexually for any purpose he wants. When he makes me suck his cock, it’s humiliating. I don’t love it. But I am honor-bound to do it if he wants. When he fucks me, I don’t look forward to it, but again, I’m his property and it comes with the territory.

 

Any last words…for now?

 

What I really want you and the readers to do is see my evolution from kindergartner being tied up by an older kid to slave for life being tortured and used sexually by his Master for life. I want you to see things through my eyes, to experience what I experienced, and to understand what a true submissive will be willing to do to satisfy his emotional needs. Of course, my experiences will be different from yours and your readers. My desires and feelings will be different. But it's my story about my journey, and I hope someone will get something they need from it.

 

A lot of people are looking forward to Chapter 7.

Comments

[Dan]

Most men who had an abusive father or an absent father spend their lives searching for the male love their father never gave them. My father was both absent and abusive. I seek men who are older and stronger and who will punish me. In this way I am similar to Eric. One thing. Eric calls himself worthless. this is certainly not true in light of his great skill as a writer.

[Leo Devin]

I have to agree with Dan, I also have an absent and abusive father. I was driven away from home by him and somehow, ended up with a lover 25 years older than me, go figure.

[Kevin]

What Eric and the commenters say about their fathers is interesting, and is making me wonder what role my father may have played in turning me into a bondage freak. I can’t see it, yet, but it’s got me thinking. My father was a nice, decent guy, still is. Hardworking, left most of the "bringing up" to my mom. He never laid a hand on any of us kids. There are four of us, me the only boy with two older sisters and a younger one. I got turned on to bondage when I was six or seven, watching a TV prisoner-of-war film with my family. In one scene different soldiers got tied up and tortured. I didn’t know what was happening inside me as I watched that, but I knew it was something important that I didn’t want to share with my family. One soldier was hogtied, and another was locked in a tight hot box. The scene was very brief but I would have liked it to go on forever. I wanted to be tied up and locked in a small box like those soldiers, even though I didn’t want the pain of torture. I’m pretty sure that movie—I wish I knew the title and could hunt it down—was at least one of the things that turned me on to men in uniform and especially guys in military gear. Not that I ever wanted to be tortured. I still don’t. Oh, and I don't go looking for father figures. As the only boy in my family I would really have liked to have a brother.

[Leo Devin]

I had much the same parental difficulty as Eric but as some of you know, I ended up on the high end of the sadistic side of things. I wonder what could have caused that type of split?

[LG]

I have resisted this for a while but your interview with Eric just urges me to respond. Eric is sure to say ‘damn, that old fart is back.'

Yeah I am back and still loving Eric's offerings.

Eric consciously or unconsciously is topping from the bottom (and has been right along). That was discernable from your earlier interviews and from his narratives about the ‘boys’ episodes. He is still topping but not as forceably as most bottoms that do it. Eric does it in a much more subtle manner which takes longer and encounters more roadblocks. He has to bargain more, giving in to the demands of the tops in order to get his desires fulfilled. Your suggestions often are met with resistance but reach agreement after you both have had your say. I love it.

Eric seems to have matured with an awareness of the potential danger of actions, but he ends up doing them anyway. He has had super luck over the years and is still overcoming the odds. I marvel that he has survived so many risks.

I was very interested in the explanation of his relationship with his father and your responses. During my younger years I felt the strop many times as did my brother. Back in those days men shaved with a straight razor and honed them with a heavy leather strop which also served as an instrument of discipline to educate kids. My brother and I both were aquainted with the Strop, tho I never felt that my father was abusive. All the kids were educated by their fathers at one time or another and often with a bare hand meeting a bare ass over the knees of the male parent. My brother and I experienced both, but some kids got off much lighter.

Thinking back, Eric did recognize the seriousness of some of the things that they engaged in. He mentioned the discussions with Logan about the possibility of having to visit the ER a couple of times. Now there is the potential of contacting AIDS, with the sexual agreements that he just agreed to with his recent contract. His reaction will probably be “Mind your own business” but those of us who comment are sincerely showing our concern for his well-being.

I recognize that Eric has provided us with bits and pieces of his experiences which are probably highlights of his life and is using the flashbacks to fill in some of the gaps. I look forward to more fill-ins for they improve our understanding of the complexity of the man. Each and every one of us is an individual and while we may have common attributes we are not clones. I can relate to many of Eric’s desires but I never was able to engage in what Eric did. Placing myself totally into the hands of another man takes a tremendous amount of guts that I never could muster, tho I admit I didn’t come across the opportunities that so many encounter. I also am not gay and unlike you I consider having to administer a blow job, punishment. On the other hand I would expect to have that type of punishment accompany a session. Oh the complexity of us humans!

I apologize for the mess that this has turned out to be. It started in my mind to be a logical organized presentation but quickly became a collection of diverse thoughts thrown together. It does make me feel better to pass them on and it lets you know there are people out there who do pay attention to your efforts (and Eric’s) to entertain and educate us readers. My thanks for the efforts of you, Eric and others. I also look forward to continued offerings that will enhance whatever time I have remaining in this world.

LG