Detective Spider is dressed casually on this, his day off from his job with the Santa Barbara police department. He wears a simple blue chambray shirt, tight-fitting jeans and solid black leather boots. The kind my older brother would call shit-kickers. From what I know of Spider this is probably accurate.
We've already agreed that I will record our session, as well as take notes. I wonder if he feels the irony of the situation, being on the other end of the interrogation, as it were. Maybe that would explain his somewhat negative attitude. As we take our seats in his living room in front of a wall of DVDs, many of which are clearly pornographic in nature, he is grumbling under his breath.
Seeing no sense in prolonging this, I jump right in.
Pat: Thank you for agreeing to speak with me, Detective Spider. I promise to make this as painless as possible.
Spider: Let's get something clear. I'm here because I was told to be here.
Pat: Well thanks all the same. Now, I remind you, Detective, that you agreed to this, and that you agreed to be honest. Do you still hold to that agreement?
Spider: This was a mistake.
Pat: You signed on for it, sir.
Spider: (more verbal grumbling) Fine. Let's get this over with.
Pat: My readers have a few questions they'd like you to clear up. But first off, why don't you tell us a bit about yourself.
Spider: What's to tell? I'm a thirty-four year old detective with the Santa Barbara police department. I've been a LEO for the past seven years.
Pat: LEO? Is that your star sign?
Spider: Hardly. It means Law Enforcement Officer. Cop. Aren't you guys supposed to research your subjects before you do this sort of thing? For your information I'm a Libra. Why do I know that? Because Jason told me.
Pat: Why the hostility sir? Please, be honest with me.
Spider: You want honesty? Okay, here's honesty for you. I don't know why I agreed to this. I was clearly a mistake. I'm not comfortable talking about myself to someone I don't know and don't want to know. That honest enough for you?
Pat: So why did you agree, then?
Spider: (Mumble)
Pat: Sir? I didn't quite catch that.
Spider: Jason wanted me to do it. He thinks people might understand me more if I talk to you.
Pat: And that's important to you? That people understand you?
Spider: No. But it matters to Jason. So here I am. In fact, I guess you could say I'm here, I'm queer, get over it.
Pat: Except being gay has never been the big issue, has it? You're not in the closet. You're not being persecuted for your orientation. You live openly with your male lover and apparently no one bats an eye.
Spider: You know nothing about my life.
Pat: I know you were born in Kansas City, Missouri, you attended three years of under graduate school at University of Missouri-Kansas City, with Criminal Justice as your major, and you married Barbara Ballard when you were twenty-two, shortly after your father's death. See, I did do some research.
Spider: Are you going to drag my family into this?
Pat: Do you have issues with talking about your parents? I know they're both dead--
Spider: Yes, they're dead. Drop it.
Pat: Okay. Tell me about your wife, then. She's alive and well and living back east, correct?
Spider: Married to a hotshot corporate attorney. What can I say? Her and I, we never should have gotten married. It was a mistake. I know that now. I was still in denial about being gay and that seemed the easiest way to affirm my straightness.
Pat: What was she like?
Spider: Tough. Smart. Funny, sometimes. A real ball-breaking bitch when you pissed her off, which I did a lot at the end.
Pat: You never had any children. Was that deliberate?
Spider: Hell, yes. Thank God. One smart thing we did those two years. She was all about her career in law -- that mattered more to her than anything. That was fine by me. Her long hours and mine meant we didn't have to spend many evenings at home. Maybe that's why we lasted as long as we did.
Pat: Two years? That's hardly long.
Spider: If you'd been around us after a weekend together you wouldn't say that.
Pat: You never told your wife you were gay?
Spider: Not until the end.
Pat: Is that when she threw you out?
Spider is clearly not happy with my line of questioning, but finally he mutters.
Spider: Yes, it is.
Pat: Do you regret any of it?
Spider: Regret what? That I'm gay? That I'm a cop? That I got out of a bad marriage before we really hurt each other?
Pat: How would you have done that? Were you active in the bondage scene while you were married?
Spider: Define 'the scene'.
Pat: You're being evasive. Did you and your wife practice bondage. BDSM. Using restraints, gear... what you call your 'toys'?
Spider threw me a lopsided grin that transformed him from surly cop to boyish imp in the flick of an eye. I could now see what had attracted Jason to him. He was stern and commanding, autocratic even, but then he could also be a lovable, sexy man. The dichotomy was exotic, and yes, erotic.
I cleared my throat and got back to business.
Pat: Did you?
Spider: Only once and it was a major mistake.
Pat: Tell us about it.
Spider: We'd been fighting -- as usual -- all day. We were both off -- rare, since normally our time off didn't coincide. But that day we had made plans to go out, supper, a few drinks, a show, some new Hollywood blockbuster she wanted to see. Didn't work out. We started in even before we sat down to eat. Something about a phone call earlier that day, a message I hadn't taken, or something. It wouldn't have mattered. Once she was in the mood, she could start a fight over anything. It escalated all through the evening. She refused to leave the house with me and stormed into our bedroom, slamming the door, calling me all kinds of names, throwing things. I confess, I blew a fuse. Forced my way in and she came after me.
He touched his freckled cheek just under his eye.
Spider: Got me good with her nails. I grabbed her wrists to stop her doing it again and we ended up on the bed, me holding her arms over her head, pinning her down under me. One thing led to another and I fucked her -- hard.
He scrubbed his hand through his short red hair as though to wipe the memory out of his head.
Spider: You gotta understand. I'd been going to the Vault for a few weeks by this time. I wasn't having sex with anyone, not yet at least, but I was looking and watching. Feeling things I'd never felt before. The rawness of it all. The fucking power those men had.
That all came out that night with Barb. She looked like a whipped dog when we were done. And I left her there and went down to the Vault. I'd been hit on before this, on other nights. But that night, this cute little blond trick from Cleveland came on to me, all submissive and boot licking. He blew my dick and then I bent him over and fucked him blind. I'd never felt so... strong.
Pat: So you came out to your wife.
Spider: Eventually. When I thought the time was right. Boy, was I wrong about that. For that one, the time would never have been right.
Pat: She was upset?
Spider: She went ballistic. Threw me out. Threw all my stuff out on the lawn and let the neighborhood brats loot it.
Pat: Was that when you were outed at work?
Spider: She went all out trying to get me shit-canned. Didn't work, though. I think my bosses would have been happier if it had, but they had to learn to tolerate me, or face the kinds of lawsuits the LAPD did a few years ago.
Pat: So they had to accept your gayness. But you were never upfront about anything else?
Spider: Why should I be? What I do in my bedroom is no one's business but my own.
Pat: And Jason's.
His face softened.
Spider: Yes, and Jason's.
Pat: My readers have some specific questions they'd like to ask you, if you don't mind. You up to answering them honestly?
Spider goes back to being brusque.
Spider: If it gets me out of here sooner rather than later, by all means, ask away.
Pat: First then, why did you become a cop?
Spider: It seemed like a good idea at the time. To be in control. Who has more control over chaos than a cop?
Pat: And control is important to you, isn't it?
Spider: That's a question? Isn't it important to everyone? Some people like to have it, some like to give it over to someone else in exchange for security. I like to have it.
Pat: If being in control is so important, does that mean there was a time when you weren't in control? Usually we only crave something when we lack it at some point.
My question clearly made Spider uncomfortable. Have I hit a nerve? I decided to risk his wrath and push him.
Pat: When was it, Detective? Were you a child when you lost control?
Spider: Lost control? What kid do you know who has control over anything? I didn't, that's for sure. People get sick. They don't tell you it's going to happen or that it's going to be terrible. They just do it and you have to live with it. You can't control it.
Pat: This goes back to your parents, doesn't it?
Spider: I said I wasn't going to talk about that.
Pat: They died when you were very young. That must have been devastating. Your mother had cancer, didn't she? How old were you when she passed?
Spider: I was fifteen. She spent four fucking years battling the cancer. Four years where I had to watch helplessly while she became this tiny, shriveled woman who screamed in pain all the time until she was so hoarse she couldn't scream anymore and the doctors mouthed useless fucking platitudes at us and nobody could help her or us.
Pat: I'm sorry.
Spider: Of course you are.
Pat: Your father, he died what four, five years later? Then you and your brother had to go live with your uncle. How was that?
Spider: How do you think it was?
Pat: I'm sure it was awful.
Spider: So what's your point? I'm supposed to show you how heart broken I was? Uncle Jerry was a good man. He never asked to be anyone's father, but when the job was thrust on him, he did the best he could do, despite that.
Pat: But you were the one who actually held it all together, didn't you? Your brother told me--
Spider: You talked to Dean?
Pat: We had a few words. He said you were the only thing that held your family together through it all. That your uncle may have tried, but he wasn't very effective, good man or not.
Spider: But he was a cop. I'm sure you knew that.
Pat: A beat cop, in the KCPD, right? Central patrol division, wasn't it?
Spider: Thirty-two years.
Pat: So that's why you became a cop?
Spider: I had to be something.
Pat: So, no noble desire to do good, to help fight wrong doing. Just a pay check?
Spider: And the pension. Don't forget the excellent pension plan and the dental, too. I've got perfect teeth, thank you very much. Even better, Jason is covered. We both have perfect mouths.
He grins to show his whites off. They are perfect.
Pat: You get off on being a Dom in the BDSM lifestyle. How does that bode for the stereotype of cops having control issues? Are you a control freak? Hmm?
Spider: You say that like it's a bad thing. I want to control what affects my life. What's so wrong about that?
Pat: What about the BDSM stuff? You still haven't said where that came from, except you used to watch them down at the Vault.
Spider: (shrugs) There's something sweet about a hot young piece of ass submitting totally to my will. Sex is good, but sex I control completely from beginning to end is so much more powerful. Mind blowing.
Pat: When did you realize that you wanted to engage in BDSM and how did you feel felt about that.
Spider: I began to realize I was attracted to the life shortly after my wife and I moved to Santa Barbara and I found the Vault. I was drawn to it and when I tested the water it was more than I had ever dreamed. That was when I was hooked.
Pat: What are you doing to work on your temper, control and jealously issues? Also, drinking while engaging in BDSM play? Are you considering getting some therapy or dom training?
Spider: I made the mistake once of letting my temper and my jealousy get the better of me. I hated it when Jason challenged me and disobeyed me, it was worse when I found out he was not only doing drugs against my specific orders, but was at the Vault looking at another man's dick.
Pat: But he wasn't flirting or making a pass at that man. You know that now. Don't you feel bad about making that assumption and acting on it so brutally?
Spider: Yes! More than you can know.
His fists are clenched now and his face a mask of rage. Rage at the memories I'm dredging up or rage at me. I have the urge to step back. Only now do I notice just how big this man is.
Spider: I have regretted that day every single minute of every day since then. I would take it back in a heart beat. But I can't, so I have to live with the pain I inflicted on the man I love more than anything.
Pat: What are you doing to make sure it never happens again? Good intentions are all well and fine, but what if your temper explodes again, especially when you're drinking? Have you gone to therapy? Anger management classes? What are you doing to protect Jason from yourself?
Spider: We no longer go the Vault. We sometimes go to Wildcat or Hades. But when we do, I don't drink very much. I haven't been drunk since that night.
Pat: But you weren't drunk then, were you? It wasn't alcohol that fueled your rage.
Spider: That night is the most shameful one of my life. But it's in the past. Yes, I went to therapy after Jason left me. I never told him. He doesn't need to know. I will trust you not to tell him.
I assured him I wouldn't.
Pat: Do you trust Jason?
Spider: Implicitly. I know he will never fuck around on me. He knows I wouldn't stand for it.
Pat: Are you faithful?
Spider: So far, yes.
Pat: So far? You don't believe in fidelity for yourself?
Spider: Whether I do or not is between Jason and myself and is not up for discussion.
Pat: Do you plan on cherishing Jason like you should, and like he deserves?
Spider: Of course I cherish him. More than even he knows. If I didn't, I'd never own him so completely. I certainly never would have brought him into my home to share my life.
Pat: I would so like to know how Alexander Spider got so hot. What makes you tick?
Spider: I don't know. Am I hot? I keep in shape. I care about my body -- I never smoked, I don't do drugs or drink a lot.
Pat: How do you like your name Detective Spider? Seems you're in a sticky web, eh?
Spider: I like it fine, until some wise-ass makes smart with it with cracks like that. Or call me Spiderman or ask about my Spidey-senses. Then, you and me, we gotta talk.
Pat: (this is actually for Jason, but since he's not here, I'll ask you) Do you think Jason has ever wished he could put Spider in the swing? Make you beg? Dominate you?
Spider: Jason knows his place. He would never presume to try to rise above his position. He belongs to me, not the other way around. He knows that.
Pat: What kind of hats, if any do you wear?
Spider: Can't stand hats. Give me headaches. Used to get me in trouble in my rookie years. I was always taking my hat off and the watch commander would ream me out for dress code violation. But I can handle a baseball cap, I guess, in a pinch.
Pat: What are your plans now? Do you intend to remain with the police?
Spider: Yes, I'll stay on. I think I'm good at what I do and there's a real satisfaction in bringing the dangerous mutts to justice.
Pat: What's it like being partnered with a woman? Do you have issues with women in the police force?
Spider: Detective Pickard is a top notch police officer. One day she'll be Captain. She's ambitious enough, and smart enough. She's got the political moxy, too. She'll be good for the department since she knows how to be a real cop. So no, I don't have any problems with women, or anyone becoming a cop, as long as they qualify and are serious about it.
Pat: What kind of changes have you had to make in your life since you and Jason became a couple? And are there any of them you regret?
Spider: By all rights I should say I don't change for anyone, but that would be a lie. I had to change for him. Especially after that night when I lost my temper. Like I already said, I don't drink very much anymore, neither of us goes to the Vault anymore, I have taught myself to trust Jason, and I've learned to talk to him, so we can clear the air if there are any misunderstandings. But I haven't given up any control of him, and I won't. He knows where his place is, at my side, under my domain, and he will stay there as long as we are a couple.
Pat: Do you ever foresee a time that you won't be a couple?
Spider: No. And don't ask me that again.
Pat: Do you like to dance, and if so, what dances?
Spider: Whether I like to dance or not, I'll be honest. I flat out can't. Ask Jason. I stepped all over his poor toes the one time he go time to try it with him. He's never tried again. He knows better. Or at least his feet do.
Pat: What kind of car do you drive or most want?
Spider: A Toyota pickup. If it was just me, I'd love something big and brawny, but Jason has this thing about being green, so I guess I'd go for a hybrid or fusion. If he had his way, we'd all be riding Schwinn's.
Pat: How do you spell pierogi, what kind do you like the best, and what do you like to do with them?
Spider: I guess I'd spell it P-E-R-O-G-I. Is that wrong? I'd don't think I've ever had anything but the potato and cheese kind. Do they make other types? I'll have to try them sometime. I like the ones I've had, especially with sour cream.
Pat: Have you ever owned pets? Would you ever? What about Jason?
Spider: We owned some when we were kids, before Mom got sick. Since then, no. I've got no time to take care of animals. And Jason? The subject has never come up, and probably never will.
Pat: How do you get along with Jason's family? I understand they were not very supportive of his life style choices for a long time.
Spider: That's changed considerably since he came out of the hospital. Sometimes all it takes is a life threatening event to make us all realize how quickly everything can be lost. Jason stayed with his sister when he first left the hospital, before he went into rehab. I think that was a good time for both of them. They grew quite close, and eventually she brought their father around. He even helped Jason finance his tuition. We all want to see Jason make something of himself. So you could say we get along now. His sister seems to like me. I don't know about his Dad, the subject never comes up.
Pat: How is his schooling going? I understand he's pursuing his Masters. What then? Would he go so far as to try for his PhD?
Spider: That will be up to him. I'll support him in whatever he decides to do.
Pat: Even if it involves leaving Southern California? Even if it involved going to a school in the East?
Spider: We'll tackle that when the time comes.
Pat: But would you resist his going? You know if you ordered him to stay, he would.
Spider: I said we will tackle that when the time comes. But I will tell you Jason's education is very important to me. I won't jeopardize it.
Pat: But you like having that kind of control, don't you? Knowing all you have to do is say the word and Jason would abandon everything, no questions. That's pretty heady.
Spider: And it comes with a great deal of responsibility. You don't know me if you think I'd abuse that just to prove I can. Jason is a reflection of me. I'm very proud of him. Not many men could do what he's done in such a short time. Do you really think I'd do anything to set him back?
Pat: Well, it looks like our time is up. I want to thank you for talking with me, Detective Spider. I have to say I think Jason is a very lucky man. But then I think you are too. It's rare when two people so perfect for each other find each other and make it work despite all odds.
Spider: (His smile is soft and I know he's not thinking about me anymore) Yes, we both got lucky, didn't we. Are we done then?
Pat: Yes, we're done.
Spider: Good. (Leans back and reaches for the phone) Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
On that note, I leave his house and head back to Santa Barbara, where I just may check out the Vault and see if anyone there remembers Alexander Spider and his young lover.