About the book
"Three Excerpts"
FROM THE UNTOLD BIRTHDAY SPEECH
"THE SCENE"
From Chapter 6: One Hundred Strokes
Then you spoke again, loud and clear: "You'll get ten rounds of ten strokes each. After each round there will be a pause where you can scream, and then you'll put yourself back in position for the next round of ten strokes."
Hearing you say "put yourself back in position" made me think: How? I can't move. The only thing I could do was stick my ass out, present it more deliberately. And so I did, arching my back, offering myself.
I was just hoping, please don't start with a cane, when the first stroke arrived on my ass.
It was hard. Just hard enough to make me gasp but not quite hard enough to make me scream out. I held the sound in, remembering the rules — no noise during the round, only in the pauses.
The second stroke landed. Then the third. Each one building on the last, the pain accumulating across my ass and thighs. By the time the tenth stroke landed, I was breathing hard, fighting to stay silent, fighting to stay still despite every instinct telling me to move away.
The pause. I let out the sounds I'd been holding — gasps, groans, a half-cry of relief that the round was over. Then I stuck my ass out again, repositioning myself, presenting for the next round.
You became more brutal with each round. What started as hard became harder. What was already pushing my limits began exceeding them. Round after round, ten strokes each, the pauses between them barely long enough to catch my breath before I had to present myself again.
By round eight, I was really in pain. Tears were rolling over my face. This was something that had never happened before — crying from pain during a scene. It was strange. The pain was so hard, so relentless, so overwhelming that my body had no other response. The tears were real, not performed or exaggerated. Just pure physical response to what you were doing to me.
Knowing that twenty more strokes were waiting — two more full rounds — felt almost impossible. But I'd stick my ass out again. I'd present myself. I'd take what you gave me because that's what I was there for. Your enjoyment. Your use. Your satisfaction.
Round nine. Ten more strikes landing on already brutalised skin. Every nerve ending screaming. My body shaking with the effort of staying still, staying silent during the strokes, only releasing sound in the pauses.
Round ten. The final round. Ten more. Each one landing with precision on an ass that was already destroyed, already pushed beyond what I thought I could take.
The final stroke landed.
I was shaking, crying, and proud. Proud that I could do this for you. Proud that I'd taken all one hundred strokes without breaking the rules, without moving away, without asking you to stop. Proud that even in tears, even in real pain, I'd given you what you wanted — my complete submission, my body as your instrument.
You released my hands from the table and helped me stand. My legs were unsteady, my ass on fire, my face wet with tears. You removed the blindfold, and I saw your eyes — satisfaction, pride, perhaps even a hint of concern at how hard you'd pushed me.
But I was smiling through the tears. Because this was what we did. This was who we were together. And I'd proven — to both of us — that I could handle whatever you decided to give me.
Welcome to Amsterdam.
"THE QUESTION"
From Chapter 7: Fetish Royalty
There was a time I wanted to understand why. What makes someone a masochist? Why do I need this when others would run from it?
I went to see different psychologists, hoping for answers. In the first session, I talked about my childhood. In the second session, about my sex life. In the third session, both sets of notes were put together and patterns emerged — things that might explain, assumptions that could be made. But nothing definitive. No clear answer that made everything make sense. I sometimes wonder what the psychologist wrote in their own notes after I left.
It was a long time ago now, and I've forgotten most of what was discussed. But I remember the frustration of wanting an explanation and not getting one that felt complete.
As when I was younger, I was desperate to know the reason. But luckily, growing mature has helped me accept this and realise that there's nothing wrong with practising BDSM. Maybe there is no "reason" beyond: this is who I am. This is what I need. And I'm fortunate enough to have found people — found you — who understand that need and can meet it.
I told you all of this over Kaiserschmarrn in that Austrian restaurant in Schöneberg. Maybe more detail than I'd ever shared before, maybe less — I'm not sure. But you listened. You asked questions. You understood.
And when the check came and we walked out into the warm August night, I felt closer to you than I had before. Not just because of the scenes we'd done together, but because you knew my history now. You understood the journey that brought me to that moment, sitting across from you, finally living the life I was always meant to live.
"THE END"
From Chapter 14: Folsom
Sunday morning. Alone in the guest room at my date's apartment, I picked up the phone and dialled your number. I was afraid to hear the outcome and therefore also very nervous. When you picked up and I heard your voice, I felt my heartbeat throughout my whole body. I told you about the pain in my body — still not knowing what was causing it — just to avoid starting the real conversation. Small talk. Medical updates. Anything to delay the inevitable. Of course you said, "Sorry to hear about your health." Polite. Kind. Distant.
In your next sentence you ended our story and broke up without a reason.
Three years — gone in a sentence. All the plans for October, the hope that we'd work through whatever "too intense" meant, the belief that we could find our way back to each other — all of it evaporated.
When I asked you for the reason, you only said that I would regret it if you told me.
That response was somehow worse than any reason you could have given. What could be so terrible that knowing it would make me regret asking? What had I done that was so bad you couldn't even name it? Or was it that there was no real reason, and this was just the kindest way to end things without having to explain?
The not knowing became its own kind of torture. In the weeks and months that followed, I would replay every moment of Folsom week, every conversation, every scene, trying to figure out what I'd done wrong. Was it the tantrum? Was it being too needy? Was it something I said or didn't say? The speech I didn't give? The intensity you told me to dial back but I couldn't figure out how to?
Without a reason, I was left to fill in the blanks myself. And the stories I told myself were probably worse than whatever truth you were protecting me from.
And that was it. It was the last weekend of September when our story ended. Ended over the phone, from a guest room in Frankfurt, on a Sunday morning. Maybe not coming out of the blue, but nonetheless heartbreaking and painful.
A phone call. Not even face to face. Not in person where I could see your eyes, read your expression, try to understand. Just a voice on the other end of a line, and then silence.
Three years of trust, intimacy, growth, and connection — reduced to a phone conversation where I learned I would never know why it ended.
My date saw me come out of the room afterwards. He didn't ask what had happened. Instead, he did what kind people do — he kept me moving. He took me to his gym. He was a serious weight lifter himself, and standing there next to him, working through sets, following his advice on technique and form — it was exactly what I needed. Not talking. Not thinking. Just lifting. Letting the body do what the mind couldn't.
He drove me to the airport that evening, carried my bag, and said goodbye like someone who understood that sometimes the best thing you can do for a person is not ask questions.
I flew back to Amsterdam. Peter was waiting. I told him everything — the call, the words, the absence of a reason. He held me. He didn't say "I told you so." He didn't say "you deserved better." He just held me and let me be broken for a while.
That's Peter. Nearly thirty years, and he knows exactly what I need without me having to ask.
REVIEWS
What an achievement.
“Intense” is the least you can say about this book — intense in its eroticism and in its emotions of two men that surrender to each other. Few people know the customs and conventions of the gay BDSM scene. It goes beyond even their wildest imagination, yet here it is, in black on white, expressed in words. You feel like warning sensitive souls for this novel. You read this book at your own risk. Some will feel repelled and will not want or dare to read it; others will remain fascinated “until the bittersweet end”, even if they have little or nothing to do with BDSM or master-and-slave play. I belong to that second category. But I couldn’t put the book down, because it is so well written.
The writer describes hours-long sessions involving ropes, whips, cock and ball torture, electric shocks, fisting, pumping, poppers — you name it, it is all there in the most painful and intoxicating detail. The writer makes himself extremely vulnerable, and that is very brave.
It is not only the technical but also the sensitive description of sex that makes an impact. What stands out to the reader is the total surrender and blind trust. The boundaries that are pushed. Despite the creeping uncertainty and jealousy in the relationship, the main characters form a duo that seems to work perfectly, and the writer finds exactly the right words for it — which is not easy, because writing about sex and obsession can quickly become ridiculous or boring. Not here.
The real pain comes at the end: the pain of rejection, the final break-up. That is when, as a reader, you realise very clearly that this must be an almost completely unvarnished autobiography. The feelings seem so honest, so deeply lived. From me this novel gets a standing ovation.
This is the most intense and tender declaration of love I have ever read.
pemj
Ghent, BE
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This is the story of the passion of two men exploring the outer reaches of male sexual pleasure, their raw animal selves unleashed and roaming free and wild under the tender cruelties of torture and brutality. They climb and climb and seem to always find new heights to scale, towards those peaks where pain and power dissolve into a form of detachment and ecstasy.
Along the way, as we flip through the pages, the dynamics of sadomasochism are exposed: if there can be a debate about the driver, the uncontested hero here is the masochist. His blind trust, courage, tolerance for abuse and endurance to pain are what allow the sadist to satisfy his fantasies of power. But beneath the veneer of machismo, the muscles, the tattoos, the boots, the leather, there is a little boy who just adores being roughed up by his big handsome brother, and who is in awe at how nasty and mean he can be in delivering his affection. He giggles at the touch of his hand, but when the roughing up gets rough in earnest, his eyes glazed and his knees weak, he lets himself sink into the delights of utter submission.
The bond once established deepens with each encounter, the minds fuse in complete connection, the partners in crime keep aggravating the crime of unchecked lust and emotions begin to shift. Passion is a torrent that devours. These two wild horses will keep galloping and emulating each other until one of them runs out of steam.
In the end, this is a glorious celebration of manhood in all its depth: brutal, tender, violent and affectionate, and also bitter. And the untold speech? Yes, it's in there too.
— Boris Vasinin, San Francisco, USA
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I went into The Untold Birthday Speech expecting an intense BDSM story, but I wasn't prepared for how much the emotional side would stay with me afterward.
The Amsterdam-to-Berlin setting gives the story a strong sense of movement, but the real focus is the complicated connection between the two men. I found the Master/slave dynamic interesting because the book doesn't treat submission as simply being about physical pain. Trust, vulnerability, control, and emotional dependence are much more important to the story. The relationship gradually becomes harder to define, and I liked that ambiguity.
The descriptions of the playrooms, the extreme power exchange, and the different environments—including the fortified Mediterranean house—make the world feel very specific. There are some genuinely intense scenes, so this definitely isn't something I'd recommend to a casual romance reader. At the same time, I appreciated the unexpected humor. It gives the story some breathing room when things get particularly heavy.
What surprised me most was how much the ending of the relationship affected me. The question of why someone can share such an intense connection with another person and then suddenly walk away is what kept me thinking after I finished. For me, that emotional uncertainty was more powerful than the explicit material.
There were a few moments where the intensity felt almost overwhelming, and the story won't work for everyone. The content warnings should definitely be taken seriously, and I'd recommend going in knowing that this is very much an adult, boundary-pushing book.
I'd recommend The Untold Birthday Speech to mature readers who specifically enjoy dark MM romance, BDSM, power-exchange dynamics, morally complicated characters, and emotionally intense relationships. 4.5 stars from me—raw, provocative, and more emotionally complicated than I expected.
readflare
New York, US
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Tijdens World Pride 2026 in Amsterdam loop ik Artuur Nobel Van Lebergh weer tegen het lijf. Ik ken hem al jaren. Hij vertelt over zijn net verschenen boek The Untold Birthday Speech - a brutal love story between a master and his slave. Ik bestel het en lees het, met een kleine onderbreking, in één ruk uit. Het is goed geschreven, persoonlijk en spannend, en daardoor moeilijk weg te leggen.
Hij neemt je mee naar een wereld van fysieke grenzen opzoeken, hard spel en bondage die weinig mensen kennen. De gedetailleerde beschrijving van contacten, gesprekken, plannen en acties maakt dat je je - als lezer - aanwezig waant. Je voelt de ruimtes, de hulpmiddelen, de zweetdruppels.
Dat de vaart die het werk in eerste instantie kenmerkt, bijna aan het eind als een nachtkaars uitgaat, geeft mij - als lezer - een onbehaaglijk
gevoel. Het is raadselachtig en vergroot de sympathie voor de ik-persoon. Vanzelfsprekend besef ik heel goed dat het verhaal vanuit zijn
perspectief is opgetekend, maar de verhouding tussen de twee kerels - en alles wat daarbij komt kijken - lijkt gebaseerd op wederzijdse belangstelling en respect en uitdaging.
Die wederkerigheid lijkt lang echt maar veroorzaakt uiteindelijk diepe twijfel. Welk rol of rollen speelt de man die de ik-figuur zo beschadigd achterlaat? Is hij wel eerlijk en oprecht geweest? Na de intense jaren is zijn zwijgen onedel en meelijwekkend. De schrijver van The Untold Birthday Speech - a brutal love story between a master and his slave komt er wel weer bovenop. Hij is van de twee de sterkste.
En moedig op weg naar World Pride 2027!
Leatherconnects
Amsterdam, NL zomer 2026
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The cover of the book says this is a brutal love story between a Master and his slave. I'll come back to that.
When you begin to read, you already know that this is not a book with a happy ending. Three years of intensive BDSM-experiences suddenly end, when the slave falls in love with the Master. The mystery in the book is the why: the Master refuses to explain why he suddenly doesn't want to have any contact with his sub anymore. I think this is frustrating for the author, but just as much for the reader. Unfortunately, this is not a unique story — there is a parallel with the movie Pillion, in which the Master withdraws completely. But most of us know stories of Masters and Slaves who break up and are never quite able to communicate about why things went wrong.
This book is very well written. It is not fiction, but a very personal report of what happened between these two men. The bdsm sessions are described in detail, and it is hot stuff to read. The writer provides background on how the human body reacts in extreme circumstances, and his stamina is impressive. What I find beautiful is how, as a reader, I really feel how thoroughly he enjoyed the extreme sessions he went through with this topman.
The sub is not a slave and the top is not a master in the strict sense: the writer has significant influence over what happens in the sessions, and between sessions there is no hierarchy at all. Their way of communicating is casual, friendly. I think that ambiguity might be one of the reasons why things never became clear regarding the emotions the two men felt for each other.
Knowing from the start that things will go wrong makes the book harder to deal with. The writer takes me on a journey into his insecurity, and a gloomy atmosphere builds the more you read. The men break up and lose each other completely, and the writer stays behind with mental bruises that hurt more than any bruises inflicted during the most extreme sessions. I closed the book with a somewhat heavy heart — the writer has lost someone really important. The book is brutally honest: every moment of insecurity, every jealous feeling is written down in detail, including how much he assumes about what the other guy must be thinking. When you assume you understand the other person, you don't feel the urge to examine the basics of your relationship — and without talking about it, you can lose each other. That makes the last, high-quality sessions the two men had, full of trust and truth, all the more beautifully described — and the ending all the more sad.
The book is clearly a way for the writer to cope with this episode in his life. The emotions are still raw — the dates tell us it is a recent story — and there is an urgency to tell it now. The story is unfinished, so maybe there will be more from this talented writer.
The cover says this is a brutal love story between a Master and his slave. But because they never defined their relationship that way in the strict sense, maybe they both were unsure of the structure they'd created between them. I started to like both men, and what happened in the end feels out of character for the top man — so the confusion at the end is understandable.
Let me explain my own background so you understand where these views come from. I am an owned slave, living in a Leather Family with a Master, three slaves, two pups and a Gimp. I am also a writer myself, author of "The Pisbak Files," about a Master and a slave and their Leather family in a long-term relationship.
I am always curious about what fellow authors write about their S&M relationships — so when I saw this book at the counter of the Mr B- store in Berlin, I bought it immediately.
Stein Subman
Den Haag, NL
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