The square of the security pad lit up pink and yellow to acknowledge Locke. Then it started to bleed green from the edges. When the screen filled with green light, the doors slowly swung open to the inside.
Locke walked across the threshold with Wulf trailing only inches beside and behind him.
The room was vast, set with alcoves left and right along each wall. At the center of the room a long runway-like stage ran all the way to the back wall, which was about one hundred feet. That stage contained steps every few feet so it was easy to climb up and down.
Masters used it to view their slave’s balance, walk, form, composure. They could stand or sit below the stage and observe their slave from every angle, order them to squat, kneel, sit, lie down. Slaves learned more than just sex acts. They were taught how to perform for their future master’s pleasure, everything from dancing a strip-tease to how to offer their bodies in the most sumptuous of ways.
Right up front two resplendent slaves, one male, one female, moved and swayed to their masters’ orders.
About fifteen feet down, a third male slave knelt, ass up in the air, forehead touching the floor of the stage. He was well-oiled, his brown skin shining, his black hair reflecting almost blue in the light from the high skylights in the thirty-foot-high ceiling.
Out the corner of his eye, Locke saw Wulf’s eyes widen at the displays before him.
Locke waited until Wulf noticed the big screens above the alcoves. They flickered and flashed. Impossible not to draw the eye. The screens depicted close ups of all manners of erotic acts. The masters could control what was played upon them. In fact, there was one class being taught at the end of the room and Locke could see that the master controlled a group of six men and was focused on teaching them the art of male to male fellatio. The master kept gesturing to the big screen overhead where they stood. The screen showed the close-up of an erect penis being licked and swallowed by an eager, plush-lipped mouth.
It was a known fact that video aided greatly not only in the teaching of techniques before they were implemented upon a real person, but in arousal as well.
When Wulf finally looked up at the screens, his lips parted. It seemed he held his breath for a very long time before finally expelling it and looked downward, as was his habit.
“There is no shame in the training room. This is a safe space,” Locke said.
But Wulf’s face was already flushed, and he shifted his feet nervously as his cock bounced a little, slightly springier than his usual uninterested state.
Locke suppressed a smile. Well, well, Wulf was human after all.
Not that Locke had ever doubted it.
Chapter Ten – Wulf
“Walk with me,” Locke said, lifting Wulf’s leash higher as he raised his arm.
Afraid that even the slightest tug that might set off the collar’s shock mechanism, Wulf stumbled forward.
The men and women on the long stage were without leashes, and he saw the long chains curled into neat piles on the floor. Wulf longed for his to be removed even if the collar stayed. He’d become afraid of any trip or fumble that might punish him. Locke was not careless with the leash, but he didn’t trust him.
Nor did Locke trust Wulf, obviously. His mind schemed at how he might get Locke to remove the leash without it looking like he was ever going to succumb to this evil place and its ways and rules.
He supposed he could simply ask. But pride swelled his throat and he’d been swallowing most of his words for days before arriving at the Slave Palace, preferring silence as one method of rebellion.
He moved alongside Locke without a word, unable to do anything else.
Locke gestured with his free hand to the alcoves that lined the walls. Was Wulf was supposed to look into them? Obviously, Locke wanted him to see everything in here.
And so he did. Each alcove had a red-covered bed against the wall, made up neatly with pillows and extra cushions. Above the bed was a large mirror framed by red velvet curtains. The mirror could be covered or not according to a master’s whim. There was room around the bed for a person to walk, stand, or sit with their legs stretched out.
The first three alcoves on either side of the room were unoccupied as Wulf and Locke walked by.
But the next alcoves contained couples. Why Wulf had not heard their groans of pleasure until now was a mystery, but now he could see and hear. The first two contained both males and females. One was a female master with a male slave. The other, a male slave with a female master.
Locke kept walking until the next alcoves revealed their occupants. Male couples. Both alcoves revealed they were participating in anal intercourse. In one alcove, the master, wearing only his black shirt, was fucking his male slave doggie style. In the next, the master lay on his back on the bed while the naked slave he was training bounced enthusiastically on his erect cock, doing all the work.
Wulf preferred men in his own private fantasies—not that Locke had ever asked—but that orientation was considered an abomination in his culture.
Wulf didn’t realize he was staring, licking his lips, until Locke made a sound like a satisfied sigh beside him.
He closed his mouth and glanced straight ahead. But that didn’t help, either, for there was a group of men at the far end of the stage being instructed in oral sex. Half were kneeling while the other half was standing, their erect members poking in an out of willing mouths. Evidently, some masters used other slaves to train slaves in the art of pleasure—on each other.
Locke seemed—infernally!—to always be reading his thoughts. It was no different now when Locke said, “There are classes in the sexual arts which some masters teach to more than one student at a time. It’s effective to have them practice on each other so they can understand first hand how things feel both giving and receiving pleasure.”
Wulf glanced again at his own feet. But even then he wasn’t safe from this madness. His own cock was becoming tumescent. The pink tip had already poked free of the foreskin. His balls began a distinct but still distant ache.
“Just as you had to remove all your clothes to enter into this world as not a prisoner but a slave, you must now open your eyes. If you face your fears, they become less scary,” Locke said.
It was all nonsense. Ridiculous. Facing one’s fears. Becoming a pleasure slave. A pleasure slave! It was pure insanity.
“I could order you to join that class,” Locke said softly.
“No!” It was the first word he’d said in a while, and it blurted out of him, an intonation of harsh denial.
But how could he not wonder at what it might feel like—a tongue on his balls, lips kissing the glans of his cock. Already his mind was being brainwashed. It couldn’t be this easy to become corrupted. It couldn’t!
“Are you afraid of having the act done to you, or doing it to someone else?” Locke asked.
“Neither.” But his answer wasn’t entirely honest. He was nervous. Where he came from, sex was treated with sanctity, a sacred event, and very private. Never talked about much. “It is an act to be revered, not like this, a… a desecration.”
“Nowhere else on the planet is it revered more than here in this palace,” Locke replied. “We treat the art of pleasure as art. We teach it as art. It is cherished. Honored. Above reproach. Not something to be ashamed of. Not a wicked transgression. Or a sin.”
“That is fine for all those who wish to be here. I do not wish to be here.” Wulf could not help but see his plight as a crime.
“Yes, for you everything is different.”
Wulf glanced up from the floor to Master Locke’s dark eyes. They glimmered in the light, as if laughing at him.
“Do not mock me.”
Locke blinked. “That is not my intent.”
Feeling bold, he asked, “What is your intent?”
“Everything you’ve done and said and every move you’ve made since the moment you arrived is helping me decide that very thing.”
“You don’t already know?”<
br />
Locke gave him a strange smile. Not mocking. “Even now, I am still deciding.”
“What to do with me,” Wulf finished.
“Yes.”
“You saved my life. You must have a reason.”
Locke said, “Come,” and tugged at the leash, still slack, but making Wulf more nervous nevertheless. He matched strides with the master.
Locke led Wulf into an alcove. Like the others, it contained a curtained mirror, a bed, and a cabinet enclosing a sink. Just beyond the bed, in one corner hidden by an extension of the mirror’s curtain, was a toilet.
It was a jail cell. At least, that’s how Wulf viewed it. He did not see the point of the alcoves. For privacy, training could be done in bedrooms like the one Wulf had been given. If this was for public display, why the cozy trappings?
The alcove was fastidiously clean, the coverings on the bed crisp and smelling of fresh laundry detergent.
Locke pointed at the bed. “Sit.”
Wulf did not move.
“Go ahead,” Locke said.
“Why?”
Locke’s brows narrowed.
“What are you going to do?” Wulf asked.
Locke stood at the foot of the bed. With a casual flip of his hand, he let his grip on the leash relax. The end of the chain fell making a soft chiming sound as it hit the floor. He placed his gloved hands behind his back, and faced Wulf.
Once more, he said, “Sit.”
Wulf looked at the end of the leash where the ring of it glittered against the shining tile. Finally, he decided it couldn’t hurt to sit.
The bed was soft against his naked buttocks. He placed his hands, one on top of the other, in his lap right above his groin, the sides pressing his abdomen.
Locke continued to stand, now looking down at him. The change in their positions was not lost on Wulf, for now he was no longer “taller” than Locke.
“Now,” Locke said. “You asked me a question.”
“What are you going to do?”
“No. The earlier statement. Why did I save your life.”
Wulf huffed and looked straight ahead at the cabinet and its in-set sink.
“Look at me, please, when I talk to you.”
“Oh? I’m not supposed to keep my eyes downcast?” Wulf asked.
“No. I have not asked that of you, have I?”
Wulf turned his gaze on Locke. Frowning.
Locke continued. “The truth of the matter is you hooked me.”
More frowning.
“You caught my attention. The moment you came onto the stage, you exuded not only your obvious beauty,” and here he paused with a quick wave of his hand, “but an energy, a power churning within you. Magnificent, actually. And I was just shallow enough and bored enough in that moment to be completely taken in.”
Wulf hated every word this master said. More, he hated hearing the sounds right outside the alcove coming from the stage, and from the other alcoves, and the class. Moans. Groans. Grunts. Some shouts. Some laughter. And yet, he could not quite hate Locke. Deep inside, a hesitation occurred, confusing him. The handsome master and his low, calm voice quickened his intrigue.
“You bought me because you were bored?” Wulf asked.
Locke let out a chuckle. “I consider myself an artist. I saw the canvas and the paints and saw potential.”
“So you didn’t save my life because I am a human being.”
“Oh, that, too. I don’t believe in killing slaves for any reason, even if they are crazy. One-Night Thralls are for underworld crime lords and back alley deals. Criminal.”
“So are you saying you save every dangerous thrall that crosses your path?”
“No. I wish I could. I am saying I saved you.”
Wulf still didn’t understand why he had hooked Locke other than that he was considered beautiful.
“And now,” Locke said, “you are wondering what that entails. I am showing you my home, my kingdom.”
“You are king?”
Locke laughed again. An easy tone. It unnerved Wulf.
“Some may see it that way,” Locke said.
“You are king,” Wulf said. “And now I am yours. Your slave. That is how it is. And you want me to act like the other slaves here. The only difference, I am not to be sold. I will remain. Yours. To answer your every beck and call.”
“That isn’t the only difference. They all consented to be here. You did not. So what to do with you becomes a new detail for me to ponder.”
“An insignificant detail, I assume.” Wulf’s tone lowered in disgust.
“No. It’s significant. I could rescind the contract based on the forgery of your consent. But that would mean you would go back to prison. For life. You might even be found too dangerous to hold, and be put to death. It would be a full lock-down prison for dangerous and violent offenders. It would not be a pleasant life, or a long one probably. And now that I’ve bought you and read your file and looked you over—“
“—And got hooked by my looks on the stage—“ Wulf interrupted.
“Yes. That. There’s a challenge for me where you are concerned. I like a challenge.”
“Because you were bored.”
“Maybe. But I have always loved challenge. All those reasons keep me from throwing away the contract and returning you, as I would have every right to do. And I think you also know that you are in a better position because of me. Even if you don’t yet trust me.”
“Trust?” Wulf asked. “You are actually using that word with me?”
“Why not? I have invited you, a stranger, into my home. I have made sure you have everything you need to be comfortable and healthy. I have saved your life from being used, abused and thrown away as a One-Night Thrall. I have promised not to re-sell you. I’m not sure what more you need from me to gain your trust?”
“I’m not saved by you, but taken against my will,” Wulf protested. But Locke’s words made his thoughts scramble until he was not sure of his position.
As a warrior, there had always been the possibility of being taken by the enemy. Captured. Against his will. It was the risk he took—a risk everyone in his regimen took—when they fought their challengers. Wulf’s country had a draft.
Though Wulf had signed up for combat training of his own free will, he had felt he had no choice. He had been taught he must fight against the enemy, the evil he’d grown up fearing. Plus, he could find no better way to escape his abusive father. There had never been a time he was not reminded of how terrible so much of the world was, and told that as a true citizen he should fight against that wickedness.
This man before him, Locke, was a part of that wickedness. A challenger. A saboteur of good. This was what his mind was telling him even as his heart vacillated.
Wulf had been staring at his feet. Hating the softness caressing his buttocks. Despising this so-called training room with all its perversions meant for only one thing: Sex. Debauchery. Fucking.
Now he glanced aside through the veil of his hair to see Locke standing before him, all in black, hands held behind his back.
Wulf could take this man down in seconds. His height and strength were his advantage. Combat training had made him strong. But only physically. His mental strength—his will—was separate. This part of him had been trained as well toward unquestioning patriotism and loyalty, and a denial of all things his culture defined as sin. The list was easy to memorize.
The rules of obedience straight-forward and succinct. But they had nothing to do with his feelings, and his heart. In fact, the rules denied the heart in favor of pure obedience. And now here he was again in the center of a world that demanded pure obedience. His life depended upon it.
Locke stood before him, yet one more general ready to command. But this one saw to a few things others never had before. Wulf’s comfort, for one. Back home, after he’d left his father and become an independent adult, no one cared about him. Not even his companions in the dormitories. He lived to fight, as they did. Th
ey ate together and slept together, but only because the situation required it. Not because they wanted to, or cared much for each other beyond having a sparring partner or two.
Wulf hadn’t been in the Slave Palace twenty-four hours and his trainer acted as if he did care. Making promises. Keeping patience with Wulf’s temper.
But it was all probably an illusion. He was one more cog in a machine to be ordered around by others.
Still, it was a pretty machine. Locke was of the build and coloring and bearing that fueled Wulf’s fantasies. Dark hair and eyes, sun-browned skin, a lithe body that moved with grace and little effort. Hands with long fingers that held his leash, although that leash lay limp at his side as if all under Wulf’s control now.
And Locke’s voice. Like velvet sliding across his mind, inviting. He might, if he allowed himself, roll into that voice, bask in it.
What might a man with utter patience like Locke, an Eminent Master, be like to know, to obey? To touch?
Wulf shook his head hard, averting his gaze to his feet again. He could not allow himself such thoughts. It was wrong. But wrong by whose standards? Whose teachings? Even the voice in his head that asked those questions made him so uncomfortable his mind swam.
All Wulf’s musings seemed pointless.
Locke said, as if there had been no pause, “I understand you do not feel you have been saved from any fate. That this is your fate now, and hopefully not something you must endure.”
“Isn’t it?” Wulf did not look up this time.
“I would not have it be so,” Locke replied.
Wulf was surprised. How could Locke say such a thing?
“If you would talk to me, help me learn about you,” Locke said, “I could maybe help this be less of an endurance for you.”
“Learn about me?” Wulf’s voice came out low, soft. “You will keep me as a slave no matter what. Keep me naked and leashed. What else would you need to know about me? Beyond that, I am nothing. I am not what matters.”
The Slave Palace: Wulf and Locke (Kingdom of Slaves Book 1) Page 8