“Mathias.” Nikolai snapped his fingers an inch from Mat’s nose. “Focus. Are you focused?”
Mat stared at Nikolai’s hanging hand. “Sure.”
“Do you think you give up too much for him?”
“For the ref?”
That hanging hand lashed out and slapped him again. Ow. “For your brother.”
Oh. “It’s’not like that.”
“What’s it like?”
“I jus’ wish I was more like him. I wish I could survive like he does. You know, just sit down and say to myself I wanna live and this is what I can givvup to do it.”
“Do you think you’re going to die here?”
Mat nodded. “’Less you’re as good as you think you are. You’ll kill me one day. I’ll piss you off, cos I’m not like Dougie, an’ even though I do wanna live I can’t . . . I can’t just . . .” He shrugged, forgot where he was going with that. “An’ one day I’ll, I dunno, punch you in the dick or something, and you’ll kill me. An’ then one of your goons will fuck my dead ass, I bet. They get off on that, you think? God knows they get off’n everything else.”
Nikolai grimaced, and it was actually kind of funny, that face he was making, and Mat had to press a hand to his mouth to hold back a giggle. But then Nikolai looked sad instead, and that wasn’t funny at all.
“I wish I could help you to accept all this as I’m helping your brother to accept it. I truly do. But I can’t, do you understand?”
Mat nodded. “You need me to fight. An’ then throw the match. S’what your ‘client’ wants, right?”
“That’s right.” Nikolai leaned in close, laid a hand on Mat’s forearm. “Do you have it in you to throw the match, Mathias?”
Mat thought about that for a moment, but he already knew the answer. “For me? No. M’not strong like Dougie—not strong enough to give shit up like that justa save my ass. But for him? Yes. For Dougie.” He snorted with sudden laughter. “For Dougie’s ass.”
“Quite,” Nikolai said.
“Quite what?” Mat asked, but Nikolai just shook his head and said, “Nothing. Go to sleep.”
Which left Mat with the niggling sense that something was horribly wrong, but he couldn’t quite hold on to it. Besides, he’d learned his lesson, even if he couldn’t quite think what it was right now. But the bed was inviting. So he crawled into it and closed his eyes.
Nikolai tucked the covers around Mat’s shoulders, leaned in near his ear, and said, “I am that good,” and then, “I promise you’re not going to die here.” Then Nikolai kissed him on the forehead, which seemed very strange, but then he was gone and Mat wasn’t sure any of it had ever happened at all.
Do you have it in you to throw the match, Mathias?
Nikolai clicked pause on the security footage and allowed himself a single, satisfying moment of self-pity. He’d watched it four times now. He knew what was coming next. What he didn’t know was how to deal with the inconvenient truth of it, and so he clicked play again, hoping like a fool that a fifth viewing might reveal some new nuance, some new truth.
For me? Mathias said. He shook his head, expression serious, momentarily clear of the drug haze. No. M’not strong like Dougie—not strong enough to give shit up like that justa save my ass. But for him? Yes. For Dougie. A laugh, too loud, as boorish as the bulk of the outside world. It made Nikolai’s upper lip curl in disgust. For Dougie’s ass.
He hit pause again. Tapped his thumb against the desk, but then stopped himself. Forty-one years old or not, his mentor would’ve rapped him across the knuckles if he’d still been alive to catch him fidgeting like that.
“What am I going to do with you?” he asked the frozen image of Mathias on his computer screen. He couldn’t lean on Douglas forever to keep Mathias in line. Not unless he could convince his client to buy them both, and that aside, the thought rankled. To be bested by some . . . some animal without the first hint of culture or refinement or higher education. Oh, he could break him, sure. But breaking a man was no great challenge for him, not anymore. Controlling a man without breaking him . . . Well, maybe he’d bitten off more than he could chew, after all.
He leaned back in his chair, pressed his fingertips to his temples and rubbed. Childishly, he allowed himself to wish his mentor were here. His mentor would’ve known what to do. Would’ve been able to show him how to handle this.
But his mentor was dead, and wishing things were different was pointless, sentimental tripe (and dangerous besides). Perhaps he could continue to rely on threats against Douglas a while longer yet, until he’d worn Mathias down by strain and time and routine, and then slowly wean Douglas out of Mathias’s life. Perhaps he needed to turn Mathias against Douglas as surely as he was turning Douglas against Mathias. Except, without breaking Mathias, how could he fill the hole Douglas would leave in the man’s life? Where would his new purpose come from, his new will to live? More carrot and less stick, perhaps. Find what else mattered and give it to him.
But just in case that wouldn’t work, just in case he failed—and oh, how that thought made him nearly physically ill—he’d best call his client and try to talk the man into buying both brothers. Perhaps he could even offer to throw Douglas in for free; he’d certainly be making enough on the sale of Mathias to absorb that. Besides, if it came to that, then he’d have failed in his own obligations, and wouldn’t deserve to make a profit anyway.
Nikolai sighed and shoved away from the computer. He’d go to see the boy now. Do what he did best. He wasn’t above soothing his own ruffled ego with a healthy dose of forward momentum on that pretty little project.
Douglas was still asleep, curled up on his side and wrapped in a cocoon of blankets, when Nikolai arrived.
Nikolai stood at the foot of the bed. Cleared his throat.
Nothing. Interesting. A boy only slept this deeply when he felt—on some subconscious level, at least—safe. Though Nikolai supposed nearly anything would be safe by comparison to Madame’s. Still, he’d managed to avoid the need for physical harm with the boy so far, and for all of Douglas’s protestations of his misery, the technique was clearly working. A good thing for Nikolai, too, because the light hand he used with Douglas balanced out the cruel one he used with the brother.
“Wake up,” he said, projecting his voice, and this time Douglas jolted awake. Turned and, seeing Nikolai, fell startled from the bed.
He looked rather like he was about to be sick. Nikolai hoped he wouldn’t; it would put him off his morning plans.
But Douglas didn’t get sick. Just knelt there, still wrapped in his blanket, blinking and panting. Shivering? Yes, that too.
“Do you think this is an appropriate way to greet one’s master?” Nikolai asked. “Hiding yourself like this? If your master comes to you in the night and wishes to use you, he should not have to fight the bedsheets for access.” Nikolai shook his head, stern, fatherly. “I think it’s about time I taught you some basic etiquette. Start by making the bed. Then kneel beside it when you’re finished, and we’ll go from there.”
As it turned out, the boy was pin neat. Though he unwrapped himself reluctantly and with trembling hands, he made the bed with all the speed and precision of a high-end hotel maid. For a moment when he was finished, though, he looked sick again, lost, as if wishing he’d not finished the chore so quickly. After all, that left him nothing to do but fall to his knees at Nikolai’s feet—a task he’d not learn to relish for some time yet.
Right now, in fact, he clearly feared it, hands fisting tight on his thighs as those big blue Disney eyes shimmered with wetness. And his posture was appalling. All hunched and tight, hiding himself as best he could.
“Pull yourself together. I don’t have a taste for crying men. Hands behind your back. Spread your knees. Didn’t Madame teach you anything?”
“Y-yes, sir, I’m sorry, sir.” He spread his knees, straightened his shoulders, folded his hands behind his back. Still far too tense to look elegant, but that was all right. There was tim
e for that.
“Lovely,” Nikolai said, and the boy looked pleased a moment before he remembered to be angry and afraid again. “Very pretty. I could sit and look at you like this all day and not get bored. Someday, I might. Your future master may well use you as decoration sometimes—live statuary, if you will. And so you must learn patience, and stillness, and discipline to hold position, no matter how tiring or boring. Or painful, if you’ve been tied cruelly.”
Questions brimmed in the boy’s still-watering eyes: Now? Will you tie me cruelly?
“I have other plans for you today,” Nikolai said, as if Douglas had asked aloud. “Tell me. Had you ever been anally penetrated before you were procured? Perhaps by your own hand? Honest answer.”
Douglas shook his head. “N— Um, well, I mean . . .” Oh, that blush was a lovely sight on his sun-starved skin. “No. No, sir.”
“Are you lying to me right now?”
A gulp. “I . . . Sir, there was one time. When Mat . . . when Mat came out. I tried it just . . . just to see if I was like him. Only one finger. I didn’t . . . I didn’t even make it past the tip. It was weird. I didn’t like it. So I guess . . . I guess I decided I wasn’t like him at all.”
How delightfully naive—Nikolai had to stifle a smile. “I don’t want to lead you into thinking that your sexuality is in any way relevant anymore, but you realize anal stimulation isn’t the sole province of gay men, don’t you? The physiology doesn’t discriminate.”
“I was ten. But I know that now, sir.”
“I think you’re in need of a demonstration. Come.” He held out his hand, pleased to see the boy didn’t flinch at the gentle motion. “Let us muss your finely made bed with some much-needed pleasure in your life.”
Not unexpectedly, Douglas didn’t take his hand. “Sir, I . . .” More furious blushing. Nikolai withheld his scolding for the disobedience, waiting to see if the boy might reveal some useful truth. “I appreciate the offer, but I . . . I don’t want t—”
“What you want ceased to matter the moment you were procured.”
“Kidnapped, you mean!” Douglas shouted. And yet he hadn’t unfolded his hands from their neat position behind his back.
Nikolai backhanded him. His cheekbone felt like porcelain compared to his brother’s. “Rescued, if you ask me. From a life of aimless, needless suffering. From a world of animal cruelty. From a loveless existence, Douglas. Everyone you’ve ever loved has left you. But I won’t, Douglas. And I’ll always love you, if you let me.”
“Shut up!” Douglas wailed. “Just shut up and fuck me already. Do whatever you want. Stick whatever you want up my ass, I don’t care. Just stop with the fucking mind games! Please. Sir.”
A whole tirade, and he still hadn’t broken position. Hadn’t cried, either, though he still looked very much on the verge. Nikolai squatted in front of him, cupped Douglas’s chin in a gentle hand. “Is that what you want?”
Douglas sniffed, blinked back tears and hardened his features. “I thought what I wanted didn’t matter anymore.”
“Then why ask for anything at all?”
That one seemed to stump the boy. He said nothing. Finally shrugged.
“Hope,” Nikolai told him. “You hope for things. Hope is a fool’s game. Hope will only break your heart. Like your parents did. Like Pattie and Mike did. Like Mathias did.”
The fuck you was stamped all over Douglas’s face. For a moment, Nikolai was certain the boy would spit on him. But then wisdom won out. He said nothing. Did nothing.
“You hope I won’t hurt you. I hadn’t yet, not until you went off like some spoiled child and forced my hand. Will you force me again? Or will you lay hope by the wayside where it belongs, and balance your choices and consequences like the smart young man you are?”
Douglas seemed to understand it was a rhetorical question. He held his tongue. The fury in his eyes burned down.
“I will teach you pleasure today, Douglas, regardless of what you want. But first I’ll teach you to undress your master properly. This suit I’m wearing is terribly expensive. You must learn to care for it as well as me.” He stood. Held his hand out again. Reminded, firmly, “Consequences, Douglas.”
The boy took his hand, let himself be pulled to his feet. Listened attentively as Nikolai walked him through undressing him as a groom or valet might have, if the valet had been servicing his master in other ways. Care for the clothing, yes—hanging every item precisely in the closet, brushing away the lint and the wrinkles—but care for Nikolai’s arousal, as well, kissing and caressing each freshly exposed patch of skin, worshipping but never rushing toward climax. And yes, Nikolai was definitely aroused. The anticipation was doing wonderful things to him, would have been doing those wonderful things even if Douglas weren’t such a delectably appetizing little specimen.
When he was naked, he stood still a moment just to see what his new boy would do. Douglas kept his eyes averted like a good, little slave, but Nikolai suspected it had less to do with knowing his place and more to do with embarrassment and shame. Either way, it was well past time for Nikolai to collect on what he was owed.
“Crawl up onto the bed now, Douglas. Face down, legs spread. Ass up nice and high for me.”
Douglas, lulled by the hypnosis of orders stacked on orders, went to the bed as if without registering what he’d been asked to do. It was only once he was in the position Nikolai had commanded that he seemed to wake up to the reality of his situation and begin to tremble.
“This doesn’t have to hurt. Nothing with me ever has to hurt. You may actually go so far as to enjoy this, if you let yourself. I want you to remember that.”
Douglas’s small hands fisted the sheets, his back arching. “Yes sir,” he mumbled against the mattress.
Nikolai let himself groan when he climbed up onto the bed behind his new pet. The view was lovely. So perfectly pale and still nearly smooth from Madame’s wax job. So lovely, in fact, that Nikolai found himself fighting back a disconcertingly animal impatience to feel himself buried deep. “I want to see you. Use both hands to spread yourself. Don’t lift your head.”
Douglas’s hands untangled from the sheets, reached back, and clutched to his own ass cheeks. Exactly like his brother had—white-knuckled and trembling. The difference here, of course, being that Nikolai had been quite certain Douglas would obey.
And this ass, unlike his brother’s, was soft, smooth, unmarred by damage, pink and tight-looking. Nikolai would have to treat it kindly to keep it in that condition. Not really a hardship, honestly. He wanted to make the boy feel good, make him forget all his sadness, his fear, his pain. He had no desire to hurt the boy, hoped Douglas wouldn’t force his hand.
The boy was clean, still smelled of soap from a recent washing. Nikolai settled comfortably between Douglas’s thighs and placed a gentle kiss on one cheek, right above Douglas’s shaking fingers. “Deep breath,” he said. “I really don’t intend to hurt you. Quite the contrary, in fact.”
The commanded deep breath was as shaky as the boy’s hands. Best to give him something on which to focus all that nervous energy.
“Pay attention now,” Nikolai said, still gentle, but firm too. “Very soon, you’ll be expected to do this yourself, so best to get the basics down before that time comes.”
“Wh-what are you going to do, sir? Why are you . . .?”
“Shhh. You can’t very well concentrate if you’re talking.” Another kiss to the boy’s left buttock. He shooed Douglas’s hands away, replaced them with his own. Spread him wide and blew a stream of warm air in his crack. “Think of your master’s body as a shrine at which he deigns you worthy enough to worship. You will not always be so privileged. But when you are, you must never forget what an honor you’ve been given—or that you’re bowing before a god who must be pleased.”
Another kiss, wetter and closer to his hole. Douglas shivered beneath him, as if fighting against his own urge to flee. He very likely was. Nikolai mouthed the delectable flesh, bit dow
n softly—not hard enough even to leave a hint of a mark—and then soothed it with a broad swipe of his tongue.
Douglas gasped.
“The body is a glorious thing, Douglas. We’ve so much capacity for pleasure—or pain. Both to receive and to inflict. Just pleasure today, though, as long as you cooperate. Take another deep breath.”
Douglas was hyperventilating a little. And the deep breath didn’t do much to help. That was all right. Soon he’d be panting and crying and whimpering and moaning. Nikolai had only had the slightest preview of the way the boy reacted to pleasure, but what he’d seen was immensely promising.
“The tongue, for example. Truly a remarkable muscle. You must work to keep yours strong and flexible. Learn to put it to the great many uses your master might require of you. A demonstration . . .”
He ran the flat of his tongue right up Douglas’s crack. Another gasp from the boy, more surprise than pleasure. When Nikolai licked Douglas again, a focused motion this time, circling and circling Douglas’s hole with the tip of his tongue, Douglas gasped, “Don’t!”
Nikolai spanked him sharply. “I’ll do whatever I like, and you’ll learn to appreciate it.”
“Y-yes, sir. But sir . . . It’s, I mean . . . that’s dirty.”
Nikolai leaned in again, nice and close now, nose to Douglas’s skin, tongue flickering lightly over the depression around his hole. Douglas yelped, like a dog that had been stepped on. “Tastes clean enough to me,” Nikolai said. “But if you insist on disagreeing, we’ll stop for now and give you an enema. Your choice.”
“N-no, sir. It’s, um. Fine.”
Nikolai flicked his tongue back and forth over Douglas’s hole again. “Honestly, it’s very unlikely any master would ever rim you, but you’ll be expected to keep as clean as if they did it every day. Personally, I quite enjoy it, especially with my straight pets. The combination of exquisite pleasure and deep-seated taboo and disgust is wonderfully volatile.” He paused to lick again, and this time made a hard little point of the tip of his tongue and thrust it right through the clenched ring of muscle, earning himself another kicked-dog yelp. “I could break a man just with this. You’ll weather it, though.”
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