“And I thought you didn’t want me all meek and servile.”
“Servile, no. Pliable, yes. The man’s buying you as a tamed animal, not a whipping boy. I don’t think any of us wish to see you as the second.”
Don’t pretend you fucking care about me, you fucker. If you cared, you’d let me go.
“I wish to fuck you now, Mathias. Not your hand. Not your mouth. Your ass. No, I won’t force you. No, I won’t go fuck your brother instead if you turn me down. Yes, it will displease me if you don’t cooperate. And yes, there will be consequences. So will you at least make the wise choice, if not apply what I’ve taught you here today? Or will you go back to square one and force me to begin your lessons afresh?”
The serum does he mean the serum I can’t live through that again. But no, the way he was fondling the belt . . . maybe that’s all it’d be. A simple beating. He could take that. Win his own way.
Or he could give in. Give Nikolai what he wanted and not hurt for a little while. Keep his strength up so he could help Dougie, help himself, help every poor bastard in this place. Would that really be such a bad thing? Would he really be sacrificing so much?
Yes. No. “I don’t know.” God, he sounded as desperate as he felt, was on the verge of saying Help me, of throwing his arms around Nikolai and crying on him because he knew Nikolai would hold him, wouldn’t deny him the chance to feel—even if only for a second—all this terrible weight lifted off his shoulders and taken into someone else’s hands. It was tempting. So, so fucking tempting.
And it scared him shitless.
“It’s all right, Mathias.” Nikolai stroked his shoulder, rubbed at the muscle there, rock hard with tension. “You’ve fought well. It’s time to rest. Let your cornerman tend you. Ease your pain.”
Rest . . . yes. Yes.
Mat didn’t speak. He just reached out with steady hands and undid Nikolai’s fly.
The hours passed in absolute agony. Dougie couldn’t sit, couldn’t stand, couldn’t walk, couldn’t eat, couldn’t piss, couldn’t do anything but suffer. His whole body was one unending ball of pressure, like instead of a plug up his ass, there was a pump filling him inch by inch with concrete. A heavy, expanding mass carried in his belly, and he couldn’t make it go away, couldn’t relieve it for even a second.
At some point, he slept. And dreamed, as he always did these days, of hands and mouths and cocks, of being pinned, fucked every which way. And of Nikolai. Always of Nikolai, in his perfect suit with his perfect manners and his perfect fucking control.
He woke to a damp spot on the bed beneath his caged cock—no relief, hadn’t come, but he’d leaked that clear fluid again—and a breakfast tray on his little table. How the hell did he keep sleeping through the food deliveries?
That bothered him less than he thought it should’ve. Every-fucking-thing else was slipping away here, so losing his situational awareness hardly rated. Maybe that was for the best. Who knew what he’d do to whoever brought his food, if he saw them. What he’d beg to have done to him.
He should eat. He wasn’t hungry, but he should eat. If he let himself get weak or dehydrated, it would only make things worse. He needed to be strong. Not let Nikolai beat him at this. Be strong for Mat. Prove . . . prove what, exactly? Something. Something to Mat. That he could be strong too. That he really wasn’t the revolting, sniveling little creature Mat had seen him as since they’d been taken.
Eat. Get up. Table. Food.
He struggled to his knees, balls hanging unbearably hot and heavy and sensitive between his legs. Tried to shuffle to the edge of the bed without touching his thighs together, without accidentally brushing his nuts. Impossible. The chain on his nipples, which had seemed so delicate before, felt as if it weighed a hundred pounds, swinging pendulously underneath him as he crawled. And of course there was the plug, in this position angling into him like a man fucking him from behind, and God, he wished it were a man, because then it could be over soon, the man could fuck him and pump him full of cum and let him come, and he’d happily clean the taste of his own ass off the guy’s cock if it would mean a little rest, a little sleep without dreams or pain or weird wet spots, a chance to move without feeling that fucking thing so fat and rigid inside him, buzzing endlessly, shaking him to fucking pieces.
Stop thinking so fucking much. Get up. Eat.
Standing, walking seemed impossible. He swallowed a sob and crawled. Pathetic, but at least there was no one here to see him. At least he was moving. He pulled himself up by the chair, the lip of the table. No way could he sit. He fumbled the tray onto the floor instead, spilling the glass of orange juice. No napkin on the tray. Toilet paper in the bathroom might as well have been six states away. Couldn’t clean the mess.
I’ll be punished for that.
The thought was too horrible to entertain. No, he could fix it. He could fix it like it’d never happened. Yes. He lurched forward until his nose was touching the puddle and started to lap the juice up with his tongue. Sweet, sharp, still cold, and for all that he’d had no appetite, this bright burst of flavor was almost worth licking the floor for. Good dog. Good dog. Good dog. Good dog.
Another nudge against his prostate, which—God—felt fucking bigger somehow, swollen, tender, just like his balls, his ass, his nipples, his brain. Another hot throbbing pain flared in his balls, behind his dick, everywhere.
“I should make you clean your sheets, too,” a voice said from behind him.
Nikolai.
Dougie cowered, curling in on himself like the dog he was.
Nikolai crouched down beside him, stroked a hand down his trembling flank. “There now,” he said, painfully gentle. “Don’t be afraid. I’m not here to hurt you, you know that. I’m here to help you. All I want is to make you feel better, Douglas.”
You’re the one making me feel this terrible in the first place.
No, I am, because I won’t fucking give in to you, even though what you’re asking from me isn’t that bad.
No, Mat is, because he won’t let me give in to you, even if it saves me this pain.
“Please make it stop,” he moaned, barely able to form the words.
The hand on his flank stroked up to his shoulder, curled there, tugged insistently. Before he’d registered he was moving, Dougie found himself curled across Nikolai’s lap, damp face pressed into a fine cotton shirt, arms around Nikolai’s waist, Nikolai cradling him like a frightened child.
“I can’t,” Nikolai said, petting his hair, shushing him as he cried. “Only you can do that for yourself. You know that.”
Dougie shook his head, smearing wetness across Nikolai’s expensive shirt. Nikolai didn’t seem to mind. Why wasn’t he angry about that?
“I know it’s hard, Douglas. I know exactly how very, very hard it is. I was like you once, you know. A young orphaned boy, all alone, afraid, no one to love me but a man I hardly knew, a man who frightened me terribly. But he only ever wanted to help me, to care for me, to love me and teach me and prepare me for the world. All I had to do was trust him. Can you trust me, Douglas? Will you let me take care of you? Let me prepare you for the world? Let me love you?”
God, how simple he made it all sound. How easy. How tempting. The warmth of him, the solidity, the sure, calm confidence and the promise of . . . Of what? Of safety, protection, love. Like the father he’d lost almost half a lifetime ago. It’d be so easy to give in now—
give up what, what am I even fighting for anymore I don’t know
—to let Nikolai take his pain away, be the father he’d lost.
No I have Mike I have Mat they care for me they love me they protect me.
Except they hadn’t, had they. He was here, taken, tortured, raped, out of everyone’s reach but Nikolai’s, no help for him but Nikolai, no solace or comfort or basic human contact but Nikolai, who was still holding him, still stroking him through his pain and confusion, warm and steady and solid and—
“No.” Dougie shoved at the man, weak but e
ffective—Nikolai didn’t stop him from rolling off his lap. “I won’t . . . I can’t . . .” He dragged himself semi-vertical, weight on one hip and two shaking arms. “You did this to me. You. Not me.”
Nikolai didn’t look angry at all. Dougie hated that. Hated how calm he always was, how fucking certain of his own rightness he was. He was a monster. “The world did this. To both of us. I am what I was made to be, and so are you.” Nikolai folded his legs, draped his forearms across his thighs. “Have you ever heard the story of the snake and the old woman, Douglas?”
Dougie shook his head. “I don’t care. I don’t want to hear any more of your b—”
Nikolai reached out, and Dougie cringed, sure he was going to be struck, but all Nikolai did was lay his fingertips over Dougie’s lips. “Quiet now,” he said softly. “There was once an old woman who came across a group of young boys attacking a poisonous snake, beating it with rocks and sticks. She shooed them away, saved the snake, took it home and loved it and nursed it back to health. The snake was very grateful, and for many a month they were inseparable, the best of friends. Then one day the woman was heading to market, and picked up the snake to take with her, and the snake bit her. And bit her and bit her and bit her, and she wailed, betrayed, ‘You have killed me! Why have you done this? I loved you. We were friends.’ And the snake looked upon her dying and said, ‘You knew I was a viper when you first took me home.’ The woman died, of course, and the snake went on its merry way, whole and healthy and happy as God had made it.”
Jesus, what an awful fucking story.
Nikolai took his fingers from Dougie’s lips, cupped them around Dougie’s shoulder instead. Dougie would’ve shaken him off if he’d had an ounce of fight left to spare, but he didn’t. He felt like he was fighting on ten different fronts already and losing them all. “Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you, Douglas?”
“That you’re a snake?” he snapped.
But not even that seemed to ruffle Nikolai’s composure. He actually chuckled a little, shook his head, and kneaded at the tension in Dougie’s shoulder. “No, Douglas. I’m saying stop trying to be anything other than what you are. Stop trying to demand I be anything other than I am. The stakes are very real here, Douglas. Playing the fool—being that old woman—will only get you killed.”
Nikolai let go of Dougie’s shoulder, rose to his feet, and held out a hand. Dougie—not a fool, I’m not a fool, you jerk—took it, let Nikolai haul him up. He was nothing but some rich man’s pet, after all, and Nikolai was the master, and Nikolai was right: pretending otherwise wouldn’t make it go away, would only get him bitten.
It hurt to stand, and Nikolai knew it. Knew, too, that Dougie was wavering on his legs, one head rush away from falling. There was no mistaking the enjoyment Nikolai got out of being the one to hold Dougie upright. Inscrutable as he usually was, it was written all over his face now. Oozing from his fucking pores.
You like me helpless, you sick fuck. You like all of this. You like me in pain and disoriented and unable to control my own body. If you could permanently . . . disable me somehow, you’d do it. You’d love if I were completely dependent on you. That’s what this is. And you’re going to get it one way or another. Today it’s a plug and cage only you can remove. What’s next, forcibly addicting me to drugs?
That was something they did, wasn’t it, to make people into sex slaves? To make them do anything? There’d be no fighting it then. No game playing. No outwitting. Just pure unstoppable need, the likes of which his current situation wouldn’t hold a candle to.
Or I can give in right now, while I still have the power to do it of my own will.
God, that would be a relief.
“Sir,” he said, barely above a whisper. His heart pounded. There’d be no taking this back, once he said it. But then . . . there’d been no taking it back once he’d thought it, and he’d already done that. Made his decision. Mat, forgive me.
“Yes?” Nikolai, still steadying him with one hand, reached up to stroke his hair behind his ear with the other. The moment stretched between them, brimming with possibility, like the held breath before a first kiss.
“Sir, I’m ready to do what you want now.” Dougie’s face burned with shame, but he forced himself to look Nikolai in the eye. I’m sincere, he tried to make his expression say.
Nikolai didn’t smile like Dougie had thought (hoped?) he would, didn’t do anything, really, except keep stroking his hair, holding his gaze with the surety of a man in total control of his world. “That’s good, Douglas. That’s very good. But do you trust me?”
“Yes,” he whispered, because speaking a lie like that was easy after the last thing he’d made himself say.
It was wrong, though, the wrong thing to do—Nikolai’s face hardened almost imperceptibly, and the stroking hand behind Dougie’s ear stilled. Nikolai shook his head. “I don’t like it when you lie to me, Douglas. It hurts me, do you understand?”
He didn’t. He said nothing.
“I would never lie to you, Douglas. Is it so much to expect the same in return?”
Yes, because you hold all the power.
Nikolai dropped his hand, shrugged. “But . . . baby steps, I suppose. We’ll work on that trust together, you and I. You can begin by earning mine. You said you were ready to do as I asked. Did you mean it?”
No. “Yes, sir.”
“Then beg me for release. Tell me exactly what you want me to do to you. If you ask nicely enough, sincerely enough, I might well grant your wishes.”
“Sir, I—” Should I kneel? Yes, do that. Dougie dropped to his knees, whimpering at the change in position. He pressed his cheek to Nikolai’s thigh, hoping it looked like worship when really he just needed something to lean on to keep himself upright. Another wave of horrible pleasure made his eyelids tremble. Made him grit his teeth. “Please, sir, please take this plug out of me.”
Nikolai was frowning now.
No no no this is all wrong, it’s all wrong, I’m making it worse oh God help me. Dougie rubbed his face against Nikolai’s leg, back and forth, probably smearing tears and snot all over the expensive fabric.
“Do to you, Douglas. Not for you. It’s hardly giving anything of yourself to beg me for mercy. You’ve been begging for freedom since you got here; how has that worked for you so far? Try again.”
“Sir, please take the plug out and fuck me. It’s so big sir, I’ll be l-loose for you. I won’t fight you.” He was going to be sick. “And please sir, let me come. I can’t— I can’t think straight anymore. I don’t know if I’m even a person anymore.”
God, he hadn’t meant to say that. Where had that even come from?
Nikolai cupped a hand around the back of his head—big, strong, unnervingly soothing. Gentle pressure, urging Dougie to lean against his thigh again. “Of course you’re a person, Douglas. You’re merely in flux—a grand transformation, but one for the better, to be sure. It’s difficult to let go of the past, of all you’ve ever known. Even when all you’ve ever known has been so very bad for you—so very bad to you. But you’re just a boy, Douglas. You’ve never known any different, so how could you know any better? That’s why I’m here. To help you understand, to learn, to grow. I’ve walked in your shoes, Douglas. I’ve been as lost, as needy, as desperate and hopeless and unmoored. Trust me, and I’ll help you to stand in my shoes.” Nikolai stroked from the crown of Dougie’s head down to his shoulder, then held his hand out as if to help Dougie to his feet. “Now stand up. Lean over the bed. Present me your ass like the well-tended property it is, and you the proud caretaker, showing me how much you’ve achieved.”
Stop talking. Please stop talking and let me do this in peace, suffer this humiliation without a fucking narrator.
He didn’t want Nikolai’s help to stand this time, so he ignored the outstretched hand and crawled to the bed instead, gripping the sheets to pull himself up into the position Nikolai had asked of him. Laying his chest down on the bed was pure torture on
his clamped nipples, and for a moment it made him so dizzy and disoriented he almost slid right back to the floor. But he was used to pain now, could tolerate a lot more of it than he’d ever have thought possible. He whimpered his way through the worst of it, then finished crawling up onto the mattress and pillowed his head on his arms, though he didn’t dare hide his face with them. Spread his legs. Thrust his ass up.
“Your poor balls. They must hurt so,” Nikolai said, a bit of a chuckle in his voice, and Dougie could hear the exact moment he shook his head in an attempt to get serious again. God, he could be halfway across the world and probably know when Nikolai was displeased about something, or horny, or impatient. Even if he got out of here—you’re never getting out, stop thinking about it—he knew he’d be attuned to Nikolai this way for the rest of his life. Tethered to him, one way or another. He was already lost. “Oh, you are beautiful, you know.”
Nikolai’s hand cupped his balls, rolling and weighing them before giving them a cruel little tug.
Dougie grunted and squirmed. He wanted to hold still for Nikolai, but couldn’t, not as sensitive as he was. “They do, sir. I need to come, sir. But—”
“But?”
“Everything hurts right now, sir. Just being alive hurts. My . . . the clamps you put on especially, sir.”
“Mmm, well. I am testing the limits of those. Even fastened as loosely as they are, they’re really not meant for long-term wear.” Nikolai leaned forward, draping himself over Dougie’s back too fucking close don’t touch me like that and reached under his body, brushing his fingers over the clamps. Following the line of the chain between them. This time Dougie couldn’t stay still. He cried a little. Nikolai didn’t pay him any mind. “They cause circulatory problems, you understand, the same as tying a string around your finger too tightly for too long. It doesn’t surprise me that they hurt. But worse than everything else? Well, let’s see. Tell me, would you rather I take them off, or take off your cock cage?”
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