“She made a remarkably good one on me, Grendel,” Alex replied evenly. “And while she comes without any resume, Marketplace or otherwise, she has Chris Parker’s recommendation. I’m sure you agree that Chris has an excellent eye for quality. I believe it’s reasonable for me to suggest that between my judgment and Chris’s recommendation, there is good reason to believe that we are making a good decision by hiring Rachel. Put this down as my choice, and give me a trial period of three months.”
“I just wish I had the same faith in her that you do,” Grendel said.
“Just wait and see, Grendel, wait and see.”
* * * *
Chris had given Rachel a plain gray maid’s uniform to wear, one that covered her tattoos. Grendel had to admit that, in cleaner clothes and with her hair tied back, Rachel was very presentable. Passing by the guest bathroom one morning, he saw her standing over a shivering slave, the heel of her shoe digging into a naked butt while the novice scrubbed the corner. She looked perfectly comfortable, both in this role and the difficult position she was standing in, and her eyes gleamed with pleasure. Not his personal style, but one that certainly got results, Grendel decided. Indeed, the bathroom did shine.
Chapter Twenty-Two: Transitions
“I think we need a change in scenery,” Marcy suggested after Cindy finished, her body glistening with sweat and her eyes bright with pleasure.
“Good idea,” Ken said, casting a glance around the room. “If you are finished with Andy, perhaps he shall have his turn?”
“I have a better idea, if you agree, Marcy,” said Chris. He nudged the now visibly shaking Stuart with his foot. “Let me take you up on your offer of putting Stuart to use.”
“By all means, Parker, you didn’t have to ask. Believe me, he’s of more use than a piece of furniture.” She stretched luxuriously; but she and Andy had satisfied grins on their faces, and when she nudged him, he crawled, cat fashion, past Stuart to rub against Ken’s legs. She laughed and patted him as Chris pulled Stuart up.
“You told me you aren’t shy,” Chris said, as Stuart stumbled to his feet. “Well then, off with the trousers.”
“Yes, sir,” Stuart said, and started to unfasten them. He revealed a jock strap, and Chris smiled over his shoulder at Marcy. Stuart had a fine dusting of almost white-blond hairs on his curved little butt, and down his legs. Chris lightly cupped Stuart’s ass in one hand, and Stuart sighed and immediately broke out in goosebumps. Chris laughed and got up, taking Stuart by the scruff of the neck and propelling him toward the center of the room where he said, “Up, Michael. On your knees.”
Michael pushed his body up onto his arms and then onto his knees. His eyes were slightly glazed, and he felt Cindy’s cool hands steadying him from behind, her cock bumping against his thighs and sore ass cheeks. Damn, he thought, he’s gonna make me suck the punk anyway. Fucking pretty boy, at least he won’t be so big, and he won’t know how to really slam a throat... But as Chris pulled at the straps of the jock and Stuart’s groin was revealed, the slight bulge in the pouch fell away with the material. Michael blinked several times, because Stuart had no jutting cock between his legs, he had a broad swath of pubic hair just slightly darker than the hair on his head, and then—Wait a minute, there was a cock. Or rather, Stuart had a positively gigantic clitoris. It was easily as thick as his thumb, and it extended past the hood like a small cock pulled out of a foreskin. Michael gasped and struggled with the urge to look up and see what the faces looking down on him looked like, what they expected of him. But Cindy gently pushed him from behind, and his head dipped forward.
He opened his mouth and gently took this clit/cock against his tongue. The texture was smooth and soft, the skin slightly salty but with that subtle taste of—damn.
It was hot, plain hot. As he breathed in softly around the cock, he could feel his body warming up again, his mind flooding with soothing waves of pleasure that banished the aching in and on his ass into a pleasant afterthought. There was a cunt underneath, he could feel it with his lips, but this cock was what demanded his attention, and it felt so sweet and so exciting to make love to it. He started to lick the length of it, slowly.
“Is he doing it right for you?” Chris asked, holding Stuart’s arms behind him and arching his back. His mouth was right next to the young man’s ear, and every time he spoke, Stuart groaned. “Tell him what you need.”
“Suck it, suck it, please,” Stuart gasped.
Michael heard, and did. It was like sucking a finger, like sucking a clit, like sucking a nice, hard cock. But it was a cock that could never choke him—a cock that tempted him with potential pleasure and pleasuring, made him both hungry and patient. Stuart didn’t taste like a man and didn’t taste like a woman, but damn, he tasted good. And the sighs and gasps that came from him were beautiful. Michael ran his tongue deep alongside the cock and then around it, the way he would play with a cockhead. Then he tried back and forth, the way he would play with a clit, tugging on it with a rhythmic suction.
Both ways seemed to work. He started to bring his hands up to clasp Stuart around the ass, but then stopped himself and put them behind his back. He could feel Cindy’s belly against him, her breasts pressing into his back, her breath against his throat as she kissed and nibbled on his ear.
Stuart started to rock against Michael’s face, fucking into him with slight hip motions, and Michael felt that there was a strength behind the movements. A quick glance through his eyelashes, and he could see Chris’s leg planted firmly alongside Stuart’s skinny one. Yes, yes—Chris was right behind the boy, holding him and forcing his body back and forth, so damn sexy to think about, if only he could see it!
If only it was Chris directly in front of him right now.
Dimly, he heard Ken Mandarin laughing and saying something, and he was pulled back from Stuart. He blinked again, but before he could even take a deep breath, Cindy was coaxing him down onto his back, and Chris was pushing Stuart over his face again. Good. Better position to make the boy squirm. He felt someone next to his head and heard Chris say, “Take him in your hands, Michael. Work him until he screams.”
Oh, yes, thank you, Michael thought. Stuart’s ass cheeks were soft and curvy under his hands, his flapping shirt-tails like feathery touches on Mike’s fingers. As he clenched his hands down on that smooth flesh, he pulled Stuart into the best position for that cock to slide right down over his lips. He began to suck at it, gently and then more firmly, as he felt the way Stuart responded. Apparently, that felt good, too. Michael almost felt like laughing.
Stuart was easy!
When he felt something happening around his own cock, at first he thought it was Cindy—but then he wondered if it was Andy—and he abandoned himself to not knowing and to doing what he was told, and working little Stuart, cute little, how-dare-you-know-my-teacher, jail bait, space cadet Stuie—until he screamed.
It took a little while—but in the end, it was worth it to hear the punk crying, “Oh, yes, yes, please, please, yes, please, let me come, please,” and hearing Marcy, Chris, and Ken all say “No!” and laugh together.
And that Michael himself was allowed to come, his cock tightly sheathed in Andy’s asshole, made it even better. He even had the strength to laugh after Andy eased his body up and off of Michael’s shrinking cock and stripped the condom off, when Ken leaned over his face and asked, seriously, “C’etait bon?”
In fact, he didn’t break down into tears until he came back to his room after bathing and eased his body down onto his futon.
* * * *
It was a sudden feeling, like a chill that spread through his body. He felt the dull throbbing of the whip marks and the odd feeling of sore emptiness that came after being fucked, and he was content for a few seconds. But as he started settling down onto his elbow, it swept over him. He started trembling uncontrollably, and then he felt the first catch of breath and a tightness in his chest. He desperately wanted to control it, to stop it, but the harder he struggled
, the worse the pressure got, until tears squeezed out of his eyes. He tried to hurriedly wipe them away, not wanting Chris to see or hear, but it was too late.
“Michael—what’s wrong?”
He wanted to, he really wanted to just say “Nothing, sir!” and be good and make like nothing was wrong, but just the sound of Chris’s calm voice shook him even harder. A rough sob broke through, and he curled up on his futon helplessly, still struggling to hold it all back. When he felt Chris kneeling next to him, he couldn’t do anything at all. He just let them come, feeling a humiliation that was, if anything, just as keen as what he had felt earlier at his debut as a public sex object.
Chris let him cry for a while, and then handed him a handkerchief. He neither touched him nor spoke, just watched as Michael wrestled himself past the hysteria.
“What’s this about?” he finally asked, his voice surprisingly gentle.
“I’m sorry—I’m—sorry,” Michael said, taking deep breaths. “It’s just—it’s just that it all just hit me! I was OK, it was all right, but now—I just feel—so fucking used. I feel—I feel like I can’t get up and be myself again, like I don’t even exist!” The sobs threatened to take over again, and he concentrated on breathing to keep them back.
“Do you feel abused?”
“Yes!” Michael snapped, and then he shook, gritting his teeth. “No. I don’t know. I just don’t understand how—how they do that!”
Chris stroked his chin. “How they do what?”
“How the slaves stand it! I did it—I did it because I’m training, because Anderson—because of you, goddammit, I did it for you, and it was hell! I came, it was hot, but I can’t believe how—how humiliating it was.” The words started to spill, and he pushed himself up, gesturing wildly, trying to calm himself. “How can I face any of them again? How can I just get up and be Mike LaGuardia again, when you—when you all just made me into someone you didn’t even have to talk to! How am I supposed to live with this? How can anyone?”
“And yet, this is what you used to train people to accept, isn’t it, Michael?” Chris asked, still gentle, still quiet and calm. “When you were with Geoff, you told them that this might happen—that it most certainly would happen, since you once assumed that all slaves were to be considered sexually available. So how did you help prepare them for this? What do you remember saying to them that would help you now?”
Michael’s stomach twisted, and he bit his lip, desperate not to lash out and scream. Instead, he shook his head, sniffing. “Nothing. I just thought—I thought that they would just—I don’t know—enjoy it. That even if they didn’t, really, that at least they might be able to—ignore it. Pretend that it was better, different. I don’t know.”
“Michael, listen to me. What happened to you tonight was very difficult, but it could have been much worse. Ken and Marcy are skilled at distancing themselves, at isolating. So am I. But we did not and would not allow you to come to harm. You were never without observation, or in the hands of an amateur. You were called upon to behave sexually with people who you might or might not have been sexually interested in—but I don’t think any of them were decidedly unattractive to you. In fact,” Chris let a small smile play on his lips, “you surprised us all with your reaction to poor Stuart, who is no doubt feeling very similar to you right now.”
“He wasn’t beaten and then raped by that—that horse-cock that Cindy had!” Michael was surprised at how cleanly that came out, and felt a moment of gratitude that the hysteria was finally passing.
“Not tonight,” Chris said. “At least as far as we know. I have no idea what Marcy does with Stuart. But I would wager that Stuart feels that he has as much to hide about his sexuality as you do—if not more. Imagine how he will feel facing you tomorrow.”
Michael took another deep breath and wiped the back of his hand over his eyes. “Sir, do you ever get tired thinking of what other people might be thinking or feeling?”
“My God, Michael, yes, I do. Empathy can be exhausting. But it’s part of what you learn to do when you are in service. Give it a try right now. What am I thinking? How do I feel about what happened tonight in Ken’s room?” Chris leaned back comfortably onto his calves.
Michael shrugged awkwardly. “I don’t know. Maybe—embarrassed, because you had to punish me in front of your friends, so they knew you had a trainee who was a fuck up.”
“Good guess, but remember that I chose to do that; so however embarrassing it was for me, I must have decided it was acceptable. What else comes to mind?”
“There were times when it looked like—when I felt like—you were enjoying it. You liked watching us.”
“Oh yes, there certainly were. I enjoyed myself thoroughly, as a matter of fact. Anything else?”
Michael sat up, trying to think. What if he had been in Chris’s position—delivering this trainee to be used and abused by my friends—feeling like I had the right to, that he had no choice, but that he was doing it to show how good he could be for me...and I enjoyed it. So...
Chris began to nod. “Come on, Michael, I can see you’re close.”
“Were...did you feel...proud of me?” He said it haltingly, and ducked his head, half expecting to be smacked, if only by one of Chris’s half-hearted thumps for idiocy. But Chris was still nodding.
“Yes, I did, and I am. You showed up groomed and obedient, you followed orders without hesitation, and if you didn’t actually smile through the whole thing, Andy and Cindy provided enough of that to keep us cheerful. You didn’t sulk, or protest, and you even managed to keep this little emotional moment until you were safely here. Six months ago, you couldn’t have done any of this, Michael, not if Anderson told you that this was the only thing you had to do to become the best trainer in the world.”
“But—I’m wasted! I’m a wreck!” Michael hugged his knees up to him and shivered. “Look at me; I can’t even stay still.”
“It will pass,” Chris said. “Lie down, Michael, and go through the relaxing exercises I taught you. Yes, you were used, and used fairly hard for someone of your experience. But you stayed with it, you stayed with me. You didn’t turn your body off, or shut out what was happening to you. I look forward to seeing how you integrate this new understanding into your studies. But it’s time to sleep now.”
“Yes, sir,” Michael whispered. He made his limbs straighten up, and pulled the soft sheets around him, the comforter on top. Chris patted his shoulder once before getting up and crossing over to his futon. Michael watched him pull the T-shirt off, saw the garish tattoo that covered his lower torso, reaching up to his pecs, the flames and the phoenix.
I wish I could be reborn, was Michael’s last thought before drifting off to sleep.
* * * *
Chris sat up for some time afterward, watching the rise and fall of Michael’s chest. What a strange young man he was. Why on earth he had chosen to take this route to mastery was still a major question; and why Anderson had chosen him was an even bigger one. Nevertheless, it was a nice breaking; relatively fast and effortless, and very satisfying. It would be interesting to see how it held.
This was a man who had everything going for him. Charm, a native intelligence that was a bit slow, but that was hardly rare in these days of instant gratification. Handsome to a fault, with those dark-ringed sapphire blue eyes and splendid body, men and women appreciated him, and he was capable of responding to both. There was very little that beaten and fucked man sleeping on the futon could not have if he wanted it, and no reason in his upbringing or his sexual orientation or even his dreams and fantasies that he should embrace this—how had Geoff Negel put it?—inhuman regime of training.
And yet he had. Not to impress Anderson, not because he needed a job, and certainly not because of this pointless crush he has on me, Chris mused. What is he trying to prove to himself?
A dozen respected leaders and trainers here thought it was out-moded, no longer meaningful, perhaps never truly necessary, but this boy chose
it. And Anderson was permitting it. Two mysteries.
What a difficult day this had turned out to be. The disappointment of his early meeting with Dalton, the steady confrontations at the debates, the anti-climax of introducing his paper, and then the shock of Tetsuo’s gift. Sitting at dinner, trying to be politely urbane and shake the feeling of being manipulated, despite the clear proof that he was. And then, when the entertainment began, to feel so suddenly lonely. Torn between feeling teased and courted.
Michael would ask me why I don’t just try to get along with people better, Chris thought ruefully. After all, I have the right teachers, I have the right track record, I didn’t have to do this. I could easily have taken my seat at breakfast and joked and bitched with the rest of them and gotten involved in whatever non-political events were happening this year and gone home a great success. I could have just waited until someone else took up the cause. I could have let it go another year or two or five, and let Anderson do it before she retired.
Or, I could do the right thing and do it for her before she has to.
Damn the right thing, anyway.
I can get this measure passed tomorrow, even without Negel and his supporters, without the spotters, even without England. Kurgan had great success with the Argentines, even made headway with the Brazilians, and there was some movement from the Australians that they might come on board.
But Ken’s refusal stung, as did Dalton’s. Neither of them were fools, and they certainly weren’t part of the problem. They had to be part of the support network for this, because each of them represented a different kind of Marketplace professional. Each of them had their followers. And dammit, each of them has my respect, Chris thought. But Anderson wants this done. How to satisfy honor and instinct? How best to bring in the doubters and placate the eventual losers? And how to do this all while maintaining the integrity of the original plan?
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