I know in my heart that had I told Chris Parker to wait until the age of twenty-one, I would have been responsible for a suicide. And I regret with all my heart that I had to send him away and let him show me that he was the trainer of my dreams, the perfect learner and teacher rolled in one. It’s not the only thing I regret about Chris, but it was certainly the push that started the avalanche.
10AM
This time, the day was sunny and cool, and the Chris was not in that ragged leather jacket, but in a bulky sweater with a blazer over it, slightly preppy-looking. This clothing did nothing to reveal a body shape—in fact, it was just as concealing as the jacket had been. Neat, pressed slacks and polished shoes finished the look. The dark curly hair was still longish in the back, but it was cut very short on the top, a strange, asymmetrical shape that suited the soft face very well. A poetic face, Anderson thought, thinking of boys in the summer, lying on the grass, full of import and youthful passion. At least Chris looked like someone who was sleeping in a bed on a regular basis, and clearly the clothing was no longer rescued second hand. Anderson was both relieved and curious; had the youth found a patron? Someone who was concerned with honor instead of utility?
“Thank you for seeing me, Ms. Anderson,” Chris said, standing in front of her desk. There was a black book bag next to the visitor’s chair, but Chris remained standing until Anderson nodded. Better manners than some might expect, but Anderson expected more than most. She didn’t know whether she wanted to find fault, though. Not yet. She wanted to see how long this child—for the stranger before was her was just as much a child as she had been almost two years ago—could maintain this air of competence and self-assurance. Struggling to remain calm and aloof.
How she would enjoy stripping all of that away.
But of course her face betrayed nothing but polite and slightly distant courtesy. “Why the additional year?” she asked, leaning back into her chair.
“Because you deserved better,” Chris said, with a bashful lowering of eyes that was simply delicious. Chris’s eyelashes were unexpectedly full and lush, positively girlish. The answer was unexpected, too. What fun!
“And how are you better, other than being that much older?”
Anderson expected the usual recitation of deeds, mistresses served, floors cleaned, that sort of thing. But instead, Chris reached down into the book bag and pulled out a green file folder with a white and gold label on it. Anderson’s heart quickened—had some other trainer taken this one on already? Was that the reason for the one year delay? She picked it up delicately from the desk and flipped it open.
It was in fact a Marketplace slave record; but it was not for Chris. The woman whose photo was clipped to the cover sheet was unknown to her—an attractive light-skinned girl in her early twenties, with long, sun streaked blond hair and a bright smile. Anderson’s hand shook as she turned onto the second page to see her nude—very pretty, a clean lined body that was made for giggling and cuddling. Next page, the sales record, a page with only one notation, and a date of barely thirty days ago.
I’m not really going to see what’s on the next page, she thought, her hand actually frozen above the file. But she turned to the final page and sighed. The trainer of record was one Chris Parker, with supplementary training by a spotter and trainer who was currently quite active in the NY soft world arena.
“How?” she asked, closing the file.
Chris was actually shaking—so tense, Anderson thought she would have to re-glue the legs of the chair later. “I—I went back to the person I was living with,” Chris said, “after you sent me away. I had nowhere else to go. And... I stayed with her for the next six months. But whenever I was away from the house, I hunted for your people. Marketplace people. And I found them. I studied whatever I could get. When I was...” Chris took a deep breath. Anderson waited for the moment of self composure to pass, and was pleased that just when she was about to snap something demanding, Chris continued. “When I was freed, I decided to do something to impress you. I found Alice on my own, and trained her according to what I’d learned, and presented her to Kyle Van Dien for testing. He decided that she was acceptable for a novice and told me that when I wanted to hook up, he would take me on as his apprentice.”
Well, that was impressive. “Why didn’t you?”
Chris actually looked astonished—those soft brown eyes widened as if the answer was obvious. “I wanted to be a slave, not a trainer, ma’am. And I wanted to be here. With you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re the best.”
Anderson smiled to herself. “And now you think you deserve the best?”
“I want to be the best,” Chris said softly, eyes dropped again.
“Can you afford me?”
Those eyes remained glued to the floor. “No, ma’am, I can’t. I can give you all of my share of Alice’s sale, but it isn’t much, because Kyle took half...and I... I had some debts. I have almost no other savings, and my—my former owner isn’t interested in having me further trained, and wouldn’t pay for it if she was. She... is not Marketplace.”
That was said completely without bitterness or anger, just a clean statement of fact. But it was clear that Chris was tremendously embarrassed by this financial state of affairs. “I—I can give you all I have to give. I know that with your training, I can be worth quite a bit—it’s all yours, if that’s what it takes.”
“You’d give up your entire purchase price?”
Chris’s head shot up instantly. “Yes.”
“But what if I decide you wouldn’t make a good slave? What if I decided that because of your precocious talent, I wanted to make you—a trainer?”
That caused another brief moment of thought. “I think I’d be a much better slave than trainer,” Chris finally said.
“What you think right now is of so little consequence that it’s not worth discussing,” Anderson replied, letting a little bit of steel into her voice. “If you give yourself to me, then I decide where you go and what you do, isn’t that true?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Chris said, that light voice almost a whisper.
“Speak up!” Anderson snapped, standing. When Chris froze and looked up, she continued, “Don’t just sit when I’m standing. On your feet, and answer me directly!”
“Yes, ma’am!” Chris said firmly, leaping up.
“I think you’re nothing but trouble,” Anderson said, walking from around the desk. “I think you’re a snot-nosed, arrogant little brat. So, you found someone who you could successfully lie to, and you got basic training in Marketplace techniques and you got lucky spotting. I can read that story a dozen times a year if I want to, and none of those folks will even get past my front door. I think you’ve spent a lot of time in your own head, which is now full of the worst kind of nonsense imaginable, and that you’re so hungry that I could touch you and you’d scream. You’re the worst kind of novice candidate, requiring the greatest amount of sheer work from any trainer. Give me one damn reason why I should even examine you.”
“You should examine me just because you’ve been wanting to for a year,” Chris shot back, as they stood toe to toe. Chris had to look up into Anderson’s face, it allowed her to get another glimpse of the thick eyelashes that were so artfully hidden by the rim of those aviator frames. “Ma’am,” Chris added, just a second late.
What a little wise ass, Anderson thought, even as she stepped slightly back and effortlessly cuffed Chris across the cheek. “Apologize,” she said calmly. “That was a calculated act of rudeness.”
Chris was startled by the blow, and as a slightly pink area rose on that smooth, soft cheek, there was a look of shock that seemed to start at the eyes and then spread with molten fluidity throughout the rest of the body. Chris took a deep breath and said, in a more controlled voice, “I’m sorry for offending you, ma’am.”
“I think the first thing that will have to be done is to teach you how to apologize,” Imala said as she turned to th
e door. “You’re going to be doing it often. You think you proved yourself to me with this little stunt? You just proved that you can’t be trusted. Wait for me.”
She left the room with a swirl of skirt and hair, and suppressed the smile that threatened to break through her stern demeanor. She waited until she was upstairs, and then shook her head even as she began to dial a phone number.
When she returned, Chris was waiting in exactly the same spot, and gave no impression of having moved at all. She placed an index card down on the desk and sat down again. “You are expected at the address on that card tomorrow,” she said, taking in the array of emotions playing across the youth’s face. “Ten o’clock in the morning, bring your clothes and personal items and don’t disappoint me by disappointing her.”
“Ma’am?” Chris picked the card up, and Anderson felt like she had just kicked a puppy. She turned away from her would-be client and waved a hand dismissively.
And didn’t hear anything else but the clinks of the book bag being gathered up and the click as her door closed.
My God, my God, she thought, her heart pounding. This one is real.
11:15 AM
As much as I wanted otherwise, I sent Chris to Janna Corliss, one of my former trainees. She had a nice little operation going, doing entry level training from her house in southern New Jersey. She had sounded delighted on the phone—a novice who faked Kyle Van Dien out? A shining example of raw talent who I needed shown a lesson in patience? She was only too pleased to take him on, and we agreed on three months for her to make something out of this mysterious kid.
Two days later, I got a call from her. What did you send me? she asked, her voice oddly strained. Is this—a test?
I was right, Chris was the real thing. Break her, I said.
OK, Janna said, carefully. I’ll call you when I’m done.
Janna showed up at my house at the end of those three months. I had never gotten that call.
NOON
“OK, where do you want to sell him?” was the first question out of Janna’s mouth after they settled over coffee and cookies in the front parlor.
“Who?” Anderson asked, settling back.
“Chris, of course. He’s ready. Hell, if he stays with me much longer, I’m going to buy him.” Janna pulled her charts out of her briefcase and passed them over to Anderson with a barely contained look of glee on her face. “Trainer, I don’t know why you sent him to me, but he’s a treasure. Picks things up almost by osmosis, I swear. Remembers everything he’s taught, and can pass it on using better language and better technique than most of the trainers I know, including me! I’ve already changed some of the language in my workbook.”
Anderson’s coffee cup clinked sharply as she set it down on the saucer. She took the folder and opened it in her lap, her mouth pursed in consternation. Damn it if Janna didn’t fall in love with the little wise-ass, she thought furiously.
“What do you mean ‘he,’” she asked crossly, scanning Janna’s neatly printed notes.
“Well, frankly—I’m not quite sure what to call Chris. He is bisexual, at least from a functional definition; shows no real preference for men or women, responds mostly to dominance and submission, period. But when it comes down to his own sex—it just seems right to call him—him. And he prefers it.”
“Slaves don’t have preferences,” Anderson muttered.
“Of course not,” Janna said with the right air of submission. Anderson sighed and kept reading. Truth was, she disliked being a bully—but it came in handy now and again.
“What did the doctor say?” she asked, her voice gentler.
“There’s a full report in the back, but basically, he was as puzzled as I was,” Jenna said, recovering neatly. “He said he could call Chris a cross-dresser, but we decided that Chris doesn’t get an erotic charge from being mistaken for a man—Chris just feels right when looking masculine. I’d say he was a candidate for a sex change, but the Doc said he never heard of such a thing. He was supposed to get back to me on that, but I haven’t heard from him.”
Anderson snorted. “Follow up, I’d love to hear what other theories he comes up with. Drugs? Home abuse?”
“Some drug use, but not for a year now,” Janna said immediately. “Said he went cold turkey to help clean up his act for you. He’s a run-away, as I’m sure you realized, but he was pretty clear that his parents didn’t smack him around much or anything. Just the usual tomboy stuff, you know—always on him for not fitting into the pink box.”
Since Janna was herself on the butch side of things, Anderson only nodded and turned her attention back to the report.
The file format was easy to read, comfortingly familiar. It was, after all, her style. So it was easy to find how much time it took to teach Chris the basic positions and responses—no surprise, anyone who had trained someone else could be assumed to know them already. OK, then, the more advanced work, the logic problems, the distraction exercises. Hm. Here, you could see a talent beginning to show through. The service training took a more normal length of time, but that was mostly because Chris had apparently been taught less-than-correct styles of table service, and had no idea what it took to manage things like financial records.
But after that, Janna had entered her program of breaking. This was the reason why Anderson had sent Chris to her, because when Janna got it in her head to break someone, she went at it with the single minded devotion of a pit bull. She was truly merciless, and had a delightfully perverse sense of humor that lent itself to pretty extravagant humiliations. It was one thing to chain someone up and beat them every day until they cried and begged you to stop. It was another thing entirely to reduce someone to tears with a word, a touch, even a caress. Plus, this sort of program often revealed the true nature of a client—are they a stubborn fighter with no sense of scale, holding on to dignity way past when it would have been appropriate to surrender? Are they afraid of things that might be central to service to a particular owner down the line? Do certain behaviors, names, articles of clothing, roles—make them angry? Unavailable in any way?
In other words, what would make Chris flee from this life?
Nothing, apparently. Or rather, there was something, but Janna had not completed her own program. Curious.
“Tell me a story,” Anderson said, putting the file down. “What is he like to play with?” Instantly, she realized which pronoun she had used and cursed to herself.
Janna nodded and thought for a moment. “Takes a beating like a cross between Gary Cooper and a porn star. Stands up to it bravely and willingly—but then surrenders to it. I had to do a little work around permitting him to express the pain, but once he understood, he let it all go for me. Apparently, he’s done some heavy, heavy shit—excuse my language, Trainer—but look at the photos if you doubt me.”
Anderson fingered the envelope of photos, pulled one out and whistled, low. “Hm. Whips. Cutting ones. Is that... a brand? On his arm?”
“Yep.”
“Who the hell would brand such a child?”
“Would you believe the child? Wait ’til you see the transcripts of my tapes; apparently, he had a friend of his do that sometime last year. Made the brand himself out of a cut up coffee can, and they heated it up—get this—with a shop-lifted butane torch. Made a clamp out of Chinese take-out chopsticks and a rubber band.”
“My God,” Anderson muttered. “Real masochist, then.”
“Oh yes—definitely a turn on. But more than that, this kid comes alive when you’re cruel. Beautiful responses, really, deep breaths and hissed intakes, little cries, building up to full throated screams. For someone who used to work with one of those ‘just stand there and don’t make a sound’ types, it’s positively miraculous. Add a touch of humiliation to anything, and his entire body reacts. He stiffens just enough to make it interesting to really push. On the negative side, he’s definitely not a bondage fetishist. I think he’s offended by bondage, somehow.”
“What is—C
hris—good for?”
“Practically anything, for the right owner. And that’s the tricky thing. I’m not quite sure why, but he’s got to belong to someone who... will understand him? I don’t know if that’s right. Basically, I’ve been treating him like a transvestite, and that seems to be the best way to handle him.” Janna spread her hands in a shrug. “But with that aside, he can be a great house-servant, absolutely a demon when it comes to details. A personal assistant is also another way to go. He has no real education to speak of, but with a college degree in something useful he’d shoot up in value so fast your head would spin. About the only limitation he has is as a sex slave.”
“Not interesting in that area?” Anderson asked, one eyebrow raised.
“Oh, no, he’s very interesting, sorry to be so imprecise. But, well—he’s—not attractive in a conventional sense. Not masculine enough to be right for the gay men or the straight women, and if we tried to make Chris into a pretty girl, well, I think we’d lose all his value in a minute. As a butch lesbian type, I think we could make a really good case—but that market is nearly non-existent as far as I know—only six sales I could find last year, and that was world wide. But he’s willing, and talented, in a charmingly eager way. The right owner could make him into a great pleasure slave—but there’s that right owner to come up with again!”
“Now tell me why you didn’t obey me.”
Janna’s dignity didn’t allow her to blush easily. Instead, she hardened, one of her few faults. “In my judgment, breaking Chris would have been a vast mistake. He’s strong, but he’s as bendable as a reed with the right motivation. As you have frequently noted, playing with clay is a lot more fun than playing with dust. You want to know how to break him, it’s in the final notes. Pretty easy, too. But if you do that, Trainer, with all due respect, you will ruin him. I swear to you, on my honor, that every piece of training I have tells me that.”
“But you still think I could sell him right now?”
The Academy Page 45