“Fine. I mean, yeah. Is that what you wanted me to say?”
“Michael—let me clue you in on something which I usually don’t reveal this early in someone’s training. My clients don’t always learn because I sit and teach them by explaining how something is done. They sometimes learn because I set an example for them. Therefore, you must set an example for them.”
He stared back at her in amazement. “You mean I have to act like a slave?”
“I mean that you have to know how to do everything that I teach, so that you can teach it yourself. You must at the very least make an effort, understanding that in most things you will probably never achieve the skill level of one of my clients. And I mean that you have to lose this hypocrisy.”
“I am not a hypocrite!”
“Perhaps not. I’ve been known to make judgment errors. But what you are is a student—an apprentice trainer without professional ranking. As far as I’m concerned, senior slaves are far superior to you. Maybe you should keep this in mind, and try to be a little less impatient and a little more open to learning new things. That is what you’re here for, isn’t it? To learn?”
Just a little bit chagrined, Michael nodded. “Yeah. I’m sorry. It’s just that nothing in your writing prepared me for this. Everyone else—I mean—where I was trained before—we all used the slaves. And there wasn’t this... formality between us. It would have been helpful if you explained this all to me last night, instead of waiting until it got this far.”
“Mike, it’s not my job to make this easy for you,” Anderson said as she rose from her seat. She gazed down at him for a second, and then turned to the table as she continued to speak. “And it is certainly not my job to teach you basic etiquette. Since you have belatedly discovered that you need to learn it, I suggest you come up with a plan to do so. Now, let’s review what you did in your first assignment. You were sloppy, you did not follow my instructions—let’s hear the tape and see how else you made a fool out of me.”
“Out of you?”
She turned to level her eyes at him as she hit the rewind button on the tape recorder. “Of course me, Mike. I chose you.”
As the machine whirred, Michael’s gut joined it. This was turning out even worse than he had ever imagined. Nothing was happening as he had planned! He sighed and eased back in his chair, and then bit his lip as he realized that maybe he should have made some acknowledgment when she rose. Maybe he should have gone to the tape recorder first.
Shit, he fumed, knotting his fingers around the chair arms. This is nothing like California!
Chapter Four
It hadn’t taken him too long to realize that he would never be able to afford a slave—let alone two—with whatever his degree could fetch him on the job market. Niall was sympathetic, but didn’t offer to buy him one or even float him a loan.
“If you want to come out and live here for a few months and try your hand at writing, you’re always welcome,” he had offered. And Michael, even in his deepest funks, couldn’t deny that it was a generous offer. But whatever writers had, Michael lacked. He tried going the rounds of acting and modeling agencies, but his pretty face and body were just more meat on the market—nothing ever came of it. He was still unemployed and sort of living with Niall when the visitors came and offered him an interesting opportunity.
“And this is my nephew Michael,” Niall had said, introducing him to a tall, bronzed man with stylishly graying hair and dancing eyes. “Mike, this is Geoff Negel, the man who trained Ethan.”
“Great job!” Michael laughed, shaking the older man’s hand. They all smiled, and across the room, Ethan blushed, even as he scurried with a tray in his chained hands.
“Thank you, Michael. Yeah, Ethan’s a good boy. I’m glad you’re getting some use out of him.”
“Mike here wants to be an owner one of these days,” Niall added, patting Michael on the shoulder. “A regular chip off the old block, huh? And he’s just waiting for the day when some prime girl comes his way, aren’t you, kid? This one swings both ways, Geoff. I don’t know about this younger generation!”
“Oh, I’d say that it’s an improvement on the old, Niall. After all, there’s always a handy plaything if you don’t limit yourself to one gender!” Geoff flashed a very white smile at Mike. “Good for you, Mike, you follow those ambitions. The Marketplace always needs new, young owners, blazing new territory and expanding our understanding of what slaves are, and what we’re all doing.”
“Yeah, well, unless I win the lottery, it doesn’t look like I’ll be in the market anytime soon,” Mike said mournfully.
“Oh, don’t you worry, Mike. You can always come by and use my boys,” Niall said cheerfully. “I’ll be getting on with the rest of my guests then!”
When he left, Mike shifted nervously for a moment, but Geoff showed no similar impatience to get on with the socializing. Behind him, Mike heard a sharp slapping sound, but didn’t turn to see what was happening. There would always be something else to see later.
“It’s always a pity when someone who wants to be a part of the Marketplace can’t afford it,” Geoff said, also ignoring the fun or discipline going on. “I’ve been trying to find a way to lower the prices of novice slaves, but when you factor in the time and costs which go into their pre-sale training, it’s still more than I’d like. And if a spotter brought them in, the price starts edging up even more.”
“What’s a spotter?” Michael asked, suddenly interested.
“That’s someone who spends their time scouting for potential Marketplace material. It’s a time-consuming job—they go to all these SM clubs and they answer ads, read and write books—all their time is spent looking for someone who could make the grade. And for this, they get a cut of the first purchase price, and sometimes even a percentage of future prices as well.”
“No kidding! I could do that!”
“Well, no, Michael, you probably couldn’t. It takes a certain amount of training and a lot of natural intuition—you just can’t run out, grab a hot trick, and start teaching them about us.” Geoff smiled as Michael’s face fell. “But there’s no reason why you couldn’t be trained to do it, and maybe see if you have the gift.”
“That would be cool!”
And that was all it took. Before long, he was living in Geoff’s spacious designer house in Santa Cruz, with a never-ending bevy of willing men and women to play with, and all under the auspices of teaching him a business! Life would never get better than this, Michael was sure.
Every morning, after some sort of sexual frolic with a slave of either gender, he would head off to where Geoff and at least two junior trainers conducted rounds of interviews and intense classes of instruction, using the house slaves as examples. It was a huge operation—Geoff proudly mentioned that his “house,” as the training centers were usually called, had produced more slaves than any other on the entire West Coast. He himself had garnered a good share of notoriety for his avant garde methods and his recommendations for ownership guidelines.
For months, it was nothing less than paradise. Michael fell easily into the routine, and found that he did in fact have a gift. It wasn’t for spotting, though. It was for handling.
“That’s what we call the people who manage slaves,” Geoff had told him one evening, over dinner. “There was once a rigid hierarchy of titles and job descriptions in the Marketplace, you know. Most of it is fairly obscure these days, but years ago, a handler was the type of person you’d engage to manage an entire household full of slaves.”
“You mean, like an overseer?” Michael had asked.
Geoff’s dining room was a huge, tiled solarium-style room with a southwestern exposure, great for sunset watching. Barefoot slaves padded from the kitchen to the long, glass-topped table in abbreviated serving uniforms, taking time to individually serve each diner, their bodies available for caressing and teasing even as they fetched and carried.
“Well, you could use that model, yes,” Geoff said easi
ly. “But a handler is more than a slave manager—a good handler is also a trainer, a motivational coach, a therapist when necessary. Handling slaves is a skill and a calling to some of us, Michael. You have to have that certain touch, a way about you that slaves respect, something that they can be drawn to.” He smiled and beckoned, and a young, lithe man in a steel collar and matching cuffs swept over to kneel at the side of Geoff’s chair. Geoff broke off a piece of bread and dipped it in the rich, spicy mole sauce that had been part of dinner, and fed it to the slave from his hands as Michael watched.
The slave shivered as he bent his head back to receive this treat and this honor of being fed from the master’s hand. His eyes closed in near ecstasy. Geoff allowed the slave to lick his fingers clean, and then stroked his throat gently. The slave shuddered even harder, and arched himself taller, as if offering his body for any use Geoff might consider, not an inch of his skin hidden or protected. Geoff smiled indulgently and pinched a nipple, and then waved the slave off with a laugh.
“When you can do that to any slave, you are a true handler,” he said to Michael, leaning forward. “A worthy goal, don’t you think?”
Michael thought so very, very much. And slaves did respond well to his touch, and worked hard to please him. He developed the basic emotional control that Geoff said was the mark of a good trainer, and worked on figuring out new exercises for slaves to use in order to mold their behavior. That was very hard—why come up with new things when there were whole books full of older things he hadn’t run through yet? But he tried anyway, and was encouraged every step of the way, both by his trainer and by the reactions of the many slaves he got to practice with.
He read quite a bit, or so he thought. Geoff kept records of every slave that passed through his hands, and encouraged the trainers under him to make use of them, examining how different training methods worked on different people. He often spoke of how vital the interviews were, and how methods should be continually revised and refined. For a while, it was pornographically thrilling—the erotic histories of dozens of people from all walks of life, spread out for Mike to examine, pictures, video tapes and all.
And Geoff himself was fascinating—charismatic, friendly, and always ready to play, teach, or talk. He was rarely without someone hanging onto his every word, and often dictated into a recorder he carried, so that transcriptions of his new ideas and thoughts were showing up every week or so. Owners and slaves loved him—he created a happy, open atmosphere with a casual kind of ambient sensuality, the ultimate New Age school for slaves. He was always concerned with how people felt—and if anything started to chip away at Michael’s happiness, it was that little, gently nagging question.
“How do you feel about being on your belly, Tina?” Geoff would ask, his voice captivating and soothing all at once. “Does it make you ashamed? Does it get you wet? Are you bored?”
And they would answer him in partial sentences and full ones, in detail, or with “I don’t know”—and whatever they said he would record, nodding and reassuring them that their thoughts and feelings were important to him. And then he would talk to them about their feelings, tell them it was okay to have them, coach them on new ways to express them.
He would question the owners. “How did it make you feel when Paul failed to please your guest? Did it make you feel betrayed? Embarrassed? Did you want to hurt him outside the limits of the contract?” And he’d listen, patiently, sometimes as owners ranted and raved, nodding and looking at them until they calmed down, eager to hear his affirming words of support for them, whether he was about to agree completely or correct them for some minor way they’d hurt their slaves’ feelings. And all the while, he’d be validating their own, too. Tricky. But it seemed to work, no matter how strange it was. Disappointed owners would come out of Geoff’s study ready to take their property back home—or leave them there for a few days or weeks for touch-up training—and either way, they’d go home praising the trainer like a guru who’d just shown them the way to nirvana.
Geoff conducted—in fact, he pioneered—discussion groups of slave clients, part consciousness raising, part therapy, all designed to keep them in touch with their thoughts, desires, and of course, their feelings. “The client needs a safe place to vent, to express their fears and doubts without the threat of punishment,” he had written, “or else they become neurotic, moody, and easily prone to passive-aggressive behavior. Safe space fosters an inner sense of self-awareness and identity which makes them stronger individuals, better suited to the service they desire.”
What he didn’t write about was the fact that he videotaped these sessions of “safe space.” They were never shown to the owners of those slaves, or course, but to his apprentice trainers, as part of their training. They would listen to the complaints and the joking and the bitter tears, and Geoff would provide countless suggestions on what they could do to make the lives of the slaves a bit easier, or perhaps properly challenging. There were never tapes of the slaves currently in training or back for refresher work—only last year’s group, or older ones. All of it was very ethical.
He also wrote: “It’s impossible to maintain the perfect balance of mastery and compassion, unless the owner is always aware of the true self worth and vital personality of their chosen clients. Every order must come with the understanding that the client is willing to undertake anything reasonable—and therefore the owner must practice the art of reason.”
During special events designed for owners and potential owners, Geoff would conduct extensive workshops on slave management and psychology, providing his buyers with guidebooks for behavior and household rules. Each time, he would give a carefully encouraging speech, telling them that of course, they would determine their own ways and styles with time, but that slaves did best under familiar circumstances. And they listened, eagerly, the same way they watched hungrily as the newly trained slaves were brought out for beautifully choreographed sex and SM shows, and doled out to these workshop attendees by orientation and gender preference. And then, eventually, they bought a slave. Or two. Or more. And came back when those contracts ended for a new one. Or two. Or more.
Geoff’s cadre of owners was a vital part of his business and social life. He partied with them as well as trained them, socialized at their homes all over the world, sometimes taking with him favored students or exceptionally talented client slaves. (He was most likely to take a slave in training if he thought the owner might find them interesting. On many of those trips, Geoff laughingly tossed out the return half of a round trip ticket as he headed for home.)
Michael was often in favor, and got to visit some homes of the rich and famous and the rich and unknown alike. At first, he was a little uneasy, but his good looks and natural charm won him a sure place at the table anywhere they went, and his ability to play with any handsome slave who was placed in his care was clearly an asset. So over and over again, he watched Geoff enter these mansions and exquisite condominiums, these luxury yachts and sprawling estates, and just—take over.
That’s what it was like. Geoff Negel would waltz in through the door and slaves would perk up. Paid staff, if present, would start to shine, as if they were in a sharp competition. Even owners would fawn on him, pleased to be spoken to as a personal friend, to be flattered on the care of their property, joked with, teased.
He never hesitated at control, never seemed to doubt himself. None of his former trainees were free from his influence, and he handled them with a dominant sense of propriety the moment they were in his domain—wherever he happened to be. “Take control early and often,” he had cautioned Mike on several occasions. “Otherwise, they might be tempted to think that you are beyond them now, that your mastery of them was something they can forget about. They should never forget, never think that you could possibly be ignored. There’s an old phrase among we old trainers,” he would laugh. “They used to call it ‘taking them in hand,’ like taking the leash of a trained animal. That’s what you need to do, espec
ially for old clients with some experience. And they’ll be glad for it, believe me. Because sometimes, their own owners will let them slip, and forgive them. But we, as trainers, must never do that. Don’t hesitate to correct, even if it’s in front of their owner. It just might spur that owner to better management skills; remind them that they, too, should have the upper hand. When they see how well their slave improves when a trainer is around, they will be sure to clean up their act.”
And somehow, even when Geoff did exactly that—disciplined a sloppy or lazy or downright insolent slave in front of their owner—the owners forgave him. In fact, they frequently apologized for the misbehavior themselves. But by the end of the visit, Geoff would console them, and then encourage them to take control again, even giving them hints or actually conducting a punishment session with them. And they loved him for it.
Geoff was a master at reading people—he listened with such intensity and openness that sometimes you left his presence thinking that he was perhaps the only man who really understood you. It was easy to trust him. He had an easygoing, friendly manner and a very illustrious past, both inside and outside of the Marketplace. He came from California real estate money, and had contacts ranging up and down the coast in all the right industries, from citrus groves to Hollywood to silicon chip manufacturing. But he’d also spent a lot of time traveling, and modestly noted that he had connections with one of the finest slave training houses in Great Britain. Naturally, he had not chosen to set up shop there, not when North America was positively brimming with excellent potential for slaves and their masters.
Besides, he had his own ways now. New ways, possibly revolutionary ways. His theories, carefully bound into neat books, many of them illustrated, were sent to training houses all over the world. He had his own newsletter, which he circulated to owners who had purchased from him or taken one of his training courses. He believed, passionately, that the way to expand and nurture the Marketplace was to create a new breed of slave matched with a new breed of owner. Partners, in a new way of relationship building.
The Trainer Page 5