Thus—Lorens in bondage. A study in body art of another kind. It would be Joan’s responsibility to check on him, to notify Chris of any problems and to be able to report on the slave’s condition at any time. For Lorens, the exercise was simpler.
“Look pretty,” Anderson instructed as she left the hallway.
Chris finished the job and trimmed the last bit of extra rope off with his pocket knife. He pinched one of Lorens’ nipples fondly and Lorens grinned even as he closed his eyes and threw his head back with the sharp pain.
“That’s nice,” Michael said. “Can I—?”
Chris nodded, and said, “You may.” His emphasis on the correct word almost made Michael sigh in exasperation, but Michael controlled himself and nodded an acceptance of the rebuke. Eagerly, he stepped forward. It had been a long time since he had played with a man, and Lorens was one strapping example of manhood. His nipples were somewhat large, probably due to some special attention. Michael asked about them before he took them between his fingers.
“Yes, sir,” Lorens answered quickly. “My Lady, she likes for them to be sensitive. Every day, there are cups put on them to make them larger, suction cups, and sometimes clamps.”
“That’s nice,” Michael said, giving them a twist. They felt like they were rooted in steel—they twisted nicely, but Michael could feel the tension of the muscles beneath them. Lorens grimaced slightly, but prettily. “I always thought that slaves should have sensitive nipples. It’s so easy to control them that way.”
“One would hope that control didn’t depend on an owner having to create a physical sensation,” Chris said. “You may play with Lorens as far as his bondage allows whenever you have free time, Mike.”
“Yeah?” Michael let go of his toy and turned around. “Please, let’s be clear, okay? Play how?”
“Use him, if that’s more direct. Sexually, if you like.”
Michael looked at the behemoth before him and tried to imagine fucking him. It seemed a bizarre image. His buttocks were probably as firm as his chest—slipping a dick between the cheeks would feel incredibly tight. He dropped his hands to caress Lorens’ cheeks, testing them—hell yes, they were firm. Michael felt the beginnings of an erection and grinned. “Whatever you say, bossman,” he said lightly.
“Not now,” Chris said. “First, we have to go over the ways to structure a hierarchy of responsibilities. We’ll work downstairs and let Joan get on with her task.”
Michael sighed and let Lorens go. To his credit, Lorens looked a little sad to lose the contact, but not so much that he looked sulky. Michael followed Chris, not quite ready for another long, dull session of theory. He would not get to fuck Lorens that day, because after spending so much time dealing with minutiae, even a Greek god in rope bondage seemed too much of an effort. Never had dealing with slaves and masters been so unerotic.
Most of training had always seemed to be physical, with a little bit of psychology thrown in. You taught people what positions to use, what things to say, and how to accept pain and give pleasure. That was mostly why it was so much fun to be a trainer. You got to do the heavy SM work, the physical disciplining, the sexual testing—and then, before it got too boring, you got to work on a new client. You had to know a basic amount of what made people tick—some motivational theory was helpful.
But with Chris, there was a philosophy to choke down, too—and endless hours of discussion about possible circumstances. It wasn’t enough to make up role-playing exercises for the slaves—you had to figure out what the slaves might encounter and discover the best responses so that you could drill them and create tests for them.
It was chafing more and more with each passing day. Michael tried his best to keep his frustration hidden. He was going to get no sympathy from the Trainer, and showing anger or impatience only worsened Chris’s acerbic responses and gave him a new excuse to belittle Michael until there was nothing left to do but smolder for the rest of the afternoon, or evening, or throughout the next day.
It wouldn’t be so bad if so much of it wasn’t as dull as watching paint dry. Who cared what a slave should do if a guest towel was found to be frayed and the housekeeper was not available? Jesus, just do whatever seems right and collect the punishment later if it’s wrong, that’s what Michael thought. No need to make it into an issue! But to Chris, it was all part of teaching a client how to think—how to prioritize, to negotiate, to make do. It wasn’t enough to take a guess and take the consequences—a client of his had to be able to do the right thing as often as humanly possible. No, check that. A client of his had to be inhuman, like he was.
Oh, it was a cheap shot. But there was no end in sight to this new torment. Joan continued to be chiefly under Chris’s direction, and Michael continued to be low man on the totem pole. Anderson worked with Lorens privately, or occasionally with Joan, and refused to discuss changing Michael’s lesson plans. “Either you get along and learn,” she cautioned one evening, “or you get yourself a plane ticket home. Do you understand? This is where I find out whether you’re my kind of material, Mike. Don’t embarrass me.”
It had been embarrassing enough to go to her again with his complaints of Chris’s treatment and attitude. Now, she had made it very clear. The line had been drawn, and there was nowhere to go but on this track or back where he came from—which was not possible. But the balance between his temper and the will to stay and endure what he had to in order to get that approval from the Trainer seemed increasingly less stable.
Michael finally got his hands on Lorens and his cock inside of him about three days after Chris gave him permission to do so. He had been cautious, making sure that it was okay with the Trainer, too. Then, one evening after all the formal teaching was over, he pulled the big man into his bedroom and treated himself to not one, but two blow jobs, one after the other. It was like being freed after a long imprisonment. When Lorens dived for his crotch the second time, taking him in and expertly working him back to full erection, Michael couldn’t contain the sighs and groans of relief. Now here was some dedicated sword swallowing! Here was a slave who knew how to get down there and work that cock, swirling his tongue, sucking on the tender flesh on the underside, taking both balls into his mouth—things Michael used to take for granted.
He sent the slave away when he was totally spent, nodding at the backwards exit Lorens made, never turning his back on his user. It was a nice touch, but kind of creepy sometimes. Idly scratching his chest, Michael wondered why it hadn’t felt this good when he had Tara doing it. Tara wasn’t bad—in fact, she was damn good for an older woman. But there had always been something lacking, something that Lorens seemed to have. A joy, perhaps, in what was happening. Tara always behaved like a good slave—she did what she was told, as well as she could. But Lorens was happy sucking dick, and showed it, while Tara—well, Michael never really asked how Tara felt about it. In fact, he basically told her what to say about it, and she said it often. He loved hearing her cultured, reserved voice behind phrases like “Please let this slave suck your cock, sir.”
But had she really, really felt the call to service him properly? Had she had much experience doing it before him, and maybe he was just more demanding than her Judge or her previous owners? What made Lorens’ approach so much different from hers? He decided to ask Chris the next day. A discussion about good cocksucking would definitely be more interesting than one about how to discover the habits of a weekend guest in the first day.
“Lorens is eager to be sexually used by you because he’s gay,” Chris said offhandedly. Michael had taken a long time—almost five minutes—to try to explain the differences between the slaves before pitching his question.
“He is?”
“So he tells us. I don’t believe he has any reason to lie.”
“Wow!” Michael folded his arms and shook his head. “But he’s in love with his mistress, isn’t he? I mean, that’s what I would have guessed. His eyes light up whenever he thinks about her.“
&n
bsp; “Yes. But that’s more because she’s a proper owner for him than because she is the appropriate gender for his masturbatory fantasies.” Chris had been working with Vicente on the paperwork for the house, and they had just finished sealing a stack of checks for utilities. Michael had passed the cook at the door and slid into his recently vacated seat.
“I just can’t imagine a gay man being happy with a woman as his owner,” Michael admitted. He thought of Ethan, squirming at the memory of being sexually used by a woman. “Most of the ones I knew would hate it.”
“Then they’re not Marketplace material,” Chris said. “Our clients are slaves, not lovers. They are not expected to be in love with their owners, nor are their owners expecting to love them.”
“It’s not a question of love—it’s a question about what gets your dick hard.” Michael laughed, and leaned back. “Lorens says that his owner likes for him to fuck her every once in a while. What does he do, close his eyes and think of a guy?”
Chris looked shocked. “That would be rude,” he said. “I’m sure he does what she orders to the best of his ability with the sole purpose of pleasing her. Tell me—have you devoted any time to wondering how heterosexual men or women cope with same gender owners? Or, for that matter, how lesbian clients deal with heterosexual male owners?”
“Well... it’s just that it’s harder for a guy to, you know—get hard—if he’s with the wrong partner. A woman can at least deal with it and she doesn’t have to show that she’s hot. But it’s harder for a guy.” Michael snickered. “No pun intended.”
“You think so? You’re wrong, Mike—as usual. Every slave goes through the terror that they will be required to be sexual with people they do not find attractive, or are of a gender they do not respond to erotically. It’s part of the fear of being sold, of losing control over your life.” Chris’s voice had sharpened again, and Michael knew that this was going to become another intense “discussion.” He began to wish he had never brought it up.
“Did you devote any time to wondering how the client might feel just about being sold to someone physically repulsive to them? It happens all the time—yet somehow, they cope. Then, they learn to cope with performing whatever service is requested of them, to the best of their ability, and showing the proper attitude, despite what might be genuine revulsion toward their owner. That’s because they are called to something higher, Mike. Service, not romance. The best a trainer can do is cultivate that love of service and hope that the trials their clients have to go through won’t push them away from the Marketplace.”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” Michael said quickly, raising his hands.
“No you don’t.” Chris stood up and put the paid bills into the “out” basket, clearing the worktable off. “All you see are slaves, each having a number of holes which you can put your cock into. Each having a set of skills at pleasing you, regardless of their inner orientation or preferences, regardless of their ultimate destination or degree of training.”
“That’s not true!” Michael retorted.
“Oh?” Chris stared at Michael directly. “What is Tara’s sexual orientation?”
Michael started to say “heterosexual,” but then stopped. Chris wouldn’t have asked him a question like that if the answer was so obvious. He remembered her story about the spotter named Corazon.
“Bi,” he said finally. “She had to be bi.”
“As is happens, she was not,” Chris said. “In behavior, yes. But before she joined us, she considered herself a lesbian—and still does, despite her sexual behavior with her owner.”
“Yeah, she’s a dyke. Tell me another one,” Michael sneered. “She had a great time with me!”
“That’s not what she reported,” Chris said, a tight smile forming. “She said that you were quite an average lover, who did not spend any time in foreplay, who climaxed quite within standard time limits, and was of average size.”
“You son of a bitch! She did not!”
“Listen to the tapes of the interviews, Mike. I could find them in the log.”
Michael felt the heat of embarrassment flood his collar. “She told me she came!”
“She lied,” Chris said. “As she was instructed to. As she was trained to do! Just as she was being trained to be pleasing and seem willing for her Master. All the while you were thrusting away into her, she was doing nothing more than her duty, while you were doing your damnedest to make her unhappy. Blind to the fact that she was performing. Unable—perhaps even unwilling—to see the truth.”
“Anderson told me to! I had permission! Besides, she had to learn anyway, right? It’s like you said, she has to learn to do it for the service of it.” Michael could barely get the words out. A vague feeling of guilt began to form, mingled with his growing anger and the bizarre sense of betrayal; the woman said she had a good time! How dare she say—how could she tell them?
“Oh, Michael, grow the hell up! If you had taken the time to question her about anything but what kind of sex she was going to be having, you would have found out that her owner was going to be the only man to use her sexually. You might have found out that she did not intend to continue in the Marketplace beyond this position, after which she had plans to retire and find an appropriate lover and settle down. With even a few minutes of serious thought, you might have surmised,” Chris continued, now ticking items off on his fingers, “that since this was her final service, it would be appropriate for you to give her what she deserved—an honorable rest from pleasing rutting men who don’t know the difference between a real orgasm and a faked one.”
“I wasn’t in charge of her,” Michael sputtered. He got up, tired of being lectured to, tired of that accusing finger. “She could have told me any of this stuff—”
“She was ordered not to volunteer it, in order to give you plenty of chances to find out for yourself, through the proper interview process. But naturally, you didn’t bother to ask. Simple questions, Michael! Not ‘what kind of sex do you have?’ but ‘what kind of sex do you prefer?’ Or, how about asking something devastatingly obvious, such as ‘what are your plans for the future?’ But every chance you had, you were either clutching at her body, asking her lewd questions, or plotting about the next time you would have the chance to do either. You’re not a trainer, Mike, you’re a user. An opportunist looking for the easy life and the easy lay.”
“That’s not true! You’re—going back on what you already said! She was a slave—she had to do what she was told! And if you told her to lie—what do you mean I had to ask? I asked her plenty of stuff! And how am I supposed to both get her used to being used and be nice to her at the same time anyway, huh? This is just some sort of set-up!”
“Yes, it is,” Chris said. “You were set up with perfect opportunities to actually do the task you were set to do—and you wasted them all by thinking with your dick instead of what’s between your ears. If there is something worthwhile up there.” He put the pen he’d been using back into the cup, and worked his way around the desk, seemingly ignoring Michael.
“Fuck you!” Michael said, the profanity exploding out of him. “You’re doing this on purpose, you little bastard! What about you, huh? You don’t ever screw a slave, right? Keep that little prick in your pants, don’t you? At least I get a chance to find out if they’re good—you just prattle on and on and on until they get sick of you!” Michael’s voice was much louder than he intended it to be, but he couldn’t even think any more. Goddammit, it was too much to take! “Well, I’m sick of you, you scrawny fuck, and your whole service bullshit. You don’t like kinky sex, fine! But don’t condemn what everyone else does just because you can’t get it up!”
Chris took two deep breaths, letting them out slowly. He shook his head in mocking sympathy. “You can find records of that particular situation in the same files, Mikey,” he said, his eyes dancing with pleasure. “I advise you to read them, they’ll be most educational. But for now, why don’t you just calm yourself down; keep in mind
that you can get over these doubts and inadequacies with training and patience.”
He headed for the door, casually dismissing him. Michael trembled with captive rage, and then the barrier broke. It was like feeling waves crash through a wall of sandbags, sweeping everything else out of the way. He snarled, “You fucking asshole!” and took a swing.
His fist connected against the side of Chris’s head, cracking the frame of his glasses and smacking into the corner of his eye. Chris reeled back suddenly, his head snapping away, and his glasses flew off, one lens popping out to roll away. A blood spot turned into a trickle, and Michael moved in closer to connect with his left fist. But his aim was off—in school brawls he had never fought with an opponent a head shorter than he was. Instead of hitting low and on the side, he smacked into Chris’s upper arm. It was a righteous shot, though—he could feel the impact shoot up his arm and into his shoulder. It should have pushed Chris back, made him reach for the wounded part in agony.
Chris grinned, his dark eyes clearer than ever without the shielding of the glasses. Michael cursed that taunting grin and swung again, right to the jaw.
But Chris wasn’t there any more. His fist sailed through empty space, and he felt an awful explosion on his left side that forced the air out of his lungs. The little bastard had caught him with a lucky one to the ribs. But it didn’t have that much strength behind it! Michael turned to follow his opponent and threw out another punch, and lost his new breath when Chris snapped a jab into his right side.
There was something wrong. Michael moved in, crowding Chris with his taller frame. He elbowed to one side, trying to duplicate that first shot, and then he felt what seemed like a land mine imploding on his left upper arm. It was a sickening pain, and as he desperately tried to pummel the shorter man with his right arm, he realized that his left one wasn’t going anywhere. He connected again, his closed and aching fist smashing against Chris’s upper arm again, and was astounded to hear the senior trainer laugh out loud. He reeled back, putting his arms up in defense, and Chris shook his head, wiping the blood trail away from his eye.
The Trainer Page 27
