The Trainer

by Laura Antoniou

  Lorens, who was fully dressed for a change, beamed in silent pride as he poured coffee and orange juice.

  “Great!” Mike said. “I’ve never seen one put in. Who’s gonna do it?”

  “I will,” Anderson said. “This will be my—twentieth, I think. I’ll have to check. For the more esoteric ones, I call in Greta. But this one I like to do. It’s a very popular piercing, although I must admit that I’m getting a little annoyed at how damn popular piercing has become. It used to be a solemn ritual symbolizing the deepest kind of commitment. Now, there are people piercing their eyebrows, for heaven’s sake.” She shook her head. “Sometimes, I think I’m too old. But that’s nothing new. We’ll put the ring in Lorens’ cock, and he will treat the experience with the proper reverence.”

  “I most certainly shall, Trainer,” he said warmly. And he positively glowed when she swatted him across the rear on his way out of the room.

  “How do you know what to do, Trainer?” Michael asked. “You said that you treat every client differently, and you do! But how do you know what to do with each one?”

  “The interview is the key,” Anderson said. She had started answering his questions too, and he had filled another entire notebook. “Not only do I spend more interview time with the client than any other trainer, but before a client arrives here I’ve logged about twenty hours of interviews with their owner, or their past owners. I know exactly how they’ve been worked, what’s planned for them in the future, and what they hope will happen regardless of what’s planned. Remember—the interview is the most vital part of a training regimen. And it is never over.”

  “Oh, wow,” Michael said without thinking. He blushed and flipped open his book. “That one’s going with the everything/anything quote.”

  “Great,” Anderson said with a snort. “He’s putting together a best-of collection.”

  “Soundbites from The Trainer?” Chris said softly.

  She stared at him, hard, and he stirred his coffee thoughtfully. She turned back to Michael and pointed a long finger at him. “Just you remember, boy, that there’s more to this than slogans.”

  “Yes, Trainer. I understand.”

  “Good. I’ll see you later, for the piercing. Don’t bother to take notes on the technique, it will not be on the exam.”

  Lorens was unbound, as his owner had specified. He was naked except for his collar, fresh out of the shower, glowing with health and smelling of soap. He was bright eyed with anticipation, but oddly dignified as well.

  The worktable had been covered with plastic with a paper overlay, and a lamp had been brought in to spotlight his crotch. Anderson laid out the needle, ring, antiseptics, and other tools, all of which came out of sealed wrappers. She was gloved, and Lorens’s cock was probably more at attention than it should have been, if it had a brain and knew what was about to be done to it.

  Michael felt a shrinking between his legs—no doubt his cock had a brain, and was in full sympathy with the brainless one on the table. But he was fascinated, and kept his eyes on Lorens’s face. The man showed no fear at all, only a kind of intense desire. Chris was in attendance, but it was obvious it was Anderson’s show. When she picked up the needle, Michael was able to watch the initial positioning, and then turned quickly to Lorens’s eyes, because it was just too intense to watch a dick being skewered.

  Lorens’s lips curled back, and sweat sprang up on his face. The eternal cheerfulness gave way to agony, and Michael barely realized that he had stopped breathing. The powerful man’s muscles tensed as he gripped the sides of the table, and a terrible groan came from between his teeth, followed by a quick exhalation and a series of panting breaths. His eyes remained open all the time. Michael felt dizzy, and realized that he needed air in his lungs. When he drew some in, he looked back down between Lorens’s legs, and there it was.

  A gold ring ran through the pee-hole, and then through his dick. Anderson dropped the curved needle into a can and dabbed at the piercing area with a piece of sterile gauze. “A nice job if I do say so myself,” she said, reaching for the antibiotic. “This should heal nicely if you take care of it, Lorens.”

  Lorens was in tears now—the agony was gone from his face, replaced by a kind of pain that was multilevel. His dick was going to be sore for a while, Chris had told Michael earlier. It might even get infected, as some piercings did. But the man seemed much more grateful than in pain. He whispered his thanks prettily, and Anderson patted him on the inner thigh before she snapped the gloves off.

  Michael was amazed to find that once again, he had a hard-on.

  * * * *

  “What were you thinking of, when the needle went in?” Michael asked. Lorens, his arms under his head, thought about it for a moment. They were whispering in the dark—it was after lights out, and Joan was already asleep.

  “I was thinking of Her,” Lorens said, and he said it just like that, with the capitalization. “That she wanted me to endure this, to take this—that she will be pleased with me when I return. And then, I thought that the Trainer had stabbed my penis through the head!”

  Michael smothered a laugh. “Was it really that bad?”

  “Perhaps not,” Lorens relented. “But I have never felt anything like that before.”

  “What would you say if she wanted to put a bigger one in? Or a different one, somewhere else?”

  “I would say to her, ‘yes, Mistress,’” Lorens said confidently. “Pain is momentary. Even this will cease to hurt one day. But I want to serve her forever. I will endure whatever she asks.”

  “But—what if one day she gets tired of you—not that she will! But—what if she did?”

  “What is the use of wondering about that, Michael? She may tire of me, yes—but she has said that she desires me forever. I trust her with my body—with my life. I trust that she will take care of me, and I pray that she trusts me to care for her.” He smiled, and his teeth glowed in the moonlight coming through the window. “I hurt now, Michael, very much. But I will sleep deeply, because I trust my Lady, and I know everything will be all right.”

  “So why isn’t piercing on the exam?” Michael asked Chris the next day.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Anderson said that I could watch the piercing, but not to learn the technique. She said it wouldn’t be on the exam. But why not? Shouldn’t I learn how to pierce?”

  They had been reviewing Michael’s first training schedule, and Chris had finished his critique and left Michael time to revise. Michael put his pen down and cracked his knuckles as he asked the question.

  “It’s too early for that,” Chris answered. “Piercing is taught at the final stages, along with other marking skills like tattooing and branding—if they are taught at all.”

  “But isn’t it something a trainer should know?”

  “Not any more,” Chris sighed. “In earlier days, yes—the trainer would be responsible for the marks of slavery. In fact, some trainers would place a certain mark on all their slaves, or a series of marks to show the kind of training they had gone through. I have seen some heirloom piercing jewelry from times when medical doctors were called in to supervise. But these days, you can get a nipple piercing at a mall. Clean, professional shops are all over the country, and experts are available at weekend conferences and for private consultations. Many clients come to us already pierced or otherwise marked. So, very few trainers bother to put the skill on their agenda.”

  Michael mulled that over. It seemed to make sense, yet...

  “That’s a shame,” he said suddenly. Chris looked up at him and cocked his head expectantly. “I mean, that piercing was special,” Michael said. “It wouldn’t have been the same for Lorens if some stranger did it. It came from his trainer, you know? That’s... romantic?”

  Chris nodded, slowly. “It is indeed,” he agreed. “Write about it, if you please.”

  And for the first time, Michael went back to his room to write and didn’t feel the slightest twinge of annoyanc
e over the chore. He wrote until his head started to drop, and slept deeply.

  * * * *

  “Okay, Chris, here’s the situation—you have a client who just can’t be improved beyond a certain point. Maybe they’re just naturally clumsy, or not so bright. What do you do with them?”

  “That depends on where they are. Are they owned? Novices? Have they been in service before, and what is their record like? Do they have unrealistic goals, or do their owners?” Chris pushed up the sleeves of his sweatshirt, revealing those tattoos again. Michael admired them even more in the daylight—they weren’t cartoony at all, but actually kind of stylized and understated. Now that Michael had seen his arms, Chris was casual about occasionally baring them. He had other marks as well—high on his left arm were three V-shaped scars that didn’t look like cuts. Michael thought they might be burns, brands. But he never had the courage to ask.

  “Um, let me think—figure that they’re novices. They’re being trained for first sale.”

  “The first thing to remember is that no one is guaranteed a spot on the auction block,” Chris said. He scanned the park for a moment when they heard the sound of approaching feet, and he waited until the other jogger ran by. “If they’re not good quality, that’s too bad.”

  “Well, assume that they’re good—but they just can’t seem to get much better in some areas.”

  “Then you could try specialization—find out where they are good and focus on that. But you still send the clumsy one to dance school and get a tutor in for the under-educated one, because you never know what their owners are going to want. Some slaves can be sold on one good point alone. If Lorens didn’t have a brain in his head, still he’d get a buyer, because he’s pretty. People will buy the most astonishingly bad piece of goods because it’s pretty.” He looked distracted again, and then pointed to a bench. Michael sat down, and Chris sat next to him.

  “Let me tell you about my greatest failure,” Chris said quite casually. Michael closed his open mouth and nodded, not willing to make a sound and spoil this unique moment.

  “A client came to my former house to be trained, entirely on her own initiative. She found out about the Marketplace through eavesdropping, located a spotter who was less than reliable, and got herself a ticket in. She was unsuitable from the beginning—except that she was breathtakingly beautiful.”

  Michael nodded.

  “I trained her, with the others, or at least I tried to. And she did improve, dramatically. Within one month, we had changed her speaking habits, gotten her to control her temper, and tried every trick available to get her to question her presence. Quite amazingly, she persevered. Stayed with the program. Toward the end, she was actually presentable material, although not voice trained. For many reasons, including the fact that the house could use the money, she was presented for sale. Bids were highly competitive, and she fetched a high price. She was deemed a very narrow success.”

  Michael remained silent while Chris gathered his thoughts.

  “She—turned out to be unsuitable,” he said, looking down the path. “During the third month of her service, her owner contacted the house and requested that she be removed from service, and that he be refunded her purchase price.”

  “Shit.” That slipped out all by itself. Michael wanted to clamp a hand over his mouth. But Chris nodded solemnly.

  “Very deep shit indeed,” he said with the slightest trace of mirth. “It had never happened before. Not to me, not to my house. We were using methods I had adapted, a style taken from my training and expanded upon—and my methods had failed. And not only that—methods can be altered, after all—but I personally had failed my house. I should have known that the training would not hold when she realized that her fantasy about service was not about to materialize. I should have dismissed her before she got to the block, or certainly I should have warned my employers. Instead, I remained silent. I—we—the house needed the money. The proliferation of new trainers has hurt the older houses, deeply.” Chris sighed.

  “But it wasn’t just you,” Michael ventured. “I’ve heard of Elliot and Selador—they’re not exactly new at this.”

  “No. But they trusted me, and I let them down. I had veto power over any slave there, Michael. It was my job to keep them if they had talent, or send them away if they didn’t. I chose to be hopeful when I should have been efficient.” That was said firmly, and Michael knew it would be pointless to argue. “The moral of this story is simple, Mike. There was a client with one strong characteristic—and through some intensive training, she was rendered capable of hiding her worst flaws. But no amount of covering up could change her essential character, or her lack of dedication to the life. What do you do with someone who just can’t be improved, Michael? You find out if that weak point will undermine everything else they can learn, and if it can, you send them away.”

  “Thank you,” Michael said. “I appreciate your telling me the story.”

  “You would have heard it eventually anyway,” Chris said, getting up. “Hell, if you keep going to these Leather Forever conferences, you might run into my former client.”

  “She’ll probably be Karen’s new girlfriend,” Michael muttered.

  Chris looked surprised, and then laughed. “Yes,” he said, nodding. “She might very well indeed.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Lorens left as suddenly as he had arrived. The ring through his cock seemed to be healing just fine, and as Anderson had repeated during his stay, there was only so much she could do with him besides making sure that he was emotionally prepared for the commitment he was about to make. There was no doubt in Michael’s mind that he was. Michael had never seen a more contented slave.

  And maybe that was the key—being content seemed to make all the difference. Lorens had an owner whose gender didn’t jibe with his orientation—yet he was content with his service to her, enough to devote his life to her. Tara was not in love with her owner either—in fact, it was the same situation. Yet she was willing to deal with it, and take on extra training because something in the service satisfied her. Not enough to stay in it for life—but enough to see through a contract she had entered of her own will.

  And Joan, who had no problems with the sexual needs or orientation of her owner, was perfectly happy with the exchange of her service for a stable lifestyle. They were not all happy with their lot—but they all seemed content.

  Michael tried to think about any time he had felt content. It didn’t take him long to realize that he never had been. He looked through the early pages of his journal and tried to remember why he had wanted this. To get a better job? Was that all?

  No, it wasn’t. It was Anderson herself, from the beginning. The illusion of her, that respect from other trainers, the reams of material from her which had pretty much been the basis for the modern American Marketplace. The Trainer of Trainers—she was the zenith of the profession. Solitary and strange, the lifeblood of the lifestyle who didn’t bother to even show up to present her own papers. Whose very word could make or break a person’s entire career. What had he thought of her? That she was the master of masters—the top of all tops...

  Michael sprang up in bed—his bed again, thank God he was alone. His heartbeat sped up, and his mouth went dry. He pulled his knees up and sat with his back braced against the headboard. He reached for the early journal again and flipped the pages. There were his questions, all lined up, page after page of them.

  What makes a person a slave? What do they feel that makes them want to give up a normal life, and surrender it all to someone else’s control? What does it feel like to really submit, not just for an hour or a day, but for years?

  “What was I thinking?” he whispered out loud. “Oh Jesus, what am I doing?”

  I came to the Trainer of Trainers, he thought, with chilling certainty, to have her teach me what it was to be a slave. Of course, you bastard, who else could make you feel it? Of all the fucking arrogant, bull-headed, asinine things!


  But what was really happening, he wondered, trying to get a grip. Nothing! The Trainer does not own slaves. She doesn’t even make them—she only improves them. And—well, there was nothing there. He had deep respect for her still—deeper, if that was possible. But there was no internal drive to submit to her, no emotional charge. She had shown nothing to him that he could interpret as her wanting to teach him anything but her most basic training techniques. She treated him with honesty and directness, and never attempted to control him the way she controlled the clients.

  Then, there was Chris.

  I am not gay! was his first thought. But look at what was happening whenever he was with Chris—that moment when Michael’s cock signaled that being denied a pleasure by Chris’s direction was a good thing—the sensations of flushed pride when Chris popped out a rare compliment—his increasingly automatic respectful responses—standing when Chris entered a room. Damn, what was going on here?

  Whatever it is, I have to remain in control, Michael thought furiously. This is not good. It’s—transference. Or whatever the shrinks call it. I’m all alone here, and there just aren’t too many people to fixate on. It’s natural for a student to get crushed out on a teacher. It’s no big deal—it will pass. Besides, I had to learn what it felt like to be a slave anyway. Now, I know.

  He gathered up the notebooks and threw them into the nightstand drawer. Sleep didn’t come easily for him that night, and before it did, he promised himself that he would do nothing to let Chris know about these self-realized truths. It would be best if he could just finish out his training somehow, and go his own way. He fell asleep trying desperately not to think of where he planned to go.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  “It’s time to start wrapping Joan up,” Anderson said after one of her interviews with her. Michael felt surprised.