Loyalties (8 page)

Still, that did little to ease Dougie’s fears. He needed
rules
. Needed logic and order in his life, needed to know that if he followed those rules he’d be fine, not just punished arbitrarily. How could he serve his master well if he was constantly afraid the next beating might be just around the corner, totally unavoidable? And could he really ever endure one with such grace? Be
glad
for it? Nikolai seemed to think so, and Dougie trusted Nikolai, knew he needed to trust Nikolai. But maybe Nikolai didn’t realize how paper-thin the membrane was between his old life and his new one. How easily damaged. And how much might spill from one side to the other if someone punched even the tiniest little hole in it.

“S-sir . . .”

Nikolai raised his eyebrows—
Go on.

But Dougie didn’t know what to say after that. Hadn’t meant to say even that much. He ducked his head, desperate to escape Nikolai’s probing, expectant gaze. Desperate to string his thoughts together in a way that would make sense to Nikolai without upsetting him, without making Dougie sound like a selfish child.
I need you to reassure me. Hold my hand. Make it all better. Help me.

“Can you . . . I mean, I need . . .” God, was he
really
trying to ask Nikolai to beat him so he could see for himself how this would all make sense? It kind of seemed like he was. And surely Nikolai would, now that he’d had the audacity to practically demand it of the man.

From the look on Nikolai’s face, it was pretty clear he thought Dougie was overstepping, too. “Need me to prove it? Guide you? Show you?”

Yes. Yes, God yes, please. Please, Master, yes.

Nikolai very deliberately turned his face away from Dougie and buried it in Roger’s neck. Dougie felt his heart sink clear to his toes at that, couldn’t even breathe for a moment. “No. I’ve had enough of you now, and you’ve served your purpose. Back downstairs with you, and find Jeremy. Make yourself useful.”

“Sir—”

“
Dismissed
, Douglas.”

Somehow, Dougie managed to choke out a “Yes, sir, I’m sorry, sir,” and back himself out the bedroom door, though he felt so numb with disappointment and dread and sadness and fear and a million other things that he couldn’t feel his hands or feet.

He was halfway down the stairs, completely unaware of how he’d gotten there, before logic started crowding its way back into his head around the riot of emotion. There had to be a reason for Nikolai’s refusal to help him. Nikolai had
never
refused to help him before. And Nikolai didn’t make mistakes, at least not with things like this. Which meant Nikolai had a plan, knew exactly what he was doing, and it was
Dougie
who was wrong somehow. Or maybe Nikolai cared about him too much to beat him for no reason, trusted him enough to believe—no, to
know
—that when the time came for Dougie to take a random beating, he’d take it with pride and grace. Nikolai
trusted
him; he just needed to trust Nikolai in return.

Except, this time, he really wasn’t sure he could.

Fake it ’til you make it, Dougie.

Yeah, okay. He could do that. Walk down the stairs and into the kitchen and take orders from Jeremy, and with any luck, get lost in some endless series of mindless chores that would let him take his mind off punishments and random violence and disappointing masters and being afraid and that cool, hard look in Nikolai’s eyes when he’d said
I’ve had enough of you.

He didn’t mean that, not really. Couldn’t have meant that. Enough of me for
today
, maybe, but . . . not . . . not
forever
, right?

Right?

Great, now he was crying. He didn’t want to cry in front of Jeremy.

Too late, he was already in the kitchen. Jeremy gave him a quirked eyebrow and a cruel sneer. “Learn your place in the world, new favorite? You’ll get used to licking Roger’s ass eventually.” He pointed at the sink. “Dishes.”

Dougie went to them, shocked at the huge stack that had swallowed up the entire counter.

“Got a lot of guys to feed. Guards. Staff. Others like us. Your fucking brother with his ten-page list of nutritional requirements.”

Dougie nudged the tap with his wrist to get hot water going and hit the automatic soap dispenser. “Others like us.” He’d never seen
anyone
else around the house. Not even guards, not since he’d been brought here. “How many?” He didn’t know why he was making small talk with Jeremy, seeing as Jeremy was a fucking asshole and he was still on the verge of tears, but then, maybe that was exactly why. He could trust Jeremy not to mince words.

Jeremy shrugged, whisking at something in a big mixing bowl. “Maybe a dozen buybacks. He picks up one a year or so, his old favorites, when their masters get tired of them. Most of them work the grounds, don’t stay in the house. Master’s got over a thousand acres to maintain, after all, even if most of it’s forest.” He put down the bowl, grabbed a smaller one with dry ingredients and started folding them together, one eyebrow raised at Dougie. Dougie took the hint and grabbed a pot to scrub. “But there’s me in here, of course. And Tim, who cleans the place, though the guy’s like a fucking ghost. And Roger. Roger was the first, you know. First one Sir ever trained without Master Edgar’s help, that’s why he’s so fucking spoiled. Not that I’m jealous of him today, though.” A low whistle. No mistaking what that was about. The bruises, of course.

“Do you mean to tell me you were ever a favorite of his?”

Jeremy laughed. “Smartass fucking kid, I should kick that big plug up your ass, see if I can get it to pop out your mouth like a Pez dispenser. But no, I was no fucking favorite. Not as a slave, anyway. Just as a cook. My parents died when I was thirteen, fourteen? I got put in this shit-fuck boys’ home with some pervert director. Ran away, got a job as a busboy, then as a potato peeler, and on up to cook until suddenly some asshole was hitting me with a Taser and lugging me off to some torture cell to get my ass raped some more.”

An orphan in the system.

“And then Nikolai bought you? At an auction?” Dougie was beginning to piece together the story. The details varied, but the plot was always the same. Little Orphan Assrape.

“Nikolai
saved
me. Trained me in this very house, then sent me on and I thought I’d rather fucking die, but after eight years of misery—my new master never let me cook, didn’t buy me for that, you see—I was back home again with Nikolai.” Jeremy’s gaze went misty, and then snapped back again. Whatever ingredients he was folding, he was apparently happy with it, because he clattered around a cabinet full of baking pans for a moment and then pulled one out, started pouring the batter into it. “I was lucky. You might not be. Nikolai does the whole buyback thing because he’s a sentimental fuck, for all of his master-of-the-universe talk, but sometimes he doesn’t get to us in time. And plenty of us just plain aren’t worthy enough of his attention, not even after he’s finished training them. The guy leaving as I was coming in, I never saw him again. I imagine his body got dumped for a John Doe in some fucking river, or maybe he’s still making his master happy, who knows.” He scraped out the bowl, then pointed his spatula at Dougie. “You—you I expect to see again. That is . . .” He shrugged, dumped the bowl on Dougie’s heap of dishes left to do, “if you don’t fuck this up. You’ve got a good thing going here, kid. Got the master’s eye. Don’t ruin it by acting like some spoiled two-year-old who throws a tantrum every time daddy spends the day with his older brother. Cos daddy don’t put up with bullshit like that. He’ll spank your ass and send you away. I’m sure after a few years in the system, you know all about getting sent away, don’t ya, kid?”

The corner of Dougie’s mouth trembled. Yeah, he did. “So . . . so what, he buys us and trains us and sells us, and if he likes us enough, he buys us back again?”

“Yep. That’s generally how the whole business works . . . well, except for that last part. Somebody finds you, somebody grabs you, somebody sells you, somebody buys you and trains you, somebody buys you again. Well, some sorry fucks don’t go to professional trainers like Nikolai. Some masters, they got a taste for breaking people themselves so they buy direct, whether they know what the fuck they’re doing or not.” Dougie shuddered to think of it, being with someone cruel, without Nikolai’s finesse and caring. Like if one of Madame’s guards had purchased him for day-in-day-out torture and humiliation, fucking him until he died. Jeremy continued on, unawares. “But Nikolai’s clients just want the finished product, all polished up and ready to suck dick like pros.”

God, it all sounded so crass and awful when he put it like that. They were doing something beautiful here, something
special
, bringing out his best self. Weren’t they?

“And he always sells us?” Dougie wrung the sponge in his hands, just to squeeze something, just to hold something and imagine never letting it go. The water ran free and clear and uncatchable over his hands and through his fingers. “He never . . . he never just chooses to
keep
someone?”

“Aw, do you think the master’s gonna keep you all for his own? Dumbass fucking kid, you’re as bad as a girl with a crush, still in pigtails. Of course he’s going to sell you on. Don’t get me wrong, he likes you, likes you more than most if I’m honest, but you’re still a fucking meal ticket in the end. One day, you’re gonna walk out those doors and wind up at the feet of another man, and you’re gonna spend five, ten, maybe fifteen years there missing Nikolai for every fucking second of it, like your heart’s torn out of your goddamn chest.” If it was possible to cut vegetables bitterly, Jeremy was doing it, slamming his knife against the cutting board. “But you stick it out and do your damn job as best you can because you know he wants you to and you promised him you would and you’d
die
before you’d disappoint him. And maybe, if you’re real lucky, your new master reminds you a little of him and maybe even loves you a little like Nikolai did and maybe you even love him back a little like you love Nikolai. But of course it’s never the same. And then at the end of it all, when you’re too old or too tired or just too plain familiar and boring for your master and he’s had enough of you, Nikolai might buy you back on the cheap, or maybe your master’ll take you out back and Old Yeller you for kicks. Or worse. So like I said, don’t screw this up, kid. You give Nikolai
everything
, and then you give your new master everything, and maybe when it’s all over, Nikolai will give you everything in return.”

Maybe
. So many possibilities for a bleak and empty future if he wasn’t careful. Dougie didn’t want to picture it. Didn’t want to picture what Jeremy must know about it. He stared down at the sink, scrubbing furiously at a stubbornly filthy brass pot and trying not to cry.

“Oh! Master!” Jeremy said. “We were just talking about you.”

Dougie didn’t want to turn around.

Dougie wanted to turn around more than he’d wanted anything else in his life.

“I heard.” Nikolai’s voice was soft and calm, and those two words were punctuated by the sound of a chaste kiss. A kiss for Jeremy. Dougie’s shoulders stiffened, waiting for his own greeting, but it never came. “Roger’s asleep now. I told him to call you on the intercom when he wants lunch. And we’ll
both
be taking dinner in bed tonight.”

“Of course, Sir. Luke killed one of the chickens today. Freshly plucked. I could roast it.”

“With stuffing?” God, Nikolai sounded so
affectionate
.

“Would I ever serve you a chicken without stuffing, Sir?”

“There was that one time you gave me wild rice.” Dougie could actually
hear
the good-humored crinkle in Nikolai’s nose. He glared at the pot in his hands. That fleck of stuck-on whatever didn’t budge, so he scrubbed it harder.

Jeremy laughed, a pure sound without any of his usual bitterness. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”

“You wouldn’t love me if I did,” Nikolai countered flirtatiously.

“I would
always
love you, Sir.”

Dougie’s stomach clenched. Why the hell couldn’t he get this damn pot clean? Why couldn’t he do this one simple fucking thing?

A hand fell on his shoulder, gently cupping it. “Hello, Douglas.”

Oh Master, thank you.
Dougie wanted to fall to his knees at Nikolai’s feet and just cry and cry and cry, beg Nikolai to forgive him, to let him stay, to love him like he loved these other men, and if he could have that, God, he’d be good, he’d be so good, he’d do anything, he’d let Nikolai beat him every day. “Hello, sir,” he finally choked out, his voice rough with unshed tears.

“How are you feeling now, Douglas?”

Like I’m afraid you’ll send me away. Like I don’t want to go.

Like I love you so much, but I don’t know if you really love me back.

Like I don’t know where I stand.

“Like I don’t know what I mean to you, sir.” He braced himself for a swift punishment, a kick or a slap—what he meant to Nikolai was none of his damn business, and of no import besides—but it never came. The absence fucking
hurt
. “And I’m just . . . I know I can’t ask anything of you, and that this isn’t the kind of relationship where I ask you to tell me you love me and we can’t go steady like teenagers and I guess I’m just confused, sir.”

“But you know your place.”

“A slave, sir. I’m nothing, sir.” And why did admitting it hurt now, instead of filling him with that calm peace and acceptance he kept grasping and losing again? Damn it, he wanted what Roger had, what even Jeremy somehow fucking had.

“That’s right. Whose slave are you, Douglas?”

I don’t know. I just don’t know. Yours, temporarily, and then?

“I want to be yours, sir.”

“So why don’t you know what you mean to me? Why are you confused?”

His hands stilled in their scrubbing, and he
itched
with the urge to turn around, to confront Nikolai head on with his answer. “Because,” he said, and this, surely
this
would get a rise, a punishment, a beating, painful in its truth as it was. “Because you tell me you love me in one breath and talk about selling me in the next!”