The Trainer (26 page)

The system asked if he wanted a detailed
record of that Christopher Parker. He hit the function key for no,
and it asked if Anderson wanted any other files today.

Search: Anderson, first initial unknown,
female, American. His finger almost slipped as he hit the key to
launch the search. Two minutes later, six files popped up. He
examined them one at a time, until he hit one that made him
shiver.

Anderson, Imala. New York, NY. Master
Trainer...

That was her! He hit the key for the full
file, flushed with the excitement of finding her origin. A basic
identity file popped up, the screen filling in information which
confirmed that this was her file. Her first name was... Imala? He’d
never heard that name before. Birthplace—Augusta, Georgia. When the
first page of the file was complete, he hit the return key to
request the next section, the Marketplace timeline that would
reveal all of her standings, whether she had been a slave or an
owner, who had trained her...

File unavailable. Damn! And you just
couldn’t ask the damn machine why. He left the individual records
area and tried asking for it as an archived file.

Personnel file Anderson, I. is sealed. There
are 312 files in this archive utilizing Anderson as a search
parameter. Select. More. Search. Download. Exit. Return to Main
menu.

He hit exit and logged off, feeling a little
wasted. What a disappointment!

But maybe not. He turned the machine off and
thought about it some more. Who would have the ability to seal off
an individual file like that, and why? If he could search slave
records, and other trainers, why not Anderson? Was it her decision
to block such access? And if so, at what level?

And stranger yet was Parker—he knew the
moves, he walked the walk—but he had never put his butt on the
block. In fact, despite his having published works for other
trainers, why wasn’t he listed as a trainer? His record wasn’t even
sealed—it was just plain missing! How very interesting.

But ultimately, not very helpful. There
wasn’t any way he could use this information—he certainly couldn’t
let Anderson know he was snooping in the personnel files. He
wondered what would happen if he punched in his own name. Had Geoff
made a formal report about what happened? If it was in his file,
did that mean that every full trainer, all over the world, could
read about that one dreadful mistake he had made?

He switched the computer back on, and with a
twinge of fear started searching for himself.

Karen had bought the lie about his life, or
at least made peace with herself about it. And she took to the
training very well for a complete amateur raised in the wrong
environment. Oh, it took him a long time to make her unlearn what
she had learned—despite her claim that she was self-taught, she had
picked up these habits from somewhere. A lot of it came from
fictional books, some classic and some pretty laughable. Michael
borrowed them from her and enjoyed them for their erotic content,
if not for the light they shed on slavery. He returned them with
notes attached—“Never do that,” or “Works only in novels.” And
whenever he caught her imitating her fictional role models, he
would paddle her until she cried, and burn the book in front of
her. It happened twice—and replacement books never showed up on her
shelves. Not bad.

It was almost terrifyingly exciting. Just
being alone with her, without Geoff’s plastic-covered charts and
neat files, without the endless videotaping and question-and-answer
sessions, was so thrilling it was difficult to keep it a secret. He
was her god—he would arrive at her door and she would be ready for
him: collared, naked, and shivering with anticipation. Eagerly, she
would serve his every whim, and suffer for every infraction. He
would sprawl out in her bed, while she lay on the floor with only a
light blanket and her chains for comfort.

She was allowed no privacy, no secrecy. She
had to ask for permission even to relieve herself, and he would
often watch her, just to let her know that no door could be closed
to him. Many of these things went beyond what Geoff taught—bathroom
habits were assumed to be the province of individual owners and
slaves were warned of that potential, but that was it. Really
having the power, Michael decided, was much better.

He would put her in bondage and photograph
her, and toss the photos under her face while he fucked her later
on. He drilled her relentlessly in how to move, how to talk, and
even took some of Geoff’s basic training manual out of context to
give her pages to study. He took credit for them, and warned her
never to reveal them to another person, and she swore that she
wouldn’t.

She rarely wavered in her dedication to his
training; in fact, she thrived upon it. She told him more than once
that he was the most dominant lover she ever had—that he always
knew exactly what to do to make her feel properly submissive, and
never once let her slip. He was proud of her admiration, and eager
to show off his skill every time they met. Sometimes, he would
drive back to Geoff’s place, half falling asleep at the wheel,
exhausted from the expense of energy one weekend with her took from
him. But it was worth it, every minute. She responded to him like a
dream, and punishing her for her errors made him feel like he could
take on the world and beat it into submission.

Once, when he arrived and she had her
period, she was cranky and didn’t want to be touched.

“I’m sorry, master,” she said to him,
wearing panties and a robe. Her hair was tangled, and she looked
like she had just come from bed. A far cry from the freshly washed,
primed, and already aroused woman who was supposed to greet him at
the door. She grimaced and forced a smile, one arm bent over her
lower abdomen, and kept talking. “When I’m like this, I just can’t
do anything right. I’m bloated, I have these awful cramps—I should
have known it was coming—”

He slapped her, hard, across the face, and
she reeled back in shock. Geoff rarely—if ever—used that much force
against a slave’s face. He gave swift, light taps with his fingers
only, or held onto their chins with one hand, scaring them as he
calmly delivered his discipline. But Michael had itched to just lay
a hand across someone’s mouth like they did in the movies or on
TV—and the effect was pure adrenaline on him. Karen’s eyes snapped
open wide as one hand flew to her cheek. Blood drained from her
face and then rushed back as she blinked and gasped.

“You’re disobeying me,” he said coldly. “Get
those clothes off, and get down on your knees, you’re going to be
punished.”

“But—listen, I don’t feel well—”

He grabbed her by the hair and jerked her
down to her knees. “You’re a slave,” he hissed, pulling his gear
bag over to her. “You feel what I want you to feel. You’re not
sick, you’re only on the rag. That doesn’t count for an
incapacitating illness.”

“Mike, please—”

He pulled out his brand new gag and pressed
it into her mouth. The ball spread her lips and forced her mouth
open and she coughed against it as he settled it in place. She was
crying as he buckled it on, but didn’t fight him as he stripped her
robe off and then cuffed her wrists behind her back.

“If you’re not in the mood to serve me, you
won’t have to,” he said, pulling some rope out. Expertly, he bound
her ankles together, bent her knees, and lashed the ankle rope to
her wrists, leaving about two feet of slack. It wasn’t a hogtie, it
didn’t bend her backwards, but it did keep her from going anywhere.
And she would hurt like hell when he let her out.

He knew about the dangers in what he was
doing—the handcuffs alone were considered by most Marketplace
people to be barbaric items, suitable only for law enforcement or
punishment, and then only used sparingly. The gag and the bondage
were strictly because he liked the look—bondage at Geoff’s or at
his uncle’s was a more elaborate affair, designed to create access,
rather than deny movement. But she was crying—he had to stay close,
to make sure she didn’t get her nose all clogged and lose the
ability to breathe. He also had to make sure that her hands didn’t
lose feeling. So, he took a seat behind her and read her own
magazines, flipping through mail order catalogs and listening to
her muffled whimpers and moans, watched her wiggle her fingers and
shiver.

He undid the bondage when he was bored.

“I don’t believe you did this,” she said to
him, spitting out the trails of saliva that had gathered in her
cheeks. He grinned to see the puddle of drool where her chin had
rested on the floor. “Safeword, fucking safeword!”

“I told you I don’t play that way,” he
replied, helping her up. “Let’s get you washed off.”

She pulled away from him and reached for her
robe, tossed on the floor beside where she had been bound. “Don’t
touch me,” she cried. “I think you should leave!”

“Yeah? And if I leave, how will you let me
know how sorry you are for having these temper tantrums? Because if
I do leave now, I’m not coming back. You don’t control me, Karen,
you surrender control to me. And if you can’t do that, I’ll leave,
sure.” He hid the panic he was feeling, desperately hoping that she
would see it his way. Angry at her return to the mundane way of
handling things, he grabbed the robe out of her hands and used one
corner of it to wipe off the mouthpiece of the gag. She stood
there, shaking, and watched him as he tossed it back on the
floor.

“I’m going to take a shower,” she finally
said.

“Yes, that’s what I suggested. Don’t close
the bathroom door.” He turned away from her so she wouldn’t see his
relief, and went into her kitchen. That wasn’t the way she should
have reacted! She should have cried, and begged his forgiveness!
She should have kissed his hands, his feet, begged him to hold her
and tell her it was all right! He did everything right. He enforced
his dominance, and his rules. That was what she had learned to
expect. That was what she wanted, what she loved! What went wrong?
He grabbed a soda from the refrigerator and gulped it down, and
checked his face in the mirror hanging in the hallway. Okay, he
looked cool.

He went to the bathroom, where he could hear
the shower running. Good girl, she left the door open, like she was
supposed to. Inside, he checked her medicine cabinet and pulled out
two tablets of ibuprofen and put some water in the cup by her
toothbrush. He had to rescue this situation, make her understand.
He couldn’t let her just throw this all away because she fucked up
once!

The water stopped, and she pulled the shower
door open and reached for her towel. But he was holding it open for
her.

She stared at him for a moment and then
stepped into the towel, letting him wrap it around her body. He
handed her the tablets and the cup, and she took them without
comment. He put the cup back on the rack and turned her around to
face him.

“If you want to be a slave, you can’t have
cranky days and show them to your master,” he said, trying to sound
as strong, yet as patient and caring as Geoff. “I know things are
going to go wrong sometimes. Cramps, or a headache, or just one of
those days when you want to snap at everyone and take a few heads
off. But you have to rise above that. It’s part of being a good
slave.”

“But I don’t control those things! If I
could just turn them off, don’t you think I would?” Her curls
bounced as he ran the edge of the towel over them. Her eyes were
still red and puffy—she looked like a kid.

“Listen—soldiers have to turn them off and
they do. Doctors and actors have to turn them off, and they do.
Everyone who has a responsibility to something bigger has to be
able to control those minor annoyances—and they do. If you want it
badly enough, you will, too.”

“I don’t know if I can,” she said, falling
toward him, leaning against his chest. He hugged her warmly—thank
God she wasn’t talking about forgetting it all. Finally, she was
responding correctly! She was just having a minor set-back, that’s
all.

“You will,” he promised generously. “You’ll
learn while doing.”

It was all he could say, really. This part
of the training was his alone.

Geoff encouraged his clients to tell him or
the undertrainers when they were having bad days. Every
non-intentional discomfort was tended to in some way, especially if
some kind of therapy could alleviate future symptoms. Chiropractors
and massage therapists were called for lower back pain and
headaches. Migraines were treated by physicians, allergies by
specialists.

“You have to help them overcome what are
actually mood-altering situations not of their owner’s control,” he
had advised. “This will allow them to devote their time and
emotional attention to their duties, and not their problems.”

Michael thought that was coddling them.
Hell, he went to work when he had a headache! Never missed a day.
And they were supposed to be slaves, for crying out loud! How could
a master expect to be spending more money in order to get his slave
to a chiropractor? Not to mention how many doctors were available
for slaves to just go to without having to explain the marks, the
chains, the piercings or whatever. As far as he was concerned,
slaves should go to doctors when they were seriously sick or
injured, and the rest of the time just deal with it like every
other working stiff did.

So Karen survived her period and cried in
his arms a little bit, angry at herself for not even trying to live
up to her agreement with him. After a very stern lecture and a
spanking, he forgave her magnanimously and even allowed her to
sleep with him that night. He didn’t insist on fucking her, mostly
because the idea always struck him as a little gross. But he did
enjoy a very long time having his entire body licked, kissed and
sucked on, culminating in a nice, long session of cocksucking. He
felt that such an evening more than proved his point that she could
still be entertaining when she was bleeding.