The Trainer (27 page)

It was almost time to bring her to Geoff.
Just a few more weeks, and then he would explain everything to her.
The Marketplace was perfect for her—she had no heavy ties to the
community, wasn’t overly involved with her family, and she had
broken up with her last boyfriend. Her job was okay, but she
admitted that she only took it because it was close to home. Her
house was rented. It would be easy for her to give it all up—and
when Geoff saw her, he would fall in love. Perfect, perfect,
perfect. Michael was already composing his introductory letter to
Anderson.

Dear Ms. Anderson—I am 24 years old, a one
year trainee of Geoff Negel. Having recently put my first slave on
the block, I feel I am ready for the advanced training you offer.
The enclosed files and Mr. Negel’s letter of recommendation will
attest to my having spotted, initially trained, introduced and
market-prepped the slave Karen...

* * * *

“Excuse me, sir?” Karen said, raising her
head.

“You heard what I said. I’m a trainer for a
real-life slave market. I saw you, and decided that you would be
perfect for us, and in the past five months, I’ve been training you
by our methods. Well, some of the... our methods, but mostly mine.
And now, it’s time to bring you in. You’re ready. You’ve made me
very, very proud.” Michael was sitting on her couch, and the sun
was setting beyond her living room windows. He decided that the
drama of the glowing disk settling beyond the hills would be
perfect for the closing of one life and the opening of another.
Karen was on her knees facing him, naked, her hands on her spread
thighs. It was a position he had decided to make standard—it looked
very pretty and relaxed. So much of what we do is drama, he thought
happily.

“Do you mean you want me to be your slave?
Full time?”

“No. I mean, I’ll take you to our training
house, you spend a week there, meeting people and getting checked
out, and when my boss accepts you, you get to join us.”

“A week? That would be all my vacation time,
sir.” She looked a little excited, but a little shocked, too. That
was easy to understand. Michael forced himself to remain gentle and
easy with her, remembering how Uncle Niall had spent hours
explaining it all.

“Well, see, once you joined, you wouldn’t
have to worry about vacation time, Karen. You’d quit your job, and
come and be a real, full time slave. My boss would support you
while you were in training—you’d get full room and board, medical
care, the works. And, you’d finish your training. I’d say it could
be done in less than a month. Maybe two, tops, if we decide you
could be a pleasure slave.” He didn’t think she could really
qualify for that—although sweet and pretty, she wasn’t as fully
bisexual as the people Geoff called pleasure slaves. But maybe she
just needed more practice.

“And then?”

“And then you’d be sold,” Michael said,
knowing that this could be the difficult part. “My boss would do a
lot of research, and find a good owner for you. They’d pay a lot of
money for you—and some of it will actually be yours, once the term
of slavery was up. Most of it, in fact. We never leave you without
some kind of support. It’s a great system, really. Our owners are
checked out—they’re not freaks and weirdoes. They’re good masters,
who know how to keep slaves.”

“I’m sorry sir, but I don’t understand.” It
was a stock phrase that he taught her to use before questioning
anything—especially if she was questioning his judgment. “There
can’t be any such thing. Slavery is illegal in the United
States.”

“Well, yeah, slavery by force. But people
can enter into personal service contracts.”

“With all due respect sir, people don’t get
sold in personal service contracts.”

Michael pondered that. Niall had explained
it, a long time ago, but it had all seemed largely theoretical and
tangled up in a lot of dull legalese. Geoff merely admitted that in
a US court of law, Marketplace contracts would probably be
considered null and void, which was why there was no real way of
enforcing them. Which was why they had to be so careful in choosing
the people who would feel themselves bound by them. Damn, damn, he
shouldn’t have even brought that part up, it only got confusing.
Let an expert explain that part, he thought. Backtrack, get back to
the point.

“Look, it’s not your problem. The Mar—this,
um, society, has people who know what they’re doing in respects to
contracts and stuff. And besides, I know you really want to be a
slave. You were made to be a slave! Well, this is the only way to
do it for real. To have no control over your life, to be sold to
the highest bidder, trained, worked, used—all the things you’ve
been talking about for the past five months. Forget what’s
legal—this is what’s real.”

“But—I don’t want to belong to anyone else,”
she said. The softness had gone out her eyes, and Michael
experienced a moment of doubt. Something was going wrong.

“I realize that it’s a scary prospect, but I
assure you, it’s all safe. And you’ll love it in training, everyone
does—”

“And I love being trained, sir. By you. Why
do you want to do this? Aren’t I good enough for you? Or did you
always have selling me to someone else in mind?” Her voice was
rising, and he could see her shifting in her kneeling position.

“Now wait a minute,” Michael said sternly.
“Watch your tone of voice with me, slave. Just because we’re having
a discussion doesn’t mean you can misbehave.”

“Why not? You don’t want to be my master,
anyway!” Karen leaned forward for a minute, looking down at the
floor, and then suddenly got to her feet.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Michael
yelled, springing up.

“I need a drink!” she snapped back. “And
unless you want to become an abusive boyfriend and beat me with
your fists, I’m going to get one. Would you like one?”

Michael’s mouth dropped open. As a matter of
fact, his right hand had closed into a fist, although he hadn’t
realized it. He opened his fingers slowly and took a deep breath.
“You get back where you were, Karen, or I’m out of here.”

“That’s your answer to everything,” she
said, never veering from her liquor cabinet. She opened it and
pulled a glass and a bottle out, and poured. “You’ve always been
free to leave.”

“Karen—” Michael made an inarticulate sound,
like a muffled scream, and slammed his open hand against the coffee
table. “Dammit, you don’t know what you’re throwing away!”

“Well, you’re not actually telling me, are
you?” She said, turning. She took a drink, and wiped her mouth with
the back of her hand. “You promised you’d make me a slave, but it
was always your slave, Mike. I bottomed to that girl because you
were there, because you wanted to watch, because you were sharing
me. It made me feel obedient to you. But you never said anything
about selling me to anyone else! You never said shit about some
secret society where you’d just trade me away like a used car! You
weren’t honest with me, Mike. That was a really shitty thing to
do.” She looked like she was ready to cry, but she was holding it
back. Or maybe her anger was holding it back.

“It’s not like that, Karen. It’s much, much
better. You don’t understand—people spend years just trying to find
us. All the stuff you’re used to, it’s nothing compared to what we
do. The conference was just one weekend—think about living that way
full-time! But it’s not forever—it’s just for a year or two. And if
you like it, you can negotiate for longer times. Or you can take
your share of the money and start a new life. It’s a great
deal!”

“Oh yeah? And how much money will you get
for me, Mike? How much have I been worth to you?”

“Karen—baby—you’re priceless. You’ve been a
joy to train, you’re really very talented!” Michael paced toward
her, and then backed away a little when he saw the anger on her
face. This wasn’t going well at all!

“You didn’t answer the question,” she
said.

“Well, I don’t know! You never do—I mean,
probably nothing. I don’t get paid a percentage, I get a straight
salary. Really, more of a stipend. I was doing this for you, Karen.
To give you the life you could only fantasize about.”

“And what if I fantasized about you? Can’t
we forget all this secret society stuff and just be master and
slave?” Her voice was shaking—it was getting harder for her to
maintain control.

“I—I just can’t do that right now,” Michael
said. “You see, owners have to register with the, um, organization,
and provide living space and prove that they can support a slave,
and I—I can’t. And, well, I’m probably going to New York soon—”

Or maybe not, he thought miserably.

“Then there’s nothing left to say,” she
said, after draining her glass. “You don’t love me—you don’t even
want me. And I’m not some airhead piece of property ready to hop
into any kind of slavery without even having the control to pick my
own fucking master. Get out.”

“Karen!”

“Get the fuck out before I call 911!” she
screamed.

Michael backed off, cursing. He picked up
his gear bag and went into the bedroom to throw his things in it.
“I don’t believe you’re doing this, Karen! This was your only
opportunity to really make something out of your fantasies!” He
shouted over his shoulder, knowing that his words would reach her
clearly. Damn, he had brought a lot of stuff here! When he got back
to the room, she was wrapped in her damn robe, and had poured
herself another drink. Her hands were shaking.

“If you strip and get back into position
right now, I’ll explain everything very clearly,” Michael said,
standing by the door. “You’ll see what a mistake you almost
made.”

“Thank you for everything, Mike. You were a
great dominant,” she said. Her lip quivered and she turned away.
“Take care.”

He slammed the door so hard he cracked the
glass in one of the inset panels.

And it had only gotten worse from there.

LaGuardia, Michael, Los Angeles,
California...

He asked for his own file, and scanned it.
Two years with Geoff were listed as his training. He was ranked as
an apprentice trainer, no authorization to release slaves for sale.
There was a list of names and numbers of the slaves whose training
he had participated in, and under references, where Geoff’s name
used to be, there was nothing. Two years of work, and not even a
reference to show for it. There was also no indication that there
had been an incident, except that he had two years of training and
then... nothing.

Yet Anderson knew. How? Who told her? And
why the fuck had she shared it with Parker? And why wasn’t it
updated to list him as her apprentice now, anyway?

He logged off again and watched the
blue-green lines of the monitor collapse into black when he shut
the machine off.

The two weeks after Tara returned to her
master went by with excruciating slowness. There was just so much
to do in such a small household—and despite losing one slave, Joan
filled in the minor tasks so neatly that there was barely a blip in
Michael’s schedule.

Anderson still made no move to shift Joan
into Michael’s hands. But she did start inviting Michael to watch
some of the training sessions, especially the ones where Anderson
was teaching her style of seeing through walls.

“It’s a matter of knowing how long things
take, and how a particular person behaves,” she began. “It’s
knowing that people do form habits, and that once you learn the
habits, there isn’t anything left to anticipate there. You don’t
even have to think about it—one action triggers another,
seamlessly. It’s the basis for all anticipatory behavior.”

“But what if you don’t have a habit to work
from? What if someone arrives home unexpectedly? How do you know
what they’ll want?”

“That’s part two, reading emotions. We’re
all empathic to some degree—my clients hone their empathy until
it’s as sharp as it can get, and keep it keen with constant
polishing. But we begin at the beginning, Mike, with habits. Joan
already knows Chris’s—now, she must apply herself to yours. For
three days, I want you to live your life as naturally as possible,
and pretend that she isn’t there. On the fourth, we will start
seeing how well she’s made a study of you.”

So once again, he was being used as an
exercise. Plus, having lost the easy sexual companionship of Tara,
he was once again horny upon rising and feeling deprived. It would
almost have been better for Anderson not to allow him to screw Tara
while she was there. Because now Joan was in Parker’s hands—and no
way was Parker going to let Mike get any tail.

It was interesting to watch Joan at work,
though. Tara already had her skills when Michael arrived—Joan was
still learning them. And just as it was fascinating to see her
improve during the first weeks in all the movements and speech
patterns, it was equally interesting to watch her try to keep one
step ahead of him.

Her major fault was in misjudging time. She
tended to come in too early, stand ready for too long. It was a
common beginner’s habit, Anderson told him. They’d rather be early
than late, because lateness was almost universally thought of as
rude. But being too early had its disadvantages as well.

“An early chauffeur makes his master feel
pressured to leave. Early meals get cold, or wither. Early erotic
attention is inappropriate; early personal attention is intrusive.
The client has to be like an actor and make their entrance at the
right time, and hit their mark.”

At least Michael always had something new to
write about in his journal. He would need a new book soon; probably
should have started one as soon as Tara left. But no one told him
about these things—he had to figure them all out by himself. It was
a pain.