The Trainer (30 page)

The phone rang at one o’clock in the
afternoon, just as Vicente had finished laying out a luncheon salad
and a stack of roast beef sandwiches. Lorens, in white shorts and a
tank top, was carrying plates from the kitchen, and Joan, looking
very round and dark next to him, was directing the action as part
of her training in management techniques. Anderson, watching from
the dining room door, raised one finger to stop Joan from picking
up the call and got it herself. Michael kept watching the workers
as they neatly laid the table and vanished. It was hard not to
knock into each other in the small space of the formal dining room,
but somehow, they managed it.

“Yes, he’s here. Hold for a moment, please.”
Anderson laid the receiver down and tapped Michael on the shoulder.
“Would you go get Chris? This is for him.”

“Sure, Trainer.” He jogged upstairs and down
the hall, to where Chris’s room was, and knocked on the door.
“Chris! Phone call.”

Chris came to the door with a frown on his
face. Michael could see a laptop computer open and running on the
desk by the window—sometimes Chris worked for hours on whatever he
was writing. “Do you know who it is?” he asked.

“No. Anderson picked it up.”

“Thank you.” Chris followed him back
downstairs immediately, and Michael knew that it was in reaction to
that magical name. At the slightest hint that Anderson wanted
something or had decided or judged something, Chris moved. If
Anderson called him to the phone, it had to be important. Chris
looked more tightly wound than usual that day—something that
happened every once in a while—but still, he stopped his work and
went to take care of business.

Slaves should be so automatically trusting.
Michael sighed and walked past Chris to get to lunch. Anderson was
already seated, feeding a kneeling Lorens a cherry tomato. She did
things with him that she hadn’t done with either of the female
clients, with more touches and more personal attention. It was
always interesting to see what she had planned. She really did
alter her methods and style for each individual slave.

They could hear Chris quite clearly from the
front room.

“Excuse me, Mr. Parese?... That’s
impossible... Mr. Parese, you must be mistaken!”

At the sound of Chris’s rare higher pitch,
the tone he used only when he was genuinely angry, Michael put his
sandwich down on the plate. Joan, pouring a glass of soda for him,
seemed under control but he could tell she was listening too.
Anderson clucked her tongue and Joan quickly finished and fled back
to the kitchen.

“You did what?... No, don’t do a damn thing,
Mr. Parese. I’ll be out tomorrow, to straighten this out... Mr.
Parese, you listen to me. If Robin is not conscious and available
to me, I will certainly make sure you’re investigated. I will be
there tomorrow to pick her up.” The phone made a loud ringing noise
as it was slammed into the cradle.

“Joan! Get out here!”

Michael hadn’t even taken a bite. His mouth
was open in amazement at the abusive sound of Chris’s sharp
command. Joan looked composed, however, as she ran out of the
kitchen, neatly avoiding the backs of chairs, to the front
room.

“Here—call a travel agent, and get me on a
flight to Los Angeles tomorrow, as early as possible. Find me a
hotel to the north of the city, and book me a suite, two bedrooms.
And find out who’s the medical contact for that area, call them,
and tell them I will probably need a visit tomorrow, oh, hell—late
afternoon, I suppose. And a car—I need a car. Go, take care of this
now.”

“Chris?” Anderson said, leaning back to look
into the front room. “What’s up?”

He came in, flushed and scowling. “Those
damn idiots—Robin’s owners have decided that she’s stolen some
earrings or something from a guest! They found them in her
room—decided that she was guilty, just like that!” He snapped his
fingers dramatically. “After all, why bother to investigate? She’s
a girl, girls wear earrings, so naturally it had to have been
her!”

“Chris?” Anderson pointed to a chair.

Amazingly, he ignored her. Michael closed
his mouth and took a long drink from his glass. This was better
than a movie.

“They beat the shit out of her, Anderson! He
said she was unconscious! What kind of barbaric, misogynist
assholes—”

“Parker!” Anderson slapped one hand on the
table top. “Control yourself.”

Chris looked at her and then blinked, as
though he was as surprised as she by his behavior. He dropped down
into the previously indicated seat and ran one hand through his
hair, pushing it back. “Yes, yes. Please—forgive my outburst. That
was ill-mannered.”

“Forgiven. Now why on earth are you going
out there? Just call the local investigative representative and
have the girl removed. She can be cared for and sent back here, and
the whole thing can be taken care of properly. There’s no need for
you to charge off like John Wayne.”

Michael smothered a snicker, and
concentrated on spreading mayonnaise on his sandwich.

“I—I have to go. I’m her trainer. She needs
me.”

Oh boy! Disagreeing with the Trainer, too!
This was turning out to be a real historic occasion, Michael
thought viciously.

“I agree. She needs you to advocate for her.
But she doesn’t need your personal attention on-site. If you did
that for all your clients, you’d always be on the road. Now call
Joan back, and handle this the proper way.”

There was silence. Anderson had turned to
her plate, but then slowly looked back at Chris, who was sitting
very still, and definitely not calling Joan.

“Parker?” she said gently.

“Are you ordering me not to go?” he
asked.

Michael thought he could die right then. Mr.
Perfect, questioning an order from the Goddess of Trainers. Now
you’re on the hot seat buster, he thought. How does it feel to
squirm for a change? And I get to see it all.

Anderson picked up another tomato and fed it
to the blushing Lorens. “No,” she said finally. “I am advising you,
as your senior trainer, not to go.”

“Thank you for your advice. I regret that I
can’t take it at this time. Please excuse me, I have to go into the
city before I leave.” He stood, and actually waited for Anderson’s
slow nod of permission to be excused! Oh, it was too much! Michael
couldn’t hold it in any more.

“So, one of the perfect slaves has sticky
fingers, huh Chris? Wonder what went wrong there?”

Chris had already turned. Michael saw his
shoulders stiffen, and his hands curl up into fists. Anderson
started to rise, and Michael just caught the look of alarm on her
face, but Chris’s tightly controlled voice cut through the tension.
“I’ll thank you, Mr. LaGuardia, to keep your ignorant mouth
shut.”

“Oh, and I’ll thank you—” Michael began, but
Anderson, now on her feet, shut him up.

“That will be enough, Michael! Chris, I
believe you have some work to do.”

He left without looking back. Anderson
turned to Michael and said sharply, “That was entirely uncalled
for!”

“Trainer, I’m just giving back some of what
he shovels at me every day! If he can’t take it, he shouldn’t do
it.” Michael was stung, but feeling brave. It was worth a lecture
just to have made Chris that angry!

“Try not to revert to style, Mike, it makes
me wonder what drugs I was on the day I chose your file. I seem to
have lost my appetite. Lorens, clear this away, and come upstairs.
I need a back rub.”

“Yes, Trainer!” He bowed his head almost to
the floor when she left, throwing her napkin onto the table. And
within minutes, Michael was alone with his salad, sandwich, and an
empty glass of soda. He went to the kitchen to fill it and hid a
chuckle from Vicente, who had a very serious look on his face.

Oh yes. Altogether a very amusing
luncheon.

Chris landed in sunny California early in
the day, and picked up the car reserved for him at the rental
counter. It was hot in the City of the Angels. It was always hot in
California, he thought. He hadn’t worn the sunglasses since the
last time he’d been there, but they still worked. They couldn’t
take the edge off the blinding headache, though.

It took about twenty minutes of map-reading
plus one stop at a gas station to figure out the way to the Parese
and Appleton home, up in the hills. It took another two hours to
get there, dealing with traffic and unfamiliar roads. “Just outside
of the city” meant different things in different parts of the
world.

Robin. Sweet, desperately searching Robin,
the sprite of slavery. With her natural patience, and her constant
inner struggles to do the right thing, to not fail—oh, she had been
a joy to teach. Totally unaware of the impossibility of his plan,
she had gone along with everything, offering only the meekest of
complaints, enduring what would have terribly confused and probably
broken a more gradually trained novice.

It had been so irresponsible of him to take
her on. He had been due back at the house in three weeks, and was
slumming, spending time with Ron, drinking when he shouldn’t be,
picking up hustlers and making them cry. Anything to get his mind
off training, and the endless stream of eager novitiates. Trying
not to think of the drills, and their faces and bodies. Their
hatred. Fear. Contempt. Worship. Love. The eternal confusion of it
all.

And then, next to the narrow, teasing eyes
of Ken Mandarin, this girl—this small, elfin girl, so bashful and
so needy, you could feel it from her. Even standing in a leather
bar, the smoke and beer and piss a mask of atmosphere that kept you
from thinking of anything but sex, she was like a lure. He couldn’t
turn her away.

Being intercepted on the night of her sale
had been—interesting. It had provided some new twists to his
relationship with Grendel and Alex. Some new aspect of his life to
use as a springboard, a way to make things, as Anderson correctly
pointed out, more difficult. But even the new teasing wasn’t as
difficult for him to endure as the temptation to take Robin to bed
had been. Watching Rachel take her pleasure of her, and then
watching Gordon Reynolds do her—and knowing that while he was doing
Gordon in the master bedroom, Gordon’s slave Leon was fucking Robin
in the other room—it had been a personal torment of surprising
proportions.

Most... intriguing.

As time passed and his—situation—changed,
there were a series of such incidents. The meeting of eyes, and the
instantaneous knowing—followed by the hunger and the drive, and
ultimately, the separation. But Robin had been the first to belong
to him alone.

It was irrational to think that she still
did. But there was a distinct lack of rationality in what he had
felt when he heard the sputtering voice of her angry owner. It was
terrible to lose control like that. But there was never any
question about his coming out to get her.

If Anderson had—

But she hadn’t.

He wanted a smoke, very badly. But he kept
driving, and didn’t stop for cigarettes.

The houseman was a lithe, feral-looking
Hispanic with a soft voice and properly deferential coldness. It
would have been more impressive to dress him in elegant whites,
razo- pleated soft pants and a billowy shirt, open to show his
beautiful chest. But in typical Californian fashion, he was wearing
what looked like a bathing suit, in a purple neon.

“I’m Parker. Here to pick up Robin. Where is
she?” The anger swelled again, and Chris took a deep breath as the
man led him through the house. He barely noticed the place—wide,
tall, plenty of light, plenty of air—he barely registered the
fireplace, the gleaming, narrow kitchen, the pool glittering out
one of the sliding glass doors. He just followed the slave, trying
to keep control, and then realized that they were heading out of
the house again.

“Where are we going?”

“To the—rear, sir. She’s—outside.” A flash
of shame crossed the man’s face, and Chris nodded. The anger had
settled high. It wasn’t hot any more. It was cold.

“Take me to her,” he said softly.

There was a shed made of beautifully
weathered pine back beyond the pool and the outdoor shower. It did
have a poured concrete floor. Chris followed the man and let him
open the door, letting light flood over a body striped with welts.
For a moment, Chris almost lost it—it couldn’t be Robin, left all
alone in a goddamn shed, like a beast. It had to be a mistake—it
had to be a nightmare. He stepped forward and looked down. She
stirred groggily, and he realized that he had left the bag in the
car.

“Well, I can see your masters have afforded
her every humane effort,” he said leaning down to examine her. The
wounds visible seemed fairly clean. “Has she been here since?” he
asked abruptly.

“Yes, sir.”

“There’s a brown leather bag in my car.
Fetch it and bring me a wet towel and a comb.”

The man left immediately, without even a
“yes, sir,” and Chris sighed. He stepped into the shed, right up
next to Robin and squatted down. She turned, groaning, and shifted
onto one side. It took her a moment to focus, especially since she
had one hell of a shiner, and one eye was swollen shut. Chris heard
a sound behind him, and looked out the door of the shed. There was
a man standing out there, some distance away, with long brown hair
pulled back in a pony tail. It was Jimmy, one of the owners. They
stared at each other for a long minute, and then Chris deliberately
turned away and put a slight smile on his face for Robin. Even as
he softly said “Hello,” he was fighting the sudden urge to get a
tire iron and kill the two men who purchased her and the houseman
who was ashamed to reveal what they had done. It passed when Robin
tried to get up, her fingers touching his boot as though making
sure that he was really there. A glance over his shoulder revealed
that the owner was gone. In a minute, the houseman returned with
the bag, towel, and comb, and Chris indicated a spot to put them
down. He sent him away sharply, and heard the footsteps retreating,
but paid no attention to them.