The Trainer (36 page)

“Use him, if that’s more direct. Sexually,
if you like.”

Michael looked at the behemoth before him
and tried to imagine fucking him. It seemed a bizarre image. His
buttocks were probably as firm as his chest—slipping a dick between
the cheeks would feel incredibly tight. He dropped his hands to
caress Lorens’ cheeks, testing them—hell yes, they were firm.
Michael felt the beginnings of an erection and grinned. “Whatever
you say, bossman,” he said lightly.

“Not now,” Chris said. “First, we have to go
over the ways to structure a hierarchy of responsibilities. We’ll
work downstairs and let Joan get on with her task.”

Michael sighed and let Lorens go. To his
credit, Lorens looked a little sad to lose the contact, but not so
much that he looked sulky. Michael followed Chris, not quite ready
for another long, dull session of theory. He would not get to fuck
Lorens that day, because after spending so much time dealing with
minutiae, even a Greek god in rope bondage seemed too much of an
effort. Never had dealing with slaves and masters been so
unerotic.

Most of training had always seemed to be
physical, with a little bit of psychology thrown in. You taught
people what positions to use, what things to say, and how to accept
pain and give pleasure. That was mostly why it was so much fun to
be a trainer. You got to do the heavy SM work, the physical
disciplining, the sexual testing—and then, before it got too
boring, you got to work on a new client. You had to know a basic
amount of what made people tick—some motivational theory was
helpful.

But with Chris, there was a philosophy to
choke down, too—and endless hours of discussion about possible
circumstances. It wasn’t enough to make up role-playing exercises
for the slaves—you had to figure out what the slaves might
encounter and discover the best responses so that you could drill
them and create tests for them.

It was chafing more and more with each
passing day. Michael tried his best to keep his frustration hidden.
He was going to get no sympathy from the Trainer, and showing anger
or impatience only worsened Chris’s acerbic responses and gave him
a new excuse to belittle Michael until there was nothing left to do
but smolder for the rest of the afternoon, or evening, or
throughout the next day.

It wouldn’t be so bad if so much of it
wasn’t as dull as watching paint dry. Who cared what a slave should
do if a guest towel was found to be frayed and the housekeeper was
not available? Jesus, just do whatever seems right and collect the
punishment later if it’s wrong, that’s what Michael thought. No
need to make it into an issue! But to Chris, it was all part of
teaching a client how to think—how to prioritize, to negotiate, to
make do. It wasn’t enough to take a guess and take the
consequences—a client of his had to be able to do the right thing
as often as humanly possible. No, check that. A client of his had
to be inhuman, like he was.

Oh, it was a cheap shot. But there was no
end in sight to this new torment. Joan continued to be chiefly
under Chris’s direction, and Michael continued to be low man on the
totem pole. Anderson worked with Lorens privately, or occasionally
with Joan, and refused to discuss changing Michael’s lesson plans.
“Either you get along and learn,” she cautioned one evening, “or
you get yourself a plane ticket home. Do you understand? This is
where I find out whether you’re my kind of material, Mike. Don’t
embarrass me.”

It had been embarrassing enough to go to her
again with his complaints of Chris’s treatment and attitude. Now,
she had made it very clear. The line had been drawn, and there was
nowhere to go but on this track or back where he came from—which
was not possible. But the balance between his temper and the will
to stay and endure what he had to in order to get that approval
from the Trainer seemed increasingly less stable.

Michael finally got his hands on Lorens and
his cock inside of him about three days after Chris gave him
permission to do so. He had been cautious, making sure that it was
okay with the Trainer, too. Then, one evening after all the formal
teaching was over, he pulled the big man into his bedroom and
treated himself to not one, but two blow jobs, one after the other.
It was like being freed after a long imprisonment. When Lorens
dived for his crotch the second time, taking him in and expertly
working him back to full erection, Michael couldn’t contain the
sighs and groans of relief. Now here was some dedicated sword
swallowing! Here was a slave who knew how to get down there and
work that cock, swirling his tongue, sucking on the tender flesh on
the underside, taking both balls into his mouth—things Michael used
to take for granted.

He sent the slave away when he was totally
spent, nodding at the backwards exit Lorens made, never turning his
back on his user. It was a nice touch, but kind of creepy
sometimes. Idly scratching his chest, Michael wondered why it
hadn’t felt this good when he had Tara doing it. Tara wasn’t bad—in
fact, she was damn good for an older woman. But there had always
been something lacking, something that Lorens seemed to have. A
joy, perhaps, in what was happening. Tara always behaved like a
good slave—she did what she was told, as well as she could. But
Lorens was happy sucking dick, and showed it, while Tara—well,
Michael never really asked how Tara felt about it. In fact, he
basically told her what to say about it, and she said it often. He
loved hearing her cultured, reserved voice behind phrases like
“Please let this slave suck your cock, sir.”

But had she really, really felt the call to
service him properly? Had she had much experience doing it before
him, and maybe he was just more demanding than her Judge or her
previous owners? What made Lorens’ approach so much different from
hers? He decided to ask Chris the next day. A discussion about good
cocksucking would definitely be more interesting than one about how
to discover the habits of a weekend guest in the first day.

“Lorens is eager to be sexually used by you
because he’s gay,” Chris said offhandedly. Michael had taken a long
time—almost five minutes—to try to explain the differences between
the slaves before pitching his question.

“He is?”

“So he tells us. I don’t believe he has any
reason to lie.”

“Wow!” Michael folded his arms and shook his
head. “But he’s in love with his mistress, isn’t he? I mean, that’s
what I would have guessed. His eyes light up whenever he thinks
about her.“

“Yes. But that’s more because she’s a proper
owner for him than because she is the appropriate gender for his
masturbatory fantasies.” Chris had been working with Vicente on the
paperwork for the house, and they had just finished sealing a stack
of checks for utilities. Michael had passed the cook at the door
and slid into his recently vacated seat.

“I just can’t imagine a gay man being happy
with a woman as his owner,” Michael admitted. He thought of Ethan,
squirming at the memory of being sexually used by a woman. “Most of
the ones I knew would hate it.”

“Then they’re not Marketplace material,”
Chris said. “Our clients are slaves, not lovers. They are not
expected to be in love with their owners, nor are their owners
expecting to love them.”

“It’s not a question of love—it’s a question
about what gets your dick hard.” Michael laughed, and leaned back.
“Lorens says that his owner likes for him to fuck her every once in
a while. What does he do, close his eyes and think of a guy?”

Chris looked shocked. “That would be rude,”
he said. “I’m sure he does what she orders to the best of his
ability with the sole purpose of pleasing her. Tell me—have you
devoted any time to wondering how heterosexual men or women cope
with same gender owners? Or, for that matter, how lesbian clients
deal with heterosexual male owners?”

“Well... it’s just that it’s harder for a
guy to, you know—get hard—if he’s with the wrong partner. A woman
can at least deal with it and she doesn’t have to show that she’s
hot. But it’s harder for a guy.” Michael snickered. “No pun
intended.”

“You think so? You’re wrong, Mike—as usual.
Every slave goes through the terror that they will be required to
be sexual with people they do not find attractive, or are of a
gender they do not respond to erotically. It’s part of the fear of
being sold, of losing control over your life.” Chris’s voice had
sharpened again, and Michael knew that this was going to become
another intense “discussion.” He began to wish he had never brought
it up.

“Did you devote any time to wondering how
the client might feel just about being sold to someone physically
repulsive to them? It happens all the time—yet somehow, they cope.
Then, they learn to cope with performing whatever service is
requested of them, to the best of their ability, and showing the
proper attitude, despite what might be genuine revulsion toward
their owner. That’s because they are called to something higher,
Mike. Service, not romance. The best a trainer can do is cultivate
that love of service and hope that the trials their clients have to
go through won’t push them away from the Marketplace.”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Michael said
quickly, raising his hands.

“No you don’t.” Chris stood up and put the
paid bills into the “out” basket, clearing the worktable off. “All
you see are slaves, each having a number of holes which you can put
your cock into. Each having a set of skills at pleasing you,
regardless of their inner orientation or preferences, regardless of
their ultimate destination or degree of training.”

“That’s not true!” Michael retorted.

“Oh?” Chris stared at Michael directly.
“What is Tara’s sexual orientation?”

Michael started to say “heterosexual,” but
then stopped. Chris wouldn’t have asked him a question like that if
the answer was so obvious. He remembered her story about the
spotter named Corazon.

“Bi,” he said finally. “She had to be
bi.”

“As is happens, she was not,” Chris said.
“In behavior, yes. But before she joined us, she considered herself
a lesbian—and still does, despite her sexual behavior with her
owner.”

“Yeah, she’s a dyke. Tell me another one,”
Michael sneered. “She had a great time with me!”

“That’s not what she reported,” Chris said,
a tight smile forming. “She said that you were quite an average
lover, who did not spend any time in foreplay, who climaxed quite
within standard time limits, and was of average size.”

“You son of a bitch! She did not!”

“Listen to the tapes of the interviews,
Mike. I could find them in the log.”

Michael felt the heat of embarrassment flood
his collar. “She told me she came!”

“She lied,” Chris said. “As she was
instructed to. As she was trained to do! Just as she was being
trained to be pleasing and seem willing for her Master. All the
while you were thrusting away into her, she was doing nothing more
than her duty, while you were doing your damnedest to make her
unhappy. Blind to the fact that she was performing. Unable—perhaps
even unwilling—to see the truth.”

“Anderson told me to! I had permission!
Besides, she had to learn anyway, right? It’s like you said, she
has to learn to do it for the service of it.” Michael could barely
get the words out. A vague feeling of guilt began to form, mingled
with his growing anger and the bizarre sense of betrayal; the woman
said she had a good time! How dare she say—how could she tell
them?

“Oh, Michael, grow the hell up! If you had
taken the time to question her about anything but what kind of sex
she was going to be having, you would have found out that her owner
was going to be the only man to use her sexually. You might have
found out that she did not intend to continue in the Marketplace
beyond this position, after which she had plans to retire and find
an appropriate lover and settle down. With even a few minutes of
serious thought, you might have surmised,” Chris continued, now
ticking items off on his fingers, “that since this was her final
service, it would be appropriate for you to give her what she
deserved—an honorable rest from pleasing rutting men who don’t know
the difference between a real orgasm and a faked one.”

“I wasn’t in charge of her,” Michael
sputtered. He got up, tired of being lectured to, tired of that
accusing finger. “She could have told me any of this stuff—”

“She was ordered not to volunteer it, in
order to give you plenty of chances to find out for yourself,
through the proper interview process. But naturally, you didn’t
bother to ask. Simple questions, Michael! Not ‘what kind of sex do
you have?’ but ‘what kind of sex do you prefer?’ Or, how about
asking something devastatingly obvious, such as ‘what are your
plans for the future?’ But every chance you had, you were either
clutching at her body, asking her lewd questions, or plotting about
the next time you would have the chance to do either. You’re not a
trainer, Mike, you’re a user. An opportunist looking for the easy
life and the easy lay.”

“That’s not true! You’re—going back on what
you already said! She was a slave—she had to do what she was told!
And if you told her to lie—what do you mean I had to ask? I asked
her plenty of stuff! And how am I supposed to both get her used to
being used and be nice to her at the same time anyway, huh? This is
just some sort of set-up!”

“Yes, it is,” Chris said. “You were set up
with perfect opportunities to actually do the task you were set to
do—and you wasted them all by thinking with your dick instead of
what’s between your ears. If there is something worthwhile up
there.” He put the pen he’d been using back into the cup, and
worked his way around the desk, seemingly ignoring Michael.

“Fuck you!” Michael said, the profanity
exploding out of him. “You’re doing this on purpose, you little
bastard! What about you, huh? You don’t ever screw a slave, right?
Keep that little prick in your pants, don’t you? At least I get a
chance to find out if they’re good—you just prattle on and on and
on until they get sick of you!” Michael’s voice was much louder
than he intended it to be, but he couldn’t even think any more.
Goddammit, it was too much to take! “Well, I’m sick of you, you
scrawny fuck, and your whole service bullshit. You don’t like kinky
sex, fine! But don’t condemn what everyone else does just because
you can’t get it up!”