The Trainer (42 page)

“But it wasn’t just you,” Michael ventured.
“I’ve heard of Elliot and Selador—they’re not exactly new at
this.”

“No. But they trusted me, and I let them
down. I had veto power over any slave there, Michael. It was my job
to keep them if they had talent, or send them away if they didn’t.
I chose to be hopeful when I should have been efficient.” That was
said firmly, and Michael knew it would be pointless to argue. “The
moral of this story is simple, Mike. There was a client with one
strong characteristic—and through some intensive training, she was
rendered capable of hiding her worst flaws. But no amount of
covering up could change her essential character, or her lack of
dedication to the life. What do you do with someone who just can’t
be improved, Michael? You find out if that weak point will
undermine everything else they can learn, and if it can, you send
them away.”

“Thank you,” Michael said. “I appreciate
your telling me the story.”

“You would have heard it eventually anyway,”
Chris said, getting up. “Hell, if you keep going to these Leather
Forever conferences, you might run into my former client.”

“She’ll probably be Karen’s new girlfriend,”
Michael muttered.

Chris looked surprised, and then laughed.
“Yes,” he said, nodding. “She might very well indeed.”

Lorens left as suddenly as he had arrived.
The ring through his cock seemed to be healing just fine, and as
Anderson had repeated during his stay, there was only so much she
could do with him besides making sure that he was emotionally
prepared for the commitment he was about to make. There was no
doubt in Michael’s mind that he was. Michael had never seen a more
contented slave.

And maybe that was the key—being content
seemed to make all the difference. Lorens had an owner whose gender
didn’t jibe with his orientation—yet he was content with his
service to her, enough to devote his life to her. Tara was not in
love with her owner either—in fact, it was the same situation. Yet
she was willing to deal with it, and take on extra training because
something in the service satisfied her. Not enough to stay in it
for life—but enough to see through a contract she had entered of
her own will.

And Joan, who had no problems with the
sexual needs or orientation of her owner, was perfectly happy with
the exchange of her service for a stable lifestyle. They were not
all happy with their lot—but they all seemed content.

Michael tried to think about any time he had
felt content. It didn’t take him long to realize that he never had
been. He looked through the early pages of his journal and tried to
remember why he had wanted this. To get a better job? Was that
all?

No, it wasn’t. It was Anderson herself, from
the beginning. The illusion of her, that respect from other
trainers, the reams of material from her which had pretty much been
the basis for the modern American Marketplace. The Trainer of
Trainers—she was the zenith of the profession. Solitary and
strange, the lifeblood of the lifestyle who didn’t bother to even
show up to present her own papers. Whose very word could make or
break a person’s entire career. What had he thought of her? That
she was the master of masters—the top of all tops...

Michael sprang up in bed—his bed again,
thank God he was alone. His heartbeat sped up, and his mouth went
dry. He pulled his knees up and sat with his back braced against
the headboard. He reached for the early journal again and flipped
the pages. There were his questions, all lined up, page after page
of them.

What makes a person a slave? What do they
feel that makes them want to give up a normal life, and surrender
it all to someone else’s control? What does it feel like to really
submit, not just for an hour or a day, but for years?

“What was I thinking?” he whispered out
loud. “Oh Jesus, what am I doing?”

I came to the Trainer of Trainers, he
thought, with chilling certainty, to have her teach me what it was
to be a slave. Of course, you bastard, who else could make you feel
it? Of all the fucking arrogant, bull-headed, asinine things!

But what was really happening, he wondered,
trying to get a grip. Nothing! The Trainer does not own slaves. She
doesn’t even make them—she only improves them. And—well, there was
nothing there. He had deep respect for her still—deeper, if that
was possible. But there was no internal drive to submit to her, no
emotional charge. She had shown nothing to him that he could
interpret as her wanting to teach him anything but her most basic
training techniques. She treated him with honesty and directness,
and never attempted to control him the way she controlled the
clients.

Then, there was Chris.

I am not gay! was his first thought. But
look at what was happening whenever he was with Chris—that moment
when Michael’s cock signaled that being denied a pleasure by
Chris’s direction was a good thing—the sensations of flushed pride
when Chris popped out a rare compliment—his increasingly automatic
respectful responses—standing when Chris entered a room. Damn, what
was going on here?

Whatever it is, I have to remain in control,
Michael thought furiously. This is not good. It’s—transference. Or
whatever the shrinks call it. I’m all alone here, and there just
aren’t too many people to fixate on. It’s natural for a student to
get crushed out on a teacher. It’s no big deal—it will pass.
Besides, I had to learn what it felt like to be a slave anyway.
Now, I know.

He gathered up the notebooks and threw them
into the nightstand drawer. Sleep didn’t come easily for him that
night, and before it did, he promised himself that he would do
nothing to let Chris know about these self-realized truths. It
would be best if he could just finish out his training somehow, and
go his own way. He fell asleep trying desperately not to think of
where he planned to go.

“It’s time to start wrapping Joan up,”
Anderson said after one of her interviews with her. Michael felt
surprised.

“Already?”

“It’s been long enough, Mike, and I think
she’s covered the ground her owner specified. She’s conversant
about American culture, well trained for the household tasks she’ll
be expected to perform, and her Japanese has improved. I’d like you
to write a report on her, describing her improvements in every area
you can identify, please.”

“You got it, Trainer.”

“We’ll finish her off in two weeks then.”
Anderson shook back her hair, which was caught in one long pony
tail that day.

“Trainer—is there a new client coming?”
Michael asked.

Anderson shook her head. “I haven’t picked
one yet. I may take a few weeks off. Let’s play it by ear for a
while.”

“Sure thing.” Michael tried not to wonder
what would happen to him if Anderson took a little vacation. He was
out of money. He called his parents and got them to “loan” him a
few hundred dollars, and he still had a voucher good for one-way
airfare back to California. But there wasn’t enough time to
complete his training before Joan left. Hell, it seemed like he had
barely started! And the thought of staying in the house alone—or
with only Chris for company...

Better to not think about it. He focused on
helping Anderson and Chris finalize Joan’s training. He sat in on
interviews and worked into the night composing questions and making
comparisons of Joan’s progress reports. It was amazing to note how
much she had improved, especially considering how impressed he had
been with her that first night. In these months, she had become an
Anderson slave. And kept up her Japanese lessons, too. It was kind
of weird, because he had actually had sex with Tara, and should
have felt close to her—but Michael knew that he would miss Joan a
lot, and think of her often. He liked to think that eleven years
from now, he could go to a little village somewhere in England and
find her running an inn, with a husband and a huge family of people
with a secret that they passed on from generation to generation. He
imagined her plumper than ever, wearing an apron, and directing a
maid who might never know exactly how her employer learned all
these skills.

He had no idea where he expected to be in
eleven years.

It was hard to keep control sometimes,
especially when he stopped thinking about the secret desires and
concentrated on his work. What would happen was a slip—a shifting
of focus that left him unprepared for sudden rushes of emotion or
hunger. It was like keeping a lid on a boiling pot. Every once in a
while, the rolling of the water seemed calm enough to stop
watching. That was when the steam started to escape.

It happened when he was watching Chris bent
over the bookkeeping with Vicente. The two of them were consumed by
their task, and didn’t notice Michael watching them from the front
room, through the open office door. In fact, Michael didn’t realize
that he was watching them until he felt a trickle of awareness—how
the folded sleeves of Chris’s shirt accentuated his powerful
forearm, and how the slender colored flames caressed the
musculature...

He managed to get upstairs without
attracting attention, and stayed there until he was back in
control.

Sometimes, it came on him naturally, and he
felt it coming. He knew, for example, that watching Chris do a
final drill with Joan, covering the advanced positions they had
worked so hard on, would be distracting. He hadn’t counted on the
intense urge to do them with her, though, especially the sudden
desire to drop to his knees in the profound posture which most
often led to kissing a boot, or the floor between an owner’s
legs.

It seemed a much warmer year than usual.

Late one evening, Michael was working in the
office. His writing improved when he wasn’t near his comfortable
and inviting bed. And the later it was, the quieter it was, with
few or no interruptions. He jumped a little when he heard a knock
on the door and it swung open. It was Chris. His tie was askew, the
top button of his shirt open. It was as disheveled as he got. “You
should get some sleep,” he said. “Early day tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I know,” Michael said. “But I want to
finish up this report before Joan leaves. I don’t sleep much
anyway. What are you doing up so late?”

“Same thing. Writing.” He leaned against the
door jamb.

“I was meaning to ask you about that,”
Michael said, seizing the opening. “Do you make out reports too? Or
are you working on something else?”

“Both. Primarily, I’m preparing my first
major presentation to the Academy.”

“No kidding! That’s great!” Michael leaned
back. “Are you going to present it in person?”

“Probably,” Chris shrugged. “I’ve never been
to Okinawa, and I’d like to see the house where Joan trained.”

“I never realized that so much of my time
was going to be spent writing,” Michael noted. “I hated taking
notes in college. Writing papers was always a pain. If I’d known
what I was going to be doing in a few years, I would have been an
English major.”

“It would have been better if you majored in
psychology,” Chris said. “They make you write quite a bit for that
one.”

“Geoff was a psych major. Was that yours,
too?”

Chris nodded. “Part of my presentation is my
re-worked Master’s thesis.”

“Masters? Wow, that’s cool. Your parents
must have been proud, huh?”

He smiled tightly. “I suppose so. They had
their hopes on Ron at first, but his coming out of the closet was
quite a set-back for them to handle.”

Michael shook his head. “That’s a shame. He
seems like a nice guy. How did they take it when you came out?”

The smile broadened a little. “Oh, not much
better. A great deal worse, in a way. I was a great disappointment
to them.”

“Jeez.” Michael swallowed and looked away.
This was so personal—so unexpected! He looked back at Chris, who
didn’t look at all upset, and shrugged. “It’s too bad when people
are like that. But I guess two gay brothers can be a bit of a
shock.”

“Yes, gay brothers—you could say the concept
was very shocking. They’ve slowly started to come around. I
recommended a good therapist for them.” There was something far
more humorous going on under Chris’s voice.

Michael sensed that something he said was
unintentionally funny. He smiled slightly. “Chris?” he said
cautiously. “Can I ask you a personal question?“

“I never guarantee an answer, but you may
ask.“

“What are those marks on your upper
arm?“

“Brands. One for every year in true
service.” He touched them idly.

“Wow! They look like sergeant stripes, you
know.“

“Yes, I intended them to come out that
way.“

“You did? Not your... owner?“

“I had them done after the service was
completed,” he explained. “Just a personal reminder. I think it’s
time you went to bed, Michael. I’ll give you a few hours off
tomorrow afternoon if you need to finish your report. Come
upstairs, I’m locking up.”

Michael immediately closed his book and
tucked it under his arm. He was halfway up the stairs before he
realized that not only had he obeyed immediately, but he had
inclined his head as Chris had left the room.

Standing before his mirror, he traced three
stripes on his upper arm, and tried to imagine the sizzle of flesh
burning, the sight of Chris’s face contorted in pain, his head
thrown back, sweat dripping over his eyes. He threw his own head
back and gritted his teeth.

And came, so quickly and terribly that he
fell to his knees. He hadn’t even touched himself. Oh God, he
thought, hugging himself on the floor and rocking back and forth.
Oh God, help me hang on.