The Trainer (46 page)

“What kind of people?”

“Well—everyone. Tops and bottoms.”

“Not exactly.” Anderson said. “We have many
outlets in modern life which are able to provide you with a context
for control or lack of control. But we’ve lost the notion of
service for service’s sake—a life devoted to an ideal. Everyone
needs a reason to do things which were once culturally
entrenched—you do it for the money, or because you’ll get a college
education, or because the person you’ve chosen is your messiah, or
your favorite rock star. But what if this drive went much deeper
than that? Where do those people go? And how do they know that
they’ll be able to live a life based on that drive without falling
prey to emotional swindlers, mass murderers, or fanatics who will
throw their dedication or their lives away on a whim?

“They don’t know. How can you know?”

“Mostly, you can’t. Unless—someone’s created
a system under which potential controllers are carefully selected
and trained to manage these potential servitors.” She winked.

“The Marketplace exists to provide masters
for the slaves?’ Michael asked.

“Think about it,” Anderson advised. “It’s
just a theory.”

He shook his head in amazement. “I’ll never
be able to repay you for this,” he said. “You never had the
slightest reason to keep me on.”

“That’s the truth,” she admitted.
“Especially after you tried to look me up in the computer files.
That was pretty sneaky.”

He turned white. “You really can see through
walls!”

“No, dear. But I can operate a computer. And
if you had paid attention to the software for the archives, you
might have noticed a function which pulls up a list of the last
twenty files you requested. I rarely try to call up my own, since
I’m the one who had it sealed.” She leaned back and rocked in the
chair. “That was naughty of you.”

“I’m sorry,” he said sheepishly. “Especially
since I didn’t get a single useful thing out of there.”

“Ha! Well, some secrets are made to be kept,
Mike. Others are best left alone, period.”

Michael remembered the morning in Chris’s
room, and the questions. He hadn’t asked any of them. Things had
happened too fast, and after the decisions were made, it seemed
less important than it had at that moment. What it would be like
working under Chris in another environment, Michael couldn’t
guess.

But he was more than willing to take it as
it came.

“I’ll send you regular updates,” Chris said.
“And I’ll be back as soon as he’s sold, to let you know what I’ve
decided to do. Don’t be surprised if I wind up as a towel boy in
some monastery or join the circus, because I’m not going to be
doing anything ordinary for the following four years.”

“Fair enough,” Anderson agreed. “If you need
help getting wherever, you can count on it.”

Chris looked out the window, and watched as
Rachel supervised Michael loading the car. “It is for the best,
isn’t it?”

“Oh God, Parker, yes. And you know it
is.”

He lowered his head. “I didn’t want to go
back where I came from,” he said softly.

“Don’t think of it as going back. Think of
it as using a familiar launch point.” She hugged him across the
shoulders, and kissed him on the forehead. “My best boy. Go play
for a while. With my blessing.”

He hugged her briefly and kissed her on the
mouth. She smiled when he pulled away. He danced down the front
steps lightly, on the balls of his feet, and sauntered to the car
where a man and a woman vied for his attention. Her little fighting
cockerel.

Imala Anderson closed the door and turned to
Vicente. “What do you say to California?” she asked wickedly.

“Oh, you are a bad one,” the man
chuckled.

“Yes,” she agreed, her face suddenly
changing. She sighed, and linked an arm through his. “Sometimes, I
have to be.”

A bonus story for the Luster Editions ebook
of The Trainer

There was someone in the room.

To be more precise, there were two someones;
he could hear them whispering outside the door before they
carefully tiptoed in. They were still unaware at how much more
noise a person made when trying to be sneaky. If they had spoken in
their usual tones of voice, his half asleep brain would have merely
edited them out with the rest of the background noise. Whispering
and skulking, however, was attention-getting.

Briefly, he wondered whether he should do
something about that. Was it good or bad that they didn’t know how
to be better sneaks? Should he be stern and angry, or leap up and
scare them before they got to him? That was an amusing thought;
wouldn’t it be a laugh? Or, he could just wait until... ahh. There
was one, inching up the foot of the bed. And the other? He slitted
his eyes open in the dim room; the shades and curtains were still
drawn, but sunlight was just peeking around one edge, just enough
to signal his body further awake. The hand caressing his leg did
the rest, and his cock ached with sudden warmth.

“I’ve known you were here for ages,” he
drawled, stretching and kicking the sheet free. “You’d make lousy
sneak thieves.“

“Maybe you should punish us, master,” said
the one next to the bed. He turned to look at her but identified
her by voice immediately. There was no mistaking Alicia’s
candy-coated sweet tone. She also had perfect pitch, however rarely
she was called upon to sing or play an instrument. That would
change later, as she was on the entertainment list, but for now,
her diversionary use had nothing to do with music.

Even in the dim light, he could see she was
naked, which was nice. The last week had seen such an array of
costumes and fetish gear it was almost a relief to just see some
skin, satin soft and inviting, pale at her remaining bikini lines
and, he knew, at the shaved triangle between her legs. He could see
that her long, sandy-blonde hair was free around her shoulders; it
blurred her outline and softened it quite erotically.

“Maybe I will,” he said, stretching again.
He rotated his shoulders as he leaned up on his elbows. Alicia’s
partner in crime was Rudy, his muscled back clearer as he paused on
all fours, one forearm held up in perfect mimicry of a cat padding
over the bed. Cute. In reality, Rudy had little in common with
cats; he was modest, athletic, and dedicated to doing hard work
when it was demanded of him. But he knew how to tease and how to
play-act, and now he waited, his wrist dangling loose, a question
in his dark eyes.

Waiting for permission to continue, of
course. Now that they were caught, there was no chance to gently
waken him with kisses and licks. Not that this was going to stop
him from enjoying them! The sleeper shook the last vestiges of
sleep from his brain and eased himself back against his warm
pillows and closed his eyes. “Please me,” he sighed. “And don’t be
too long about it, we got a ton of work to do today. If you get me
off nice and fast and good, maybe I won’t punish you.“

Rudy chuckled and ran a hot tongue from the
ridge around the head of his cock way down to the root and then
washed it over his balls. “Maybe you will anyway, master!“

If he was inclined to answer, he was
interrupted by Alicia leaning over him as she ran her hands over
his chest and nipples, expertly teasing yet perfectly satisfying at
the same time. He reached out without opening his eyes and found
her round—and well-augmented—tits. Ahh, but they felt so nice and
hefty in his hands! He’d never thought that one day he would be a
connoisseur of silicone boobs, but having seen a few dozen cases of
well-executed improvements on the female form, he’d become quite
the fan. Hell, even some of the men were getting their chests built
up, their butts lifted and curved more.

Ahh, California. What didn’t already exist
in Eden, we just make ourselves. He tugged on Alicia’s nipples and
she moved immediately to straddle his body and offer her jugs to
his mouth and teeth. A regular breakfast of champions. Her hair
falling around his face was scented with jasmine and tangerine,
sweet and heady.

Rudy had slipped a condom over his hard-on
with a nice, firm touch; one thing the boys didn’t have to be
drilled in was how to handle cocks. Funny how girls seemed to think
they were so damn fragile! But one thing Rudy had not mastered was
the art of getting the rubber on using his mouth; those straight,
white teeth shredded a pile of latex large enough to dress half the
staff tonight. Pity about that; if he could have managed to get
that little trick down, he’d be more than serving staff
tonight.

Maybe that was why, when he did work his
mouth over the latex-covered cock, Rudy was completely voracious
and focused. His lips curled close around the shaft as his tongue
slathered spit all up and down, wetting it for serious
throat-pumping action. Or, maybe he was just being obedient and
doing his best to achieve a quick, hard orgasm. Either way, his
efficient start elicited a groan out of a mouth filled with tit,
and that was impressive.

Alicia groaned as the hands on her chest
tightened and then gave a lilting cry as she felt bites on one
nipple and then the other.

“Should have come in here with them
clamped!“

“Yes, master, yes, tomorrow I will!“

“If you’re still here tomorrow, cunt. Suck
my nipples. Make like your boyfriend there and suck me off.“

She scooted back and dipped her head against
his chest and sucked one then the other nipple into her mouth to
wet them. Then, as she suckled on one side, her fingers teased and
fluttered on the other, switching back and forth as the moisture
evaporated from his skin. Warmed, flavored lube would have worked
better. He’d also had maple syrup, honey, whipped cream and other
comestibles sucked and licked from his body, but he drew the line
at doing that in bed. Even if he wasn’t the one who had to wash the
sheets, it felt wrong.

Now, to just lie back and let those two
talented mouths work on him, that was paradise! On another morning,
he’d get more elaborate, insist on better preparation, actively
correct the minor errors and demand perfection. But today of all
days, it was his last chance to just enjoy the pleasure by himself.
Without putting in a show for the morons.

In a perverse jerk of the mind, the
sensations on his nipples and cock combined with the selfish luxury
and mean-spiritedness of his feelings toward the honored guests
combined to jet him into pre-orgasm. He grabbed Alicia’s hair and
jerked her violently toward him, capturing her tits against his
face again, fastening his mouth over one engorged and tender
nipple. As he bit down, his hips jerked up, and he hooked one leg
over Rudy’s back, keeping him in place as well. Get me off, take
it, take my load, he thought in savage glee. God, yes, this was the
life!

Pity about the party.

* * * *

Later on, Michael revisited that thought.
No, it wasn’t a pity about the party; parties were great. What
wasn’t there to like about a house filled with naked perverts
getting it on in any number of combinations, most of whom were
available to him either by command or a come-hither look?

“Whoo-hoo, mama, shake that thang!” hooted a
tall, balding man with an expensive kangaroo-hide singletail he had
no idea how to use hanging from his belt. He was cheering one of
three girls who were doing a credible belly dance revue by the fire
pit. They were dressed in thongs under sheer scarf skirts that
flared and whirled as they danced, their breasts bare and lower
faces veiled. They flirted and seduced with eyes painted with
enigmatic layers of kohl, and coins dangled and jangled from
bracelets and ankle rings and glittered in their hair. It was
artful, erotic and pretty well done, as far as Michael knew. Geoff
had brought in a specialty instructor for them, a dark-skinned
woman with great patience and vast amusement when she saw the
costume designs.

And all that work came down to “shake that
thang,” spoken by a man who probably locked his Lexus doors when
driving through a neighborhood of brown-skinned people.

Actually, Michael reflected, it wasn’t a
Lexus. Douglas drove a red Porsche convertible; no doubt he never
took it anywhere scary. And like his exquisite imported whip, the
car was nothing but a signifier.

It says I’m a rich moron, Michael thought as
he walked away from the fire pit area, feeling unexpectedly
angry.

Around him, slaves weaved and dipped as they
carried trays of canapés and cocktails, macro-organic snacks, and
whipped fruit and vegetable drinks for the health-food fanatics.
Why anyone would ruin perfectly good pizza with caviar was puzzling
enough; why anyone would voluntarily drink anything made with
carrots and wheatgrass was just a complete mystery. Michael grabbed
an ice-cold flute of champagne and drank it too quickly; the chill
was barely gone from his throat as he felt the alcohol raise his
facial temperature. He ducked into the shade to continue cooling
off, wishing he could understand why this party just offended him
so damn much!

He looked around from his place beneath the
black oak tree, at the vista of pleasure surrounding him. Geoff
Negel’s beautiful cliff-side home was open on all sides, guests,
residents and slaves wandering through the home and gardens and
decks and the pool area at will. The Mediterranean stylings of the
house did not disguise its enormous footprint—there were ten
bedrooms tucked away in that three level golden palace, not even
mentioning the apartment in the pool house or the one over the four
bay garage, plus the slave dormitory that had started life as a
private chapel. Plenty of room for the naked slaves to romp
outside, too—almost a quarter mile to the front gate, flanked by
olive trees and a winding pond where koi darted in and out of the
sunlight.