The Virgin Master (37 page)

He remembered the joy and relief Jeremy’s steady presence in his life had brought to him. Turning on his side and burrowing his face into the back cushion of the couch he was reminded of an Old
Testament verse concerning a king who had “turned his face to the wall and died.” He wished it could be that easy. The pain he felt at the thought of losing Jeremy forever made him completely useless.

It was even worse to contemplate Jeremy being sold to someone
who would actually treat him like a sex toy.

He tortured himself with visions of Frank using Jeremy as a party-favor or Roy Cavenaugh driving Jeremy to take his own life. He found himself clenching his fists
,
tens
ing
all over
,
gasping for breath. He decided to try to distract himself with work.

Finding a quarantined message in his email he started to delete it without looking at it. Something made him pause. Sick hope filled his chest, choking him. He opened the message. As soon as he saw the screen name his blood roared in his ears.

He read it through many times and found himself touching the screen of his monitor as if that would somehow bring him into closer contact with Jeremy. Suddenly realizing that he could answer, he pulled up a new email window. Then he thought better of it, following Jeremy’s example, he opened a new
gmail
account.

[email protected]
: Don’t take risks like this. Don’t get me wrong, I really, really needed this email right now—but I need you more. The time will pass. I will bring you home. This isn’t home without you. I am so deep in this I don’t know where I end and you begin. I love you with all that I am. (please make sure this is thoroughly deleted). Ev

Evan longed to keep Jeremy’s message but he knew that there was a possibility of it being discovered and used against them. Reluctantly he deleted it and then emptied his recycling bin. He then ran a defragging program on his hard drive. He felt better and worse; less alone; but lonelier. He called Sean.

“I know you would have called me if you had any news. I know you know how crazy this is making me.”

“So, why did you call?” Sean laughed.

“Is there any way to expedite this thing at all? I’m losing it.  I was barely hanging on before…”

“You saw him today. The inspection.”

“Yeah.”

“You feel worse now.”

“Much.”

“I was afraid of that.

“He opened a
gmail
account and sent me a message.”

“Good, God! You surely didn’t answer it? What am I talking about? Of course you answered it. All about how much you love him no doubt.”

Evan shifted with embarrassment. “Something like that
.
…”

“Exactly like that. Evan, how do you know it was even him? It could have been designed just to get your reply.”

Evan’s heart and stomach plummeted. “Oh, God.”

“Let me check it out before you go full scale
batshit
, okay? I was going over there in a little while anyway. I figured this would be hard for both of you. Since you already sent your little love note I won’t stop by your office.”

“What do I do if it wasn’t him?”

“Kiss getting him back good-bye.”

Evan bit the back of his hand and fled into his bathroom, closing and locking the door seconds before he totally lost all self-control. He dropped to his knees clutching his cramping stomach and cried out
…
agonized by the idea that he might just have betrayed Jeremy in the worst way.

He crumpled completely to the floor
unable to catch his breath or stop the terrible images of all the pain he had witnessed Jeremy taking
…
most of it his fault. He saw Lillian’s twisted snarl and heard Jeremy’s hoarse screams as she tore chunks of flesh out of his
body with Evan’s flogger. He saw Jeremy’s face right before slave regulation took him into custody.

He remembered the shocked disappointed hurt look
Jeremy gave him when he told him he could never have feelings for him. He remembered the discipline inspection and the sick panic he felt when he got the decision letter.

He had barely owned Jeremy for eight months
and those eight months no doubt were the most painful months in Jeremy’s life. But instead of cursing Evan and hating him
Jeremy
had just loved him more.

Painful, wracking sobs tore out of his chest.
What’s wrong with me? Apparently to love me is to suffer and die in agony.
He cried until all the muscles in his body shook with exhaustion and finally he collapsed into sleep right there on his office’s bathroom rug.

*****

Sean shook his head as he considered Evan and Jeremy’s illicit email exchange. He hated the way he had talked to his client since he thought that it was more likely the message
had
actually come from Jeremy. But he needed to keep Evan scared enough to behave. He sighed and got his brief case. He called Lindsay to tell her that he would be home late from work again.

Sean hurried through the corridors of the Office of Slave Regulation toward the Detention Wing. Evan was impossible to manage
right now;
Jeremy was merely difficult He saw a strange group of men get on the elevator going down to the holding pens. The door shut before he could get there. The men behaved oddly. Frank Owens, of course, he recognized and put his hand up to trigger his communicator, but paused. Something familiar tugged insistently at his mind. With horror he realized that he knew more than one of the men.

Sean had worked at the FBI before going into private practice. He had spent most of his tenure with the feds monitoring surveillance of those individuals suspected of involvement with the Russian mafia. One of the large men in an expensive but ill-fitting suit was Boris
Yagudin
.
This is not good.
Sean thought rather needlessly, his
head whirling. He stopped where he stood and called Slave Regulation Security.

“This is Sean Murrow. I’m on my way to speak to the property of my client, Evan James. I saw Boris
Yagudin
,
a known assassin for the Russian drug cartel, get on the elevator g
oing down to the pens just now. A
s far as I know, Jeremy is the only slave in holding. My client’s property has been inappropriately removed from him as part of a maneuver to ultimately remove Evan and Allen James from their positions at James Enterprises, Inc
.,
so that the Russian mafia can use their licenses and warehouses.”

Dead silence greeted this. Sean began walking toward
             
the stair well. He was unarmed—if the man had come to kill Jeremy, Sean was pretty sure he couldn’t stop him.

“Hello? I need armed security to the holding pens ASAP.”

“How sure are you? I’m sending the alert now to internal security now.”

“Not 100 % but so close it wouldn’t make a difference. At least monitor Jeremy James’ cell.”

“I’m calling the FBI and the police. This guy a professional assassin?”

“Among other things. He’s an enforcer for Yuri
Pleshenko
, the big boss.”

“What are you going to do?”

Sean thought.

“I’m going to try not to die. How long before I can get some help?” His hand hovered over the release bar of the door to the detention center. For all he knew, Jeremy could already be dead. One thing mitigated against that
-
the presence of Frank Owens. He shuddered. It looked like Frank hadn’t been able to let Jeremy go without having him, at least once.

His contact at security cleared his throat. “It looks like they’re diverting themselves.”

“What does that mean?” Sean asked, even though he already knew.

“Uh, they’re going to make use of him before they kill him.”

“God damn it! My client will be furious.
You have the responsibility of protecting him in here. It isn’t as if you weren’t warned that this wasn’t the usual case.”

Actually Sean felt a little relieved. Jeremy would undoubtedly undergo more trauma, but
if he cooperated at all the police would have time to get into place. He wasn’t fool enough to believe they would show up to protect
Jeremy
; but Boris
Yagudin
had been on the FBI Most Wanted list for the past twenty years.

“Tell the FBI that retired Special Agent Sean Gabriel Murrow made the I.D.”

“Got it.”

Sean’s stomach twisted. “Just let me know if it looks like they’re about to do something irreversible.”

“I’m watching.”

Sean started to hear things now. The unmistakable sound of flesh meeting flesh. Hard. Followed
by a shouted
“Oh, God, no…PLEASE!” He rested his head against the door and waited, feeling completely helpless.

*****

Jeremy had been jerked from deep thought into painful awareness when he heard
a number
of
different
footsteps approaching his cage. The guard with the hungry eyes unlocked the door and came in accompanied by a brick wall dressed in Armani and Frank Owens. The thug grinned a jewel encrusted smile and pulled Jeremy to his feet by his hair. Forgetting himself in his panic,
Jeremy resisted by kicking the thug as hard as he could with his bare foot in the shin.

“Hello, Jeremy. I told you I would have you. I always keep my promises,” Frank whispered.

Jeremy’s attempts at resistance earned him a fast hard back-handed blow
,
so hard his head seemed to spin.

Hungry-Eyes grabbed Jeremy’s hands and handcuffed his wrists in front of him to the front door of his cage.

Clinging to consciousness, Jeremy heard a zipper coming down shortly before his clothing was ripped from his body. He screamed a frantic, “Oh God, no…PLEASE!” And then his underwear was stuffed in his mouth. He kicked out blindly and felt savage joy as he made solid contact with someone’s body and heard an exclamation of pain. His  triumph was short-lived as he was forced to his knees and held down.

“
Whore
, you forget your place. You will die very soon
Maybe
not so soon if you cooperate a little bit. This could be pleasant for all of us, no? Relax. I don’t mind really hurting you if you don’t stop fighting me. Me, then Frank. I promised my friend the guard he could have a go at your pretty mouth. You don’t want to make me out a liar, do you?”

Who is this guy? What kind of accent is that? Russian? Die?
Jeremy shook his head firmly and remained tense. Rationally he knew this was a really stupid choice. But he’d had enough.

The deep rich tones of his attacker turned a little ugly. “Let’s see if I can’t fuck that attitude right out of you. I was going to be nice and prep you
. B
ut you don’t deserve that now.”

Jeremy gritted his teeth through his make-shift gag and screwed his eye shut. Just like the first time, the pain was nearly unbelievable. Tears and snot erupted from him along with agonized groans. His rapist tried to plunge into him to the hilt but the friction held him back as Jeremy was still nearly virgin tight.

“Damn,
slut
…
I’m going to have to use some lube or I’ll hurt myself. So tight! I don’t believe your
m
aster even uses you. Or
do you fuck him? Hmm?”