The Trainer (2 page)

“Well.” It was a statement, a verbal comma
that came out as though she were summing up possible options of
discourse. “This is not a very auspicious way to make an entrance,
Mr. LaGuardia. Maybe I’d better make an introduction. Michael
LaGuardia, trainer in training, please meet Mr. Chris Parker, my
friend and house guest. And, in case you didn’t know, a trainer
who’s been around the block a little longer than you. He definitely
has seniority over you.”

Michael looked at the man facing him, really
looked this time, and felt a sudden need to sit down again. What an
absolutely stunning way to make an entrance indeed.

“Ah, Mr. Parker,” he searched for some kind
of proper words to try to salvage this situation as best as he
could. “I—I’ve made a terrible mistake. I’m so sorry if you took
offense at what I did.”

One glance at the hard look in Parker’s eyes
and the faint sound of a “tsk” coming from Anderson completed
Michael’s sensations of social vertigo. What did I do wrong now? he
thought miserably.

“Maybe I’d better go out and come in again,”
he offered weakly.

“Only slaves get to do over mistakes in my
house,” Anderson said firmly. “You’ll just have to work harder,
that’s all. And just so you know, no one raises a hand—or any other
part of the body—to any one else in this house without permission
from me. Is that understood?”

“Yes.”

“Then take your bags upstairs. Joan will
show you the way. Parker and I are about to go over your records.
After you freshen up, you may join us in my office.” With that, she
turned and walked back through the doorway, and Parker followed
her. The maid stood by his bags, waiting to show him upstairs. The
slightest of drafts curled around his shoulders and he shivered way
out of proportion to it. This was bad, very bad. He hadn’t counted
on there being two trainers in residence. He hadn’t counted on
there being other free people around, period. And he had never made
such a spectacularly bad entrance in his entire life.

I’ll just have to get better, he swore,
gathering himself. He turned to Joan and picked up his bags to
follow her.

* * * *

“Michael Xavier LaGuardia, born and raised
in Los Angeles, California. BA in Communications from Berkeley,
just twenty-six years old. Likely looking fellow, isn’t he?”

“He’s an arrogant, unobservant infant,
straight out of kindergarten. How the hell did you get stuck with
him?” Chris Parker was still brushing imaginary dust off of his
jacket sleeve. He scowled and glanced at the folder on the table
between them and pointed at another offending entry. “He’s only
been training for two years! You barely spoke to me when I was a
two-year man!”

Anderson nodded. Her eyes danced slightly,
and she kept her smile in the crinkles around them, not in her
tightly drawn lips. “You were different, bucko. I wanted to see
where you’d go without me first. But now—have you seen the new crop
of trainers in the past few years?”

“No, not especially. I tend to keep an eye
on the older houses, and the formal apprentice relationships only.
Why? Are all the new American trainers rude, ignorant
twenty-somethings?”

The Trainer of Trainers sat down, her
raven-black skirt fluttering down around her legs to settle around
her like a silken lap robe. “No, not all of ’em. But in the past
five years, I’ve only seen two American novices with the touch. The
sight. And of that pair, only one will make a career out of it, if
he actually gets out of the training whole.”

“Are you saying I’m part of a dying breed?”
He did smile, a crooked twist of one corner of his mouth. He sat
down as well, and dropped one hand down to the side of his chair,
where a blonde woman was kneeling, carefully assembling papers into
assorted folders, hearing yet not listening to their conversation.
When his hand brushed her shoulder, she turned slightly to kiss the
flesh behind his thumb, but continued to work.

“Ah, the joys of a cliché. No, I didn’t say
that, although you might be. But whether you are or not, I do owe
the Marketplace their new trainers—and this Mikey was the best
looking out of the list they offered me.”

“They were right about that. He’s pretty as
he can be. Those eyes! A potential distraction.” He ran his fingers
through the hair of the slave beside him, felt the slight tremor
when he touched the back of her neck, and then stopped trying to
distract her as he focused his attention back on the trainer.

“Is he?” Anderson looked up, and her flinty
eyes caught Chris’s across the table. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Oh, of course not.”

They stared at each other, calm and serious
for all of a moment and then laughed, the sounds similar in tone
and pitch.

“I can leave if you like,” Chris offered,
after the moment passed. He looked out the window as if the waving
tree branches were suddenly captivating. “I do have other places to
go.”

“You’ll stay until you finish,” Anderson
said.

“As you wish.”

On the floor, Tara hid a slight smile of her
own.

* * * *

Michael looked at himself in the mirror,
and, as usual, liked what he saw. He ran his fingers through his
hair, flipping it back so that the seemingly stray locks fell in an
artful arc over his forehead. His face was cleanshaven and evenly
tan, although not quite as dark as he would have preferred. He took
all that skin cancer stuff seriously; no sense in spoiling this
face.

His Italian father boasted that the good
looks came from his side of the family, and Michael knew that it
was at least half true. He had some mighty good-looking uncles and
cousins in the LaGuardia clan. But it was his Irish mother’s
ancestry that gave him the naturally fair skin, and those magically
blue eyes, so haunting under a mop of black hair. They were the ice
blue of sapphires, ringed with black, always the first thing people
noticed about him. Once, he had tried to darken them with contacts,
thinking he’d look more natural, but found that it only made him
look more ordinary.

Ordinary was hardly what he wanted to
be.

Unlike a lot of his friends, he did not work
out—and he didn’t have a beautifully hard, cut body. But he was
trim and in good health nonetheless, one of those lucky men with a
good body and good hair—for now. Time enough to lift and push and
investigate Rogaine when he was older.

His suitcase was on a rack near the bed, his
garment bag hung on the closet door. Joan had shown him the room,
given him directions to the bathroom, and left him alone. He had
expected that his bags would have been unpacked, at least.

What a weird system, he thought, pulling his
collar straight. Why have slaves in the house and not use them?
Using people is the natural talent of a master, his Uncle Niall
said.

If it hadn’t been for Uncle Niall, I
wouldn’t be here.

There were no slaves and masters in the
LaGuardia household, unless you counted a dysfunctional aspect or
two in one or another family grouping. Nothing but a second and
third generation, mixed heritage but all-American, hard-working
family, based on the West Coast. Michael had gone to college
because it was what everyone he knew did, and had a relatively
normal sex life for an American boy, full of experimentation and
discovery and the freedom that good looks, a car, and an easygoing
personality will give you.

The family was politically divided on
several issues, but generally liberal in many things. The question
of whether Uncle Niall was gay wasn’t really discussed as much as
it was an unstated fact which had to be accepted. Invitations to
him always included “and guest,” and occasionally he did show up
with a usually younger and very good looking man as his companion.
Once, Michael heard his mother saying to her sister in law, “At
least Niall doesn’t flaunt it, dressing in women’s clothing and
dancing naked in the streets. You’d never know he was...that
way.”

Michael didn’t think about it much—he had
his past experiences with boys and preferred girls, and if Uncle
Niall didn’t, it was hardly any of Michael’s business, was it? He
just treated Niall like everyone else.

So when Uncle Niall invited Michael up the
coast to his place for a weekend, Michael accepted more out of
obligation than interest in spending a weekend with a relative. He
packed his swim trunks and sunscreen, expecting to spend most of
the time on the beach.

It was a nice place; small but classy, with
huge bay windows that had a view of the ocean, and a long winding
path that led to the dunes out back. Uncle Niall was a
screenwriter; he did a lot of work for sitcoms and some commercials
and a few straight-to-video movies, all of which he thought were
outrageously funny. All in all, he was a great guy to hang out
with, funny and full of industry gossip. When Michael got there, he
was swiftly introduced to Ethan, his uncle’s “companion,” and
Jerry, the older man who Niall said “runs the house.” But as soon
as hands were shaken, Michael was in his swim gear and heading down
to the beach.

It was a great afternoon—he splashed alone
for a while and then stretched out in the sun, loving the illusion
that this entire area was his alone. He wondered if Uncle Niall and
Ethan ever came down here and swam naked together. Michael had
doffed his Speedo a couple of times at clothing optional beaches.
He liked the feeling of the water against his genitals, the way his
balls felt, tight because of the cold yet sensuously teased by the
motion of the waves and the current. He also liked the looks he got
when he walked along the beach, his cock swinging. He might not be
some tremendous god of a bodybuilder, but hell, they were
practically common in Los Angeles.

Just thinking about it made him pull the
trunks off, that first caress of wind and sun enough to stir him
tumescent. Yeah, that was better! He ran down to the surf and
plunged in again, and laughed with the sheer exuberance of it. This
was the life—out where no one could bother you, practically your
own private beach—one day, he’d have this. How, he didn’t know, not
yet. But one day, somehow, he would.

He saw Ethan coming down the path just when
he was ready to get back into the sun and dry off.

His first instinct was to blush, because
man, to be caught skinny dipping by your uncle’s boyfriend? How
embarrassing. But there wasn’t anything to do—the man was going to
see Michael’s abandoned trunks next to his sunscreen. Michael
sighed and composed himself and began to make his way to shore.
When he stepped free of the water, he shook his hair out and tried
to act casual.

Ethan, whose apple-cheeked midwestern
origins were betrayed by the slower, almost drawling way he had of
speaking, was hardly casual. He gave Michael a long and measuring
glance, and Michael found himself doing the same. Because Ethan was
not in the jeans and sweater he’d been wearing at the door, but in
a thong bikini, his cock a hard mass twisted to one side, clearly
visible through the skimpy fabric. He had no hair on his chest or
legs, like a competition swimmer, and his nipples were larger than
any nipples Michael had ever seen on a man. And they were pierced,
too—with heavy, silver-colored rings. Between his pierced nipples
hung one of those little plastic cases that floated, someplace to
put your change or Chapstick or car keys.

“Hi,” Michael said lamely.

“Hi, Mike. Your uncle thought you might like
some company.” He flashed a friendly smile.

“Oh, yeah, sure.”

“I see you’ve already gotten comfortable,”
Ethan continued, motioning to Michael’s crotch. “Maybe I can help
you out there.”

“Huh?” The sunlight was definitely getting
to him.

“You look like you could use a little
release, Mike. Would you like a blowjob?” This was said in as
casual a way as if Ethan was inviting him back up to the house for
lunch. Michael stood silently for a moment, and tried to ignore the
urgings of his cock, which definitely did want a blowjob. He
struggled not to bring his hands together in front of the anxious
organ, and covered his embarrassment verbally instead.

“Jesus, man, you’re my uncle’s
boyfriend!”

“Sort of,” Ethan admitted.

“Well, what is that, coming onto me? We’re
practically related! What if Uncle Niall found out?” Michael bit
his lip; he hadn’t wanted to ask that last question.

“Mike—he sent me here. It’s no big deal. If
you don’t want to, that’s all right, I won’t be insulted. But it
looks like you could use one—and I am good.”

Michael looked up the hill toward the house.
It was too far to see, covered by dunes and shrubs. He glanced down
at his obviously eager cock, and then across to the man he thought
was his uncle’s lover. “Well—okay, sure.”

“Great!” With that, Ethan led him up the
beach, to an area where the sand was soft and warm, and settled him
down comfortably. Michael leaned back, still amazed at the offer,
but willing to believe that it was real.

And it was real—every minute of it. Ethan
was right, too, he was really good. Excellent, in fact. Better than
anyone, girl or guy, that Michael had ever had, even that hooker he
picked up on Santa Monica Boulevard one night. He just slurped
Michael’s entire cock into his mouth and then settled down to work
on it for a good long time.

This is heaven, Michael thought, throwing
his head back. I’m never leaving.

He tried to hold on to his erection as long
as possible, and Ethan helped by varying his speed and strength,
and the motions of his head. But soon, the sun and the sand, the
overall tightening of the skin on his body, and the wondrous,
pulsating pressure on his cock made Michael’s head begin to spin.
Without even knowing it, he grabbed onto Ethan’s hair and pulled
him tighter into his own crotch, crying out when Ethan pulled
back.