The Trainer (31 page)

He cradled her in his arms and soothed her.
And took her away from there without even attempting to see the
owners, who were obviously and wisely hiding from him.

When he arrived back at the house in the
early evening, having left Robin drowsy and bandaged, he was ready
to meet the men who did this. He had of course, met them once
before, on the night of Robin’s sale. He had been slightly
disappointed for her—what a shame for such a delightfully sexy
young woman to be sold into an all gay male household. It had not
escaped Chris that although Robin was happily bisexual, there was a
core part of her which reacted most strongly to a woman’s touch, a
woman’s voice. But it was a prime opportunity for her—it would give
her the chance to develop stronger erotic control. And it would not
be a difficult existence—she would get to do the work she loved,
and enjoy the life of a full-time slave. Certainly, she had not
complained to him in their three telephone conversations. He had
taken that as an indication that things had worked out for her.

Apparently not as well as could be expected.
Although she had seemed to enjoy a good relationship with her
owners and with the three other slaves in the household, someone
had quite obviously set her up for this fall.

It was so difficult to really know
someone—to see into their heart of hearts and know what tempted
them and what made them afraid. Any number of interview sessions
would reveal everything but the single secret that would only come
out after a tragedy. There were always slaves who got past the
psychological testing and the interviews with the potential to
defraud or harm their trainers or owners. So it was always possible
that Robin had become a thief. But when her first words to him were
“I didn’t do it,” and he could look into those uncomplicated,
amber-colored eyes, he believed her without reservation.

He checked his image in the rear view mirror
and slicked back one errant curl. His hair was beginning to thin,
and that bothered him less than he thought it should. Yes; he was
calm, he was cool—and the urge to kill someone was much lighter
than it had been earlier.

Eric Parese was a fashion model. It wasn’t
difficult to look at him and be instantly distracted. But he was
the one whose anger had exploded into the wreck that was Robin, and
all Chris saw was a suspicious, hostile boy, angry at something and
feeling threatened at the same time. His lover Jimmy seemed more
casual about it all. As usual, Chris was the shortest man present.
The Hispanic slave was introduced as Raul, and Chris nodded
brusquely.

“Get me some coffee,” he said. “Do you have
someplace private where we can talk?” he asked the owners.

Raul shot a glance at his two masters and
headed for the kitchen. Jimmy forced a civil smile and pointed down
a hallway, to his office. Eric was surly, but he came along, and
the three men sat in silence until Raul served the coffee and beat
a hasty retreat.

“I’m ready to hear the story,” Chris
said.

“It’s very simple,” Eric said immediately.
“We had a guest here, a friend of ours, Eve Panski. Tom, her
husband, had given her a pair of earrings, emerald earrings—and
while she was here, they went missing. We searched the house for
days—and then, in the office your slavegirl uses, we found them in
a bud vase. A little extra bonus for when she left, I guess.”

“That’s absurd. Haven’t you ever heard the
phrase circumstantial evidence?”

Jimmy broke in. “We know that our boys
aren’t thieves. Besides, they don’t wear earrings.” He grinned, and
then lost it when he realized that neither his lover nor the
stranger from New York were amused.

“Robin is no thief, gentlemen. She did not
take the earrings, and she did not hide them in her office.”

“How can you prove that?” Eric asked. “All
we know is that she’s the newest slave here, and the one with the
shortest contract. The earrings were found in her room, cleverly
hidden. What are we supposed to think?”

“Apparently, you’ve thought precisely what
you were supposed to think. It hasn’t occurred to you that the damn
earrings were planted there for exactly this purpose?” Keep the
control, keep the voice steady, Chris reminded himself.

“By who?” Eric demanded.

“That’s what I’m here to find out.”

“Oh? And who the fuck are you, Miss
Marple?”

“I don’t think you should care if I’m Lord
Peter Wimsey—if I don’t find out what happened, then I’ll have to
file a formal complaint with the Marketplace concerning your
treatment of slaves. There will be an investigation. All your
slaves will be interviewed, and the doctor who took care of Robin’s
infections and cuts today will have to make a statement. You will
be interviewed as well. And all of this becomes part of the record
of your house, gentlemen.” Chris rose. “If that is what you prefer,
I’ll take my leave of you.”

“Are you threatening me, you greasy little
punk?” Eric shot up too, and shook one fist. “I’ll make sure you
never train another slave again! I’ll have you investigated!
I’ll—”

“Yo, Eric, Eric—calm down, man!” Jimmy stood
up, too, and the three of them faced each other, close enough to
touch. Jimmy did grab hold of his partner and pulled him closer,
holding one arm. “Listen, there’s no need for any of that. If he
thinks one of the boys did it, let him question them. There’s no
harm in that.”

“Our boys didn’t do anything!”

“And he’ll find that out. You’ll see, Mr.
Parker. Carl has been with me for ages. Raul, he’s the best. And
Jeff’s a good kid. It had to have been your girl. Look, it’s her
first sale, you never know what you’re going to get with
newbies.”

“As a matter of fact, the first slave of
yours I’d like to speak to,” Chris said, “happens to be your other
‘newbie,’ Jeff. The good kid. If you could arrange for me to have a
place away from general traffic, please?” He was so close to
trembling—the tension was really getting to him. And the headache
had never gone away. The aggression coming from Eric made him want
to haul back and smash those beautiful teeth, hit that under-worked
stomach until he felt the lower rib crack—

But it was time to put the kid away. He
forced another tight smile as Jimmy pointed the way upstairs. A
moment later, he was joined by Jeff.

Jeff was a handsome young man, dark-haired
and -eyed, with a slender body and the slightly nervous twitch of
someone used to being on the receiving end of a lot of casual
abuse. Chris smiled genuinely for the first time. There would be
nothing casual about what he was about to do. He indicated the
staircase and started to shrug off his suit jacket.

“Jeff, I’m Chris. Get your sorry ass
upstairs.”

He followed the youth, tossing the jacket
over one shoulder and whistling.

When his left fist cut up and sank into
Jeff’s middle, it felt almost like an orgasm. The right fist
completed the feeling, and Chris paced back, allowing Jeff space to
collapse and giving himself a moment to come off the balls of his
feet and stretch out. It was beyond question unfair and cruel to
use a sucker combination like that on someone called to
attention.

It was satisfying as hell. Feelings crashed
and mingled—the desire to kick the kid, the need for a cigarette, a
fantasy image of doing the same thing to Eric, a touch of old pain
at the thought of Robin, hanging by her wrists, having fucking
garden stakes used on her—(because I told them she feared
canes)—and here was the piece of excrement that caused it all.

Jeff coughed and gasped, and then gagged. He
clutched his stomach and cried out, “Why’d you do that?”

Chris bent down and grasped the slave by his
chain collar and dragged him to his feet. He stood taller than
Chris by about five inches. “That should have been, ‘Sir, why did
you do that, sir?’” Chris said softly. On the final ‘sir,’ he
clipped Jeff on the upper chest, right under the collarbone, where
it would hurt. And then stepped back again as Jeff raised his arms
to protect himself.

“I still haven’t heard you say it,” Chris
said.

“Sir!” Jeff croaked, his hands in front of
him, slightly bent over. “Please—sir, why did you do that sir?”

“That’s better. Much improved. Now get down
on your knees; we’re going to have a little chat.” There was a
chair, but Chris remained standing. He had risen to the balls of
his feet again, and the nervous energy would probably need to be
worked off a little more before he could sit quietly. It was so
hard to pull punches when he was like this.

“You’re one of Lu’s boys, aren’t you, Jeff?”
he asked. “I looked up your file before I left New York. This is
your first house; these are your first real masters. Are you happy
here?”

“Yes, sir.” He looked incredulous at the
gentle tone Chris was using. Still clutching his stomach, he knelt,
spreading his legs as far as seemed comfortable—apparently this was
a house position.

Chris was not impressed. But he kept his
voice even. “Do you know who I am?”

“No, sir.”

“I’m Robin’s trainer. I’m here because
Robin’s done a terrible thing. Apparently, she’s stolen something
from one of your masters’ guests. I’m here to find out how and when
she did it—and that’s assuming that she did steal the item. Do you
know anything about this?”

Jeff lowered his eyes. “No, sir.”

Chris nodded solemnly. “I see. Get up,
please.”

Jeff rose, and the minute he pulled his
shoulders back, Chris landed a shot right against his upper right
cheekbone, firmly snapping his fist into the underside of his eye,
the force slamming Jeff’s head to one side and throwing him
backward. Jeff brought his arms up to defend himself again,
sheltering his head this time, skipping backward, a strangled cry
of pain mingling with a bitten off curse.

“That was for telling me a lie. The next lie
you tell will get you one just like it on the other side. Then I
start with your chest and work my way down to your nuts. Kindly
give yourself a moment to reflect on what something like that will
feel like on your balls.”

Jeff kept retreating, almost tripping over
the edge of a rug, stopping only when his back was up against a
wall. He felt the spot under his eye and gasped in amazement and
shock, and held his arms up again as Chris followed him.

“You can’t do this!” he shouted, holding up
one hand as if to warn Chris away. “You’re not allowed to d-damage
me!”

“Yes,” Chris agreed. “That’s correct.” He
walked calmly over to him and grasped the collar again and pushed
Jeff’s head back against the wall, his left fist up under his chin.
“Except for one thing.” He drew back his right fist and slammed it
forward, and Jeff gave a strangled scream. But the fist impacted
with a dull crunching sound on the wall next to his ear instead of
hitting his face. The young man jerked with surprise and terror,
and looked back at Chris’s face, at the gentle smile. “You didn’t
say ‘sir,’” Chris said. “Try again.”

While the slave stammered out approximations
of his line with “sirs” at the beginning and end of the statements,
Chris looked at his hand. No surprise, he had abraded the skin over
his knuckles. Someone was going to be pissed about that. He let
Jeff go again, and walked back to the bed, where he’d thrown his
jacket. He pulled a handkerchief out of the inside pocket and waved
it at Jeff.

“Come and get this,” he said.

Jeff crouched by the wall for a second, and
then took cautious steps over to the bed. He reached out and took
the square of cotton.

“Now go and get this damp. Wring it out, I
don’t want it to drip.”

Chris watched the boy go, and flexed his
hand. Oh, he was going to make this last a good long time. He hoped
that Jeff was going to be very stubborn.

About an hour later, he invited Jimmy into
the room.

Jeff was sitting in a wooden chair, his arms
wrapped around the back. They weren’t tied. Nor were his ankles,
which were tucked behind the front legs of the chair. His body
showed rising bruises on his chest and two gradually darkening
black eyes. There was a cut over one eye, which had been covered by
a Band-Aid. He had been sweating profusely—the scent of him was
heavy and sour, like bile. His face was streaked with tears.

“If you wanted to torture him, we could have
loaned you some toys,” Jimmy said, after looking at his property.
“I didn’t know that you got your jollies this way, Mr. Parker.
Weren’t you the one who threatened us with an investigation?”

“Oh, I’m full of surprises, Mr. Appleton.”
Chris pulled Jeff’s head back. “But not as many surprises as this
one has in store for us. Tell your master the first story you told
me, Jeff.”

“Please—” Jeff’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and
down nervously, and he gave a choking sound. “I didn’t know
anything! Sir!”

“Good, now story number two.” He let the
slave go, and walked around to his front, where Jimmy was
standing.

“I—I heard—sir! I heard that sh-she took the
earrings, sir!”

“Very good. Now the third story, the most
recent.”

Jeff licked his lips and turned his head so
he wasn’t looking at his tormentor. He gazed beseechingly into his
master’s eyes. “I saw her take them. Sir! I saw it! It was
her.”

Jimmy looked at Chris, frowned and started
to say something. And then he drew in a deep breath. “I think Eric
needs to hear this,” he said. Chris shrugged, and stayed there,
flexing the hand until the two men came back together. He heard
them out in the hallway, Jimmy saying something soft and urgent to
his lover. A brief argument. And then they came in.

“Why didn’t you say anything when we
questioned you the first time?” Eric demanded immediately. He
stopped and stared at Jeff’s physical condition, and almost started
to say something else, but Jimmy laid a hand on his shoulder and he
turned his attention back to Jeff. “Well? We asked you the first
day, when they were just missing, and you didn’t say anything then!
Why not?”