The Trainer (41 page)

“And in ten years? Or eleven, maybe?”

“I’ll come out of the service, and His
Lordship will give me enough money to purchase the inn I’ve had my
eye on since I was a little girl,” she sighed. “I always wanted to
run a small country inn, to have visitors from all over the world,
and be the mistress of my own house. With my experience in service,
I’ll have the finest inn for miles around. My sister is a cook—when
she leaves the service, she’ll come and work with me.”

“Sounds nice,” Michael commented.

“I wouldn’t have the chance if I didn’t do
the service,” Joan said. “You see? In just ten years, I can have
everything I’ve always dreamed of. Where else can you have such a
thing?”

“Nowhere,” he admitted.

That night, Michael had the energy but not
the inclination. He lay awake, listening to the rhythmic breathing
coming from Joan and the gentle, rumbling snores from Lorens, who
had camped out on the floor. It seemed so impossible that people
lived this way, ready to be sent away, traded, used, and dismissed.
Yet here were two slaves who had found stability in their
service—one who was in love, and the other who knew that for the
next ten years, her life was going to be secure.

And Tara, gone back to her master, who would
use her and enjoy her near-perfection, and then lose her when the
contract ran out. Michael wondered if she had decided to leave the
service because she could not be guaranteed a woman owner. What was
it like, thinking of spending the next four years of your life
knowing that any pleasure you got had to come from serving someone,
or from jerking off? That your primary lover could never know that
you didn’t think they were hot? He also wondered if she would ever
tell her future lovers about the years she spent in a collar.

What did you do for those years? someone
would ask.

“I was a slave,” Michael whispered out
loud.

* * * *

“It’s here,” Anderson announced over
breakfast. “Lorens’s Prince Albert. We’ll put it in tonight.”

Lorens, who was fully dressed for a change,
beamed in silent pride as he poured coffee and orange juice.

“Great!” Mike said. “I’ve never seen one put
in. Who’s gonna do it?”

“I will,” Anderson said. “This will be
my—twentieth, I think. I’ll have to check. For the more esoteric
ones, I call in Greta. But this one I like to do. It’s a very
popular piercing, although I must admit that I’m getting a little
annoyed at how damn popular piercing has become. It used to be a
solemn ritual symbolizing the deepest kind of commitment. Now,
there are people piercing their eyebrows, for heaven’s sake.” She
shook her head. “Sometimes, I think I’m too old. But that’s nothing
new. We’ll put the ring in Lorens’ cock, and he will treat the
experience with the proper reverence.”

“I most certainly shall, Trainer,” he said
warmly. And he positively glowed when she swatted him across the
rear on his way out of the room.

“How do you know what to do, Trainer?”
Michael asked. “You said that you treat every client differently,
and you do! But how do you know what to do with each one?”

“The interview is the key,” Anderson said.
She had started answering his questions too, and he had filled
another entire notebook. “Not only do I spend more interview time
with the client than any other trainer, but before a client arrives
here I’ve logged about twenty hours of interviews with their owner,
or their past owners. I know exactly how they’ve been worked,
what’s planned for them in the future, and what they hope will
happen regardless of what’s planned. Remember—the interview is the
most vital part of a training regimen. And it is never over.”

“Oh, wow,” Michael said without thinking. He
blushed and flipped open his book. “That one’s going with the
everything/anything quote.”

“Great,” Anderson said with a snort. “He’s
putting together a best-of collection.”

“Soundbites from The Trainer?” Chris said
softly.

She stared at him, hard, and he stirred his
coffee thoughtfully. She turned back to Michael and pointed a long
finger at him. “Just you remember, boy, that there’s more to this
than slogans.”

“Yes, Trainer. I understand.”

“Good. I’ll see you later, for the piercing.
Don’t bother to take notes on the technique, it will not be on the
exam.”

Lorens was unbound, as his owner had
specified. He was naked except for his collar, fresh out of the
shower, glowing with health and smelling of soap. He was bright
eyed with anticipation, but oddly dignified as well.

The worktable had been covered with plastic
with a paper overlay, and a lamp had been brought in to spotlight
his crotch. Anderson laid out the needle, ring, antiseptics, and
other tools, all of which came out of sealed wrappers. She was
gloved, and Lorens’s cock was probably more at attention than it
should have been, if it had a brain and knew what was about to be
done to it.

Michael felt a shrinking between his legs—no
doubt his cock had a brain, and was in full sympathy with the
brainless one on the table. But he was fascinated, and kept his
eyes on Lorens’s face. The man showed no fear at all, only a kind
of intense desire. Chris was in attendance, but it was obvious it
was Anderson’s show. When she picked up the needle, Michael was
able to watch the initial positioning, and then turned quickly to
Lorens’s eyes, because it was just too intense to watch a dick
being skewered.

Lorens’s lips curled back, and sweat sprang
up on his face. The eternal cheerfulness gave way to agony, and
Michael barely realized that he had stopped breathing. The powerful
man’s muscles tensed as he gripped the sides of the table, and a
terrible groan came from between his teeth, followed by a quick
exhalation and a series of panting breaths. His eyes remained open
all the time. Michael felt dizzy, and realized that he needed air
in his lungs. When he drew some in, he looked back down between
Lorens’s legs, and there it was.

A gold ring ran through the pee-hole, and
then through his dick. Anderson dropped the curved needle into a
can and dabbed at the piercing area with a piece of sterile gauze.
“A nice job if I do say so myself,” she said, reaching for the
antibiotic. “This should heal nicely if you take care of it,
Lorens.”

Lorens was in tears now—the agony was gone
from his face, replaced by a kind of pain that was multilevel. His
dick was going to be sore for a while, Chris had told Michael
earlier. It might even get infected, as some piercings did. But the
man seemed much more grateful than in pain. He whispered his thanks
prettily, and Anderson patted him on the inner thigh before she
snapped the gloves off.

Michael was amazed to find that once again,
he had a hard-on.

* * * *

“What were you thinking of, when the needle
went in?” Michael asked. Lorens, his arms under his head, thought
about it for a moment. They were whispering in the dark—it was
after lights out, and Joan was already asleep.

“I was thinking of Her,” Lorens said, and he
said it just like that, with the capitalization. “That she wanted
me to endure this, to take this—that she will be pleased with me
when I return. And then, I thought that the Trainer had stabbed my
penis through the head!”

Michael smothered a laugh. “Was it really
that bad?”

“Perhaps not,” Lorens relented. “But I have
never felt anything like that before.”

“What would you say if she wanted to put a
bigger one in? Or a different one, somewhere else?”

“I would say to her, ‘yes, Mistress,’”
Lorens said confidently. “Pain is momentary. Even this will cease
to hurt one day. But I want to serve her forever. I will endure
whatever she asks.”

“But—what if one day she gets tired of
you—not that she will! But—what if she did?”

“What is the use of wondering about that,
Michael? She may tire of me, yes—but she has said that she desires
me forever. I trust her with my body—with my life. I trust that she
will take care of me, and I pray that she trusts me to care for
her.” He smiled, and his teeth glowed in the moonlight coming
through the window. “I hurt now, Michael, very much. But I will
sleep deeply, because I trust my Lady, and I know everything will
be all right.”

“So why isn’t piercing on the exam?” Michael
asked Chris the next day.

“What do you mean?”

“Anderson said that I could watch the
piercing, but not to learn the technique. She said it wouldn’t be
on the exam. But why not? Shouldn’t I learn how to pierce?”

They had been reviewing Michael’s first
training schedule, and Chris had finished his critique and left
Michael time to revise. Michael put his pen down and cracked his
knuckles as he asked the question.

“It’s too early for that,” Chris answered.
“Piercing is taught at the final stages, along with other marking
skills like tattooing and branding—if they are taught at all.”

“But isn’t it something a trainer should
know?”

“Not any more,” Chris sighed. “In earlier
days, yes—the trainer would be responsible for the marks of
slavery. In fact, some trainers would place a certain mark on all
their slaves, or a series of marks to show the kind of training
they had gone through. I have seen some heirloom piercing jewelry
from times when medical doctors were called in to supervise. But
these days, you can get a nipple piercing at a mall. Clean,
professional shops are all over the country, and experts are
available at weekend conferences and for private consultations.
Many clients come to us already pierced or otherwise marked. So,
very few trainers bother to put the skill on their agenda.”

Michael mulled that over. It seemed to make
sense, yet...

“That’s a shame,” he said suddenly. Chris
looked up at him and cocked his head expectantly. “I mean, that
piercing was special,” Michael said. “It wouldn’t have been the
same for Lorens if some stranger did it. It came from his trainer,
you know? That’s... romantic?”

Chris nodded, slowly. “It is indeed,” he
agreed. “Write about it, if you please.”

And for the first time, Michael went back to
his room to write and didn’t feel the slightest twinge of annoyance
over the chore. He wrote until his head started to drop, and slept
deeply.

* * * *

“Okay, Chris, here’s the situation—you have
a client who just can’t be improved beyond a certain point. Maybe
they’re just naturally clumsy, or not so bright. What do you do
with them?”

“That depends on where they are. Are they
owned? Novices? Have they been in service before, and what is their
record like? Do they have unrealistic goals, or do their owners?”
Chris pushed up the sleeves of his sweatshirt, revealing those
tattoos again. Michael admired them even more in the daylight—they
weren’t cartoony at all, but actually kind of stylized and
understated. Now that Michael had seen his arms, Chris was casual
about occasionally baring them. He had other marks as well—high on
his left arm were three V-shaped scars that didn’t look like cuts.
Michael thought they might be burns, brands. But he never had the
courage to ask.

“Um, let me think—figure that they’re
novices. They’re being trained for first sale.”

“The first thing to remember is that no one
is guaranteed a spot on the auction block,” Chris said. He scanned
the park for a moment when they heard the sound of approaching
feet, and he waited until the other jogger ran by. “If they’re not
good quality, that’s too bad.”

“Well, assume that they’re good—but they
just can’t seem to get much better in some areas.”

“Then you could try specialization—find out
where they are good and focus on that. But you still send the
clumsy one to dance school and get a tutor in for the
under-educated one, because you never know what their owners are
going to want. Some slaves can be sold on one good point alone. If
Lorens didn’t have a brain in his head, still he’d get a buyer,
because he’s pretty. People will buy the most astonishingly bad
piece of goods because it’s pretty.” He looked distracted again,
and then pointed to a bench. Michael sat down, and Chris sat next
to him.

“Let me tell you about my greatest failure,”
Chris said quite casually. Michael closed his open mouth and
nodded, not willing to make a sound and spoil this unique
moment.

“A client came to my former house to be
trained, entirely on her own initiative. She found out about the
Marketplace through eavesdropping, located a spotter who was less
than reliable, and got herself a ticket in. She was unsuitable from
the beginning—except that she was breathtakingly beautiful.”

Michael nodded.

“I trained her, with the others, or at least
I tried to. And she did improve, dramatically. Within one month, we
had changed her speaking habits, gotten her to control her temper,
and tried every trick available to get her to question her
presence. Quite amazingly, she persevered. Stayed with the program.
Toward the end, she was actually presentable material, although not
voice trained. For many reasons, including the fact that the house
could use the money, she was presented for sale. Bids were highly
competitive, and she fetched a high price. She was deemed a very
narrow success.”

Michael remained silent while Chris gathered
his thoughts.

“She—turned out to be unsuitable,” he said,
looking down the path. “During the third month of her service, her
owner contacted the house and requested that she be removed from
service, and that he be refunded her purchase price.”

“Shit.” That slipped out all by itself.
Michael wanted to clamp a hand over his mouth. But Chris nodded
solemnly.

“Very deep shit indeed,” he said with the
slightest trace of mirth. “It had never happened before. Not to me,
not to my house. We were using methods I had adapted, a style taken
from my training and expanded upon—and my methods had failed. And
not only that—methods can be altered, after all—but I personally
had failed my house. I should have known that the training would
not hold when she realized that her fantasy about service was not
about to materialize. I should have dismissed her before she got to
the block, or certainly I should have warned my employers. Instead,
I remained silent. I—we—the house needed the money. The
proliferation of new trainers has hurt the older houses, deeply.”
Chris sighed.