The Academy (58 page)

“Thank you for your courtesy and your advice. You were correct; I wasn’t ready yet. And I’m not ready now. Therefore, I’m further taking your advice and getting a little more life experience. I hope that this late cancellation doesn’t make you angry, please forgive me for it. I promise that I will not fail you this way again. Thank you for your kindness.”

“I’ve been stood up,” she said to Vicente, showing him the note. “Well—I hope she’s happy.”

“He will not be happy until he is here,” Vicente sniffed.

“It’s better for her if she stays out there as long as possible,” Anderson said firmly, her eyes twinkling.

“He’ll be back soon,” her companion assured her.

Anderson noted with pleasure that Emily displayed not the slightest sign of hearing this confusing exchange, and then snapped her fingers. Emily hurried over to kneel and Anderson’s mind counted the seconds, noted the imperfections, even as her hands worked to correct. “Let’s get to work, then. No sense in thinking about the girl that got away.”

“You give that boy a chance,” Vicente laughed. “Oh yes, he’ll be back soon enough.” He went to the front door, opened it and retrieved the umbrella that had been left hanging from the doorknob. A single rose, the kind sold by vendors along the parkways, was tied to the handle with a silver ribbon. He chuckled as he removed the bud to take it into the kitchen, and slipped the umbrella back in the stand. “You will see!” he said cheerfully as he passed the study door. He returned with the rose in a small vase, placing it on Anderson’s desk with a wide grin.

It was actually another full year until the visitor returned.

9:15AM

Well, what the hell was I supposed to do? Play with kids and you’re playing with trouble, and that’s the truth.

But here’s another truth; Chris knew, and I knew, and a thousand people wake up every day and ache with the knowing of it. We acknowledge it in our hearts and our writings—there are few among us who come late to this self-knowledge. Oh no, we know when we are barely old enough to put words to what it is we feel. And we suffer for this knowledge, through years when our friends are all experimenting with first kisses and lingering glances and tortured love notes left in school lockers.

So what do you do when you have two great truths? You turn to society and the law and you surrender to them because we must at all costs preserve our world.

Back in the 1800s, the Marketplace struggled with a world where parents still practically sold their children to a hellish life of factory or farm work. Already over a hundred years old, the powers who controlled it sustained the essential element of the founding creed; that all who come to us come of their free will and with the full understanding of what they were doing. This by definition meant an adult, and yet they lived in a society where a fourteen year-old could join the navy.

Being men, and at that time, mostly British and American men, they based their decision on that central element in their lives. Someone in my trainer line wrote, “if a man might choose to serve his Nation or King in battle, surely he has that choice in personal Service as well.”

Oddly, women were assumed to be equally responsible at the same ages, despite the fact that no woman anywhere in the world had a say in their own governing otherwise.

Of course, we raised the minimum age for warriors as time went on. But the seventeen year-olds we sent to Vietnam were kids the same, and the country seemed ill-prepared to deal with the adults they became so quickly. We lowered the voting age, raised the drinking age. Who the hell could figure out what an adult was any more?

The Marketplace could. The minimum age of acceptance for any client shall be the age at which they can legally sign a contract without parental or guardian permission, was how we put it in the US. In cases of emancipated minors, we set the minimum age to eighteen.These days, there are those who think we should set it at twenty-one.

I know in my heart that had I told Chris Parker to wait until the age of twenty-one, I would have been responsible for a suicide. And I regret with all my heart that I had to send him away and let him show me that he was the trainer of my dreams, the perfect learner and teacher rolled in one. It’s not the only thing I regret about Chris, but it was certainly the push that started the avalanche.

10AM

This time, the day was sunny and cool, and the Chris was not in that ragged leather jacket, but in a bulky sweater with a blazer over it, slightly preppy-looking. This clothing did nothing to reveal a body shape—in fact, it was just as concealing as the jacket had been. Neat, pressed slacks and polished shoes finished the look. The dark curly hair was still longish in the back, but it was cut very short on the top, a strange, asymmetrical shape that suited the soft face very well. A poetic face, Anderson thought, thinking of boys in the summer, lying on the grass, full of import and youthful passion. At least Chris looked like someone who was sleeping in a bed on a regular basis, and clearly the clothing was no longer rescued second hand. Anderson was both relieved and curious; had the youth found a patron? Someone who was concerned with honor instead of utility?

“Thank you for seeing me, Ms. Anderson,” Chris said, standing in front of her desk. There was a black book bag next to the visitor’s chair, but Chris remained standing until Anderson nodded. Better manners than some might expect, but Anderson expected more than most. She didn’t know whether she wanted to find fault, though. Not yet. She wanted to see how long this child—for the stranger before was her was just as much a child as she had been almost two years ago—could maintain this air of competence and self-assurance. Struggling to remain calm and aloof.

How she would enjoy stripping all of that away.

But of course her face betrayed nothing but polite and slightly distant courtesy. “Why the additional year?” she asked, leaning back into her chair.

“Because you deserved better,” Chris said, with a bashful lowering of eyes that was simply delicious. Chris’s eyelashes were unexpectedly full and lush, positively girlish. The answer was unexpected, too. What fun!

“And how are you better, other than being that much older?”

Anderson expected the usual recitation of deeds, mistresses served, floors cleaned, that sort of thing. But instead, Chris reached down into the book bag and pulled out a green file folder with a white and gold label on it. Anderson’s heart quickened—had some other trainer taken this one on already? Was that the reason for the one year delay? She picked it up delicately from the desk and flipped it open.

It was in fact a Marketplace slave record; but it was not for Chris. The woman whose photo was clipped to the cover sheet was unknown to her—an attractive light-skinned girl in her early twenties, with long, sun streaked blond hair and a bright smile. Anderson’s hand shook as she turned onto the second page to see her nude—very pretty, a clean lined body that was made for giggling and cuddling. Next page, the sales record, a page with only one notation, and a date of barely thirty days ago.

I’m not really going to see what’s on the next page,
she thought, her hand actually frozen above the file. But she turned to the final page and sighed. The trainer of record was one Chris Parker, with supplementary training by a spotter and trainer who was currently quite active in the NY soft world arena.

“How?” she asked, closing the file.

Chris was actually shaking—so tense, Anderson thought she would have to re-glue the legs of the chair later. “I—I went back to the person I was living with,” Chris said, “after you sent me away. I had nowhere else to go. And... I stayed with her for the next six months. But whenever I was away from the house, I hunted for your people. Marketplace people. And I found them. I studied whatever I could get. When I was...” Chris took a deep breath. Anderson waited for the moment of self composure to pass, and was pleased that just when she was about to snap something demanding, Chris continued. “When I was freed, I decided to do something to impress you. I found Alice on my own, and trained her according to what I’d learned, and presented her to Kyle Van Dien for testing. He decided that she was acceptable for a novice and told me that when I wanted to hook up, he would take me on as his apprentice.”

Well, that was impressive. “Why didn’t you?”

Chris actually looked astonished—those soft brown eyes widened as if the answer was obvious. “I wanted to be a slave, not a trainer, ma’am. And I wanted to be here. With you.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re the best.”

Anderson smiled to herself. “And now you think you deserve the best?”

“I want to be the best,” Chris said softly, eyes dropped again.

“Can you afford me?”

Those eyes remained glued to the floor. “No, ma’am, I can’t. I can give you all of my share of Alice’s sale, but it isn’t much, because Kyle took half...and I... I had some debts. I have almost no other savings, and my—my former owner isn’t interested in having me further trained, and wouldn’t pay for it if she was. She... is not Marketplace.”

That was said completely without bitterness or anger, just a clean statement of fact. But it was clear that Chris was tremendously embarrassed by this financial state of affairs. “I—I can give you all I have to give. I know that with your training, I can be worth quite a bit—it’s all yours, if that’s what it takes.”

“You’d give up your entire purchase price?”

Chris’s head shot up instantly. “Yes.”

“But what if I decide you wouldn’t make a good slave? What if I decided that because of your precocious talent, I wanted to make you—a trainer?”

That caused another brief moment of thought. “I think I’d be a much better slave than trainer,” Chris finally said.

“What you think right now is of so little consequence that it’s not worth discussing,” Anderson replied, letting a little bit of steel into her voice. “If you give yourself to me, then I decide where you go and what you do, isn’t that true?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Chris said, that light voice almost a whisper.

“Speak up!” Anderson snapped, standing. When Chris froze and looked up, she continued, “Don’t just sit when I’m standing. On your feet, and answer me directly!”

“Yes, ma’am!” Chris said firmly, leaping up.

“I think you’re nothing but trouble,” Anderson said, walking from around the desk. “I think you’re a snot-nosed, arrogant little brat. So, you found someone who you could successfully lie to, and you got basic training in Marketplace techniques and you got lucky spotting. I can read that story a dozen times a year if I want to, and none of those folks will even get past my front door. I think you’ve spent a lot of time in your own head, which is now full of the worst kind of nonsense imaginable, and that you’re so hungry that I could touch you and you’d scream. You’re the worst kind of novice candidate, requiring the greatest amount of sheer work from any trainer. Give me one damn reason why I should even examine you.”

“You should examine me just because you’ve been wanting to for a year,” Chris shot back, as they stood toe to toe. Chris had to look up into Anderson’s face, it allowed her to get another glimpse of the thick eyelashes that were so artfully hidden by the rim of those aviator frames. “Ma’am,” Chris added, just a second late.

What a little wise ass,
Anderson thought, even as she stepped slightly back and effortlessly cuffed Chris across the cheek. “Apologize,” she said calmly. “That was a calculated act of rudeness.”

Chris was startled by the blow, and as a slightly pink area rose on that smooth, soft cheek, there was a look of shock that seemed to start at the eyes and then spread with molten fluidity throughout the rest of the body. Chris took a deep breath and said, in a more controlled voice, “I’m sorry for offending you, ma’am.”

“I think the first thing that will have to be done is to teach you how to apologize,” Imala said as she turned to the door. “You’re going to be doing it often. You think you proved yourself to me with this little stunt? You just proved that you can’t be trusted. Wait for me.”

She left the room with a swirl of skirt and hair, and suppressed the smile that threatened to break through her stern demeanor. She waited until she was upstairs, and then shook her head even as she began to dial a phone number.

When she returned, Chris was waiting in exactly the same spot, and gave no impression of having moved at all. She placed an index card down on the desk and sat down again. “You are expected at the address on that card tomorrow,” she said, taking in the array of emotions playing across the youth’s face. “Ten o’clock in the morning, bring your clothes and personal items and don’t disappoint me by disappointing her.”

“Ma’am?” Chris picked the card up, and Anderson felt like she had just kicked a puppy. She turned away from her would-be client and waved a hand dismissively.

And didn’t hear anything else but the clinks of the book bag being gathered up and the click as her door closed.

My God, my God
, she thought, her heart pounding.
This one is real.

11:15 AM

As much as I wanted otherwise, I sent Chris to Janna Corliss, one of my former trainees. She had a nice little operation going, doing entry level training from her house in southern New Jersey. She had sounded delighted on the phone—a novice who faked Kyle Van Dien out? A shining example of raw talent who I needed shown a lesson in patience? She was only too pleased to take him on, and we agreed on three months for her to make something out of this mysterious kid.

Two days later, I got a call from her. What did you send me? she asked, her voice oddly strained. Is this—a test?

I was right, Chris was the real thing. Break her, I said.

OK, Janna said, carefully. I’ll call you when I’m done.

Janna showed up at my house at the end of those three months. I had never gotten that call.

NOON

“OK, where do you want to sell him?” was the first question out of Janna’s mouth after they settled over coffee and cookies in the front parlor.

“Who?” Anderson asked, settling back.