Marketplace (45 page)

Sharon cried. She was
exhausted, humiliated, afraid and confused. When he got up and
walked away, she just slumped down on the floor and shivered and
moaned until he came back. He bent down to examine her, and then
stood back. He watched her sob for a while.

“Get up,” he finally said,
nudging her. She needed his help, and he escorted her through the
halls and back to her room. Brian was awake, his eyes open when
Chris walked in, and he didn’t even try to pretend he had been
asleep. Chris put Sharon in her bed and walked out without saying a
word. Brian listened to the sobs for a while, and then rolled over
and put his arm over his ear. He didn’t want to know.

In another wing of the
house, Alex slept, with one slave on either side of her, their
bodies curled toward her. It was the first time any of them had
actually shared a bed with an owner.

Chapter
Twenty-One

When the servants came
back, the slaves were so used to doing almost everything that it
took a day or two to get used to the revised schedules. They had a
little help in adjusting—they had all officially entered the last
phases of their basic training, and now came the specific lessons
in formal behavior and in all the knowledge a slave has to have
before entering the Marketplace. It wasn’t all about how and when
to bow, either. They had to learn the hierarchy of the system, and
how to deal with it, how to make contact with it if they were lost,
how to treat people from the Marketplace in mixed situations, and
which rules must be obeyed in which circumstances. Their questions
rapidly became used on items of history and fact about the system
they were (hopefully) about to enter. And they learned what happens
when someone betrays that system.

“To be shunned by the
Marketplace is to be sure that the rest of your life is spent doing
the very things you four are all escaping from,” Chris explained
one afternoon. “Little organizations of dilettantes, shallow
displays of crude imitations of the real thing, purveyors of
pornography for idiots, and casual players who have no concept that
people actually live this life. To be shunned is to be forever
barred from our meetings, our conferences, and our social events,
from the sales and the trades, the parties and the
resorts...”

“The resorts are real?”
Sharon had asked, eagerly.

“Oh yes,” Chris assured
her. “Not exactly as portrayed in those trashy novels you like so
much, but they exist. Mr. Elliott and Ms. Selador often like to
spend a winter vacation at the one in the Caribbean.”

“Wait,” Brian said with a
laugh. “Why should they want to go? They’ve got it right
here!”

“They go to get away from
stupid novices,” Chris replied smoothly.

Then there were the
intensified lessons in anything that hadn’t caught on in the early
training. Sharon spent more and more time talking to herself,
trying out words and phrases and learning little mental tricks to
slow down her speaking rhythms so that she could get words such as
“like” and phrases such as “I mean” and “you know?” out of her
vocabulary. It was a slow process, combined with her ongoing
education about all things that could be called “fun.”

“Bridge!” she complained
one day, drying dishes while Robert washed. “I, uh... who plays
bridge anyway, except for middle class ladies with nothing else to
do?” She caught that “I mean,” and was pleased.

“Millionaires play bridge,”
Robert told her. “They bet on it, or they pay off in points. Some
of them actually become professional bridge players.”

“No shit,” Sharon said
without thinking. “I mean... uh... no kidding?”

Claudia began an intense
study of the art of managing a household. Between Chris and Rachel,
she got advice and details on everything from building additions to
contracting outside labor, from planning weekly schedules to
writing out a yearly budget, from researching the soup to buying
bulk nuts.

“You keep the file like
this, making notes on everyone your owners have on their guests
lists. You mark down important things like what you know they’re
allergic to, what their favorite brandy is, and whether they like
cigars after the meal. Make sure to remember to put down their
religion!” Rachel showed the slave the space for it on their
customized guest cards.

“Religion? Why?”

“Because, among lots of
other details, you can’t serve pork to Jews and Muslims, that’s
why. You can ruin an entire evening just by serving the wrong
appetizer.” Rachel grinned. “The stories I could tell you! But just
be sure to know your guests. That’s one headache you can take away
from your mistress. If she can trust you to plan it and not to
offend anyone or send them puking out the door, you’ll have another
feather in your cap.”

“Thank you, Miss,” Claudia
said sincerely. Her eyes shone whenever she looked at Rachel these
days. She was very happy to have her back.

Guests appeared regularly,
and the slaves were often examined under less than optimum
circumstances. Interrupting them during workouts in the gym was
common, as was finding them at some messy or difficult task. But
each time, they were expected to pull themselves together and
present themselves with grace and style, ready to answer questions,
perform movements, or submit to pain or arousal at the guests’
whim. Robert’s skill as a masseur, Sharon’s skills in raw
sensuality, Claudia’s quick mind, clever tongue, wonderful manners,
and her ability to take a very nice beating, and even Brian’s
eagerness to please, were all becoming strong points for them. They
were coached to emphasize these points, and worked harder on the
subjects they fell behind in. They could all see the end of the
training period approaching, and as their dreams and nightmares
melded and mixed, they worked themselves as hard as Chris drove
them. None of them could afford to fail.

* * * *

Brian continued to be the
least used and least worked slave of the four. He had plenty of
work to do, and spent plenty of time suffering for the same kinds
of mistakes and flaws his fellow slaves suffered for, but even
Robert got to spend a night with Grendel, and Brian never had.
After her major faux pas, Sharon wasn’t invited back either, but
that was different.

I never did anything wrong!
Brian thought. And no matter how he searched his heart, he couldn’t
see when he possibly could have. If the matter about Chris was of
any weight, he surely suffered no more or less after Sharon’s
ill-advised late night visit to the majordomo. So maybe Chris was
right, and it had nothing to do with anything. Sharon certainly
never shed any light on the subject, and Brian didn’t pursue
it.

Brian was the first to see
Grendel’s workshop. Unlike Alex’s studio, which everyone now
referred to as her playroom, Grendel’s space never changed its
name. It was still a workshop, and when Brian was taken there to be
worked, it was only to be used as an adjunct to someone else’s
session. He was central, as a matter of fact, to teaching Robert
how to suck cock, something the man had only done once to a real
live one. But when Grendel was ready to test Robert’s skill, Brian
was dismissed. Brian never even got to see his master’s cock. He
began to dream about it.

As the other slaves seemed
guided to certain ends and goals, Brian fell further and further
into a gray area of no clear definition. It became clear, for
example, that Robert, with his football-trained body, his sharp
sense of balance and instinct, and his elegant manners, was being
set up as a kind of body-guard/companion. He practiced driving a
lot, learned to handle a stretch limo, and learned basic
self-defense and several cute disarming tricks from Sensei Chen. He
studied with Chris in matters of deportment, and started escorting
Alexandra when she went on little trips. He looked very good in the
sharply tailored suit Alex chose for him, his chest filling out the
jacket nicely. With a cap on, he looked the very image of a wealthy
person’s loyal chauffeur, handsome, polite, slightly scholarly, and
slightly formidable. Brian had to admit that it suited the man
perfectly. Robert had gained new confidence that showed in his
firm, slow voice, honed by sessions of dramatic and humorous
reading of everything from children’s poems to famous speeches of
Martin Luther King. And when the clothing was off, his firm, trim
body was covered with a tangle of fine hairs, nicely masculine and
not overpowering.

Then he turned into an
accomplished masseur, and a skillful body slave, happy to serve in
any way commanded, honored to sleep across the threshold when night
fell.

Not bad for a six-foot
French maid who lisped and whined.

And Claudia, who wanted
nothing more than to go back home, was slowly turning into a
manager in her own right. Deeply concerned with appearances, she
used that concern and transferred it to caring for how mistress
appeared, and found that planning and managing weren’t as hard as
they seemed three weeks ago. Once afraid to raise her voice at all,
Brian overheard her yelling at the butcher who sent a
less-than-acceptable quality of beef. Her indignation was fierce,
her determination amazing, and her ability to demand proper
action—and get it!—was nothing short of miraculous. And if her
blushes meant anything, her ability to be fun in bed had increased
tenfold in the few weeks she had been here. Brian regretted that he
couldn’t see the night she and Robert did their thing in front of
Alex and Gren. He still didn’t understand everything that night was
about, but he knew that it was something special by the way the two
of them still exchanged glances when it was mentioned. He also knew
that Grendel had now spent several nights with Claudia, and the way
she avoided talking about it suggested that they did more than
talk.

Even Sharon was turning
into something better. Her attention to improving her language
skills was starting to pay off, and she seemed to be able to grasp
the essentials of the many entertainment activities she was
introduced to. Guests picked her most often to try out, and her
looks were definitely going to be an asset for her potential sale.
Brian knew she wasn’t going to be voice-trained, no way, but still,
she was a hot babe with a long list of fun things she could do. And
thanks to her many lessons with Robert, she had gained a very
limited but better-than-usual appreciation for things like opera
and serious theatre. She may never be able to engage a master in a
game of chess, but she could be counted on to know how to behave in
a theatre and when to cry at the opera. And she could dance. Who
knows? For the right man, she might be perfect.

But I’m going nowhere,
Brian realized. And the more he thought about it, the more it
scraped away his nerves and his confidence. He had no way of
knowing what was going to happen to him, either as a slave in this
house, or even as Brian Cohen, the man who gave up his life to live
a fantasy. Each night, noticing who was with him and who was kept
by one of the owners, he curled into a neat fetal position and
cradled his aching stomach, knowing that the pain was really in his
head. Each morning, he woke up with a hard-on so bad it hurt, and
each indignity or punishment seemed to magnify it until he thought
he was going to burst. And each evening, he prayed that his name
would be announced by Chris, and he died a little when he didn’t
hear it.

It wasn’t exactly a
conscious
act when he
watched Claudia cheerfully follow Alex into the house one night,
and he found himself on his belly in front of Grendel, begging for
a touch. And surely, it wasn’t
him
who continued to beg, sincerely, tearfully, and
steadily, even while Chris laid the strap on. It wasn’t any Brian
he knew who begged, not for mercy, but for Sir to please,
please,
just watch,
please favor him with a glance. And when the beating stopped, he
knew it wasn’t him who begged for it to continue, if Sir so
desired, and then begged to be allowed to thank his tormenter. And
it wasn’t him who kissed the strap with such passion, and bowed his
head to the ground by Grendel’s feet, begging forgiveness in words
that didn’t sound at all like he had gotten them out of a
book.

“Well,” Grendel said to
Chris, who was putting the strap back in its place. “It looks like
we’ve found Brian. Bring him to the workshop.” Chris grinned when
he bent down to pull the broken man to his feet.

* * * *

The other three almost
needed introductions to the new Brian, a person Chris called “the
real Brian” with some measure of satisfaction. The new Brian had
lost a great deal of his sarcastic edge, and some of his cynicism.
He was tearfully, almost embarrassingly eager to serve, and the
difference between the way he managed himself then and now defied
the language when they tried to explain it. Yes, he was willing and
eager before. But it always seemed that he was doing things because
he wanted something in return—they were all means to an
end.

Now, he seemed to take joy
in doing anything from clearing the table to sitting on the floor
studying while Alex wrote, or taking a message to Jack from
Grendel.

Rachel tried out the new
Brian and pronounced him a major improvement on the old. One rainy
afternoon, she took him and Claudia into Grendel’s workshop and put
them both through their paces, directing them to make love to each
other for her amusement, and then to her for her satisfaction, and
then back to each other just to see how far they could go. As a
consequence, a lot of work didn’t get done that day, and Chris’s
strap was busy that night, but no one regretted it.