The Flesh Cartel (9 page)

But he didn’t.

And for a time, Nikolai took advantage of that fact, basking in the sight of his boy toiling for him, working so hard to earn his pleasure, moaning and arching and fighting so valiantly against his own exhaustion and his base need to climax. It wasn’t just enjoyable to watch, it was downright intoxicating. There was nothing like this, nothing like this power. This power to give and withhold pleasure, this power of watching a man bend his will to your own, all in a desperate bid for a scrap of your approval.

And just now, Nikolai approved wholeheartedly. He ached to draw the scene out longer, keep his boy on the edge until his needy, pleading whimpers filled the whole house, but even he had to admit that Douglas had given enough today. If he pushed the boy any harder, he’d fail through sheer exhaustion, and that would be just as much Nikolai’s fault as Douglas’s.

Time to let this end, then.

“You can come whenever you’re ready Douglas. Your master gives you permission.”

Two strokes after that, and Douglas was done, coating the inside of Nikolai’s palm and sobbing with pleasure as he rode out his orgasm.

Or
was
it pleasure? Nikolai withdrew his hand from the boy’s clenching asshole, grabbed his shoulder, and turned him. Tears streaked his face, big fat ones, and snot ran down from his nose. Nikolai’s first urge was to slap the boy—he’d said no more crying, said it
twice
—but there was clearly something more at play here, and until he knew exactly what it was, he’d be a fool to act in haste. So he withdrew the plug and offered up his hand to be cleaned. Douglas cried the whole way through licking up his own hard-won cum.

“Tell me,” Nikolai said, softly, and combed his newly clean hand through the boy’s hair.

Douglas hiccupped in reply. Shook his head. “Nothing, sir, it’s nothing. I’m just tired.”

“You’re lying, Douglas,” Nikolai said flatly, and didn’t even bother to voice a threat. The boy shuddered at the tone, or perhaps the naked truth of Nikolai’s words. Clearly terrified, yet he gave no answer to the accusation, just shook his head slowly as if to himself. Nikolai began a silent ten-count; if the boy took longer than that to resolve the battle in his head, Nikolai would put violent end to it himself.

Eight seconds later, Douglas finally choked out, “I’m scared, sir. I—I’m so,
so
scared.”

Nikolai nearly struck the boy anyway, tired of all that
whining
that unbroken slaves felt so entitled to. But then Douglas added, “I’m scared I’ll never be happy, sir. Y-you were so good to me today and you’ve
been
there for me and you’ve never lied to me and I can see how you feel about me, sir, you m-make me feel so
special
and for a minute there I thought it would all be okay, you know? But then . . .” He crumpled forward, fell prey to his tears, sobbing and hiccupping too hard to speak, though it seemed he was trying. Nikolai tucked Douglas’s face to his chest, rubbed soothing circles on the boy’s back, and waited with much more patience than he’d felt a moment ago. Douglas wasn’t complaining after all; he was baring the wounds of his soul. These things took time. Nikolai understood.

“And then?” he prompted gently when Douglas’s sobbing eased.

Douglas disengaged from Nikolai’s arms and met his gaze, eyes swollen and streaming and shining with fear. “A-and then it wasn’t okay and I . . . I’m scared I’ll never . . .” He broke eye contact and mumbled into his lap, “I’ll never l-love you the way I want to.”

The way I want to.

Nikolai gathered him up into his arms again and kissed his face, gentle, sweet kisses as he laid them down together in bed, Douglas cradled shivering and sniffling like a child against Nikolai’s shirt. “Shhh,” Nikolai murmured. “You will, Douglas. I promise you will. We don’t learn to love overnight. But soon—you’ll see. Soon.”

Douglas shoved away—Nikolai was so shocked by the sudden vehemence that he let go—and shouted, “You keep
saying
that! You keep—” He sat up and tore a hand through his hair, looking vaguely horrified by what was spilling from his mouth but too angry to care. Nikolai couldn’t decide if the fury was a step forward or a step backward from the hopeless despair it had followed. “You keep saying be patient, wait, it’ll happen soon, but it’s not . . .” Both hands now, shoving the hair from his face, clenching at the crown of his head. He squeezed his eyes shut, sending tears down his cheeks; he did not, Nikolai noted, move out of arm’s reach. “It’s not
working
! How long am I supposed to just . . . to
trust
you? To
kid
myself? I can’t! I
can’t
. . .”

Nikolai sat too and took hold of Dougie’s forearms, tugging gently until the boy stopped trying to rip his hair from his scalp and allowed Nikolai to hold his hands. He wouldn’t meet Nikolai’s eyes, but clearly now was not the time to force the issue. To force
any
issue but the matter of trust, which could not be had by force in any case. “Listen to me, Douglas.” The boy sniffled, breath hitching, and Nikolai felt his attention upon him. “I know how this seems to you. How it feels like we’ve made no progress. And I’m sorry I can’t push things along any faster, but this is delicate work, you know that—you of all people know that.”

The boy sniffled again, nodded, gaze still cast to his lap. A tear dripped from his chin and splashed onto his knee.

“But look at us. Look at where we are. At where
you
are. Expressing your fears not with anger toward the goal but with anger toward
failure
to reach it. Do you see how momentous that truly is? How far that means you’ve come?”

Another sniffle, but accompanied this time by an upward glance, a momentary locking of gazes. The hesitant beginnings of understanding bloomed in those tear-stained eyes. Nikolai resisted the urge to fill the silence, and instead simply let the boy process, stroking his wrists as the tension slowly leeched from his shoulders.

At long last, the boy nodded his reluctant acceptance.

“Good, that’s very good, Douglas.” Nikolai lay back down, pulled Douglas along with gentle tugs on his wrists, tucked him back against his chest. No resistance at all anymore; the boy went where he was placed. “Now rest, and know that I’ll be here watching over you, and taking care of you. I won’t let you be unhappy forever, Douglas, I promise.”

Douglas sobbed afresh and wrapped both hands around Nikolai’s forearms, holding him close. No telling if the boy believed Nikolai’s promise, but it was clear he wanted to, and that . . . well,
that
Nikolai could work with.

Mat had been a fighter long enough to know that bruises faded and fractures knitted back together, but some injuries never went away. Like brain damage that got worse and worse and worse until there was nothing left of you but a shell.

And this pain? The one he was feeling now? Was the kind that festered and grew by torturous inches until it killed you.

Well, fuck that. Because Mat didn’t have to stick around for it. He was a monster anyway; the world would be better off without him.
Dougie
would be better off without him. At least then Nikolai couldn’t trick him into hurting Dougie anymore.

He opened his eyes and turned his face away from his pillow for the first time in what felt like weeks.

Couldn’t
be
weeks, though, because he wasn’t dead of starvation yet.

A tray sat on the mattress beside him. Toast. Broth. Bland food meant not to upset a long-empty stomach.

He pushed it to the floor. Let it clang and splatter. Roger would come in and clean it later—had done it a dozen times before. The fact that Mat couldn’t bring himself to care enough about making the poor SOB clean up unnecessary messes to actually stop making them in the first place was just one more sign of what a terrible person he’d become. How
useless
he’d become. How callous and empty and awful.

He couldn’t understand why Nikolai wasn’t punishing him for it. Wished he would. Maybe then he’d feel better after. Maybe even during, if it would take his mind off the betrayal in his brother’s eyes, the hurt he’d let happen, the screams he hadn’t lifted a finger to end, even for a single second. Better the serum than the knowledge of what he’d done to the one person left in this life who’d loved him. Who’d trusted him. Whose heart he’d snapped clean in two.

But no. Only one thing would put a stop to that particular highlights reel.

Lifting himself up onto his elbows made his arms shake with exertion, and actually sitting up and getting his feet on the floor was even worse. But he was determined, and
nothing
stopped him when he was determined. Bracing himself on the wall, he stood, and stumbled to his exercise shorts hanging over the handrail of his treadmill. Gritted his teeth and pulled them on. He wasn’t going to do this nude. Roger wasn’t going to find him naked. That was the best he could hope for now.

The jump rope, next. The heavy leather one.

He wondered why he’d never thought of this before, why he’d spent all this time fantasizing about fucking safety razors and self-starvation. Maybe because he hadn’t ever
wanted
it this much before. His shaking hands made tying the knots particularly difficult, but he managed it somehow.

He threw the noose over the chin-up bar and thought,
Good-bye, cruel world.
Then snorted—truer words, etc. etc.—and forced trembling fingers to tie the final knot.

There was that determination, again. Too bad he couldn’t apply it to getting himself the fuck out of here.

Well, he supposed he was, in a way. Just not the exit he’d been hoping to make.

Oh well.

www.riptidepublishing.com/titles/flesh-cartel-8-loyalties

Bookended

Giving an Inch (Professor’s Rule, #1), with Amelia Gormley

Apple Polisher (Rear Entrance Video, #1)

With Violetta Vane
:

Mark of the Gladiator

Galway Bound

The Druid Stone

The War at the End of the World

Hawaiian Gothic

“Salting the Earth,” a short story in the anthology Like It or Not