Flesh Cartel, #8: Loyalties

you.
    He didn’t mean that, not really. Couldn’t have meant that. Enough of me for today , maybe, but . . . not . . . not forever , right?
    Right?
    Great, now he was crying. He didn’t want to cry in front of Jeremy.
    Too late, he was already in the kitchen. Jeremy gave him a quirked eyebrow and a cruel sneer. “Learn your place in the world, new favorite? You’ll get used to licking Roger’s ass eventually.” He pointed at the sink. “Dishes.”
    Dougie went to them, shocked at the huge stack that had swallowed up the entire counter.
    “Got a lot of guys to feed. Guards. Staff. Others like us. Your fucking brother with his ten-page list of nutritional requirements.”
    Dougie nudged the tap with his wrist to get hot water going and hit the automatic soap dispenser. “Others like us.” He’d never seen anyone else around the house. Not even guards, not since he’d been brought here. “How many?” He didn’t know why he was making small talk with Jeremy, seeing as Jeremy was a fucking asshole and he was still on the verge of tears, but then, maybe that was exactly why. He could trust Jeremy not to mince words.
    Jeremy shrugged, whisking at something in a big mixing bowl. “Maybe a dozen buybacks. He picks up one a year or so, his old favorites, when their masters get tired of them. Most of them work the grounds, don’t stay in the house. Master’s got over a thousand acres to maintain, after all, even if most of it’s forest.” He put down the bowl, grabbed a smaller one with dry ingredients and started folding them together, one eyebrow raised at Dougie. Dougie took the hint and grabbed a pot to scrub. “But there’s me in here, of course. And Tim, who cleans the place, though the guy’s like a fucking ghost. And Roger. Roger was the first, you know. First one Sir ever trained without Master Edgar’s help, that’s why he’s so fucking spoiled. Not that I’m jealous of him today, though.” A low whistle. No mistaking what that was about. The bruises, of course.
    “Do you mean to tell me you were ever a favorite of his?”
    Jeremy laughed. “Smartass fucking kid, I should kick that big plug up your ass, see if I can get it to pop out your mouth like a Pez dispenser. But no, I was no fucking favorite. Not as a slave, anyway. Just as a cook. My parents died when I was thirteen, fourteen? I got put in this shit-fuck boys’ home with some pervert director. Ran away, got a job as a busboy, then as a potato peeler, and on up to cook until suddenly some asshole was hitting me with a Taser and lugging me off to some torture cell to get my ass raped some more.”
    An orphan in the system.
    “And then Nikolai bought you? At an auction?” Dougie was beginning to piece together the story. The details varied, but the plot was always the same. Little Orphan Assrape.
    “Nikolai saved me. Trained me in this very house, then sent me on and I thought I’d rather fucking die, but after eight years of misery—my new master never let me cook, didn’t buy me for that, you see—I was back home again with Nikolai.” Jeremy’s gaze went misty, and then snapped back again. Whatever ingredients he was folding, he was apparently happy with it, because he clattered around a cabinet full of baking pans for a moment and then pulled one out, started pouring the batter into it. “I was lucky. You might not be. Nikolai does the whole buyback thing because he’s a sentimental fuck, for all of his master-of-the-universe talk, but sometimes he doesn’t get to us in time. And plenty of us just plain aren’t worthy enough of his attention, not even after he’s finished training them. The guy leaving as I was coming in, I never saw him again. I imagine his body got dumped for a John Doe in some fucking river, or maybe he’s still making his master happy, who knows.” He scraped out the bowl, then pointed his spatula at Dougie. “You—you I expect to see again. That is . . .” He shrugged, dumped the bowl on Dougie’s heap of dishes left to do, “if you don’t fuck this up. You’ve got a good thing going here, kid. Got the master’s eye. Don’t ruin it by acting like some spoiled two-year-old who throws a tantrum every time daddy spends the day with his older brother. Cos daddy don’t put up with bullshit like that. He’ll spank your ass and send you away. I’m sure after a few years in the system, you know all about getting sent away, don’t ya, kid?”
    The corner of Dougie’s mouth trembled.