Flesh Cartel, #8: Loyalties

clenched. Why the hell couldn’t he get this damn pot clean? Why couldn’t he do this one simple fucking thing?
    A hand fell on his shoulder, gently cupping it. “Hello, Douglas.”
    Oh Master, thank you. Dougie wanted to fall to his knees at Nikolai’s feet and just cry and cry and cry, beg Nikolai to forgive him, to let him stay, to love him like he loved these other men, and if he could have that, God, he’d be good, he’d be so good, he’d do anything, he’d let Nikolai beat him every day. “Hello, sir,” he finally choked out, his voice rough with unshed tears.
    “How are you feeling now, Douglas?”
    Like I’m afraid you’ll send me away. Like I don’t want to go.
    Like I love you so much, but I don’t know if you really love me back.
    Like I don’t know where I stand.
    “Like I don’t know what I mean to you, sir.” He braced himself for a swift punishment, a kick or a slap—what he meant to Nikolai was none of his damn business, and of no import besides—but it never came. The absence fucking hurt . “And I’m just . . . I know I can’t ask anything of you, and that this isn’t the kind of relationship where I ask you to tell me you love me and we can’t go steady like teenagers and I guess I’m just confused, sir.”
    “But you know your place.”
    “A slave, sir. I’m nothing, sir.” And why did admitting it hurt now, instead of filling him with that calm peace and acceptance he kept grasping and losing again? Damn it, he wanted what Roger had, what even Jeremy somehow fucking had.
    “That’s right. Whose slave are you, Douglas?”
    I don’t know. I just don’t know. Yours, temporarily, and then?
    “I want to be yours, sir.”
    “So why don’t you know what you mean to me? Why are you confused?”
    His hands stilled in their scrubbing, and he itched with the urge to turn around, to confront Nikolai head on with his answer. “Because,” he said, and this, surely this would get a rise, a punishment, a beating, painful in its truth as it was. “Because you tell me you love me in one breath and talk about selling me in the next!”
    No punishment came. Again. Just a breath on his ear, a warmth against his back, a hand lightly pressing on his throat from behind, threatening to choke him. “You think too much, Douglas. You say you know your place, but you don’t. It’s not your place to worry about the future, and it’s not your place to ask questions, and it’s not your place to wonder about your place. In the world. In this house. In my heart. Your place is just. To. Accept.” The hand on Dougie’s throat tightened, and his mouth fell open, trying to pull in air that just wouldn’t come. “If only there was a way for me to remind you. An easy way to put your restless mind at ease, to express to you in no uncertain terms that you are mine, and that your body and your fate are all mine, and all you need do is . . .” The lack of air was starting to hurt, to burn, and now there was another hand sliding down Dougie’s side, down to cup Dougie’s ass, weighing the flesh in a thoughtful palm. “Accept.”
    Punish me.
    A reminder that he was Nikolai’s, that Nikolai owned his body and his mind, and that he would gladly give: even things he didn’t want to give, even things he was afraid to give, even things that were unpleasant to give. The same way Jeremy and Roger and all the others had gone to their new masters, given up their happiness and their security with Nikolai, because that was their fate, because that was what Nikolai chose, and all they had to do was trust in his wisdom and know that he would one day bring them home.
    Punish me and bring me home.
    My body, my life, my sex, my pain. Let me give myself to you.
    When he tried to speak it, only a strange whistle came out.
    “What was that?” Nikolai said sweetly, crushing Dougie’s windpipe one last time and then the hand was gone and Dougie was gulping down air, burning air that made spots like soap bubbles pop in front of his eyes.
    “Punish me,” Dougie croaked. “Punish me, sir. Hurt me like you hurt Roger. I can take it, sir. I deserve it. I want to give it to you.”
    “Good boy,” Nikolai said, and ripped the plug from Dougie’s ass.
    Dougie was a good boy. A very good boy: he’d chosen just the right plug, big enough that Nikolai didn’t need to prepare him but small enough that it still burned and stretched when Nikolai’s erection claimed his ass.
    Dougie was a good boy. He gave his