The Flesh Cartel #2: Auction

cheek and chin, and if Mat was still in pain, it didn’t show on his face.
    Dougie realized he was tugging at his restraints, and forced himself to relax back into his chair. Nobody was paying attention to him anymore. That was good, that was the best he could ever hope for in this place. He tried to make himself small and quiet and kept his eyes on his brother, who still had a gauze pad held to his forehead while someone trimmed his nails and changed the bandages on his wrists.
    The door to the—what, salon? —opened and Dougie shifted his gaze without moving his head, assessing the new threat. The doctor, holding the door open for that woman from the first day, the one who’d almost killed them outside the van, who’d forced Mat to— Who’d tried to make Dougie— Fuck. He couldn’t even say it in his own head.
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    And oh God, she was coming straight for him. “Is this one done?” she asked the assistant, waving a casual hand in his direction.
    “Yes, Madame.” “Get him up, let me see.”
    Suddenly it was like processing all over again, like when he’d been forced to pose for those awful pictures. Except it wasn’t just Turn left or Smile or Bend over, show me that hole ; she was touching him, too, shoving her fingers in his mouth, weighing his cock and balls in her hand, spreading his ass cheeks and prodding at his hole. She made a humming noise that Dougie thought seemed pleased, but when she spoke, it was with almost painful indifference. “He’ll do,”
    she said. “Collar him and make sure he’s ready to go. One of the attractive collars, if you would. And don’t let anyone touch him.”
“Yes, Madame,” someone said, and he was strapped into the chair again to wait while the woman who’d cut his hair unlocked a nearby cabinet and started rummaging through it. While he waited, Dougie craned around to see how Mat was. Still drugged to the gills, by the looks of it. The doctor was bent over him, putting stitches in his eyebrow. Three stiff black knots. He poked through a fourth while Dougie watched. Mat’s fingers were curled tight around the armrests he was strapped to, but he didn’t move. The woman came up beside Mat, rasped a finger across the light stubble they’d left on his cheek, the heavier stubble they’d left on his head. He looked wiry and mean, fighting fit despite all he’d been through, down to peak weight and rippling with muscle. All the cuts and bruises—and especially the one they’d just made and sewn up—only 33 served to highlight the effect: I’m a badass motherfucker, don’t cross me.
By comparison, they’d made Dougie softer and sweeter and more delicate, like something to be handled very carefully. And if the woman’s orders were anything to go by, he actually was going to be handled delicately. For now, at least.Both of them had been exaggerated to some strange sexual extreme. Two poles of the same miserable planet.
    Dougie’s attention snapped back to the present when someone fastened something around his neck. Tight, like a choker, but not digging in. Cold, delicate. His hands were untied, so he touched fingers to it, traced some kind of woven chain, heavier than a necklace. At the center was a little round disc hanging off a loop, like a tag on a dog collar, stamped with what felt like one long word. He couldn’t see it, but he’d bet anything it was the number designation the doctor had assigned him at processing. Someone was fitting a collar around Mat’s neck as well.
    Literally a collar—a choke chain, like you’d put on a savage dog. They clipped a little ring to one link to stop it from getting too loose, but it could still be pulled tight. A steel disc hung from his collar as well, an inch across, presumably stamped with his designation too.
    Madame slipped a finger through the ring on the end of the chain and yanked it until Mat’s mouth fell open, hands straining against his bindings. “And this one?” she said. “Is he done?”
“Just as you requested, Madame.”
    She indicated the straps on his wrists with a careless wave. “Will he bite?”
    “We can gag him, Madame.” 34 “No. Let him speak. Stand him up.”
    Mat flopped bonelessly as they unbound him, but for just a fraction of a second, he met Dougie’s eyes, and Dougie saw clarity there. The drug must’ve been wearing off. Which meant he was faking that jointless sprawl, faking his weakness as two guards hauled him to his feet and held him there while Madame