The Flesh Cartel #2: Auction

Arms above his head and still unconscious, he dangled, all his weight yanking down on his battered wrists.
    Madame signaled to one of the stagehands waiting in the wings, and the man nodded and disappeared and came back a moment later with a wheeled cart draped in a sheet. Dougie stared at it, helpless, horrified, mind spinning wilder and wilder pictures of what might be under there, what they would do with it, do to Mat . . .
He squeezed his eyes closed and choked back a sob. Upstage, the men Mat had beaten were picking themselves up off the floor. Madame had passed them off as audience members for some reason, but Dougie knew better, had recognized them as guards from the day shift despite the masks. He knew full well what they were capable of.
    Madame ignored them in favor of Dougie. She draped a hand on his shoulder, nodded to the guard clutching 55
    Dougie’s collar. The man let go. It burned him how confident she was that he wouldn’t try to run, try to hurt her, try . . .
    fuck, who knew. Be more like his brother, maybe. But no, all that’d gotten Mat—rousing now, for better or worse— was tased and hung from shackles. It hadn’t gotten him any closer to free.
    It had gotten those men off Dougie, though. And a hug—it’d gotten them that precious, stolen moment together. Maybe, to Mat, that was worth it. But Dougie would’ve rather not seen him at all than seen him suffering like that on Dougie’s behalf.
    Besides, what if it was their last moment together ever again?
    Madame, hand curled around the back of Dougie’s neck, led him over to the covered cart, now parked just a foot from the chains where Mat hung. Mat lifted his head, caught Dougie’s gaze. Tried to stand, couldn’t. Tried again. His hands were fisted, fresh blood trickling down his forearms from under the shackles. He finally found his feet at the same moment Madame pulled the sheet from the cart with a flourish.
A flogger. A cane. A heavy leather strap. A studded paddle. A metal . . . plug, maybe, that looked like a fucking pear of anguish, right out of a medieval torture chamber. A battery hooked up to alligator clamps.
Madame massaged his shoulder as he took it all in. “Do you understand why I’m showing you this, boy?” she asked at full volume, obviously for the crowd’s enjoyment. “Can you tell our guests in the back what you’re looking at?” Dougie gulped. “They’re . . . they’re th-things . . . things you use to hurt people.”
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    From the corner of his eye, he saw Mat’s head turn sluggishly toward the cart, jaw set, eyes shuttered. Madame’s hand squeezed Dougie’s shoulder. “Very good, dear. Who are they for?”

    “Him.” Dougie swallowed hard and gestured to Mat with his chin. He wasn’t sure if he should say Mat’s name.
    Wasn’t sure if he could stand to. He didn’t deserve to. “Yes, him. Why?” “Because . . .” He knew what she wanted to hear. Knew what he was supposed to say. Be a good pet. Let them all know what a well-behaved little hole you are. Maybe he
    could still redeem them both. Fulfill his promise. “Because he deserves to be punished, Madame.”
    “ Very good. Now choose one to punish him with.” Murmurs from the crowd, so strange behind those unmoving masks. Dougie practically sagged with relief— choose one , she’d said; they wouldn’t use them all. Except . . . which one? Surely this was another test. In the dead quiet of his indecision, Madame leaned in,
    whispered low, private, just for him. “Remember your promise, little hole. Do you want to see him ever again?” Dougie quaked beneath her hand, her breath caressing his ear. “Choose wisely, boy.”
    The battery, then. It looked like the worst of them by far. Dougie lifted a shaking hand, started to point to it— Pulled his hand back. He couldn’t do that to Mat.
    Couldn’t . And what if he didn’t need to? What if the cane was enough? Or the strap? Or . . . fuck, he had no idea how to rate these on a scale of bad to worse. The battery seemed like the only obvious standout. The expanding plug, maybe? It might not hurt as much as the other things, but surely the humiliation factor had to count for something.
    57 And from the looks of it, it’d expand out easily as wide as a fist, probably two. Dougie had enough experience in that
    department by now to know exactly how much just two cocks could hurt, and a fist was so much bigger.
    Mat couldn’t take any more electricity. What if the battery killed him?