The Flesh Cartel #5: Wins and Losses

should’ve. Every-fucking-thing else was slipping away here, so losing his situational awareness hardly rated. Maybe that was for the best. Who knew what he’d do to whoever brought his food, if he saw them. What he’d beg to have done to him.
    He should eat. He wasn’t hungry, but he should eat. If he let himself get weak or dehydrated, it would only make things worse. He needed to be strong. Not let Nikolai beat him at this. Be strong for Mat. Prove . . . prove what, exactly? Something. Something to Mat. That he could be strong too. That he really wasn’t the revolting, sniveling little creature Mat had seen him as since they’d been taken.
    Eat. Get up. Table. Food.
He struggled to his knees, balls hanging unbearably hot and heavy and sensitive between his legs. Tried to shuffle to the edge of the bed without touching his thighs together, without accidentally brushing his nuts. Impossible. The chain on his nipples, which had seemed so delicate before, felt as if it weighed a hundred pounds, swinging pendulously underneath him as he crawled. And of course there was the plug, in this position angling into him like a man fucking him from behind, and God, he wished it were a man, because then it could be over soon, the man could fuck him and pump him full of cum and let him come, and he’d happily clean the taste of his own ass off the guy’s cock if it would mean a little rest, a little sleep without dreams or pain or weird wet spots, a chance to move without feeling that fucking thing so fat and rigid inside him, buzzing endlessly, shaking him to fucking pieces.
Stop thinking so fucking much. Get up. Eat.
Standing, walking seemed impossible. He swallowed a sob and crawled. Pathetic, but at least there was no one here to see him. At least he was moving. He pulled himself up by the chair, the lip of the table. No way could he sit. He fumbled the tray onto the floor instead, spilling the glass of orange juice. No napkin on the tray. Toilet paper in the bathroom might as well have been six states away. Couldn’t clean the mess.
I’ll be punished for that.
The thought was too horrible to entertain. No, he could fix it. He could fix it like it’d never happened. Yes. He lurched forward until his nose was touching the puddle and started to lap the juice up with his tongue. Sweet, sharp, still cold, and for all that he’d had no appetite, this bright burst of flavor was almost worth licking the floor for. Good dog. Good dog. Good dog. Good dog.
Another nudge against his prostate, which—God—felt fucking bigger somehow, swollen, tender, just like his balls, his ass, his nipples, his brain. Another hot throbbing pain flared in his balls, behind his dick, everywhere.
“I should make you clean your sheets, too,” a voice said from behind him.
Nikolai.
Dougie cowered, curling in on himself like the dog he was.
Nikolai crouched down beside him, stroked a hand down his trembling flank. “There now,” he said, painfully gentle. “Don’t be afraid. I’m not here to hurt you, you know that. I’m here to help you. All I want is to make you feel better, Douglas.”
You’re the one making me feel this terrible in the first place.
No, I am, because I won’t fucking give in to you, even though what you’re asking from me isn’t that bad.
No, Mat is, because he won’t let me give in to you, even if it saves me this pain.
“Please make it stop,” he moaned, barely able to form the words.
The hand on his flank stroked up to his shoulder, curled there, tugged insistently. Before he’d registered he was moving, Dougie found himself curled across Nikolai’s lap, damp face pressed into a fine cotton shirt, arms around Nikolai’s waist, Nikolai cradling him like a frightened child.
“I can’t,” Nikolai said, petting his hair, shushing him as he cried. “Only you can do that for yourself. You know that.”
Dougie shook his head, smearing wetness across Nikolai’s expensive shirt. Nikolai didn’t seem to mind. Why wasn’t he angry about that?
“I know it’s hard, Douglas. I know exactly how very, very hard it is. I was like you once, you know. A young orphaned boy, all alone, afraid, no one to love me but a man I hardly knew, a man who frightened me terribly. But he only ever wanted to help me, to care for me, to love me and teach me and prepare me for the world. All I had to do was trust him. Can you trust me, Douglas? Will you let me take care of you? Let me prepare you for the world? Let me love