The Flesh Cartel #9: Trials and Errors

and a moment later they were jamming the plug up inside him with so much force that the table lurched across the floor. Mat screamed, pride be damned, clutched at the table’s edge with both hands and thumped his forehead against its surface, hard, over and over as the pain built and built beneath Nikolai’s relentless pushing.
    Well, at least he’s having trouble with it too.
    But Nikolai had far more strength and stamina than Mat did just now, and after a few more rough thrusts and jabs and ripped-out screams, the fucking thing finally, finally slid home.
    Not that it was much improvement, as it turned out. He was beyond full, felt like he had to shit and piss and throw up all at once.
    “Now, wasn’t that so much better than living by your foolish pride?” Nikolai asked with a fatherly pat on Mat’s sweaty, raised ass.
    Mat dragged his nails across the table and balled his hands into fists. “Yes, sir,” he said through clenched teeth, hoping Nikolai would read his tone as pain instead of fury. “Thank you, sir.”
    “Stay,” Nikolai said, and then went to rummage in the case again. It was on the side Mat wasn’t facing, and he couldn’t be bothered to turn his head to look. Didn’t want to know. He heard Nikolai place something on the table. Then Nikolai was jiggling the flare of the plug, and Mat whimpered. For all the pain he was in, the fucking thing was so big it couldn’t help but stimulate his prostate. He was half-hard against the table edge. Fucking mortifying. At least Nikolai wasn’t providing any of his usual commentary.
    “Sit.”
    “What am I, a dog?” Mat bit out as he fell into the chair Nikolai had pulled out for him, then yelped as the plug drove in deeper on impact.
    “I wouldn’t do this to my dog.” Nikolai reached between Mat’s legs, and Mat flinched back, unable to stop it. But Nikolai wasn’t going for his junk, he was going for . . . wires?
    Oh, shit. The blood left his face so fast he could feel it draining.
    “What, no more sarcastic remarks?” Nikolai found the ends of the two leads, plugged them into the little black box he’d placed on the table. The one with the dial turned all the way up to ten and an ominous red button. “Finally remembered your place, did you?”
    “Yes, sir,” Mat said, because he did not like where this was going. He curled his fingers around the edges of his chair, ass spasming around the plug. Those silver stripes on it, they weren’t for decoration, they were metal . And that weird lube wasn’t lube, was it. Some kind of conductive gel, probably. God, who manufactured this shit? What the fuck for ?
    Hell, maybe this whole human slave operation was big enough that they made their own tools. What a nightmarish thought.
    Doesn’t mean I can’t still bring it down. Get out of here, shove this thing up Nikolai’s ass until he spills every name he knows, and then kill every single one. Just get through this. Get through this. Fix your fucking mistakes.
    “Give me your hand.”
    It took all the willpower Mat had not to spit in his palm first, but he managed it. Gave Nikolai his left, just in case the fucker planned to break it or something. Not that he really thought he would, but it wasn’t a chance he was prepared to take.
    Nikolai folded Mat’s fingers down until only his index finger was still extended. “Here’s how this is going to work, Mathias.” He moved Mat’s hand until his finger was touching the red button. “You’re going to push this button. While this unit can be used to create some rather remarkably pleasurable sensations, I think you’ll find that not to be the case at this particular setting. You will thank me for it anyway— Thank you for correcting me, master . Go on, practice. Say it.”
    In the face of such unbearable smugness, it was hard to remember why he was bothering with any of this. But then he thought of Roger, of that terrible beating he’d endured for Mat’s choices, and of Dougie, who was maybe already more like the man Roger had become than the boy Mat knew, and he smiled up at Nikolai saccharine-sweet and said, “Thank you for correcting me, master.”
    There was nothing but hatred in Nikolai’s eyes. Or maybe anger, but the guy was too in control of his emotions to flip out and yell and whale on Mat. There was something boiling under the surface, though, something that made his jaw twitch and fine lines appear between his brows.
    “You will do this fifty times—I think