The Flesh Cartel - Episode #4: Consequences

technique or resistance. But at last Douglas ground out,
    “Yes, sir.”
    Nikolai smiled, tapped Roger once on the shoulder—his signal to rise. “Very good. Now then,
    finish your food. And then get some rest—in the bed, if you would. You must keep your strength up.
    You’ll need it for what’s to come.”

    He wasn’t going to sleep in the fucking bed.
    Grabbing one corner of the blanket, Douglas yanked it from its neat tuck around the mattress.
    Threw it around his shoulders. Realized this was the first time in more than a week that he wasn’t
    naked and pulled it closer. The first time he’d been warm, too. He pulled it up over his head, until
    only his face and fingers were showing.
    Much better.
    He considered the stripped bed again. Wasn’t sure why it horrified him so much; he’d been raped
    a hundred times in the past few weeks—on floors, in a van, on a table, on a fainting couch, even held
    aloft by several men—but never once in an actual bed. And yet the mere thought of climbing into it
    made him physically ill. The cage was just as bad, so he supposed it was back under the table again.
    But once he crawled under there, his decision to defy Nikolai would be made. There’d be no going
    back. Nikolai hadn’t hurt him yet—had in fact, strangely enough, been nothing but gentle with him,
    almost kind, if one didn’t count the as-good-as-rape blowjob (however ostensibly “willing” he’d
    been) and those awful, awful things Nikolai had said about his family. It sickened him to realize it, but in his heart, he wasn’t counting any of the shit Nikolai had done to hurt him. It seemed like nothing at all compared to what’d come before. Perfectly acceptable. Which frightened him even more than
    what Nikolai might do to him if he ever did disobey the man.
    So he puttered around the room, shielded by his blanket, trying to find something, anything , to keep him from needing to make a decision. His meal was gone, so that was no help. He finally wasn’t thirsty anymore, so he couldn’t kill time drinking. He’d already shaved and brushed his teeth, and a
    shower was still out of the question. But, hmm, hadn’t Nikolai told him to explore? He hadn’t really
    done that yet, had he? Would doing it now be disobeying Nikolai’s order to get some rest? And if so,
    would it be better or worse than disobeying Nikolai’s strongly worded suggestion to sleep in the bed?
    God, he just didn’t know.
    For a few minutes, at least, he resumed his fruitless search for hidden cameras, but once again
    found absolutely nothing. Not that he had any idea what he was actually looking for, unless you really
    could learn this kind of thing from old Bond films.
    Sean Connery would probably be handling this whole situation a hell of a lot better than he was.
    He wondered how Mat was handling it. Fighting. Nikolai had said he’d fought him at every turn.
    Dougie didn’t doubt that for a moment, which sadly made doubting other things Nikolai had said
    — he’d be disgusted by you —uncomfortably difficult. Equally uncomfortable was the thought that he half (okay, sometimes whole) wished Mat would stop fighting. Why fight a fight you couldn’t win?
    Sucking Nikolai off hadn’t been enjoyable, but it hadn’t been bad , and it could have been worse. So much worse.
    God, he really was a coward. No wonder Mat despised him.
    No. Mat didn’t despise him. Nikolai had only said he did. And surely he was lying. He was .
    He was probably lying about a lot of things. Intellectually, Dougie knew that. Knew the game
    Nikolai was playing. Knew how this worked—he’d studied the human psyche enough, read case
    studies about this very thing. Nikolai would isolate him physically and mentally, make a thousand

    little cracks in Dougie’s faith and relationships by feeding him doubts so close to the truth that they very well could be truth, and then wedge himself firmly inside those cracks via a volatile mix of kindness, understanding ( I’m just like you, Douglas, I know what you’re going through ), and
    brutality. He knew that. But he was also starting to understand, as those first cracks formed before his eyes ( Pattie had died far too young and far too stressed; Mike had moved away to start a new life without him; they both had been paid to keep him; Mat had given up his best shot at success to stay with Dougie; Dougie was a coward, while Mat was the strongest person he’d ever met ), that knowing wouldn’t save