The Flesh Cartel - Episode #7: Homecoming

discuss this. Tell me, how did seeing my gift for the first time make you feel? Be honest, Douglas. You won’t be punished for honesty, not with me.”
    Dougie leaned back into the hand at his neck and shut his eyes before saying, “Confused, sir.”
    Nikolai rewarded Douglas’s unconscious quest for contact, affirmation, with stroking fingers, gentling up and down his nape. “And then?”
    Douglas’s brow furrowed, eyes still closed. “Unhappy. I didn’t want . . . I don’t want to wear pink lace panties.”
    More stroking across the boy’s nape. I’m not punishing you. I’m keeping my promise. “Even if it pleases me?”
    The furrow at Douglas’s brow deepened, and even his mouth twisted down this time. Not distaste, just concern, perhaps a touch of fear. “I want to want to please you, sir, even if it means . . .” He opened his eyes, nodded toward the panties. “And I know you keep saying to be patient, it’ll happen, but . . .” He picked up the panties, fussed at them with thumb and forefinger. “But, honestly, when I put these on, it’ll be because . . . because . . .” He dropped his gaze to the panties, eyes following the motion of his nervous fingers.
    When he said nothing more, Nikolai gave his neck a gentle squeeze, scratched lightly at his scalp—a soothing gesture he’d learned this past week that the boy loved. “Because?”
    “Because I don’t want you to be mad at me, sir,” he mumbled to the panties. “I don’t want . . . consequences. But more than that, I . . .”
    “Yes?”
    “I like how nice you’ve been lately, sir. And I don’t want it to stop. I don’t want you to . . .” He squirmed.
    “To leave you alone, Douglas?”
    The boy nodded, blushing fiercely.
    “I won’t. I gave you my word. Haven’t I shown you that much?” The boy said nothing, and Nikolai knew he was thinking of his parents, his foster parents, his brother. He cupped Douglas’s chin, lifted his head until their eyes met. “What you do or don’t do won’t change how I feel about you, Douglas. I’ll never abandon you, and I’ll never stop caring for you, even when I’m cross with you and have to punish you. Love and discipline go hand in hand.” Still the boy remained quiet, worrying the panties between his fingers like a rosary. “But I’d not care to punish you, Douglas. Will you put those on for me? Not out of fear or worry, but because pleasing me pleases you. Because pleasing your master pleases you. Or at the very least because you want that to be the way of things, even if you don’t feel it in your heart yet.”
    Douglas nodded, and stood, and made to step into the panties. Nikolai stilled him with a hand to his shoulder. Said, “That’s very good, Douglas, you’ve pleased me,” when the boy looked up, startled. “And when we’re done with the afternoon’s lessons, when you’ve served me to satisfaction, I’d like to show you pleasure in turn.”
    Douglas barely registered the promise of reward. “This isn’t the lesson now, sir?”
    “No, Douglas. Just one part of it. But you’ve done so well so far and I have full faith that you’ll continue to do well. I don’t want you feeling so much as a moment’s discomfort when the time comes for me to give you the rewards you will no doubt earn. I want you to be hungry for it. Begging for it. Knowing I’ll give you what you ask for because you’ve been such a good boy.”
    “Such a good boy . . .” Douglas echoed, as if in a trance. Nikolai couldn’t tell if he was trying to convince himself, or psych himself up, or push away the nerves, or something entirely different. He despised being uncertain, but it was hardly the boy’s fault and Nikolai would not take it out on him, not when he’d been so open and honest today.
    Instead, he stood, went to the drawer where he kept the plugs, and selected a slim curving one, perhaps two fingers wide, with a flush base that would nestle comfortably in the crack of the boy’s ass.
    “Come here,” he called, and Douglas obeyed, remembering to watch his posture, his stride. Very pleasing, the whole of it. Nikolai smiled. Held the plug up for Douglas to see. The boy blanched but didn’t try to move away. “There now. I know you’ve come to associate these with discomfort, but that needn’t be the case. Quite the opposite in fact. Come, spread your legs and I’ll show you.”
    Again Douglas obeyed without hesitation, draping his upper body over the bed and spreading