The Flesh Cartel - Episode #7: Homecoming

pressed to his lips. Nikolai smiled; Dougie felt a warm little shiver travel down the back of his neck. That was good, right? He’d pleased him, and Nikolai’s pleasure had pleasured Dougie in return. A step in the right direction, surely. Maybe Dougie could do this after all.
    “Yes, brought to this very house, actually.” He speared a cube of cantaloupe and fed it to Dougie. “I was five. I came with my mother. Didn’t speak a word of English.”
    “Your mother?” It was hard to imagine Nikolai having parents like a normal person, even though it had to be true. This was the real world, even if it didn’t feel like it anymore; Nikolai hadn’t been decanted. He hadn’t risen fully formed from the shadows. He was . . . just a man. And all men had once been boys.
    “A miserable woman,” Nikolai said with a nod. “Until . . . Well. My mentor was her mentor as well. He took care of us both. Made us into our best possible selves.”
    Dougie nearly gagged on the bite of toast Nikolai was feeding him. A five-year-old ? Here? Being . . . Ugh. He shuddered, swallowed hard. No wonder Nikolai was—
    “You misunderstand, Douglas. I was like you, but not. I suppose I could have wound up a slave, had the dice rolled differently for me, but as it was, my mentor was a specialist, like I am now. He had no interest in training a child into service. He did, however, have great interest in raising an heir. I think sometimes perhaps that’s the only reason he acquired my mother at all.”
    Swallowing his toast became easier, but not by much. God, to be five years old and ripped from your world, from everything and everyone you knew. Well, not everyone—Nikolai had had his mother after all—but after how things had gone down with Dougie and Mat, Dougie wondered if maybe it was better to be alone. Nikolai had always been so sure of the fact that Dougie and Mat’s relationship couldn’t survive their training. Had he spoken from experience?
    “So, um, your . . .”
    “Mentor?” Another gentle smile, an arched eyebrow. Had Nikolai always looked so warm and inviting when he was happy? Had Dougie just failed to notice before? Or had he just not managed to make Nikolai happy before today? Nikolai didn’t say anything after that, merely sat there smiling, waiting for Dougie to finish.
    “Was he . . . I mean, was he very patient with you, sir?” Dougie didn’t know how else to phrase it. Being any more blunt when talking about a child—even a child who’d grown up to be Nikolai—made him want to be sick.
    Nikolai nodded. “Always. Though he wasn’t a man accustomed to repeating himself. Or dealing with children, I don’t think. When I refused to eat for a time, he grew very cross because he worried for me, you see. He didn’t want me to fall ill. I understand that now, training boys of my own. I know now, in my heart—” he flattened his hand to his chest, patted twice “—how wretched the worry can be. How deep one’s love can go. How very much you ache for the best in life for your boys. He no sooner wanted me to suffer than I want you to suffer. But, like any good guardian, he was unafraid to punish me to protect me from myself. And for a long time I couldn’t understand that. So I feared him. I even hated him. I tried to run away. I picked fights. I said terrible things.”
    Just like me with you. Dougie picked up his second slice of toast and ate it on his own. See? I can learn. I won’t make you worry about me.
    “I was a particularly terrible teenager,” Nikolai said, and Dougie surprised himself by laughing.
    “You don’t say. Me too.”
    Nikolai’s grin grew expansive, mischievous. “I ran away. Packed a bag, stole a credit card from his wallet, and hitched a ride into the city.”
    No way. “Me too! Well, except I stole forty-two dollars and eighteen cents and took a bus downtown.” Dougie chuckled, shook his head at the memory. God, what a hopeless idiot he’d been. “Mat found me four hours later, nursing a soda at the diner and working through my third plate of waffle fries.” His smile faded; he finished off his toast and took a long pull on his orange juice. He didn’t want to finish the story, didn’t want to think about how it ended, and yet now that he was talking, he just wanted to get it out. Like an exorcism. “He knew exactly where I’d go. I didn’t talk to him for like a month.”
    Strange, but reminiscing about Mat almost felt like reminiscing about his parents,