The Flesh Cartel - Episode #7: Homecoming

himself could not. There was no shame in that.
    If that rationale allowed him to indulge his growing affection for Douglas? Well. He was the master, after all.

Days passed. Nikolai slowly nursed Douglas back to health until he was able to get out of bed unassisted, until the bruises faded. He visited the boy daily, keeping training to a minimum. They ate together. Talked. Well, Douglas talked, mostly, and Nikolai listened. The boy always spoke softly, rarely making eye contact, but it seemed almost a compulsion for him, a purging of his prior life, as if by speaking of it he might hope to put it to rest.
    And so Nikolai let him speak of what he would, rarely steering the conversation. Mostly inane things, things he couldn’t even use in future training. But that was all right. They had all the time in the world, and not everything had to serve a purpose. He liked Douglas. He liked hearing about his family vacations, and the year he’d almost been held back for failing geometry, and how his father had sneakily taught him and Mathias basic math as children by playing penny poker with them every Saturday afternoon. How he looked forward to those games all week, even when they’d long outgrown their purpose. How they seemed like the only time Mathias ever sat still for longer than the span of a meal, how much that time had meant to Douglas.
    Other times, Nikolai had the boy read aloud to him, or give him massages—nothing sexual, nothing below the belt—or other assorted tasks associated with personal service. All useful skills, but all selected to be the least emotionally trying of exercises. Pleasant, small things they could both enjoy and that solidified the growing bond between them. He could see the boy trying so hard to feel during those tasks, to find the root of his own fondness and plant it firmly in this new soil. The boy offered his friendship like a flower he wasn’t sure how to keep alive. He knew it needed care he couldn’t manage on his own. Nikolai did his best to nurture it, to help it grow, counseling patience over and over, and promising a future filled with warmth and sunlight, and in exchange the boy was ever eager to please. It wasn’t love, not yet, not by a long shot. But the bud was there.
    And now that the boy was well enough again to smile and walk and feed himself, it was time to stretch the boundaries a little more. Combine a slightly more intensive training exercise with a memorable, worthwhile reward.
    He gathered up the shopping bag Roger had prepared and took it down to Douglas’s room. When he unlocked and opened the door, Douglas was stretched out on his belly on the bed, nose stuck in the book of poetry Nikolai had given him to memorize. Nikolai’s eyes lingered for a moment on the delicate curve of his ass, on one strong thigh. A runner’s legs, like his brother. He’d finally begun to fill out a little these past few days, soften a bit as he recovered from his earlier deprivation. The sight pleased Nikolai; very few, himself included, liked their boys quite so . . . stringy.
    “How go your lessons?” Nikolai asked, placing the shopping bag on the table by the door.
    Douglas startled, turned around, and slid to his knees on the floor. He must’ve been quite engrossed. And trustful. Only a boy who’d learned to shed his needless fear would miss the sound of his door opening. He opened his mouth, presumably to apologize, but then his eyes landed on Nikolai’s smile, and he said instead, in an uncertain, breathy rush:
    Being your slave, what should I do but tend,
    Upon the hours, and times of your desire?
    I have no precious time at all to spend;
    Nor services to do, till you require.
    He paused, blushing fiercely, eyes sliding from Nikolai’s mouth (curved now into a very firm smile, oh, his clever, clever boy!) to somewhere around Nikolai’s chest. Douglas’s fingers twitched on his thighs, and he cleared his throat, an oddly delicate sound, almost a nervous cough.
    “Please,” Nikolai prompted, as encouraging as he knew how to be. Douglas had chosen this sonnet for a reason. Nothing so apropos could possibly have been for Nikolai’s benefit alone; no, Douglas’s unconscious mind was seeking to make poetry of his own life—find beauty and meaning in his servitude—as surely as he was seeking to please Nikolai. “Continue.”
    Douglas nodded, pulled his gaze back up to Nikolai’s face, and held it there, their eyes locked. And this time when he began again,