The Slave Breakers, 10/15
Jul. 15th, 2007 09:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maculategiraffePrevious chapter
Bran couldn’t say he was sorry to see Valor go back to school for her exams, nor to hear that she planned to spend the first three weeks of her real holidays with a friend from school. He liked her well enough, but her quick mood swings made him extremely nervous; it was like having a reasonably friendly but not quite reliably tame tiger in the house. Her mood for the last few hours before Alix drove her to the train station had been foul; Bran had been shadowing Holden as closely as he dared to avoid finding himself alone with her, and he thought Yves had been doing the same, though he couldn’t be certain. Certainly the three of them were sequestered in the house’s small library, Holden and Yves reading from the same book (an appallingly cozy habit of theirs Bran had noticed before) and Bran curled on the floor at Holden’s feet, when Valor slammed the door of the house behind her, cutting off the sound of her shouting at Alix, something about the amount of luggage she’d brought home. Holden heard Bran’s tiny sigh of relief and grinned down at him.
“That’s my fault,” he said. “She’s in a snit because I told her she needs to grow up more before she owns anyone else. Oh, but Dad, all the other kids– as if she doesn’t know how well I know nobles buy kids for their kids without caring about the fallout.”
Bran glanced up at his master, thinking of Pavel, but Holden’s face showed only generic exasperation.
“Like my first master,” Yves said, nodding. “That was a really fun two years. After one stare of disbelief, I don't think he ever really looked at me again.”
“His loss, my gain,” said Holden, and kissed Yves on the nearest cheek. “If he’d ever looked at you I’d never have gotten hold of you.”
Yves smiled. “It’s hard to distract a teenager in love, even calf love. Especially calf love. That’s the hardest to shake. Anyway, if his father had paid any attention to his own son he would have known I wasn’t his taste. He liked them dark and languid.”
“Like Val,” said Holden absently.
Yves snorted. “Half right, master, but she’s only languid when she’s been fucking for sixteen hours straight.”
Bran laughed, and they both looked down at him in mild surprise.
“This boy,” said Holden to Yves, ruffling Bran’s hair. “Who would have thought.”
“He’s very resilient,” Yves concurred, smiling down at Bran. Bran looked down, blushing. “By the time Miss Valor gets back from her friend’s house, he might even be ready to take a little of the work load off my back. So to speak.”
Holden chuckled. “Maybe. Or maybe this Kit girl will be far enough along– Valor’s never shown much interest in girls, though, at least not yet. Though now that she’s going home for three weeks with this Lisa–“
“I think it’s just a friend, master,” said Yves. “Miss Valor likes to do a thing thoroughly– she probably won’t turn to women until she’s exhausted the possibilities of men.”
“Emphasis on exhausted,” said Holden. “Speaking of the possibilities of men, how would you feel about fucking Bran for me sometime soon? He’s been doing wonderfully with me, but I need to get him used to other people, too.”
“My pleasure,” said Yves, eyeing Bran with interest. “He looks a little alarmed at the prospect, though.”
“He’ll be fine. I’ll talk him through it. It’s nothing to worry about, Bran. I’ll be there the whole time.”
Bran relaxed slightly as Holden’s hand caressed his head again.
“Strictly in a supervisory capacity, of course,” Yves added, winking at Bran. “Not because he’ll enjoy watching, or anything.”
“Fuck off,” said Holden amiably. “Of course I’ll enjoy it. I’d have to be dead not to. I’m getting hard just thinking about it.”
“I might be able to help with that, master,” Yves purred, his voice dropping a register.
Feeling his master’s hand go still and slightly heavy on his head, Bran slowly tilted his head back so that the fingers slipped down over his face, kissing his master’s palm and then the tips of the fingers of his hand, and parting his lips so that one of the fingers slipped between them. He kissed and licked it with instinctive sensuality. When Holden did not pull the hand away Bran took the finger deeper into his mouth, liking the slightly rough texture of it, the faintly salty taste. He thought of Pavel’s sonnet to Holden’s work-roughened hands as Holden gave a gentle sigh of pleasure.
“Neat trick, kid,” said Yves without rancor.
“He’s a natural,” Holden agreed, and sucked in his breath as Bran gently bit his finger.
Yves leaned over, lifting one hand to cup along Holden’s jaw, and covered his master’s mouth with a deep, slow, sensuous kiss. Bran watched, still licking and sucking his master’s fingers, taking more of them in as he let his own fingers trail, suggestively, along the soft skin of Holden’s inner thigh, under his clothing.
“Boys,” said Holden lazily. “There’s no need to fight.”
“We’re not fighting,” said Yves, and kissed Holden’s throat just under the jaw. “We’re competing.” He licked his way down to Holden’s shoulder. “And you love it.”
Holden closed his eyes. “Do I?”
“Does he, Bran?” Yves asked softly, as Bran’s hand closed around Holden’s erection. Bran didn’t answer. “Oh, sorry. Your mouth’s full.” He ran a hand across Holden’s chest, making Holden arch slightly as fingers grazed his cloth-covered nipples, and jerking his cock slightly forward into Bran’s fist. “He got to your cock first, master. Does that mean he wins?”
“Depends on what he does with it,” said Holden, opening his eyes again and grinning at Yves, who grinned back unselfconsciously as Bran let Holden’s fingers slip from his mouth and buried his face between his master’s legs.
“Oh, look at that lunge,” said Yves somewhere above him, as Bran sucked eagerly and carefully, putting everything Holden had been teaching him to good use. “Right out of the starting gate. But I wonder– master– mmm– about his staying power–?”
Preoccupied, Bran had forgotten about Kit's approaching birthday until, late into the afternoon of the next day, he wakened in the middle of his own rumpled bed with the pleasantly post-coital feeling that was becoming more and more familiar. Looking for Holden, he wandered into the training room and found a young girl, with hair so fair it was almost white, clear blue eyes, and a freckled, up-tilted nose, sitting pensively cross-legged on the table with straps, already dressed in the house’s green.
“Hi. You must be Bran,” she said, smiling hopefully at him. “I’m Kit.”
“Yes, I'm Bran. Nice to meet you, Kit,” said Bran, smiling back at the younger girl. “How are you?”
“I’m happy to finally be here,” said Kit frankly. “I hate my father. Alix is much nicer. Oh, I should say ‘my mistress’ now.” She beamed at Bran. “How long have you been here? Do you like it?”
“Three weeks,” he said, rather liking the feeling of being the older, more experienced one. “Yes, I like it. I’m nervous about being sold, though.”
“Oh, why? I’m looking forward to it. This is just sort of orientation. It will be nice to get really settled in to a new life, you know?”
“I suppose,” said Bran dubiously.
“Sure it will. You’re just nervous because you had bad masters before. Alix told me. But they only place you with okay people here. You’ll be glad to be somewhere more permanent. You’ve been working mostly with Holden– I mean the master, right? What’s he like? I’ve only met him once.”
“He’s nice,” said Bran, with a softer smile, sitting down on a convenient bench.
“Oh,” said Kit knowingly. “Do you have a crush on him or something?”
Bran squinted at her.
“It’s totally normal if you do,” said Kit reassuringly. “Alix said lots of the new kids get crushes on her. She said it’s a natural byproduct of the training process, where you sort of learn to trust someone and you confuse trust with love. You’ll get over it. Oh– master.” She jumped up and curtsied prettily as Holden came in.
“Hello, Kit,” he said. “Your mistress wants you in the bedroom for now.”
“Yes, master,” said Kit demurely, and winked at Bran before tripping merrily past Holden and out the door. Holden shut it behind her and looked quizzically at Bran.
“She’s very cheerful,” Bran said flatly, and Holden smiled.
“She is that,” he said. “Though, not to be cruel, but based on long experience, I'd be willing to bet money that Alix will be up all night tonight comforting her while she cries for home and some boy she’ll never court and the babies she’ll never bear. We all cope differently. How was it for you, when you were sold?”
“Hard,” said Bran, rather shortly.
“Ah.” Holden sat down next to Bran and put a casually proprietary hand on his back and another on his thigh. Bran settled into the touch, comforted as he always was by Holden’s caress. “Don’t want to talk about it?”
“I will if you want me to, master,” said Bran, looking up into Holden’s face.
“Sweet boy. But no, it doesn’t matter. I can fill in the blanks. I wish your parents had brought you to us. Though I suppose I wouldn’t have seen as much of you then; Alix would have handled you... Bran, there’s something I’ve been putting off.”
Bran tried to make his face show only polite expectancy as he waited for Holden to continue. He more or less knew by now that such casually cryptic statements didn’t preface an intention to sell him immediately– Holden’s frequent references to what still needed to be done had come to form a comfortable barrier in his mind between now and any thought of sale– but he still couldn’t stop his heart from pounding at the words.
“One of the things we do here,” Holden said with a strange reluctance, “is training in pain tolerance.”
Bran almost laughed. “Do you really think I need that, master? After Dunaev?”
Holden smiled at him, stroking his back. “Not the way the younger kids do. What you need is training to dissociate pain from fear. Does that make sense?”
Bran considered. “I– yes, master, I think so. You’ve taught me to dissociate a lot of things from fear.”
“Like breathing,” said Holden, and Bran grinned. “Right. But do you understand what I’m saying? I’ve never hit you or hurt you, not since that first day. I never needed to. Certainly never wanted to. But I need to now, soon. Not because you’ve done anything wrong, but because it’s part of everything I’m doing with you, to get you ready to sell.”
“It’s okay, master,” said Bran steadily. “I understand. I’m not afraid.”
“That’s just the thing. You will be. It’s not your fault; it’s a trained reflex, and you’re so responsive to training, kid, I just know that panic is going to be crouched and ready to spring– Bran, you trust me, right?”
“Of course, master,” said Bran sincerely.
“Then I need you to trust me enough that when you get scared, when you start to panic, you tell me. Okay?”
“Yes, master. Of course,” said Bran, amused despite himself at all of Holden’s careful concern. If there was one thing he knew the ins and outs of, it was physical punishment. “I can handle it.”
“I’m not sure I can,” said Holden, and Bran glanced at him in surprise. “No, of course I can, I’ve done it often enough. But you’re so– Never mind. Do you want to do this now, or do you need some more time to get used to the idea?”
“Now is fine,” said Bran, thinking, I’m so what?
In short order he lay, surprisingly relaxed, on the table where Holden had strapped him down on his first day. He was strapped in again– “Takes the pressure off you,” said Holden– and, again, naked. Holden’s hand caressed his back for a moment, then was gone.
Bran heard the crack of leather against flesh an instant before the burning pain burst across his back. He breathed deeply, trying to picture Holden’s face, wishing he could watch it as another stroke landed, then another; Bran didn’t count as they progressed, his heartbeat and breathing speeding up despite himself. He pulled against the bonds, letting his body struggle to get away, the way it wanted to; it was bad form, but since Holden had restrained him to save him the trouble of remaining still by himself, he might as well take advantage.
The pain was building, its acceleration familiar to Bran as the fear that surged with it, unbidden and– at least to Bran– unexpected. He knew Holden wasn’t angry with him, but another part of him knew just as surely that every new stroke that fell, searing across his naked thighs now, meant more anger on his master’s part, more failure on his own, and that if he moved it would be worse– he couldn’t move, he tried to remind himself, yanking against the bonds to reinforce the point, but he couldn’t think, the pain was too bad, the sound too loud and relentless against his screaming flesh, and it didn’t stop, wouldn’t stop, wasn’t this enough, what would be enough, what would ever be enough?
He had meant– despite his casual promise to his master– to wait it out entirely, but it occurred to him now, dimly and without words, that Holden might not stop until Bran stopped him, pleading panic. In which case– but Bran couldn’t think it out properly, though it seemed horribly unjust because what if he didn’t panic at all and the punishment went on and on even though Bran was keeping his promise, and the injustice of that, as he struggled against the bonds, was unbearable.
“Bran,” said Holden quietly, and Bran realized the lashes had stopped, and, horribly, that he was crying. “Are you all right?”
Bran struggled harder, anything he might have said to explain himself lost in waves of bitter shame and inadequacy, wanting only to get away somewhere and hide from his failure. He was sick with his own disappointment in himself, with his humiliating weakness. Holden’s hand was stroking his hair.
“Shhh,” Holden said softly. “It’s okay, Bran. Everything’s okay. You did very well.”
“No,” said Bran hoarsely, still pulling futilely against the restraints.
“Yes,” said Holden firmly. “Lie still. That’s my boy. My good boy.”
“But I’m fine,” Bran insisted, his words coming back to him in a rush. “I didn’t ask you to stop, master, it wasn’t that, I just, I don’t know why I was crying, but I can take more, I can.”
“Show-off,” said Holden, his voice warm and sweet with amusement. “We’ll do this again, and you can take as much as you like. But not now. Relax, Bran. Lie still.”
“Master–“
“Yes, sweetheart.”
“It wasn’t, I wasn’t thinking about you. I wasn’t afraid of you. I was just– feeling–”
“I know,” said Holden. “That’s enough for now.”
It was a week later, unrestrained and kneeling in perfect position as the cane landed across the backs of his thighs, that he suddenly said, “It doesn’t— intensify–“
Holden stopped, standing over him. “What did you say?”
Bran held position as he answered almost dreamily.
“Yves said the pain intensifies things. What you’re feeling. But it’s not that. It just makes it so you can’t think straight, so all you can do is feel–“
“And doesn’t that intensify the feelings?” Holden asked, as if they were two friends engaged in light philosophical chatter instead of master and kneeling, striped, naked slave.
“I suppose, master. But it’s more– bringing them into focus– that’s why you’re doing this, isn’t it– because the fear’s still in me, just hidden deeper, and you’re peeling me back– digging it out–”
“What do you feel now?” Holden asked after a pause. “Fear?”
“No, master,” said Bran, looking up at Holden. “Just– you.”
Holden didn’t answer. After a moment Bran bent his head back into proper position.
"That's enough," said Holden again. "Get dressed, Bran."
Bran obeyed quickly, puzzled and slightly alarmed by an odd tension in Holden's tone. He knelt back down when he was dressed, waiting.
Holden sighed. “Look, this isn’t going to be easy, Bran– I’m just going to say it.”
Bran’s heart skipped a beat as he stared at his master with full attention sharpened by dread. He was “doing well,” he knew, but doing well enough to please his master without doing so well his master considered him ready to sell was a two-edged sword, a balancing act requiring finesse he was never sure he possessed, and he constantly dreaded overbalancing one way or the other. And it was so perilously easy to relax around Holden, so easy to forget to weigh his words, so... nice... just to be with him.
"I think you think you're in love with me," said Holden.
The too-kind tone, more than the words, hit Bran like a slap. He looked away, swallowing.
"I can understand why you'd think that," Holden went on, while Bran stared at his hands, hardly breathing, flushed with humiliation and rage. "But I think you're-- mistaken."
Bran's head snapped up and he glared at Holden, but without trusting himself to speak. Holden sighed.
"Don't look at me like that," he said. "I’m doing my best. I don't want to sound-- condescending." His eyes on Bran's face, he gave a sudden wry smile.
"So much for teaching you to school your face," he said. "You couldn't have said 'too late, asshole' any plainer if you'd screamed it. All right, fine, I'm condescending. I'm your master and I'm old enough to be your father and I'll condescend to you if I damn well please. You've got a crush on me. I don't mind that a bit-- in fact, it's quite flattering-- but I don't want you building up a lot of romantic ideas, because that's only going to make it harder on you when I sell you."
He laid slight emphasis on the last four words. Bran clenched his jaw.
"Yes, master," he said tonelessly. "I'm sorry."
"No, Bran, don't apologize, there's nothing to-- oh, kid," said Holden, and his voice was so tender that Bran, to his fury, felt his eyes prickle with tears. "I couldn't be more pleased with you, with how well you've adjusted and how quickly you've learned. You're the sweetest boy I've kissed in a long time, and I really like you. I just don't love you. And I never will. I'm sorry."
"Why?" Bran asked, forgetting all dignity in a raw sob.
"Bran, this is my job. You are my job. If I let myself fall in love with you, or any of the kids I work with-- I have a wife, and I have Yves, and I have the kids who come through here and then leave, and we manage to keep that in balance. I’m not– I don’t trust myself with more, Bran. Things could get messy.”
"I wouldn't be any trouble," Bran said, hating the begging note in his voice. "I wouldn't need-- you wouldn't even have to pretend-- you loved me. If you would just, if I could just stay."
"You know that wouldn't work, Bran," said Holden, the pity in his voice whipping the blood up into Bran's face. "And it wouldn't be fair to you. You only think you love me because I'm the only owner you've ever had who's treated you gently and taken the time to understand you. But I'm not the only one who ever will. I promise you, Bran, promise by the Ash, that I won't sell you until I find someone who'll appreciate you as much as I would, if I were your master."
"You are my master," Bran said forcefully.
"No, kid," said Holden, very gently. "I'm just your trainer. That's what I do. I train."
"You break," said Bran indistinctly.
"I break?" Holden repeated. "What do you-- oh."
"May I ask a question, master?" Bran said, after a pause to get his voice under control.
"Yes." Holden sounded tired. "Yes, of course you may."
"Why tell me all this?" Bran asked. "Why not-- I mean, why not just let me keep hoping, so I’d wear myself out trying to please you, to make you love me back?"
"Gods' sakes, kid," said Holden, staring at Bran. "I'm a selfish bastard, but I’m not evil. I wouldn't do that to you."
Bran nodded.
"Thank you for being honest with me," he said finally, looking up into his master's concerned brown eyes.
"Bran--" Holden looked away. "I-- gods." He got up quickly and left the room without looking back, leaving Bran to look intently at his own hands, thinking about nothing in particular.
Next chapter
Bran couldn’t say he was sorry to see Valor go back to school for her exams, nor to hear that she planned to spend the first three weeks of her real holidays with a friend from school. He liked her well enough, but her quick mood swings made him extremely nervous; it was like having a reasonably friendly but not quite reliably tame tiger in the house. Her mood for the last few hours before Alix drove her to the train station had been foul; Bran had been shadowing Holden as closely as he dared to avoid finding himself alone with her, and he thought Yves had been doing the same, though he couldn’t be certain. Certainly the three of them were sequestered in the house’s small library, Holden and Yves reading from the same book (an appallingly cozy habit of theirs Bran had noticed before) and Bran curled on the floor at Holden’s feet, when Valor slammed the door of the house behind her, cutting off the sound of her shouting at Alix, something about the amount of luggage she’d brought home. Holden heard Bran’s tiny sigh of relief and grinned down at him.
“That’s my fault,” he said. “She’s in a snit because I told her she needs to grow up more before she owns anyone else. Oh, but Dad, all the other kids– as if she doesn’t know how well I know nobles buy kids for their kids without caring about the fallout.”
Bran glanced up at his master, thinking of Pavel, but Holden’s face showed only generic exasperation.
“Like my first master,” Yves said, nodding. “That was a really fun two years. After one stare of disbelief, I don't think he ever really looked at me again.”
“His loss, my gain,” said Holden, and kissed Yves on the nearest cheek. “If he’d ever looked at you I’d never have gotten hold of you.”
Yves smiled. “It’s hard to distract a teenager in love, even calf love. Especially calf love. That’s the hardest to shake. Anyway, if his father had paid any attention to his own son he would have known I wasn’t his taste. He liked them dark and languid.”
“Like Val,” said Holden absently.
Yves snorted. “Half right, master, but she’s only languid when she’s been fucking for sixteen hours straight.”
Bran laughed, and they both looked down at him in mild surprise.
“This boy,” said Holden to Yves, ruffling Bran’s hair. “Who would have thought.”
“He’s very resilient,” Yves concurred, smiling down at Bran. Bran looked down, blushing. “By the time Miss Valor gets back from her friend’s house, he might even be ready to take a little of the work load off my back. So to speak.”
Holden chuckled. “Maybe. Or maybe this Kit girl will be far enough along– Valor’s never shown much interest in girls, though, at least not yet. Though now that she’s going home for three weeks with this Lisa–“
“I think it’s just a friend, master,” said Yves. “Miss Valor likes to do a thing thoroughly– she probably won’t turn to women until she’s exhausted the possibilities of men.”
“Emphasis on exhausted,” said Holden. “Speaking of the possibilities of men, how would you feel about fucking Bran for me sometime soon? He’s been doing wonderfully with me, but I need to get him used to other people, too.”
“My pleasure,” said Yves, eyeing Bran with interest. “He looks a little alarmed at the prospect, though.”
“He’ll be fine. I’ll talk him through it. It’s nothing to worry about, Bran. I’ll be there the whole time.”
Bran relaxed slightly as Holden’s hand caressed his head again.
“Strictly in a supervisory capacity, of course,” Yves added, winking at Bran. “Not because he’ll enjoy watching, or anything.”
“Fuck off,” said Holden amiably. “Of course I’ll enjoy it. I’d have to be dead not to. I’m getting hard just thinking about it.”
“I might be able to help with that, master,” Yves purred, his voice dropping a register.
Feeling his master’s hand go still and slightly heavy on his head, Bran slowly tilted his head back so that the fingers slipped down over his face, kissing his master’s palm and then the tips of the fingers of his hand, and parting his lips so that one of the fingers slipped between them. He kissed and licked it with instinctive sensuality. When Holden did not pull the hand away Bran took the finger deeper into his mouth, liking the slightly rough texture of it, the faintly salty taste. He thought of Pavel’s sonnet to Holden’s work-roughened hands as Holden gave a gentle sigh of pleasure.
“Neat trick, kid,” said Yves without rancor.
“He’s a natural,” Holden agreed, and sucked in his breath as Bran gently bit his finger.
Yves leaned over, lifting one hand to cup along Holden’s jaw, and covered his master’s mouth with a deep, slow, sensuous kiss. Bran watched, still licking and sucking his master’s fingers, taking more of them in as he let his own fingers trail, suggestively, along the soft skin of Holden’s inner thigh, under his clothing.
“Boys,” said Holden lazily. “There’s no need to fight.”
“We’re not fighting,” said Yves, and kissed Holden’s throat just under the jaw. “We’re competing.” He licked his way down to Holden’s shoulder. “And you love it.”
Holden closed his eyes. “Do I?”
“Does he, Bran?” Yves asked softly, as Bran’s hand closed around Holden’s erection. Bran didn’t answer. “Oh, sorry. Your mouth’s full.” He ran a hand across Holden’s chest, making Holden arch slightly as fingers grazed his cloth-covered nipples, and jerking his cock slightly forward into Bran’s fist. “He got to your cock first, master. Does that mean he wins?”
“Depends on what he does with it,” said Holden, opening his eyes again and grinning at Yves, who grinned back unselfconsciously as Bran let Holden’s fingers slip from his mouth and buried his face between his master’s legs.
“Oh, look at that lunge,” said Yves somewhere above him, as Bran sucked eagerly and carefully, putting everything Holden had been teaching him to good use. “Right out of the starting gate. But I wonder– master– mmm– about his staying power–?”
Preoccupied, Bran had forgotten about Kit's approaching birthday until, late into the afternoon of the next day, he wakened in the middle of his own rumpled bed with the pleasantly post-coital feeling that was becoming more and more familiar. Looking for Holden, he wandered into the training room and found a young girl, with hair so fair it was almost white, clear blue eyes, and a freckled, up-tilted nose, sitting pensively cross-legged on the table with straps, already dressed in the house’s green.
“Hi. You must be Bran,” she said, smiling hopefully at him. “I’m Kit.”
“Yes, I'm Bran. Nice to meet you, Kit,” said Bran, smiling back at the younger girl. “How are you?”
“I’m happy to finally be here,” said Kit frankly. “I hate my father. Alix is much nicer. Oh, I should say ‘my mistress’ now.” She beamed at Bran. “How long have you been here? Do you like it?”
“Three weeks,” he said, rather liking the feeling of being the older, more experienced one. “Yes, I like it. I’m nervous about being sold, though.”
“Oh, why? I’m looking forward to it. This is just sort of orientation. It will be nice to get really settled in to a new life, you know?”
“I suppose,” said Bran dubiously.
“Sure it will. You’re just nervous because you had bad masters before. Alix told me. But they only place you with okay people here. You’ll be glad to be somewhere more permanent. You’ve been working mostly with Holden– I mean the master, right? What’s he like? I’ve only met him once.”
“He’s nice,” said Bran, with a softer smile, sitting down on a convenient bench.
“Oh,” said Kit knowingly. “Do you have a crush on him or something?”
Bran squinted at her.
“It’s totally normal if you do,” said Kit reassuringly. “Alix said lots of the new kids get crushes on her. She said it’s a natural byproduct of the training process, where you sort of learn to trust someone and you confuse trust with love. You’ll get over it. Oh– master.” She jumped up and curtsied prettily as Holden came in.
“Hello, Kit,” he said. “Your mistress wants you in the bedroom for now.”
“Yes, master,” said Kit demurely, and winked at Bran before tripping merrily past Holden and out the door. Holden shut it behind her and looked quizzically at Bran.
“She’s very cheerful,” Bran said flatly, and Holden smiled.
“She is that,” he said. “Though, not to be cruel, but based on long experience, I'd be willing to bet money that Alix will be up all night tonight comforting her while she cries for home and some boy she’ll never court and the babies she’ll never bear. We all cope differently. How was it for you, when you were sold?”
“Hard,” said Bran, rather shortly.
“Ah.” Holden sat down next to Bran and put a casually proprietary hand on his back and another on his thigh. Bran settled into the touch, comforted as he always was by Holden’s caress. “Don’t want to talk about it?”
“I will if you want me to, master,” said Bran, looking up into Holden’s face.
“Sweet boy. But no, it doesn’t matter. I can fill in the blanks. I wish your parents had brought you to us. Though I suppose I wouldn’t have seen as much of you then; Alix would have handled you... Bran, there’s something I’ve been putting off.”
Bran tried to make his face show only polite expectancy as he waited for Holden to continue. He more or less knew by now that such casually cryptic statements didn’t preface an intention to sell him immediately– Holden’s frequent references to what still needed to be done had come to form a comfortable barrier in his mind between now and any thought of sale– but he still couldn’t stop his heart from pounding at the words.
“One of the things we do here,” Holden said with a strange reluctance, “is training in pain tolerance.”
Bran almost laughed. “Do you really think I need that, master? After Dunaev?”
Holden smiled at him, stroking his back. “Not the way the younger kids do. What you need is training to dissociate pain from fear. Does that make sense?”
Bran considered. “I– yes, master, I think so. You’ve taught me to dissociate a lot of things from fear.”
“Like breathing,” said Holden, and Bran grinned. “Right. But do you understand what I’m saying? I’ve never hit you or hurt you, not since that first day. I never needed to. Certainly never wanted to. But I need to now, soon. Not because you’ve done anything wrong, but because it’s part of everything I’m doing with you, to get you ready to sell.”
“It’s okay, master,” said Bran steadily. “I understand. I’m not afraid.”
“That’s just the thing. You will be. It’s not your fault; it’s a trained reflex, and you’re so responsive to training, kid, I just know that panic is going to be crouched and ready to spring– Bran, you trust me, right?”
“Of course, master,” said Bran sincerely.
“Then I need you to trust me enough that when you get scared, when you start to panic, you tell me. Okay?”
“Yes, master. Of course,” said Bran, amused despite himself at all of Holden’s careful concern. If there was one thing he knew the ins and outs of, it was physical punishment. “I can handle it.”
“I’m not sure I can,” said Holden, and Bran glanced at him in surprise. “No, of course I can, I’ve done it often enough. But you’re so– Never mind. Do you want to do this now, or do you need some more time to get used to the idea?”
“Now is fine,” said Bran, thinking, I’m so what?
In short order he lay, surprisingly relaxed, on the table where Holden had strapped him down on his first day. He was strapped in again– “Takes the pressure off you,” said Holden– and, again, naked. Holden’s hand caressed his back for a moment, then was gone.
Bran heard the crack of leather against flesh an instant before the burning pain burst across his back. He breathed deeply, trying to picture Holden’s face, wishing he could watch it as another stroke landed, then another; Bran didn’t count as they progressed, his heartbeat and breathing speeding up despite himself. He pulled against the bonds, letting his body struggle to get away, the way it wanted to; it was bad form, but since Holden had restrained him to save him the trouble of remaining still by himself, he might as well take advantage.
The pain was building, its acceleration familiar to Bran as the fear that surged with it, unbidden and– at least to Bran– unexpected. He knew Holden wasn’t angry with him, but another part of him knew just as surely that every new stroke that fell, searing across his naked thighs now, meant more anger on his master’s part, more failure on his own, and that if he moved it would be worse– he couldn’t move, he tried to remind himself, yanking against the bonds to reinforce the point, but he couldn’t think, the pain was too bad, the sound too loud and relentless against his screaming flesh, and it didn’t stop, wouldn’t stop, wasn’t this enough, what would be enough, what would ever be enough?
He had meant– despite his casual promise to his master– to wait it out entirely, but it occurred to him now, dimly and without words, that Holden might not stop until Bran stopped him, pleading panic. In which case– but Bran couldn’t think it out properly, though it seemed horribly unjust because what if he didn’t panic at all and the punishment went on and on even though Bran was keeping his promise, and the injustice of that, as he struggled against the bonds, was unbearable.
“Bran,” said Holden quietly, and Bran realized the lashes had stopped, and, horribly, that he was crying. “Are you all right?”
Bran struggled harder, anything he might have said to explain himself lost in waves of bitter shame and inadequacy, wanting only to get away somewhere and hide from his failure. He was sick with his own disappointment in himself, with his humiliating weakness. Holden’s hand was stroking his hair.
“Shhh,” Holden said softly. “It’s okay, Bran. Everything’s okay. You did very well.”
“No,” said Bran hoarsely, still pulling futilely against the restraints.
“Yes,” said Holden firmly. “Lie still. That’s my boy. My good boy.”
“But I’m fine,” Bran insisted, his words coming back to him in a rush. “I didn’t ask you to stop, master, it wasn’t that, I just, I don’t know why I was crying, but I can take more, I can.”
“Show-off,” said Holden, his voice warm and sweet with amusement. “We’ll do this again, and you can take as much as you like. But not now. Relax, Bran. Lie still.”
“Master–“
“Yes, sweetheart.”
“It wasn’t, I wasn’t thinking about you. I wasn’t afraid of you. I was just– feeling–”
“I know,” said Holden. “That’s enough for now.”
It was a week later, unrestrained and kneeling in perfect position as the cane landed across the backs of his thighs, that he suddenly said, “It doesn’t— intensify–“
Holden stopped, standing over him. “What did you say?”
Bran held position as he answered almost dreamily.
“Yves said the pain intensifies things. What you’re feeling. But it’s not that. It just makes it so you can’t think straight, so all you can do is feel–“
“And doesn’t that intensify the feelings?” Holden asked, as if they were two friends engaged in light philosophical chatter instead of master and kneeling, striped, naked slave.
“I suppose, master. But it’s more– bringing them into focus– that’s why you’re doing this, isn’t it– because the fear’s still in me, just hidden deeper, and you’re peeling me back– digging it out–”
“What do you feel now?” Holden asked after a pause. “Fear?”
“No, master,” said Bran, looking up at Holden. “Just– you.”
Holden didn’t answer. After a moment Bran bent his head back into proper position.
"That's enough," said Holden again. "Get dressed, Bran."
Bran obeyed quickly, puzzled and slightly alarmed by an odd tension in Holden's tone. He knelt back down when he was dressed, waiting.
Holden sighed. “Look, this isn’t going to be easy, Bran– I’m just going to say it.”
Bran’s heart skipped a beat as he stared at his master with full attention sharpened by dread. He was “doing well,” he knew, but doing well enough to please his master without doing so well his master considered him ready to sell was a two-edged sword, a balancing act requiring finesse he was never sure he possessed, and he constantly dreaded overbalancing one way or the other. And it was so perilously easy to relax around Holden, so easy to forget to weigh his words, so... nice... just to be with him.
"I think you think you're in love with me," said Holden.
The too-kind tone, more than the words, hit Bran like a slap. He looked away, swallowing.
"I can understand why you'd think that," Holden went on, while Bran stared at his hands, hardly breathing, flushed with humiliation and rage. "But I think you're-- mistaken."
Bran's head snapped up and he glared at Holden, but without trusting himself to speak. Holden sighed.
"Don't look at me like that," he said. "I’m doing my best. I don't want to sound-- condescending." His eyes on Bran's face, he gave a sudden wry smile.
"So much for teaching you to school your face," he said. "You couldn't have said 'too late, asshole' any plainer if you'd screamed it. All right, fine, I'm condescending. I'm your master and I'm old enough to be your father and I'll condescend to you if I damn well please. You've got a crush on me. I don't mind that a bit-- in fact, it's quite flattering-- but I don't want you building up a lot of romantic ideas, because that's only going to make it harder on you when I sell you."
He laid slight emphasis on the last four words. Bran clenched his jaw.
"Yes, master," he said tonelessly. "I'm sorry."
"No, Bran, don't apologize, there's nothing to-- oh, kid," said Holden, and his voice was so tender that Bran, to his fury, felt his eyes prickle with tears. "I couldn't be more pleased with you, with how well you've adjusted and how quickly you've learned. You're the sweetest boy I've kissed in a long time, and I really like you. I just don't love you. And I never will. I'm sorry."
"Why?" Bran asked, forgetting all dignity in a raw sob.
"Bran, this is my job. You are my job. If I let myself fall in love with you, or any of the kids I work with-- I have a wife, and I have Yves, and I have the kids who come through here and then leave, and we manage to keep that in balance. I’m not– I don’t trust myself with more, Bran. Things could get messy.”
"I wouldn't be any trouble," Bran said, hating the begging note in his voice. "I wouldn't need-- you wouldn't even have to pretend-- you loved me. If you would just, if I could just stay."
"You know that wouldn't work, Bran," said Holden, the pity in his voice whipping the blood up into Bran's face. "And it wouldn't be fair to you. You only think you love me because I'm the only owner you've ever had who's treated you gently and taken the time to understand you. But I'm not the only one who ever will. I promise you, Bran, promise by the Ash, that I won't sell you until I find someone who'll appreciate you as much as I would, if I were your master."
"You are my master," Bran said forcefully.
"No, kid," said Holden, very gently. "I'm just your trainer. That's what I do. I train."
"You break," said Bran indistinctly.
"I break?" Holden repeated. "What do you-- oh."
"May I ask a question, master?" Bran said, after a pause to get his voice under control.
"Yes." Holden sounded tired. "Yes, of course you may."
"Why tell me all this?" Bran asked. "Why not-- I mean, why not just let me keep hoping, so I’d wear myself out trying to please you, to make you love me back?"
"Gods' sakes, kid," said Holden, staring at Bran. "I'm a selfish bastard, but I’m not evil. I wouldn't do that to you."
Bran nodded.
"Thank you for being honest with me," he said finally, looking up into his master's concerned brown eyes.
"Bran--" Holden looked away. "I-- gods." He got up quickly and left the room without looking back, leaving Bran to look intently at his own hands, thinking about nothing in particular.
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