Release Page 8

  This wasn’t his first time.

  “Whore,” Donato said to me, “meet my slave. He’s going to be our entertainment for tonight.”

  Slave.

  My mouth went dry. I would have run if I’d had anywhere to go, but Donato was between me and the door. I broke out in a cold sweat.

  The boy watched me with haunted eyes. He wore nothing but a length of white cloth over his right shoulder, belted around his waist to cover his groin. There was a heartbreaking resignation to his expression that I’d seen many times in the trenches. I found myself wondering what horrors he’d been through, and how many of them were because of Donato.

  Should I try to play along? It wasn’t as if this were unheard of. Kids were sold on the street at younger ages than this. I’d seen wretches half his age turning tricks. Still, it was wrong. I wanted nothing to do with it. The ildenaaf kept me hard, but my arousal was gone. I had to fight to keep from vomiting on the floor.

  Donato used his hand on the boy’s back to guide him my direction. They stopped in front of me. Up close, his eyes were a bit less disconcerting. It was his irises that made them strange. They were the palest blue I’d ever seen—so pale they seemed almost white—except for the outside rim, which was deep indigo, as if somebody had outlined them with ink but had forgotten to color in the rest. This one was from Deliphine. There was no doubt in my mind.

  “What’s the matter, little whore?” Donato asked. “Don’t you like my slave?”

  He was teasing. Testing me, somehow.

  I swallowed hard and said, “Sir, he’s only a boy.”

  Donato threw back his head and laughed. The boy didn’t, but there was a slight change in his eyes. A tiny glimmer of surprise.

  Donato leaned down to kiss the boy’s neck from behind. He had a long way to lean. The boy was at least a foot shorter than him. “Do you hear that, sweet slave? He believes the lie.”

  The boy didn’t react to Donato’s touch. If anything, his eyes lost focus and he seemed to drift farther away.

  “Slave,” Donato said, his voice firmer now, “tell my whore the truth.”

  The boy’s wandering gaze returned reluctantly to my face. When he spoke, his voice was the soft, unchanged near-soprano of youth. “I’m not as young as I look,” he said. “Not even close.”

  “How old are you?”

  He blinked and frowned at me. “I don’t know. Seventeen? Nineteen? Twenty, maybe. It’s hard to say for sure.”

  Looking at his eyes, I might have believed he was three times that age. There was no hint of innocence left there. But the rest of him told a different story. How could that be? Unless...

  But no. That was absurd.

  Donato smiled at me as if he knew my thoughts. He stood up to his full height again, watching me over the boy’s head. With his right hand, he reached out and casually pushed the strip of cloth from the slave’s shoulder.

  Tattoos. Not the tattoos of a house slave, which were simple marks in the common tongue, done just below the collarbone. This boy had two vertical lines of spidery blue symbols running from his right nipple to the midway down his abdomen. They appeared to be the same language as the tattoos the aristocrats wore on their cheeks. I’d heard of tattoos like these, but I’d never seen them.

  “The Dollhouse?” I asked.

  The smile Donato gave me told me I’d done well. “Indeed,” he said, looking smug. “Made to my exact specifications. Genetically engineered, trained through extreme response conditioning, and neural-implanted. He’s worth a small fortune.”

  Genetic engineering and response conditioning. That was what set the Dollhouse apart from the neural surgeons of the Guild. But until now, I’d thought the Dollhouse was little more than a myth. I tore my gaze away from the tattoos to look again at the boy’s face. He’d retreated again. His gaze was focused on something very far away.

  “Go ahead,” Donato said to me. “Undress him the rest of the way. See what he has under that drape.”

  I heard his words, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t make myself do it. I imagined undoing the boy’s belt, letting the fabric fall. But whatever happened after that, I was horrified of it.

  “Whore!” Donato snapped, and I jumped. “Don’t make me tell you again! This is a gift, and it displeases me to have it unappreciated.”

  I took a deep breath. I reached out with shaking hands. I fumbled a lot. The loop that had covered the boy’s shoulder now lay over the front of his belt, hindering me, and my fingers seemed determined to betray me. Finally, the clasp came free. The white cover fell to the floor.

  Underneath, he was bare. That didn’t surprise me. What did surprise me was the size of what hung between his legs. He was completely hairless and, even flaccid, he was almost obscenely large.

  I tore my eyes away from the boy’s cock to look up at Donato.

  “As I told you,” Donato said, “genetically engineered. I told them to make him look young, but to give him a big, fat piece of meat. They did well, didn’t they?”

  I swallowed hard and said, “Yes, sir.”

  “Would you like to be fucked by that impressive cock?”

  I hoped the fear and disgust I felt wasn’t visible. “If that is your command, sir.”

  His smile waned. I wasn’t playing my part. He wanted me to be pleased, and grateful, but I couldn’t bring myself to embrace this perversity. “Touch it,” he ordered.

  I stepped closer to the boy. I reached out and cupped his heavy package in my hand.

  He didn’t jump at my touch, but his eyes came back from wherever he’d been. He looked directly at me. His cock remained soft and pliant. His flesh was warm. His lips parted. He made the softest sigh, and to my near disgust, my body began to react. My cock had been hard all along due to the ildenaaf, but something about the feel of him in my palm, the weight of him, the look in his blue eyes—suddenly my heart was pounding for a new reason.

  “Good,” Donato said. “Good little whore. See how much fun my slave can be?”

  I closed my eyes. I tried to ignore the warmth of him in my hand. “Yes, sir.”

  “You haven’t even seen the best part. Watch.”

  I obeyed. I opened my eyes and focused on the boy, still holding his cock in the palm of my hand. Donato reached up and grabbed a handful of the boy’s hair. He yanked, hard enough that the slave’s head was wrenched backward. The boy screamed in pain, and I backed quickly away despite myself.

  But in the very next second, his scream softened. It melted. It turned into a long, low keen of pleasure. I looked down, between his legs, and saw that he was no longer completely flaccid.

  Donato pulled harder, and this time, the boy nearly sang—a long, languid, whimpering cry that spoke of nothing but pleasure and longing. His cock bobbed wildly, completely hard now and arching in front of his hips, too heavy to stick up straight.

  “This,” Donato said, his voice thick with lust. He pulled again, and the boy made that near-euphoric sound again. “This is what I paid for. Neural manipulation and response conditioning. The more I hurt him, the more he screams for me to do it again.” He pulled one last time, so hard that the boy fell backward. He lay panting on the floor.

  “Please,” he whispered. “Master, please.”

  “‘Please’ what, slave?”

  A tear wound down the boy’s cheek, and he reached to touch his cock. He stopped short though, looking up at Donato through thick, soft lashes. “Anything,” the boy said. “Don’t stop now.”

  “I don’t intend to.”

  The boy ducked his head. A shudder shook his body. I couldn’t tell if it was relief because he really did want more, or desperation because he didn’t.

  I wished more than anything that I did know, because at least then I’d be able to decide if it was acceptable to be turned on or not.

  Donato prodded the boy with his toe. “Get up.” Then to me, “Get undressed.” I did, although I used the moment when I turned away to put my clothes on the chair to dry
-swallow another il. When that was done, Donato said to us both, “Now undress me. And don’t rush it.”

  I knew what that meant. Pretend to enjoy it.

  The slave and I began to do our job, standing naked side-by-side, never looking at each other. His erection had gone down. Mine hadn’t. The fact that it was drug-induced didn’t make me any less ashamed.

  Donato pulled me to him and kissed me. His tongue pushed into my mouth, demanding entrance. Demanding obedience. I gave it. I opened up and let him establish his dominance over me. I pushed my erection against his leg, feigning arousal. That made him happy. I put my arms around his neck and kissed him harder, begging him with my body to focus on me. To leave the boy alone. But he didn’t. He let me go, and turned to the slave. He didn’t kiss him, but instead reached out and pinched the boy’s nipple. The slave’s reaction was instant. His legs seemed to give out. He held onto Donato to keep from falling, and he writhed as Donato mercilessly twisted and pulled that tender bud of flesh. The boy cried out over and over again, but it wasn’t from pain. Or if it was, it was only because the pain gave him pleasure. When Donato let him go, the boy stood panting with a hard cock.

  “Get on the bed,” Donato said to him. “You know what I want.”

  The boy didn’t look at either of us. He went to lay obediently on top of the fur cover.

  Donato paid no attention to me. He was focused on his slave. He went to the cabinet by the bed and pulled out a large jar of salve. He knelt on the ground between the slave’s knees.

  “Open up for me, little slave.”

  The boy put his heels on the side of the bed, spread wide apart, his knees in the air. I watched as Donato spread a generous layer of grease over his hand. He put the tips of his fingers against the boy’s rim. “Make me proud, slave.”

  With that, he pushed in. First his fingers, all four held together, then his thumb, cupped in his palm. He slowed when he got to his knuckles, but not much. He twisted his hand slowly back and forth as he pushed past the boy’s resistance, until he was in up to his wrist.

  The boy screamed, but not from pain. He bucked against Donato’s hand. He squirmed on the bed, and Donato froze there, his entire hand buried in the boy’s ass.

  “Do you like that, slave?”

  But the boy was beyond any kind of rehearsed answer. He panted, his eyes glassy with desire. “More,” he said. “More, more, more.”

  Donato turned his hand, and the boy threw his head back and cried, “Yes! Master, please! Master, yes! More, Master, please, Master, more, more, more!”

  And Donato gave him more. Another inch of his wrist disappeared. He twisted his arm the other way, and the boy began to sob. He shook and shuddered, but still he bucked against Donato’s hand. He panted out his pleas for more.

  More pleasure.

  More pain.

  Donato was sweating, his hair wild and disheveled. His cock was hard. A string of pre-come hung from its tip. “Fucking disgusting little slave,” he hissed as he turned his hand again. “Nasty little slave. Pathetic slave. Begging me to hurt you.”

  And beg the boy did.

  I watched them, at turns fascinated and disgusted, aroused and nauseated. Could I call this rape when the boy was begging with every breath for more? Could I call it wrong if he was bought and paid for?

  Yet how could I call it right?

  Suddenly, Donato turned his gaze upon me. I’d never seen him so violently, horribly aroused, his lust making him base and obscene and depraved. “Fucking stupid, lazy whore!” he yelled. “Get over here and make me come!”

  I jumped to do his bidding, relieved that I only had to touch him, that I wasn’t expected to hurt the boy. I got down on the floor and took Donato’s cock in my hand, ready to suck him to his climax, but I didn’t have the chance. As soon as my fist was around him, he thrust into it, screaming out in rage as he came. I took his end into my mouth and pumped his length hard and fast with my fist, and he screamed again as he filled my mouth with his seed. I swallowed, because I knew it was expected, stroking him, thinking to finish him, but he pushed me away. “Fucking whore!” he yelled. He spasmed again, and another shot dribbled from his penis, splattering my cheek.

  I glanced up at him in surprise, and instinctively flinched back from the expression on his face. He was livid. I’d never seen him so angry. His skin was red and splotchy, his hair wildly askew, his tattoos a lurid mark against his flesh.

  “Fucking filthy slave!” he screamed as he pulled his hand out of the boy. “A begging, pathetic slave and a disgusting little whore!” He stood up and kicked me in the stomach, driving the air from my lungs. He spit on the slave before storming out of the room.

  I curled into a ball and tried to force my lungs to breathe. I shook and gasped, and finally, I found my breath. When I could breathe normally again, I stretched out on my back, massaging the sore muscles of my stomach. I hated the fact that my cock was still hard.

  Then I heard a sound that nearly broke me. It was the boy. He was sobbing now, this time not from pleasure, but in earnest. “More,” he whispered. “Why do I still want more?”

  ***

  “A Dollhouse whore?” Anzhéla asked in astonishment. “Are you sure?”

  Not a whore. But I resisted the urge to correct her. “I’m sure. Donato was quite proud of it.”

  She shook her head, looking over at Frey, who sat at his table. I couldn’t read anything in his dark expression.

  “I wasn’t even sure the Dollhouse existed,” Anzhéla said.

  “Neither was I, but apparently it does.”

  “Genetic manipulation and neural implants.” She winced. “It’s horrifying.”

  “I don’t think those are even the worst parts.” Because much of the slave’s behavior, I was sure, was a product of the other thing Donato had mentioned: response conditioning. I shuddered to think what they must have done to him to make him react to pain the way he did.

  “I knew Donato was rich, but this is unbelievable. I can’t imagine what it would cost to buy a whore like that.”

  “Not a whore!” I snapped. “He’s a slave, Anzhéla! He doesn’t get paid, and he doesn’t have the option of walking away!”

  She sat back, her eyes wide in surprise at my anger, but she chose not to react. “I stand corrected. Another thing: you can’t come here anymore.”

  “What? But I live here!”

  “Not anymore you don’t. You live at Talia’s.”

  “But, Anzhéla, I don’t belong there. I belong here. This is only a job. It doesn’t mean I’m becoming a permanent resident!”

  “Talia has reason to believe one of her girls is spying on you.”

  My anger quickly gave way to alarm. “Which one?”

  “If we knew that, it wouldn’t be a problem. But we don’t.”

  “Do you think Donato’s having me followed?”

  She shrugged. “We don’t think so, but we don’t know for sure, and it’s not worth the risk. He knows you come from Talia’s, but he knows nothing about me. He knows nothing about my association with you, or with Talia’s establishment. And it has to stay that way, Misha. We can’t risk him finding out about the clan, or about just how many things I’m involved in. And we especially can’t have him finding out that you’re being paid to do more than fuck him. So from now on, I’ll come to you, and if that’s not possible, then you report to Talia.”

  I sighed. I didn’t like it, but as much as I hated to admit it, it made sense. “Fine.”

  “Now, back to this Dollhouse whor— slave. Did he tell you anything? How long he’d been there? Where he came from before the Dollhouse? Anything at all?”

  “No. He barely spoke. The only thing he told me was his age, and even that, he doesn’t remember for sure.”

  “He doesn’t remember his own age?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Interesting,” she said, leaning back in her chair to look up at the ceiling.

  “What are we going to do?” I
asked.

  “Well, I’ll report this information to my client, but for now, it’s business as usual.”

  “And what about the boy?”

  She was lost in thought, barely listening to me at all. “So much money...” she said.

  It was all too much—Donato’s violence, and the possibility that he was spying on me, and being kicked out of the den, and the boy...

  The boy.

  Mostly, it was him. I couldn’t get him out of my mind. Every time I closed my eyes, he was there, staring back with his strange, empty expression. I was haunted by the way he’d begged, and then sobbed. At his shame. After Donato had left, I’d reached up to touch him, wanting to comfort him, but he’d fled the room, leaving me feeling dirtier than ever.

  “You say he’s proud of his slave,” Anzhéla said, sitting up to look at me again, “but nobody knows about him. I’m sure it would have come up if any of my people knew. Which means Donato’s keeping him a secret. Why?”

  It seemed obvious to me. “Because it’s sick and cruel?”

  Again, her eyes narrowed, as if she couldn’t quite see me. As if she were assessing me. “I doubt that’s it.”

  “I’d like to know exactly how much a Dollhouse slave costs,” Frey said.

  “Oh?” Anzhéla raised her eyebrows playfully at him. “Thinking of buying one?”

  If he found any humor in her joke, he didn’t react to it. “Maybe it didn’t cost him as much as we think, in which case, this is a dead end. Or maybe he simply has that much money.”

  “True,” Anzhéla conceded. “But if this slave costs as much as I think, it means either Donato’s making money some other way, or he’s indebted himself to someone much richer than him.”

  “He said, ‘a small fortune,’” I said. “But he didn’t say he’d bought him. He didn’t say, ‘he cost a small fortune.’ He said, ‘he’s worth a small fortune.’”

  “That’s a good point,” Anzhéla said. “It implies he didn’t buy him himself.” She sat thinking for a moment. “Either way, we’ll finally have a place to start. Good job, kid. This may end up being our meal ticket.”