The Flesh Cartel #2: Auction (7 page)

Silence, long and terrible. He didn’t dare look up, though it tore at him, not being able to read her face.

“I suppose you could begin by promising to do everything the auctioneer says. Follow his every instruction, even if it means giving a sample suck to twenty prospective buyers.”

“I promise,” he said before he’d even processed what she’d said. “Yes, Madame. I promise.” But then he ran her words back in his head. Twenty cocks shooting down his throat? He’d puke.

And then he’d lick that puke up off the floor again if it meant he’d get to stay with Mat.

“All well and good, pet, but not good
enough.
”

Her fingers carded through his hair as his breath froze in his throat. What else could he promise? He had nothing left to give but his obedience.

“You must ensure your brother’s compliance as well.”

He couldn’t breathe again. Couldn’t breathe and he was going to be sick, he was going to die right here on this floor because how could he, how could he
possibly
promise something like that when he knew Mat, when even
she
had to know enough about Mat to know that was impossible? “I can’t,” he moaned, tear-choked and terrified anew. “I’m sorry, Madame, but I
can’t
promise that, he’s so stubborn and I don’t know how—”

The fingers in his hair tightened, pulling him upright, nails pricking his scalp. “You can and you will. I saw you with him on the loading bay floor. A word and a look was all it took to bring your stubborn brother to his knees to lick an entire procurement team’s cum from your hole.”

He shuddered at the reminder, nausea surging. But it was true. She was right. He’d gotten Mat to do that. Just like he’d gotten Mat to put down the razorblade without even so much as shaking his head. Maybe he could make Mat behave out there after all. Maybe he
did
have it in his power to save them.

He’d thought he’d lost Mat once, all those years ago when they’d sent him into foster care, when Mat had been “unfit,” and it had been like all the light in the world had gone out, all happiness and meaning drained away like blood down a sink. And now, here, with everything else gone from them, possibly forever . . . He drew the pad of his thumb up the vein on the inside of his wrist, tracing the unbroken line.
Never again.
“You’re right, Madame. I’ll find a way. He’ll be good. We’ll both be good. I promise.”

She popped the last of the fudge square into her mouth and dusted her hands. “All right then, little pet. You have yourself a deal.”

One by one, the other captives around Mat were taken from their cages and led through a door to God-knew-where and not returned. Sometimes it took a long time before someone came in to get the next person. Sometimes it only felt like a minute or two.

It seemed pretty soundproof in here, but every once in a while, when the door at the end of the long room opened, Mat thought he could hear the sound of anticipation—a crowd’s worth of murmuring, charged excitement, like he’d hear from the changing room before a fight.

Then as now, the wait was interminable, never mind that he didn’t know what he was waiting for. Didn’t know if he
wanted
to know.

But as long as he could, he held Leslie’s hand.

When they came to take her away, Mat gripped tight as her fingers slipped from his. Clipboard Guy had to slam the edge of his clipboard into both their hands to make them let go.

He waited alone then, huddled on the floor of his cage, knees drawn up tight for lack of space, nursing his throbbing hand and trying not to think about what would happen next. He thought it’d be his turn then—they’d taken the others out in order so far—but when the guards returned, Clipboard Guy leaned in to whisper to them, and they walked right past Mat’s cage and took the Asian twink instead.

“Hey, you assholes! What about me? Where are you taking all these people? Where are they going? Hey! Hey! Look at me, damn it!” But they all ignored him, going about their business with organized single-mindedness.

That left Mat alone in a sea of empty cages. Had they changed their minds, then? Were they not taking him with the rest? Would they kill him now?

And where was Dougie?

His stomach flip-flopped, terrible scenarios running through his head like HD movies. Maybe Leslie was right. Maybe they
were
killing them all. Making them fight to the death. He’d heard of stuff like that, underground rings where the fighters were unwilling, debased and dehumanized, pumped up with drugs and fed dog food until there was nothing left of them but rage and violence. Maybe this was something like that. He’d heard that sometimes the fights devolved into sexual violence, too. Men raping their unconscious opponents in pure animal victory, or using rape as another way to hurt each other. Maybe this was an arena where that was the point. To watch the weak beaten into submission and taken
by the strong.

Well, Mat wouldn’t do it. They’d have to kill him. They could stick him with a cattle prod until his heart stopped, but he wouldn’t step into the ring and hurt someone weaker. Not Dougie, not Leslie, not that Asian twink in the green makeup. They may have made him look like some kind of ultraviolent thug, but he wasn’t. And he’d die knowing it.

He just hoped he’d get to see Dougie again before that. Just once. It’d be enough.

Dougie waited in the sitting room, kneeling right where Madame had left him, for a long time. He tried to focus on the taste of chocolate still coating his tongue, because everything else was too fucking horrible to contemplate. Other than how he’d gotten it, the chocolate was good. Safe.

Unlike the two men who came to get him. Guards he recognized from long days of misery in his cell, who’d been waiting since day one to shove their cocks into something other than his throat. The way they looked at him now . . . He couldn’t help it, he edged away, hid behind the arm of the couch, ridiculous and ineffective as he knew it was.

The guards, dressed all in black today, simply stalked around the couch and scooped him up. He went limp when they touched him; they’d put him where they wanted him with or without his cooperation anyway, and he’d just as soon avoid new bruises.

He was bracing himself to be bent over the couch or thrown over the table, but instead they just walked him to the door opposite the one he’d come through.

A backstage area, bustling with people in black. Moving props, going over cues. He recognized it for what it was: some kind of elaborate play or performance, dozens of people with dozens of interconnected responsibilities.

And I’m the performer.

No lines. No rehearsals. No understudy. Just him on the stage, alone, with nothing but Madame’s words to guide him.

Do everything they ask or I’ll never see Mat again.

He wanted to say he wasn’t ready, but maybe he was. They had prepared him, in their own way. From that very first night in the shower. Debasement. Humiliation. Pain. Wearing him down day after day. Teaching him. He already averted his eyes when they looked at him. Already knelt when they entered a room. Already gave them his body without struggle when they fucked him. And now, the last piece to ensure his compliance, the one thing they’d had on him since the very beginning, since he’d practically begged Mat to lick that filthy spunk from his ass: His love for his brother. His fear of ever facing the world without Mat. His fear of what might happen to Mat if he were gone.

The guards had led him just offstage. One foot to the left, and he’d be in full view of whatever audience was waiting for him. He looked out across the stage, which was empty except for a fainting couch, a hanging set of chains, and a podium. A man stood behind the podium, fiddling with some kind of tablet computer. Madame was on the stage too, dressed in what had to be a couture black evening gown and a choker of pearls. Classically beautiful and put together as she was, he’d have died for her attention in his old life. But now . . . She was walking toward him. One of the busy stagehands in black rushed up with a dog leash made of polished leather and hooked one end to Dougie’s collar in perfect time to hand the other end to Madame on her arrival.

“Do not look at me,” Madame whispered. “Do not look at the audience. Keep your head down like a well-beaten dog. I’ll bring you to a stage marker. Kneel on it in the form you’ve been taught, with your neck extended like you did when I gave you that fudge. Do not speak unless spoken to.”

This close up, her makeup was a bit smudged. Sweaty. She was sweaty.

He nodded, then stumbled when she jerked the leash.

“Heel,” she said, obviously amused with herself.

She yanked him out onto the stage, and suddenly he was blinking back blindingly bright spotlights. No wonder Madame was sweating. He would be too, soon enough.

And the audience? Head down, he peeked out of the corner of his eye as she walked him across the stage. A sea of black clothes and horrible white faces. Masks. At least fifty, maybe a hundred. All the same. Plain white masks. Expressionless. Indistinct. He’d been steeling himself for leers and catcalls. Laughter. Applause. Groans.

What he got was so alien and horrible he couldn’t process it. So he looked at his feet.

Madame addressed the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed guests all.” She was wearing a mic somewhere, maybe one of those tiny flesh-colored ones pop stars wore. “May I present to you the
jewel
of the night’s collection.”

There was an X on the floor, marked out in electrical tape. That was where he needed to kneel. Three feet away. Two feet. One foot. He knelt.

“I’m sure you’re all well familiar with his particulars from this month’s catalog. If not, they will be on your personal screens now. As you can see, he isn’t yet perfect”—she toed his knees apart another three or four inches—“but keep in mind he has been in my care for less than a week.”

Less than a
week
? My God, it felt like he’d been stuck in this hell for
months
already.

“If we are to consider these . . . unfortunates as clay to be molded by firm hands, then this one is soft and malleable and so very warm to squeeze between your fingers.”

Absolute silence, but she preened and posed as if she’d received a standing ovation.

“Of course you’ve all seen the photos, and those
exquisite
videos—how beautifully does this one cry, ladies and gentlemen?—but no finale is complete without a proper show. So for those of you who paid the nominal fee on top of the usual ticket price, I’d love to invite you to test his charms for yourself. If you did not pay in advance, we are happy to charge your accounts now—at a slight premium, of course—and hope that next time you’ll feel justified in buying in advance.”

She’s renting me out like a whore. I’m a whore. That’s what this is. That’s all this has ever been.

That’s what she’d meant by selling him. Selling his body. Some had paid to fuck him, and others had just paid for the privilege of a live show. Out in the audience, he saw someone stand, that single white mask rising like a bubble, like a snowflake falling upside down. And then another. And another. Three masks rising. Ten. Twelve.

Would you give twenty sample sucks to keep you and your brother together?

Apparently, she hadn’t been exaggerating at all.