Trials and Errors (3 page)

Mat gritted his teeth. Glared, blinking back the sweat that kept falling in his eyes. Shoved down on the plug again.

Nothing. Well, no movement, but plenty of screaming pain.

He gasped and panted and clutched at his stomach because it was the next best thing to pulling off the plug entirely and holding his ass like a spanked child. He was just too fucking weak to muscle anything anywhere right now, let alone a plug that big into a very small space.

Nikolai unfolded his arms and glanced pointedly at his watch. “If that plug isn’t nestled flare-deep inside you in two minutes, I’m going to go spend some time with your brother, and
you
can forget about seeing him at all.”

“Help me then, damn it.” Added when Nikolai didn’t move, “Fuck, what do you
want
?” His voice was as hoarse as if he’d been screaming. Maybe he had been.

“I want you to show me the respect I’m due. I want you to show me how well you understand that I owe you nothing, that you
are
nothing. I want to know that you’d be undyingly grateful should I deign to offer you assistance.”

Do it for Dougie, Mat. Swallow your pride and just do it.

“Please, sir,” he whimpered, and told himself it was all for show and nothing to do with how much he hurt. “I know I’m just a slave and I don’t deserve your attention, but please, help me to make you happy.”

Nikolai closed the case on the table, put it on a chair instead, and then came over to stand beside Mat. He was so slippery with sweat that when Nikolai grabbed his arm to haul him upright, the man nearly dropped him. Nikolai adjusted his grip, the plug mercifully sliding free as Mat was dragged to his feet and shoved face-first onto the little table, ass up, feet barely touching the floor. Short reprieve, though; Nikolai’s hands left him, and a moment later they were jamming the plug up inside him with so much force that the table lurched across the floor. Mat screamed, pride be damned, clutched at the table’s edge with both hands and thumped his forehead against its surface, hard, over and over as the pain built and built beneath Nikolai’s relentless pushing.

Well, at least he’s having trouble with it too.

But Nikolai had far more strength and stamina than Mat did just now, and after a few more rough thrusts and jabs and ripped-out screams, the fucking thing finally,
finally
slid home.

Not that it was much improvement, as it turned out. He was beyond full, felt like he had to shit and piss and throw up all at once.

“Now, wasn’t that so much better than living by your foolish pride?” Nikolai asked with a fatherly pat on Mat’s sweaty, raised ass.

Mat dragged his nails across the table and balled his hands into fists. “Yes, sir,” he said through clenched teeth, hoping Nikolai would read his tone as pain instead of fury. “Thank you, sir.”

“Stay,” Nikolai said, and then went to rummage in the case again. It was on the side Mat wasn’t facing, and he couldn’t be bothered to turn his head to look. Didn’t want to know. He heard Nikolai place something on the table. Then Nikolai was jiggling the flare of the plug, and Mat whimpered. For all the pain he was in, the fucking thing was so big it couldn’t help but stimulate his prostate. He was half-hard against the table edge. Fucking mortifying. At least Nikolai wasn’t providing any of his usual commentary.

“Sit.”

“What am I, a dog?” Mat bit out as he fell into the chair Nikolai had pulled out for him, then yelped as the plug drove in deeper on impact.

“I wouldn’t do this to my dog.” Nikolai reached between Mat’s legs, and Mat flinched back, unable to stop it. But Nikolai wasn’t going for his junk, he was going for . . . wires?

Oh, shit.
The blood left his face so fast he could
feel
it draining.

“What, no more sarcastic remarks?” Nikolai found the ends of the two leads, plugged them into the little black box he’d placed on the table. The one with the dial turned all the way up to ten and an ominous red button. “Finally remembered your place, did you?”

“Yes, sir,” Mat said, because he did
not
like where this was going. He curled his fingers around the edges of his chair, ass spasming around the plug. Those silver stripes on it, they weren’t for decoration, they were
metal
. And that weird lube wasn’t lube, was it. Some kind of conductive gel, probably. God, who manufactured this shit? What the fuck
for
?

Hell, maybe this whole human slave operation was big enough that they made their own tools. What a nightmarish thought.

Doesn’t mean I can’t still bring it down. Get out of here, shove this thing up
Nikolai’s
ass until he spills every name he knows, and then kill every single one. Just get through this. Get through this. Fix your fucking mistakes.

“Give me your hand.”

It took all the willpower Mat had not to spit in his palm first, but he managed it. Gave Nikolai his left, just in case the fucker planned to break it or something. Not that he really thought he would, but it wasn’t a chance he was prepared to take.

Nikolai folded Mat’s fingers down until only his index finger was still extended. “Here’s how this is going to work, Mathias.” He moved Mat’s hand until his finger was touching the red button. “You’re going to push this button. While this unit can be used to create some rather remarkably pleasurable sensations, I think you’ll find that not to be the case at this particular setting. You will thank me for it anyway—
Thank you for correcting me, master
. Go on, practice. Say it.”

In the face of such unbearable smugness, it was hard to remember why he was bothering with any of this. But then he thought of Roger, of that terrible beating he’d endured for Mat’s choices, and of Dougie, who was maybe already more like the man Roger had become than the boy Mat knew, and he smiled up at Nikolai saccharine-sweet and said, “Thank you for correcting me, master.”

There was nothing but hatred in Nikolai’s eyes. Or maybe anger, but the guy was too in control of his emotions to flip out and yell and whale on Mat. There was something boiling under the surface, though, something that made his jaw twitch and fine lines appear between his brows.

“You will do this fifty times—I think that’s enough even for
you
to learn your lesson and be sorry.” Nikolai fiddled with his watch a moment, then took it off and laid it on the table next to the machine. “You have an hour. If you don’t finish by that time, the
privilege
I have recently—and very generously—bestowed upon you to visit with your brother will be taken away. You won’t see him again until after you’ve left here, and you won’t leave here until you’ve proven your worth. Understood?”

“Yes, sir. Let’s get on with it, sir.”

“Ah, such bravado. There’s my fighter back.” Nikolai reached out and ruffled Mat’s hair, then started the countdown on his watch. “Begin.”

Mat didn’t hesitate for even a moment. He jabbed the button.

And jerked so hard he fell off the damn chair.

Holy
fuck
. That . . . was not fun.

“Get up,” Nikolai said. Calm, but no mistaking the edge in his voice. He’d lost his patience with Mat but good.

Mat climbed back into the chair. The second he was sitting again, Nikolai knocked his legs apart and checked the leads on the plug, jiggling it miserably against still-spasming muscle. Fuck, he was so fucking raw already.

“I’m waiting,” Nikolai said, but when Mat moved to press the button again—much more hesitantly than last time—Nikolai actually smacked his hand away.

Oh. Right.
It was probably a good thing he was in a little too much pain to roll his eyes. “Thank you for correcting me, master.”

Nikolai nodded and gestured toward the box.

Dougie
, Mat recited to himself like a prayer, clenched his jaw against the scream he knew was coming, and pressed the button.

The dog had tenacity, Nikolai had to give him that.

Shock after shock, and he took each and every one, even after his muscles began to twitch involuntarily, even after he bit his lip until blood welled up, even after his face was soaked with tears. He’d pick himself back up and cast his eyes to the timer with grim determination, do some calculation in his head—
twenty seconds to rest and recover, twenty more to catch his breath and his pride enough to say thank you, ten to build up the courage to push the button again
—and keep going.

Nikolai’s little fighter. His champion. Half of him wanted to throttle the man for the measures he’d forced him to take, the concessions he’d forced him to yield. But the other half of him simply
marveled.

He’d begun to resent the fact that he couldn’t break Mathias properly, that he’d had to go against everything he knew and believed about his work and its purpose, but this hour had done much to convince him that this kind of alternate training might be the only way to do a man like Mathias justice. A modern gladiator, meant to bow only under the whip and die in blood and glory.

If only that fate didn’t require Nikolai to make compromises with regard to Douglas.

No matter. Mathias would get his meeting, and Nikolai would get his use of it. Perhaps it wasn’t the way he’d initially planned to advance Douglas’s training, but it would suit that all the same—it might even be more effective than his original choice—and it would suit Mathias’s, too, for all that the man thought he was winning something here. After all, Nikolai was an artist, not a factory worker. Artistry required improvisation.

Go where the clay leads you.

When Mathias’s punishment was finally over and Nikolai had been thanked, breathless and tear-choked, for the fiftieth shock (with an impressive three minutes to spare), he kissed Mathias on the forehead with renewed appreciation and helped him to his bed.

Removing the plug proved a challenge, thanks to Mathias’s still-spasming muscles, but they managed it together, and afterward Nikolai sat on the bed, stroking Mathias’s sweaty back as he shuddered and moaned into his pillow.

“I’ll send Roger to help you bathe and bring you more food. When you have your strength back—then and only then—I will let you see your brother.”

“Thank you, master,” Mathias murmured, and though the response was probably just rote by now, for the first time ever, Nikolai detected not a single trace of insincerity in those words.

The next month passed in blissful peace, everything according to plan and pattern. Mathias dutifully tended himself, appetite rushing back and strength soon following. He worked harder than Nikolai had ever seen him work before, and though sometimes Nikolai worried he might be pushing too far too fast, the man did seem to know what was best for his own body. Nikolai, for his part, enjoyed the show. Loved sitting on the man’s bed and watching him jump rope or run or attack his punching bag with single-minded ferocity. There was an animalistic fierceness in him, but also a uniquely human resolve that carried him through the more mundane or unpleasant tasks Nikolai gave him, through the myriad of domestic and sexual service chores he trained Mathias in each day. Whether fighting or fucking or simply folding his master’s clothes, Nikolai loved to watch the play of his muscles, his broad shoulders and tight, hard ass and powerful legs. Still a bit leaner than when he’d been acquired, but getting there. All in due time.

His brother, on the other side of the coin, got softer and sweeter with each passing day. He took well to his chores, and always smiled and flushed and lowered his lashes when Nikolai passed him in the hall or the kitchen. Nikolai still hiked with him each morning—no need for hobbles or cuffs, not anymore—and often sent for him when he needed his back rubbed, or when he wanted someone to read aloud to him while he lazed in bed. Douglas took remarkably well to service: to cooking and cleaning, of course, but also to piano and poetry, and showed no evidence of his former heterosexuality when he worshipped at his master’s altar. In the shower. In bed. In front of Roger. With Roger. The boy had learned his place so well now that Nikolai never even bothered to lock his door anymore. Instead he let Douglas come and go as he pleased—and was continually delighted to see that every choice Douglas made was made to please his master.