Read The Flesh Cartel - Episode #7: Homecoming for Free Online Page A

did. “I know it’s hard,” he said as he buckled Dougie’s left wrist into its cuff. The leather was soft. Padded. Something about the snugness against his skin was almost soothing. Sensual. “I’m not taking you outside to push you, or test you, or challenge you. This is a reward for good behavior. To help you . . . acclimate.” He finished securing Dougie’s left wrist, started in on the right. The chain between the cuffs was long enough; Dougie felt no strain on his shoulders at all. “I’ll do everything in my power to make it easy for you. Whatever you need—just ask.”
    “Thank you, sir,” Dougie said, less because he knew he should and more because he meant it. The reassurance of that left him breathless; he’d been so afraid, for a moment, contemplating the possibility of freedom, that he’d broken something far too tenuous inside him, some delicate spun-glass construction he needed to live. But no. A few cracks, maybe, but the structure was still sound. “Touch me, sir,” he blurted as Nikolai’s hands, done securing Dougie’s wrists, left his skin. Heat flooded his cheeks as Nikolai’s eyes snapped up to meet his. “I mean,” Dougie added, “I mean outside. Sir. I mean . . . Please don’t let go of me. I might . . .” Run anyway.
    Nikolai nodded once and looped an arm through Dougie’s, then opened the front door before any new doubt could crowd Dougie’s mind.
    Brisk cold air, and white-hot light that burned his eyes. Dougie flinched. Fell against Nikolai for support.
    “It’s a lovely day,” Nikolai said, ignoring the enormity of this moment, or maybe saving Dougie from feeling like he had to express it. “Autumn is my favorite season. I love how bracing the air is.”
    “I always liked it too, sir,” Dougie said, blinking hard as he tried to get his eyes to adjust. Blue blobs were swimming in his vision, like someone had set off a camera flash right in front of his face. “Though the seasons didn’t change nearly so much in Vegas as they did back in West Virginia. Still, our morning run was much more tolerable in fall than in summer. Plus, fall was when school started.”
    A tug on his elbow, and they were walking, the plug shifting inside him with every step as they descended the curving stairs that led from the front door to the long gravel driveway. Dougie didn’t remember the outside of Nikolai’s house. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever come this way. Maybe he’d gone through a garage. The hours—or maybe days—immediately following the darkness of his tomb were mostly a blur.
    “You liked school,” Nikolai said, leading Dougie down the drive and toward a neatly maintained trail that branched off into the woods. It was true. The air here was bracing, and fresh, and cold. Dougie took a deep breath, filling every last square inch of his lungs.
    “Yes, sir,” he said, feeling a little dizzy with all the oxygen, or maybe just with the sheer vastness of the outdoors—the mountains rising in every direction, the dense endless thicket of woods, the awe-inspiring emptiness of it all. Sublime , in the true Romantic sense of the word: stunningly beautiful and terrifying both. “It was my arena, my fight cage. The place where I could train hard and excel, the place where I could make—” He faltered, tripped over an exposed root, or maybe just his own two clumsy feet. Nikolai’s hand tightened on his arm, stopped him from falling, and he leaned into the touch, paused a moment to close his eyes and let it sink in. Cuffs. Chains. Cock cage. Plug. My master. He won’t let me fall. Be good for him.
    “Where you could make . . .?” Nikolai prompted.
    Dougie stared down at the path beneath his feet, at Nikolai’s hand on his arm. He couldn’t look ahead, couldn’t look up at all that open nothingness, at the whole world spread out before him. “My future,” he mumbled, nearly choking on the words, or maybe his sadness, or his shame, or the sudden emptiness inside him