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

that rivaled the vastness of the forest around him. “Where I could make my future like Mat was making his. Except mine could last , you know?”
    Except for the part where it turned out it couldn’t. He’d never even gotten to taste it, not for a moment. Never would, either. Best just to forget about it. Focus on Nikolai’s hand on his arm, on the cuffs around his wrists, on the plug shifting in his ass with every step, and the cage stopping his cock from swelling at the stimulation. On his feet taking measured steps, one after another. On not running.
    “Your future will last, Douglas. As many years as I can provide. And your education will help to make that future, just not in the way you’d initially thought. But your intelligence and schooling have tempered you, made you thoughtful and acquiescent, and those traits have served you well.”
    Nikolai was quiet for a while after that. They walked in thoughtful silence up the trail, the path climbing a wooded hill. As they neared the top, he turned to Dougie and asked, “When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?”
    Dougie had to think about that, but suddenly it came to him. “A postman.”
    Nikolai chuckled softly. “And then?”
    “A fighter, for a little while, like Mat. But then he took me out in the yard and sparred with me and really hit me once by accident and I cried for like an hour and that was that. I think I was five.”
    “And then?”
    “Um . . . comic book writer?”
    “And yet you chose to study social work and clinical psychology. Do you feel any grief for your postman or fighter dreams now?”
    Oh, that was what he was getting at. “No, sir.”
    “Well then. Know that your dreams of a Ph.D. will pass from you, too. You’ll mourn them awhile, and then you’ll move on, create new hopes and dreams, ones more suited to the man you’ve grown to become.”
    He would. Of course he would. It would all be fine. Times changed. Dougie changed. Growing out of a dream wasn’t the same as having it just . . . die.
    Or be taken from you.
    Shut up, shut up, shut up. Dougie slammed that door in the corner of his mind again, and locked it this time for good measure. Nikolai hadn’t taken him. Nikolai was just . . . showing him a new dream.
    It was fine. It was all okay. Dougie would be okay. He’d survive. Thrive, even. Nikolai would give him everything he needed to go on. “Thank you, sir,” he said softly. He looked up at an old-growth poplar tree, its leaves an explosion of yellows and golds, a stunning contrast to the bright red oak beside it. Fall in the mountains was breathtaking. So different from the desert. So like his old home, back before Pattie and Mike. Back before his parents had—
    So maybe Nikolai had taken something away, but he’d also given Dougie something so very very precious back . He could get used to this.
    Nikolai let him, too, for a while. They meandered up and down an endless warren of deer paths and hiking trails in comfortable silence, the leather cuffs and the cock cage and the plug and Nikolai’s hand a constant, grounding presence on Dougie’s flesh and in his head. He let his mind wander, confident in the anchors Nikolai had provided. Finally let his eyes wander as well, taking in the world around him without fearing his own traitorous reactions. The dappled green claustrophobia of rhododendron tunnels, the wide-open vistas on the ridgelines, the soothing trickle of underground streams erupting into waterfalls across the trails and down into the verdant gulches. There was no need to speak. No need to think. Just walk. The steepness of the uphills made his breath quicken, his heart pound, but in a good way, like his morning runs with Mat, his muscles warm and straining, endorphins flowing free. And sure, it wasn’t Mat beside him now, would never be Mat beside him again, but he thought perhaps he could live with that now, could learn to survive the loss if he had Nikolai, strong and steady,