Subjection (18 page)

I mean to take a moment to calm down, but I realize I’m getting more angry instead of less. I decide on the punishment quickly and retrieve the belt I used on him the other day. I return to find Sascha struggling to undress himself, kicking his pants aside and looking terrified. I have no idea what the boy takes so much time doing, but a glare has him leaning over the desk and clutching the opposite side of it.

I strike him instantly, harder than I did last time. It wasn’t that long ago that he should have forgotten the lesson. He responds by squirming and yelping and crying more quickly. Just as before, he truly does seem to be in pain, but he’s still with me this time. The squirming escalates until I wrap the belt around his skinny ass and catch his stomach, drawing an anguished cry.

I try not to feel guilty, but I know I am responsible for letting him get hurt unintentionally. My job is not only to discipline him, but to make sure he’s still and safe throughout the punishment. Proper training would dictate that I restrain him, but I don’t want to. Somehow, that seems crueler than the beating itself.

“Hold still,” I order instead, continuing to beat him.

I can see that he tries, clutching harder at the desk. I stop when I reach twenty, as I did before, and I see Sascha go limp across the desk, sobbing.

“Thank you, master.”

The words make me uncomfortable. Why is he thanking me for beating him?

I consider his actions. “I’m not finished,” I tell him, forcing my voice to stay calm. I don’t want to hurt him more, but I decide that I haven’t quite made my point. “You obviously didn’t learn from it last time if you did it again.”

The change is dramatic, almost so dramatic that I reconsider beating him further. He slides down off the desk and onto the floor, turning to me in terror and clinging to me as if I’ll protect him.

“Don’t, please?” he whimpers, looking up at me desperately. “That’s enough.”

I pull back, horrified to evoke such a response. What does he think I’m going to do to him? I don’t know if I could handle him following me, but he doesn’t. He curls into a ball and sobs. I’m afraid of pushing him too far.

I keep my orders simple and calm. “Get up. Face me. Lean back against the edge of the desk.”

I wait silently as Sascha processes the commands, pleased when he does as he’s ordered. He looks at me and cowers, turning his face away, then covering his stomach with his hands, then lifting his legs to cover his genitals. I realize that he’s trying to figure out where I’m going to hit him, as though I would ever strike such vulnerable places with an object. I lay the belt lightly against his thighs, glancing up at him until he nods his understanding. He calms slightly until I hit him.

I don’t hit him as hard as I did before, but he’s too scared to know the difference. He pulls away, pressing against the edge of the desk. It must hurt, given the bruises I just left on him. It wasn’t my intention, but it should serve as a good reminder. I watch his face, and I see him start looking sick. I doubt it’s from the pain, but fear can be just as painful. I stop at ten, well in advance of him dissociating. Even once I finish, he stays waiting, whimpering and trembling, his eyes fixated on my hand.

I can’t bring myself to speak to him, so I walk out and retrieve the ball gag I purchased after his last outburst. He opens his mouth to receive it, a look of surprise on his face.

I glance at the work on his desk. “Don’t work on any of this tonight. This is important, and I don’t want you distracted. Just clean up and go to bed. You may remove the gag if you go to bed before I get home, I don’t want you to choke. You’ll wear this tomorrow, too.”

I fasten the gag around his head, trying to reconcile the absurdity of treating him like an animal while letting him work as a human. Strangely, it’s not the human part that seems out of place. I want to tell him that I’m pleased with his work, that I wish Bobby hadn’t antagonized him, that I know he can do better. But that isn’t how I’ve been taught to communicate with slaves. I just shake my head and leave.

In the morning, Sascha comes to me with the gag in his hand, looking miserable. He doesn’t ask, but I realize that he’s giving me the choice of putting it on him. Submitting to my will, just like he was probably taught at some point. It’s a good self-preservation technique.

“Go have something to eat, first,” I mutter, not looking at him. It’s unnerving to see him so subdued.

He comes back in a few minutes, tears in his eyes. I hadn’t meant for him to return, but I won’t shame him more by telling him, and I won’t give him the chance to do something stupid like fasten the strap too tightly. I take the gag from him and put it on, fighting back the urge to call the whole thing off, especially when he starts crying again.

I take a step away, planning to ignore him for the rest of the day, but I stop and look back at him instead. “I’ll keep doing it, Sascha. I let you have a lot of liberties, and I don’t mind, but I have a reputation to uphold and there are things in my life that you know nothing about. If I have to beat you until every inch of you is bruised, I swear to god I will. You’re smart enough to know better, and you can hold your tongue when you want to. Do
not
try me.”

He nods through his tears, and I wonder whether I’ve made my point or just terrified him. I’ve broken almost every protocol I’ve ever learned for training a slave, but strangely, I feel most comfortable when I’m breaking protocol instead of following it like I am now. I have a strange desire to comfort him.

“Get the house clean today,” I order. “You can get back to what you were working on tomorrow, and I expect it to be done as well as it usually is.”

He nods, and I’m not sure if he picked up on the subtle compliment. I push myself further in to my work, trying not to feel guilty about the lenient punishment I gave him.

Chapter 16
Spring Cleaning

I storm out and slam my tablet down on the secretary’s desk.

“Why in the hell wasn’t I notified that Kristine Miller was scheduled into my calendar?” I demand, pushing the boundaries of our thin professional relationship. Bethany isn’t part of our Demoted staff, she’s a free woman and one who I usually like quite a lot. But when I saw my mother’s name on my work calendar this morning, I wanted to be sick, or at least to destroy whoever scheduled a meeting with her.

She has no idea that Kristine Miller has any personal relationship with me.

“Ms. Miller called after you left last night and requested that I set up a meeting with you,” Bethany explains, not backing down in the slightest. “She had a few questions about the Torenze acquisition you’re considering, as well as a few others. She’s been in close contact with some of our top investors for years, and now that you’re working on those projects, I assumed you would want to speak with her.”

The acquisition that Bethany mentions isn’t one that I’m working on, at least not yet. Not publicly, anyway. But I know my mother, and I know how many steps ahead of me she always is. Bethany keeps staring at me like I’ve lost my mind.

“Come on,” she jokes. “You can’t be that angry about an unexpected meeting with the creator of the Miller System. She’s like a celebrity, at least for our investors. She’s so friendly, too; whenever she comes in for meetings she brings the most beautiful flowers for the office.”

I force a smile onto my face. Of course, everyone who doesn’t know my mother thinks she is a delight, and she’s been tugging at the heartstrings and purse strings of Dean & Chanu since she banished me here.

“Sorry,” I mumble, trying to rectify myself. “I just… could you give me a little more time to prepare, next time? I really do want to make a good impression.”

Bethany smiles, clueless. “She said it wasn’t anything formal,” she informs me. “Just a little meet and greet. She’s so personable!”

I smile, get myself a coffee, and wait for my mother to arrive. She doesn’t have herself announced, nor does she knock, she just walks into my office like she owns it, just like she used to walk into my bedroom when I was a child.

“Hello, mother,” I say, trying to speak before her for once.

She ignores my greeting, taking a seat on the edge of the desk instead of in a chair. Does she really think I don’t remember the way she always insisted on being placed physically above her slaves?

“Cash, I hear you’re getting involved with a lot of the re-education center accounts,” my mother says, glaring at me.

I look up at her, fighting for calm. “I’ve recently been promoted,” I inform her. “Or did your best friend Bethany not tell you that?”

My mother shakes her head. “There are other departments you could have been promoted to,” she reminds me.

“I’m just doing my job. Contributing to the betterment of society through investment in the Demoted population.”

My mother’s face is stiff from emotional deadening and anti-wrinkle treatments, but I still see the flicker of anger in her eyes.

“You know better than to push this issue, Cashiel,” she warns. “I’ve put too much work into keeping you safe for you to ruin it all by running around with your old associates.”

“You put me in prison,” I remind her. No matter how many years have passed, I still can’t let that go.

My mother leans in, coming close enough that I can smell the expensive perfume she has worn since before I could remember. The smell is enough to make me leave department stores; having it this close to my face makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

“I protected you, Cash,” she hisses. “You were going down a dangerous path. I didn’t want to see my only son imprisoned forever, accused of treason for real. I didn’t know what your research was going to do, but it looked dangerous. I put you in prison to keep you safe while I worked everything else out. I got you out of prison, I got you this job—I did what I had to do.”

My mother exposed me because I proved her theory wrong. “You betrayed me,” I reply. “You destroyed the thing that was most important to me. You took away my name—you took away my life!”

“You need to prune things sometimes, Cashiel,” she says. “Remember that year when my garden was infested with mites? It hurt me so much to dig up those plants, but I had to. For the betterment of the whole garden. I never wanted to hurt you, but it was the best for you.”

My mother had cried for days about her garden. The flowers were and are her prize possessions; she never let any of our slaves go anywhere near them. It was fine for slaves to raise her son, but not her plants. When they became infested with mites, she researched for days, cried for longer, and dug up over half of her giant garden.

“The neighbors sprayed pesticide and theirs lived,” I mutter.

“The neighbors were filthy degenerates who didn’t understand the value of purity,” my mother replies, her face narrowing into a scowl. “That’s why their gardening license was revoked.”

From what I remember, their gardening license was revoked because my mother paid the city commissioner more than a year’s salary to declare that they were the source of the mites that were typically spread by birds. The city’s gardening commission came in with backhoes, excised the entire plot, and replaced it with standard-issue grass that required no human involvement to grow. Kristine Miller is dangerous.

“Why are you here?” I ask, growing tired of the debate.

“To remind you to be grateful,” my mother says. “And to remind you to stay where you belong. Your little hobby of playing in my re-education business was ended years ago. It needs to stay ended.”

“I’m just doing my job,” I reply, trying to make my tone as cold as hers. “I don’t know what sort of problem you would have with it. After all, it’s not like I’m the son of the creator of the Miller System. I’m just a financial analyst. An up-and-comer. A nobody. Remember the life you made for me?”

“I made a much better life for you, Cashiel,” she says, shaking her head. “You just didn’t deserve it. I hope you’ll live up to my expectations this time around.”

“I’m just analyzing the finances,” I repeat.

“I do certainly hope that’s true,” my mother says, and for once, I believe her. It would be in her best interest if it was, and she always looks out for her own best interests.

She shifts, finally, taking a seat in the spare chair I have in my office. I notice the change, the deliberate attempt to be more casual and less intimidating. It doesn’t work; she reminds me too much of a venomous snake, recoiling only to strike a moment later.

“How’s the slave working out for you?” she asks, smiling like she really cares.

“Fine.”

She smiles, waiting for more. When I don’t offer it, she speaks. “You know, I wondered if you really had started something with one of the slaves, way back then. You never showed any interest in owning one, and you seemed so opposed to the researched methods of the Miller System. It’s good to see you accepting your place in society. Strong slave ownership can benefit free people, too.”

I just nod. I’ve investigated the research done on the Miller System. It’s flawed, biased, and utterly incorrect. But I won’t tell her that and bruise her ego.

“I would have thought you would have gone with a higher quality specimen, perhaps one from a good retailer, but you do like to be difficult,” she says, shaking her head. “Ever since you were a boy, always doing things your way. To think, if I hadn’t chosen prime locations for your house, you probably would have ended up in some hovel, just to spite me!”

I try to keep the irritation off of my face. She had given me a set of locations to choose from for my home, but I would have picked a nice one, anyway. I enjoy some domestic comforts, and I’m not that spiteful.

“I appreciate what you’ve given me,” I say carefully.

“I do hope so,” my mother replies, smiling. “I never have seen the house, though. I feel like I just don’t see my family often enough, or my investments.”

When she leaves, I com my security company and make sure that nobody is anywhere near my house, or the secure facility where I keep some of my information. I don’t trust her, and in the past few weeks, I’ve been busy with my promotion at Dean & Chanu. Sascha has been doing most of the legitimate work for me, freeing up my time to network with some of the individuals and organizations who might be willing to partner with me on my research. I’ve met with a few of them, at home, and even in my work office, pretending that everything has only to do with my corporate finance job. Sascha’s help has been invaluable; he’s quiet, obedient, and he’s better at the financial part of my job than I am. I try not to praise him too much, but I bring him dinner sometimes when I know we’ll both be busy, or ignore when he forgets to clean up in favor of working on the projects I’ve given him. If he wasn’t a slave, I could see us being friends. We both have a similar work ethic.