The Handler
It was blissful being out and about King’s Cross. The hours spent within the slave hall had become stifling and Hadley needed to breathe. His light jacket folded across his arm, sleeves rolled up, with a smart waistcoat, he was going to use his day to explore before stopping at the manor. His one-day a week was the only day to check on his father and he would not dally in his own personal duties. And in light of his previous day off, Hadley did not think being away from the Barkleys would be very prudent, despite his written contract of employment.
As promised to Cook, he made his way through the traveling market, gathering herbs, spices, and oils not sold in the regular grocer’s wares. An intriguing second hand book put weight into the burlap rucksack he carried as well.
Music, seductive and low, a pipe, maybe a harp with the metallic dance of cymbals made the hairs on his arms to stand up. Most women with small children shied away from the last tent, the matronly women giving it the fish eye and sour ‘harrumphs.’
The canvas was painted in bright colors with dashes of stars and moons, the musician sitting crossed legged before its door with a monkey perched on his shoulder. The man’s skin was dark with a heavy beard and cloth wrapped about his head. Two women stood near, mismatched skirts and scarves, tinkling of bells from wrist and ankle.
Hadley was intrigued. Gypsies were known to travel the borders and King’s Cross was not, more insular within the kingdom’s boundaries. With no other reason but curiosity, he made his way to the tent. The musician never paused though the monkey chattered at him. The woman whose curls cascaded down her back welcomed him inside.
The air was warmer, with the scent of spice and incense. Risqué art of nude men and women, entwined in passionate embraces hung from canvases and were painted on playing cards. There was a fortuneteller in one corner of the tent, taking money and reading palms or tarot if the patron so chose. There were figurines with exaggerated busts and overextended erections.
Even more taboo items were located deeper in the tent. Cock rings of various sizes and materials, toys of a sexual nature made in smooth wood and ivory, as well as the new peculiar rubber that had become all the rage in the factories chugging near the river ways. But it was the phallus with the strange set of wind up gears that drew his attention.
“You like?” The other woman purred, her hair was drawn up, leaving her neck bare; her ample bosom brushed his arm.
“What is it?” Hadley was intrigued.
“They use it, the doctors,” She replied in her thickly accented voice that reminded him warm wine and dark chocolate. “For women who are afflicted.”
Hadley’s mind shied away from her insinuation. He had enough on his hands, warm young nubile flesh, to be concerned about the articles written in medical journals on the state of women’s health.
“It works like this,” Her smile was bright white against ruby red painted lips. She wound the gear tightly, and placed the tip of the phallus on the more delicate skin of his wrist. The tip buzzed as the gears turned slowly. Looking up at her wide-eyed, he realized the implications of such a device.
“For women, you say?”
She smiled obviously realizing that she had him hooked. She leaned forward giving him a better view of deep cleavage. “That is its purpose but if one were creative…” She trailed off.
Giving no thought to expense, Hadley replied briskly, “I would like two of these devices.”
Barkley would reimburse such an investment.
*~*
The day took on a dark ominous look to clouds becoming bloated and rolling in. He requested the front desk at the manor to secure a car for him on his departure. He did not want to return to the Barkleys like a drowned rat.
His time with his father was shorter than he had originally planned. His chair was seated in the window, allowing for some natural light, since the normal afternoon outdoor time was put off due to the oncoming storm.
Instead of the slaves and his job duties, he talked to his father about the market on the edge of town. He drew out the book and read the first chapter of yellowed pages. Marking the place as the time of his visit was nearing its end, Hadley promised to continue the story the following day off. He helped the nurse with a cup of juice that dribbled down his father’s chin than went down his lax throat.
Fastidiously, Hadley wiped away the juice. Tucking the flannel blanket, he looked over his father. With one last connection, he took his father hand in his own, the paper-thin skin sliding back and forth. Standing, he straightened his cuffs. He bent at the waist and kissed his father’s balding head.
The air was heavy with rain. The horse and buggy was waiting to return him to the Barkleys. Time marched on.
*~*
In Cook’s good graces, she was quite happy with his finds at the market. Hadley made sure he placed each item on the counter for her examination. She obviously knew his position within the household; however, he did not want to placate her reaction to the novelties he collected within the gypsy tent.
Brookings unceremoniously appeared to collect a tea tray. Hadley lifted a brow at the amount of food that he carried away with such a sour look. He turned to Cook who merely shrugged and began pounding a rather impressive mound of bread dough. Hadley took his leave from the kitchen.
In the servant’s parlor, he paused at the sound of voices in heated debate, Lord Barkley and by the timbre of it, his wife.
“Do you think it is wise? Daniel? Take Cade, Lord Orland has been making inquiries on his purchase.”
“Maggie-“
“Seriously, George, in light of what Daniel did to Cameron?”
“Laurie will be much more of an ass to Cade if I don’t bring Daniel….”
“I really wish you would reconsider…”
Hadley could not put the conversation into context. Add that to Daniel’s unseemly response to his master, a free man. Daniel getting physical with Cameron in the slave hall while unattended, Daniel’s complete change of character since Hadley had joined the household staff.
Daniel was a puzzle, now even more of an enigma due to the conversation he had inadvertently eavesdropped upon.
Taking just enough time to freshen up, Hadley made his way to the hall to check the pulse and make sure all was well, day off or no. Hair fastidiously combed, tie and cuffs straightened, foregoing a jacket for his waistcoat as a nod to the weekend, he gathered the ring of keys and his rucksack with the remaining purchases.
Mia was in deep conversation with Cameron, Cade sitting at her feet. The boy was relaxed with his head resting against her knee, her hand combing through his hair. Cameron’s eye held the sickly yellow green of a healing bruise and his features were somber. Whatever the conversation, it seemed serious in nature.
Lisbeth was absent. Lady Barkley seemed to enjoy her constant companionship while in residence. It deviled Hadley to no end; he had yet to even have a true conversation of his own with the girl much less attempt the simplest sort of training.
Daniel was antsy. He paced up and down the length of the hall, sparing no words or attention to the others. His hands were tucked into his armpits, head down with a frown on his face. Cameron would glance his way, lips tightening before returning to answer what question Mia had posed.
No one in the hall seemed surprised when Brookings appeared dour faced and demanded Daniel to prepare for a journey. Hadley wanted to protest. Since employment, all of the slaves had stayed within the manor. He felt some of his authority usurped as Daniel hastily changed into a tunic the color of summer green leaves. Bending at the waist, he found simple sandals from beneath his cot. And Hadley observed the bruises still healing on his skin.
He wanted to stop Daniel, to hustle him into the training room. He wanted to use every method he had been trained in using and even those that he had not to make Daniel break, to give him the missing piece that kept the whole of the hall off kilter. Hadley may have been the catalyst but the ingredients had been beneath the surface all along.
Inanely, he realized that Daniel had green eyes as the slave gave him one last furtive glance before following Brookings out of the slave hall.
Prowling into the training room, Hadley had to stop himself from disrupting his hair by shoving a hand through it. He had never felt so off kilter within the palace. There was plenty of intrigue and jockeying for favor among the harem inhabitants. He had watched from the sidelines making sure his own charge behaved decorously. There had been escape into the general libraries, horse riding, walks among the palace gardens to clear his head.
The Barkleys were almost stifling. Inhaling deeply and exhaling slowly, he repeated himself three times. His body felt more settled but his mind did not quite follow suit. He stowed his purchases into an empty cabinet.
Turning, he faced Cameron lounging against the doorframe, supple and appealing.
Giving into his own mental frustration, Hadley felt his shoulders slump. No lesson for his own behavior, it was his day off and he could not muster up the effort to paint on a façade.
“You need to get laid.” Cameron responded simply.
Hadley reared back as if stung. “How inappropriate you are.”
Cameron’s well-made shoulder lifted negligibly. “And how very honest of me.” He arranged himself against the doorframe, legs parted, hips forward, and shoulders back, an offering. “You fuck with us because it is your job. And your are quite proud of it.” His lips pulled into a smirk. “It is a perk and we are yours to command.”
Hadley harrumphed. “You have had your master’s attention have you not? Greedy?”
Speculation entered the dark gaze, but Cameron did not rise to Hadley’s bait. “Just observant. Kind of a life saving trick needed to survive, don’t you think?”
Hadley lounged back against the oilskin table. The dynamics had shifted. A fragile openness that could be both damning and detrimental, he really should put a stop to it. But maybe he was more vulnerable than he thought.
At the palace, it was laughably easy to have a ready body to fuck or have a mouth to suck him off. Never with his own charge, but one of the many pliant dead eyed ignored plush bodies ready to be picked and used.
Sure he could fuck any of them, Mia, Cade, Cameron…but it was infinitely more complicated.
“Do you need to beat me first?” Cameron muttered, challenge in his dark eyes. “Put me on my knees, remind me of my place as a slave? Beg?”
“Manipulating me to get what you want?” Hadley returned, unwillingly enjoying the challenge. Intoxicating, because it was just Cameron and himself, even with the other two lounging in the hall.
Again, Cameron lifted a shoulder but one hand drifted to the hem of his plain white tunic. Slender fingers playing along the hem, drawing the eye downward, the fabric doing little to hide the obvious arousal beneath.
“Manipulation is all I got.” Cameron’s voice was deeper, husky.
“And why you?”
The slave’s face opened up into a true smile before it quickly flitted away. Hadley felt a strange sadness, the room darkening after such a brief bright moment. “I think you are intimidated by Mia and Cade’s intimidated by you. Would make for a lousy fuck either way. Why not me?”
Why not? Hadley mused. The slave had a brain in that pretty head and seemed to know how to use it. After Hadley’s demonstration of power dynamics, Cameron seemed diminished, subdued, resigning to the fact that things had changed.
Daniel planting a fist to his eye no doubt solidified that position as well.
Cameron seemed to realize Hadley’s moment of weakness, strolling into the training room unabashedly. Narrow hips rolling above well muscled lean thighs. Giving Hadley a sardonic grin, he gripped the side of the oilskin table, his hand close to Hadley’s leg and bent over.
Offering all that a slave had.
His body.
Another challenge, Hadley contemplated.
The tunic had slid upward giving Hadley a view of the slope of buttocks, rounded muscle. He let his gaze move upward to the white covered back, dark curling hair at the exposed nape.
Cameron was not the only one vulnerable to the needs of the flesh. Hadley had hardened, uncomfortably tight within his woolen trousers. He could give in; take what was offered, but feared it would shift the dynamics, already volatile, even more. How easy it would be to sink into warm tight heat and fuck his frustration within Cameron’s body?
Too easy.
Moving his hand to Cameron’s nape, he gentled his touch when Cameron stiffened, maybe in shock that Hadley was even considering his offer.
“Your mouth,” Hadley’s voice was embarrassingly guttural. Cameron stood and frowned at him. The same demand, the first command that Hadley had given him. Then a forced bored detachment, now, Hadley could not deny the curl of want.
Want could be dangerous in his line of work. Cameron seemed to come to the same realization. With a simple nod of his head, he knelt sleekly at Hadley’s feet, palms on his thighs, gaze imploring.
“Use your hands,” Hadley all but growled, “Give me your mouth.”
Without the force of power dynamics and need weighing heavy on both parts, Hadley once again observed Cameron’s training, the beauty of submissiveness in an attractive male.
Using those wide palms and slender fingers, Cameron framed Hadley’s cock within its wool prison. Warm breath penetrated the fabric as that mouth, that plush lipped trained mouth, moved along the stiffened ridged of Hadley’s flesh.
Cameron pressed his forehead to Hadley’s abdomen as he worked the zip and button of the wool trousers. Soft silky dark hair was like a moth to a flame, Hadley filled his hands with it, feeling it sift against his palms, giving him the control over Cameron if he wished to exert it.
But instead, he watched as his cock, hard and ready was exposed to the cooler air of the training room. Cameron pressed his lips to his flesh, just a drag of soft skin against darker duskier length of cock. Given free reign, it was an exhibition in cock sucking. Hadley should have paid attention, given orders, exerted some semblance of control over the situation.
How Cameron teased with soft licks around the crown, dipping his wet tongue into the leaking slit? How he seemed enamored with cock, worship it with his lips and mouth, rubbing his cheek against it, burying his nose into the auburn curls of Hadley’s pubes? He lifted Hadley’s tightened sack from within his boxers, licking them, suckling each ball gently, before letting the cool air tease the spit soaked flesh. All of the merciless teasing before Cameron finally parted his lips and slowly, so achingly, frustratingly, slowly sliding his mouth down over the cock, not stopping until it reached the tightened grip of throat, the maddeningly ripple of throat muscles around the head. When Hadley’s fingers tightened in Cameron’s hair, the slave moaned, audaciously giving permission for more, or maybe just begging for more.
Hadley gave more when he felt that slight give, the accepting of what he could give, what he could take from Cameron. His hips began to roll and thrust forward, fucking into that willing mouth. Cameron moaned again, shifting on his knees to anchor himself.
Hadley should have more control. He could prolong the need to orgasm easily. But maybe Cameron had been onto something. He needed to come. He needed the feel of another’s touch, a human connection, giving and taking.
Hadley curled over Cameron as he stiffened and came. Cameron kept him within the wet cavern of his mouth until Hadley hissed and pushed him off. His cock was too sensitive for more stimulation. Cameron lounged back on his hands, mouth swollen and glistening, saliva on his chin, his tunic lifted absurdly by Cameron’s erection.
He went very still when Hadley pressed his shoe-covered foot against that erection.
“Take that tunic off,” he growled and Cameron hastily obeyed. He moved back into a proper kneel, the dusky leaking cock pressed against Cameron’s trembling belly. “Make yourself come, slowly.”
Cameron blinked at him in surprise but quickly moved his hand to his cock as if Hadley would rescind the command.
Cameron was a beautiful male, as most sex slaves were. But there was something viscerally appealing in the way his hand slid along his cock, giving his body pleasure, hips moving unwittingly.
“Slowly,” Hadley reminded him, licking his own lips. It had been a very long time since he had tasted, taken a cock within his mouth. He had to steel himself against the temptation that Cameron presented.
With a quiet hiss, white release spattered across Cameron’s chest and stomach, almost a disquieting let down after such a build up of anticipation. Cameron breathed heavily through his nose.
Hadley stood on shaky legs. “Go get cleaned up.” He tucked his cock within his trousers. “I am going to check with Cook on the state of the evening meal.”
He left Cameron on the floor in the training room, his mind shying away from the idea that maybe he was escaping rather than retreating from Cameron. Before he gave into any more impulses that could be detrimental to the position of power he held.