The Handler
Through the open window, allowing the cool evening night air in, Hadley lay awake on his narrow bed. He felt unsettled. The power dynamics between himself and his charges were the same, though he had taken what Cameron offered in a moment of weakness.
He was still in control, over what they ate, how much exercise they needed, shaping and sculpting already lovely bodies to be at the ready whenever the Lord or Lady called. It irked that he had yet to work with Lisbeth, enough so that he had become somewhat suspicious. There was weight to what was whispered in the dark with sweat drying on skin.
Manipulation was a tool indeed. Cameron tipped his hand. Mia and Cade were more cautious, and even the thought of Daniel made his head hurt. He just was not sure on how to approach Lady Barkley on the absent slave from the hall. Maybe he would have a hand at it when the Lady took up visiting her neighbors once more.
He tossed about and became irritated at the bedding wrapping about his legs. He could light the lamp and try to continue reading where he had left off in the afternoon. His bodily needs had been well attended to by Cameron’s mouth so he did not need to take himself in hand.
Yet, sleep would not find him.
Throwing back the blankets, he paced the starlit room. He could not identify his restlessness. There was much to do with his duties, but those were commonplace, he could function almost by rote. Again, he likened the current situation with that of his time at the palace. While the actual job was the same, the dynamics, the simple of state of being, Hadley was beginning realize that he was out of his depth and scope of experience.
On impulse, he found his dressing gown and pulled it on over his cotton pajamas. He had observed the slaves in their daily routines, in their interactions with each other and to a lesser aspect, with their masters.
He wondered if they dreamed? Only to very nearly sneer at his own fanciful way of thinking. More practically, Hadley decided that he needed to make sure that they were getting plenty of rest when they could. One never knew when the Lord or Lady would call for service.
Careful of jangling keys and creaking door, Hadley made his way into the dark hall. Where starlight provided some light within his own chambers, the slave hall was ink black, until the eyes became accustom to the darkness within.
Hadley frowned grimly.
On his early morning inspections, each slave was sleeping in their rightful cots. In twilight, that did not seem to be the case.
Cameron had Cade curled up in his embrace, his nose buried in the nape of the boy’s neck. Lisbeth was actually in her cot, lying on her back and snoring. Mia and Daniel’s beds were empty. Daniel must still be out and about with Lord Barkley even at the lateness of the hour. Thinking that Mia was merely sleeping in Lady Barkley’s chambers for a change, Hadley turned to make his way back to bed.
Cameron and Cade would need to be reminded that their bodies were not their own but belonged to Lord Barkley, even if it was human nature to seek out the comfort of touch from another. And yet another not so subtle reminder of Hadley’s own slip of weakness earlier in the evening.
A sound broke through the steady snoring from Lisbeth’s cot. Hadley strained his ears but could hear nothing more. Merely the house and its normal nocturnal noises, he mused.
Until he heard it again, a dull thud and the sound of what could only be a sigh. Carefully, Hadley backtracked. The training room stood silent in shadows and empty. The bathing chamber was a different matter all together.
Mia was holding onto the basin’s counter, one leg drawn up as well. Daniel was plastered against her back and fucking roughly. One hand was clapped over Mia’s mouth, the other anchored between her thighs. Now that his ears were attuned, Hadley could hear the wet sound of flesh smacking against flesh. Mia’s back arched, her breasts bouncing in time with Daniel’s thrusts. Her body tightened and there was the quiet sigh of release. With the ebb and flow of Mia’s orgasms, Daniel would fuck brutally and taper off into slow thrusts only to rabbit his hips again and again chasing his own gratification. Finally, Daniel pressed his forehead against her shoulder, no doubt trying to muffle his own sounds of pleasure as he found his spill of seed.
Leaning against the wall, surrounded by the blanket of blackness, Hadley watched.
Daniel helped Mia to steady herself on two feet. She reached out in what could be construed as a gesture of affection but Daniel caught her wrist in mid air and turned his head. In what little light there was, Hadley could see her disappointment and resignation. Daniel seemed to battle himself until he finally lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm. He left her standing there as he made an effort to clean up the evidence of their sex, a wet cloth wiping down his groin and surreptitiously hiding it in a cabinet. No doubt not their first time coupling when the household slept.
With a casual disregard, Daniel left Mia standing in the loo by herself, finding his bed. Unaware that he had been observed clandestinely, Hadley turned his attention back to Mia.
Mia stood leaning against the counter that had supported her earlier endeavors, her arms crossed beneath her bare breasts. She seemed deep in thought with her chin down almost to her chest. Finally shaking herself from her reverie, Mia made a perfunctory clean up. Disposing of her own cloth, she stood and turned.
Hadley kept very still as she met his gaze. Her mouth opened, her hand going to her throat in fear. Mia shifted her weight on her bare feet, unsure of what to do. Hadley did not speak, just kept watching until she settled. With a gesture towards her cot with his head, Mia trembled but made haste given a reprieve.
Nocturnal discretions would be made to light beneath the blaze of the morning sun.
*~*
Daniel seemed in much better spirits when Hadley returned for his morning observations and training. He sat beside Cade on one cot and laughed in response to something that Cameron must have said. Cade was looking back and forth between the two older slaves, seeming at ease that there was a return to the norm. Lisbeth sat before Mia, the elder slave plaiting the thin, plain brown hair into a single braid.
As she continued to braid, Mia’s eyes followed Hadley’s every movement like a skittish horse. If Hadley called to attention the goings on between Daniel and Mia, he laid the foundation for more fissures that would not be resolved in the immediate future. Not until Hadley understood Daniel’s place among the slaves within the hall. Some semblance of balance had been returned. Daniel had a hand on Cade’s slender shoulder and a grin for Cameron.
Was it because he had fucked Mia, having the role of the aggressor rather than submitting as a slave should? Or was it the enigmatic excursion with Lord Barkley to the mysterious Lord Orland, by way of the overhead conversation between Barkley and his wife? The Lord Orland that had lost the wager between himself and Lord Barkley and with it, Daniel.
Or he could call attention to the co-sleeping between Cameron and Cade? Further the intimidation over young Cade, with the bait and switch of comfort wrapped in pleasurable pain?
Too easy and a slippery slope of weakness, Hadley decided. With a firm clear voice, he snapped out, “Lisbeth! To the training room.”
And to little surprise, the mouse squeaked indignantly, “Me?!?”
*~*
When Brookings appeared at the door, Hadley thoroughly hoped that Lady Barkley summoned her pet. He was well and truly worn out by a foolish girl who thought she was in love with her mistress and therefore she should not have to listen to anyone else, much less a lowly handler employed to manage her while not with her beloved mistress.
He had to hold to his decorum and not screech like Lisbeth when Brookings surprised him with a summons from Lord Barkley, for Hadley to join him for afternoon tea.
Hadley followed Brookings sedately, outwardly calm but inwardly cautious.
Lord Barkley waved him to high backed chair with ornately carved arms. Brookings poured tea for the Lord and gave Hadley a glare in having to serve him as well. Hadley took the higher ground and murmured a decorous thank you.
Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, you old goat.
“I won’t take up too much of your time, old boy.” Lord Barkley remarked. “Maggie and have been pleased with having you with the household. Things are much smoother now without having to deal with the daily hassles of the slave hall.”
Hadley nodded and sipped his tea.
“I need you to work with Cade,” Lord Barkley frowned in thought. “The virginal shyness was fun in the beginning, the pretty blushes, the tight ass.” Lord Barkley chuckled lewdly, “but now it is merely boring. The stiffness, the flinches when I touch him, Laurie remarked the evening past that Cade needed a good working over.” The cup rattled against its saucer as Lord Barkley placed it on the low table.
“I want you to fuck him. Show him how to fuck, for ghod’s sake, to loosen him up a bit. That’s what I bought him for, that pretty ass and that sweet mouth.” Lord Barkley paused as if in thought and Hadley waited unsure of what to say.
“You will take care of it, then?”
“Yes, my Lord.”
“Then that is that,” Lord Barkley stretched his legs out before him. “Send Daniel with Brookings, would you?”
Hadley put his cup and saucer on the table as well, being dismissed. He glanced back at Lord Barkley, who was once again lost in thought alone in the parlor, cupping his groin loosely with his palm.
*~*
Lord Barkley had ordered him to fuck Cade in order to train him. Cameron’s casual observation, “You need to get laid,” came back to haunt him. Hadley could use Cameron to bed Cade by proxy, observe and train the boy’s actions and reactions. But in light of the two curled up in one cot, it was a slippery slope of tacit approval of such goings on.
Daniel had departed with Brookings with a breezy wave and it seemed the hall breathed a sigh of relief in his wake. Lisbeth sat with arms crossed and eyes puffy on her own cot with Mia rubbing her shoulders soothingly. A little snip and trim of the thicket of curls, Hadley’s fingers nowhere near penetrating her cunt, and the girl acted as though he had beaten her within an inch of her life.
Silly little mouse.
He would fuck Cade, perk aside, and an order given. But Hadley intimidated the kid and that would not start the training off on the right foot. Barkley wanted a pliant seductive pleasure slave. He had to look no further than Cameron’s natural grace. But the Lord ignored Cameron in favor of Daniel, and expected miracles without really touching the boy.
Instead of calling Cade to the training room, Hadley made his way to the boy and lifted him to his feet by his hand. Feeling Cameron’s interest, Hadley wrapped an arm about the boy’s hips and murmured in his ear, “Relax.”
Typical youth, Cade did just the opposite; going tense and tripping over his bare feet as Hadley guided him into the training room. Situating in the middle of the room, nowhere near racks or tables and away from the audience within the hall, Hadley drew Cade into his embrace. One arm loose about slender hips, a hand cupping the sharp line of jaw, Hadley observed the wide fearful blue gray eyes.
“Relax,” Hadley repeated, gentling the command. He pressed his mouth against Cade’s lips, taking in the myriad of reactions from the boy.
Cade froze, slender body going stiff and tight with tension. It was all that Hadley could do not to sigh in consternation. When Hadley rubbed his lips against Cade, the boy flinched giving a quiet sigh on a puff of breath. Moving his hand from jaw to nape, he slowly licked the full bottom lip and Cade opened, eyes fluttering shut, relaxing against the mouth that claimed his own.
Hadley let his hand drift downward, along the column of spine, to the hem of Cade’s tunic, slipping beneath to palm the warm round buttock. Cade’s arms lifted slowly to rest across Hadley’s shoulders, body curving inward against Hadley, a hesitant tongue sliding against the more demanding tongue within his mouth.
The feel of warm length of cock rested against Hadley’s thigh. Just a brush of fingertips with the warm valley of Cade’s ass had the boy rolling his hips forward in response.
Hadley released Cade’s mouth and felt the panting breath against his own. Eyes were at half-mast, and the tease of tongue licked along full swollen bottom lip. Cade’s body relaxed against his own, pliant and ready to be ravaged.
It was a start.