return to Chapter Four

Joe's disappointed more than one mistress who discovered that he's proof there's no connection between fashion sense and liking it up the ass. But even by his admittedly low standards, David and Jason's closets are enough to make a trained body-slave weep. David owns a blue suit that must have been a graduation present and is too short and tight across the back--and a brown tweed jacket. With suede patches on the elbows. The closest thing to a suit Jason has is a white linen blazer that's probably perfect for Hawai'i in the summer. His only consolation is that at least it's not Lord Jobs' walk-in closet with drawers full of identical black turtlenecks--but still.

He doesn't suggest that they go shopping, because it's not negotiable.

They're under a deadline, so custom-made is out of the question, but he's able to find two suits for each of them (black and light grey for Jason; dark grey and black with pinstripes for David), several shirts, and shoes that aren't sneakers or Doc Maartens. They both stare blankly at him when he asks if there's anything specific that he should wear, so he settles for a couple pairs of dark pants and a selection of plain button-down shirts for himself.

David insists that Joe needs a laptop, so they stop at the Apple store. David immediately starts drooling over the display for the not-yet-released Helium ultra-light notebook. (Jason, who keeps his tablet in a metal case designed to withstand anything short of a nuclear blast, is less impressed.)

"Hey--it's Joe, right?" Joe looks up and smiles at Jeff Armond, one of the Marketing VP's at Apple.

"Yes, sir. Nice to see you again." Lord Jobs had loaned Joe to Armond several times when he was trying to recruit him. Joe remembers him as being okay--pretty vanilla, just wanted the basics. And if I recall, he was a huge gamer.

"Last I heard, you were...um...with Carly Fiorina, right?"

Ah, Northern California. Just go ahead and say it: I belonged to her. Idiot. Joe ducks his head. "Yes, sir--until a few months ago."

"Damn. Wish I'd known."

"Joe, is a fifteen-inch display okay? Because we can go with the--oh, hi." David is frowning, clearly trying to figure out who in the hell Joe's talking to.

"Master David Hewlett," Joe says, nodding at David without looking up, "Master Jeff Armond, Associate Vice-President of Marketing for Apple. Master David and his husband run Lightwave Gameworks--they did Nexus 42?"

Armond's eyes widen a little as he shakes David's hand. "Hey, great to meet you! I've gotta tell you; I've already pre-ordered the expansion. A good RPG that runs on the Mac is like gold, seriously."

When they leave fifteen minutes later, David's clutching his brand-new Helium to his chest. "Hey there, who's a pretty Mac--and so wee!" David coos at it.

"It's still in the damn box! God, I can't take you anywhere, can I?" Jason says to David. He glances at Joe. "So...how'd you know that guy?"

Oh, you have got to be kidding me. Joe looks up at Jason and says evenly, "Lord Jobs loaned me to him on occasion."

Jason's eyes narrow ever-so-slightly. "Right. So," he says, raising his voice so David can hear, "how do you feel about Italian for lunch?"

Joe slows his pace, letting his masters lead the way. It's awfully early for it, but Jason sounded like he resented thinking of anyone else having Joe. Weird, since he hasn't. Yet. Joe smirks. It's obvious where he needs to focus his efforts.

Lunch goes much better than Joe would have guessed. The food is good; the restaurant is upscale enough so that his presence is taken for granted, but not so formal that he has to spend the whole time on his knees. After David reluctantly stops cuddling his new laptop, he and Jason order and let Joe serve them without constantly thanking him. They do try to include him in the conversation a little more than they should, but they're making progress, so he doesn't complain.

"Dessert?" David asks. Jason nods, but Joe shakes his head.

"I shouldn't. Thanks to Paul, I've already put on a couple of pounds, and I haven't been working out."

"You know, I didn't even think to ask," Jason says. "If you want, though, we can set you up with an access card for our gym. They're pretty cool--lot of Old Leather guys, and they know you don't mess with someone else's boy, so nobody will hassle you."

Joe smiles. "That sounds great--thank you, Master." Huh...didn't think I counted as their boy. Not yet, anyway. "I was wondering....there is a little errand I'd like to do before we go back. Would it be okay if I ducked out for a moment while you're having dessert?"

David waves a hand. "Knock yourself out--we're not in any rush."

Joe's destination is the gay bookstore they'd passed on their way to the restaurant. They don't have the world's largest selection, but he's able to find two different silicon butt plugs in sizes that he thinks will work. He grabs a bottle of lube and gets in line to pay.

"Where's your master? You're much too pretty to be wandering around loose," someone whispers slightly below his ear. Joe tenses as the man in line behind him grabs his ass and follows that up with a grope to his crotch.

Hoping that he's judged the distance correctly, Joe takes a step backwards. He leans back for just a second, putting all of his weight on the groper's foot. He follows that up by turning around, arms out like he's losing his balance, and shoving the groper a step back.

"Oh my God--I'm so sorry! I didn't realize you were there--" Eyes wide and innocent, Joe stares at the short, scrawny guy who's brushing himself off as if he's been contaminated. Yeah, you can grab at my dick, but God forbid a slave should actually touch you.

"What the hell do you think you're doing? Clumsy idiot!" The groper scowls, and actually raises his hand like he's going to hit Joe.

"Is there a problem, sir?" asks the pretty twink slave at the register.

The groper sneers. "This stupid slave practically knocked me down!"

"I'm really sorry, sir" Joe tells him. "Here, let me--" He reaches for the groper again, but the man pushes him away.

"Don't touch me! Honestly, California slaves are the most ill-mannered, poorly-trained--"

The clerk tilts his head, his expression a perfectly bland mask that Joe's quite familiar with. "Would you like me to call the manager, sir?"

The groper freezes. "No. No, I just want to pay for this and go." Joe moves out of the way to let the guy ahead of him, watching closely as he shoves his card at the clerk and leaves, not bothering to get a bag for his copy of "Hot Teen Slaveboys #17".

"You okay?" the clerk asks as Joe comes up to the register. "He's been in here harrassing other people's slaves for almost three hours."

Joe shrugs. "Thanks, I'm fine. He tried to cop a feel, that's all."

The clerk snorts. "Yeah, well, whatever you did got him out of here, so I should be thanking you. Fucking tourists."

After glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one else is around, Joe chuckles. "No shit. Like he could afford me. Or you."

"No kidding," the clerk says. He picks up one of the butt plugs, raising an eyebrow at Joe. "This it for you?"

Joe grins. "Yeah. Got bought recently, and my last owner was a woman who didn't like strap-ons. I'm a little out of practice, if you know what I mean."

When the clerk is able to stop laughing, he rings up Joe's purchase. "Here you go--good luck."

"Thanks. Hey, listen--is there a bathroom in here I could use for a second?"

"Sure. Just go up the stairs and around to the left. It's for staff, but no one will give you a hard time."

Joe goes upstairs, finds the bathroom, and goes in and locks the door. He takes the smaller plug out of the bag and lubes it up. Okay...here goes....

He leaves with the plug firmly seated in his ass. It's a little uncomfortable--he wasn't kidding when he said he was out of practice--but he's able to walk back to the restaurant without too much difficulty.

"Hey! We were starting to get worried," David says as Joe comes back to their table.

"I apologize, Master David," he begins, but David just waves a hand.

"No problem. We've paid already, so whenever you're ready, we can go."

Paul's sitting in front of the TV when they get back, surrounded by piles of yarn and holding a pair of knitting needles. He turns around and waves, frowning a little when he notices Joe staring.

"It's a sweater," he snaps. "Or it will be when I'm done. I figured I should really get a move on if I'm going to have everyone's done by Christmas. Which reminds me--you'll need to tell me what colors you like."

Joe blinks. "I didn't know you, um, knit." That isn't half as weird as the idea of getting a tangible object for Christmas. He's gotten gifts of food before, usually from the other slaves, and it's pretty common for masters to give their body-slaves the day off, or treat them to a spa day or something, but the only person who'd ever given him stuff had been Dylan. He'd had to leave it all when the Neals sold him, but it had been a typical nice Dylan gesture: well-meaning but not very practical.

Paul smiles at him. "Don't worry--I'm not expecting anything back, though I'll never say no to baked goods I don't have to make myself."

"I'll keep that in mind," Joe says, still a little off-balance at the idea of exchanging Christmas presents.

A loud "crack" makes him look up. Jason's head is tilted to one side, and he's wincing. "Slept weird last night," he explains.

"Yeah, well, that and the fact that you run around with that twenty-pound behemoth you call a laptop on your back," David grumbles.

It's the opening Joe's been waiting for. "As I mentioned before, Master Jason, I have been trained in massage....I would be more than happy to demonstrate."

For a second, Joe thinks Jason's about to say no, but then he sighs. "Sure--why not?"

Joe changes into a t-shirt and sweatpants, adjusts the plug, and goes back downstairs and into the bedroom with a couple of towels and the bottle of sandalwood-scented body lotion he'd picked up at the co-op. David's got both the new and old laptops set up on the table; he looks up when Joe comes in.

"I figured I'd move all of my stuff onto here, and then wipe the old one and you can use it. And I know you told us not to thank you, but I'm going to anyway: thanks for talking to that guy."

"I was happy to be able to help, Master David," Joe says, and he means it. David snuggling the laptop like a new puppy was the funniest thing Joe'd seen in ages.

Joe spreads the towels out on one side of the enormous bed while Jason finishes getting undressed. Joe's careful not to watch overtly, although he does sneak a glance out of the corner of his eye after Jason takes off his boxer briefs. Whoa...Maybe I should have gotten the bigger plugs....

Then Jason stretches out on his stomach and Joe has to take a moment to breathe and just admire that expanse of smooth golden-brown skin, long legs and perfect ass. It's not the first time he's had an attractive owner, but Jason is almost excessively gorgeous. Joe has to think very stern thoughts at his dick before he can trust himself to settle on top of Jason's thighs.

Jason's definitely carrying a lot of tension in his shoulders; Joe concentrates on working out the knots slowly, one at a time. The familiar task helps him focus, but it's not easy, especially when Jason starts moaning. "God....this is fucking amazing...."

"Hey--you're melting my husband!" David says, glancing up from the laptops for a nanosecond.

"I'll need a little bit of a break, but I can do your back next, Master David."

Not surprisingly, David turns pink. "Umm...yeah, maybe."

"He's really, really good at this," Jason says. "You should totally let him do you--your back, I mean. If anyone ever needed to relax, it's you."

"Oh, just shut up and get massaged already. I'm actually trying to be productive here."

The banter reminds Joe of a question that's been bugging him since his first day with these two. "If you don't mind my asking...I was kind of curious about how you met."

Jason waves languidly in David's general direction. "Ask him."

David laughs. "Because we have so much in common, right? Although we kind of do...we just fit, you know?"

Joe doesn't, but he nods anyway.

"Anyway...like I said before, we were doing grad work at MIT, at the Media Lab. We'd done a couple of projects together, and I mean, you'd have to be fucking blind to be a gay man--or a straight woman--not to think Jason's the hottest thing on feet...." David looks up and smiles, and his expression is so open, so sweet that Joe feels like he shouldn't be watching something this intimate. "And then there was the whole thing when we hacked the Commerce site."

Joe freezes. His mind is going in sixteen different directions, all ending up in the same place: Get out. Got to get out. These guys are insane and dangerous and I am so fucking screwed....

"Hewlett, you're such an asshole sometimes." Jason lifts up and reaches back to pat Joe's hand. "He just likes to freak people out with that. It was ages ago, and they know we did it. If we were going to get busted, trust me, it would have happened by now."

"Why...." Joe croaks out when he can trust himself to speak without saying "What in the ever-loving fuck were you thinking?"

"I'm sorry," David says, sounding genuinely contrite. "We can joke about it now, but it was actually pretty scary at the time--and I can see why having a couple of wanted owners would make you nervous."

You think?

"It's a long story, but the shortish version is that...there were these two girls in our program who were both foreign nationals. They had proper visas and everything--this was before the Brits closed the borders--but one day, some guys from B of A and Commerce showed up in the middle of class and hauled them off for unpaid debt." David sighs and runs a hand through his hair, making it stick up almost as badly as Joe's.

"The thing is that they're not supposed to do that. You can't be seized if you're a full-time student or in the military, right? But I guess they figured that since they weren't citizens, no one was going to complain."

"I take it someone did?" Joe asks dryly, trying to get back into the rhythm of the massage.

"Yeah. Torri--or, more properly, Lady Victoria Allen Higginson."

Joe isn't actually that shocked to learn that Torri's a member of one of the most powerful families in the Empire; everything about her screamed breeding and old money to him, and his instincts are pretty good with that sort of thing.

"She was friends with both Alexa and Nimet, and she was seriously pissed," David continues.

"She's really sexy when she gets mad, but you don't want to be on the target side," Jason chimes in.

"Anyway...she wanted to get her friends back, so she asked if we could find a way to get at the booking database for the Boston Commerce office, and let her know as soon as they were brought in, but before they'd been chipped and branded. So....we did. Figured there were worse things than having her owe us a favor, and she promised to cover for us. And it worked."

"And you survived and you're still free, so I take it Lady Higginson was able to protect you," Joe says, trying to get his heart rate back into a normal range.

Jason glances over his shoulder at Joe. "She sent her lawyer over when the Commerce guys showed up. Said we'd been working under her authority, and that she'd been acting as proxy for her grandfather."

Joe shakes his head. "They must still be watching you."

"Well of course. Even if it weren't for that whole thing, they would be, what with my mother and sister being all with the abolitionist thing, and Jason's family having a controlling interest in one of the largest energy conglomerates in the Empire," David tells him. "But neither of us is all that political, and we've kept our noses clean since then, so...." He shrugs. "If they were going to come after us, they'd have done it ages ago."

With that, he goes back to the machines, and Joe turns his attention back to Jason. He works his way down along either side of Jason's spine, and before long, Jason's making sex noises again. He almost jumps out of his skin when he hears David right behind him.

"Boneless is a good look on you, Jase," he says softly, reaching out and stroking his partner's leg. Joe moves back, off the bed and out of the way. David doesn't seem to notice; he's busy gathering a handful of Jason's dreads and pulling him upright for a kiss. Jason sits up and kisses him back, wrapping himself around David like a large, attractive blanket.

Joe's been owned by married couples, but the only ones who even liked each other had been the Pinkett-Smiths. The others had all seemed to get by on a steady diet of buried resentments and old hurts, tied together by money and mutual co-dependence. The laid-back artist who looks like a swimsuit model and the doughy white geek who constantly vibrates with nervous energy shouldn't work together....and yet, they do. It's messing with Joe's worldview, and that's deeply unsettling.

Jason's got his hands cupped around David's perfect heart-shaped ass, and neither of them is paying any attention to him, so Joe decides it's time to make a discreet exit. Moving silently, he gathers the towels and the lotion and leaves, closing the bedroom door behind him before heading up to his room.

He lays down on the bed and shoves a hand down his sweatpants, gripping his cock hard enough to hurt and stroking it roughly as he imagines Jason and David downstairs. With only himself to worry about, he doesn't waste time on finesse. In the instant before he arches off the bed and comes, he thinks, I should be down there with them.

-tbc-

Notes: I totally and completely blame poisontaster and her CWRPS series A Kept Boy, which made me want to write about the SGA actors in her universe. This is all her fault. Thanks also to telesilla for giving it a once-over.

The title is from the Duran Duran song, "Skin Trade".

continue to Chapter Six

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