The thing Joe hates more than anything else about being a slave is all of the waiting.

Sure, it sucks not to own even your own body, knowing that in the eyes of the law you're just an object for someone else to play with or beat or fuck. And it's terrifying to realize that you have absolutely no control over your destiny, that when your owners' son grows up and doesn't need a playmate anymore, or when your mistress' friend running for re-election in a conservative district gets caught borrowing you, or when your mistress gets married and her husband insists that she get rid of the good-looking slave with the big dick--that you'll end up being having to learn someone else's habits and quirks just in time to get sold again. But Joe's always thought that brooding over the way the world works is a good way to drive yourself crazy, and crazy slaves don't last long.

Joe actually thinks it's kind of funny that Commerce insists on doing a full-body wax and dying his hair. Anyone who checks his listings will see all of his vital stats, including his date of birth. Still, he appreciates the effort. Lying on the table while his body hair is ripped out or sitting in a stylist's chair as they try to hide the grey and make a futile attempt to get his hair to lie flat is something to focus on. He certainly doesn't want to try to find ways to interact with other slaves, knowing that everyone will be looking at him and thinking that he's never going to get sold at his age, and they won't let him spend too much time in the gym. Anything is preferable to sitting around with nothing to do but wonder if anyone has a use for a thirty-seven-year-old body slave.

He's completely unprepared when the creepy Commerce slave comes in and says, "You have a buyer--he's waiting downstairs. Follow me."

His "do what you're told" instinct kicks in immediately, so it doesn't occur to him until they're in the elevator to ask, "Wait--what about the Closing?"

"He said he didn't want one," Creepy Commerce Guy says, staring straight ahead. "He paid your contract price and said he'd rather take you with him now."

Joe's stomach tightens into a small, cold knot. Skipping the formal Closing for a body slave can mean a lot of things, most of them very bad. Creepy Commerce Guy clearly isn't going to tell him anything helpful, and it doesn't matter because the elevator doors are opening and they're turning the corner and it's not like there's a goddamned thing Joe can do about it anyway.

The reception area is nearly deserted; not surprising, since it's after six. That's actually an important clue; the surcharges for after-hours sales are outrageous. The only people there are the desk clerk and a really tall guy in jeans and a leather vest.

Oh. Wow. He's fucking gorgeous.

Joe goes to his knees and forces himself not to look up. "Master."

"Joseph, this is your new owner, Master Jason Momoa." The name's completely unfamiliar to Joe, and he wishes he'd had time to do at least a little research.

"Hey." Jason--Joe can think of him that way until he's told how to address him--touches his shoulder lightly, and Joe gets to his feet.

"We can do all of that official stuff later," Jason tells him. "Right now, I just want to get home. I'm parked out front." He waves at the CCG and heads out the front door, Joe following at the appropriate distance.

Jason doesn't seem to have a car. Instead, he has a motorcycle: a black-and-chrome vintage Indian roadster. Dylan would have sold himself to get his hands on one of those. "You ever been on a bike before?" he asks Joe.

"Yes sir, once or twice." He doesn't mention that Dylan had actually let him drive the Harley a few times until his father found out. Dylan got yelled at and grounded for a week; Joe got beaten and had to spend two nights sleeping on his stomach.

Jason grins and passes Joe a spare helmet. "I promise I'll try not to speed too much."

* * * *

Joe's relieved for more than one reason when Jason pulls the bike into the garage of the loft building in SoMa. Jason's idea of not speeding "too much" was still well above the speed limit; since Joe only had on the white shirt and black pants that he got at Commerce and it's early summer, he'd gotten cold. It had been a while since he'd been on a bike, and he'd forgotten how distracting having a warm engine vibrating between your legs could be. Also distracting: having your face pressed against your new, extremely hot master's hair, which smells like spices and incense and makes you want to lift up his dreads and lick the back of his neck.

"Shit--I'm sorry. You must have been freezing." Jason looks genuinely distressed. "Let's get you inside, and I'll see if Paul's got the kettle on--or coffee, if you'd rather."

"Thank you, sir," Joe says, wondering who Paul is.

Jason punches in a code and they take the elevator up to the top floor. "Honey, I'm home," he calls out as he opens the door on one side of the hallway.

"Oh, very funny. You know, I don't know why you have an iPhone if you don't ever turn it on. I was about to have to send out the--who the hell is that?"

Joe takes an educated guess about the identity of the loud barefoot man in the t-shirt and truly hideous boxer shorts and kneels in front of him, head bowed.

"Joe, this is David Hewlett, my partner," Jason says. "David, this is Joe, our new body slave and the solution to our little problem with NME."

"So does this mean I'm fired?" Joe looks up as a short dark-haired guy with a big knife in one hand comes into the room.

"No, it means that you don't have to fake it every time we have to go someplace where we have to look professional," Jason retorts. He's smiling, and Joe allows himself to relax fractionally.

"Thank God!" Shifting the knife to his other hand, the man Joe assumes is another slave leans down, grabs Joe's hand and shakes it vigorously. "A pleasure to meet you. I'm Paul. I'm the staff--and yes, I'm all of it."

And Joe's back to "confused". Obviously his owners have money if they can afford things like a vintage bike and a huge loft in SoMa; by law they should have several more slaves given their financial status.

"We get a break because we live in the city and don't have a big estate or anything," Jason explains, "but we've also been sucking up the fines."

David scowls. "It's stupid. I don't want a bunch of people in here moving stuff around so I can't find anything. He's bad enough with that," he says, pointing at Paul.

"If you two want to go through this yet again, fine, but before that--Paul, is there any coffee?" Jason breaks in. "I took the bike--"

"--and as usual, you drove like a crazy person," David says.

"Hey! I was careful! But Joe didn't have a jacket or anything--"

"--so he froze his butt off, is what you're saying." In the households Joe's served in, even the relaxed ones, Paul's tone would have earned punishment, but Jason just laughs as Paul stomps off, muttering to himself.

"He always does that," Jason tells him. "David and I just pretend we don't hear it." He pauses for a moment, then adds, "Um. You can get up now, if you want. We're not really big on the formalities around here."

Okay, these guys can't be for real. First chance he gets, he's going to have to have a long talk with Paul, but at the moment, the other slave is pressing a cup of hot, spiced tea into his hands.

"Here you go," he says. "Should warm you up some, and dinner's going to be in a few minutes."

Dinner is stroganoff, and it's excellent; whatever Paul lacks as a body slave is clearly compensated for in the kitchen. No one sits at the table in the dining area. Paul curls up in a papa-san chair and Jason and David share the couch. David nudges Jason, who scoots over and looks at Joe.

"Plenty of space--you don't have to sit down there if you don't want to," he says, dark eyes unreadable.

Joe smiles. "This is very comfortable, sir," he tells him. He's not about to take his new owners' casual attitude at face value, not until he has a better idea of how things really work. In his experience, the mellow West Coast approach to slavery usually means that when guests are around, you act like you're the master's friend who just happened to stop by and offer to do all the cooking and cleaning and maybe give him a blowjob. Presuming that means you really are part of the family is a stupid newbie mistake, and one that Joe doesn't intend to make again.

"Oh God--you're going to do that whole subserviant thing, aren't you, and it's going to be totally awkward," David says. Joe's relieved when Jason just shrugs.

"That would be why we got him, remember? Which is probably something you're wondering about, so we should explain what's going on," he says to Joe.

"You think?" David snorts. "Okay, okay. Jason and I did our grad work at MIT together, at the Media Lab, and--"

"Christ, Hewlett, you going to go back to fucking Genesis? 'In the beginning, two guys created a game--'" Jason stretches his legs out in front of him and grins, until David throws a pillow at him.

"Fuck you--"

"Later, I promise."

"Yes, they're like this all the time," Paul says as he comes to take Joe's empty plate. "You get used to it after a while."

There are definitely worse things. David's not as (smoking) hot as Jason is, but he's certainly not bad looking; his mouth is actually kind of intriguing, with the way it always slants downward. And while it's still way too early to tell, Joe hasn't seen anything so far to indicate that either of them is going to turn out to be a complete asshole.

"Look, it's pretty straightforward," Jason says, leaning down and looking directly at Joe. "We have a company that makes video games. We've had a really big hit recently, and we're looking to expand. To do that, we need venture capital. And to get that, we need to look professional--which, these days, means having a body slave around."

"Paul's great, seriously," David adds, "but it's not what he's trained for."

From the kitchen, Paul yells, "No, it's not, and thank you for remembering that!"

Jason continues, talking over the other two. "He's been doing a good job at faking it, but we're at a level where that won't work anymore. We've got a meeting scheduled for the New Media Expo in LA with a VC firm--they're relatively small, but they've got a great rep for getting in on the ground floor of new tech opportunities--and we need someone with us who knows what he's doing."

"You're leaving out the important part," David says. "NME is in less than two weeks."

Joe inhales sharply. Learning not one, but two owners' habits well enough to make everything look smooth and practiced can take years. And of course, if their deal falls through, I'm the one who'll get blamed.

"I know we're asking a lot. That's why we picked you--we wanted somebody with experience," Jason tells him. "We're hoping you'll help keep us from looking too clueless--although that's really a tall order," he adds, smirking at David. "And regardless, we'll definitely want to keep you on, so it works for everybody."

That one's a lie, although Joe can tell that Jason genuinely believes what he's saying. Given how obviously uncomfortable both of them are with having a body slave, though, it's hard for Joe to imagine that they won't find some excuse to sell his contract. He smiles.

"That's very generous of you, sir. I will certainly do my best, I promise you." Look good, keep the masters from making complete asses of themselves in public...no problem. It's what I do.

-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 Two

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