The Trainer (7 page)

“You mean, like an overseer?” Michael had
asked.

Geoff’s dining room was a huge, tiled
solarium-style room with a southwestern exposure, great for sunset
watching. Barefoot slaves padded from the kitchen to the long,
glass-topped table in abbreviated serving uniforms, taking time to
individually serve each diner, their bodies available for caressing
and teasing even as they fetched and carried.

“Well, you could use that model, yes,” Geoff
said easily. “But a handler is more than a slave manager—a good
handler is also a trainer, a motivational coach, a therapist when
necessary. Handling slaves is a skill and a calling to some of us,
Michael. You have to have that certain touch, a way about you that
slaves respect, something that they can be drawn to.” He smiled and
beckoned, and a young, lithe man in a steel collar and matching
cuffs swept over to kneel at the side of Geoff’s chair. Geoff broke
off a piece of bread and dipped it in the rich, spicy mole sauce
that had been part of dinner, and fed it to the slave from his
hands as Michael watched.

The slave shivered as he bent his head back
to receive this treat and this honor of being fed from the master’s
hand. His eyes closed in near ecstasy. Geoff allowed the slave to
lick his fingers clean, and then stroked his throat gently. The
slave shuddered even harder, and arched himself taller, as if
offering his body for any use Geoff might consider, not an inch of
his skin hidden or protected. Geoff smiled indulgently and pinched
a nipple, and then waved the slave off with a laugh.

“When you can do that to any slave, you are
a true handler,” he said to Michael, leaning forward. “A worthy
goal, don’t you think?”

Michael thought so very, very much. And
slaves did respond well to his touch, and worked hard to please
him. He developed the basic emotional control that Geoff said was
the mark of a good trainer, and worked on figuring out new
exercises for slaves to use in order to mold their behavior. That
was very hard—why come up with new things when there were whole
books full of older things he hadn’t run through yet? But he tried
anyway, and was encouraged every step of the way, both by his
trainer and by the reactions of the many slaves he got to practice
with.

He read quite a bit, or so he thought. Geoff
kept records of every slave that passed through his hands, and
encouraged the trainers under him to make use of them, examining
how different training methods worked on different people. He often
spoke of how vital the interviews were, and how methods should be
continually revised and refined. For a while, it was
pornographically thrilling—the erotic histories of dozens of people
from all walks of life, spread out for Mike to examine, pictures,
video tapes and all.

And Geoff himself was
fascinating—charismatic, friendly, and always ready to play, teach,
or talk. He was rarely without someone hanging onto his every word,
and often dictated into a recorder he carried, so that
transcriptions of his new ideas and thoughts were showing up every
week or so. Owners and slaves loved him—he created a happy, open
atmosphere with a casual kind of ambient sensuality, the ultimate
New Age school for slaves. He was always concerned with how people
felt—and if anything started to chip away at Michael’s happiness,
it was that little, gently nagging question.

“How do you feel about being on your belly,
Tina?” Geoff would ask, his voice captivating and soothing all at
once. “Does it make you ashamed? Does it get you wet? Are you
bored?”

And they would answer him in partial
sentences and full ones, in detail, or with “I don’t know”—and
whatever they said he would record, nodding and reassuring them
that their thoughts and feelings were important to him. And then he
would talk to them about their feelings, tell them it was okay to
have them, coach them on new ways to express them.

He would question the owners. “How did it
make you feel when Paul failed to please your guest? Did it make
you feel betrayed? Embarrassed? Did you want to hurt him outside
the limits of the contract?” And he’d listen, patiently, sometimes
as owners ranted and raved, nodding and looking at them until they
calmed down, eager to hear his affirming words of support for them,
whether he was about to agree completely or correct them for some
minor way they’d hurt their slaves’ feelings. And all the while,
he’d be validating their own, too. Tricky. But it seemed to work,
no matter how strange it was. Disappointed owners would come out of
Geoff’s study ready to take their property back home—or leave them
there for a few days or weeks for touch-up training—and either way,
they’d go home praising the trainer like a guru who’d just shown
them the way to nirvana.

Geoff conducted—in fact, he
pioneered—discussion groups of slave clients, part consciousness
raising, part therapy, all designed to keep them in touch with
their thoughts, desires, and of course, their feelings. “The client
needs a safe place to vent, to express their fears and doubts
without the threat of punishment,” he had written, “or else they
become neurotic, moody, and easily prone to passive-aggressive
behavior. Safe space fosters an inner sense of self-awareness and
identity which makes them stronger individuals, better suited to
the service they desire.”

What he didn’t write about was the fact that
he videotaped these sessions of “safe space.” They were never shown
to the owners of those slaves, or course, but to his apprentice
trainers, as part of their training. They would listen to the
complaints and the joking and the bitter tears, and Geoff would
provide countless suggestions on what they could do to make the
lives of the slaves a bit easier, or perhaps properly challenging.
There were never tapes of the slaves currently in training or back
for refresher work—only last year’s group, or older ones. All of it
was very ethical.

He also wrote: “It’s impossible to maintain
the perfect balance of mastery and compassion, unless the owner is
always aware of the true self worth and vital personality of their
chosen clients. Every order must come with the understanding that
the client is willing to undertake anything reasonable—and
therefore the owner must practice the art of reason.”

During special events designed for owners
and potential owners, Geoff would conduct extensive workshops on
slave management and psychology, providing his buyers with
guidebooks for behavior and household rules. Each time, he would
give a carefully encouraging speech, telling them that of course,
they would determine their own ways and styles with time, but that
slaves did best under familiar circumstances. And they listened,
eagerly, the same way they watched hungrily as the newly trained
slaves were brought out for beautifully choreographed sex and SM
shows, and doled out to these workshop attendees by orientation and
gender preference. And then, eventually, they bought a slave. Or
two. Or more. And came back when those contracts ended for a new
one. Or two. Or more.

Geoff’s cadre of owners was a vital part of
his business and social life. He partied with them as well as
trained them, socialized at their homes all over the world,
sometimes taking with him favored students or exceptionally
talented client slaves. (He was most likely to take a slave in
training if he thought the owner might find them interesting. On
many of those trips, Geoff laughingly tossed out the return half of
a round trip ticket as he headed for home.)

Michael was often in favor, and got to visit
some homes of the rich and famous and the rich and unknown alike.
At first, he was a little uneasy, but his good looks and natural
charm won him a sure place at the table anywhere they went, and his
ability to play with any handsome slave who was placed in his care
was clearly an asset. So over and over again, he watched Geoff
enter these mansions and exquisite condominiums, these luxury
yachts and sprawling estates, and just—take over.

That’s what it was like. Geoff Negel would
waltz in through the door and slaves would perk up. Paid staff, if
present, would start to shine, as if they were in a sharp
competition. Even owners would fawn on him, pleased to be spoken to
as a personal friend, to be flattered on the care of their
property, joked with, teased.

He never hesitated at control, never seemed
to doubt himself. None of his former trainees were free from his
influence, and he handled them with a dominant sense of propriety
the moment they were in his domain—wherever he happened to be.
“Take control early and often,” he had cautioned Mike on several
occasions. “Otherwise, they might be tempted to think that you are
beyond them now, that your mastery of them was something they can
forget about. They should never forget, never think that you could
possibly be ignored. There’s an old phrase among we old trainers,”
he would laugh. “They used to call it ‘taking them in hand,’ like
taking the leash of a trained animal. That’s what you need to do,
especially for old clients with some experience. And they’ll be
glad for it, believe me. Because sometimes, their own owners will
let them slip, and forgive them. But we, as trainers, must never do
that. Don’t hesitate to correct, even if it’s in front of their
owner. It just might spur that owner to better management skills;
remind them that they, too, should have the upper hand. When they
see how well their slave improves when a trainer is around, they
will be sure to clean up their act.”

And somehow, even when Geoff did exactly
that—disciplined a sloppy or lazy or downright insolent slave in
front of their owner—the owners forgave him. In fact, they
frequently apologized for the misbehavior themselves. But by the
end of the visit, Geoff would console them, and then encourage them
to take control again, even giving them hints or actually
conducting a punishment session with them. And they loved him for
it.

Geoff was a master at reading people—he
listened with such intensity and openness that sometimes you left
his presence thinking that he was perhaps the only man who really
understood you. It was easy to trust him. He had an easygoing,
friendly manner and a very illustrious past, both inside and
outside of the Marketplace. He came from California real estate
money, and had contacts ranging up and down the coast in all the
right industries, from citrus groves to Hollywood to silicon chip
manufacturing. But he’d also spent a lot of time traveling, and
modestly noted that he had connections with one of the finest slave
training houses in Great Britain. Naturally, he had not chosen to
set up shop there, not when North America was positively brimming
with excellent potential for slaves and their masters.

Besides, he had his own ways now. New ways,
possibly revolutionary ways. His theories, carefully bound into
neat books, many of them illustrated, were sent to training houses
all over the world. He had his own newsletter, which he circulated
to owners who had purchased from him or taken one of his training
courses. He believed, passionately, that the way to expand and
nurture the Marketplace was to create a new breed of slave matched
with a new breed of owner. Partners, in a new way of relationship
building.

After a while, it all began to sound
suspiciously like new-age pop psychology for SMers. The talking
cure for whatever ailed you, whether it was a nagging feeling of
dissatisfaction or a lower-than-required level of commitment.
Matchmaking instead of auction sales. Time out instead of physical
discipline, listening instead of just relying on a slave to do as
they are told without complaint. It seemed an odd way to manage
slave training—after all, Michael thought, it wasn’t as if these
people were getting married. Contracts were for short amounts of
time, leading to either more contracts or new ones. Either everyone
got what they wanted, or they started again with someone new. No
need to get all involved with personal problems or actually do
relationship counseling with someone you could literally give away
to someone else, was there?

According to Geoff, there was exactly such a
need.

“In a lot of ways, the classic style of
slave ownership is just a model based on real life exploitation,”
he explained. “Romans and Greeks owned slaves, one nation conquered
another and took slaves, colonists spent years making sure that
they’d have some underclass to buy and sell—but why should we just
copy what they did?”

“Geoff, no one fought to get into slavery in
those times,” Michael pointed out. “You have people backed up on a
waiting list for months. It’s totally different now! Yeah, we have
to use some rules based on old stuff, but so is everything else in
life! You take what works and toss the rest. So, we’re not killing
people or kidnapping them or separating families and all that
shit—isn’t that enough of a difference?”

“No! If we had found some way to strip a
person of their humanity as well, it might be. But you can’t ever
forget that these slaves are people first, people with needs.” He
indicated his back files with pride. “Needs that were met, because
I took the time to find out who they were and what they wanted. To
make sure that their qualifications were perfect for the market,
and that the buyers knew what kind of training they had. To find
just the right sort of buyers, who could be counted on to take care
of these precious people, make sure they have the right environment
to grow in. And how many complaints have I had, Mike? None! So
trust me, this is the way of the future. You stick with me, and
you’ll have that beach house and the matched set of slaves you’re
dreaming about.”

And he would wink, give Mike something to
do, and then get back to that amazing way he had of making everyone
think he had given them his total attention.

It was easy to believe Geoff, in so many
things. He had it all—the lifestyle, the panache—and the house full
of slaves and trainers ready to bolster his claims. And so much of
it did make sense from a compassionate point of view—even from a
logical one. It was so simple to just run someone through the
exercises, ask the questions and keep right on going—so simple, in
fact, that it became boring far sooner than Michael ever dreamed it
could.