15. Kyle

CHAPTER 15

Kyle

B y the time Kyle had dried off and arrived at the ground floor training room, Epsilon in another of his tailored suits had been joined by their new trainee Deacon, and the two of them – regrettably? thankfully? – had no opportunity to speak alone. Perhaps that was just as well, for Kyle's head ached from trying to wrap it around Epsilon's bewildering unpredictability and he didn't have the energy for more of the same.

Still, the sight of the Master once again behind his shields – his frosty expression, that lofty countenance, and his ever-present and immaculate suit – made Kyle want nothing more than to tear them back down. He made sure, as he passed behind Epsilon, to whisper words pitched low enough that they'd find his ears and no one else's.

The other man gave no sign he'd heard, but Kyle knew they'd hit home when Epsilon subtly reached down to adjust himself as he closed the door to seal them all in the room.

"Alright, Deacon?" Kyle asked cheerfully, drawing the third man's attention with a friendly grin. "Do you need to piss before we get started?"

The sub shook his head, his dreadlocks dancing around his shoulders.

"You sure? Because it's awkward as hell if the need arises in the middle of a session and you have to put everything on pause so you can go." He winked. "Unless your client's into watersports, of course."

Deacon wrinkled his nose. Kyle laughed.

"Hey, that's not so bad," he said, nudging his shoulder with his own. "It's where the client needs to piss that you should really be worried. Did Master tell you what we'll be doing today?"

"No, Sir. Just that you'd be joining us."

Kyle made a show of wincing, as though the submissive's ignorance of what the session entailed was truly unfortunate. He was gratified to see Deacon's smile fade into awkward uncertainty. "Oh. Well if you need to safe word..."

"Stop coddling the boy," Epsilon snapped, and then clicked his fingers impatiently at the trainee. "Get on with it. Do you think I have any need of you like that ?"

Deacon blinked, slow and confused. Kyle tugged at his sleeve to clue him in as to what the Master wanted.

Epsilon made an impatient noise, discarding his suit jacket over the back of the sofa and beginning to roll up his own sleeves. " Strip , slut, or do you and your worthless self wish to waste yet more of my time?"

Deacon faltered before reaching for his shirt, glancing between them as he struggled to adapt to Epsilon's sudden brusqueness. Going into a scene without expectations of each of their roles wasn't healthy for a proper D/s dynamic, but such was the nature of their work: clients didn't always take the time to explain what they wanted from the men they'd hired. That was why it was important that their training covered such possibilities, and also why Epsilon didn't expose a trainee to the character of an irrational, bastard Dom until there was another person in the scene.

"Yes. Sir. Uh, Master , Sir," Deacon added hastily, screwing up his face at the error.

Epsilon raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "Sir is fine. Preferable to your stuttering, in any event."

At the scathing tone, Deacon's eyes went wide and his fingers froze around the hem of his shirt.

"Boy," said Kyle gently. "Undress for us."

The fumbling resumed, and the Doms waited and watched: Kyle with patience, Epsilon with deep, irritated sighs like it really was all a terrible inconvenience to him.

"Finally," the Master commented acerbically to Kyle when Deacon was done, as if the other man wasn't even worthy of being spoken to directly. "Please tell me he takes dick better than he takes orders."

"I have no doubt you'll find him to your liking," murmured Kyle. He circled around behind a nervous-looking Deacon and tugged on his elbow. "Hands behind you, sweet boy," Kyle encouraged, and that order the man obeyed instantly. "Let him take a good look at you."

Then he stepped back when Epsilon began to pace around Deacon, watching him perfectly capture the arrogant entitlement of many of their clients as he made sharp, cruel comments about the inadequacies of his body as though the man standing before him was a mere piece of meat. Naked and exposed, Deacon bore the scrutiny with surprising stoicism, eyes cast down and unblinking, but Kyle still made sure to balance each one of the Master's degrading comments with soft praise about how well he was doing. Today's session would help Deacon work out if degradation was something he was prepared to offer his clients, and although hard limits were respected here at House Epsilon, it was an undeniable fact that the fewer you had, the better you'd do in the industry.

Epsilon stopped in front of Deacon, his upper lip curling in distaste. "As for that tiny prick of yours," he mocked, reaching out to slap at it, "it needn't bother getting interested. You'll have no need of it with what I have planned for you."

Deacon, who had gasped and drawn instinctively away at the rough handling, was dragged back into place by the Master's fist in his hair.

"Useless," Epsilon sneered in his face. "What's the point of a whore who can't stand still when I touch him? How are you supposed to take more than that?"

Deacon blinked back tears.

"Sorry, Sir," he mumbled to the floor, humiliated and rattled. "I'll try harder."

"We know you will," Kyle murmured, stepping in and deftly untangling Epsilon's fingers from his locs. "You'll stand still for us, won't you? You'll be good?"

"Yes, Sir," Deacon gushed gratefully, sounding twice as sincere that time.

They'd swap roles in the middle of a scene sometime, really fuck with his head. But not today. The Master had strict rules about when he added mindfuckery into a staff member's training, and it was only once he was satisfied that the man would be able to endure the battering to his mind as well as his body.

Epsilon scoffed in derision, tossing himself down onto the faux leather sofa and spreading his long, elegant arms along its back in a nonchalant sprawl. He looked hot as fuck like that, with his sleeves folded to just below his elbows and his powerful forearms on display. But his expression was contemptuous, still playing the part well, so Kyle obligingly took over the care of their trainee.

He manipulated Deacon's body with soft murmurs and gentle pushes and pulls, finding him compliant under his hands, and presented him to Epsilon as if the Master really was a hard-to-please asshole of a client. And when Deacon agreeably bent over in front of them, legs wide and fingers spreading his own ass cheeks so that everything was on display: his hole, his balls, and his not-insignificantly sized cock, Kyle's praise of the man was genuine. He was doing wonderfully .

"Hmm," said Master Epsilon in a falsely begrudging tone. "Not entirely worthless, then."

"Not at all, are you?"

"If you think so, Sirs."

Oh, Deacon learned quickly. And when Kyle peered around, he saw that not only was the man's dick starting to thicken between his thighs, but there was something of a smirk on his face where it was pressed into his shoulder.

"Now we'll see how good you are at keeping your promise to hold still," Epsilon said coldly, even as he offered a brisk, mildly entertained nod to Kyle to let him know he'd also noticed the sub's reaction. "Over my knee, boy."

Deacon went willingly, but it wasn't meant to be fair. Barely had he settled himself over Epsilon's lap when the strikes started.

And there were no steady warm-up spanks. Epsilon went straight for the rough, painful blows with the paddle he held loosely in one hand, hitting precisely the same area of skin with an expertise born from years of experience. The man had no chance.

"Please stop!" Deacon squealed after several minutes of the same, wriggling around on Epsilon's lap. The Master's hold tightened to prevent his escape.

"Would you like to safe word?" Kyle asked softly from where he was kneeling beside them, stroking Deacon's tear-stained cheek as the hits rained down on him.

Deacon's ‘no, Sir' was uttered with fierce vehemence. Kyle and Epsilon shared an amused look over his head.

"Then the little cumslut can shut the fuck up, can't he?" said Epsilon, swallowing his smile and falling seamlessly back into character. He swiped up Deacon's boxers where they lay across the sofa's arm and stuffed them roughly into his mouth.

Kyle caught the submissive's wrists as he bucked in surprise.

"You can no longer verbally safe word," he reminded him, and then snickered when Deacon began to determinedly work his underwear out from between his teeth.

He shoved the fabric back in and clapped an uncompromising hand over the sub's mouth.

"Oh, no you don't. You're going to keep that in because your Sir put it there, and you really don't want to upset him, do you?"

Without needing to be prompted, Epsilon brought the studded paddle down across Deacon's exposed ass. From the sound it made and the way Deacon screamed through the gag and writhed across the other man's knee, it was far harder than any of the previous blows had been.

Kyle hummed appreciatively. Master Epsilon looked pleased. And there was a furious head shake from the helpless submissive between them.

"Good," snapped Epsilon. "Because you're already in for one hell of a beating, boy."

Deacon whimpered and Kyle shifted in place to accommodate the way his cock continued to harden at Epsilon's harsh treatment of him. Kyle wasn't a submissive: he felt no need or desire to be that for the man, and the few times he'd done it during his training had been uncomfortably awkward. It was more that watching Master Epsilon be his most cruel, powerful self made it so much hotter to recall his own submission to Kyle.

Having a man like that in tears, begging, a compliant and slutty mess at his feet?

It made Kyle feel like a fucking god.

"Whether it's this or a gag you genuinely can't escape," Kyle said to Deacon in a gentle voice that was deliberately as far from their employer's severe tone as possible, "you need to remember your non-verbal safe word cues. You have the ability to stop a scene at any time. Do you remember what you can use?"

With a loud sniff, Deacon nodded.

"Show me."

He did so, first using his hands to tap out on Kyle's palm, then the leather surface of the sofa with his bare foot, and then employing the deliberate wink Kyle had used the night before.

At that, Kyle swallowed, only just registering how his boss had manipulated him into being the one to give this particular lesson today by immediately falling into the bad Dom role and leaving good Dom for him.

He tried to ignore the satisfaction radiating off Epsilon while Kyle assiduously reminded Deacon of the necessity of safe words and how it was nothing shameful to use one if he needed to...oh, the fucker was smirking now.

Kyle glared at him. Epsilon shrugged lightly, not looking sorry at all, and began to trail his hands over Deacon's back and ass. He occasionally pinched the reddened skin to make him yelp, while Kyle focused on giving the lecture that he'd delivered a thousand times. Because yes, it was advice he wholeheartedly believed in and reminded the staff with on nearly a weekly basis, but also something he apparently struggled to follow himself or he wouldn't have felt so shitty about calling an end to the scene with Miles Mackenroth.

"And sometimes," Kyle said, feeling a wrench in his gut at the terrible reality of their job, "sometimes, the client may not listen to you. Perhaps because they're too lost in their pleasure. Or perhaps they don't want to stop. What would you do then?"

Deacon mumbled what was perhaps an answer around his gag. Epsilon chuckled, low and nasty, and paddled him again. The man's aborted words transformed into sobs.

"Think," Kyle encouraged patiently, still kneeling down by Deacon's face so he could monitor his expression and watch for any genuine distress. "What would you do to get the asshole off of you?"

Epsilon scoffed. "Like fuck I'm stopping just because he's having a little tantrum . I paid good money for this ass, and the bitch clearly wants it."

The sinister, mocking words sent shivers up Kyle's spine. He sounded just like Miles had yesterday.

Kyle wondered how many times Epsilon himself had been at the mercy of such men, those who thought themselves above the need for consent. And not for the first time, he found himself insatiably curious about his boss' past. He knew Epsilon had been in the trade before he'd opened his own House, but as with his real name, the Master rarely divulged personal details about himself.

"See?" Epsilon drawled, spanking Deacon again. "It gets his dick hard. He's into this, really."

Deacon probably was , considering he knew it was all an act, but that wasn't the point. Arousal didn't equal consent. Enjoyment didn't equal consent. Nothing equalled consent except consent .

"Show me," Kyle urged, and a trembling Deacon lifted his tear-streaked face towards the camera in the corner of the room and repeated the non-verbal safe word.

"Good boy," cooed Kyle, tugging his underwear from his mouth and running his fingers through his hair. He tugged gently on one of his dreadlocks. "So, so good."

"Amazing," Epsilon agreed, tossing the paddle aside. "And ever so beautiful." He looped his arms around Deacon's waist and helped him to sit upright on his lap, his manner now gently soothing as he patted and petted the man.

Deacon coiled into the Master's chest and sobbed. Kyle slid his fingers beneath the sub's chin so he could wipe away his tears with soft murmurs of further praise.

"Would you like to come, sweet boy?" asked Epsilon a couple of minutes later when he began to settle.

A furrow formed in Deacon's brow and he blinked up at him as if confused. "You always ask that," he mumbled, and then glancing at Kyle as if his presence now gave him the confidence to do so, asked, "why would I not?"

"You don't want to blow your load for every client," Kyle said with sympathy. He threw himself down on the sofa so he could curl up with both men, and they let him wrap his arms around them. "You'll be exhausted by the end of the night."

Deacon swallowed. "But I'm not like you, Sir. I'm not a…I don't control the scene."

"As a good submissive, yes you do," said Epsilon. "I'll teach you how to manipulate your way into and out of an orgasm."

"How?" His expression was awed.

Kyle grinned. "A combination of begging for one and then either acting out or being the best boy ever usually does the trick."

"That's one way," Epsilon conceded, and then lowered his voice into a conspiratorial whisper. "When the nasty Dominant isn't around, I'll tell you the others."

Kyle snorted and nudged the Master's knee with his foot. "You're far nastier than me when you want to be. As Deacon has literally just experienced. Don't go cozying up to the sub like you're an innocent victim here."

Epsilon fluttered his eyelashes at Kyle. Deacon laughed.

And it was a pleasant way to spend a few minutes; cuddling, soothing, and joking, with light banter designed to pull Deacon out of subspace and ease the other two back into reality as well. They helped him back into his clothes and the submissive left the room with a broad smile and a skip in his step.

Yet when Epsilon attempted to follow him, Kyle tensed. His man wasn't going anywhere .