A Scotch for the Road - Part 2

[flighty_dreams]

TITLE: A Scotch for the Road - Part 2/?
AUTHOR: flighty_dreams 
WARNINGS: Slavefic. NC-17 just in case, tho not yet needed.  M/m, F/m, Femdom.
WORD COUNT: 1,899
SUMMARY: A slave enduring a party encounters more than he bargained for.
NOTES: Based on a weekly prompt made in orig_slavefic . I blame Mara. I can't believe I haven't finished the next chapter of Spliced b/c of this.
FEEDBACK: Always welcome!

 

Jenna almost didn’t recognize Brett.

He was just a shell of his former self, and it hurt to look at him. He was paler than she remembered, the golden tan he’d acquired from spending long hours outside with her long faded from his skin. His dark brown hair was longer now, the tips of it touching his shoulders. But these differences were slight compared to what she saw in his face. His expression was empty, his brown eyes listless, not bright and sparkling as she’d often seen them. With growing horror, she realized that she was responsible for this. Why had she been so stupid?

She’d met Brett almost five years ago now. Jenna had just graduated from college and had moved back in with her parents for a while. Not sure what she wanted to do with her life, she was looking for a job. As part of the high profile Vanlean-Warren family, she had any number of opportunities available to her, but she’d been conflicted on whether she just wanted to fall into what was expected for her or follow her own path.

Her cousin Derrick, who was only a year younger than her, was living on his own while finishing school himself. They’d always been fairly close, bonding over issues with their parents, who alternately ignored and spoiled them.

She came over to see Derrick’s new high-rise apartment one night, and there she encountered Brett for the first time. Her idiot cousin, intoxicated and laughing stupidly with his drunken college friends, was letting his friends take turns using the naked slave in his apartment. Furious with them all, she blistered their ears so hard with her tirade that his friends had slunk away ashamedly. Learning that the slave belonged to her hopeless cousin, she saved extra words for Derrick, berating him for treating his slave so callously. Her cousin wasn’t cruel by nature, but when he got drunk he lost all common sense.

Derrick’s mother had given him the slave for his birthday. Jenna loved Derrick, but she knew he’d have trouble taking care of a cat, much less a slave. What had his mother been thinking? She clearly hadn’t. Derrick wasn’t a complete moron; he understood he didn’t have either the sense of responsibility or the inclination to take care of Brett, but he didn’t want to offend his mother by returning or selling her gift.

So instead Jenna found herself going over there often to check on them, making sure that Brett wasn’t being abused or neglected. Despite being a few years older than her, Brett was so shy that it made him seem younger. He was very reserved, in that calm still way that slaves adopted to survive. It intrigued and frustrated her, because it made her wonder what he’d been like when he was younger, before he developed that defense mechanism.

A few months passed and Derrick was admitted to an archaeological dig he’d applied to months earlier. Archaeology was his passion, and he’d been working towards this for years, so there was no question of him not going. But it wasn’t any place to take a personal slave, not even if you were a Vanlean-Warren, so he asked Jenna to take care of Brett for him. She’d already been stepping in for him quite a bit, so it wasn’t much of a stretch. And the thought of having Brett all to herself secretly delighted her.

Derrick was gone for eight months. By the time he left, she’d already gotten her own place, and she moved Brett in with her. Those months were the best time of her life, as she slowly pulled down the walls that Brett hid behind. With sweet words and promises to take care of him she coaxed him out of his shell. He changed, letting her see a lively, devoted side to him. They both felt alone in the world, separated from true affection—she by her distant, self-serving relatives, and he by the hardships of slavery. The reality of their social positions was never entirely forgotten—he always called her “Mistress” and was eager to serve her needs, and she calmly accepted it as only someone who had lived a privileged existence all her life could. But there was love there too, because he didn’t just serve her out of duty. He wanted to please her, and his smiling face was all she needed to brighten her day. She loved taking care of him, and he loved taking care of her.

As time passed and their feelings intensified, the depth of her love for Brett—who by society’s reckoning was a pet, not a person—began to scare her. What was she doing? She’d neglected her search for a job, for a purpose in life, to spend all her time with a slave. A slave that she’d become emotionally dependent on. If her family realized how obsessed she was with Brett, they’d be scandalized and do all they could to end it.

So when Derrick finally returned and picked up Brett, she didn’t protest. She needed time to think and figure out what to do. And when her cousin asked her, out of Brett’s hearing, what she thought of the slave, she said offhandedly, “Oh, he’s okay.” She didn’t want to appear too passionate about him, not until she had a plan. She didn’t trust Derrick to keep his mouth shut if she confided in him.

She didn’t speak to her cousin for a few days as she worked things out, but when she did she was in for a shock. He’d sold Brett, deciding that he didn’t want the trouble of keeping him, and figuring that it had been long enough to not offend his mother. Thanks to her detached response to his question, Derrick hadn’t thought she’d been interested in Brett at all, so he hadn’t offered him to her first.

Derrick had sent him off to auction, and she checked with the auction market to find out who had bought Brett. She found his new owner, Marcus Donovan, but the man refused to sell him to her, and didn’t even allow her to see him. Invoking her family name only made him more hostile, because unbeknownst to her he was a long time partner of the Cassidy family, one of her family’s biggest rivals. There was no love lost between the two sides, especially when it came to business. To top it all off, in her anxious desperation she’d shown her hand. He not only knew she was desperate to get Brett back, he realized she had inappropriate feelings for the slave. Spiteful and disgusted, he’d refused every offer she made, delighting in thwarting her.

Clearing her head of thoughts of that horrible man—she’d later used her family’s powerful influence to ensure Donovan’s financial ruin—she focused back on Brett. He looked like he had when she first met him, all distant and hidden away, but somehow it seemed worse this time, as if he’d concealed himself deeper.

She watched him follow his current master over to a group of people in the center of the room. When they first walked into the room, she’d noticed the color of the slave’s hair and his shoulders. She’d spent the past four years catching sight of men that reminded her of Brett in some way. It had always been just her fooling herself, and she thought at first that the same thing was happening again tonight. But a closer look had convinced her that she wasn’t crazy. It really was him this time.

Once the initial shock of seeing him wore off, she kept a wary distance and watched him and his master. Some higher power had brought them together again, and she was determined not to screw up this time. She approached a few of the guests she knew at the party, discreetly pointing Brett’s master out to them and asking if they knew who he was. He wasn’t that well known, but she was told he had a reputation for being temperamental, sometimes losing his temper during business interactions or social gatherings. That revelation made her worry for Brett increase. If he was that uncontrolled in public, how harsh was he in private to Brett? She studied the man carefully, wondering what his price could be. Would he be willing to sell Brett to her?

But after an initial long study of the man, her control kept slipping, her eyes continually drawn to Brett. It had been far too long since she saw him, and she couldn’t get enough now. The urge to stalk over there and take him away, to put life back into him, was almost overwhelming. But she was a Vanlean-Warren, and knew better than to cause a scene. Besides, doing that would only make the situation worse not better, because she’d still need to legally buy him from his current owner.

She’d always been impatient by nature; there wasn’t much in her life that she’d ever had to wait for. But she forced herself to wait now, for an opportunity to talk to Brett. And finally she got one, as she watched him rise, his eyes searching around and then fixing on the bar. Knowing where he was going, she headed after him, striving not to appear too hurried to the other guests.

The brief words they exchanged told her how deeply she’d hurt him. Brett obviously believed she’d given him back to her cousin and then never given him another thought. But at least seeing her again did bring animation back into his eyes and face, which pleased her. It meant her Brett was still in there, despite the hurt and bitterness he obviously felt towards her. She hated that he’d been renamed, as if he were a dog that couldn’t tell his new master his name. He’d always be Brett to her. His parting words cut her deep, because she knew he was right, this situation was her fault, not his. As a slave, he’d had no control over what happened to him; it had been up to her to stand up for what they had, and in her youthful stupidity she’d failed them both.

And as he stood at the bar, she realized she’d forgotten to tell him what was probably the most important thing to say:  that she’d looked for him and tried to get him back. She was as stupid as Derrick! Why hadn’t she added that onto her apology?

As she rebuked herself, she watched him leave the bar. His eyes seemed as helplessly drawn to her as hers were to him, but then his gaze shifted and the last of the life went out of his face. Even as her heart twisted painfully at the sight, she followed his gaze and found his master staring at her. Oh no. He must’ve seen at least some of it.

She’d already done enough damage to Brett; she didn’t want to get him in trouble with his by all accounts tempestuous owner on top of that. Vacillating, she pondered whether intervening would do more harm than good. Deciding now was the time to take action, she put on her arrogant, the world-owes-me Vanlean-Warren smirk and slowly approached the man.

She’d be smarter about it this time, and not reveal how much she wanted Brett.

Part 3