Page 8 of Under His Heel

“Fuck. You.” Alex sneered. He spat in Tracht’s general direction. Didn’t really do much; the spit landed on Alex’s chest and didn’t come anywhere near Tracht. He felt a bit foolish for having tried.

Tracht sighed loudly. “Let me see if I can piece it together. You and your brother cooked up this plan to sell you into servitude and then disappear into the night so that I would be left holding the bill, without any of the rewards. Is that right?”

Alex kept silent. Tracht sat down next to Alex and began tapping his fingers against Alex’s stomach. “I would almost admire the sheer audacity of it, if the plan weren’t so fundamentally stupid.”

That got Alex’s attention. “What?”

“Alex, the moment you removed the collar a full five years earlier than originally intended, the debt-leasing center received an alert. Even if I hadn’t already been aware of what you were doing, I would have found out.”

“Yeah, but we would have been long gone by then. And you’re required to pay no matter what happens to me.”

Tracht rolled his eyes. “Did you read the contract at all? I’m required to pay your debt, even in cases where you take ill, die, or are forcibly removed or otherwise prevented from fulfilling your contract to me. This is so that debt owners cannot kill their charges and then try to distance themselves from the liability. It does not cover instances where you voluntarily attempt to break contact.”

Alex closed his eyes. No, that couldn’t be right. Nick had read the bond servitude contracts and said they were really easily exploited. “Nick said—”

“Your brother? Does he have a law degree?” Sarcasm dripped from Tracht’s voice. Alex wanted to be offended on Nick’s behalf. He didn’t have schooling, but his brother was smart. It was thanks to Nick that they’d managed to survive as long and as well as they had.

“Nick knows shit,” Alex tried to argue, and then got mad at himself for saying as much. Especially when Tracht laughed in response.

“I find that very hard to believe.” Tracht began moving his fingers to Alex’s side, light touches that might have felt soothing if Alex weren’t restrained and Tracht were anybody else.

“I could, reluctantly, agree to annul the contract. My lawyers would be annoyed, since they’ve already had to deal with two canceled contracts this year. You would, of course, then be liable again for the full sum of your debt, minus two days worth of payments I’ve already made.” Tracht flicked Alex’s nipple, and Alex flinched. “With an attempted escape on your record, the station would be unwilling to buy your debt at the standard rate, which I believe would amount to twenty years in your case. No, you would be forced to negotiate with your original creditors. Would you like that?”

And here Tracht gave him the coldest smile Alex had ever seen, promising so much unpleasantness that Alex started tugging on his restraints, trying to get further away from him.

“Ah, I did not think so. I wouldn’t want to be indebted to the Nilsens either.”

Fuck. Fuck. “I’ll– I’ll stay. Just– don’t. Don’t give me to them.”

Tracht smiled cruelly. “That’s what I thought. Now, let’s discuss the matter of your punishment. Because not only did you run away, but you also left one of my crew incapacitated and bleeding. The former was both disrespectful and stupid, the latter absolutely callous. Mr. Parsons could have died.”

Alex needed more than a second to connect the name to the guard he’d beaten up. Like, sure, he’d hurt the guy, but surely he wouldn’t have died. Somebody would have found him. Or the guy could have gotten up and walked to get help for himself.

He startled when Tracht tapped at his jaw. “Open up.”

What? No. Alex turned his head aside and tried to clamp his mouth shut. Tracht grabbed Alex’s nose and squeezed, not letting go even while Alex shook his head from side to side, until Alex was forced to open his mouth to breathe. Somehow Tracht had a strange device ready that he shoved into Alex’s mouth, preventing Alex from closing his jaw again. Alex tried to dislodge the thing with his tongue, but Tracht fastened it around Alex’s head. A gag. A fucking ring gag, stretching Alex’s jaw in an obscene way. He couldn’t stop the cries that escaped him, had no way of keeping the sounds in anymore.

Then Tracht’s fingers were in there, stroking everything. Tracht kept one hand on Alex’s forehead to keep him still, while the other hand’s fingers rubbed the roof of Alex’s mouth and went further and further in, until they were at the back of his throat. Then they retreated and stroked his tongue.

Alex’s heart was pounding so fast, he could barely hear anything over the sound of it.

“Most bondservants don’t like it when I touch the insides of their mouths,” Tracht commented. “But I thought your reaction was a bit stronger than most.” His finger came to a rest over the new molar Tracht had replaced just two days ago. “I might have been a bit dishonest with you regarding this tooth.” He tapped the tooth lightly, making a slight sound reverberate inside Alex’s skull. “Doctor Singh would be upset with me, I think, but it would certainly be within my rights to remove this tooth. It wouldn’t be a modification, after all, to return your body to the same state as I received it.”

That was it. Alex shouted, twisted, anything to get Tracht’s fingers out of his mouth, away from the tooth. Panic clawed at him, and he remembered the pain of the first time, when Peter Nilsen had taken pliers and just pried the tooth out, slowly and excruciatingly, the pain going on and on.

He tried to apologize to Tracht, incoherent sounds slipping out of his mouth along with the spit sliding down his chin. Tears flowed freely, blurring his vision, and snot started to clog his nose.

He didn’t know how long he struggled, but when exhaustion started stilling his muscles, he realized that there was nothing in his mouth—no fingers, no blood gushing forward, no excruciating pain—and Tracht was petting his forehead and humming at him.

“There, there. I haven’t done anything.”

Alex blinked wetly at him.

“Really, be a bit smarter. I can’t simply rip a tooth out without any tools.” Tracht ran a finger down Alex’s scar, and then across Alex’s stretched-wide lips. “I do love the sounds you made. Incoherent terror suits you.”

Terror? Alex’s heart was still beating double-time, he could barely breathe, and Tracht was getting off on Alex’s fear?

But at least he didn’t actually do anything, another part of him whispered. He was horrified to note that he was vaguely grateful. Like, yes, he’d made the right choice signing with Tracht, because it could be so much worse.

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