Bought and Paid For

They had a late dinner sent straight to their bedroom. Mediterranean salad for Davey, a steak sandwich on ciabatta bread for Hunter. Due to an unplanned but intense session in the walk-in shower of their penthouse hotel suite, their flight home had been set back by a couple of hours as Hunter’s private pilot had been forced to delay and redelay his take-off slot to accommodate the wait. It was long past midnight by the time Davey had strode noisily into the marble-floored entrance hall of the house, the ringing of his boots echoing loudly off the walls and making Hunter grimace as the noise aggravated his headache.

The chef had been dragged out of bed to provide the late-night snack and Davey had led Hunter firmly by the hand up to their room before he strayed into his office and got distracted by emails or stocks. Now, with the plates stacked outside the door for someone to deal with later, Davey was undressing in the bathroom and warily watching Hunter pace up and down the bedroom shirtless, in just his suit trousers and socks, staring angrily at his BlackBerry.

Stripping off his shirt and unsubtly unbuttoning his jeans, leaving them ‘casually’ open to show off a tantalising pathway of skin to his crotch, Davey strode back into his room and knocked the phone from Hunter’s hands. It fell with a clatter, skittering across the wooden floor and sliding under a chair. “Quit that. It’s bedtime.” He stared down Hunter’s outraged glare, drawing himself up to his full height and squaring up to him imperiously, flexing his muscles to remind Hunter just how powerful he could be. Hunter pursed his lips and stepped back – but didn’t back down.

A small flicker of worry nestled at the back of Davey’s mind but he wasn’t going to stop now. “It’s the middle of the night. Whatever it is will keep ‘til morning.” He moved closer, right into Hunter’s personal space, oozing authority from every pore. His eyes glanced at Hunter’s wrists, and the red rope burns from their earlier session still marring his flesh. They both waited a second, sharing memories of the violence and passion of the morning. Hunter dropped his head, turning away.

Davey smiled victoriously to himself, stepping up behind him and wrapping his arms around Hunter’s shoulders. “Good boy,” he purred, stroking his hand down Hunter’s chest.

Hunter stiffened, turning his head aside and pulling back from him. He shrugged Davey off, walking away. “Get off me. Don’t fuck with my phone either.” He snatched the fallen gadget off the floor and defiantly checked it was still working before shutting it down and setting it on the side table.

Davey grabbed at his wrist, spinning him round and capturing him in a body-locking bear hug. “I’ll do what I want with you,” he snapped authoritatively. He squeezed, trapping Hunter’s arms uncomfortably against his ribs, and scraped his teeth over the flesh of Hunter’s shoulder, hinting at a bite.

Hunter wasn’t giving in and he shook his way out of the hold, glaring at Davey with distaste. “Stop it. I’m not in the mood.” He shoved Davey away and strode into the bathroom, not bothering to shut the door before he unzipped to piss. Davey sat on the end of the bed and bit his lip uncertainly as he dealt with this unfamiliar feeling of rejection, his mind racing through all of the months of training and advice his instructors at Bios had given him all those years ago. None of them had foreseen a situation like this.

Hunter flushed and washed his hands, drying them on a fluffy blue hand-towel as he padded back into the room. He stared down at Davey with distain. “You should go to bed, get some sleep. That Korean factory owner is arriving tomorrow, I need you to–”

“You need me to meet and greet and generally be a good little wifey. I know, I know.” Davey snarled back at him, rolling his eyes. “And I could say the same to you. Stop working so hard, you’ll make yourself sick.”

Hunter threw the towel back into the bathroom and crossed the room to needlessly adjust the curtains. “I’ll do what I want.” He glanced at the door, his eyes distant and Davey knew he was thinking about Jade, just a couple of halls away, a fragile, fearful fucktoy, just waiting to be used. Jealousy flared up in him. A few years ago he had been everything Hunter wanted. Now, Hunter’s dominating tendencies had grown from a mild, rare occurrence that were welcomed as a refreshing chance in pace, to a recurring intensity that went way beyond Davey’s limited flexibility about such things. So much so, that they justified a few million dollars on a whole new whore to satisfy him, now that he had ‘outgrown’ his original.

Davey pushed down the self pity and made a grab for Hunter’s arm as he passed, standing and holding him gently, trying to let his love for him come out for once. “Hunt, please…” He tried to find the words to make him stay, anything to stop him walking through that door to fuck his other whore tonight. Hunter pulled away and Davey lost his balance, sliding gracefully onto the floor, still clutching at Hunter’s wrist. He stared up with mournful eyes, taking advantage of his slip to try a new tactic.

He trailed his fingers down Hunter’s legs, licking his lips and pretending to be nervous. Hunter shifted uncertainly. “What are you doing? Get off the floor.”

Davey held onto the fabric of his pants, using Hunter to balance himself as he got onto his knees. He looked shyly up again, glancing pointedly at Hunter’s crotch, just inches from his face. “Hunt, you can use me.” He slid his hand slowly up the inside of Hunter’s leg, making his intentions clear.

“Dave, you’re being weird. Just go to bed, okay?” Hunter stepped away, and Davey fell back onto his elbows, sprawling on the floor.

He spread his legs, his unbuttoned jeans riding dangerously low on his hips, revealing a flash of the top of his cock. Hunter started to step over him, tired of these games, and Davey raised his hand, trying to block his path. “You can hit me!” His voice was high, tinged with desperation. Hunter stared at him, baffled. Davey lowered his voice. “You can hit me. If you want. Please Hunter, stay with me. Don’t leave me. You can… you can do whatever you want. Anything. I want it.”

“Shut the fuck up Dave, go to bed.” Hunter pushed his hands away, stepping over him and backing towards the door.

Davey rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself to his knees. “You’re gonna go fuck him then? You’re gonna leave me on my own to go fuck him? Why, Hunter? What does he do for you? Does he scream for you? I can scream; you can make me scream. You can tie me down and carve your name into my back; I’ll bleed for you, Hunter, I… I’d die for you. I would.” He struggled to keep the hysteria out of his voice, his careful walls of self control crumbling away.

Hunter gazed at him coolly, unresponsive to this wave of emotion Davey was pouring at him. “Stop it. I don’t want you crying at me.” He opened the door and backed through it, leaning against the doorframe for support. “I don’t want to see you on the floor, I don’t want you to scream for me or bleed for me or die for me; I want you to do what I fucking tell you. Get off the floor. Go to bed. We have guests arriving at ten AM.”

He waited for Davey to clamber miserably to his feet and stand hollowly in the middle of the room, snot dripping from his nose. Angrily, he kicked the door, making it bounce violently against the stop. “Goddamnit Dave, you’re supposed to be the strong one! If you’re broken, what hope is there for me?”

Without waiting for a response Hunter turned on his heel and marched from the room, slamming the door shut behind him. His footsteps faded out of earshot down the hall, headed to the East wing of the house, towards Jade’s room. Davey’s legs gave out and he crumpled onto the bed, too distraught to cry any more, just gasping in lungfuls of shaking breaths, trying to hold onto the last shattered remnants of his self respect. His brain tormented him with images of Hunter thrusting himself into Jade’s scrawny, pliant body. The ultimate sub: too weak to fight back even if he wanted to.

Minutes ticked past and slowly Davey’s breathing settled into a more regular rhythm, his fists relaxed their grip on the bedsheets. He rolled onto his back and stared balefully at his bedside clock which was cheerfully telling him he had just five hours to pull himself together before he had to start work in the morning. Never before had it felt like so much of a job. He wished several kinds of destruction upon the clock and shuffled stiffly off the bed.

The bathroom floor was cold on his bare feet as he kicked off his jeans and scrubbed at his face, wiping off the remnants of tear-stained makeup, standing naked in the harsh fluorescent light. He rubbed leave-in conditioner through his hair and applied an overnight facemask. With a sigh he moisturised his skin, making note of a couple of tattoos which would have to be touched up soon: looking the way he did all the time didn’t come easy.

Leaving the bathroom scattered with towels and clothes, Davey snapped off the lights and pulled on rarely-worn pyjama pants; if Hunter did deign to return to him tonight, he wouldn’t be getting any free feels. He dithered at the door for a moment: he didn’t usually stay in this room alone, it was Hunter’s room. But going to his own room in the East wing would mean going past Jade’s room where he would inevitably overhear Hunter’s grunting as he fucked the worthless piece of shit. Right now, that was the last thing he wanted to hear. Reluctantly, he climbed into Hunter’s bed, curling up on the edge and trying to clear his mind enough to let sleep take him.

He drifted into a dozing state, dreaming of revenge and the shouts and cries Jade would scream out when Davey next got him alone for a while. The shouts grew more solid, accompanied by the banging of doors and moving of furniture. Davey shifted in his sleep, disconcerted by the vividness of the dream. Footsteps grew nearer, running, turning and doubling back, then coming closer again. Doors were being thrown open, they were coming closer, they were coming to get him.

Just as Davey started to panic in his dream, the door to his room burst open, a hand slapping at the lightswitch and flooding the room with harsh white light. Two people ran in, staggering to a stop as Davey jumped with a yell, waking up to find his nightmare was real.

“Shit, I’m sorry sir, I’m sorry!” The first man bowed his head, ushering the second back and fixing Davey with a beseechingly apologetic look.

“What the fuck is going on?” Davey shoved back the covers, climbing out of bed and advancing angrily on the two cowering men. He recognised them now, one worked in the house, assisting their housekeeper, the other was one of the security guard usually seen patrolling the grounds. Both were out of uniform and seemed to have dressed in a hurry from the way the guard’s sweater was on inside out and the lackey was running about in odd socks.

“I’m sorry sir, the boss sir, he told us to search every room sir. Every room! We didn’t know you were here sir. Sorry sir.” The lackey waved a hand urgently at the guard, keeping his body language respectful as though afraid of Davey. He had need to be: Davey could have him fired with no reference before dawn broke if he so wished to – and had exercised this right frequently enough in the past for the staff to be wary of him, though he was certainly easier to deal with than the unpredictability of Hunter.

“Search for what? What the fuck is happening?” Davey resisted the urge to shake his hair over his face: he was horrified to be caught without makeup and with gunk all over his face like this.

“To search for the other– for the Mister Jade sir. He’s missing! We haven’t seen him for days sir, we thought he was with you and the boss, sir!”

“Jade’s gone missing? He’s run off?” Davey struggled to grasp the concept, running away from Hunter was not something any sane person would do.

Twin nods. “Yes sir. The boss went to… uh, to see him earlier sir, and he wasn’t in his room, nor anywhere he should be. And we can’t find him sir. And none of us have seen him these past six days at least. He’s such a quiet person, sir, we never notice him even when he is here.” The guard nudged him and the man fell silent, eyeing Davey worriedly.

Anger surged through Davey’s veins. The ungrateful little cocksucker! How dare he disappear on them after everything Hunter had done for him, all the time and money invested in him. Bitterly, he wondered how much of the household valuables Jade had managed to spirit away with him and what coporate secrets he could be squealing to Hunter’s competitors this very moment.

“Shit.” He reached for his suit jacket, pulling it on over his bare chest, the closet item of clothing to hand. “Okay get everyone up, get everyone searching: the house, the grounds, the summer house, the garages, the stables, everywhere. I want everyone interviewed about the last time they saw him. I want all the security tapes watched through from the last time he was seen up to now. And I want a full inventory of the house contents. If he’s taken so much as a hairbrush I want to fucking know about it.”

They glanced at each other uncertainly and he seethed with anger, unused to having people disobeying him. With exaggerated gestures, he shepherded them out of the room and shouted at them until they broke into a run, dashing down the corridor to pass on his orders. Buttoning his jacket closed, Davey strode down the hallway towards the East wing, finding the disorder and confusion growing the closer he got to Jade’s room.

At a junction in the corridors, he found Hunter harshly questioning a couple of housemaids in their dressing gowns. They were flattening themselves against the wall, clearly afraid of their angry employer and his impossible questions. Hunter dismissed them as Davey stepped up to him, taking his hand and squeezing it; their argument forgotten in the light of this new drama.

“Have you spoken to Arthur yet? Shall I call him?” Davey groped for his phone in his jacket pocket, starting to search for the policeman’s number. He had been their first port of call with the police force for years now, and Davey knew he would get the right people onto the search party for them. They would get every police car in the state looking for the piece of shit and when they found him…

Hunter shook his head, closing Davey’s phone. “Shit! No, no, no! We can’t get the police involved. We have to keep this quiet. He stared around him at the chaos that moments ago he had been spurring on.

“What? Why not? Hunt, the police can put out calls, get a national watch out for him in moments. He won’t get far!”

“We have to keep it quiet. We can’t get the authorities involved. Shit Dave, if Bios find out my product ran away they’ll repeal my contract!”

Davey frowned. “So? If the little shit doesn’t like us and ran away, we don’t want him either, right?” He gripped Hunter’s hand, trying to understand why Hunter was so upset about this ungrateful whore’s disappearance. Sure he had been expensive, but it wasn’t that great a loss, was it?

“No Dave, they’ll repeal my right to a contract. To any contract. They’ll take you away from me too! We can’t let Bios hear of his. We can’t let it out of this house. We have to keep it quiet.” Hunter leaned heavily against the wall, his face pale and drawn as he lost himself in the scenario.

Davey froze, chilled to the bone as he suddenly grasped Hunter’s fear. He was right: if Bios heard that a product had been so unhappy he had run away, there would certainly be questions, to say the least. If Jade was found, and reported bad treatment, they would remove Davey from Hunter’s care, regardless of whether he wanted to go or not. And if Jade wasn’t found… If he just disappeared... They could be looking at a murder case. And Hunter’s carefully constructed empire would crash and burn under the media spotlight that would cause.

Hunter gazed at him helplessly. “Make it stop, Davey. We have to keep it quiet. I should never have called for help. I shouldn’t have got people searching. I’ve fucked it all up. Shit!” He stared desolately at the chaos around them, the people hurrying all over the house, all lights on, all doors thrown open.

Spinning on his heel, Davey hurried down the hallway, calling for someone in charge. The housekeeper, freshly out of bed, appeared, looking pale and drawn with this terrible turn of events. “Alan!” Davey marched up to him, gripping him by the arm and taking him aside to whisper hurriedly at him. The man grew paler as Davey’s words sank in. He nodded his understanding and they split up to start stopping the searchers still bustling round the house, giving them their new orders:

They were to wind down the search but remain on the property. No one was to leave the estate for any reason. No one was to make any phone calls or have any contact with the outside world apart from a supervised phone call to their family to inform them of where they were. No one could mention the search to anyone at all. The staff grumbled discontentedly but dispersed without too much fuss. Working for Hunter created all kinds of trouble, at least they didn’t have to sift through three tonnes of mud for a lost ring or catch thousands of escaped spiders this time.

With the house under lockdown, and the drama hopefully contained, Davey shut himself in his office and dug out his phone again to dial a seldom-used number. It was time to call in a favour or two. “Detective Stuben? Hey, sorry for the late call. It’s Davey, I work for Hunter Burgan, remember? Yeah, that’s me. Okay Richie, listen, I have a job for you, on the downlow. Fee adjusted to suit. You interested?” Satisfied he had the man’s attention, Davey filled him out on the details, simultaneously firing off an encrypted email with a description and photos of Jade. He authorised a fee downpayment from his personal bank account – his finances would be under less scrutiny than Hunter’s. Stuben promised to start searching, keeping things very quiet. Davey trusted him; they’d used him before and he’d always brought results.

Satisfied that some vague kind of order had been restored to the household, Davey padded back to Jade’s room where Hunter was leaning against the doorframe, staring miserably at the empty space. Davey wrapped his arms around him in silent comfort and Hunter clung to him like a child.

Davey stroked his skin softly. “Shhh, it’s okay. It’s okay, I’m fixing it. We’ll find him. No one will ever know. We’ll find him.” He took Hunter’s hand and led him away from the traitorous whore’s room, taking him back to their own room where they could snuggle up and spend what little remained of the night together, just like old times.

Hunter followed him numbly, all trace of the arrogant dominating character wiped out by this shock to his security. He hung onto Davey’s hand and let him take control; undressing him deftly and helping him into sleep-pants, guiding him into bed. Davey snapped off the lights and held Hunter in the darkness, whispering softly to him to stop him getting too lost in his thoughts.

Hunter gripped his arm, his fingernails digging into Davey’s flesh. “Oh fuck Dave, why didn’t he just sever the agreement? Why did the bastard have to fucking run away?”