The Academy by Laura Antoniou Page B

joining a partnership this year.”
    “Do you think—that maybe people don’t really need what the Marketplace offers anymore?’ Michael suggested cautiously.
    Tucker laughed. “Hell no, Mike, I think we’ll always have a demand for high quality flesh!”
    “Oh—well, I meant the slaves. The clients. Maybe they don’t need to come to the Marketplace, because they have so many modern outlets for kinky sex now. I mean, why give up all your freedom if all you want is some top to slap you around and fuck you every once in a while?”
    Mr. Wong and Tucker looked at him as if he had uttered blasphemy.
    “Sir, that is the very core of our problem!” Tucker exclaimed, sitting upright. “Spotters who think that people with the latest fetish are somehow acceptable for our Way Of Life. Clients who believe that they kin learn to be a proper slave by taking classes in it; that’s just a—a fad, that’s what it is. Ten years ago, they thought they could be slaves because they saw a coupla movies about masters n’ slaves. Forty years ago, because they read all the smutty books about it. People like that are just a fact o’ life, son. The problem is when they are convinced that they kin—and should!—seek something beyond their ken, as it were.”
    “Although it is true that a significant number of new clients are reaching us through the fetish arenas,” noted Mr. Wong with a pointed look. “And many of them are as true to their new life as any client who was not a part of that world. We cannot simply recommend that spotters not cast their nets over a portion of the sea just because many of the fish need to be thrown back!”
    “But how can we make sure that those fish don’t end up in my tank, that’s what I want to know!” Tucker laughed and heaved himself to his feet. “Well, hello there, stranger!”
    Michael half-turned in his seat and then rose himself, with Mr. Wong at his side. Alexandra Selador joined them, hugging Tucker warmly.
    “Hello, Tucker, good to see you!”
    “It’s always a pleasure to see you, Ms. Selador,” he said genially. “Do y’all know Alex here, boys?”
    She turned and shook Mr. Wong’s hand and then smiled at Michael, who had automatically put his hands behind his back and taken half a step back. “Well, hello there, Mike! I see you’re meeting all the important people here.”
    He grinned; he really liked Alex. Of the two partners in the Long Island House he was working in, she was more likely to offer a kind word or a hint when things got bad. “Yes, ma’am,” he said cheerfully. “I didn’t realize that you had arrived! If I had, I would have seen to you this morning.”
    “I got onto an earlier flight and slept in,” she said, sitting down. “You don’t have to worry about me, Mike. I know Chris will keep you busy enough, and it looks like they almost brought a slave for everyone this year. My it’s hot, isn’t it?” The men took seats around her and a slave brought her a glass of iced tea with that same fluid grace that they all did.
    “I couldn’t help but overhear what you gentlemen were talking about,” she said after taking a sip. “I wish I hadn’t missed the report, Michael. You’ll have to give me your notes later. But you know, Tucker, there is only one way to make sure you don’t spend six weeks training someone who will run off and marry the first self-appointed master or mistress who gives them an orgasm—and that’s to listen to them. We seem to have to learn that lesson every year.”
    “But they all say the same damn things, Alex,” Tucker said. He cocked his head to one side and said in an innocent sing-song voice, “Why Masta’ Tucker, I was just born to be a slave, I was! It’s in my dreams, it’s in my blood, I’d do anything for my masta!” They all laughed.
    “Yes,” Alex agreed. “They often do. But you know what? We have to stop believing them. Oh, we toss back the obvious loose cannons and flakes, at least I hope so.