Claimed Beauty (The Cubi Book 2) Page 8

  Seldon groaned. “Yes, My Lord.” Seldon got up and left the kitchen to return a few minutes later wearing clothes. Caledon dug into Daniel’s bag and tossed Seldon a bright red shirt. Seldon did not look happy about it, but he pulled it on. The chest and back were adorned with a white symbol Daniel didn’t know. It looked like all the other symbols around the place—in the halls and on the elevator buttons.

  “What is it?” Daniel asked, cleaning up his place and putting the plate in the dishwasher.

  “It means everybody can see that I fucked up royally by dosing you. It kind of translates as fuck-up.”

  “You’ll learn our language and alphabet once you start school,” Caledon said and drank his coffee. “Better get dressed.”

  Daniel found his bag and pulled out the set of clothes he’d be least upset about seeing off after the day. He dressed in the kitchen and glanced at the clock. It was two minutes to six, so he cleared the table of their empty cups and hurried to the bedroom with the bag.

  Seldon and Caledon were waiting in the hallway when he returned.

  Knowing he’d be shoveling shit all day was not something he looked forward to, and he still thought they pulled out a way bigger arsenal than called for. But he didn’t know anything about the Cubi hierarchy other than what Seldon had explained—everybody started at the bottom. He was changing into something else in a world he didn’t understand yet. Maybe the huge-ass arsenal could help him understand the cast he had been placed in because of the premature dosing?

  Learning that he could take pride in making the bed and being able to use a washing machine on his own had him rethink a few things, too. At home, he’d made his bed if someone came over. Why had he been so indifferent with everything else?

  As they walked, he thought back to his upbringing with his parents. He had prizes on a shelf in the living room—some given to him for just attending something where he made no effort at being the best. A corner of the living room was like a shrine to him with hand prints in plaster, a mask he had made from papier-mâché, and pictures from birthday parties where he sat with a huge cake. Some of those parties were so huge that he didn’t know or remember half the kids invited. He had been invited to some of the birthday parties of the kids on the street—kids he never spoke with, and his mom had bought the present and set off what resembled a military operation to wrap the thing. Daniel rarely knew what he was bringing to the party or who to give it to once he had arrived. He hated those parties.

  Look your best.

  Be nice to the others.

  Those were the words his mother had sent him and the gift out the door with. At home, it had been different. Take out the trash, empty the dishwasher, put your clothes in the hamper. That was the extent of it, but for the life of him, Daniel couldn’t remember a time when she had told him why to do these things. He had thought it unfair because she was a housewife. It was her job. He had school and homework, that was his job as a kid.

  What had he missed in the big picture? Seldon kept saying Daniel’s parents hadn’t done their job, and since he couldn’t even use a washing machine, sure something had gone wrong, but what else?

  “Daniel,” Caledon said, breaking Daniel’s train of thought. He hadn’t even noticed where they were. “I see you’ve gotten good at sulking about today’s task on our way here.”

  “What? No, My Lord!” Daniel looked at Seldon, who cocked an eyebrow. “I was thinking about something Seldon had said. That we each have a place, and we must each take responsibility for our place. I didn’t even know my place in the human world because apparently, my parents never took the time to think further than my age. As a Changeling, I know even less about this world, and…” And it finally struck Daniel what the huge difference there was between his parents and Seldon. He had felt they didn’t care because they never pushed him in other directions than where he wanted to go.

  “Oh, my, the wheels are churning in there,” Caledon said, smiling. “Good. Manual labor is the best to keep the mind occupied constructively.”

  “The plan is that, for the next three months, I teach you while you get accustomed to all the changes you’re going through,” Seldon said. “Once you’re ready, you’ll start school. This is your first lesson, and I’m very proud that you remembered me saying exactly that. Because that’s actually what I’m going to teach you today.”

  “You know it theoretically,” Caledon said, nodding. “The difference between knowledge and wisdom is knowing something in theory or being able to apply said knowledge in practice. Today, you get the opportunity to turn knowledge into wisdom.” Caledon held his hand out to the red door with markings Daniel couldn’t read.

  “Yes, My Lord.”

  “Good. Follow me.” Caledon opened the door and went through.

  Seldon had winked at Daniel before they followed the Lord into an office where six people sat. One with green eyes.

  “Sire Jaydon.”

  “My Lord, welcome.” Jaydon stood and shook Caledon’s hand. The sincerity fell away and was replaced by sadness as he shook Seldon’s hand, but curiosity took it’s place upon turning his attention to Daniel. “You must be Daniel. Jeff has spoken of you a great deal.”

  The name Jaydon finally rang a bell. “Yes, I am. Are you…Jeff’s Sire?”

  “I am.” Jaydon looked proud at that. “I’ve been asked to find you a gig today. I’m the head of Sanitation in House Three.”

  Daniel cringed but tried to keep it from his expression. Sanitation. Fantastic. Shoveling shit. Seldon smothered a laugh. Daniel glanced at him, wondering about his amusement since Seldon was the one who had to teach him and thus had to get his hands dirty, too.

  “Follow me.” Jaydon led them from the office into a huge industrial complex with a lot of workers in coveralls with the same mark as on the door. It didn’t smell like shit in there, and the place was as clean as you’d expect a warehouse to be. People pushed pallets around, and a forklift drove down the length of the place with a stack of what looked like different kinds of fabric.

  “Jaydon, would you tell the new cub about this place?” Caledon asked.

  “Certainly, My Lord.” Jaydon put an arm around Daniel’s shoulder and pulled him to the forefront of their little expedition crew. “This is Sanitation, meaning we are responsible for everything that has to do with keeping House Three clean. We keep the plumbing running, keep the feeding stalls clean and stocked, we paint the halls, grease the elevators, change light bulbs, clean windows…in short, we make our Lord Caledon’s House look pristine and proud at all times.”

  They passed a blue-eye who stopped long enough to nod at them, and Daniel noticed his tool belt. He looked like an electrician with the things in his belt.

  “We have everything here from old breeders to Changelings and the entire array of eye colors, except for purple.” Jaydon continued and stopped by a door. “Now. What are you good at?”

  Had Jaydon asked two weeks ago, Daniel would probably have told him he was good at everything. Now he knew he wasn’t good at anything.

  “Nothing,” Daniel said quietly.

  “Nothing?” Jaydon looked surprised at this. “You’ve got to have some kind of experience.”

  “Never found something I wanted to do.”

  “Daniel is nineteen and a curling-kid,” Caledon said.

  “A…a what?” Daniel asked.

  “You know the game curling? That ball on ice and two people run ahead of it and brush the ice of all obstacles?” Caledon asked. Daniel nodded. “The two with the brush are curling-parents. The kid’s the curling ball in this analogy…kids who never had the chance to meet and tackle an obstacle in their life and thus never grow from it. There’s a balance somewhere between not putting child safety caps on a bottle of poison and letting the kid play with the bottle to not let them experience any obstacles at all.”

  Okay, crude but apt analogy. “Well, in that case, I’m not a complete curling-kid because I did do summer jobs at my dad’s hardwar
e store. But Seldon was the one who taught me to use a washing machine.”

  “Good. You get a spot on the cleaning crew today.” Jaydon led them through the door and down a long hallway with little offices behind windows to one side.

  “But…Seldon said I was going to shovel shit.” Daniel slapped a hand over his mouth, making Jaydon laugh loudly.

  “That’s a metaphor for shitty assignments,” Seldon clarified. “The point of shitty assignments is to teach you to see a job through no matter how much you dislike doing it, for the simple reason it has to be done.”

  “If we take pride in what we do, we take pride in ourselves and the contribution we make,” Jaydon said, opening the door at the end of the long hallway. They exited on a platform high above the floor of another huge industrial complex. Train tracks went through it and in the middle of it stood five train wagons with some kind of logo on the side.

  “You might remember those,” Seldon said.

  “That the train we came in on?” Daniel asked.

  “Yes.” Jaydon turned to look at Daniel. “You’ve been here about a week, right?” Daniel nodded, not taking his eyes off the wagons. “Then these are the very wagons you came in on. Someone messed up one of the rooms pretty bad, and we’re fixing it. You get to help clean them. Think we should put you on the guard’s wagon.”

  “Seldon will take you through it and help you.” Caledon looked at his watch. “You have four hours.”

  “Yes, My Lord,” Seldon said. Daniel repeated and followed Jaydon and Seldon down the stairs. Once on the platform, Seldon led Daniel into a wagon with windows. It had passenger compartments, but they were fitted like small rooms with a desk, a closet, and a bed. Seldon went into the first room and looked around, running his hands over the surfaces, stopping short when he did on the desk. He lifted his hand and pulled a face at his palm.

  “Someone either had sticky sex on this desk or spilled a soda.”

  Daniel shivered in disgust. “So we clean the desk.”

  “We clean it all. Think of it this way. If you had to live here for a few months, how would you want it to look when you got here? Think…you book a hotel room. You expect it to be clean and that the furniture isn’t falling apart, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. So leave this place in a state you’d be happy with paying for if you checked into a three-star hotel. Let that be your guide for the quality of your work. Now.” Seldon came to stand next to Daniel to look around the place. “What would be our first order of business?”

  “Vacuum the floor?” Daniel asked.

  Seldon glanced at him and smiled. “I always start at the top. Cleaning is actually very dirty work, and everything goes down. Laws of physics. So vacuuming would be the last order of business.”

  “But, wouldn’t that whirl dust into the air?”

  Seldon smiled and glanced at Daniel out the corner of his eye. “Guess it’s an individual taste then. Humor me. First, we empty the room of everything that needs to be disposed of and to be changed. Trash, bedding, towels, clothes, whatever. Then we air out the mattress while we wipe the place down. Let’s start with that. Get the bedding, I’ll grab the towels.”

  Wow. They weren’t kidding when they said Seldon would be helping him.

  Chapter Seven

  Seldon and Daniel worked through the compartments in relative silence. Like Caledon, Seldon had at first thought the boy was sulking as he stayed quiet on their way to Sanitation, but his answer to Caledon trying to call him out on it had knocked Seldon for a loop. He somehow felt honored getting to train Daniel differently—not as a slave but as a Changeling—because he kept discovering layers of the boy that he hadn’t expected from a nineteen-year-old high school washout with dreams of fame and life in the fast lane.

  Maybe it was the age that made such a difference. That he adapted so readily. That and the fact the boy had no idea what he was capable of or who he was. Then again, these insights into oneself came with age and life experience, and Daniel had lived a pretty cushioned life.

  “Master?”

  “Hmm?” Seldon turned, registering the word. “Seldon, and if we’re in public, Sire. You’re not a slave anymore.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Daniel shook his head as if mentally shaking himself to get rid of the habit. “I’m…hungry.”

  Oh, shit, the cub had an appetite. “Food or feeding?”

  “Both.”

  Seldon looked at the clock on the wall of the room they were cleaning, and his sense of time told him it was way off. “Come on. And tell Jaydon that this clock needs new batteries.”

  “Why don’t you tell him?”

  “To let you have the credit.” Seldon picked up the bucket with filthy water to be changed since they had to leave the train.

  Jayden and Caledon stood by a desk and went over some paperwork, and Seldon figured he’d better see if Caledon had figured Daniel’s ferocious appetite into their schedule. Upon reaching the two Cubi, Seldon nodded for Daniel to inform Jaydon.

  “Sire, the clock in compartment three needs new batteries. It’s like, five o’clock in there.”

  “Thanks, cub,” Jaydon said and noted it on a tablet.

  “You done?” Caledon asked, looking surprised.

  “No, but the cub is hungry, and I didn’t know your schedule for us.”

  Caledon smiled, looking at Daniel. “How hungry?”

  “Like, whenever he bends over, I can think of only one thing,” Daniel said, pointing to Seldon.

  Caledon laughed affectionately. “Guess we better get your classification finished soon.”

  “Did that last night,” Seldon said. “He’s an all-around Incubus verse.”

  “Uh,” Jaydon said, looking at Daniel while Caledon froze a second and his eyes lit up.

  “Well, if you feed now or when you get home doesn’t matter, just make it quick,” Caledon said.

  “Okay. Figured showing him the feeding stalls would be good.” Seldon pointed toward the row of cubicles. Caledon nodded.

  “What’re feeding stalls?” Daniel asked as Seldon guided him along.

  “We have two kinds of lunch rooms. Feeding is done quickly and unceremoniously. Like something pre-packed or off the fast food menu. Lunch, where you sit down and eat, talk, and relax a bit, are half an hour. We just keep the feeding in these stalls to one, keep bodily fluids somewhat contained to ease cleaning up, and two, so we know where we can find lube and wet wipes.” Seldon stopped by an enclosure, consisting of a back wall and two laminate plates, and pointed. “And we’re not shy about it.”

  Daniel gaped at the sight of the enclosure. Seldon took in the sight of the shelves in different heights and two dispensers on the wall. One with lube and one with wet wipes. He wondered what Daniel saw for the first time and what he thought. He didn’t care enough to ask, though, because they didn’t have the time for that.

  “What are the shelves for?”

  “Get out of your pants, and I’ll show you,” Seldon said and nodded him into the room. You don’t get to change your mind and think you can suffer your hunger until we get home. I’ll strip you of the shyness that can keep you from feeding when necessary, and this is your first lesson.”

  “Shyness,” Daniel muttered, more like an afterthought than a complaint. He worked the laces in his pants and stepped inside the enclosure before letting his pants drop to the floor.

  “Shirt, too, and one foot out of the pants leg,” Seldon said as he pulled his own pants down. It wasn’t necessary to strip the boy that much, but if he was going to give him a lesson on leaving shyness behind he needed to push the envelope a bit. He just hoped he didn’t push too hard as he’d done with the fingernails of the breeder.

  “So, this is fast food time?” Daniel asked as he got out of his shirt and kicked his pants off one leg.

  “Yes.”

  “You gonna dose me first?”

  “No. You asked me to wait a bit yesterday because you wanted to feel it. The natura
l side of the Cubi way.” Seldon lifted Daniel’s right leg a bit and had him place his foot on a low shelf. “So I won’t dose you before I’m inside you.”

  Daniel nodded and took a shaky breath. “I see the point of the shelves now.”

  Seldon leaned in and kissed Daniel’s neck. “Guess the use of the handlebars, then.”

  Daniel cocked his head to give him room, and Seldon was happy about being able to feed on him and not an unknown breeder. That he was completely full and not in the mood at all was a different matter. He’d start Daniel out on the more clinical side of feeding a bit gentle, though, so he continued to kiss the boy as he lubed up his fingers.

  Daniel moaned when Seldon pushed a slick finger into him, but it was clear he was trying to be discreet about it. That would change soon. Seldon was happy the boy responded to his touches without a dose. Most Changelings fought it for a while, but Daniel took it pretty easy. To see how easy, Seldon reached around and felt the boy’s dick, and it was already filling up.

  Perfect. So Seldon introduced another finger, carefully stretching him. As Seldon introduced the third finger, someone walked by the enclosure, making Daniel shy toward the corner.

  “Fast food,” Seldon whispered and moved closer. “This is like them walking by a booth at McDonalds, watching people eat. Pack away your notions from your human world and enjoy the Cubi feeding. Enjoy me.”

  “I’ll learn,” Daniel moped.

  Seldon grinned and moved in to position himself. He pushed in, slowly, focusing on Daniel. It was the first time the young Changeling was penetrated without a dose, and he wanted to make sure he was okay even though he thought the boy had made quantum steps already by washing and pampering him.

  Another moan escaped Daniel, but Seldon didn’t stop until he was sheathed completely inside him.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Fuck, the tingling is getting worse.”

  Seldon set a slow pace. “You like this?”

  “Uh-huh,” Daniel said, but held still, his hands locked on the handlebars in the stall, and his foot still on the bottom step to help give Seldon room to move.