CHAPTER NINE #2
I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was broken, somehow. Or traumatised, maybe. But how could he be traumatised if he’d only just arrived? I’d met relatively few dimari at the point that they bonded to their masters, but Jai’s behaviour was significantly out of place.
I wanted to ask him why he wasn’t following the same set of routines as the other dimari. I wanted to ask him why he’d been trained in two specialties, and what the training had been like. Had it been particularly arduous? Had he been treated differently from the other trainees?
I wanted to make sure his master was able to satisfy his sexual needs, as well as his need for excitement and action in a combat role. And while Henderson’s offer to adopt him was a selfless one born of the best of intentions, I also knew it would be a complete disaster for Jai.
The hard truth was that Jai would need a very knowledgeable and experienced master. And I kept coming back to the idea that I was probably the most experienced dimari owner on the planet.
But, as had been the case every time I’d gone down this trail over the last couple of days, there was the glaringly obvious fact that I already had a bonded dimari.
“Sir?”
My head snapped around at Kade’s concerned voice. “Hm? What’s up?”
“You’ve been staring at the wall for ten minutes,” Kade said. “Are you all right?”
I sighed. “Yeah, I just… Can I ask you a question?” I said, knowing it would sound odd to Kade.
Masters did not ask their dimari’s permission to ask them questions.
“It’s a… I need information,” I stuttered, trying to explain.
“But I don’t want to freak you out, because there are some very obvious, and potentially some very problematic implications to the question.
So please don’t jump to any conclusions before we talk this through, okay? ”
I waited a moment while Kade thought about that. “Okay,” he agreed eventually.
“So I was wondering… On other planets, where they routinely buy dimari, would one master ever own more than one dimari?”
Kade tilted his head, the way he sometimes did when he was thinking about something particularly complex.
“Yes, they do,” he said, after a moment.
“Sometimes one master might have three or four of them.” He paused again, then said, “I’m not quite following how this might have problematic implications. ”
Really? I was surprised by that, because Kade was usually very quick to pick up on any ideas I had, with only minimal prompting.
“Is it not difficult for the master to make sure all of them get enough attention?”
“I don’t know,” Kade said honestly. “I’ve never had any experience with it. Our trainers told us it might be a possibility, to avoid problems if dimari expected to be the only one in a household. But I don’t know anything else about how it works.”
“Do you think dimari would ever get jealous of each other?”
Kade looked genuinely perplexed. “Why would we be jealous?”
“Because someone else was getting more attention. Or because the master liked them better.”
“We exist to serve our masters,” Kade reminded me – a refrain I’d heard dozens of times from him over the past year. “The master would have the absolute right to distribute praise or rewards as they saw fit.”
“But we’ve seen over the past year that sometimes masters make poor decisions,” I pressed. “Or they don’t understand what effect they’re having on their dimari.”
Kade frowned at me. “I don’t mean to be rude, sir, but I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make.”
Okay, so the subtle route clearly wasn’t getting me anywhere at the moment.
“I was trying to think how things might work out if… Well, if I adopted Jai,” I explained, watching Kade carefully to see how he reacted.
I’d been trying to get his opinion on the idea before coming straight out and saying it.
“But that’s not just my decision. I don’t want to do anything that’s going to make you unhappy.
And I don’t want to create conflict between you two. ”
This was one of those questions that Kade would likely answer with a generic agreement – not because he actually agreed, but because he knew he was supposed to.
But at the same time, I’d learned to pay attention to the nuances of his response, to see whether he was subtly trying to express his disapproval, at the same time as verbally agreeing to something.
I watched as Kade thought about it, and an expression settled on his face that I found myself entirely unable to read.
His eyes narrowed a little, the corners of his mouth tightened, but it was impossible to tell whether he was annoyed or smiling…
until he spoke. “I think we’d be well suited to each other,” he said, just a touch hesitantly.
“We’re both combat specialists, so we’d be able to fit in with your work well.
Particularly since you’re planning to go back into active service.
I’m not sure how we’d accommodate his training as an erotic companion.
But some masters enjoy watching two dimari pleasure each other.
Perhaps Jai would find that appealing.” It was clear from his tone that Jai wasn’t the only one who would find it appealing.
“You really like this idea, don’t you?” I asked, rather stunned by the realisation.
Kade smiled coyly. “A dimari does not consider what he does or doesn’t like. I am here to serve your wishes.”
That was a clear yes. But even so, I wasn’t convinced he’d considered all the angles.
“It would mean I’d be having sex with someone else.
It would mean that you wouldn’t be able to sleep in my room with me every night.
You’d have to alternate nights with him.
And if we stayed at the base, we couldn’t fit three people into one room.
And there would be more complexity on missions.
If I just yell an instruction in the middle of a shit-show, you’d have to figure out between you which one was going to get the job done. ”
Kade nodded eagerly. “That part would need to be prefaced with some clear orders to that effect – that so long as one of us completes the task, we can both consider ourselves to have obeyed you. And sleeping in another bed is…” His face fell a little.
“…a necessary detail of the arrangement.” That was the only hint I’d gotten that he had any objections to the plan.
But even so, it wasn’t a strong objection.
“And what about me having sex with someone else?”
Kade grinned. “I do not own you, sir. You own me. I have no right to decide who you have sex with.” Translation: He thought the question was ridiculous.
But now that I had his approval, there was something else I wanted to know. Why the heck was he so damn keen on the idea? But if I asked that question too bluntly, he would just default to some platitude about wanting to please his master.
“Okay, there are a few more details to work out here,” I hedged, trying to work around the limitations of his communication. “What would you see as being the main advantages, specifically as they would affect you?”
Kade looked away, and for a moment, he seemed almost embarrassed.
“When we’re in training, we’re always reminded not to form close friendships with any of the other dimari.
It’s almost certain that we’re going to be sent to different planets, or at the very least, different cities on one planet.
So it’s very unlikely that we’ll ever be able to see the dimari we trained with again. ”
He didn’t say anything more, and it took me a moment to understand what he was implying. When I figured it out, my heart damn near broke. “You’re saying you’d like to have another dimari here as a… as a friend?”
Kade stiffened immediately. “It’s your house, sir,” he said demurely. “That’s your decision to make.”
I had absolutely no objection to him wanting to spend some quality time with one of his own kind. But… “You’ve met dozens of other dimari over the past year. We still visit some of them on a regular basis.”
“Yes, sir,” Kade said, and his tone was distinctly flat this time. Shit.
“I’m not criticising your desire to have a friend,” I told him. “I’m just not sure I understand the nuances of the situation.”
Kade chewed his lip for a moment. “If I may emphasise a nuance of my own, sir, we do not visit other dimari. We visit their masters. The dimari just happen to be there. And aside from a few short conversations or cooking lessons, you and the other dimari’s master are always there, as part of the conversation. ”
“So you’re not getting any privacy to talk about things that just the two of you would understand.
” I nodded. Now that he’d said it, it was obvious.
“Whereas if Jai was living here, I couldn’t possibly be around all the time, so you’d get the chance to spend time together, with just the two of you. ”
A trickle of violet rippled across the scales over Kade’s collarbone – a typical sign of agitation in a Vangravian – so I jumped in before he could start apologising.
“There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to spend some time with another dimari,” I said firmly.
“And I take no offence whatsoever to you wanting to talk to him without me there. That’s a perfectly normal desire. ”
“Yes, sir,” he said, wary, but not upset.
“But if I may point out something else – on the negative side of adopting Jai – I’m not certain how we would accommodate his training as an erotic companion.
According to his records, he’s been specifically trained to accommodate groups.
Two people is not a group. And he’s also been trained in advanced bondage techniques.
I’m not aware that you have any such desires.
So he may end up being somewhat confused about why you purchased him. ”