Current mood:	moody
Entry tags:	fanfic, kept, rps

Fic: A Kept Boy 27
Fandom: CWRPS
Pairing: Jeff/Jensen, Jared/Jensen
Rating: Adult
Warnings: Slavefic AU. Language. Dark themes.
Disclaimer: This is in no way a true story.
Word Count: 1,637
AN: Previous parts found here. Banner by the lovely and generous bloodquartz.

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"So, I expect Jeff quizzed you about the session once you got home," Cate says, as Jensen seats himself in the same chair he occupied before. This time, he's smart enough to perch on the edge straight off. "What did you tell him?"

Whatever the expression on his face, it makes Cate laugh and Jensen sits slightly frozen until she's done.

"You don't have to look so surprised." She's wearing a fuzzy, v-necked sweater that's ridden up; she tugs it down absently and lets the shed lint trail off her fingertips to the floor. Jensen folds his hands together tightly. "I told Jeff I wasn't going to talk to him about you until I'd had the chance to chat with you some more and he's as nosy as a cat. I figured he'd try and do an end run around me." She tilts her head, curling her hair around her finger. "So what did you say?"

Lord Cruise and Lady Kidman had done this at the end, as the end date for their marriage contract loomed and it became increasingly obvious that Lord Cruise was not going to re-sign. Nothing Jensen had said had been right, ping-ponged between the two of them, and just the memory is enough to make his stomach rumble sickly. Keeping his eyes on his folded hands, Jensen says, "I just told him the truth. That you asked me questions and I did my best to answer them. That I tried to please you and I didn’t know if I had."

"Hmm." Cate taps her cheek with a finger. "Well, let's knock that one out, straight off. There are no right or wrong answers here, Jensen. What I am looking for is information. Information about how you think, how you feel. And the reason that I want that information is to help you find a way to get along better with Jeff, find something that will leave you feeling less confused and him less at sea."

Jensen hesitates over whether to correct her or not. He'll have to figure out what the boundaries are sooner or later. "I didn't say I was confused."

"No," Cate agrees with a lazy grin, head propped on her hand. "I suppose you didn't."

He can tell he's amusing her in some way. In the grand scheme of things, it's better than making her angry. It is a little worrisome, though, that his difficulties with Jeff are so transparent. He's going to have to figure out something about that. It shouldn't seem as though he's anything but a wholeheartedly content extension of Jeff's self. Especially if Jeff follows through on letting Jensen have more responsibility.

"I'd be happy to take any instruction you have to offer on how to please Jeff better," Jensen offers finally. That, at least, is no less than the truth. "It pains me a lot to know that I'm not fulfilling my duties satisfactorily. I want to be better. And I'll do whatever it takes."

"Yes, I do believe you will," Cate muses, quiet enough that she could be talking to herself. "Why don't you tell me more about Lord Cruise. You said he was your first master?'

"Yes." Jensen feels like that's a completely inadequate way to sum up all that Lord Cruise is and was, but she didn't ask him to elucidate and so he sticks to just a simple affirmative.

"Would you say that he was a good master?"

Jensen doesn't have to hesitate over that at all, the answer writ large through both training and sentiment. "Oh, yes. Absolutely."

"What makes you say that? What do you think are the qualities that made him a good master?"

"I." Jensen stutters to a halt, his momentary confidence gushing away. To cover it, he takes a sip of tea. It's different this time, a white tea with a faint pear taste to it. He can answer this. He knows the answers. "Lord Cruise…he taught me. Taught me my place, taught me to be a good slave—obedient, biddable, one who strives for excellence. He demanded my best, always." Jensen turns the glass around in his hand, the condensation gathered in the bevels making his hand wet. "And I always gave him my best. I try to give all my masters my best," Jensen hastens to explain. "It's just he was the first. He made me who I am."

"You said that last time," Cate observes, shifting her weight and retangling her legs in a new configuration.

"It's true." Jensen sets the glass back on the coaster and blots his damp palms on his hips, where it'll be less noticeable, before curling his fingers back around the chair's arms. "He could've sent me to a training school, instead of training me himself, but he didn't. He hired all my tutors, oversaw every part of my education personally. He worked so hard to make me the best, to make me perfect."

"And what does that mean to you, 'perfect'?"

Jensen has to admire the way Cate lulled him into a false sense of security with her first few questions, getting his words flowing before she bogs him down in impossibilities. Perfect is…perfect. No one's ever asked him to define it before, only shown him how far he has to go to achieve it. Perfect has always just been…understood.

"I should know my master," Jensen says slowly, feeling the words out. The back of his thighs are starting to ache a little from sitting on the chair's edge, but he doesn't fidget, opening himself up to the ache and letting it sharpen his concentration. "I should know…his likes, his dislikes. What makes him happy. I should know what he wants and make it happen, without having to be asked. I should be available to him at all times, in all ways. I should be an example, both to other slaves and to the world. I should strive to be pleasing in appearance, word and deed. I should love him, but remain unpossessive in my love, because though I am his, he's not mine. I should…"

Cate holds up a hand and immediately Jensen quiets. "I think I get the idea, Jensen, thank you." She blows her breath out, eyes widening. "That's a pretty tall order to fulfill. I'm impressed. I had no idea that being a body-slave involved so much."

Jensen looks back down at his hands. "You're joking with me."

"No." Cate's voice is quiet but unequivocal, tugging his gaze back up to her face. "I'm not."

"I apologize." Jensen dips his head on his neck. "I should not have presumed."

"It's fine," Cate reassures him. "Nothing worth apologizing about. I haven't had a body-slave in almost twenty years and when I did, they were always adult. I know so little about how you're trained, what's required." She pushes up a little and tucks her feet under her, leaning against the couch's arm. "Were you told right away that you were chosen to be a body-slave?"

Jensen nods. He still remembers that first hostel, even down to the musty, pissy smells that permeated the stained walls. It wasn't Escrow—not then—but one of the general holding pens. The ones they put you in when no one wants you, when there's no sale in the works. He remembers Lord Cruise kneeling down to talk to him and seeing the hypnotic blue of his eyes for the first time. "That was why he bought me."

"Did you know what it meant? Then? At the time?"

"No. He just told me…" In truth, Jensen remembers very little of what Lord Cruise said to him. The man had a way of looking at you that made you feel more than a little high, wiping your mind clean of anything but him. "He told me I was pretty and he asked me if I wanted to come home with him."

Jensen knows now what an honor it is, that Lord Cruise had chosen him from all the others there. But at the time—already aware that he couldn't go back to his home—Jensen probably would've gone home with anyone who offered him a way out of the hostel and been grateful for it.

He had been grateful for it.

"And what did you think?"

"I didn't like the hostel. I wanted to leave." Jensen catches himself shifting in the chair and makes himself still again. "I think…" His thumb traces an idle arc on the inside of the chair's arm.

Cate tilts her head. "What?"

"I think I loved him then. Already. Lord Cruise…"

"He does have a remarkable presence." Cate smiles, almost as if against her will. "Even for those of us not…under his guardianship."

"I wasn't his ward, I was his slave. It doesn't bother me to hear it. It's what I am. I'm not ashamed."

Cate's mouth tucks. "No, you're right. You haven't done anything to be ashamed of. I'm sorry for being such a squeamish Reformer." There's no sting to the words or to the smile she gives him. It strikes Jensen then how much Jeff and his friends smile—all the time, meaninglessly and without thought of advantage.

He smiles back at her, trying out how it feels. Not that he's never smiled before. But all his smiles are purposeful, pointed. Not guilelessly grinning for the sake of it.

"So," Cate says, shaking her hair back. "We've talked about Cruise, I know about Bill Crudup and, of course, there's Jeff. All men. Have you ever had a female owner?"

Jensen controls the spasm of his palms, the slight hitch of his breath. "There was Lady Kidman, of course," he answers, his voice measured and calm. "And Lady Cox, later. Before she married Master Arquette."

"Really?" Cate sounds genuinely interested. "Why don't we talk about that?"