"…are you okay?" 

His hand doesn't stop moving on Chris's back. He adds more pressure, the way Chris likes; he cards his other hand through Chris's hair. 

The tension drops back onto Chris's face.

"I'm afraid I may have to apologize, Marlo. I behaved inappropriately for your trainer."

He isn't sure how to answer, so he just makes a soft confused sound and keeps holding Chris. 

Chris kisses him. "You did wonderfully, of course."

Oh. Kissing. He kisses Chris back, and every line of his body language says happy, glowing, in love. 

"Thank you, Chris." 

"I think with a bit of training you will do quite well in sexual service to whomever you are sold to, assuming it is a man, or a woman with a very particular fetish."

With a very particular fetish. 

"Was I —"

"I believe Rachel's review was 'he was perfect, utterly obedient, a quick learner, and smiling all the time, except he had a continual air of wanting it to be over so he can shower.'"

He nods. "Thank you, Chris," he says again, and keeps rubbing Chris's back. 

"You can put 'no sex with women' in your contract, but I don't generally recommend it. You can function sexually with women, and the more limitations you place on your owners the lower your eventual price will be."

He nods again. 

"…she told me to think about you," he says, softly. 

"Rachel is an observant woman."

Another nod. He cuddles up to Chris. 

"…thank you, Chris," he murmurs. 

"I have to say that I am baffled that you never realized you were gay."

"I got good at avoiding topics without noticing I was doing it," he says. 

He doesn't shut down the thoughts that come next. 

"A useful skill, although you were perhaps overusing it."

"Thank you, Chris." 

In retrospect he isn't sure he's ever had a friend he wasn't at least a little bit in love with, and it had been so easy to classify anything he felt about a girl as attraction and anything he felt about a boy as not that he hadn't even noticed — 

Chris kisses his forehead and wraps his arms around Marlo and waits for Marlo to finish sorting through his thoughts. He pays attention in case Marlo needs comfort.

It takes a while. He presses his face into Chris's shoulder. 

Sex with Chris felt clean. Sex has never in his life felt that way before — it had always been overwhelming and too-close and too-much and now he just feels warm and soft and melted — how long was he hurting himself — Chris is holding him and calling him good so it can't be that he'd deserved the hurt — 

At some point Chris is going to have to address the fact that he loves Marlo. 

But not now. He takes care of the slave he's training first.

He's melted into Chris's arms. 

At one point he makes a soft distressed noise and presses closer and says "I love you," more desperate than he'd like to be. 

What he wants to say is "I am trying desperately to think of any way that I could do right by you and keep you."

What he says is, "I am a trainer, not an owner."

"I know. And I love you." 

"Your auction is in a month. You will be sold. The most contact you will have with me is an email once a year on your vacations to update me on how you're doing. You may seek training with me again, if your master wants you to have some extra polish, or if you choose to between contracts. You may run into me at an event. But it is very possible that after a month from now we will never see each other again."