[b][u][center]Standards for His Assistant Chapter 3: A Regular Day For Taiko By Draconicon[/center][/u][/b] His master told him that time moved funny underground, and after the first few ‘days’ that passed, Darren felt inclined to believe the wise old orc. [i]Not old,[/i] a part of his brain told him. [i]Wise orc. Not old orc.[/i] There seemed to be a slight tremor to the thought, something that was pushy about it, but he adjusted his thinking, regardless. The wise orc was very believable. After all, he remembered falling asleep and waking up three or four times, already, but the days felt so…strange. So short compared to what he was used to. Were they really going through such short days in the burrow? Or was there something… No, there was no way that anything else was going on. He was observant enough of an assistant to know if there was something like that going on. Darren shook his head as he traversed the tunnels of the burrow, a bag of crystals in one hand and a candle in the other. He would have preferred a flashlight, but the good orc master hadn’t had one on hand. Not that he needed one, Darren supposed. The candle worked well enough, and it wasn’t like he could expect his master to have a great deal of technology down here. That was part of his job, after all. He came to one of the points that the orc had mentioned, kneeling down and fumbling about until he found the little crack in the wall that marked where the crystal had been. Darren kept one finger on it, putting the candle down so that he had some light as he rooted around in the crystal bag. [i]Just gotta replace all of these. I guess the crystals work like batteries, if that’s what he wants. Powering spells in the walls, maybe?[/i] The exact nature of it escaped him, but he had been part of enough restoration projects at the hotel and…elsewhere…for him to know that he didn’t need to have a full understanding of how it worked. He just needed to know how to follow orders to fix it up. That was fine with him. Understanding could come later, if he did well enough to earn it. Darren smiled slightly as he pulled one of the crystals out, turning the little thing until the narrowest point was lodged in the crack. One push, and it slid in smoothly, filling up the space with a little pretty point sticking out. The crystal glowed, pulsing slightly with a blue and green light before fading down to an emerald point. Just like that, the tunnel surged with a brief feeling of warmth before fading away into a sense of contentment. It was rather nice, actually, almost like a reward for doing something good. [i]Heh…I wonder if he’ll be able to teach me how to do that?[/i] It was one of those little ‘rewards’ that the wise orc had promised him if he did a good enough job as an assistant. He didn’t know if it would be followed through on, of course. The language of the reward was vague, and he had seen enough supervisors offer huge rewards that wouldn’t be possible to give out, but the possibility was still a nice one. He picked up the bag of crystals, continuing his slow walk down the hallway. The light of the first crystal had lit up the burrow tunnel a bit, enough to let him see where he was going, at least. The candle wasn’t [i]as[/i] needed, though it still helped a lot. As he walked, he looked back over the last few days. For all that he had been hired as an assistant to help the orc with technology, he had yet to see Master Bruha ask him how to use a phone or a computer. Not because the orc actually knew how to use them, but because they had been focusing on other meanings of the word ‘assistant.’ Mostly, how to ‘assist’ the orc with his own pleasures. Darren felt a stirring down below as he thought about that, his own cock rising in his… He blinked for a moment, looking down. For a moment, he swore that he should have been in a suit. A suit and tie, with a nice cut to it, with the buttons polished and his body held tightly clasped inside of it. Something that made sure to show off the authority of the one he spoke for. But no, he was still wearing a loincloth. It was little more than enough to cover his bits, and he could always feel the flapping of the back of it against his rump. He looked down at himself for a moment or two longer, staring at his own bulge in the loincloth, at the way that his body was so uncovered, at the tattoo paw footprint on his chest… And then he let it go. If the master had him dressed this way, then there was a reason for it. And besides, it was good to show off his body. The master liked it when he showed off his body. The master liked a lot of things, it turned out, and Darren was very good at all of them. Showing respect. Giving worship. Oiling up the orc’s body and giving it the slow, gentle massage that such a muscular form needed at the end of the day to remove tension and wind down. Even the naughtier things, things that he had formerly been forced to do for various clients far from home, were easy enough for him to accomplish. He didn’t remember having such a stretchy jaw before, but he was able to give the orc a fair bit of oral service without issue, taking that ‘fat orc meat,’ as Master Bruha sometimes called it, all the way down his throat without gagging. Sometimes he had to gasp for breath afterwards, admittedly, but that was more an issue of cock-to-air-space ratio than because he wasn’t used to having it down his throat. He supposed that the most compelling reason to stay, though, was because Master Bruha had been so…kind to him, so very kind since he had been kicked onto the streets. [i]If he hadn’t found me…[/i] He shivered at the implications. He might have been lost to the streets of Novus Ager. It was a fate that few people thought about, and there was little enough evidence to say that it was so. After all, the homeless situation for the city was surprisingly mild, with few beggars and fewer people sitting out on the streets after dark. But there was the rumor that those that lost their homes, that had to wander the streets, were gradually changed. Turned into something else. Warped by the purposes of the strange city. It was more of an urban legend than anything else, as far as he knew, but it was still one of those things that one didn’t want to find out if it was true or not. What if he had become something different? What if he became something that was completely inhuman? What if? What if? What if? However, Master Bruha had spared him that fate. The kindly orc had pulled him in. The master had given him a place to stay, a new job, something that would keep him satisfied and well away from those that would use and abuse him. Like the snow leopard. Just the thought was enough to send a shiver down his spine as he remembered his past, thinking about how that man had used him, prostituted him. He remembered getting fucked for hours, for days in the middle of a boardroom, tied down on a board and used by men in suits over and over and over again. The sensation made him clench up hard, standing up a little straighter as the phantom memory became a little too real. As he made his way to the next crack, he knelt down and started feeling around for it again, starting at the edge of the light from the old one and making his way further into the darkness. He hesitated, a bit of fear running up in the back of his mind as he thought about the previous master, the previous employer. He could no longer bring the snow leopard’s face to mind, but he could remember the gray-white suit, remember the sparkle of light off of the over-polished black shoes, could remember the eyes. Oh, the eyes. They spun and they pulled and they dragged someone further and further down, making them do things that they would never do if they were completely themselves. He trembled as he remembered being made to walk around naked, being made to show himself off as a piece of meat, made to give others what he would normally save for his master and his partners. [i]Mmmph…partners?[/i] The thought made him pause again, blinking. Much like the disconnection that he’d felt between the loincloth and lack of suit, he felt strange thing of having more than one partner. The master was enough, wasn’t he? But Master Bruha had talked about having a harem, about keeping a bundle of male dragons down here that would serve the orc’s needs. Doubtlessly, the big man would make him serve them, too, having a bunch of other lovers… It was a strange feeling, almost like a stretching rubber band in his head. There was something there, something pulling at it that tugged his thoughts almost to the breaking point. And then, it stopped again, relaxing, coming back together. It wasn’t like he needed to serve the dragons. That would just be something he did if he wanted to. Something that the master might like to see. Would that be so bad? Would it be so bad to relax and enjoy himself with a bunch of dragons that were just happy to see him, that were here because it made the master happy? Nah, that wasn’t a bad thing at all. He was overthinking it, pushing himself to stress out when he didn’t have to. He needed to work on that. As he found the second crack, he started wiggling the crystal in. He could already feel the build-up of power from the other one, feeling it trying to connect to the next ‘battery’ in the tunnel. It wouldn’t take long for this place to be back at full power, though he wondered if the master had enough crystals to cover all of it. [i]Probably not. He’s using them at a tremendous rate, and he’s not gotten around to recharging them yet.[/i] The Induction Room had been empty since he had come out of it, and the master had been busy with other things. What other things, Master Bruha had been loathe to share. Every time that Darren had asked, the orc had looked at him, touched something in his beard, and muttered for him to go to bed. Darren had been helpless to resist his sudden tiredness, and he had given the orc the privacy that he had asked for. Click. Another crystal in, another pulse of light and happiness. The human drifted on the happy feelings, forgetting his concern for a while longer as he got up and walked down the tunnel again, making his way to the next crack in the wall and the next crystal in the network. # At the end of his task, when all of one main tunnel had been recharged – and he was down to three crystals left – he made his way back to the main chambers at the center of the burrow. The tunnels were becoming more and more understandable to him, less of a warren and more of a puzzle, and puzzles were particularly simple when you understood the trick of them. [i]It’s just a giant spiral, really,[/i] he thought. [i]Crisscrossing tunnels that touch each other. You just keep alternating your turns at the crossroads, and you eventually get to the middle.[/i] There was probably something else going on, he supposed, but if there was, he hadn’t been bothered by it. As he entered the large, open middle section, he found the orc sitting down by a green fire, legs crossed and feet on his knees. The large man had his eyes closed, his hands folded over his belly, and he was breathing slowly, evenly. Darren imagined that he was pursuing some sort of meditation, something to keep calm and improve his magical power, and he remained silent as he walked over to sit beside him. Unsurprisingly, the master’s cock was hard. The orc was frequently erect, often to the point of pushing his kilt forward and swinging it around like a club. It was a lovely sight, Darren personally thought. He liked seeing it twitch, watching it bob when it was pointed at him. It meant that he was still pleasing to the master, and the master still wanted him for a number of different things that had no bearing on how tired he was. He could have reached out and stroked it, but he restrained himself. Better not to interrupt the thoughts of a mage when they were deep in meditation, he imagined. Better to allow them to come out of it on their own if they needed something. As he waited, he imagined what he had done so far for the orc. A great deal of replacement work, a great deal of labor, and a great deal of sexual service. He had been training his ass as the big orc asked, efficiently shifting between the different sizes each ‘morning’ that he woke up, and he could feel that he was looser than he once was. Perhaps loose enough to take that monster, soon. He reached back, rubbing under his loincloth against the smooth wood that had been shoved in there last time. He could feel the way that his rim had swollen around the base, becoming puffy and sensitive to the penetration, and he knew that it was only a matter of time before he started showing a bit of a gape at all times. Perhaps the master liked that. Perhaps the orc enjoyed having his servants showing off how eager they were for him, how well-stretched and prepared they had become for his cock. Darren smiled. The fact that he had found an orc to serve was…well, lucky for him. He had always enjoyed the species, even back when he was working at the hotel. They were big, big and muscular and… And… His smile faded. The thought had come out of nowhere, he realized, and he didn’t know why it had popped into his head in the first place. A fetish for one’s employer was not entirely uncommon – or at least, so his mind told him – but to suddenly think ‘I have a fetish for my master’ seemed to be very strange. Why had he thought that in the – The tension feeling returned, and he backed away from the thought rather than pursue it. The fact that it had come when he was just starting to feel comfortable was annoying, but he knew that it was just going to keep getting worse if he kept considering it, so he let it fade rather than go after it, demanding an explanation. Instead, he just lowered his head in a bow, his face over one of Bruha’s large green soles, and waited for the orc to wake up. It didn’t take long. Soon, the master looked down at him, and he felt one of the big hands rest on top of his head. Not that roughly, but enough to push his head down, nudging against the orc’s large feet. His nostrils slipped between the toes, and the old – [i]Wise, thank you.[/i] The wise orc gripped him tightly, keeping him from being able to pull back. He was forced to breathe in the other man’s musk for a moment, taking it into his head, and only when he had taken three long breaths through his pinched nose was he released. “You finish your task, human?” he asked. “Yes, I did, Master.” “And the main hall is completely recharged?” “As recharged as can be. I ended up having to skip a few of the points for efficiency’s sake, and because I was running out of crystals.” “…How low are we?” “Three left, sir.” “Master.” “Master,” the human corrected himself. “Let me see.” Darren passed the bag over, sitting quietly with his legs folded under him in a proper kneeling position. As the master got to his feet, it left him perfectly on cock level, right in front of that massive, erect meat. He knew what his task was, and he fulfilled it, leaning forward and gently pulling the shaft into his mouth. The orc groaned overhead, and the thick meat throbbed in his mouth. As he danced his tongue around the head, fulfilling the proper role of a servant, he heard the orc muttering to himself. Something about the crystals, about running out of energy, about not having enough to fulfill his plans down here. He didn’t know what the plans were, so he kept his mouth focused more on the cock in front of him than his curiosity. Still, that curiosity was growing by leaps and bounds. What plans did his master have besides capturing more dragons and putting them to work beneath his burrow? What kind of urges did he have that he needed more crystals to fulfill? What were his plans for his servant, for that matter? Darren knew that he was basically killing time for the big guy, giving him something to do and something to enjoy on the way to bigger and better things, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t think ahead. There were only so many different bits of labor and sexual favors that he could fulfill for the orc before they started merely marking time, doing busy work and busy sex rather than accomplishing things. And as much as he enjoyed servicing his master, he knew that he had other talents that could be put to use. It was less a feeling of ‘boredom’ and more a feeling of ‘inefficiency’, and it nudged at him constantly. However, he was not given the time to dwell on it as long as he might, as he was suddenly pulled back from Bruha’s cock, the bobbing dick pointed back at his face. The orc looked down at him, puffing softly. “I think it’s time that you went to bed.” “But Master, it’s barely ten, surely.” “It’s ten, yes. Ten in the evening.” That could not be possible. He’d only woken up and started replacing the different crystals a few hours ago. Even underground, there was no way that the clocks had changed that much. Even as he opened his mouth, however, the orc pressed something against his forehead. It should have been just his thumb, but there was a tingle between it and his skull. “Sleep.” And just like that, Darren fell forward, slumping into exhaustion. # Bruha caught the human before he could fall in the fire, shaking his head. “You really are becoming an expensive habit…” The crystals were running out. He couldn’t deny that anymore. There had been enough to replace the main hall and the traps and tricks that were in there, enough to make sure that the Induction Room was back at full charge, but not enough to safeguard the entirety of his burrow. If he had more crystals to force energy into… But no. He was running off of his emergency stash, and that was rapidly coming to an end. With the three that he still had from Darren’s repair efforts, he might have a dozen crystals left, a dozen little spells or a few bigger ones that he could summon from them. Perhaps less, considering how often he was using this sleep command. The crystal that he’d hung from the human’s forehead and told him to not notice was great for commanding the human’s attention away from the more critical and vulnerable parts of his plans, but… Well, he was using it a [i]lot.[/i] At the same time, the orc was feeling a near-addiction to the human’s service. It was so happy and so bright compared to what he got from the dragons that he brought back here. There was a pep to the human’s step, a sort of brilliance to him that the orc had been lacking in the almost-stoned dragons that he kept down here. They had been drained of mind more than Darren had, admittedly, and he was honestly close to considering changing that sort of plan for the future, but for the moment… And there was more than just the fact that Darren was so happy and peppy about being of service. It was the way that he took to every task as if it was the most vitally important thing that he could accomplish. The way that the human was so driven, the way that he took a task and then made it his own… Which was…concerning, really. Concerning as well as astounding. He looked at the crystals again. He had ordered, directly, for the human to charge the corridor again, to put a crystal in every crack, to get it done as soon as possible. The fact that the human hadn’t taken the simple command and just run out of crystals partway through, but instead had taken the initiative and gone about stretching the resources through guesswork to power the whole of the main corridor… One, it showed that the human had a strange way of being intuitively right about what was needed. Bruha hadn’t seen any magic in the young man’s head, but this required knowledge of it, or at least, some level of intuition. Two, it meant that his control wasn’t absolute, and it was slowly slipping through some factor that he hadn’t accounted for. What factor, he didn’t know, but it was obviously getting more and more powerful if the human was starting to slip the leash. It was something that he’d been concerned about ever since he started needing to put Darren to sleep. He had put him down no fewer than four times now, and each time that the human had woken up again, he’d managed to convince him that it was a new day. Four times, and less than eight hours of being awake. [i]I need to find a way to put this leash on him more thoroughly…[/i] And for the orc, that meant sex. Sex was a good way to imprint things on the mind, as the pleasure and sharp, intense sensations meant that the one involved was more likely to remember everything. Not consciously, either. Just as a fetish could be trained through a series of orgasms involving it, a behavior could be, as well. He just needed to make sure that the human understood what he was doing on a subconscious level rather than a conscious one. For as much as he was struggling with the young man, this training needed to be pushed through before he actually started learning. He…he didn’t want the human to look down on him. He didn’t want to be pitied or…anything. He wanted to stay the master. The master of his own fate. And masters did not have weaknesses like that. # Darren woke up with a strange hunger in his mouth, a need for a taste that he couldn’t describe. He slowly rolled out of bed, only to feel a crinkle under his hand. He looked down, found a piece of parchment, and picked it up to read it. It was obviously written by Bruha. Despite the orc’s heavy hands and big limbs, he had a surprisingly neat hand, one that might have made one think of an elf more than of an orc. [i]Darren, Your master has a new task for you. You are going to be trained in waking him up with pleasure in the morning. I’ve put the how into your head; you will feel that take hold when you come to my chambers. Act as if you are coming there to wake me up, give me a good day’s greetings. Do not break characters. Master Bruha.[/i] It was oddly endearing, in a way, to see his master call himself ‘master’ in a letter. It was as if he honestly hadn’t had the title for very long. Darren smiled and folded the parchment over itself, getting to his feet and following the tunnels back through the burrow. The master’s chambers would be easy to find; he always slept in the same area. To both his surprise and lack of it, Master Bruha had stripped himself of his kilt and laid down completely naked. The hard, green ass of the master pushed up a bit, almost like it was being put on offer, in a way. And not for his cock, as he quickly realized. The need for that taste that he’d felt since he’d woken up suddenly resolved itself, focusing his attention on the orc’s ass, on the little star that he knew would be between the cheeks, waiting for attention. His mouth…watered, surprisingly. He moved forward as if possessed, his urges driving him towards the orc’s rump. He grabbed the cheeks. Not quite as hard as he wanted, for all that the strange obsession made him want to bury his face between them, but rather gently, as if he was ‘waking’ his master up. [i]Mmmph…[/i] The human huffed softly, parting the cheeks slowly. Between was a surprisingly tight-looking hole, one that had obviously not taken much in the way of dick before, and possibly not much in the way of tongue for some time. A sniff told him it was clean, save for a bit of skin musk from being pressed together all night long. His cock twitched beneath his loincloth, pulling him forward as he leaned down and pressed his lips, his tongue, to that pucker. There was a soft groan above him, but he barely paid any attention to it. Instead, he started digging his tongue into that ass, feeling the wrinkled skin against his tongue as he dragged it back and forth, back and forth. Each little lick brought that slightly bitter musky taste to his mouth, a taste that he…was surprised felt so familiar. There was a vague memory in his head of doing this before. Not to clients, but to another master. Feeling fur against his face. Feeling…feeling… Safe, then. The confusion built as his licking began to slow. It never stopped, but it did slow down, lapping almost idly rather than attacking that hole the way that he had been. What was…why was he… “Mmmph…” Master Bruha’s grunt drew him back in, and he went back to tonguing it out, moaning softly as he worked the orc’s hole over. It was so wet with his spit, and so relaxed from the tongue massage, that each lick came closer and closer to sliding in. He started dragging his tongue over the center of that pucker to the rim, feeling it bend and press in each time. A little further, a little more, a little deeper. Lick, lick, lick, as the orc’s ass cheeks started to press against the side of his head, trying to pull him closer. Lick, lap, lick, drawing the letters over that pucker, feeling it bend until – “Mmmph!” Bruha’s sudden grunt took away any illusion that the orc might have been asleep, and his pucker clenched hard on Darren’s tongue. He was as trapped as any time that the master had pinched his tongue between his toes. “Mmmph…that’s a…good bit of service, huh? Well…I think I have some morning wood you can service, too.” The orc let him go, and Darren pulled back. As he licked his lips, his master rolled onto his back, exposing that masterful cock, those huge balls, the smell of arousal clear in the air. “Come on, Darren…show me what you can do…” # The snow leopard had sent Darl and Sam home after reaching the taxi depot. As helpful as they had been, he wanted them to be safe. When a request to go out of town for the night was refused, he…reiterated it with a longer stare. They’d driven off after that, hopefully with the command burning in their minds like a flaming pyre. The last thing he needed with a potential conflict looming were two people to babysit. The depot manager was quick to accommodate him. Money passed hands in the amount of a thousand dollars, and the driver of the taxi in question was called in. Kai Lee waited for him outside, one hand in his pocket, the other twitching out of a suppressed urge to tap something. No. If he was being honest, it was in the suppressed urge to crush something. [i]I am in a city that has been good to me,[/i] he reminded himself. [i]Out of respect to those that have been civil and beneficial, I am bound to leave it more or less intact.[/i] That did not stop the urge to start ripping through buildings in search for his assistant, but it [i]did[/i] remind him as to why he was holding back in the first place. Still, it was not inaccurate to say that his patience was stretched thin by the time that the dragonoid showed up. Kai Lee approached the slowing taxi cab, grabbing it by the mirror and gesturing for the reptilian creature inside to roll down the window. There was a moment’s hesitation, followed by obedience. “Uh, sir, do you mind not scratching the cab? It’s kinda the only thing I got right now.” “Your cab is the least of your worries right now.” “Great, another rich guy,” the dragonoid said. Flicking his eyes to the license on the dash – Keven, he saw – the feline looked back at him. His options were limited; his eyes hurt from drawing out obedience and information from multiple people in rapid succession, but he doubted that a simple bribe would be sufficient for getting around mental control. Nor could he threaten pain, as that would have the same issues as the bribe. But if this orc was clumsy… “You received a command today.” “Yeah, well, you get a lot of orders driving a taxi around. Can you be more specific, sir?” “You dropped someone off, somewhere far away. They told you not to come back unless you did something.” Keven stiffened, opening his mouth and talking fast. “I am not permitted to come back until I have purchased a dozen dildos, training both my mouth and my ass to take both. When I have trained on at least half of them, I am to meet him at Novus Ager Memorial Fountain.” “…” Kai Lee sighed. “Wonderful. A true deviant.” “Uh…did…did I just say something?” “Plenty.” “So, uh…was that all, or –” “Do you have a phone?” “Uh, yeah. GPS. Tracks everywhere I go so I can get paid by the boss. Do you –” “Give it to me.” The dragonoid hesitated until the snow leopard’s fingers cracked the frame around the car door mirror. Then he couldn’t hand over the phone fast enough. “When was this?” “Uh…about…1, something like that?” About a half hour after the end of the call, then. It was nearly eleven at night, now. There’d be little expectation of a visitor so late at night, so he might have the advantage. He backtracked the GPS, finding a spot where Keven had stopped for long enough to be dropping someone off, and locked in the address. “Take me here.” [b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]