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Fatso escorted him into the lift and down to the ground floor, where a limousine AV was waiting. He was pushed inside and found Tyler sitting there, reading his holopad. He put it aside as Alex tottered in and gave a delighted laugh.

“Well, aren’t you a vision of beauty.”

“If this is what turns you on,” Alex replied with a dismissive shrug, trying to hold on to Lorenzo’s words about his appearance reflecting more on Tyler than on him. “Bit obvious, though, isn’t it?”

“Oh, I do hope so,” Tyler purred. “That’s the point. You’re a whore on the inside, Alex, so I wanted the outside to match – you seem to have forgotten who you are and what your job is lately.”

Fatso took his seat beside Tyler, opposite Alex, and the limo set off.

“How does it feel – not having any body hair?” Tyler taunted. “I expect it’s nice and smooth, like a woman. One day I’ll stroke my hands all over your smooth, hairless body, and you’ll love every second of it. ”

“Never gonna happen, pervert,” Alex drawled.

“We’ll see.” Tyler sat back in his seat, smiling. “So, I’m sure you’re wondering where we’re going at this hour of the morning, with you dressed like that.”

“Not really.” Alex wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.

“Well, I have a job for you.” Tyler handed him the holopad. “There are some pictures on this. When the time comes, and not before, you will press this icon” – he pointed – “and display them.”

“Or?” Alex demanded.

“Or I’ll take a whip to sweet Solange and beat her until she’s raw.”

“I thought you weren’t going to use her against me again,” Alex protested.

“Then you thought wrong. I’m happy to use her to motivate you for now, but we need to get to the stage where your aim is to please me, not avoid pain for her. Now, do you think you can do as I’ve asked?” Tyler gestured at the holopad.

“I don’t have much choice, do I?” Alex said sullenly.

“There’s always a choice, Alexander. You’re making one right now by refusing to give in to me. Any time you want me to stop today, just agree to my terms, and we can go home.”

“Dream on, Tyler. It’ll never happen.” He sat back and stared out of the window, wondering what fresh hell his houder had in store for him.

It felt strange to be out in the world again, seeing people walking around, shopping, talking, laughing, and living their lives while he was trapped in this nightmare.

The tiny shorts rode up his buttocks, but they were so tight it was useless to try and pull them down, so he sat there, feeling uncomfortable and exposed.

He envied Tyler his expensively tailored suit, crisp black shirt, and scarlet tie.

He crossed his legs in an attempt to cover his bulging crotch area, only to find Fatso leering again at his slender, hairless limbs, accentuated by the high heels dangling from his feet. He uncrossed them and put his aching soles firmly on the floor.

They drove for over an hour. At first, he drank in the scenery, looking so beautiful in the crisp autumn sun.

The limo effortlessly cut through several lost zones, making short work of the stretches of water.

However, as the journey continued, he started to recognise landmarks – and then a sudden, dreadful realisation dawned.

“Where are we going?” he asked in a panic.

“I thought you didn’t want to know.” Tyler grinned.

He craned his neck as they passed a familiar parade of shops. “I know where we are. I know this area.”

“I should hope so. You were born nearby.”

Alex felt a lurching sensation in the pit of his stomach. “No… don’t do this, Tyler,” he said urgently.

“You know what you have to do to stop it.” Tyler sat back, opened his legs, and gestured to his crotch. “Willingly embrace your role, not just this once but always, and we can turn the duck around and go home.”

Alex’s entire body crawled with revulsion at the thought of taking Tyler’s cock in his mouth and bringing the smug bastard pleasure.

“No,” he snapped.

“Very well. Ah – I believe we’ve arrived.”

The limo travelled, inexorably, down a street and drew up outside an old, familiar building. Alex’s stomach lurched.

Lytton AV.

He couldn’t believe Tyler would bring him here, of all places, and yet here they were. Tyler climbed out and buttoned up his suit, looking excited, full of anticipatory energy. Fatso grabbed Alex’s arm and pulled him out of the AV and into the courtyard in front of the building.

“Now, I want you to remember that you are my IS, and at least pay lip service to obedience while we are here, because if you don’t, Solange will suffer for it,” Tyler ordered.

“Walk two steps behind me at all times; do not, under any circumstances, speak unless you are spoken to; and bring forward the holopad and display the pictures upon my command. Do you understand?”

Alex stared at him in mute horror.

“Do you understand?” Tyler repeated in a harder tone.

Alex nodded, his mind racing. He couldn’t put Solange in danger, but could he handle being paraded in front of his father as Tyler’s whore? He had no choice, so he had to somehow find the strength to endure it.

Tyler swept in the front entrance with Alex staggering along two steps behind, as ordered. Fatso brought up the rear.

“I’m here for my eleven a.m. meeting with Mr Lytton,” Tyler announced to the receptionist on the front desk. “I represent the Magnus Association.”

“Yes, sir – of course. He’s expecting you, Mr Bellman,” the receptionist replied, with a bright smile.

“Unfortunately, Mr Bellman is indisposed. I’m the vice-chair of Magnus, so I’ll be taking his place,” Tyler said. “I believe it’s this way?”

He headed into the building, steamrollering his way along the corridors, making plenty of noise.

Employees came out of their offices to see what was going on, and Alex wished the floor would open up as they stared at him in his rent boy chic.

He hoped they wouldn’t recognise him, but some of them clearly did.

Indeed, word must have gone around like wildfire, because people rushed out to gawp.

Tyler took the long way around, walking through the accounts department, allowing the staff there to get a good look at him, and then along to the design studio, where Alex used to hang out as often as he could.

People stared, pointed, and even laughed at his appearance, which would be out of place anywhere except the most extreme of gay clubs.

He certainly didn’t belong, mid-morning, in an AV factory.

Tyler smiled at them all genially, waving his hand as if he owned the place.

Alex felt himself growing redder and redder as the laughing turned to jeering and catcalls.

He was an object of humiliation, as Tyler had intended, and it wasn’t as if he had any friends here.

He’d first been the moody son of their houder, who they’d had no choice but to treat with deference, and then he’d stolen millions from the company that fed, housed, and clothed them, robbing the very fund of money designed for that purpose.

They hated him, and he could feel it with every single step he took.

They finally ended up in the reception area outside his father’s office. Spencer looked up, taking in first Tyler and then Alex, dressed in his ludicrous outfit, his face flushed with embarrassment. Spencer’s mouth opened and closed like a goldfish’s as he struggled to grasp the situation.

“We’re from the Magnus Association – Noah is expecting us,” Tyler said loudly, taking advantage of Spencer’s confusion to sweep past his desk. He swung open the door to Noah’s office and strode inside. Alex put his head down and followed, his entire body burning with shame.

His father got to his feet as the uninvited entourage entered.

Alex shrank behind Tyler in a desperate attempt to conceal himself.

All the same, he couldn’t help peeping out around the side of his houder’s shoulder to catch a glimpse of his father, feeling an immediate pang of homesickness.

He had to fight down an urge to run to Noah and fling his arms around his neck as he’d done as a child, to hug him and never let him go.

When he was small, he’d viewed his dad as strong and invincible, capable of lifting him onto his shoulders, swinging him up into trees, and hauling him out of brambles.

Now he longed to return to a time when Noah had been able to solve all his problems, and he wished he could ask him to save him from Tyler.

Such salvation was not in his father’s power, though, and he knew it.

He’d made his bed and was well and truly lying in it.

When had their relationship soured? When had the small boy who’d loved and trusted his father turned against him and found him wanting?

He tried to trace the path of their estrangement in his head to make sense of it.

It had crept up so slowly. At some point in his childhood, his father had taken over the business from Alex’s grandfather and begun working such long hours that Alex barely saw him.

Then his father had insisted on his sons being sent to boarding school, which Alex had hated.

Noah wanted Charles and Alex to have the best education available, but Alex had always felt like an outsider.

He’d struggled to make friends and was bullied into a constant state of misery.

Noah ignored his complaints, and when Alex saw him in the holidays he couldn’t connect with him anymore, too angry about being sent away to a place he hated so much.