Chapter 4: The Morning Training
The hand was cold, even through the thin cotton of his t-shirt. It wasn’t a shake, just a firm pressure, spreading a chill that woke Colton from a sleep thick with the taste of salt and surrender. He opened his eyes.Stetson loomed beside the bed, a silhouette carved from the pre-dawn gloom. No words.Just a slight tilt of the head toward the door.Colton obeyed. The floor was icy under his bare feet. He followed the silent man through the dark main room, past the table that still seemed to hum with yesterday’s violence, and out the heavy wooden door into the courtyard.
The desert night air was a slap, dry and knife-edged, carrying the scent of creosote and ancient dust. The sky was a vast, deep bruise bleeding into indigo at the eastern horizon.The walls of the compound stood like tombstones. In the center, on a threadbare Navajo blanket, James knelt.He was naked save for the cage and collar. The new, softened curves of his chest were pale in the weak light. His head was bowed, hands resting on his thick thighs, palms up.He didn’t look up as they approached. His breathing was a visible plume in the cold.
Stetson walked a slow circle around the kneeling man, his boots whispering on the hard-packed earth. He stopped behind him, placing a hand on the shaved crown of James’s head.A benediction.A claim.
“Open,” Stetson said, his voice low and raspy with sleep.
James’s head tilted back, his mouth falling open obediently, a dark hollow.His eyes were fixed on the fading stars, unblinking.
Colton watched, arms wrapped around himself, shivering.This was a ritual.Older than the adobe walls. Stetson unbuckled his jeans with a quiet, deliberate rustle. He took himself in hand, and for a long moment, there was only the sound of the wind chipping at the silence and Stetson’s rough, steady strokes.Colton wanted to look away. He found he couldn’t. His father’s posture was one of absolute readiness, a vessel waiting to be filled.There was no shame in the line of his throat, no tension in his jaw. Only profound, waiting vacancy.Stetson’s breath hitched, a sharp intake. He stepped forward.James’s lips parted wider, accepting without a flinch. The release was silent, a transfer of essence in the freezing dark. James’s throat worked once, twice, a smooth swallow. Then he leaned forward, his tongue cleaning what was spilt with a slow, thorough diligence before sitting back on his heels, his eyes closing in what looked like peace.
Stetson tucked himself away, fastened his belt.The metallic click was loud in the stillness. He turned to Colton, his blue eyes catching the first razor-thin line of dawn.
“Comes a point,” Stetson said, his voice quiet but filling the entire courtyard, “where a man’s gotta decide what he is.Your daddy found his truth under my hands. Saw the fighter in him was just a scared boy’s armor. I took it off him.” He reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a band of leather, dark and supple. A collar, identical to the one gleaming on James’s neck.“Now you.”
He held it out. The leather looked heavy.James finally moved, turning his head to look at his son. His eyes were wet, glistening.Not with sadness, but with a fervent, terrifying pride. A hope so deep it was a kind of madness.The choice wasn’t a choice. Colton had felt it in his guts yesterday, had tasted it on his own lips. The disgust was still there, a thin, sharp wire inside him. But it was wound tight around a core of wanting so dense it had its own gravity. The fear of Stetson, the awe of him, the shameful pulse of arousal that had accompanied his father’s breaking—it all pointed here, to this cold dawn and this strip of leather.
“He’s happy,” Colton whispered, the words torn from him by the wind.“He’s complete,” Stetson corrected. “He’s serving his purpose.You felt that hollow in you, city boy. That wondering what you’re for.I can fill it.But it’s gotta be willing. You gotta give me the ‘yes.’”
Colton’s gaze drifted from the collar to his father’s face. James gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod.Do it, the nod said. Join me here.It’s better here.It’s real.
He thought of his mother, alone in that sterile subdivision down in Albuquerque. He thought of college, of books and parties and a future that now seemed like a flimsy, painted set.None of it had this weight. This terrifying, solid truth.He took a step forward, then another. The cold of the ground bit into his feet. He stopped an arm’s length from Stetson, the collar dangling between them.“Yes,” Colton said.The word felt like a stone dropping into a well. Final.Echoing.
A slow smile touched Stetson’s lips, not warm, but satisfied. “Kneel.”
Colton lowered himself to the hard earth, the grit pressing into his knees. He kept his back straight, mimicking his father’s posture, feeling the cold seeping up through his bones.Stetson moved behind him. Colton felt the man’s hands gather his hair, pulling it back from his neck.The touch was clinical, possessive. The leather looped around his throat.It was cool, then warming against his skin. He felt the buckle fasten at the back, snug but not choking.A settled weight. A lock clicking shut in a door he could never backtrack through.James let out a soft, shuddering sigh of pure elation.
Stetson’s hands remained on Colton’s shoulders, squeezing.“Good boy. That’s your new skin.You don’t take it off.Not for sleep, not for washing. It’s who you are now.” He leaned down, his breath hot against Colton’s ear.“Your daddy’s got his duties.You’ll learn yours. First one is simple.Look at him.”
Colton raised his eyes. His father was weeping openly now, tears cutting tracks through the morning dust on his cheeks.His smile was wide, unhinged, beautiful.
“Tell him what you are.”
Colton’s throat closed around the words. He forced them out. “I’m… I’m like you, Dad.”
James nodded, over and over, his big body trembling with emotion.
“No,” Stetson said, his voice a whip crack.“Be specific.You know the word.”
Colton swallowed. The collar pressed into the motion.He knew the word.It had curdled in his mind for days. Now he had to wear it.“I’m property,” he whispered.
“Louder.”
“I’m property!” The shout ripped from him, raw and strangled, scattering into the vast desert morning.
The sun finally broke the horizon, a sliver of fire igniting the sky. It flooded the courtyard, painting the three of them in liquid gold. It warmed the leather around Colton’s neck.It lit the proud tears on his father’s face. It etched the possessive satisfaction on Stetson’s.“Get up,” Stetson said.“Both of you. Time to start the day.”
James rose fluidly, going to the rain barrel to splash water on his face.Colton got to his feet, his legs unsteady. The collar felt foreign, a permanent touch.He raised a hand, his fingers brushing the leather.
“Don’t,” Stetson said, not looking at him as he lit a cigarette. “You don’t touch it unless I tell you to.You’ll get used to the weight. Now go help your daddy with breakfast. You belong in the kitchen now.”