I woke with a smile on my face the next morning. Our Christmas break begins today! As I woke up, I realized the loft was spotless. Ricky sat at his bed with the sun shining on his book.

"Did you clean this morning?" I asked.

"Yeah." He replied, as if I was crazy for even questioning it. "Was I not supposed to?"

"No, it's okay." I shook my head at his naiveness. Then I walked from my bed to his, taking a seat. "Honey, we need to have a talk about this."

Ricky set his book down. He looked at me with those puppy dog eyes as he pushed some hair behind his ear. "About what? I did something wrong, didn't I?"

"No, no. You didn't do anything wrong, Sweetie. It's just that I think you still have a lot of your old... programming, stuck in your head." I said.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you still do a lot of the things that you had to when you were a slave, but you don't need to do those things anymore. Like, cleaning the whole house, or saying thank you after you service me." I snickered.

"Oh, sorry, it's just habit. Plus I should thank you." He slightly blushed. "I enjoying getting to do that to you."

"Trust me, I really enjoyed it." I smiled.

I leaned in closer and kissed the crook of his neck. He gasped just a little. Then I put my hand in between his legs, and he gasped a lot. I pushed Ricky on his back as I sucked at his neck. He just went with it, because he wanted this. It was so easy to make him moan... I palmed him through his jeans for a few moments. The second he started to put his hands over me, I pulled back and walked away like it was nothing.

"What was that?" Ricky somewhat scoffed, still in his soft voice.

I headed towards the kitchen area of the loft to get some breakfast. "I felt like last night wasn't enough punishment." I replied.

"Oh, I see." He muttered.

I tapped my hand on the counter as I passed it. "Come sit at the island."

Ricky didn't even hesitate and I oddly liked it. I shouldn't find this much joy in behavior that's product of slavery. And yeah, I know the guys told me everything in a nutshell, but I still want to hear him say it.

"We never finished our conversation the other night." I said as I opened the cabinet to find something for breakfast.

"What conversation?" Ricky asked.

He knew what I meant! I pulled the box of oatmeal packages out of the cabinet and set them on the counter. Then I turned to look at him for a moment.

"The one we were having before Josh and Ange interrupted. I told you about my life before the club, and you were just about to tell me about yours. You never did though."

He glanced down at the table, muttering, "Well you obviously already know."

I raised an eyebrow. "I do?"

Well I did but hadn't mentioned it, unless I slipped up without remembering. I kept my eyes on him as I went to get the kettle from under the sink and filled it.

"You just said like ten minutes ago, that I have a lot of my old habits from my slave days. You knew I was a slave." He said.

I guess I did slip up... But I can't rat out the guys for telling me. I mentally slapped myself for being a moron, then recovered from my fuck up. I set the kettle on the stove, then turned back towards him. Leaning across the counter, I grabbed his arm gently and pushed up his sleeve. There was a scar from where his brand mark had been cut out. I pulled up my own sleeve and showed him my scar.

"I have the same one." I told him. "I saw it when I took those cuffs off you last night."

That part was true, but I had seen it other times too. His scar was still fairly new, whereas mine you could tell was older.

"I didn't really want to have mine taken off. The procedure sounded to... Scary, I guess, but-"

"But Chris made you." I replied, to which he nodded. "TJ, one of the old dancers here, he was the one that started that. He never was a slave himself, but he told Chris it'd probably make the club more money. When customers saw the slave branding on the dancers, it would scare them off."

"And you know Chris. He'll do anything to improve sales." Ricky snickered.

"That actually wasn't it. Part of it, maybe, but he agreed to do it because of Angelo. Even back then, he was in love with Ange, he just didn't want to admit it." I scoffed with a reminiscent smile. "Angelo wanted to get rid of his at any cost. The memories were too much for him. Chris just decided to make it a rule."

"I am glad it's gone now, but at the time, having a piece of your skin cut out seemed so extreme." He said. "I've heard about TJ before. No one ever brings him up in a happy way though."

I sighed to myself. The kettle whistled, so I turned my back to tend to that as I responded, "Not everyone's sending away is as pleasant as Ange's was. I remember the day TJ was told he was leaving, because I was standing in Chris' office when he ripped up TJ's contract. He violated one of the biggest rules."

"Stealing?"

"No, drugs. He was on heroine when he was thrown out. God only knows what he's gotten into since. That was... seven years ago, I think. Any other rule, is just a strike against you, but if you're doing drugs, it's a one way ticket out that door." I explained to him, then set a bowl in front of him.

"Thank you," Ricky lightly moved the bowl back. "But I'm not hungry."

I pushed it back towards him. "I haven't seen you eat since... ever actually. I have never seen you eat. So eat."

Ricky sighed and just stared at the oatmeal. I shook my head. It's going to take me a while to break him from these habits...