Chapter 1: Cuffed
You understand that if you say "I've changed my mind" we stop, but when the collar goes on, that's it—for tonight, we own you.
"Yes," I said, trying to sound confident. I asked for this, but knowing that I had asked to be cuffed, stripped, collared, and sold, I doubt I succeeded.
"Very well, turn around."
I hesitated for a second, then turned and placed my hands behind my back. It seemed a long wait before cool metal closed about my wrists. I turned back to face him, both to mask a slight shudder and to hide my testing the cuffs, as I tried, unsuccessfully, to move my hands apart.
"You won't be able to do that without the key, don't worry."
I guess I wasn't as subtle as I imagined, or perhaps no one can resist trying, and he had done this many times before. He was tall and muscular, wearing a black so intense it seemed to suck up the light. He had sharp cheekbones, almond skin and amber-flecked eyes.
Those eyes looked me up and down, slowly, carefully and appraisingly. Black hair piled upon my head, green eyes, white skin, red lips. Emerald silk, snug around my throat, draping my breasts, clinging to my belly, flowing around my legs to the floor. But backless, open and exposed from neck to waist.
"It seems a shame to waste you on some stranger; perhaps I should just take you for myself" he said, reaching up to stroke my breast.
I stumbled a half-step back, but could go no further—two large bodies blocked any retreat. One grabbed my arm to stop me from tripping, but also held me helplessly in place.
"Yes" he said, as he cupped my breast, "I'm going to enjoy this."
I tried to wriggle aside, but it just served to rub me against the creamy silk and his hand. I could feel my nipple harden and heat radiate—upward into my cheeks and downward into my loins.
He chuckled. "This is going to be fun—and who knows, maybe I'll get a taste of you later."
With that he picked up a black collar. It was like polished marble, cool and smooth, but hard and unyielding. He said nothing, but I couldn't miss the message. I would soon be wearing that unyielding collar—but nothing else.
"Are you ready?"
I tried to speak, but my tongue was getting signals so scrambled between "Yes, let's do this" and "No, no, no, this is crazy, I've changed my mind" that nothing came out. Instead I just nodded, shaking loose a curl of hair to hang across my eye and along my cheek.
With that, the hands at my back propelled me forward, through a curtain of hanging beads. They slid over me, hundreds of light fingers caressing my body. The swirling mix of heat and panic intensified sensation. One strand ran over my right breast, and I could feel each bead as it gently thumped against my nipple.
I was standing in pool of light so bright I could only see shadowy outlines of human shapes in the darkness beyond. I'd only been moved a few meters but I was breathing like I'd run up a flight of stairs. The hands steadied me on my feet before the large figures retreated. I looked again at the shapes beyond the edge of dark. One of those shadows was going to buy my body. But it wasn't going to be a shadow that bought me—it was going to be a live man and he was going to want his money's worth.
I stared about, trying to see the men beyond the light—oh my god, there were women too! My fantasy was being sold to a man who would ravish and fill me. What if a woman bought me instead? I had no time to ponder what it would be like to be forced to serve a woman, as the black-clad man turned to the crowd.
"Here is our merchandise for this evening."
Turning back, his amber eyes met mine and held them for a moment; then he stepped behind me, close enough that I could feel his heat on the bare skin of my back. His breath was warm on my shoulder as were his fingers on the soft skin below my ear. But there seemed no softness in the fingers that latched onto my dress. With a twitch of his fingers, the pop of a snap opening echoed in my ear and I spasmed. I could swear the entire room heard that quiet noise, and know as I did, that with only two more snaps, the neck would fall open.
"That's one" he said, and I jerked again, his voice breaking me out of my reverie.
I worked my arms, trying to pull my hands free, but they were locked, and would stay that way. Until my new owner unlocked them to claim for his service. I couldn't do this. I had to tell him I had changed my mind and to let me go. But I couldn't make my mouth open. It seemed frozen. There was a second pop as another snap opened and again I jerked and shuddered as I struggled for words.
"That's two."
Just as his fingers tightened for the third time "Stop, oh please stop" broke free from my lips. Getting those few words out took so much energy my knees buckled. Only his grip on my arm kept me standing.
"What? You want me to stop? His voice wasn't loud, but it had a penetrating depth that resonated in my core and carried to the farthest reaches of the room. "She thinks she can tell me to stop!" But then a soft whisper in my ear: "remember, if you really want me to stop, say that you changed your mind—have you changed your mind?"
With one hand, he held me on my feet, but the other was still locked on the third snap. Did I really want him to stop? A drip of sweat—or was it a tear—trickled in my eye. I gazed through the blur at the shapes in the room. Speaking still seemed beyond me; instead, I let my head fall forward, exposing the back of my neck and the last snap.
There was a third pop—louder than the first two, deafening it seemed to me, and the tight silk at my throat loosened. But it didn't immediately fall away.
"Are you ready?" he called to the crowd. But I knew the words were for me.
I heard no response from my own lips so one must have come from elsewhere, because he let go. His hand opened and the silk slithered away, slowly at first as it slid round my neck and down my chest but faster as it spilled over my breasts and past my belly. The top fell away, but the clinging waist kept me from being completely stripped.
A roar from the crowd broke through my distraction, but it wasn't a roar of appreciation—it was frustration and disappointment that the dress still hung from my waist and that I wasn't completely naked.
"Patience," he called. "Don't you like what you see?" "Raven hair, full red lips? And surely these breasts are worth savoring for a minute?" And then there was a cheer.
"Turn around once, slowly."
I did, clockwise, shuffling my feet. As I came to face him, his eyes were hard, but inquiring. I met his gaze briefly, blinked another blurry drop from my eye, but then completed the turn and faced the room, squaring my shoulders and feeling my wrists move within the now-warm steel.
