The economic meltdown of 2015 hit Roger particularly hard. He had been a fairly successful mortgage broker in Houston before the crash. It seemed like the steep rise in health insurance premiums hastened the death of the forty hour work week which in turn hastened an irreversible decline in the number of prospective buyers applying for mortgages. If that wasn't bad enough, when the Federal Reserve finally did taper its Quantitative Easing in 2016, interest rates went through the roof, pretty much wiping out what was left of the mortgage lending industry just as affordable health care had wiped out the health insurers several years earlier.
As a matter of course, Roger's wife left him for a more financially secure bureaucrat heading up the South Texas regional section of the United States Department of Agriculture. Under the onerous laws promulgated after the crash, the Domestic Relations Court awarded her three quarters of the community estate Roger had painstakingly acquired during their twelve year marriage. The final divorce decree ordered him to pay out close to two thirds of his income to her for support of their two children and spousal maintenance.
Stalwart in his efforts to stage a comeback, Roger studied for and earned his Series Seven and Series Sixty-three securities licenses. The newly emerging slave trade had become the next big thing in a conspicuously frothy investment world. The wealthy could obtain front loaded accelerated depreciation for the purchase price and reasonable and necessary expenses associated with the upkeep of the slaves they purchased at the ubiquitous auctions, not unlike the traditional benefits accruing to owners of cattle and horses.
Favorable tax treatment enabled aspiring new slave owners to shelter the income they now received as third party beneficiaries while they rented out their human livestock for sexual services and physical and/or intellectual labor. Those who purchased the slaves' services from the Owners would pay considerably less than they would have had to prior to the institution of the Slave Enabling Statutes. Prospective employers were getting workers at wages far below market without having to pay out benefits while at the same time a burgeoning class of sexual tourists could now rent short-term or long term companionship without the traditional hassles of dating and courtship by accessing the usual and customary websites. In short it was a win-win for all parties concerned.
The reinstatement of slavery was truly an elegant solution, propelled by the need to reduce an otherwise intractable unemployment rate approaching a third or more of the able bodied labor force, bestowing new opportunities for the investment class while rescuing the political class from widespread condemnation for presiding over a clearly unsustainable and unacceptable economic environment.
And so it was at an investment seminar touting the elegant solution for the well-heeled, held at the hipster Hotel ZaZa Houston, in the tony museum district, Roger met Chloe. They sat together at the panel for discussion and presentation. He had given a power-point presentation on the favorable tax treatment available to those who purchased human livestock, preceding an impassioned presentation chock full of her anecdotal experiences as a slaver in which she outlined the criteria she used to recognize the submissive personalities she encountered in her work and the methods she employed for enslaving them.
A masterful and seasoned public speaker, Chloe sought to sell the sizzle and not just the steak as she finished her presentation on a high note, imparting to her enthusiastic audience an explicit description of the full range of emotional and sexual benefits available to any Dominant Owner who was considering buying into a legally sanctioned 'asymmetrical relationship'.
As Roger looked around the seminar room, he could not help but notice the use of four shapely nubile female slaves in their late teens or early twenties, nude and collared serving tea, coffee, and pastries to the seminar's presenters and attendees. The coerciveness of their submission was further magnified by the tiny cowbells affixed to their leather collars softly ringing with each step they took, announcing their every coming and going from the seminar room. This indeed was shrewd product placement by the organizers of the seminar.
Roger found himself at once strongly attracted to and somewhat intimidated by Chloe. He hadn't been with a woman since the divorce some fourteen months ago, focusing his energy instead on trying to revive his flagging financial prospects, rather than getting hopelessly entangled in an emotional encounter with an outcome uncertain or worse, one toxic to his already vulnerable state of mind.
But Chloe was undoubtedly alluring, her generous height enhanced by heels, her perky breasts accentuating an athletic and curvaceous frame elegantly wrapped in a smart pin-striped Anne Klein business suit, her neck adorned by a Versace Lapis Ceramic Ingot Bib necklace, much too expensive for likes of Neiman Marcus, her skin tone unblemished, mocha and positively glowing.
Roger was falling in love with the full mane of frizzy black hair covering her shoulders and her intense black burning coal eyes, her glance welcoming and penetrating at the same time.
He began to fantasize running his fingers through her hair, kissing her, his tongue exploring what he imagined to be magnificent earlobes, holding her close to him, inhaling her scent.
Most of all, he loved the fullness of her thick full lips. How mocking they seemed every time she forced a smile during her presentation, how condescending those lips seemed every time she had flashed a smile his way, how exquisite they would be wrapped around his cock.
And so he was greatly surprised several weeks later when he received an email inviting him over to her home for a tête-à-tête.
In her living room, they sat on the same sofa that witnessed dozens of previous seductions Chloe initiated in the line of her work. She asked him about how his life was going after the divorce. She asked him about his children. She asked him if he still missed his ex.
Two professionals sitting side by side, they conversed about the nuances of the new slave trade, its opportunities, its challenges, its likely effects on the national economy and culture.
She told him about how exciting it was for her to exchange and extract the aura of personal power from her unsuspecting victims. Each enslavement brought her somewhere between twenty-five and thirty thousand dollars in fees and earnings. With ten or more enslavements consummated every year, she was not doing shabbily at all. Each submissive she encountered presented her with one more opportunity to acquire yet another toy, yet another stimulating experience that constituted the good life. It was after all, a very good life, and she was grateful for every opportunity that came her way.
Giddily, she suggested to Roger that maybe, just maybe she could call upon his expertise to help her manage her growing portfolio.
Roger listened intently as he found himself basking in what he intuited to be the "hot" energy signature of her commanding presence. He could sense her sizing him up, waiting for him to make a move. He knew only too well of the dangers of playing with fire but after having been alone for so long, the temptation was irresistible.
Throwing all caution to the wind, he scooted next to her on the sofa, putting his arm around her shoulder. She rewarded him with a peck on the cheek, running her fingers through his thick sandy colored hair.
She abruptly changed the course of the conversation.
"Roger, may I be frank with you. I demand brutal honesty and authenticity from everyone I come into contact with, be they 'normals' or 'submissives'.
"Beating around the bush, hiding in subterfuge not only turns off otherwise malleable victims but is a resounding and irreversible deal killer in all things seductive."
Roger reflexively nodded as if to signify understanding.
"You see, Roger, this business we're in rewards the tenacious and the clever. I've made it my professional calling to hunt down and capture 'submissives', reducing them to kneeling at the feet of their eventual owners, giving up all of themselves selflessly.
"Roger, it's my opinion that before you can successfully advise your investor clients on how to make the transition from being mere shareholders to being slave owners you yourself need to fully appreciate the specific needs that are satisfied by dominance and submission."
"Whatever do you mean, Chloe?"
"Roger, did you ever think about what makes a slave a slave?"
"Most of the 'normals' you and I know just muddle through, meeting never-ending deadlines and challenges day to day.
"By the end of their dreary week, they are either physically or psychically exhausted, gratefully consuming whatever gratification they can find wherever and whenever they can find it.
"Oh, they're very happy with steak when they can get it, but they will settle for hamburger when there is nothing else available.
"When a 'normal' purchases one of our slaves, she no longer has to settle for hamburger. She has filet mignon on demand whenever she wants it. The many and diverse benefits of ownership restore her sense that she is fully in control of her life and circumstances.
"Her slave is there to wait on her hand and foot, lighten her work load, faithfully perform the housework and other menial labor, reliably service her most insistent sexual urges, whenever the need presents itself.
"A well trained slave offers her a profoundly more emotionally satisfying companionship than the most loyal dog with the best pedigree. There's no need for marriage, no need for pre-nuptial agreements, no need for nasty community property splits later on, just a well drafted bill of sale between a willing buyer and a willing seller."
Roger suddenly felt a pinprick of stale anger rising up from the smoldering ashes of repressed memory.
"The 'submissives' that comprise the lifeblood of our business model," continued Chloe, "are fundamentally different. It is the grand irony that over time because of how they are hard-wired, they gradually lose the ability to totally lose themselves to the throes of passion and sexual rapture. If left untreated, they become psychically impotent.
"That is where you and I come in. There is something in the nature of a submissive that requires him to experience punishment, humiliation and degradation before he can euphorically lose himself in sexual release.
"As a slaver, it is my duty to find the 'submissive', and lovingly encourage him to accept the infliction of increasing humiliation with each succeeding orgasm.
"Unfortunately, once that connection is made in his brain, there is no turning back, and my 'victim' becomes hopelessly addicted to performing more and more humiliating acts in front of larger and larger social gatherings. It is that all consuming and very public orgasm that becomes his intrinsic reward. This is, after all, what makes him a slave."
Roger found himself fascinated with Chloe's discourse, bringing himself to rub her shoulders and rub his face in her coarse kinky hair.
