Returned Merchandise

RETURNED MERCHANDISE

I had arrived in front of the loading dock behind the glass and steel structure of the Institute's tower with naked unwashed recaptured slaves. How had I ended up here? What could I have done to avoid it? Oh nothing is more disheartening than time spent pondering all that could have been!

A few months ago, before setting out on this Indenture, I met with the Institute Director on the level. Not a naked slave on the loading dock, recently captured for failing to pay a debt or subjected to punishment for some petty offense, I was received in Dr Crenshaw's exquisitely tiled pool area upstairs, naked but on an equal plane.

How did Dr Crenshaw put it? Casting a penetrating stare from The Institute's short, round butted physician Dr Amy to other naked section chiefs, Dr Crenshaw observed, "The repossessed indenturee regards their reduction to natural state as an humiliation. Do our captives appreciate the greater virtues of social nudity practiced behind the scenes: transparency, honesty, and equality?"

Standing naked in a line with other naked women, I wondered if any of the naked women on the loading dock appreciated the `higher values of social nudity' as I awaited my turn for the two security officers, one in blue the other in tan to cut the cable ties which bound my wrists behind me.

My current Indenture had begun in the urbane atmosphere of Dr Crenshaw's pool complex with a great deal of promise.

The Institute Director, Dr Philip Crenshaw, standing nude, between two burly male security, arms crossed over muscular chests, both gelded, emerged from his hot tub to personally greet me. Crenshaw's bare light skinned body stood out between his two burly guards, bare swarthy bodies glistening, waxed smooth. My eyes were drawn down from the hairy curly, dark blond pile on Crenshaw's chest to the Institute Director's bushy pubic hair partially concealing his dangling ball sac.

"Ellen," Dr Crenshaw, scrutinizing my person from my bare feet, between my legs at my slit, over the landing strip gracing my mound, up to my exposed cup 34C cup breasts, addressed me, "We come to an important decision point. In the Institute, all important discussions involving a valued indenturee are conducted in the natural state, not to intimidate the servant but to foster the Institute's premium in social interaction on the basis of trust, truth and transparency."

."My current indenture runs out at Midnight," I noted.

"Quite," Dr Crenshaw replied, "that your indenture is expiring underscores the importance of this meeting. An indenture is of course nothing more than a voluntary contract. You, the indenturee, cede your freedom for the security food, clothing, and shelter which the master must provide. Other benefits may include any lawful conditions to which your master willingly accedes."

"That sounds like gobbledygook," I chuckled.

"You the former teacher, I'm sure understand the concept perfectly," the Institute Director responded, "You are offered the opportunity to write your own ticket. This indenture holds some unique promises for your situation. It's in the non-professional caste at a Manor near the one where your husband is Estate Agent."

"In addition to provisos which enable me to maintain a relationship with my husband, I require conditions which would give me," I insisted, "privileges equivalent to those possessed by the professional caste."

"The good news," Dr Crenshaw reported, "is that the prospective Master is willing to accede to professional caste conditions. The question is do you want the security of an Indenture or wish to risk the rough and tumble world of free labor. Freedom means neither master nor servant is bound to each other; both employer and employee are free to walk away if mood or occasion arises."

At the instruction of the two loading dock guards on delivery to the Institute as `Returned Merchandise,' I bent over to allow the guard to swipe the code branded into my butt before I commenced my first Indenture. "By what authority had the manor to which my indenture was assigned sent me back here to The Institute as 'returned merchandise?" I cried out.

"That's a dumb question, sweetie," sighed the female guards in blue, "Read the terms of your indenture."

Early morning at Mugglin Manor, shortly after my arrival, Freida, a laborer attached to the Manor, once a rival candidate for the indenture as Manor Property Supervisor discussed the terms of her Indenture. I had questioned her shoulder length blonde hair and permission to sleep off manor property. "I thought all day laborers in the non-professional caste indenturees were supposed to be equal. I was unaware non -- professional caste laborers could earn entitlement to such special privileges."

Golden locks glimmering in the rising sun, Freida waited with me at the rear of the Manor House outside the exit from slave quarters for the laborers to form up and head for the fields. My white top, an oversized male T -- shirt reaching down to my mid -- thighs, fluttered in the breeze as bronzed slaves rushed by to form up. Sturdy black boots protected her feet, but only a deep bronze tan shieled her bare body.

"For the most part you're correct, Miss Ellie," With blue eyes gleaming, Freida who had been under consideration before my selection, explained the concept of the indenture which bound the laborers on a manor to the Estate, "My indenture, Miss Ellie, is just a contract. The indenturee may condition trading off her freedom for security upon terms the master agrees with."

Before I could nod agreement, the Master of Mugglin Manor, standing nearby in his black boots peering out of his signature open high collared black cape revealing a squat, hairy body, his penis hidden beneath a round belly rumbling, laughed, "I avoid boring discussions of the finer points of slave law."

As the Master walked away, I cautiously uttered a non -- committal comment, "Master seems to enjoy immersing himself in running his estate."

A pleasant smile graced Freida's face. "Hmm, for fun and frolic, yes, but attention to detail in the management of the Estate is not our Master's forte."

"I suppose that legal technicalities may bore him," I avoided criticizing the Master, "and he leaves such matters to others."

"The terms of an Indenture define our rights, why my tits are hardened by the noon sun beating down on my body and you are arguably entitled to remain fully clothed," Freida explained.

I laughed, "such as this fashionable man's triple X T -- Shirt. I think you'd prefer the outfit, a silk shirt and slacks that I wore when I reported in."

I sighed. At the moment the meaning of the exact terms of the Indenture I had proposed were the point of contention. My "unconditional right to wear clothing appropriate to the activity on and off duty" did not expressly say I could be fully clothed outdoors in the Manor's gardens overseeing slaves laboring in the fields. Would the black boots provided slaves emerging from slave quarters suffice as clothing appropriate to the task at hand? What kept the issue from being forced was the Med -- Tech's prescription of "gradually increasing increments of sun to form a protective tan before I could be worked out in the fields `in an undraped condition.'"

"My contract leaves no room for interpretation. I am allowed to winter away from the manor," Freida thundered the words, "in my own home." With a smile, she added, "During the growing season, when the Manor is open, I continue to sleep in my own bed as long as I'm on time, properly present altogether ready to work. It's whatever power a desirable worker can persuade the Master to give up." With a grimace, she sighed, "You Ellie, not I, was indentured as Property Supervisor because I refused to give up those privileges."

"Is anything more maddening than wandering in the realms of the could have beens?" I offered solace.

I shook my head. The Master assented to certain conditions I had proposed conditions on an Indenture as Property Supervisor including one weekend off a month during the summer to visit my husband, the Estate Manager on a nearby manor. "My indenture prohibits enforced mating, allows me to remain chaste and faithful to my marriage, and permits voluntary reproductive sexual relations with my husband. The Institute reserved a right of first refusal over my first child."

"Generous terms for a slave," Freida chuckled.

Feeling the stubble atop my head I guessed my conditions were not as tough as those Freida demanded.

"A property supervisor," Freida sighed, "oversees the human capital of the Manor, the laborers. I wanted too much time away from the Manor to keep an eye on people at work in the fields."

"Generous term, Miss Freida," I interjected, "for merchandise or slaves."

"Tou·ché," Freida smiled. Feeling her belly, Freida bemoaned, "even carrying back," A dreamy smile blossomed on Freida's face, "the promise of potential profit from the Institute tying the Manor more closely to The Institute did not persuade the Master to offer me the Indenture as Property Supervisor. After," Freida chuckled, "eh `passing' my pregnancy test, I was loaded onto a meat wagon, a naked laborer only one, among many, nothing special."

"Nothing special," I exclaimed when I was offloaded naked onto the loading dock at the Institute, I was effusively greeted by the female guard in blue exclaimed, "Ellen, now you are one person we'd expect be privileged." Interrupting the lively chit chat between themselves to give me the once -- over, the female guard scrutinized my hair closely cropped to the skull in the kennel clip, my pubic hair fashioned in a neatly trimmed inverted V shaped landing strip, my skin smoothed body hair depilated.

The male guard in a tan uniform recognized, "Oh Ellen, what brings you back here? You were sent out of The Institute a couple of weeks ago. "

"`Ellen,'" the female guard in blue, confirming my identity, recited from my electronic file, "`female, age 27, second indenture, re-indentured, non-professional managerial caste, returned by Mugglin Manor as physically unsuitable to outdoor work under the sun.' Unsuitable?" The female guard exclaimed, "Look at her full body tan. Lift your boobles, sweetie, I'll bet you're tanned under there too?"

I was taken aback. I was welcomed back in one breath and treated like simple merchandise, the next.

"Go on, Ellie, sweetie," the female guard with a curious air of familiarity insisted, "I want to look under them cupcakes."

I obediently cupped my under-boobs and lifted them. I'd swear the male guard's nose came so close that I could feel his breath on my chest wall under my left boob; the female did lick the underside of my right breast crying out, "Devil made me do it!"

"In the non -- professional caste," I quipped, "`Merchandise' learns not to be shy."

"Ellen," the tan jacketed male guard addressed me, "you're Returned Merchandise. Why did they cram you in a shipment with unprocessed indenturees recently captured, returned or surrendered?" Looking around at the other women in line with the comment, the male guard added, "dirty, disheveled hair, bushy ungroomed, tangled pubic hairs, and filthy smelly bodies."

In my brief tenure as property supervisor at Mugglin Manor, I stressed neat appearance of the field hands, college students who had given their Indenture to pay for education as well as slaves brought from auction. One -- by -- one I reduced the scalp of each to stubble, with the Master of the Manor in an open black cape watching. To each female indenturee's protest, I told the Master, "Hair can be stored and sold to wigmakers."

With the Manor's Med -- Tech looking on with a grimace, the Master rendered me a compliment, "Everyone here finds new ways to spend my money. Only Ellen sees how I can turn a profit."

The Master's kind words brought a twisted, contorted expression to the Med Tech's face.

"Plus," I continued, "A scalped slave who scoots off is more easily identified." Pointing to the back of the neck, I added, "placing the bar code here would facilitate easy identification of slaves. "

On the loading dock, the female guard observed, "Now that you're properly identified. I'll talk to Dr Amy to give you a more appropriate homecoming."

The guards took me by the hand to guide me to Dr Amy. Though tired and haggard and showing her pregnancy to the point she could no longer button her white lab coat, Dr Amy interrupted her examination of a re-captured indenturee to give me a once over. "Have Ellen searched, photographed and put her in the cage in the dispensary to wait for me."

"It seems I've spent a lot of time in cages lately," I quipped with a sigh, "I'm just discharged after a harrowing 45 minute ride in the windowless Meat Wagon. I had a discharge physical and an on-boarding physical at Mugglin Manor."

I pictured myself on Dr Amy's gynecological table legs strapped in stirrups. Finding my money, Dr Amy could pocket it or report me and -- who knows? -- Would Dr Amy order my butt paddled raw and ship me to auction in the Meat Wagon?

The Meat Wagon picked me up at the auction house. There 'The Meat wagon' delivered naked slaves properly primed, prepped and readied for auction having been cleaned, perfumed, hair trimmed close to the scalp, body hair depilated. In exchange, The Meat Wagon received unprocessed slaves in their unmanicured condition.

Bent over hands clutching my knees, I presented my butt for swiping the bar code. The driver, reading the code, announced, "`Ellen, 27, second Indenture...' Heck you're just `Returned Merchandise.' You could have been issued a TP, Transportation Pass. Why did they ship you naked under guard?"

"It wasn't my choice," I assured the driver of the meat wagon.

"Nor mine," the driver advised me, "if you had clothes on I could let you sit up front with me. Naked you go in the back with the others, nothing special."

"You could lend me your top," I suggested,

With a pained smile, the driver apologized, "I'm all alone on this run of the Meat wagon. If I only had an assistant..." his voice trailed off. As I stood before `The Meat Wagon,' a simple unmarked white van, the driver advised, "Regulations, Ellen, we have to manacle you to load you aboard the prisoner van on the ride back to The Institute." To my protest, the driver decried, "I can't afford the risk."

"What could be more trembling," I replied as I turned to have the cable ties snapped on my wrists, "the horrendous nightmares envisioning, alternate realities conjuring, in the could have beens."

On the loading dock at the Institute, Dr Amy, with a friendly, overly familiar pat on my butt, promised to speak to Dr Crenshaw about waiving pre-physical detention in a medical `specimen' cage. "Dr Crenshaw is anxious to speak to you. You've had recent physicals at the Manor before it returned you. Is there any need to cage you?"

I sighed to myself. What difference did it make? I had just been off loaded from a windowless van where I was packed in with runners and evaders. As "returned merchandise," I might have regarded myself of higher quality than these scraggly naked bodies, mostly surrendered or recaptured slaves, packed tight together with me. Had I deserved rough handling? I hadn't violated the terms of my indenture.

Departing from the auction house, hands cuffed behind my back, I struggled to climb aboard the van, The driver, hands groping my butt, gave me a push aboard `The Meat Wagon.' "Second indenture!" declared the driver as he gave my butt the push that launched me aboard, "you should have learned to board transport."

My first adventure in professional caste Indentured servitude exempted me from most of the indignities faced by those in the non -- professional caste. Professional caste indenturees, like regular employees, have rights. Physical contact, when unavoidable, was limited.

Before my butt was pushed aboard the van, I had been caged at the auction house awaiting transfer to the Institute bound "Meat Wagon." Upon receipt at the auction house where I was held for safekeeping pending transfer to an inbound shipment headed for the Institute, my body had been appraised. "Damn shame," commented an appraiser as I stood for photographs.

"I've been photographed so often lately I feel like a porn queen," I snickered.

"I routinely document the physical condition of the merchandise on receipt and on discharge," chanted the evaluator in an impersonal tone as he teased my nipples, "clean, intelligent, literate, could qualify as governess, bookkeeper, office assistant, secretary... Wide hips, small breasts, sculpted butt, a little too thin to be a courtesan, not busty enough to be sent to a house, not tough enough to be a CP, common prostitute, but could amicably service a small time manor lord as a concubine."

The auctioneer, grabbing my jaw to move my head from side to side, commented, "Unblemished! This body would sell well on the auction block. Damn shame! But for the Institute's hold, the Indenture which binds this merchandise to servitude is open, non-professional."

Ugh, a body, merchandise? That's all I was. And you could say my predicament was all my fault. Nothing more unsettling than the meandering through the realm of what could have been. This misadventure began with the best intentions. I had insisted upon stipulations in my Indenture for protection of my person before I would assent to a non-professional managerial indenture to a manor as a property supervisor. The problem was I hadn't insisted that the terms be recorded in my electronic file.

Dr Crenshaw himself, meeting with me in his sauna, as usual in the unadorned natural state, penis proudly puffing up as it thickened, sack dangling, between his legs, congratulated me on structuring proposed terms, flattered me with the assurance, "Ellen, I should keep you for myself by sending you to law school."

My `rights,' at that moment in the auction house, if I ever really had any, hung on, I sighed as I kept my silence, hung tenuously on the auctioneer's willingness to honor the Institute's hold on my person placed by Dr Crenshaw.

"The Institute's hold," the appraiser grunted, "could of course be ignored -- if we wanted to risk the wrath of the institute and face a trip down one of these cat walks to an auction -- has put a hold on her. Best we can do is appraise this body, suggest sale at auction, and request written confirmation of a clearance for sale."

On the Institute's loading dock, Dr Amy rubbed her bulbous belly, as she spoke, "Best I can do for you, Ellen, is pass you through to the staff section for a warm shower rather than hosing you down with the livestock," looking around at the detainees, Dr Amy made an entry on her electronic notebook, "for medicinal purposes." Patting her belly, Dr Amy promised to return the clothes she'd borrowed from me a few months ago when I had been returned to the Institute for release or recycling at the end of my first indenture. "As you can see, I won't need your outfit at the moment. There have been changes around here." Nodding toward the entrance, Dr Amy signalled my guards to take me away.

The male guard ordered me forward, "On slave!"

"Legally speaking," I corrected the guard, "I'm contract labor: managerial caste, not a slave. I have certain privileges provided in my indenture, including the right to be appropriately clothed on duty."

Overhearing, Dr Amy asked the male guard to fetch the outfit I had `lent' her. "When I saw Ellen's name on today's manifest, I put her clothes out in my quarters to return them."

Leaving me alone with the tan jacketed guard at the entrance, the blue coated female guard addressed her colleague, "I guess you get to stick your fingers in a clean ho'."

I strived not to cringe as the guards laughed among themselves. Now relegated to the non-professional caste, I had to get used to the assumed toughness in the derogatory crude manner of speaking to slaves.