Accidentally on-Purpose

Part six — the finale — of a multi-part story about a young woman working as an intern at a slave market.

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Note that this story contains bondage, slavery, power exchange dynamics, physical harm in a sexual context, threats of physical harm including branding, non-consensual sexual submission, lesbian sex, bodily fluids, casual racism, degenerate public officials, and a character's struggle to come to terms with it all. All characters are at least 18 years of age.

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The van had driven for a long time, first on smooth modern roads, then on rougher gravel roads, and finally on bumpy dirt roads. Michelle, locked in a tiny transit crate (a wire cage with a door and a plastic tray for a floor, just large enough for her to crouch on her knees) couldn't see outside even if there had been windows in the back of the van, which there weren't. She could really only see straight ahead, which in this case pointed her toward the back doors of the van.

Her knees hurt, her thighs were sore, her back was stiff, her wrists (handcuffed behind her back) were on fire, her jaws were complaining (due to the gag shoved in her mouth), and then there was her head: the rough road had bumped her head against the top of the cage repeatedly. She was tired, dehydrated, and hot (it's summer in Texas, and there's no A/C in the back of this van).

But her physical discomforts were the least of her problems. She was slave naked (meaning completely unclothed except for a collar around her neck), caged, gagged, and bound for her new "owner," the unsettling Joaquín Obregón, owner of many slaves, whom he employed at his two notorious "gentleman's clubs":

The Lucy Goosey

, essentially a high-class suck bar for the well-to-do, and

The Katt's Pajamas

, a similar establishment catering to female clientele.

Michelle knew about suck bars generally by reputation. They varied from hole-in-the-wall dive bars with a single bedraggled slave serving a dozen customers a night to fancy Las Vegas nightclub-style places that employed Prime slaves exclusively and guaranteed customer satisfaction. But regardless of the venue, the proposition was the same: a customer walks in, pays, and receives oral sex from a slave. Some places still offered private booths but from what she had read many no longer did — apparently their customers enjoyed being serviced in a room full of witnesses. Supposedly the female-centric places like

The Katt's Pajamas

were more discreet, but she had no idea, never having been to one.

She assumed Obregón had purchased her (illegally, because she was not actually a slave) for use at

The Lucy Goosey

, which would be bad but manageable: while she would have to have oral sex with a number of gross men, the club was in downtown Houston, her hometown. Surely she could get a message to the outside, or her friends will track her there, or maybe she could even escape on her own?

What didn't make as much sense was the trip she was taking, obviously into a rural area based on the length of time traveled and the quality of the roads. Did Obregón own a ranch for training new "acquisitions" for his businesses? That was the only thing Michelle could think of, and if true was not great news because it would be harder for her squad to locate.

Michelle was incredibly tense and anxious, her stomach tied in knots: what had started out as a fun little adventure at pretending to be a slave had turned into the real thing. Or at least something like the real thing: the warehouse foreman Ed had sold her to Obregón without a registration number or any paperwork, so she wouldn't show up on any public records databases. Effectively she had been kidnapped, but in a society where female slavery was normal no one was going to ask to inspect her SRN, typically tattooed inside her lower lip. Michelle did not have one; she wondered if Obregón planned to forge one for her?

Only two things were keeping her from collapsing in sheer panic: first, that her best friend and her two close co-workers would be scouring the market looking for her.

At least, she hoped they would be.

And two, that whenever she gave any serious thought to what potentially lay ahead for her, she became aroused. Not just a little aroused, but

really

aroused, to the point that she occasionally felt little drops of her natural lubricant running down the insides of her thighs, even as she felt disgusted with herself.

At first it made no sense. Michelle admitted that both the idea and the practice of giving herself over to the freedom of not having a choice about sex had been great; her night with Xim in the slave cage was one of the greatest nights of her life. And honestly she would have been up for sex with Mike, even if it was kind of rough. But forced to walk out into a crowded club, kneel in front of a sloppy old man, plaster a smile on her face and suck his sticky old cock in front of a table full of people, or else get the whip? She shuddered.

And she felt a little thrill deep in her belly.

The more she reflected on it, the more sense it made to her. What was exciting her wasn't so much the act itself (although that could be pretty great), but rather the anticipation, the unknown. She had no idea where she was going, or what was going to happen when she got there, but she was naked in a cage so

something

was going to happen, and she had to admit that so far it had been a hell of an adventure.

The van rumbled over something — a cattle guard? — and a moment later came to a halt. After the long trip with nothing to listen to but the road noise, Michelle found the sudden silence unsettling.

The van's back doors opened. James, Obregón's bodyguard and right-hand man, grasped the front of Michelle's transport cage and pulled it into the opening, then with a burst of surprising strength he lifted her cage and set it on the ground.

Michelle looked at his lean, sinewy arms and chest with new appreciation. James' head was shaved as bald as Billy's, but there the similarities ended: he was only about average height, dressed in close-fitting olive pants, oxblood-colored monk-strap shoes, and a white short-sleeved linen shirt, with the lean and insanely muscled physique of a dedicated martial artist; when his shirt rode up briefly, she swore she saw a twelve-pack of abs.

James unlocked the door to the crate, and gestured for her to crawl out. She did so, slowly and with some discomfort, realizing she was kneeling on bare dirt. She looked up at him, and he gestured for her to stand. She did so, shakily; James produced a leash from his back pocket and clipped it to her collar.

Michelle had never heard him speak, and she imagined she probably never would. But right now she would gladly kiss his feet (and other things, too) for letting her out of that cage.

James tugged the leash and started to walk away, and Michelle followed, her cramped legs complaining viciously. Once she was out from behind the van doors, she could look around: the van was in a rough dirt parking lot located inside a large open area, a sort of courtyard but really big, surrounded by a high wall of corrugated metal. Most of the yard was overgrown with grass, but some of it seemed to be covered in roads made of compacted dirt. Trailers, sheds and other outbuildings dotted the perimeter of the wall; they appeared to be mobile kitchens, housing quarters, and one shed had a Red Cross symbol on the door. Dominating the far end was a huge structure that appeared to be an early Twentieth-Century factory building, and just beyond it (outside the wall) was an enormous tent, like a circus big top. The older building appeared run down and had likely been abandoned at some point, but it was clearly occupied now even if the exterior looked rusty and peeling; Michelle noted that the windows had all been painted black from the inside. The tent, on the other hand, looked new, and Michelle could hear music emanating faintly from it.

James led her across the open courtyard toward a sort of extended covered porch on the end of the smaller main building. As they walked Michelle noted the armed guards, clustered near the buildings or the vehicle gate she must have come in through, all of them hiding from the afternoon sun. To Michelle's untrained eye none of them appeared particularly professional — the sort of low-end bullies and rent-a-thugs Billy's men regularly beat up and tossed out of HCI without a second thought.

"Except Billy isn't here," she thought. "Instead, you're a small girl, naked, handcuffed and very much alone." Michelle glanced around and shuddered; "They can still be very, very dangerous."

Looking beyond a row of electrical generators on trailers, she saw a pair of plain white semi-trucks with their back doors open: each contained a double row of stacked transit cages for slaves. She noticed that both trucks had Mexican license plates.

As they approached the veranda, large double doors opened and a short, fat man carrying a long-handled whip led a trio of women out by a chain linked to their collars. They were naked and covered in filth — literally, the smell of animal feces preceding them like a wave — they were so completely covered Michelle wasn't sure what color their hair was. The man led them over to a concrete pad, lined them up in the center with taps of his whip, then told two skinny young men standing nearby to hose them off. They did so enthusiastically, turning strong-pressure hoses onto the naked women, who yipped and shrieked at the cold water, their bodies jiggling as they jumped and twisted to avoid the harsh spray. All of the nearby men laughed and began shouting: instructions to the young men on where to point the hoses next, comments on the women's bodies reacting to the water, and finally one — a large bearded man wearing what appeared to be the colors of an outlaw motorcycle gang — spotted Michelle and yelled, "You're next, sweet cheeks!"

James completely ignored them. Leading Michelle up to a smaller door on the porch, he knocked on it. The door was opened by a middle-aged woman with brown braided hair; she wore glasses, a denim apron, sandals, a heavy iron collar, and nothing else. "Good afternoon, sir," she said, eyeing Michelle. "Is this Master Obregón's new acquisition?" James nodded and handed her the end of the leash. "Thank you sir. I'll take care of getting her settled." James glanced at them both, then turned and walked briskly toward another door at the far end of the porch. The woman tugged on Michelle's collar and led her inside the building.

Inside was like being in the chaotic backstage area of a large-cast Broadway musical, but one where the entire cast is composed of slaves: people (almost entirely female) hurried around carrying things: costumes, restraints, props, you name it. The gloomy old wooden building interior was lighted in places with lamps, theatrical spotlights, or bare bulbs, and the warm, muggy atmosphere smelled faintly of sanitizer chemicals. As Michelle was led past the entrance to what she guessed was the wardrobe department, she spotted racks of pantsuits, work uniforms, coveralls, professional jackets and skirts, lab coats, judicial and clerical robes, as well as trash cans filled with ripped-up clothing. Just inside the entrance she saw a tiny older woman, slave naked except for her denim apron, re-attaching buttons onto a pile of white shirts, and noticed that one of her ankles was chained to the sewing table.

They threaded their way through dimly-lit hallways made narrow by shelves piled with restraints and punishment devices, including a rolling rack of straitjackets, toward the entrance to what Michelle assumed was the main stage: she saw a number of women, all older, with mature bodies and in many cases a little extra weight, chained by their necks to a long bar on the wall next to a curtained entryway. They wore a variety of outfits, many of which seemed to concern service work. Michelle was looking over one woman dressed as a stereotypical diner or truck stop waitress, with wide hips and large breasts and light brown hair cut short with blonde highlights, when she recognized her: it was Tamara, the first slave Michelle had ever electrically shocked and verbally abused at HCI. Tamara stared down at the floor, like all the women did, with her hands clasped behind her back. No one glanced up as she passed.

Passing a large chalkboard with rows of names grouped under labels like "school room," "office room," "court room," and "locker room," and a poster for something called a "Firecracker Show," Michelle and her handler entered a wide hallway leading to the far end of the building. "I'm going to put you in the Green Room until Wardrobe calls for you," the woman said over her shoulder.

The "Green Room" turned out to be a large open area (maybe an old dining hall? Michelle guessed) divided by a wire-fence wall with a door. No chairs or tables, but lots of pillows, blankets, carpet remnants, mattresses, bean bag chairs, and large cushions similar to (or most likely were) dog beds. Sitting and laying around the room were little groups of women, some in costume but most wearing thin cotton dresses. The lights were low, and some unidentifiable classical music was playing through some speakers near the ceiling, giving the room a calm feeling.

"It's like a harem furnished by Goodwill," Michelle thought, as her escort removed the handcuffs and the gag, and handed her a simple cotton shift dress from a low shelf. Unlocking the door, the escort motioned her inside.

Michelle heard the harsh clack of the door being locked behind her while she pulled the dress on over her head. Surveying the room, none of the women seemed especially interested in her, barely glancing at her before returning to their conversations or naps. One woman, standing on the far side of the room against a boarded-over window, looked at her for a moment before standing and walking over to her.

"Hey there," the woman said, her accent marking her as a native of West Texas. "My name's Karla. First day?"

Michelle squinted at her through the twilight: a tall, slightly beefy, older woman with curly blonde hair, a fading farmer's tan, and a strand of barbwire tattooed on her left bicep. She wore the same simple cotton dress as everyone else, but on her it barely fit, straining against her broad shoulders and large, floppy breasts. She smiled, revealing a set of slightly crooked teeth that betrayed a lack of childhood orthodontia.; honestly, she reminded Michelle of the kind lady who ran her school cafeteria.

"Are you okay, sweetheart?" Karla asked, tilting her head to one side as she placed a hand gently on Michelle's arm.

Michelle looked her in the eye and tried to reply, but before she could she started sobbing uncontrollably. Karla's eyes opened wide in surprise, but she didn't hesitate to open her arms, and the two women embraced.

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"Don't blame yourself, Michelle. We're all human, we all make mistakes, and besides, we've all fantasized about slavery at some point or 'nother," Karla, whose last name was Wheeler, said. "You're not alone."

"Heck," she continued, "I used to play that game myself. Had a good friend who drove the same routes as me, we'd sometimes meet at a truck stop at night, and I'd strip down and let him collar and cuff me and take me on walks through the truck park. It was fun, and the sex was pretty damn great, but it helped knowing that later that night I'd be free again. So don't be too hard on yourself."

Michelle nodded, and blew her nose on a paper napkin.

"Besides, you've obviously been kidnapped, by people manipulatin' the system at HCI. What we have to do now is figure out how to get you out of this mess."

"What about you, Ms. Wheeler? How did

you

wind up here?" Michelle asked.

Ms. Wheeler smiled briefly. "Please, sweetheart, call me Karla. I got here the same way so many others did: debt. My hauling business failed, partly because the bank raised the interest rate on the loan for my rig. I was so busy working my butt off trying to make more money, that I didn't really understand what was happening until it was too late: the bank got the rig and me too. The catcher who served the papers on me explained it's common for some bank officers to line their pockets by forcing people into bankruptcies, 'cause they get a percentage of the sale price of the defaulters. I couldn't afford to get an attorney to do something about it, so..." Karla sighed. "Next thing I know, I'm at the Big D, that place up near Dallas — how does that song from their ads go?

Down the chute in her birthday suit

— that was a hell of an experience, let me tell you. Mister O bought me for a bargain price, and here I am."

Did you become a truck driver because your name is Wheeler?

is what Michelle wanted to ask, but instead she said, "What exactly is

here

, anyway?"

"Honestly I don't know. But from what I hear, this place is similar to what's known as a

no-limit house

," Karla said. Seeing no hint of understanding on Michelle's face, she explained: "Brothels and suck bars use Primes and high Choices, which are really expensive investments, so they place limits on what the customers can do to them. Most are fine with that, but the ones who aren't come here."

Michelle's guts tightened up so hard and fast that she started to double over. "What does that mean?" she asked.

"It means that the customers get a lot more leeway in how they can behave. Still can't do lasting damage — no broken bones, nothing like that, and they check 'em for weapons at the door — but beyond that, anything goes. The worst that's happened to me has been really rough sex, one time with several guys at once, and then yesterday a dude tied me over a sawhorse and beat my butt with a razor strap until I was black and blue and even purple all up and down my legs and my backside. Still can't sit down, but nothing I can't handle."

Michelle looked at Karla's legs as she leaned against the wall: the backs of her legs were an ugly purple, but they didn't seem to be cut or have the skin broken.

Karla sighed again, looked down, then stared at a wall across the room. "Truth is, though, this is also like one of those clearance houses. Mister O sells women he wants to get rid of here, women who've passed their usefulness to him. But the rumors are scarier."

"Rumors?"

"That he has contacts inside the main markets who can alter your slave record. Make you disappear, so not even the Feds know you've gone missing." Karla continued to stare beyond the far wall. "But that's not the worst of it."

Both women fell silent for a bit. "How long have you been here?" Michelle asked, changing the subject.

"Not long, maybe a little more than a week. Before that I was working at the

Willie-Nilly

in Fort Worth, it's a suck bar owned by Mister O that caters to a blue-collar crowd. He's pulled girls from all his joints to come here." She turned her head and looked at Michelle. "I was talking to Donny, he's one of the bikers who work the main gates, and he said this is all temporary. Like one of those pop-up shops you see around Christmas, but for perverts." She laughed, and Michelle couldn't help but smile a little too.

Karla continued, warming to what Michelle suspected was her favorite pastime: gossip. "He said they'd only been hired for a couple weeks, right after the tent went up, to do security. From what he's seen, plenty of rich guys come through here, high rollers, maybe some judges and politicians too." Right on cue, the two women heard the roar of a helicopter's rotors pass over the building and land some distance away, presumably on the other, "public" side of the tent.

"Y'see what I mean? This place is not open to the public, that's for sure. Invite-only." Karla looked at her quietly for a moment. "What I can't quite figure is why you're here."