Cat Lady on a Hot Tin Roof

Cat Lady on a Hot Tin Dolls House

Chapter Eleven

EMILY ON STAGE AGAIN

Emily could hardly believe it when she woke up and saw it was 1:30 in the afternoon. I must have been very tired, she thought.

Someone was knocking at the door.

They are coming to take me to auditorium to be auctioned. I hope they don't let all the bidders watch. I just cannot bear the thought of Jones giggling through the whole thing before I am sold to be used as a sex slave for twelve whole years. Twelve years, if I live through all that sex and all those pregnancies that is.

The knocking became louder and Emily heard a muffled voice through the door say, "Sorry, Emily, but you just can't stay in bed any longer."

Emily looked around and saw there was not a stich of clothing in the room. Well, obviously I don't need clothing now, really not again until 2078.

Betty Jo looked stern when Emily came out. "Come on, we have to get you on stage."

Emily walked into the auditorium like she was going to a guillotine and saw to her horror that Professors Coolidge and Jones were there as well as many others. She was surprised, though, to see Nora was also on stage, nude, with a sardonic smile and displaying herself without a shred of modesty. Nora even swayed her hips, held up her breasts as if they were prizes, and smiled to the crowd. Emily saw Woods Helm in the first row which threw her for another loop.

"We make a big ceremony out of announcing the woman who will be auctioned as the free use sex object, as though she won a grand prize," Betty Jo said to Emily as she went up on the stage and stood there without a stitch of clothing or pride. Nora gave her a little smile of superiority while Emily was doing her best not to break down entirely in tears of self-hatred.

"And now, Ladies and Gentlemen," Robert Gelt said, "It is time to announce which of these two incredibly lovely and hot women will be auctioned off as a free use sex object for, can you believe it, twelve whole years. That's twelve years of being used for sex without any ability to say 'No.' Twelve years of fucking and breeding. Can you believe that such a beautiful woman as either Nora or Emily would become so available for everything for so long?"

No, I can't believe that I agreed to this, Emily thought.

Gelt paused for dramatic effect before saying, "And the woman who will be auctioned, as selected under the rules designed by the participants in this auction event, including the women standing here in all their luscious nudity, is none other than the former Yoknapatawpha County High School prom queen, Miss Mississippi, and Old South University Homecoming Parade Queen - NORA TALMADGE."

Nora did not pretend to be surprised. She acted as though the voters obviously would choose her and she had expected to win yet another beauty contest.

Emily was confused and relieved. Woods came up stage. He barely glanced at Nora. Instead, he helped Emily put on a robe and whispered in her ear, "I will explain everything I know in the break before my former wife, who they are already calling by her maiden name, is sold to be a sex worker until she is in her 40s."

EXPLANATIONS

Woods led Emily to a side room off the auditorium. "As you were told and as you saw, these selections for the woman to be auctioned involve a great deal of conspiracies, back-stabbing and negotiations. This one involved more than most. I trust you will keep everything in strictest confidence?"

"Yes, it's not like I am proud of my role in this. You can be sure I will not tell anything to anyone," Emily replied.

"Nora surrendered," Woods said. "As a piece of useless information, you would have been the one sold if she had not surrendered. Nora did come in close. I don't know which of you is more beautiful, but education, curtesy and sanity do count for something.

"Also, and this is interesting, all the guys who went to bed with Nora said she was great during the sex, but they were depressed afterward. All the guys who had sex with you said that you were the nicest person they'd ever met and that they felt good about themselves, were encouraged about the future of humanity, or something else like that, as a result of having had sex with you."

"I guess I knew the XYY fraternity people were working so hard to get me to surrender for some reason."

"Yes, they knew that Nora was about to fold and wanted you to agree to be the sex slave first. The frat and the Everleigh definitely wanted you, the frat wanted only you.

"The guys on the Rising Sun knew that if they wanted Nora, they'd probably have to get her to surrender. They even called me at the office last night to talk to Nora."

"At 1:00 or whenever it was?"

"I work late sometimes."

"Why did they think you could help them? It's not like you've been much of an influence over Nora, at least not lately."

"Nora said last night that she went into the FUSO contract and auction mad at me, at herself, and at you. She knew that XYY was after you and thought at the start of the auction that the final choice would come down to you and Crimson."

"That's funny, I thought it would come down to Crimson and Madison and then I thought it would come down to Crimson and Nora."

"Yes, but you are too hot, and Crimson's daddy didn't want a sex slave in the family.

"According to Nora, getting further into the voting, she started thinking her life was at a dead end and, even with the money she'd get from participating, she did not have a better option for her life than isolation, social suicide and twelve years of being a sex slave. She'd get to have sex all the time and didn't have to make any decisions. She could say that she did not take the risk of becoming a FUSO because she's a slut but because she wanted to help some women get through college and unexpectantly became the FUSO because of Crimson's father.

"Nora also decided she had no reason to be mad at you and started to feel bad you'd been led into participating. At least that is what she said. Nobody, probably including Nora, knows why she surrendered. I think part of it was that she did not want to come in second in a beauty contest.

"Nora wants everyone to believe that she got into the thing for noble reasons. Also, no one is ever to know that she surrendered, particularly not because she had no better idea of what to do with her life than to be a sex worker on one of the boats."

"I like to think the best of people that I can. I will believe the Nora surrendered to save me. But, Woods, how were you involved in Nora's surrender?"

"Nora wanted me to promise something."

"To take care of the children, to get rid of the governess she doesn't like?"

"No, Nora made me promise not to marry you or even go to bed with you for five years or she wouldn't surrender, and you'd probably go to the frat house or the Everleigh for constant use as a free use sex toy and breeder for twelve years.

"Of course, we did not know how the vote would come out when I made that promise but Rogson thought you'd probably get the most votes. Nora told me about the fourth-round vote totals and Rogson said all they guys who went to bed with you were in love with you. Of course, he also said that Nora was really much prettier and sexier than you, but that one can't account for tastes."

"I didn't know that you and I getting married was ever under consideration," Emily said.

"I did not either, but Nora thought so and resented you from the day she met you. I don't know why. Maybe, she hated you because you got out of college and became a professor. She was an English major too, but she left college and there was nothing for her to do but marry a boring man and become a housewife and a socialite in a tiny world.

"When she realized that you were also capable of tearing up the sheets like a vixen on our big night in New Orleans, she completely flipped out and agreed with her mother to join the little Enslave-Emily project with Virginia, Rutledge, Calhoun and Knox. As I said, she came back in the end to not hating you and feeling guilty, but she still doesn't want us marrying right after she is sold.

"The national XYY organization knew it had to do something. Then, Virginia, Calhoun and Knox decided after reading your Temple Drake blog to try to make you the house sex slave of XYY so the boys would have someone to rough fuck instead of Old South Coeds which was getting them into big trouble. They did not have a good plan as to how to make you into a sex slave and were lucky to get as close as they did. Nora participating the auction event was no part of their original idea. But from the time they offered you a visiting lecturer job, they were looking for a way to get you to become a sex slave of XYY."

"You mean the whole lecture series and seminar, that they pretended to believe was great literary education, was just designed to lure me down here to be fucked regularly without concern for my wishes, by 40-50 unruly frat guys as well probably as Randall Calhoun and the rest of the XYY national board of directors?" Emily said on the verge of tears.

"Oh, please, don't drown in wounded pride and self-pity. If all they wanted for the frat was a house whore, they could have gotten that a lot easier. Hell, Madison would have worked just fine, she would have been a lot cheaper and they could have voted for her. No, they wanted a very smart, personable, beautiful, sort of responsible, and incredibly sexy woman who could get the guys to do their homework and improve their writing by giving her body along with grammar and writing style tips. Your blog indicated to them that you were turned on by the idea of being a sex slave and they really liked that.

"If it worked out with you at Old South U., they were going to try find women to place in other XYY houses across the country. That frat has been banned from a few schools.

"Getting back to last night, Nora also said that I should tell you to listen sympathetically to the offer that she knows Calhoun, Rutledge, Knox and Virginia will make to you in a few days. I think she feels guilty about scotching her mother's plans, but I have never understood Nora's mind. Plainly, she has a lot of conflicting desires.

"Now, let's go back and watch the auction."

"Do you really want to watch the auction of your ex-wife?"

"No, I want to fuck you, but I promised Nora not to do that until 2071."

THE AUCTION

Emily and Woods arrived late. Nora was back on stage after a short break. The bidding was going on. The unserious low bidding was over and there were a number of times-outs being called by the serious bidders to allow them to call back to corporate headquarters to get further authority.

Nora was there on stage with a proud demeanor showing herself off like the incredible item she was. Emily again wondered how anyone could have thought that she was as attractive as Nora. Black hair, deep blue eyes, flawless pale skin, dark nipples, tall with ample everything and perfect legs, bids for Nora were getting close to what Loretta Alt had brought. Emily heard one guy say into his cell phone "she's not a movie star but everyone knows her in our market, and she couldn't be any hotter without causing the stage to catch fire and it's for twelve fucking years."

For $50 million, the Rising Sun put a fur coat on Nora and led her to a limo for the drive to the brothel that they operate next to the dock for their boat. Nora was clearly proud she brought in the same prices as the movie star. Under the deal, this gave Emily $5 million.

"My refusal to pay Nora's $20,000 gambling debt looks pretty stupid doesn't it," Woods said. "But she's worth a lot more to the Rising Sun than she was to me."

"Nora might have been right to leave a husband that felt that way," Emily replied.

"She was right," he admitted.

OPENING NEGOTIATIONS WITH XYY

Despite what had happened, Emily still had to return to the Talmadge Mansion in Poknapatawpha to pack and decide what she was going to do. With her share of the ante for the auction, the money from the votes for the FUSO, and her share of the money from the auction that did not go to Nora or Servants Service Corp., Emily figured she had enough money in 2066 dollars to live comfortably for about eight years, but she soon learned she had no job. North Liberal Arts college had laid her off.

I could take a low-paying high school or junior college teaching position and use my millions to take nice vacations, Emily thought. Well, no, probably not, with the closure of so many small colleges, I probably can't get any teaching job. Few can afford to go to college anymore. The student loan programs were all killed forty years ago.

Her relationship with Virginia Talmadge was, to put it mildly, badly strained. She would not be staying much longer with Virginia.

Emily made plans to leave town with her cat Bessie to go to her old apartment in Ohio after the various checks had cleared and been put in some sort of safe investments. That would take weeks. In the meantime, she'd stay in her room as much as possible with Bessie; and avoid Virginia.

Emily spent some of her free time reading the book by Angela Assad, "20 Years a Sex Slave," about a woman who was an indentured free use sex object on the Rising Sun from 2045 until 2065.

It seems Assad generally enjoyed the sex, did not mind the pregnancies, thought being fucked while her breasts were pumped was hot, and only hated a few of the customers. Assad said that if she could have changed one thing it would have been to be able to tell management not to re-book her with clients who were deliberately abusive. A bit of well-meaning abuse was fun, but some guys went out of the way to make Angela's experience unpleasant or cause her regrets.

Woods helped Emily collect her money and make other arrangements for being a moderately wealthy person without a job or any job prospects. "The banks always manage to hold onto money longer than would seem necessary," Woods said. "Of course, they are collecting interest every minute their sticky fingers have the money.

"Banks and others will try to get you to take a quick deal that looks good. Take $1,000,000 now and don't wait for the $1,500,000 due to come next week. Many things require perseverance. It is extremely important, Emily, to have patience and to not give in to an early offer even if it appears beneficial. In negotiations, it is the person who maintains focus to the end and holds out for what he wants and then pushes for more that walks away the winner."

Friday, five days after the auction, the ice broke with Virginia. Virginia knocked on Emily's door and asked her to come down to the parlor.

Once Emily had come down, Virginia said, "I know you probably think I'm horrible. I admit I was not honest with you but, as you know, Ralph Talmadge always believed in the XYY fraternity and I do think you are an excellent literature professor. I believed and believe that you could do a lot for XYY and for Old South University and for revival of the literature that we both love."

"You tried to turn me into a sex slave for twelve years. Maybe you built up my confidence if I aspired to be a desirable slave, but I don't know if I can trust anything anyone says about my abilities as a scholar or a teacher anymore," Emily replied somewhat melodramatically.

"That's a very harsh way to put it," Virginia said. "You were never going to be a sex slave. Assuming were had been able to win the auction, you would have been a very special teacher and would have walked away with enough money to retire after the twelve years. Also, from our research and your Temple Drake blog, it was clear that you were just the sort of woman who might enjoy the loving attention of a number of virile men.

"And when all is said and done, we did you no real harm. You now have lots of money that should last you for a while and, unlike my crazy second daughter, you don't have to be on a sex boat and its adjacent brothel for the next twelve years having sex and babies."

"Sure, all's well that ends well. No harm, no foul," Emily said indulging herself in a bit of sarcasm for once.

"In fact, a number of nice men are going to come and visit tomorrow morning. Would you just hear them out?" Virginia said.

"What time tomorrow?"

"9:30"

"I will be dressed for the occasion," Emily said.

Emily spent most of Friday thinking of what she would say Saturday. She did not call Woods Helm. He'd try to get me to be reasonable and responsible, Emily thought. I'm beyond that.

The following morning Randall Calhoun, Godwin Rutledge, Eric Knox and a man who introduced himself as David Sharpe of Sharpe, Sharpe & Fogg arrived. They were all dressed in beautiful seersucker suits and straw hats. After learning that they had arrived, Emily came to the parlor dressed only in the robe she had worn leaving the auditorium in Memphis; worn loosely to reveal parts of her body every time she moved.

As she entered, Calhoun had a double take. He asked, "What does this mean."

"It means that I am going to be completely honest and I expect the same of you. If I sense that you are trying to mislead me again, the discussion is at an end.

"My immodest dress also means that I admit you've all proven your point as to one important thing. I do like sex and Amanda was probably right that I was the second most wild co-ed in the dorm until I decided that it was taking me to the sort of places where Amanda and Nora now are, only with much less money for it than they are getting.

"Tell me this, what would have happened to me if I had been acquired as an indentured servant by XYY?"

"You'd have moved into the frat house and become a free use woman for twelve years. I am certain everyone would have been very welcoming," Calhoun replied.

"Free use 24 hours a day by all 40 or so guys living in the house?"

"Um well, yes, I guess so. We would certainly have let you sleep but we had not worked out all the details of how we would manage you."

"Do you think I would have even survived two years with 40 or so horny young men grabbing and fucking me on a constant basis?"

"There would also have been alums in addition to the 50 current frat members but I'm sure that arrangements would have been made to assure your welfare," Calhoun said. "We would not have allowed you to be, shall we say, fucked to death."

"And they definitely would not have worked you so hard in bed that you could not help students with their studies and even give a course a semester," Virginia said.

"Yeah, that's right," Eric Knox said as though this was the first time that he'd heard anything about Emily providing anything but sex.

"It sounds like I'd have been better off on one of the all-you-can-fuck boats that I heard about on Frau Investigator," Emily said dryly.

"Emily, you have made your point. We did not do all our homework before we sought to obtain your services," Virginia said. "I realize that may sound horrible but there is only so much planning one can do as to how one will handle a bird in the bush so to speak. We would undoubtedly have had many meetings after we obtained you."

"Meetings without me?"

Everyone was silent for a minute.

"Emily, we stand convicted of a certain amount of deceit and poor planning in the past that cost us a lot of money but benefitted you at least financially. Let's look to the future," Virginia eventually said.

"Virginia, Eric, Randall, Professor Rutledge and Mr. Sharpe," Emily began, "I have given much thought to the future, but, first, do you know if there are any of the XYY frat members at the house during the break. School starts again Monday."

"I stopped by today and the two members who were with you Saturday were there because they could not go far given the time they spent in the festivities in Memphis," Calhoun said.