(These events occur in a world where legalized, non-hereditary slavery is common-place for serious crime, unredeemed debt, or voluntary self-indenture. Eighteen years of age is the minimum for anyone in this world to be enslaved or be involved in slave business operations. This is strictly a FANTASY—in reality, informed consent is ALWAYS mandatory.)
(HCI Market and certain characters appear by kind permission of Gentleman Mariner.)
For eight years, I had worked as a slave handler—often called a wrangler—at the HCI Slave Market in Houston. Every day, I saw convicted criminals and bankrupted debtors come through the loading dock for processing and auction. Most of them were terrified of their future when they arrived naked, collared, gagged, and bound on their knees in wire cages suitable for shipping large dogs. And they had good reason to be terrified—slaves had no civil rights, and if their owners mistreated them physically or sexually, that treatment was usually just a misdemeanor under the rarely-enforced statutes concerning abuse of livestock. As far as the State of Texas was concerned, slaves WERE livestock, and all the records of enslavement as well as permits and licenses for slave handling were administered through the state Department of Agriculture. With the permission of the slave's owner, any free adult aged 18 or older could demand any form of sexual service from a slave. Sexual orientations, marriage vows, even incest did not apply. I felt sorry for these unfortunates, but my job required me to control and process them for sale.
What goes around comes around. Because my son-of-a-female-dog ex-boyfriend, Mason, had ensured that I was the only one on the mortgage for our house, this morning I had to indenture myself to the XYZ Bank for a period of up to seven years to pay off that mortgage with my 27-year-old body (primarily, I was afraid, with the use of my three openings.) The alternative had been to wait until a slavecatcher/bounty hunter tracked me down, violently subdued and stripped me, and turned me in to the bank for probably twice that number of years of slavery.
Now
I
was the helpless, naked bitch kneeling gagged in a dog cage, en route from the Agriculture Department office in Dallas where I had surrendered. Worse still, I was going to be processed in my OWN SLAVE MARKET by people who until two days ago had been my OWN CO-WORKERS. The next 20 hours were guaranteed to suck, probably literally suck. Like all the unfortunates I had processed over the past eight years, I dreaded my future. I was also trying to keep my anger at Mason under control. Particularly for the next few days and months, I couldn't afford to have an attitude or resist in any way, because that would only bring down the wrath of slave wranglers (like I had acted in the past) who would make my miserable existence exponentially worse.
If I haven't painted a clear picture: my name was (until that day) Cindy Jackson. Age 27, 5 foot 10, 140 pounds, with the 3 B's: Blond hair (chin length), Blue eyes, and B cups. When I had been slave- graded two years ago as collateral for the mortgage, I was evaluated as Choice. It's not vanity to say that I'm cute and, until now, had an outgoing, attractive personality. As a slave handler, I can honestly say that I would probably have graded higher—somewhere around Prime Minus—if I had been able to present myself as more of a submissive, horny bimbo who lived to whore herself out and grovel before others. I had tried to pretend when I was slave-graded, of course, but it's really difficult to jill yourself off and convince yourself and everyone else you're gagging for cock, which was necessary to make me appear like Prime slave meat in the eyes of professional slave merchants. I would have to do a better job of acting like an eager slut THIS time around, so that I was sold at a high enough price to work off the rest of my debt in seven years.
If I felt helpless and angry, that was nothing compared to what (I'm sure) went through the mind of the 50-some-year-old codger whose poodle cage shared the panel van with mine. We were both gagged, so there was no way to be sure, but I had concluded that he was almost certainly ex-judge Roy Bean V, legendary for abusing his office by extorting sexual ransom ("favor" would imply that the victim had a choice). My girlfriend Beth had been one of his victims—she described how the judge took great joy in ramming an unusually-large prick into hundreds of accused free women plus numerous slaves brought to his office to "sweeten" the deal when the judge had to approve enslavements or other legal actions. In Beth's case, he had often exacted a 3-way from her helpless body while it was bent over his desk, leaving her bruised for days thereafter.
Some such behavior was considered normal in the male-chauvinist slave state Texas. Heck, this morning I had to suck off a state Agriculture official to thank him for the "privilege" of indenturing myself in this manner. But Bean had gone so far beyond the usual and accepted practices that he had finally been caught in a sting operation, having put an undercover detective into a spreader bar and cuffs while he ravaged every orifice south of her ear canals. Even then, I think he might have gotten away with it if she hadn't been legally free. Bean had been convicted of abuse of office and illegal enslavement, felonies that (for a guy of his age) meant de facto life enslavement. I could only see his right buttock, but that carried not only the freshly-branded circle star of a criminal slave but also numerous lacerations. Lily Russell, the bank official who had processed me into this cage, had said something about the judge's victims (the free ones; slaves didn't count) getting "atonement" from him that morning, which probably involved extensive electric shocks and strap-on pegging. That gave new meaning to the old treatment of electric shock therapy—it was therapy, all right, but only for the victims, not the person being shocked. I had caught a glimpse of his gagged face, filled with impotent rage, when my cage was loaded onto the truck.
For the next several hours—I had no way to measure time—I was lost in my thoughts, trying to calm myself down and psych myself into being Bimbo Cindy, the perfect submissive cunt, instead of angry Cindy, the woman who wanted to torture Mason and any other guy who had ever crossed me. I was tempted to plan my revenge, perhaps ten years hence, when I would slowly castrate Mason with a rusty, dull, knife after making sure I had an alibi in another state—but even that heart-warming image was likely to make me lose my cool when we got to HCI.
*****
I noticed that the truck was no longer travelling at highway speed, and then it came to a halt and began to back up slowly with the usual "beep-beep-beep" wired into such vehicles when they drive in reverse. We must have arrived at the HCI loading dock. Showtime! Time for me to play eager Bimbo Cindy even as (I anticipated) my co-workers had their fun at my expense.
The back doors of the panel van opened, and a huge Black guy climbed on and slid my cage forward onto the dock. I recognized Bill Madison, the ex-football player, and was relieved—he was a good, responsible guy, not given to inflicting unnecessary cruelty. If Bill in-processed me, I might survive the next few humiliating hours. Even if he decided to "sample" me, he was a handsome, clean man—since slaves have no choice, I would far rather have HIM use me than some of the other perverts here.
The electronic beep of a scanner told me that Bill had just imaged my bill of lading, so I was now officially part of the HCI inventory—property, not a person. He opened the cage door and told me, calmly and firmly,
"Crawl forward to the yellow line in front of you. When you reach that line, stop, and don't move until told to do so." How many times had I given the same instructions to fresh-caught slave meat? I was determined not to screw up, so I vigorously nodded acknowledgment of his order and inched forward as quickly as I could (crawling on my knees with my hands still restrained behind me) until I reached that yellow line, and then immediately froze in place, trying not to even breathe hard. This was the point where, if a new slave even twitched, the slave handler usually zapped him or her with a shock baton to emphasize absolute obedience. I did NOT want to get shocked. Next, Bill's deep voice repeated the familiar words of warning, the slave market version of a Miranda Rights Warning—but for slaves, this was a Lack-of-Rights Warning:
"You are at the Houston, Texas, location of HCI Incorporated. You are here for processing and sale as a pleasure slave. I am required by law to tell you that the collar you are wearing can deliver a powerful and extremely painful electric shock if you attempt to leave this building without permission. Additionally, all HCI employees are authorized to use any means deemed necessary to compel you to comply with all orders given to you, and those means include electrical shock and whipping. If you follow my instructions you will not be hurt. Do you understand?"
Again, I nodded vigorously and loudly attempted to say "Yes, Master," even though I knew that the canvas gag would make me unintelligible. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bill's size 14 work boots and the bottom of his blue jeans, as I expected. But I also saw something else—a pair of shiny women's 2-inch kitten heels with high quality dress pants above them. Oh, crap—who was this intruder? Was I about to be featured in some reporter's lurid account about "inside the slave market—sex-crazed sluts on sale?" Times like this I was almost thankful that my parents were no longer alive to see me.
Focus, Cindy! I had almost missed the next command, which was "Prone"—I fell forward onto the concrete, unable to break my fall except by twisting so that my left forearm and boob landed before the rest of me. Spreading my feet 18 inches apart, I again froze, waiting for my shock collar.
I had been vaguely aware of other sounds, presumably the ex-judge being welcomed to the market in the same manner as me. At that moment, however, I heard the unmistakable "Bzzzt" of a shock baton followed by a muffled scream—fortunately, it wasn't on MY ass, so I assumed that the ex-judge had twitched at the wrong moment.
"What part of DON'T MOVE didn't you understand, Asshole?" By the sound of the angry voice, that was Jim Matheson disciplining my fellow-traveller. At almost the same moment, I heard light tapping in that same direction—Mizz kitten heels and dress pants must have left me to watch the judge. Then I heard her speak, in an amused tone:
"You're on the money as usual, Jim. This douchebag has been torturing slaves for years, but he's not used to obeying instructions. The next time he twitches, do you mind if I shock him? Since he really IS an asshole, how 'bout I start with his anus?" Son of a gun—I know that voice! What was Beth Sullivan, my former partner who had preceded me in this horrible experience of indenture, doing here? I didn't want to get my hopes up, but the obvious answer was that, since she worked at the same bank that now owned my ass, Lily had sent her to watch over me. Relief flooded over me.
Meanwhile, I had lain absolutely still as Bill had replaced my shipping collar with the heavy, battery-packed shock collar, to which he clipped a leash. "Knees, slave. Heel!"
