Day One.
He eyed the girl's chest as it rhythmically moved up and down. He sat in the back of his company's car, the driver weaving steadily through the traffic, her slow breathing a metronome for his own. He found it calming, the gentle inhale and exhale. The edge of her forehead rested against his shoulder. Her breath felt warm against his forearm.
Of course, she was still unconscious. He really had no idea what he'd encounter when she was finally awake.
He was bemused by the circumstances that had brought her to him; this odd, last minute addition to the list of essentials packed for the conference he was attending. Extra socks...check. Powerpoint...check. Pleasure slave...
For Ryan Pierce, the conference was an opportunity of a lifetime. A small group meeting with the Capital's most powerful and influential leaders. Few outsiders had ever been invited to a meeting of the Six Kings. By handing him the invitation, his boss had entrusted him with locking up the largest agreement the Capital had ever offered to a private company.
He had been studying engineering when the war started ten years ago. By its end, he was part of an industrial super-force that first fed the country's military system and now developed industries to harvest the resources from the vast lands it had conquered. Unlike his peers, he didn't find great happiness in this work. But, through it, he had been given the freedom to continue to explore his own ideas. He accepted the trade-off: corporate service in exchange for the chance to pursue his true passions.
He turned his attention to the tablet on his lap, brushing a figure eight against the numbers to unlock it. He pressed play on the video invitation but lowered the volume so it wouldn't disturb the girl beside him.
A skinny man with a pointed nose and overly rosy cheeks cleared his throat and looked straight into the camera. "Ryan Pierce." he screeched. "You are cordially invited to be our guest at the Fourth Quarter Conference on State Affairs. Detailed agenda to follow. We'll expect you at the Club on 8th Avenue. Thursday, November 15th at 10 am. Plan to stay a few days to take full advantage of all of the Club's deluxe amenities."
He paused for a moment, cracking a smile, and stepping back a bit from the camera. He continued, "We never conduct business without a heathy mix of pleasure." As he said this, he gestured towards a wisp of a girl visible in the corner of the screen. But, before Ryan could get a good look at her, the pointy nose was back in front of the camera.
"So bring along your own source of...amusement." He said the word slowly as if to draw out its full meaning. "We could share ours, but we really don't prefer it." He gives one last small smile before the video closed.
Ryan sighed, thinking about how quickly arrangements had been made and paperwork was passed and processed in the few days since the Six Kings invitation arrived.
Then, just under an hour ago he had pulled up in front of a stark warehouse and quietly flashed his state identification card. Moments later, a man he could have mistaken for a hospital orderly if not for the tattoos covering the huge muscles on his arms, carried this girl outside and asked him matter-of-factly, "Trunk or backseat?"
At first, Ryan didn't even fully process what he'd heard. Then, as the horror of it registered he quickly answered, "Backseat! Backseat please." And, without a moment's pause, the orderly deposited her into the car, closed the door and returned to the building as quickly as he had appeared.
He was about to do business with the most powerful leaders of his country. That part he understood. That was business. The part he couldn't wrap his mind around was that he had basically gone through a drive-up window and bought a girl to accompany him for the duration.
He looked down at her and admonished himself for calling her a girl. She was clearly a woman. A young woman, yes, but definitely a woman. He studied her for a moment, taking in her sleeping form.
She appeared to be sleeping peacefully. Her features were relaxed. Her cheeks were dotted with just a few freckles. She had beautiful creamy skin and lovely chestnut hair that fell is soft waves down her body and over her small breasts. At a glance, she could be just another citizen of the Capital. But with a critical eye he noticed that she was too thin and her dress was too revealing for the more conservative styles worn by free women here.
Other than a single button at the top of her neck, the dress exposed her entire back, gently bunching together again just above her hips. A small skirt flared out a few additional inches below that, covering only the very tops her thighs. Small golden flats, almost slippers really, were tucked around her toes. Turning his eyes back towards her face, he noticed a glimmer from the thin gold band that wrapped snuggly around her neck. A collar of course, he realized. She is property. The thought was unsettling to him.
He knew slavery was an increasingly big industry in his country, but he had never really encountered it this closely before. Certainly nothing so personal as this. He set the tablet in his briefcase next to his feet, sat up again, and ran his hand through his hair, wondering just how much longer it would be until she awakened.
——-
The fog of the drug lifted slowly as Catrine's consciousness began filtering and piecing together bits of information about her surroundings. She had learned how to awaken her senses without moving her limbs, giving her an initial chance to size up her situation before letting on that she was alert.
It always played out the same: An assignment. The drugs. The disorientation. Waking up at the mercy of a new master. That first moment was still the most frightening to her; having no idea where she was or what she'd need to endure.
After nearly two years at the mercy of her captors, she was still surprised by the cruelties she suffered under their care. In their minds, she was simply collateral. The bounty collected by the winning side of a brutal war between two countries. After a decade of fighting, her country of birth was finally decimated by an unstoppable force. By the time the conquerors were finished, virtually everything was burned, destroyed or seized and sent back to the Capital to repay the cost of war.
By her nineteenth birthday, Catrine had lost everything she'd ever known: her family, her home, her culture. In its wake, she experienced the systematic loss of her freedoms and her indoctrination into the world of slavery. She knew she should consider herself lucky for her designation as a pleasure slave. It was far worse to be sent to the factories or the mines. But, most days, it still didn't feel much like luck to her.
The Vultures who tracked and captured her ran a cut-throat slave-for-hire empire. For the right price, anyone could procure the much coveted paperwork in order to, at least temporarily, own a rare and exotic pleasure slave. While permanent placement of slaves was reserved for only the most wealthy and powerful lords of the Capital, Catrine's master's empire allowed virtually anyone to feel the exhilarating power of being Master, if only for a short time. With ownership came impunity; The power to act out the darkest parts of one's imagination without threat of law or consequence. Catrine experienced cruelties that she had never conceived of in her former life.
Still, in her darkest moments, she felt a tiny spark of life that refused to be extinguished. She had seen the slaves who had already given up. She looked into their hollow eyes and saw only emptiness in their depths. In the moments that she was ready to tip herself over and give in to her own despair, there was always some small bit of color in her world - new spring blossoms, an elderly Master who just wanted her to read aloud, a bite of mango whose flavors burst in her mouth.
Instead of giving in, she had trained her mind furiously to adapt. She quickly understood the basics of what was expected of her in this life. She allowed herself to accept that her life was entirely outside of her control. Without freedom or a sense of her future, she furiously and studiously tended to her own well-being. By following directions, she could safely tuck away her true self and shelter it somewhat from her circumstance. Through this, she found that submission came fairly easily. Physically, of course, it was very demanding. But, she had successfully separated body from spirit and it allowed her, at least for now, to carry on.
