As the prospective buyers shifted their attention to the girl being vended, I had a moment to survey the busy marketplace around me. I was being sold in what appeared to be a town square in a medium-sized village. All of buildings that formed the square were made of stone that appeared to be very old, and whitewashed white. While I didn't know the precise age, if the people were wearing togas instead of t-shirts, their costumes would have perfectly matched the setting.
I was on my toes, with a noose around my neck, attached to a hook in the wall that in turn was attached to an old hand crank. There were many such hooks in the wall, and cranks. Some were used to suspend goods for sale in the square, such as fishing nets filled with pots, or the day's catch from the sea. The hooks were used to suspend goods available for sale -- in my case, a naked slave girl destined for the auction block.
In addition to the naked slave girls, goats, and pigs for sale in my section of the market, there were vendors selling handmade jewelry, carpets, flowers, fruits and vegetables, and various food carts. I could smell freshly cooked lamb, and the smell of the cooking meat, the heat, the spices, the livestock being sold alongside me, and my own slave stink, merged to form a very earthy aroma.
The sun was bright, and I found myself looking longingly at a cart of hats and sunglasses. I was attracted to a small store selling leather bags, although the thought of a naked slave girl buying an expensive purse seemed laughable. I shifted the weight onto the balls of my feet as the rope dug into my neck. I was not like the snotty college girls who had stopped to laugh and insult me as they browse through the market. I was not a rich American tourist. I was a naked Pleasure Slut. I wasn't there to buy, I was there to be sold.
The college girls who had made fun of me said I was on a Greek island, and although I could not read any of the signs around the square, the unfamiliar alphabet certainly seemed consistent with that hypothesis. It felt strange not to be able to read anything, or understand any of the half-overheard conversations in the bustling marketplace around me. It made me feel even more helpless, cutoff, and isolated. No, worse; it made me feel STUPID.
"Stupid little slave slut! She can't even speak, or read or write, ha-ha!"
As part of my undergraduate work I had taken a course in classical civilizations, which of course discussed ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and slavery. Professor Bakas was tenured and the head of his small department, which allowed him to maintain his position in spite of his horrible sexism. He was also an unapologetic proponent of slavery, both modern and ancient. He frequently derided the intelligence of the coeds in his class, observing that he'd never understand why "a girl pretty enough for the collar would chase a diploma instead."
I noticed that whenever a girl game an answer in class, it was inevitably wrong, and soon all the girls had demeaning nicknames. I was called "Turgid Tracy", or "Twitty", or sometimes simply vlákas, the Greek word for "idiot" or "fool." As you can imagine, there weren't a lot of girls in his class, and many dropped out as the semester progressed. Determined to win him over, I suggested that I write a paper on classical female slavery, a short essay on what it felt like to be sold in a Macedonian slave market, booty from a conquest of Alexander the Great.
My essay was short, but Professor Bakas loved it, and even asked me to act out my auction in front of the class, with him as the auctioneer. I wasn't naked, but wore a sports bra and running shorts, and sandals, which I discarded so he could put me through my paces barefoot. He did not strike me with the whip, but seemed to enjoy tapping my bottom with it, or using the tip to make my breasts jiggle while my classmates laughed and bidded on me.
I was clothed, and had not taken Slave Yoga yet, and so I did not have the moves of a well-trained Pleasure Slut. But it was great fun, and the boys in particular seemed to enjoy my "auction" enormously.
After my "auction", Professor Bakas took a shine to me. He still enjoyed belittling my intelligence, threatening to whip my bottom, and commenting in front of everyone that I was "more suited to the collar than college". However I sealed my grade with him by demonstrating my "slave kiss" in his office.
It wasn't sex-for-grades, though. I want to make that clear. True, Professor Bakas was fat, old, with olive skin and a terrible combover. But I found him sexy and attractive, and swallowed his load eagerly. I wanted to do it. How many free women get to suck off their "auctioneer?" I was the only girl vlákas in his class that semester to earn an "A"... and judging from his groans of ecstacy, I truly earned it.
In writing the essay for Professor Bakas that saved my grade, I had been forced to fantasize about what it might have been to be a proud free woman, enslaved by Alexander The Great's unstoppable army, and forced onto a stone auction block to be vended as war booty. Perhaps I was from Judea, or Persia, or Mesopotamia. It mattered not. I was no longer a proud free woman. One ignorant, naked Pleasure Slut was as good as the other, as it was only my tits and pussy that were of value.
The marketplace I was in might well have dated back to antiquity, and I wondered if the stone auction block that awaited me was there in Alexander's time. I hoped that it was. It gave me a marvelous sense of continuity, and a strange sense of security.
I noticed some soldiers sitting on benches, chatting pleasantly and eating their lamb, only half watching as the naked slave girl on the block was put her paces. In my mind I imagined them as Alexander's soldiers, there to enforce the peace, and ensure that the captured slave pussy was sold with as little fuss as possible.
It was at that moment that I became fully conscious of how "slave naked" I truly was, more than I had ever been before. When I had arrived at the airport to meet Suzie, I had been an American citizen, a well educated young professional woman completing her Ph.D. Now, without my passport or any form of identification, I was nothing more than a naked animal in a livestock market. Worse, I was not only in another place, but another time.
Shaking my head, I noticed that the humiliating plastic pink barcoded animal tag that Suzie had so cruelly clipped through my ear was gone, and there was no sign of the bill of lading that I had been shipped with. I didn't have a Slave Identification Number tattooed to the inside of my lip, or Agatha's distinctive slave brand to identify me.
I might as well have been from Macedonia, or Babylon, or Judea, and it might as well have been 400 BC, for I was no different than the endless parade of once proud free women who had been paraded naked on this auction block before me.
Like my ancient sisters, I had little chance of legal recourse. Under the WTO's Uniform Enslavement Act, even "incorrect" enslavements were considered valid, unless all parties involved new of the fraud. It was a very high bar, and purposely so, to discourage endless litigation. If the auctioneer, or my future master, thought I was just another slave slut -- and why wouldn't they? -- at best, my estate could sue for damages, if anyone even wanted to bother. Under local law, I was a slave, I was legally a slave, and every court and policeman on this wretched island would treat me as such.
If by some miracle I did manage to escape the noose around my neck and wrists, run naked down the street, and dive off a cliff to swim back to Europe, the local police or whomever was lucky enough to encounter me would earn a handsome "capture commission" for their trouble, and I would be whipped, and resold.
In such circumstances, fleeing to the US Embassy would be worse than useless. It was understood that major tourist sites in Europe, North America, and Asia were safe, and female tourists were free to travel there. However other areas were clearly designated as "UNSAFE FOR TRAVEL" and the State Department had no interest in helping girls who became enslaved there.
Strangely, the danger only increased the allure, and even when traveling in a large, well-protected group, it was not unusual for slavers to pick off a few stray college girls. I had felt the thrill and excitement of visiting markets like this before, although only for research purposes, of course.
The economics made perfect sense. The local authorities wanted to protect the tourist trade in places like London and Paris, but rural Africa or small towns in Central Europe had no protection. In return, countless foreign nationals were vended in the United States, and the large sums of money involved in the international slave trade made the fate of any single girl entirely irrelevant. I had heard countless stories of the US Ambassador turning a sobbing American girl who had ventured into the wrong area over to the police, and then staying to watch her whipping and subsequent sale. Indeed, sometimes such goodwill exchanges were rewarded by giving the Ambassador a "slave kiss" from the returned goods!
As in ancient times, it was always about the money. I looked at the bored soldiers, I imagined them in togas and sandals. Alexander's soldiers would not help me. Indeed, they would make sure my sale proceeded without a hitch. After all, there was money to be made selling my sweet, hot, pussy.
I closed my eyes, breathing in the scent of the bleating animals, the roasting kebobs, and my own shameful arousal. Today Alexander's bustling marketplace would sell rugs, apples, spices, and a nameless, illiterate, pleasure slut, wet between her legs.
My nipples hardened as I felt the hot sun warm my skin. I had been scoured clean with hard bristle brushes and salt water from the firehose at the pier, but already my skin and hair were dry. I was fair, and I hoped they put me on the block soon. I didn't want to burn, and decrease my block price. I wanted my masters to be satisfied with the money I'd bring.
I smiled at the absurdity of the thought: the silly little slave girl was worrying about pleasing her masters, while engaging in the classic slave girl vanity of worrying about her block price!
As unpleasant as the scrub brushes were, I was glad the men had cleaned me properly, as a filthy slave slut should be. Yes, they had been rough on me. I smiled as I thought of the little flag they used to put in the baked potatoes at the steakhouse near campus: "I'm moisty, juicy, and delicious, and I've been scrubbed, tubbed, and rubbed." I imagined such a flag being tied into my hair, or perhaps stapled onto the lip of my pussy.
I had no idea how long I had been in my cage, or how long I had been in transit. All slave girls are disgusting piggies, and I had fouled myself in my case. The men had been right to give me a good scrubbing, and scour my slave stink off of me. Painful, but it was for my own good. I was glad that they had done such a thorough job, and had taken such good care of me. After all, what girl doesn't want to look her best on stage? And for a slave girl, the auction block is the ultimate stage.
No, no! What was I thinking? I wasn't a slave girl. I was a Ph.D. student, a scholar, a trained academic doing research on the psychology of slavery. I couldn't let my role consume me. I was in control. Surely my intellect and sophistication would save the day.
Yes, I was in charge! I thought back to my days at the University. I remembered myself strutting down the quad in my belly-shirt and calf high jean skirt, reveling in the stares of the students and male Professors who ogled me, longing for my body. I would give them nothing, of course, for none of them were good enough for me. But it was fun to tease them, even as I pretended to ignore them.
