CHOICES AND CHANCE
So now I had five more days of legal work with Ferguson and the boys before the last of the Pain Slave Lotteries. My Tuesday meeting with Svetlana to discuss final arrangements for concessions at the Pacific resort was postponed because she said she had to go downtown to be at the BSP headquarters when the BSP worked over Crystal. "There really is not a problem. Everyone knows that, not only would it be horrible for business if Crystal was harmed, Crystal has many friends and secret admirers. I promised Lermanov, though, that I would go along with Sofia to watch. Although I trust the BSP not to hurt Crystal, I have to pacify Lermanov.
"Also, I need to make sure Crystal does not suffer too much in anticipation. I am sure she would have been fine except that Lermanov has gotten her more worried than she should be. For all the crazy risks she's taken, she actually has a very healthy fear of dying. If you are looking for consistency, don't deal with human beings."
There was a sense of great enthusiasm flowing through the BLC. The BLC sold the 150th Lottery relentlessly on the special state television channel and through other means to pump up the studio crowd as well as the Internet audience. The lottery tickets to have sex with the Seventh woman to be chosen in the topless round sold briskly. Films of Crystal giving her introductory speech and being worked over and penetrated were all over the Lottery TV channel. If the BLC was not pretending to keep the Lottery secret, the Cultural Ministry would have had a parade downtown with Crystal being gang banged on a float as the queen of the parade.
Tuesday, one BLC sales manager with whom I was working on the dreary topic of collecting service taxes on certain services for the Pacific resort, waxed poetic saying that, although he knew it was pure chance, it seemed that provenance had led the Lottery Machine finally to produce two really marketable pain slaves. "Chiara is booked for months and the demand for Crystal is off the charts. I think if upper management let us, we could keep Crystal on the rack or on her back 24 hours a day for a year." I lost my temper and said that the BLC was getting such good pain slaves because it had paid a bundle to get participants and that the BLC knew full well that if it worked Crystal too much, she'd soon be worthless. He replied, "You're right, I hope the Lottery Machine produces another pain slave as good as Crystal. We can work them both as much as is possible. Maybe, as a Christmas bonus, the BLC will let me screw a slave." He stared at my body like I was a very tasty piece of meat. I scowled. We got back to service taxes and how to report collecting them discretely.
Later, I thought of what it would be like having a jerk squeezing one of my breasts, like Daria had squeezed Irina, and not being able to do anything more than respectfully request not to be tormented and count on Sofia and her crew to assure there was no permanent injuries or marks. I felt afraid.
Although my risks of becoming a slave had gone down considerably, I was more worried about my future than before. I'd watched two acquaintances taken down hard. I knew that the fact that it had been only a 1/12th risk would be of no comfort if I were the one chosen. Also, how would I go home? I had learned a lot about myself over the last year. I had provided some fine pornography to the world for uses that I could not control. If I was not the unlucky one to come so far and become the 150th sex slave, I had to face the rest of my life.
When I next saw Svetlana on Wednesday, she too was crowing about how well the "Lotteries of Submission" had gone so far. "If there was a way to rig the Lottery Machine, I'd probably have taken Freja first as she could really have been used in promotions and I don't know if she'll participate in the future. When it came to Ashley and Crystal in the second of the lotteries, part of me was hoping the machine would pick Ashley; both because I love Crystal and because I knew that Crystal would keep participating until she was a pain slave. It was just a matter of time.
"But it worked out beautifully. If you can believe it, Ashley's so-called 'miracle escape' has already led to getting more very attractive women to participate as potential pain slaves with the Rev. Jeremiah and Ashley's husband out recruiting attractive women who can help the church. We let Ashley's husband have sex Crystal today as a finders fee, which gave Crystal a perverse form of revenge although Ashley has not been told."
The Thursday before the special lottery, Mann, Walker, Anderson, and numerous others arrived at the hotel. There was a reception Friday that the participants were required to attend. I was too nervous to say much. The Rev. Jeremiah was there talking about what a great thing Ashley was doing and how he expected that other of his lovely parishioners would soon be following her in footsteps in earning money for the mighty church. "As they saw last Saturday, God protects the virtuous and punishes the wicked," I nearly puked. Crystal, who it is rumored grew up as the daughter of a hypocritical preacher, would probably have punched the Rev. Jeremiah in the nose if she were not a pain slave off being screwed.
All the women were on edge. Although we had much less of a chance of becoming slaves than five weeks ago, the stress of taking the risk three weeks out of five was starting to get to everyone. Madison slapped me across the face pretending it was an accident that happened when she pointed out a fancy chandelier to Amy. Apparently protecting lottery participants from each other was not part of Sofia's job. She just laughed. I briefly thought of promoting the Lottery's sales by getting into a brawl with Madison on the floor of the reception room, but decided the cheerleader turned stripper was probably a better at cat fighting than me.
I retreated to the other side of the room where Freja and Inger were having an animated discussion in some Scandinavian language. Probably it was better that I could not understand. They made more than one reference that sounded like "dum valdsam Americansk" or something like that.