The Old Auction House Laura

This story can be read independently, without having read "The Old Auction House" or any of my other works, although "Portuguese Crime Reduction Act" provides an excellent context for understanding my stories' universe.

I hope you enjoy reading this second part. While I had originally planned to include a second slave character, I decided to save that storyline for a separate chapter.

Your feedback is invaluable to me - please comment and vote. Your opinions help shape future chapters.

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Laura Parker"

You can't kick me out, I'm American!" I yelled at the rude bartender.

"Senhora, please, you are disturbing ze other customers," he said in terrible English with that weird Portuguese accent.

"Y'all are just a bunch of ignorant folk! I'm gonna sue all of ya!" I staggered out, my top slipped down, and vomit stained my new Jimmy Choos.

"Madam, are you quite alright?" asked a guy dressed as a police officer with that thick Portuguese accent. "Would you like us to take you to your 'otel?" More people who couldn't speak proper English.

"Don't you dare touch me with those dirty hands! Get off my boobs! I'm the Vice President of Dirty Water in Arkansas!"

That pig of a cop groped my breasts. "Get your hands off me!" I slapped him. His partner tried to grab me, but I snatched his gun. These backward Europeans were about to see who's boss.

"Now y'all gonna show me some respect!" I shouted, firing into the air. "This is how we do in America!"

That's all I remember before waking up in a filthy cell. "Mister, you gotta get me outta here, talk to the embassy, tell them to send the Marines to invade this godforsaken country!" I yelled at the old man who claimed to be my lawyer. What a hellish headache, the bartender must've drugged my drink. I'd only had 4 mojitos and 6 tequila shots.

"Ze embassy sent me, Senhora Laura. Your situation, it is very serious," said the old man in an English that sounded like my housemaid's.

"Of course it's serious! Y'all think it's normal for a woman like me to get harassed and locked up by the police? I'm sick and tired of yellin' at these people that I'm American. These folks can't even speak English... I'M AMERICAN, YOU STUPID HICKS!"

"Lower your voice, we are in a court of law," warned the so callled lawyer. "Your case, it is most serious. Even with ze American Embassy trying to calm things down and explaining zat you were intoxicated, ze charges against you are grave: assault on a law enforcement officer and reckless discharge of a firearm. It is fortunate zat no one was injured and ze officers did not insist on ze attempted murder charge." said the stupid old man.

"What charges? I'm the victim here! Them cops tried to rape me, they groped my boobs. I want a real lawyer!" As soon as I get outta here, I'm gonna sue every last one of these people, I thought.

"Laura Parker!" called a police officer. "Present!" answered the old man who claimed to be my lawyer. The brute painfully handcuffed me and took me to a room. It looked like a courtroom but only had what appeared to be a judge and a prosecutor.

"I'm an American citizen, I got the right to a jury trial, this is a disgrace!" Then I heard the old man talking to the other lawyer.

"Dr. Ruís, she is a psychiatric case," he said with that thick accent of his. "Can we not just give 'er a heavy fine and put 'er on ze first plane back to Arkansas? It was just a drunken episode and no one was 'urt."

Had I heard that right? I understand Spanish, but these people speak some kind of gibberish.

"Dr. Meireles, zere is nothing I can do. My superior wanted to charge 'er with attempted murder of a law enforcement officer - zat would mean ze gallows. If it weren't for ze fact that she is American and ze Foreign Minister received an very unpleasant call from ze American ambassador, she would be heading straight to Empire Square. And if she continues to annoy ze judge and proclaim zat she is an American, it might still 'appen. See if you can control 'er."

I was the victim here! I'd been drugged and sexually abused, and now I had to listen to these idiots talkin' about hangin' me. Was that even possible?

"Ms. Parker, please, contain yourself. 'Is Honor is already looking at you sideways," he said with that thick Portuguese accent. "My advice is zat you plead guilty, apologize to ze officers and ze court, say it was a night of excess. Perhaps you can get corporal punishment and one or two years of suspended slavery." The nerve of that old man. I was gonna sue him for malpractice, whatever came outta this circus.

"Hell no, I'm the victim here, I got rights, I know the governor of Arkansas!" I saw the old man wasn't happy, but he translated what I'd said to the judge in this kangaroo court.

"My client pleads not guilty, Your Honor, and we shall prove zat she is ze true victim, zat she was drugged in an attempted rape." Now that's more like it, the old man was finally talking like he should.

Unfortunately, the trial was a complete farce. Those corrupt cops showed a video making me look like some crazy woman, and there were no drugs other than blood in my alcohol.

"See? He was gropin' my boobs, and I had to defend myself!" I shouted, but that stupid judge had the bailiff gag me for the rest of the trial.

"Laura Parker, if ze surveillance footage was not sufficient, your behavior in zis court would be enough to convict you... it is shameful zat ze prosecutor came to court with such lenient charges. I, for my part, 'ave no doubt in finding you guilty, and I sentence you to 25 years in prison, or 10 years of judicial slavery and lifetime banishment from Portugal and all its autonomous regions." He banged his gavel. I was in shock. How dare he?

"Hmmm! Hmmm!" I protested through the gag.

"Ms. Parker, I warned you. Now my suggestion is zat you choose slavery. Trust me, you do not want to spend 25 years in a women's prison since ze law changed." The idiot. Of course I wasn't gonna spend 25 years in prison. Just needed one phone call and my Dad would send a real lawyer to fix this mess.

The judge ordered my gag removed and asked what my choice was. I had to stop myself from telling that clown dressed as a judge to go to hell.

"I choose slavery, and you don't need to banish me. I ain't ever coming back to this disgusting country!" I yelled.

"Very well. By ze authority vested in me by ze Portuguese State, I sentence Laura Parker to 10 years of judicial slavery and banishment from national territory after serving 'er sentence. I further sentence ze defendant to 25 lashes on 'er buttocks for contempt of court." Lashes, the audacity! I was gonna sue him too.

As soon as the gavel hit the wood, the brute guard came to me and growled: "ZE SLAVE MUST STRIP."

"What? That can't be, stop, let me go!" I protested, but all I felt was an electric shock and I passed out.

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I woke up to find myself naked, completely naked. Where were my clothes, my Jimmy Choos? I wanted to scream but was gagged again, and tied to a post in the middle of a square.

I saw people filming with their phones - perverts, it was a country of perverts.

SLAP! "Hmmm!" I screamed through the gag, my buttocks burning with pain.

SLAP! "HMMM!" I screamed silently. The second lash was even worse. This couldn't be happening. These people were whipping an American citizen in public, and filming it. When the Marines came, they'd sure learn their lesson...

SLAP! "Hmmm!" I looked at the face of the brute who was whipping me. I wanted to make sure I could identify him when he was arrested for crimes against humanity.

SLAP! "HMMM!" I felt like I was going to faint.

The lashes continued, each one worse than the last. I lost count after ten, my whole world becoming nothing but pain.

By the twentieth stroke, I couldn't even scream anymore.

At the twenty-fifth lash, my legs gave way completely and I felt something warm and wet running down my legs. That was the last thing I felt before everything went black.

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João

It was my first day at work. It had been rather pleasant seeing the pride on my parents' faces, even though I could never reveal to them the true nature of my duties. To them, I was merely an art and antiquities expert working at an auction house. At times I wondered whether I hadn't sold my soul by agreeing to evaluate and catalogue people as if they were objects. I pushed these troubling thoughts aside... After all, what was the difference between evaluating a stone statue and a living statue like Teresa? This was precisely what I had studied for - understanding the beauty of the human form. As Mr. Fernando had noted, some statues were carved from marble, and others formed of flesh and blood. Moreover, if they were being evaluated for sale, it was because they had violated the law.

What had been Teresa's crime, I wondered? And would I see her in the nude again, or had it been solely for my work interview that Mr. Fernando had permitted me to make use of his personal slave?

I parked the company car in the car park and made my way up to my office. En route, I encountered Teresa and found the answer to my question - she was dressed in a red and black dress with a broad white belt. Only her black high heels remained the same as the day I had seen her wandering about completely nude save for her shoes.

"Good morning, Mr. João, how fortunate to run into you - I was just on my way to your office," she said in a husky, seductive voice.

I held the office door open for her to enter. Though unsure whether such courtesies still applied to slaves, I'd opted to err on the side of politeness.

"Well then," I said with a smile, settling into my chair and booting up the computer, "what was so pressing you needed to see me?"

"Mr João, as it's your first day, I'll be showing you the ropes. You'll find several pieces in your email requiring authentication and valuation, and..." she paused meaningfully, "after lunch, your first proper evaluation of a special piece."

A special piece, our internal code for Judicial slaves. I drew a deep breath.

Looking at my schedule, I saw I had ten ceramic pieces by Rosa Ramalho to authenticate and evaluate, followed by the special piece.

"Tell me, Mr João, do you truly believe I'm a living example of the feminine beauty standards?" she asked.

"Yes, certainly! But why do you ask? Surely many other men must have made the same assessment. I merely applied method and theory to..."

"Yet you couldn't put a price on me?" she smiled. "And quite right too. If I were a marble statue, you wouldn't know my value without knowing whether I'd been sculpted by a classical master or produced in a Chinese workshop. Information is essential when evaluating any piece."

I nodded in agreement.

"Let's return to my case. In terms of physical beauty, I'm at the pinnacle, but what else do you know about me?" Another test. I decided to answer candidly.

"What else do I know? Rather little, only what I've observed, that you're the Boss's concubine, and that beyond that you serve in a management capacity. Were it not for your collar, I'd say you were the deputy director or director's secretary."

She returned my nod.

"Everything you've said is correct. Now, how does that affect my value? If I were to go to auction tomorrow?"

I still wasn't sure, but I ventured: "Without knowing more, your minimum value would be roughly 10 to 20 percent of your annual salary multiplied by your sentence duration. Then certainly your physical beauty would drive the price higher."

"You're not far off, closer to 20% actually. Tell me, would you fancy having a serial killer working alongside you?"

"Ha! You're not a killer, are you?"

She laughed. "Do I look like a murderer to you?"

"Your looks are deadly enough," I said flirtatiously, "but no, and I know killers aren't permitted to wear Fátima Lopes dresses - at least not the ones who've been caught and convicted," I added playfully.

"Perhaps they haven't caught me yet," she paused, her tone turning serious, the flirtatious banter vanishing. "But no, murderers are executed. Care to guess my crime, Mr João?"

"I'd say... Fraud. Tax fraud, or something financial. You're clever and ambitious. Violence doesn't seem your style."

"Banking fraud, actually. I was the BCT director's mistress. We had a scheme to appropriate the accounts of people who had died without heirs. No one was really harmed, but..." She paused. "His wife found out... I got 9 years as a Judicial slave, he got 15 but chose death instead, and that bitch of a wife kept everything we'd stolen as a reward." Her voice carried a bitter irony.

"That was five years ago. Now, can you state my price? Or do you need more information?"

I did some quick calculations and ventured a figure.

"€85,000 would be your base value, your physical beauty would double it to around €170,000. Would you like me to explain my reasoning?"

"An extra €85,000 for a pretty face and firm pair of breasts... but no, you're not wrong. €180,000 is what Fernando paid for me. Do you think he made a good deal?" she asked. It was a loaded question.

"The things men have done for a pair of breasts and a pretty face, look at Helen of Troy. But unless... Unless he knew you were worth the €180,000, from a business perspective, it was a poor decision. He could have hired an executive with your skills without the risks of owning a slave."

"Risks? What risks?" she asked ironically. "A top executive running his company and a Greek goddess in his bed... I'd say he got quite the bargain."

"I'd wager you two knew each other before - perhaps former lovers, ex-partners, or colleagues. Otherwise, Mr.Fernando took quite the financial gamble," her expression told me I was on the right track.

"You might have been frigid in bed, or incompetent at work. Usually, slaves' performance isn't anywhere near your calibre - the ones I've known did just enough to avoid punishment."

"Correct again. Fernando and I do have a history, and once more, information proves crucial in this business." I was rather curious about their story, something of a love-hate relationship perhaps, but I deemed it inappropriate to ask.

"Do you think your evaluation should have included a more intimate assessment of me, to appraise me more thoroughly, to better understand how to present me to potential clients?" What was she playing at...

"If you're asking whether I'd like to have sex with you, certainly I would, but to have sex with a woman merely to evaluate her... that's rape... it's monstrous!" I exclaimed.

"Rape? Monstrous?" Teresa straightened in her chair.

"João, your intelligence is well above average, and I admire your ethics, but the fact is that legally, I'm a piece of property, and you've already treated me as such - gently, mind you, but your hands explored every inch of my body without asking. When you touched my breasts to verify they were natural, you didn't ask my permission, did you?"

Her words rang true, I had touched her body simply because Mr Fernando had requested it.

"That was different. You undressed voluntarily, and I imagine you did the same for the other candidates. I didn't force you to do anything. I was merely following orders." They were hollow arguments and I knew it, but the truth was I'd already crossed that moral line.

"Yes, I undressed voluntarily, because of this collar around my neck." She touched the collar hidden beneath the dress's neckline but ever present. "I chose to wear this collar. I could have stayed clear of his criminal schemes, could have refused to sleep with a married man, could have rejected the slavery sentence, and asked to be executed instead. I chose this collar, and the women you'll be evaluating chose their collars too." She tried to mask her emotion; it was a painful moment, the cool executive had feelings after all. "At least they'll be evaluated by a decent man. I wasn't so fortunate."

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I repeated Teresa's words to myself - I was a decent man, and someone had to do this job.

Unfortunately, the work wasn't all like what I was doing now, cataloguing and authenticating a collection of ceramic pieces by Rosa Ramalho: an Adam and Eve, a nativity scene with the Holy Family, the donkey and cow, along with an angel and devil, plus a crucified Christ. They were part of the famous "Acts of Creation" series. This set was authentic, save for the Devil which was made later, though it held value as it was crafted by the granddaughter of the great folk ceramicist.

I wouldn't lose any sleep over stating the set was worth €15,000 rather than €20,000 - it would merely reduce my commission, nothing more.

I spent most of the morning writing reports and photographing the statuettes. Around one o'clock, I went for lunch, during which my employer appeared and took the opportunity to brief me about the special piece I would be evaluating. Normally, he wouldn't be interested in auctioning a piece with these characteristics, but it was a favour for a friend. We also discussed Teresa and the work, though he carefully avoided any details about their relationship.

Upon returning from lunch, I opened the file Mr Fernando had sent to my email. Laura Parker, American, 34 years old, degree in English and American Literature. She had recently been elected to the city council of Dirty Water, Arkansas, was divorced, and had been sentenced to 10 years of slavery for causing a disturbance. I thought the sentence rather harsh until I opened the video of the incident. This certainly wasn't the sort of piece I'd expected from an establishment like ours.

I picked up the phone and called Teresa.

"Teresa? It's João. Could you bring piece #20240727 to the evaluation room?"

"The American... when?"

"Ten minutes?"

"Certainly, I'll see to it."

I arrived at the evaluation room and adjusted the lighting. Teresa appeared almost immediately afterwards, leading piece #20240727 by a leash, her hands cuffed behind her back and a gag in her mouth. I had expected her to arrive unclothed, but instead, she wore a dirty strapless green dress and equally soiled green high heels.

She was an attractive woman, though hardly presented in her best condition for evaluation. Her blonde hair was unkempt, her makeup smeared, though I could see she had large eyes and an oval face - the gag making it difficult to assess her features properly.

"Teresa, why is she gagged? And in such a disheveled state? And clothed, I expected piece #20240727 to arrive... Well, as you did."

"She's arrived in this state directly from the court's induction section. Even so, we had to gag her to keep her quiet." But I sensed Teresa was also trying to shock me.

"Here, take this - it's a universal slave control unit. If you need to discipline her, simply aim and turn the dial. Just do be careful I'm not in the line of fire."

She clearly recognized the device - her eyes widened in fear as I approached. "Lau-ra, I... am... João. If... I... re-move... the gag, will... you... stay... calm?" I spoke as slowly as I could. Though my English was quite good, I felt rather like an old movie hero attempting to communicate with the savages.

"Cough! Well thank you. I don't know what's goin' on in this crazy little country of yours, but y'all need to help me, I'm an American citizen..."

I aimed the control device at her and she fell silent.

"Lau-ra, lis-ten, I can-not help you," I said in a calm voice. "I am on-ly here to ex-am-ine and e-val-u-ate you. Please co-op-er-ate."

"I ain't some animal, y'all can't just--" Buzzzzz!

I turned the dial and she began jumping about before falling to the floor like a fish out of water.

"JOÃO SWITCH--" Teresa started jumping too, trying to warn me between hops. "THE CON--TROL--OFF!"

Teresa was bouncing uncontrollably, attempting to point at the device while she jumped. I finally understood and switched it off, though not before letting out a laugh.