Sara felt like she'd waited all her life for this moment. It wasn't true, of course. Infernals hadn't even existed until a year ago. Heck, she hadn't even discovered Jacqueline Carey until she was 20, and that was the first time the word 'slave' had been something erotic, rather than a word from a dark period of American history.
Until the infernals, it was a fantasy, never a real possibility. But once Ruritanian slavery became a thing, it had been an idée fixe. And now it was happening. Sara was sitting in the back seat of a little sedan, and her owner-to-be was driving, and his wife was in the passenger seat. Around her in the thick and slow traffic of rush hour, ordinary people were driving to work, knowing they were free now, and would be free when they clocked out of their job. Dependent on their employer for health insurance and rent money, and all of that, but not enslaved, exactly.
Whereas she, Sara, was bare necked now, and would be collared on the way back.
It was an impossible step to take without wondering whether she would regret it for the rest of her life. She didn't have to do this. She had a good job as a nurse. She was free and making her way in the world the same as all the other people were. Even now she could back out. But soon, there would be a moment of no return.
That moment of no return was what she wanted. To be enslaved, but to be free from having to choose. She didn't know that she could explain it to most people, but there was something about being committed that drew her. She supposed it wasn't that different from the things that drew people to get married, have children, or join the Navy. An irrevocable decision - or at least, decisions that could only be revoked at great cost.
Red light. The door wasn't locked. She could run, if she wanted to. "Sir?"
"Sara?" Gray asked. He was in his demon form, a bit too large for the driver's seat, and he had on a suit that he had bought for the occasion, the blue serge looking strange against his bright red skin.
"Could you enable the child-safety locks, please?"
Betty Harding turned to look at Sara, with kind eyes beneath honey-blonde hair. "Having second thoughts, honey? We don't have to do this."
"Not real second thoughts. Just jitters. Did you have them when you got married?"
"Yes," said Gray and Betty at the same time, and they laughed.
There was a small thump as the locks clicked into place.
Sara leaned back, and felt like a small burden had been lifted from her.
"This is a bit like a marriage, isn't it?" Betty mused aloud. "Not so egalitarian, but... hmm."
Sara knew she wasn't going to back out, not really. It was Betty that concerned her. If Betty got cold feet about her husband taking a slave, what would Gray do?
Gray drove past the Ruritanian Embassy, a chunky five story building that had been a department store once. There were picketers out front, and Sara managed to read a few of the signs.
"Save our Daughters."
"Demons go home."
"The only good Red is a dead Red."
He scanned the streets for a parking spot, and finally found one with a three-hour limit, over a block away. They would have to walk past the picketers, there wasn't any real way around it.
Sara remembered her slave training. A slave had to be brave. You never knew what would happen, or what your master would decide, and you had to face that every day plans could change and his or her whim. She didn't think the picketers would hurt her. Hell, she didn't think they could, with Gray there to protect her.
"I hadn't thought about the picketers," Betty said.
"They're out in force today. We could pick another day," Gray said.
"Please no," Sara said.
Betty giggled.
"What's funny?" Gray asked.
"Just - I don't know, after this she can't say no, can she? And she just said it," Betty said. "Never mind me, I'm nervous. But I'm in this. Let's do it."
"Alright," Gray said. "I hate to ask you to walk behind me, but in this situation it might be best."
"Maybe it would be better to have one of us on each arm?" Betty said. "It would make it clear that we were with you."
"I might need my hands free," Gray said. "I hope not."
Sara stayed quiet. They needed to work these things out without her interference. In the end, they did it Gray's way, which made Sara happy. Not because she didn't want to be on his arm, but because it was Gray's way.
They left the car, and walked toward the protestors. Their attention immediately pivoted to Gray, but of course they took in the two women with him as well. Betty, in her thirties, dressed in a rather loud magenta suit that clashed a little with Gray's skin color. Sara, in a little black cocktail dress that showed off her long legs, and wearing four-inch heels as she trotted along behind the big red demon. She was conscious of not wearing anything else underneath. In her fantasy, she would be marched to this event naked. Legally, she could be topless in the District of Columbia, but Gray had said no.
One of the protestors had the idea of standing in front of Gray's path on the sidewalk, so that he'd have to detour out of the way. Another moved left, to talk to Betty.
"You don't have to do this," he told her. "There are other options. Choose freedom."
Betty just shrugged at him.
Sara was grateful that she'd ended up on the other side. The stone walls of the close-set city buildings were to her left, and Betty was to her right. They'd have to go all the way around to get to her.
"I'm going to keep walking," Gray said to the man in front of him. "And if you don't get out of my way, that's fine by me." He took another step, and the man scampered, carrying his Demons go Home sign with him.
That left a single line of protestors to get through, and Betty nudged Sara in behind Gray.
"Don't do it," one of the protestors said, and Sara wasn't even sure who he was talking to. And then they were through, and Gray was opening the door like a gentleman. Maybe that's how the tradition started, was the man staying outside to ward off potential assaulters and hecklers. Either way, it was kind of nice.
She hadn't the least doubt that Gray could take care of himself.
Two guards stood just inside. They were human, but they were also big guys, and they were armed. They stood at attention and didn't really react to them coming through, but they explained why even the most boisterous of protestors wouldn't be tempted to enter.
A dark-skinned woman sat behind a front desk. She wore a blue steel collar, and a white blouse, but the blouse was buttoned at the neck and unbuttoned elsewhere, and pulled to the side to display her large, very round and very firm breasts. So perfectly round and so firm looking, in fact, that Sara was almost certain they had been surgically enhanced.
"Good morning, Sir. What can this receptionist do for you today?"
They had an appointment, Sara knew. And there weren't very many demons, maybe a dozen in the metropolitan area, two dozen if you counted Baltimore. So the woman probably knew, or could guess, who Gray was. She, like Sara soon would be, was a slave. Did she have a Master, or had she enslaved herself to Ruritania itself, as some women had? And whose decision had it been to give her those boobs - her own, or her master's? It was a reminder of the power a master had, of how deep a surrender Sara intended, even though Sara thought Gray liked her breasts fine.
"We're here for the enslavement of Sara Summers to Grayson Harding," Gray said.
"Ah, yes. And which one of you lovely ladies is Sara Summers?" asked the woman.
Sara looked up at the woman's eyes. Had the woman noticed her staring? Probably, Sara always noticed when men did that to her. "Me," she said. "This girl is Sara, for now."
"Ah, lovely. May I ask, Sir, did you park in the lot?"
"The lot?"
"Yes, there's a lot underground, you get to it from the street behind us. It lets you avoid the unenlightened outside. This receptionist will give you instructions, but first she would like to take Sara to her mandatory interview, if that would be okay? Then if you wish, you can move your car."
The mandatory interview. Sara sighed. She'd filled out all the forms, and she understood why they needed to do the interview, but she wished they didn't. Gray gestured for her to follow the woman. As the woman got up, Sara could see that the receptionist's knee length skirt had a large oval cut out that displayed her bare ass.
The woman took her to a small room. Another slave, another desk, and a comfy chair across from it. This woman had cherry red hair, and she was topless save for her blue steel collar.
"Sara Summers?" the woman asked, standing up at her entrance, and revealing that she was entirely naked.
"Yes."
"I'm Cumslut39." The woman put out her hand for Sara to shake. "Glad to meet you."
"I'm Sara," Sara said as she took the other woman's hand, even though she'd said it already. "For now."
"Ah. Do you know what your master will call you?"
Sara shook her head. "I asked him to keep it a secret. If I - well, he's kind of a softy. If he told me and I looked disappointed, he'd probably choose something different."
Cumslut39 nodded. "I understand," she said. "Well, let's get this started." She gestured a comfy red leather chair.
