Southwest Shipping - Part 14

[ElJefe]

There's no place like home...no place like home...


Southwest Shipping

Ron took her to another single cage, and removed her cuffs when she went inside.

"Master, do you know what will happen to me next?"

"Badging, then shipping. You should be on your way to your new owner today. I'll come get you in a little bit."

She had more questions but Ron didn't wait to answer them. When is lunch? Can I have more of that stew instead of kibble? What is badging? Where is Huffman? Who owns VIP Beauties and what do they do?

He returned, maybe a third of an hour later and ordered "Back Hands." With a lead attached to her collar, Natalie was ready for the next step of her journey. He seemed in a hurry, turning this way and that through the maze that was the Big D, so she didn't try to question him. They arrived at a closed off section with brick walls that went up to the ceiling, marked "Badging".

Natalie was unprepared for the sight that met her when Ron opened the door. A row of slaves was spread out before her, legs apart and bent over frames so that their asses were upthrust and presented to her, buttocks parted indecently. At the far end of the room was a forge and hood with a chimney that rose to the roof. And just as she was pushed into the room, a man wearing a smith's apron pressed a branding iron into the helpless backside of a wailing woman as she pissed into a trough between her feet.

Natalie scrambled to flee, pressing into Ron's strong arms as he caught her. It was an automatic reaction, her legs moved of their own accord.

"Slave, Down!" Her conditioning took over and she immediately knelt, an electric goad pressed to the side of her face.

"Are you going to go all slave stupid on me? Do I need to give you a jolt to make you behave?"

"No, Master!" His hand grasped her hair forcing her face against the goad.

"Breathe in, breathe out. Repeat after me. 'I am a slave.'"

"I am a slave."

"I live to serve."

"I live to serve."

"Everything I do is to serve my master."

"Everything I do is to serve my master."

"Again. I am a slave..."

After three repetitions, Natalie calmed, although she still trembled with fear. He held her head, not allowing her to look at anything but his face, until she had stumbled her way through the mantras.

"Down." He pushed her head until it was bowed. "You will keep your head down and breathe in and out until I tell you to stop. Understand?"

"Yes, Master." Natalie realized that he could have shocked her, he could have whipped her, he was being kind. He left and she heard the heavy door close with a clunk, knowing that it locked and she had no way to open it. She heard another woman scream, it was only for a few seconds but her vocalizations seemed to go on and on, and somehow Natalie heard the hiss of sizzling skin behind the wail, smelled the forge, smelled the burned flesh. Natalie's heart pounded, her cunt throbbed. Fear makes me horny. Everything makes me horny. She thought back to the veterinarian and his happy juice. How much of that shit did he give me?

Several pairs of hands grabbed her, Ron had enlisted help. She was no match for any of these men, resisting four of them while handcuffed was hopeless. She offered no resistance when they frog marched her to one of the branding stations. I don't want this, I don't want this. She looked left at the woman secured next to her, her defenseless buttocks raised high for the iron, arms secured behind her back. The woman looked up at her, a bite gag in her mouth, and Natalie could see that the woman was just as frightened as she was.

She felt tears well up in her eyes as strong hands bent her over, pulled her legs far apart, tightened straps over every inch of her body. A finger started stroking her clit, sliding through the wetness of her folds, confirming the connection between terror and lust. She felt the pressure in her bladder again. Least I didn't piss myself. Maybe Bradley was a stronger woman, maybe she was allowed to void at the courthouse, but Natalie knew that she would release her water when her time came.

Ron squatted at her head, a bite gag in hand. "Open."

Her obedience was automatic, but as her tongue tasted the bitter rubber, she wanted to resist, wanted to avoid being silenced. You could bite your own tongue off or something. She hated that he was right, this was for the best.

He pulled her head up by her hair to look at him. "Cunt, look at me. Pay attention, this is important. You're an ignorant Yankee, so I'm going to explain it to you. You're about to get one of the most exclusive brands a slave can wear. The Big D only gives its house brand to women who are graded Prime here at the Big D. Free women pay thousands of dollars to go to classes so that they can get a prime grade, and then they can get this brand on their ass. Then they wear a thong bikini to show it off at the country club pool and brag about how they were graded Prime, and that they have proof. They talk all big about getting their prime grade, but when we bring them back here to get their badge, we have to wrestle them into the frames just like some of the slaves. There are free women in this room getting their asses seared just like you. You understand? This is an honor. You understand?"

Natalie nodded, understanding his words but feeling only fear. Nothing he could say would reassure her, he might as well mansplain that childbirth wasn't that bad. You're not the one giving birth. You're not the one getting your ass marked for life.

"I'm going to do you a favor. Let me get your brand." He left, and from her vantage Natalie could see him go to one of the head smiths, a huge man in an apron. Ron pointed at her, and the big man handed him an iron. He brought it back to show her.

It had been in the fire, and was hot. The head hadn't started to glow yet, but she could still feel the heat on her face. The design was a backwards capital D in beautiful script, well it would be a proper letter D when it was turned around to make the mark. The bowl of the D carried around past the inclined upright like the circular curve of a lasso, just like the fancy version of the logo that she'd seen on staff shirts and badges where the D was made out of rope.

"You're an educated cunt. You know about endorphins?"

She nodded again.

He started fingering her pussy, the arousal strangely comforting. "We have a tradition here that lets a slave girl release some endorphins just before she gets her badge. Want to try it?"

She guessed he was going to fuck her and then brand her as she came down from her climax. What she really wanted was some morphine, no, even better, to take a pass on this "honor", but...slave girls must be thankful for small favors. She nodded.

He stood, and she felt the strap at her waist being loosened. She tried to look behind her to see what was going to happen, but was dissatisfied with the amount of freedom her bonds allowed. She felt something large against her hood, rubbing. Wooden? It must be the fat wooden handle of the iron. It still felt good, she humped against it.

"That's a good girl, hump the iron that's going to brand you. Show the iron some respect."

It was such a perverse, humiliating ritual, but Natalie no longer cared. Wasn't she a slave now? Slaves didn't have choices, didn't have dignity. She'd never heard of this little ritual before, and from what she could see, every woman branded didn't have to endure it. She could always deny it had ever happen if asked. Hump, hump, hump.

The iron was withdrawn, and for a moment she thought it was yet another torment designed to break down a fresh slave, denying her release and offering her pain instead. Then she felt the wood at her opening.

No! That won't fit, it's too... It did fit. It did fit, and it filled her well. It came back to her, this was what she had read about in her apartment that one night, thinking it was fiction, a lie. Now it was happening to her for real, her pussy stretching to fit the fat handle. Ron fucked her pussy with it, in and out as she bucked in her bonds for release. Come on, endorphins...

She wanted to play with her breasts as she was toyed with the handle, but that wasn't allowed. Still, she bucked her way to a climax, Ron's thumb on her clitoris pushing her over. He even twirled the damn thing inside her, she'd never tried anything like that back when she had toys to play with and the privacy of her own apartment.

She relaxed, the freshly fucked calm of a recent orgasm overtaking her. This would still hurt like a bitch, but coming had taken the edge off. He held the handle before her eyes, glistening. "Look at the handle, it's the only one in the fire with your juices on it." He returned the iron to the forge, the head in the coals to heat, then returned. "When the handle is dry, it'll be your time. Let me introduce you to someone."

Ron seemed to have an animated discussion with the big blacksmith, a man wearing a John Deere cap with a few days stubble. He lifted Natalie by the hair as Ron grinned beside him. "Harvard and Tufts?"

Natalie nodded, startled.

"I did my postdoc at Boston College."

Ron flipped a thumb at him. "I'm a philosophy student at SMU. He's on the psych department faculty, taught my neuroscience class and got me a job here. Helps with tuition."

The big man spoke. "This is just a hobby for me. I like blacksmithing and branding pretty butts. I made the frame you're on, how do you like it?"

At first glance, it looked like some antique that had been repurposed by the Big D, full of intricate ironwork. If indeed he had made it, he was quite an amazing craftsman.

"Yeah, I know you can't answer. Let me look at what I've got to work with here."

The two men strolled behind her, Natalie felt big hands manipulating her hind flesh as the other man re-secured her restraints. "Oh, yeah, quite the canvas here. I'm going to give her a mark she can wear forever."

"Check her pussy. You'll like her muscle control." Natalie felt two sizable fingers enter her.

"Squeeze my fingers. Oh, yeah, that's good."

"I fucked her last night."

"Lucky boy." The big man gave her rump a playful slap. "I'd sample you myself, but a girl headed off to Lone Oak just slave tipped me a half hour ago, and I'm not as young as I used to be."

Lone Oak...wasn't that the place Jordan was headed to? Natalie wondered if the woman had to endure getting another brand, or if he was talking about one of Jordan's new stablemates. Well, there wasn't any way to ask him.

They examined the girl next to her, her long blond hair tied back so that it wouldn't drape on the floor. Was she slave or free? There was no way to ask and no way for her to answer through the bite gag that she wore. They told her that she was going to get a beautiful badge, and she panicked, only stopping when one of the handlers started fingering her. Natalie wondered if her companion was on happy juice as well, or maybe it was just the hypersexual nature of the Big D.

The big man retrieved an iron from the forge, and held it in front of the blond's face, taunting her. She tried to tell him no, shaking her head, but it wouldn't have stopped him even if she could have made the words. The smith and the handler stepped behind the woman to make some last minute preparations, and then she screamed, the gag doing little to muffle the sound. Out of the corner of her eye Natalie could see a stream of urine arcing between the woman's legs, the smell of burning flesh returning to her nostrils.

Natalie wanted to click her heels together three times and go home. But there were no ruby slippers on her feet, and her ankles were restrained several feet apart. She looked to the woman to her right, a Hispanic beauty, who looked as frightened as Natalie felt. She wondered if her other companion was as horny, too.

The big man approached the forge again and examined the handle of her iron. He lifted it to check the head, put it back in, and checked some of the other ones. She overheard Ron saying that it wouldn't be long now.

This was happening. Oh, it had all happened, you couldn't erase the past. But somehow, she'd thought that if she could wriggle her way out of it, she could pretend that it hadn't really happened. It was like being arrested for something by mistake, yeah, you went to the police station in handcuffs, but they would let you go a few hours later. It hadn't "really happened." Going on the auction block, being slave shipped to Dallas, even her gang bang last night didn't mean she was really a slave. If it was all a mistake, it hadn't "really happened", just like being strip searched by the police or having your mug shot taken didn't make you a criminal if they let you go. Her slave registration with those photographs, well, anyone who got graded had those on file. Being a Sandy Foot girl? "Just a mistake." But having the brand on your butt? Having it not because you wanted it and wanted to show it off, but being branded whether you wanted to be branded or not simply because your master wanted you branded, that was different. No matter how deferentially she had behaved, no matter how crudely she'd exposed herself, no matter how many people had used her sexually, she wasn't a slave...yet. But when her butt felt that searing pain, when that brand went on her forever, she would be a slave, even if only for an hour, even if only for a day. It marked the difference between "I was accidentally enslaved for a little while" and "I was a slave for..."

He pulled the brand from the coals, glowing orange. The smith held it up to her face, alive in its incandescence, grinning at her helplessness. "Time to make your butt perfect, Harrrvard."

Ron stood to her right, one hand dipping into her vagina, the other manipulating her left buttock. "He does amazing work. Years from now, you're going to look at your butt in a mirror, and it's going to be just perfect." She felt herself being wiped down, antiseptic on her tush, marking the exact spot where the brand would be applied.

The smith gave orders. "Get the pan. You got the camera on?"

"Professor Adkins, it's been on since she was strapped down."

Adkins spoke to Natalie. "The badging is free, but your owner paid to have a video made of it. Got you humping the brand and everything. There it is, look at it, cherry red. Time to show the world that you're a Sandy Foot pussy."

It all happened so quickly. One moment, he was standing there, showing her the brand, the next he was behind her, Ron holding her ass cheek just so as the burning sensation went on and on. She screamed around the gag, trying to yell away the pain, pissing freely as she finally emptied her bladder, exchanging the pain of fullness for the burn on her backside. Finally, she lay doubled over, sobbing, as the men cooed over her fresh mark.

"That's a beauty."

"No art lasts forever, but that'll be around as long as she is."

"Nice."

One of them rubbed gel over the wound, then someone sprayed on an aerosol bandage. She felt her restraints being loosened and Ron helped her up.

"New York, you did good. Your owner should really like that video, we have a camera by the floor that catches your facial expressions. You ok?" He reattached her lead.

Was she ok? No, she was not "ok". She would never be "ok" again, ever. Her ass throbbed, her ear still hurt, the cuffs still bit into her wrists, and she was bare ass naked in a slave market. She didn't know who her owner was or where she was going or whose cock she would have to suck next. And her cunt was still drooling as if she could somehow magically fuck her way out of this nightmare.

"I'm a slave." A tear rolled down her face.

Ron lowered his voice. "Oh." He put his arm around her, walking her to the door, not even bothering with a leash. "It finally caught up to you? Sometimes that happens, when a girl gets badged, it kind of sinks in."

She nodded, crying more freely now. "I want my owner." She needed a rock, an anchor, something to cling to in all the chaos, and just knowing there was one man or one woman whom she could appease by obeying would help.

Ron pulled the door to the forge shut behind him, and walked her down the aisle. "Your owner would want you to take care of that brand that he paid to watch you get. He's going to play that video over and over, watching you get your mark of excellence for him. So, I'm going to take you to a cage and give you some aftercare instructions, and you're going to listen to them for him."

She nodded, feeling safer in his arms.

"And then I'm going to take you to shipping so you can go to him."

Yes, that would be best. She would never forget the Big D, but it was time to leave. More than time.

He took her to another single cage, removed her cuffs, and promised to return to explain how to care for her brand. When he returned a few minutes later, he had a small bag. One by one, he removed four items from the bag, explaining the purpose of each.

It was a simple process, he emphasized cleanliness. Spray on the bandage remover and peel off the old bandage, clean the brand with an antiseptic wipe, rub in burn gel, and spray on a new bandage. He had her touch each product as she went through the steps, and told her she was to do that every day until all the scabbing had fallen off and new skin had formed over the entire piece. She was also to stretch every day, knees to chest 20 times each leg to make the skin move and to keep it from closing up, even after the new skin had grown.

After that, he packed everything away, cuffed her hands behind her back, and led her to "Shipping", depositing her in yet another tiny cage with a warning to be on her knees in Display if any free person wandered by.

"Good luck, New York." He turned to leave, then reconsidered. "You know, you've probably never heard of slave mind, have you?"

"No, Master." She'd done plenty of reading on slavery, but had focused mostly on the legal ins and outs.

"Professor Adkins would know more about this than I would, but...you're different. It would be a waste of my time to say this to most slaves." A look of concern crossed his face. "I don't know where you're going or what you're going to do, but I'll tell you what happens to a lot of them. They start out young, maybe a year or two out of high school, get enslaved, and then what little brains they have fall out. It's called slave mind. They habituate to it. Think of it as a sort of Stockholm Syndrome."

That made perfect sense to Natalie. In the short term, her best hope was to do whatever she could to please her new master and hope he didn't punish her. It had only been a couple of days, but even in the last hour or so, she'd started drifting in that direction. Hadn't she called out for her new master right after her branding, in her hour of greatest need?

"And...they get to a point where slavery is the only thing they know, so they finish their indenture and then what? They get lost, and end up re-indenturing themselves. They do it again and again, and their life just passes them by.

But you're different, you have a brain. You know the difference between a faux pas and a pas de deux, and while it's one thing to have some community college dropout amount to nothing, it would be a crying god damn shame for that to happen to you. I talked about slave mind with Adkins and a couple grad students from his department once. They told me the best way to fight it is to remember who you are. Work some accounting problems in your head every morning or go over the differences between Keynes and Hayek sometime. Just don't forget who you are, New York."

That helped. It helped immensely that someone cared just a little, even if he would use her like a sex toy one moment and shock her into unconsciousness the next. She lifted her head to look him in the eye.

"I'm not New York, Master. I'm California. And I'm seven one three five four six three two eight. And I'm Natalie Johanna Mortellaro, and this slave is very, very grateful for your advice." She went down into Fours, pressing her forehead to the concrete.

Ron appraised the nude slave kneeling before him, and wished he had more time to sample the merchandise. "Smoking hot butt cleavage, 63 28. Adios."

Before long a shorter Hispanic wrangler approached. Natalie had already dropped to Down while he was still three or four cages away, wanting to stay out of trouble. He checked her cage number, examined the lot number on the back of her ear tag, and scanned her. Then he checked his watch, looked around, and fished out a moderate penis.

"Suck."

It was demeaning, but she was wearing a collar and knew what would happen if she refused. At least he was clean and was easy to bring to climax.

She doubted that he knew what a pas de deux was.

————————————————————

Natalie must have pleased the man, because when he throbbed in her mouth he smiled and said, "Buena mamada!" If asked to describe how his spooge tasted, she would have said, "Generic", the usual salty goo. He didn't give her a chance to wash it down, so she resigned herself to "enjoying" the taste for some time.

She heard "Back Hands", and soon was cuffed and led through the bowels of the Big D by a leash. The first stop was a "restroom" like the one she had used upon waking, where he sat her on one of the toilets and instructed her to "Pipi now." Although it hadn't been that long since her branding, she'd carried a full bladder for much of the day and didn't wish to repeat that during a long truck ride (and who knew how long it would be?), so she hovered with her sore ass cheek over the commode and squeezed out a few drops as best she could. He hosed her crotch (cold!), and led her dripping to the loading dock.

He took her by the ear, and a snipping sound signified that her ear no longer wore that hated California tag that proclaimed her as Sold! There was a row of what looked like dog crates, much smaller than the waist-high cages in the semi she had ridden from Houston, and she didn't realize their significance until he pointed at one and ordered her to "get in backwards". That was awkward with her hands cuffed behind her back, but she managed, and when she looked up, he was holding a canvas gag.

"You suck me good, I give you the good mordaza!" He seemed pleased with her as opposed to being pleased at her misfortune, so she trusted there was something "good" about her gag, although that seemed unlikely. He pulled it back, tugging her mouth into a forced grin. It tasted clean, she wondered if a "bad" gag was one that hadn't been washed recently. Slaves must be grateful for small favors.

She waited, wondering what would happen next, when somebody slipped a hand truck under her cage and started carting her away. She was taken to an open loading bay, approaching the back end of a small panel van, when she was spun 180 degrees to take one last look at the Big D before being loaded backwards into the van. She saw that she was beside another gagged woman in a similar cage, and they studied each other as best they could in such a condition. She resembled the red head who had crapped out her enema beside her earlier in the day, and Natalie wondered if it was the same woman. After a wait, first a third and then a fourth woman was loaded into the van between them and the rear doors, all four facing the back. About two feet separated Natalie's cage from the one in front of (behind?) it, just enough to wheel the dolly back without bumping into Natalie. She was treated to a view of a shapely woman's nude buttocks pressed up against the rear bars of her cage. That and the crouching woman next to her made up all that there was to see. If you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes. Soon the van was on its way.

Most of the journey was on a highway, Natalie would have guessed that it had taken about a half hour. The deliverymen (male) discussed directions to "De Soto", whatever that was. When the van stopped, it was at another loading dock, although this facility seemed much smaller than the Big D. The crate diagonal to Natalie's was carted off, documents were checked, and the doors closed. The whole stop hadn't taken ten minutes, if that. "We go to Waco, next."

She knew Waco was a town in Texas, but she had no idea as to where it was or how long it would take to get there. It turned out to be quite some time as the van rolled down the highway, tires singing. Holding her head up became tiring in that crouching position, so she rested by putting her face on the padded floor of the cage, the woman beside her taking note and doing likewise. This allowed her to take some of her weight on her shoulders, instead of straining to maintain a horizontal posture. Natalie surmised the woman in front of her was doing likewise, as her buttocks had rocked forward, giving Natalie a fine view of her vulva. Natalie supposed she was presenting a similar view to whoever was up front, if they bothered to turn and inspect the cargo. After the events of the last few hours, presenting her butt crack for inspection was the least of her worries.

In an hour and a half?–‒two hours? the van backed to another dock, and two men with different colored trousers carted the butt before her away. Natalie had come to think of the other woman that way, she'd never seen any part of her other than her feet and her hind end. She wondered what kind of fate Miss Butt was being taken to. She wondered if either of them would want to switch.

If anything, the next leg was even longer, Natalie was sure it had to be at least two hours of trying to sleep, dealing with the discomfort of only being able to move a few inches in each direction, the boredom of having nothing but the back of the van and an equally restrained face to look at (she really couldn't see much else of the woman beside her), and the nagging realization that she was eventually going to have to pee again. Peeing in the cage was not an option, she'd either have to hold herself up with her aching back, or lay her face in her own pee. It wasn't as urgent as it had been from the time she'd mounted the block to the time she was branded, but clearly, it would get worse if they didn't stop soon.

They were going to some "woodlands" place, and when the doors opened, Natalie was treated to the sight of a wooded rest stop, a strip of greenery separating the truck parking lot from the passenger car lot. Their cages were opened, and Natalie and the other woman were walked on leashes across the two parking lots and past a sign that read, "All pets and slaves must be on a leash". Another sign had two arrows, both pointing to her right. One arrow directed visitors to a "Nature Trail" and the other to a "Slave Pen". The men led the two slaves along a sidewalk, a lovely pond to the left and the visitor's center to the right. 50 yards after the sidewalk gave way to the sandy "Nature Trail", they came to a pair of picnic gazebos and beyond them a fenced off area much like the one on the way to Dallas, this time in view of all four lanes of the busy interstate. An elderly couple gawked as the two women were taken to the slave facilities and locked inside. The men had ordered them into Down and removed their cuffs and gags before telling them "20 minutes, do your business" and locking the gate behind them.

Natalie's partner was a pretty redhead who looked like she might have had drug problems before becoming a slave. She noted that the woman had no brand, and they both watched the drivers until they were out of earshot to move and speak.

"God...damn, this sucks." The red head spoke for them both.

"No argument here. At least you could sit up in the last truck I was in."

"No, this is poodle express. You must have been part of some regular delivery or something. You can't never sit up in poodle express." They stood and stretched.

There was no slope to the ground above the freeway, but the vegetation seemed most lush opposite the gate. "Excuse me while I pop a squat." She began making her water, and Natalie did likewise, glancing over at the staring tourists.

"No privacy for slaves. Hey, was that you next to me on the can this morning?"

The other woman frowned, then brightened with realization. "Oh, shitting out the enema. Did you have a blue tag in your ear?"

"Yeah, looked like California. I'm from New York but they still called me 'California'. What was your ear tag?"

"Like a girl wearing a flannel shirt and Daisey Dukes. Country girl, I'm from Arkansas."

"I'm Natalie."

"Deanna. Is this still Texas? I don't know anything around here, and I don't know which way we've been going."

"Waco is in Texas, but I don't know where. Somewhere within a couple of hours of the Big D, I guess."

She pointed at Natalie's ass, grinning. "They give you a little souvenir of your visit?"

Natalie nodded. "Hurts like hell." She regarded her rump. "Yeah, they put that on just today. The first couple of minutes is the worst, it just burns and burns. Down to a dull ache now."

"I don't envy you. Do you know where you're going?"

"Someplace named Huffman, that's in Texas so we must still be in Texas."

"I don't know what 'The Woodlands' is, but that's where I'm going. Someplace called, 'Sweetcakes'."

"Damn, sounds like a brothel."

Deanna laughed. "I'm pretty sure I won't be working in nukyuler physics." Natalie winced at the other woman's pronunciation of 'nuclear'. "Long as I can suck most of them off, shouldn't be too bad."

"Well, with a name like VIP Beauties, I'm sure they'll expect me to do whatever I do with a smile on my face."

Deanna grinned. "And a 'yes, Master', and 'no, Master', and 'oh, Master, your cock is as big as your bank account!'"

Natalie went into the Display position, then twisted left and right to touch the ground on either side of her legs.

"I bet you went for a pretty penny. You some kind of athlete or something?"

"Naw, I used to do ballet when I was a kid, and I just kept up my stretches and some of my moves when I got older." She stood up.

"Can you do that thing where you stand on one leg and spread your arms out like..." She bent at the waist and stumbled.

"An arabesque? That's like beginner stuff, like little-little kid stuff." Natalie demonstrated the move with practiced grace. "I used to be able to do that en pointe, but then I saw what the older girls' feet looked like and that's when I decided it wasn't for me."

"What's on point?"

"On your tip toes, like..." She stood up on the ball of her right foot. "I can't really do en pointe here, 'cause I don't have ballet slippers on, and I couldn't do it anyway because I'm out of practice, but long ago..." She trailed off. It had been a long time.

"They didn't have fancy dancing at my school."

Natalie decided that mentioning she'd had private lessons would be unkind.

"So, how'd you get to Texas?"

Deanna shrugged. "I don't know. Someone bought me at the courthouse and decided they could get more for me in Texas. It's not that far, I was just a little east of Texarkana."

"Oh, so you had like a debt hearing at a courthouse?"

Deanana lowered her head, blushing. "No, me and my boyfriend were doing stuff we shouldn't have. Stupid ass thought I was cheating on him, so her turned me in. It all came right back to him, serves the dumbass right. I got three years, he got five. How about you?"

"I went in for a grading and trusted the wrong guy."

"That's how my momma got enslaved years ago."

"Your mother was a slave, too?" Natalie found this incredulous.

"Yeah, she always told me that I was headed for a collar. Guess she was right."

Natalie wondered about that, generational slavery. What would you tell your children? When would you tell them? It was a world removed from her east coast upbringing.

They lounged in the warm Texas sun, Natalie favoring her right side thanks to her aching left ass. She became aware of one of the drivers ratting the door to the enclosure.

"Break's over." He gestured them over. "Back hands."

The handcuffs on her already sore wrists, she expected. But when he put the gag in, something was wrong. The taste was indescribably foul, a cross between spit, stale jizz, and body odor. Natalie tried to avoid the damp canvas with her tongue and the realization struck...the deliverymen had switched Natalie's and Deanna's gags, whether intentionally or not, she couldn't tell.

You suck me good, I give you the good mordaza! Well, the good mordaza was going to the woodlands, wherever that was. Natalie hoped Deanna appreciated her good fortune. She also wondered what Deanna must have done to deserve the bad one. They climbed into the back of the van and backed into their cages. Natalie knelt until her back tired, and then lowered her head to the padded floor as before.

She guessed it was about an hour later when the back doors were opened to reveal the front of a commercial business. Natalie could look up at the logo, it was two comely women, each facing away at an angle, bent at the waist and bumping butts, the overhead sign designating the site as "Sweetcakes". Deanna was released from her cage and walked out on a leash, taking the "good mordaza" and leaving her poodle cage behind. Natalie guessed it was early evening when the doors closed and the van started off again...it was just her luck to be the last stop of the day.

The van turned off the expressway and wound left and right, surely she must be getting close. It swung in a tight turn, shifted into reverse, and started backing down a hill before coming to a stop. She heard the deliverymen at the front of the van get out, then a few minutes later she heard an overhead door being lifted, followed by the sight of the van doors opening. The van was lower than the loading dock, they'd have to either lift her cage to the level of the floor or else let her out to step up herself.

The place looked familiar, she supposed all loading docks looked alike after a while. She waited and waited, just a few minutes but they seemed to take forever. Finally, one of the drivers unlocked her cage, told her to stand, and clipped a lead on her as she did so. She was finally at her new home.

She stooped in the low van, stepped carefully up to the level of the building, and took in her surroundings for the first time.

Natalie had arrived as cargo at Southwest Shipping. And Mike was signing for her delivery.

[ZeeChromosome]

"Natalie had arrived as cargo at Southwest Shipping. And Mike was signing for her delivery."

Hehheh... Now we find out what really happens to her. Near as I can tell, she is now legally a slave. I'm not sure of the legal ramifications, but slaves don't own shares in start-ups. So who controls her shares? Her owner? Seems like a fun method of taking over a company and getting a corporate sex toy out of it.

I plan a corporate-skullduggery scenario for a future story, but it will be a while before I get to it. I'll include a "marching the three new slaves past their former colleagues naked" scene Mail-Girls style.

[Carl Bradford]

It was always a likely possibility that Natalie would end up as a slave in the hands of Southwest Shipping, but this has been a wild ride en route. The author's description of the familiar slave grading, auction, and even branding is excellent, as usual.

[mikey22]

There’s definitely a lot to this! And it’s damn sure intense!
Natalee is sure in for a long ride. I’m sure it’s a long way off. But I’m sure interested in to what she’s gonna do to Will if she ever gets out of this.

[jeepster]

Awesome ending of this chapter! That was a big trip in the van! The badging scene was really well done! Wasn't sure if her new "owner" would actually brand her!

[imreadonly2]

Dorthy may be home, but she's definitely not in Kansas anymore.

This was happening. Oh, it had all happened, you couldn't erase the past. But somehow, she'd thought that if she could wriggle her way out of it, she could pretend that it hadn't really happened. It was like being arrested for something by mistake, yeah, you went to the police station in handcuffs, but they would let you go a few hours later. It hadn't "really happened." Going on the auction block, being slave shipped to Dallas, even her gang bang last night didn't mean she was really a slave. If it was all a mistake, it hadn't "really happened", just like being strip searched by the police or having your mug shot taken didn't make you a criminal if they let you go. Her slave registration with those photographs, well, anyone who got graded had those on file. Being a Sandy Foot girl? "Just a mistake." But having the brand on your butt? Having it not because you wanted it and wanted to show it off, but being branded whether you wanted to be branded or not simply because your master wanted you branded, that was different. No matter how deferentially she had behaved, no matter how crudely she'd exposed herself, no matter how many people had used her sexually, she wasn't a slave...yet. But when her butt felt that searing pain, when that brand went on her forever, she would be a slave, even if only for an hour, even if only for a day. It marked the difference between "I was accidentally enslaved for a little while" and "I was a slave for..."

This is brilliant writing, and perfectly captures the essence of why branding a slave girl is such an effective psychological tool. Up until this moment, Natalie could still rationalize her enslavement, and her response to it, as some sort of Harvard Business Case Study, an exercise in slumming to get the data. Yes, she had winked her asshole, and gushed on the block, but who would know? She could be proud of her Prime grade, revealing what she wished to whom she chose, and resume her posh and privileged life on the Upper East Side.

"I'm a slave." A tear rolled down her face.

Ron lowered his voice. "Oh." He put his arm around her, walking her to the door, not even bothering with a leash. "It finally caught up to you? Sometimes that happens, when a girl gets badged, it kind of sinks in."

Exactly. Perfect. Natalie realizes that the shame and humiliation of the auction block were real. She is a slave.

He pulled the brand from the coals, glowing orange. The smith held it up to her face, alive in its incandescence, grinning at her helplessness. "Time to make your butt perfect, Harrrvard."

I loved her relationship with Professor Adkins, the Psychology Professor who enjoys playing blacksmiths so he can brand pretty girl's butts. If anyone can burrow inside Natalie's mind it's Adkins, and he has a grand time, of it, establishing an intellectual link with her by acknowledging her work at Harvard and Tufts. He explains that he did post doctorate work at Boston College, almost as if they are exchanging credentials and business cards at an academic conference. He builds on the bond - and establishes his bonafides as a blacksmith - by asking if she "likes" the branding frame she is fastened too, as if her opinion matters. Natalie finds herself admiring the "intricate ironwork" and "amazing craftsmanship", as he forces her into the dual role of an intellectual equal he is hoping to impress, and (because of her gag) a "dumb" farm animal he is tasked with branding." His teasing her with the branding iron makes it clear that no matter what her education levels of previous achievements, he still sees her as slave ass that needs to be branded. And Natalie's shame, humiliation, and absolute, permanent loss of status is going to make it that much more fun for him.

Natalie's mind is ripped open at the seams, as she attempts to fight the branding while intellectually acknowledging that her gagging is "for the best', lest she bite her own tongue off from the pain, then going into full slave girl mode to hump a wooden handle like a bitch in heat, "to show the iron some respect." The men's respect for the degrees is tinged with irony and cruel mockery, as they quickly turn from intellectual conversations with her to "seeing what they have to work her" as they fondle her ass and soaking wet pussy, and referring to her unbranded butt cheek not as something that belongs to her, but as the "canvas" for his artistry.

The way you whipsaw Natalie - and us, the reader - back and forth between these diametrically opposed intellectual states, sometimes within the same sentence, is brilliant, and made this a joy to read.

I also want to mention the story structure. At the end of each chapter you introduce a cliffhanger, something that leaves me hanging on the edge of my chair.

What? Natalie's going to be sold at HCI?
What? Natalie's going to be processed at The Big D?
What? Natalie's going to be SOLD OFF THE BLOCK at The Big D? (GASP and YEAHHH!!! simultaneously)
Who sold her? Where's she going?
What? She's back at Southwest Shipping?

Natalie had arrived as cargo at Southwest Shipping. And Mike was signing for her delivery.

Again, another brilliant cliffhanger. The first question that comes to my mind is, will Mike even notice her? The bill of lading won't have her name, only her SIN number. She's gagged, and as she's now just one of dozens of naked slave girls, he may sign off on her delivery without even looking at her. If Mike simply walks away, or is distracted by a phone or another interruption, she might well be doomed. Natalie isn't entering Southwest Shipping as an investor, or a fancy-pants MBA. Indeed, she is entering with no pants at all. Natalie is entering Southwest shipping as inventory, and she'll be treated like any other naked slave pussy that needs to be processed, only now with Mike & Will presiding. The irony of her living out her bright idea of being "owned by a corporation" propels this story into the stratosphere, and once again, I can't wait to see what happens next.

Her enslavement was legal, and her paperwork is in order. 713-54-6328 should sail right through. She is nothing more than a blip on a computer screen, a mark in a ledger, with the fate of her enslaved pussy hanging by the tiniest of threads. Stripped of her clothes, money, and identification, naked & caged, with her hands cuffed behind her back and a semen soaked bit between her teeth, 713-54-6328 will be utterly helpless to do anything but watch, with bulging eyes and flaring nostrils, as they scan her barcode and BEEP! her to her overseas destination.

She can scream into her gag, of course, but no one will care. All slave girls do that.

Poor Natalie! How terrifying!

How humiliating!

How delightful.

Let's hope Mike doesn't get distracted...

Again, the suspense is terrible, and I hope it lasts. THANK YOU, El Jefe!

[ZeeChromosome]

As always, Joe cuts to the heart of the matter and leaves nothing important unsaid.

[jeepster]

OMG! Exactly Joe! The questions left hanging at the end of a chapter are driving me crazy! The suspense is brutal!

[Carl Bradford]

As usual, our esteemed colleague Joe has summed it up. The lady has returned to the custody of Southwest Shipping, but what is her future?
Is she really a permanent slave? If so, will she be sold to the trust fund lady, pimped out, kept in a cage for her lover/partner to play with, or perhaps even given clothes to finish her fund-raising while pretending to be free, not knowing what her ultimate status is?
Will she be freed (provided she pays for the costs of this little round-robin in terms of profits to two slave markets plus shipping and "handling" costs)?
Was her lover/partner simply satisfying her submissive desires and incidentally equipping her with the brand and training so that, as she had suggested previously, she could go undercover to test out their shipping container? If so, the author could charge off the cost of her round-robin as an operating expense! Creative accounting at its finest.

[timerider]

Another great chapter, the suspense is a killer.
I bet over seas in ULD.

[reddbunnz]

So MIke is not innocent. I hope she's planning revenge if she ever gets a chance.