————————————————————————
“What was that all about?” Jane asked.
“Why Jane, whatever do you mean?” Cassie replied, all sweetness and innocence.
“Cassie, you know what I mean,” Jane demanded.
“You mean getting the Tasmanian devil-girl some high-voltage electrolysis?” Cassie replied, struggling to suppress a smile.
“The whole thing,” Jane said. “Not just getting her a beating for no reason, but taunting her, and embarrassing me with those questions. What is going on with you?”
Cassie snickered. The two women were back in the Global Trader’s Cafe, seated across from one another at a little café table.
“I admit, I was having some fun at your expense,” Cassie said, suddenly becoming serious. “I’m sorry, genuinely. I didn’t think about how it would look to you, and I realize now that it was upsetting.” She reached across the table and put a hand on Jane’s. “I’m sorry,” she repeated.
Jane exhaled. Cassie was being weird and sexually provocative, and it made Jane uncomfortable – her face still felt hot, and she was sure it was still bright red, which may be why Cassie apologized so quickly.
It’s as if Cassie had undergone a shift, becoming - without Wanda’s moderating influence - more calloused and aggressive the longer they stayed at HCI. What worried Jane was that she was inside a slave market with this person who knew it inside-out and was connected with nearly everyone on staff: how hard would it be for Cassie to move from being provocative to acting out? She could have pushed Jane into the cage with 6645; how hard would it be for Cassie to do something more… permanent? Jane had no idea, and that’s what worried her.
But it wasn’t the only thing that worried Jane: why did Cassie’s antics make her uncomfortable? She’s been catcalled by the best (Exhibit A: the Sandoval brothers) and had more than her share of crude insults and gross sexual remarks thrown at her (Exhibit B: that roofing crew last year; Jane ended up turning a hose on them until they shut up and got back to work) and it always slid off her like water off a duck’s back. Why is this different?
Then there was the matter of her increasingly damp panties. What would being pushed into a cage with an amazon be like? Pretty humiliating, to be sure, but also…
“Why, Cassie?” Jane asked. “Why do it in the first place?”
Cassie slumped back in her chair and shifted her gaze to the crowd at the far end of the concourse. “When I worked here, it was normal for us to tease each other with the slaves - we didn’t take it seriously when we asked a slave to describe exactly how it would please one of us, we mostly just wanted to hear what they would come up with so we could laugh about it later. I think I slipped back into that mode, without thinking about how it would feel to someone not used to it.”
She shifted her gaze back to Jane. “As for the punishment part, I did actually mean to do that - it was to demonstrate how far below a free person a slave is, so far down that she could be shocked and beaten on just the word of a free woman. Notice that nobody bothered to ask the slave about its side of the story, they just broke out the cattle prods. As fun and sexy as it appears on tube shows and slave romances, I wanted you to see just how bad it can be so we could talk about it later. The potential for harm is something you always need to keep in the back of your mind.”
Hmmm. That doesn’t quite pass the smell test. “Why 6645?” Jane asked.
“I was looking for someone,” Cassie shrugged. “If I hadn’t found anyone I would have asked Will to touch up that African girl with his whip when we saw him later. But our amazon friend can take brutality as well as she gives it, so she seemed like a safer bet. Besides,” Cassie said, her sad smile returning, “After that remark about peeing she had some coming to her. Really, she brings a lot of it on herself.”
The two sat in silence for a moment. Finally Cassie spoke.
“Forgive me?” Cassie asked.
“Of course,” Jane sighed. “Just take it easy, okay? I’m still a little overwhelmed.”
Cassie nodded. “Let’s grab a bite, then move down to the pre-auction area so we can see some slave commerce in action.”
————————————————————————
The public display area was large, its most prominent feature being a line of thick metal poles staggered to form two rows in the shape of a semi-circle. At the top of each pole (seven or eight feet high, Jane estimated) was a video screen, and there were additional screens arranged all around the periphery of the area, most hanging from the high ceiling. The area itself was closed off by a low railing, roughly three feet high, with turnstile entrances spaced evenly along its length.
Despite its size, the area seemed crowded: so many people, all milling around the upright poles, and even though Jane couldn’t see directly what they were interested in she could see it on the monitor at the top of each pole: a naked, collared woman, her arms manacled over her head.
“They’ve changed things a little,” Cassie said. “They have designated times now for pros and the general public - this must be the tail end of the lookie-loos.”
The two women stood back from the crowd, Jane watching and Cassie providing a running commentary.
“You can tell the lookie-loos, they’re dressed casually and aren’t carrying iPads or wearing headsets. They’re just here for the free feel.” Cassie said. “There are rules, like you can’t injure a slave, or insert a foreign object into it, but there’s always more lookers than there are staff to monitor them so things occasionally happen. There’s something else new,” Cassie pointed to a man, head shaved and bearded, short but powerfully built, standing by one of the turnstiles.
“He’s wearing a black t-shirt, which means he’s security,” Cassie continued. “They’re always around during buyer’s inspection, they’re like bouncers at a bar, but look at what this one is doing.” The man stopped some other men attempting to enter the display area and redirected them to a booth at the end of the railing. The small group seemed disappointed, but the little man just looked at them and gestured toward the booth. They walked over and handed their phones to the person inside, received claim tickets, and returned to the turnstile. The security man waved them through, and they joined the crowd ogling the naked slaves.
“I’ll have to ask Gracie about that,” Cassie commented. “They must have had some problems to ban phones.”
Jane looked over the men - it was entirely men - milling around the poles. They were an interesting mix: all races and ages, some wearing rough work clothes and boots, others wearing cheap street clothes or athletic gear, still others in basic office attire, a few in uniforms, military and otherwise. Neat, sloppy, clean shaven, stubbled, bearded, the only thing they had in common was the look on their faces - eager anticipation and barely restrained lust.
“What’s the point of this?” Jane asked. “Why have a public display for anyone who walks through the door? I can’t imagine any of these guys will place a bid, much less buy one of those slaves.”
Cassie nodded. “Partly it’s tradition, from the old plantation days so people in the South expect it - I understand they do things differently up north. Also it’s good for marketing, and customer relations, and HCI makes some money off it - a lot of those guys will eat lunch here, or buy beer from a cart in the concourse. But mostly it’s part of the process. The graders and the buyers want to see how the slaves react in this situation, and how much attention each one gets.”
The women on the monitors were being groped by multiple sets of hands all over their bodies: nipples pinched and pulled, breasts and butt cheeks squeezed, fingers stuck in mouths and… other places. The reactions of the women varied, some looking upset to the point of tears, some struggling in near panic, others waiting it out in a trance, but still others appeared to be going along with it all, even enjoying it?
“What does that tell them?” Jane asked.
“How they behave during inspection is thought to be a good indicator for how they will behave once they’re owned. A willing slave is far more valuable than an unwilling one, or even one who’s just going along to get along. A lot of the industry believes the old saying that a ‘slave is born, not made’ and seeing this, they may have a point.”
Jane watched one woman thrust her head back against the pole, clamp her eyes shut and grit her teeth like she was in pain - then shuddered from what could only have been a sexual climax.
Jane could picture herself doing exactly that - for example with a pair of brothers, alone in their shop - but in this crowd? Jane shook her head, unsure. That’s got to be incredibly overwhelming. But maybe overwhelming could be…?
She really wanted to ask Cassie about her experience, but after the incident in the kennels she decided not to.
A bell dinged, and a group of security guards entered the display area from a side corridor. The crowd began drifting toward the turnstiles, and the few who were reluctant to leave the displayed slaves were herded away by security. One man, wearing a blue mechanic’s uniform, lingered long enough to give a series of rapid slaps to the large breasts of a heavyset, tattooed woman, then slapped her hard in the face; the slave’s knees buckled, and she would have cried out in pain had it not been for the devoxer chemicals.
The little security man Jane had been watching performed some sort of lightning-fast wrestling or judo move, putting the mechanic face-down on the ground, hard. The security man punched the mechanic once in the back of the head, tied his hands with a zip tie, then he and another guard hauled the mechanic to his wobbly feet, dragging him into the side corridor and out of sight.
Cassie harrumphed. “Dumbass,” she muttered, then to Jane: “That looked personal. I think that idiot knew the slave being displayed, and was taking out some anger on it. Poor impulse control, to say the least. If he’s hurt the slave enough to affect its price, he’ll quickly find himself in a collar.”
Cassie took Jane’s hand. “C’mon, let’s go have a closer look.”
————————————————————————
The last of the men were filtering out just as the two women entered the viewing area. A guard turned to stop them, but on seeing their contractor badges he grinned and waved them in.
It’s so strange, Jane thought as she looked around her at all the naked women chained to poles, some of whom stared back.
“What are you thinking?” Cassie asked.
“It’s just so weird to be in an actual slave market, surrounded by actual slaves,” Jane said. “I’m doing my best not to stare, but–”
“The whole point of this area,” Cassie said, “is to stare, that’s what they’re lined up for.” She glanced around, then continued: “Take a look over there, the woman in the grey-green suit, the one with the headset? I know her-”
Of course you do, thought Jane.
“-a little, she’s a professional buyer for a consortium out of Las Vegas, they supply all the hotels, casinos, resorts and brothels. Watch how she works: first one in, even while the plebs are still around, she won’t examine every slave on offer, she’s already noted the ones she’s interested in, she’ll do a quick but thorough examination like on that redhead.”
Jane watched as the woman stood to one side of a tall, busty, curvy woman with freckled white skin and long red hair - astonishingly beautiful, Jane thought. The buyer tapped on her data pad, then dropped it into a large pocket on the hip of her suit jacket before looking the slave over, top to bottom; she reminded Jane of some sort of robot, carefully scanning an alien life form.
Without warning the woman grabbed the slave’s mouth and pulled it open: she glanced at the teeth and tongue, then curled her lower lip down to display the bar code tattooed into the slave’s skin.
Releasing the lip, she ran her hand down the slave’s face to her neck, paused to prod a couple of things, then resumed moving down to the slave’s left breast, eventually resting on the slave’s nipple. Gazing directly into the slave’s face, she first squeezed the breast then pinched the nipple for a long moment. She must have been slowly increasing the pressure because the look on the slave’s face went from mild discomfort to actual pain.
Releasing the breast, the woman moved her hand down the slave’s torso, pausing to tap on her abdominal muscles, coming to rest on her hip. Using her free hand to take a pen out of her breast pocket the woman clicked it like a ballpoint, but instead of a writing tip appearing a thin white rod jutted out from the end. The woman moved her hand onto the slave’s butt cheek, squeezed it, then reached over with her other hand and (Jane guessed) inserted the tip of her pen into the slave’s rectum! The redhead arched her back, her eyes widening and mouth falling open with astonishment, but the woman had the pen back, retracted, and into her jacket pocket before the slave finished reacting.
Moving her hand to the slave’s thigh and then to her mound, the woman stuck her free hand into a jacket pocket, fumbling with something inside. When she took it out Jane noticed that the buyer had a rubber covering over the tip of her index finger, like a tiny condom. The woman briefly inserted her rubber-protected finger into the slave’s vagina, glanced at it, rolled the condom off her finger with her thumb and let it fall to the floor. Drawing out another pen like the first one, she inserted it into the slave, drew it out and dropped it into her jacket pocket.
During this entire process, the buyer never took her right hand off the slave. Moving it down to the slave’s knee, she groped around it for a moment then released the slave, stepped back and resumed tapping on her data pad. Jane realized that not a single word was spoken from start to finish, and the whole thing happened so quickly it was over almost before it started.
“Totally professional,” Cassie said, clearly admiring the woman. “Not many can use the Chicago Technique and make it work, but she does. She’s pretty impressive. How do you think the slave is feeling after that?”
“I want to say like a piece of meat, but that’s not right,” Jane said. “More clinical. Like livestock at a show? After all, a buyer wouldn’t talk to a cow, either.”
“Yes, exactly,” Cassie said. “Look at the slave - trembling a little, lips pursed, breathing a little faster - it’s confused, upset, but not scared. Now compare that reaction to what’s coming next.”
“Next” was a tall, broad white man wearing stylish and expensive “business casual” clothing and a huge silver wristwatch that alone was probably worth more than everything Jane’s family owned put together. His longish black hair swept back on either side of his face resembled a lion’s mane, which complimented how he carried himself - like a king among his subjects.
“That,” Cassie said, “is Alex Montreal. He’s a tech bro, owns a number of businesses, including one of the small slave markets on the south side of Houston. I think slaving is a hobby for him - he’s licensed, if you can believe it, even though he’s too rich to actually do any work - he occasionally comes in to amuse himself. Sometimes he even buys the slaves he examines - though I would not wish being owned by him on anyone.”
“Why not?”
“Just watch.”
Montreal approached the slave, smiling. He looked her up and down, theatrically, then placed a large hand underneath each of the slave’s breasts and started moving them up and down in an exaggerated motion, like weighing two pieces of fruit at the market. He turned to the other buyers who were milling around and let out a wolf whistle. There was a smattering of chuckles, and even the previous buyer (still tapping away on her data pad) glanced up at him and smirked.
He then turned his full attention to the slave. Running his hands all over her defenseless body, he stopped at her crotch and inserted one large finger into her vagina. The slave’s eyebrows shot up and her eyes widened, but she remained calm. While he ran one finger in and out, Montreal used the thumb from his other hand to stroke her clitoris. Soon her skin took on a slight blush, her breathing grew even more rapid, her nipples (such a light pink they were hard to distinguish from the rest of her breasts) stiffened, and she began to squirm. Suddenly Montreal stopped what he was doing and slapped the slave’s pussy, hard. If not for the chains holding her upright, Jane was certain the slave would have doubled over.
Before she regained her breath, the man presented his finger for cleaning by holding it, slightly bent, in front of her mouth. The slave looked at him for a moment, almost a moment too long, before taking the finger into her mouth, licking and sucking her own juices from the stranger’s finger.
Montreal watched her finish cleaning, then resumed his “inspection.” Running his hands down her sides to her buttocks, he grasped a cheek in each of his big hands and started kneading them. Leaning in close to the slave, he said something to her and she responded by nodding; then he tightened his grasp on the slave’s bottom and pulled her cheeks far apart, rather harshly Jane thought. Turning the slave slightly to one side, he forcefully probed her anus with one rough finger, sinking the entire digit into her up to his first knuckle. The slave gasped and started squirming again, her face contorted into a grimace of discomfort, until Montreal whispered something else to her: immediately she stopped and held perfectly still.
Withdrawing his finger from her sphincter, he once again held it up to her to clean. The look of disgust on her face disappeared after he whispered something else to her, and she slowly, gently, took the finger in her mouth, shutting her eyes tight as she tasted the metallic tang of her own rectum. But she cleaned it diligently and when Montreal examined it, he nodded in approval.
Whispering something else to her, the tall man grasped each of her nipples between his thumb and forefinger, rolling them gently. Stepping back, he lifted her breasts by the nipples until they were almost in front of her face. Jane could barely hear him say, “Even higher than this, slut.”
Looking over at the female buyer, still engrossed in her data pad, Montreal said, “Hey Leighton, what’s the going rate for a full nipple setup?”
The woman looked up from her pad, smiling, and replied, “You mean with rings and bars for stretching, right?”
“Also fittings for hanging,” he said, grinning at her; Jane thought the look on his face was even scarier than the one on 6645, like a lion interrupted in the middle of tearing up a carcass. “You know, so as not to tear her tits off on the first night.”
The woman - Leighton - laughed. “Oh come on, Alex. Whatever it costs, I’m sure HCI would comp you. You’re a valued customer.”
Montreal chuckled. “Yeah, you’re probably right,” he said, and started wiggling the slave back and forth by her still-suspended breasts. Jane could see tears rolling down the slave’s face, and she was mouthing the word Please.
The big man released her nipples, and she dropped down and inch or two - he must have raised her onto her toes, Jane thought. He grabbed her long red hair and gathered it into a knot in his fist, pulling her head backwards until she looked up at the ceiling. He gestured at something up above them (Jane couldn’t tell just what, maybe nothing in particular) then whispered into the slave’s ear for nearly a minute. When he released her she sagged into her chains, then forced herself to straighten up - what she couldn’t force herself to remove was the look of abject terror on her face.
“Alright fellas,” Montreal said, turning to the other buyers, “I’m giving fair warning to you all before the sale - this big-tittied pain bunny is mine!”
More laughter from the assembled buyers as Montreal made his way to the exit.
“See what I mean?” Cassie said.
“That wasn’t an inspection, it was sexual assault,” Jane said in a low voice. “Is he actually going to buy her?”
“Who knows,” Cassie said. “If I had to guess, I’d say not - he puts on a show like that from time to time just to amuse himself. But you never know.”
“How can he get away with that?" Jane asked, her voice tight in her throat. "Management threw out other people who did even half as much.”
Cassie shrugged. “Money,” she replied. “Let’s go talk to Leighton.”
Jane looked over at the slave. She was trembling as if she were freezing to death.
————————————————————————
Leighton seemed nice enough. She said she remembered Cassie though it had been a while, and wanted to know what she was up to now that she was contracting, but it sounded to Jane like the woman was just networking.
“Anyway,” Cassie said, “My colleague Jane is a bit new to the business, and I was hoping you could give her some insight into being a professional buyer.”
The woman laughed. “Where to start?”
“What would you recommend a slave do to improve her chances during inspection?” Jane asked.
“Once a slave is posted, there’s not a lot she can do,” Leighton said. “Mostly attitude, I think. Acceptance, cooperation, submission, all that sort of thing.”
“What would you recommend to them?” Jane said, pointing at a pair of poles where two women were displayed. The elder of the two stared stoically into the middle distance, while the younger - hanging limp from the pole restraints - looked at the ground, makeup and hair askew, struggling to contain her sobs as tears rolled down her cheeks.
“That’s the mother and daughter set from the grading area, isn’t it?” Cassie said, shaking her head. “Poor kid.”
“Why ‘poor kid’?” Jane asked. “Being upset seems like a perfectly normal reaction to being displayed naked at a slave market.”
“That’s not how it works,” Leighton said. “There’s a weird logic to grading: to get above Standard, you have to be not only calm and collected you have to be positive, even enthusiastic. Smiling, flirting, twisting, grinding, showing your body like you can’t wait for it to be sold. She’s scared half to death - for no reason, to be perfectly honest, she’s going home tonight - and it’s going to drop her grade. She’s quite attractive but if she keeps on like that it might even drop her out of the top three.”
“What can we do to help her?” Jane asked.
“Do?” Cassie replied, her voice revealing a hint of sarcasm. “There’s nothing we can do. It’s sink-or-swim time for-”
Jane had already walked over to the young woman, Leighton following close behind.
“Hard day, huh?” Jane said to the younger woman. She looked up at Jane, but otherwise didn’t react.
“Don’t worry, the next group will be faster and easier, you can get through it," Leighton said to her. "Besides, you’re almost done-” Leighton looked up at the monitor atop the pole, “-Cassidy? Your name is Cassidy?” The young woman nodded, slowly, turning her head to look at Leighton. “By any chance, do your friends call you Cassie?” The young woman nodded, again, her lips trembling.
Jane laughed. “My friend who came with me today, her name is Cassandra, but everyone calls her Cassie. What are the odds?” Jane exclaimed, placing a hand on the shoulder of the other Cassie. “She’s standing right over there, the fashion hippie. When you can talk again you can call me Jane,” she said, smiling.
“And I’m Leighton. Listen,” she said, “I’ve been where you are and it’s fucking scary - pardon my language - but remember, you’re not going to get hurt, and it will all end before you know it. Your mom’s been here too, right-” she looked up again, “Lauren? And she came through just fine. I mean look at her, Cassie.”
“She’s cool as a cucumber in a cooler in Canada,” Jane added.
Other Cassie looked back at Jane, and she could see a hint of a smile. “Yeah, that’s what my dad always said,” Jane smiled, “It’s corny but it gets the point across.”
A series of chimes sounded in the display area, and Jane looked around to see a small crowd of serious-looking men and women entering through the turnstiles or from the side corridor. Jane moved closer to Cassie’s younger namesake, and lowered her voice. "Something else my dad told me was about Muhammed Ali, the boxer. He once said, I hated every minute of training, but I told myself, Don’t quit - suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion,” Jane said, squeezing the girl’s shoulder. “These are the actual buyers, and they will provide a significant portion of the score that determines your grade. The dickheads who came before? They were just here to upset you, to stress you out. Forget about them. You need to pull yourself together now, and put on a show for these men and women.” Jane took the other Cassie by the chin and lifted her head up until they were looking each other in the eye. “Don’t. Quit. Suffer now, and live the rest of your life as a champion.”
Leighton took a tissue out of her coat pocket and dabbed at Other Cassie’s face, soaking up the remaining tears and dealing with the worst makeup smudges. “Listen to me,” she said, smoothing the girl’s hair back into place. “You can do this. Stand up straight. Nice and proud. You’re hot as hell, and you know it, and you need them to know you know it. Stick your chest out. Swing your hips back and forth a bit. Lick your lips. And for God’s sake smile.”
An older man carrying a data pad, wearing a short-sleeve buttoned shirt with a striped tie, glasses, a mustache, and a rather artful comb-over, walked up to them. Jane patted Other Cassie on the shoulder; before she stepped away she whispered, “Make a game of it: think about how you could use your smoking hot body, your killer tits and your weapons-grade ass to blow this guy’s mind, see if you can make him cum in his pants right here in front of everyone.”
Jane looked to her right and saw she was standing next to mom - Lauren - who was looking at Jane with curiosity, one eyebrow raised. “If she really does that,” Jane murmured to the older woman, “It will show on her face, and people will believe it - it’s an old acting trick.”
An old acting trick courtesy of Domino Carminia, undercover special agent, Jane thought.
Mr. Combover consulted his pad for a minute or two, then looked at Other Cassie. She smiled at him and did a little shimmy like a belly dancer, then rowed her shoulders back a couple of times to make her breasts bounce. The man’s demeanor palpably softened, and he began examining her body closely. When he reached for her breasts, she did what she could to thrust them into his hands and rubbed her knees against his legs. His hands ran over her ass (she swung her hips slightly, moving her cheeks across his hand), then over her flat belly to her crotch. He gently probed inside her pussy, then looked back at the young woman’s face. She wasn’t smiling but instead appeared suddenly aroused, her eyes lidded and her lips parted, her tongue running along first the upper, then the lower lip.
The older man examined his finger, nodded, then placed the tip on the younger woman’s lips. She gently licked its tip before sucking it into her mouth entirely. He stepped back, smiling, and spent almost a minute tapping on his data pad. When he looked back up he turned to mom and did a similar inspection - when he went to place his fingers on Lauren’s lips, she instead stuck out her tongue and curled it into a tube, wrapping the tip of his finger. He laughed happily, tapped on his data pad some more, then spoke to the two women: “Mother and daughter, huh? Wish I had the money to buy you as a pair, I could die a happy man.”
A little smile curling her lips, Leighton looked over at Jane and nodded.
“Well done,” she whispered.
————————————————————————
“She just needed a pep talk, my sisters are the same way,” Jane said. “She was prepared to do well, Leighton said, she just freaked out at the earlier part of the inspection, which is common. No big deal,” she shrugged as she pocketed Leighton’s business card.
“Well, consider me impressed,” Cassie said. “I get too cynical at these things, and have a hard time letting go of Slaver Cassie,” she added, making air quotes with her fingers at the last part.
Cassie’s phone dinged.
“It’s Will, he’s got that 490 in the recyc-” she pronounced it Ree-Psych, “- and wants to know if we’re coming.”
Jane sighed. It had been a long day, and she was feeling tired and confused.
“No,” she said. “I’m worn out. Let’s go home.”
