Southwest Shipping - Part 3
Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2021 3:49 pm
Oh, c'mon, you didn't really think that was the end of the story, did you?
Southwest Shipping
Natalie glanced over the links and references Will had sent before diving into a round of calling potential investors. That afternoon, she drove out to...what should she call it, she wondered? Their warehouse, their development facility, their headquarters? Well, if things worked out, it would be their home office and main store, selling everything from transshipment to training to collars and accessories.
And slaves. Will had been an auctioneer at HCI, their biggest competitor (both across town and worldwide). It seemed silly that they were taking on the industry leader with a massive network of stores across the country; it was like going head to head with Walmart or Tesla or McDonald's. But Will was right, nobody had a handle on the international market, it was an opportunity ripe for the plucking, possibly as big an opening as the one FedEx had exploited generations ago. Yes, they'd sell slaves, imports if nothing else.
Everyone on the team seemed protective of her, word must have gotten out of her distress the day before. She brushed them off; even if it had affected her, she had to give the impression that it was nothing for the sake of the team. It would never do for one of the head partners to appear as a shrinking flower, too timid to deal with the realities of the business they were trying to create. Truth be told, though, she was nearly recovered, and almost ready to try another foolish stunt if it would move the project along.
She asked if Will had time after the meeting, and when he did, she walked him back to his office, chatting along the way.
"So, that's how you moved us all around yesterday?"
"Yeah. That's an industrial tugger, pretty common in warehouses and factories these days. It usually tows a string of carts, but it's great for towing a string of ULD dollies, too."
"Oh, so you can have like a little train behind it?"
"Right. I want to be able to tow four carts at a time, that's a whole truckload. It can easily handle the weight, I just want to make sure we can make turns without taking up half the dock area."
They passed by a conveyor with a bed of upward facing castors instead of a belt. "Is that part of the project, too?"
"No, that's an industry standard conveyor. That one's used, I got it cheap. We've got way more loading docks than we need, but to get started I think we'll need to out fit two docks on this side and two on the other side with them. Shipping and receiving."
"I'll want to watch how it all works from the outside. I could hear what you guys were doing, but other than the fact that our asses wound up on a truck, I don't know how the magic happened."
"I'm pretty satisfied that we've got loading and unloading down. I guess I can schedule another practice run for you to watch tomorrow, or you can watch our first flight test. We need to get the certification done first; the airlines will ship their own ULDs uncertified, but most of them don't want anything to do with uncertified third-party containers. A common model is that they lease you their box, and it sits on your property while you load and unload it, and then you send it to them for shipping."
"You don't have to schedule another practice just for me, there's no sense creating busy work."
"Well, we're at a lull, and you know what they say. Amateurs practice until they get it right, professionals practice until they can't get it wrong. I'll set up another run for tomorrow. We might as well use the slaves for the reason we bought them, instead of just keeping the place clean and sucking off the team."
Satisfied, she changed the subject. "So, I wanted to talk to you about the legal stuff, slaving in general, not just our project. You sent me some links, I've only had time to scan them. But...well, can you tell me if my fears were grounded? Could I really have been kidnapped and enslaved against my will?"
Will snorted. "Not very likely. I'm not in a hurry to wear a collar myself, taking it up the ass or working in the oil fields and coming back with body parts missing. Or is that a more general question, related to diversion of product?"
She grinned. "You can call it theft. And yeah, they make consumable media about it, but you know, most of what you see in movies is bullshit. What's real? Does it really happen?"
"It happens, but it's not common. There are three basic ways someone can be enslaved." He counted them off on his fingers. "One, commit a crime and get sentenced. Unless you murder someone or something, usually you can plea down to a private contract instead of judicial slavery. Either way, you're wearing a collar. On paper, all felons are sentenced to life, but in practice most are manumitted after a few years." He grinned. "Time off for good behavior."
She grinned back. For most slaves, "good behavior" meant putting out with a smile on their face.
"Two, as part of some contractual obligation. So, you get halfway through college and the money runs out. You agree to fuck your professor for the next three years, and he foots the bill for your classes. Or you take out a business loan, put your own ass up for collateral, and if you default your bank sells you to the highest bidder. Terms of indenture in the loan agreement."
"Three, you self enslave. Maybe you just want money and are willing to fuck for it. Maybe you've fantasized about the lifestyle and want to try it out for a while. Maybe you do it to make a present of yourself to your husband. Either way, all three are considered to be voluntary acts. You choose to break the law, you sign that contract on the dotted line knowing you could be sold, you walk into a slave market butt naked and say, 'Collar me'. Either way, it's your choice to enter the life."
"So, how does someone get Shanghaied?"
"We prefer to call it 'illegal conversion'. People just snatching someone off the street, that's movie bullshit. There's a paper trail and computer records for every slave. Everyone has a sin, a Slave Identification Number, and if a slave doesn't have one of those tattooed on the inside of her lower lip, that's a big damn deal. So first, if you're going to steal someone, you have to have some way of laundering the paperwork. It's like stealing a car, you have to do something about that damned vin number or you're going to get caught."
"So, then how does it happen?"
"There's always a whiff of fraud about it. Probably the easiest way is to trick someone into it. Get them to sign something thinking that it's one thing, while the fine print says otherwise. Get someone into the system on a temporary basis, and then ship them out of country to someplace where there are no temporary enslavements and sell them to their forever owner. That's why a lot of indentures have a 'no foreign travel' clause. There's a lot of people who are behind on the rent or something, get a phone call to refinance their bills that requires getting regraded, and after they show up, get a collar, and are devoxed, an agent shows them the clause in their lease and they go straight from the grader to the auction block. One big thing is that once someone has been sold, so long as one of the three parties believes the sale was fair, it's almost impossible to contest. And there are little variations. Someone who is competent to serve but incompetent to manage their own affairs can be given a protective enslavement...that happens to a lot of people in guardianships. A close relative who holds the papers to someone often has the right to enslave while someone is being held, say for grading or something. And if someone is acting as a slave without papers, a court can rule that they've self-enslaved even if they contest it."
"What about yesterday? Was I 'acting like a slave'?"
"Yes, but there was nobody to seize you and present you to a magistrate. Who would your owner be? I suppose we could have abandoned you, and then Worldwide could have seized you and either used you or auctioned you off, but I doubt we would have abandoned one of our partners for 30 days. I suppose I could have taken custody of you, but your value as a partner raising venture capital exceeds anything I could have sold you for. Still, you should be very careful about running around naked with a collar. It at least gives a judge grounds to declare you enslaved, although there are other requirements. Do it often enough, though, and you'll find a SIN tattooed on your lip and a whip across your ass."
"But don't a lot of people have SINs who aren't slaves?"
"Sure. You have to get one to be graded, and a lot of financial instruments require that. You can't get a student loan without a grade, for example. And every former slave has one. But if a court can identify you and adjudicate you enslaved, it can force your owner to have you graded and tattooed. And as for someone who claims to own you, well, possession is nine tenths of the law."
"So, if you claimed to be my owner..."
"And you were naked, collared, and on my leash, you would likely need outside help to prove I was a thief. So, it happens. It's rare, and when it's found, it's heavily punished. For example, if you read the fine print on an HCI employment contract, it has a clause requiring ten years indenture for any employee who knowingly participates in an illegal enslavement. And before you ask, that's a civil matter with a lower standard of proof than a criminal conviction. So you can beat the federal rap and still find yourself sucking and fucking for whoever HCI sells you to."
"Do you recommend that we have a similar clause when we go full launch?"
"Of course. They have weaknesses and vulnerabilities, but that's one thing they do right."
"Thanks. That's given me a lot of food for thought."
Will grinned. "We'll make a slaver out of you, yet."
Natalie chuckled. "Only if I don't run off to my next startup."
"Still up for Mexican and chill? That place over by the ship channel is calling."
She frowned. "I could stand to get laid. But fucking a partner can cause...problems. I think I need to commit to more than just a few million before I can do that." Then she added, "How about you show me the ground ops when you rehearse with the team tomorrow, and we can do dinner later that day. Just dinner, though."
Will smiled. "The camel's nose..."
Natalie chased investors most of the rest of the day, and landed a potential interview the following week with some west coast money. She began to review their presentation, updating it with all she'd absorbed in the last few days. After a long day, she decided that she needed to relax, poured herself a drink, and curled up with her tablet and the links Will had sent. It was quite the rabbit hole, Natalie stayed up later than she'd planned learning many of the terms and tricks of the trade. Then she hit the personal narratives.
At first she thought they couldn't be real. But these were no slave romance fantasies, they mentioned names, dates, places, and there were even links to some of the court documents. Then she thought they were embellished, or that perhaps Will had cherry picked those particular examples out of many in order to misinform her.
Many of the accounts contained a common element: Sexual arousal at the realization that one's sexual autonomy had just been removed. For some women, it happened when the collar closed around their neck. For others, it was the realization that they weren't going home but to the auction block and some unknown destination.
Natalie opened her robe and slipped a hand to her sex. It seemed like such a natural thing to do while reading all the stories about wet pussies and forced cocksucking, of bodies being displayed for buyers and fondled like animals. She found the stories made for great real-life erotica, her nipples stiffening more with each tale. Then, as she read of one unfortunate woman who was forced to masturbate with the wooden handle of the hot iron that was about to brand her, Natalie buried two fingers deep within herself and was rewarded with the most intense orgasm she'd had in months.
———————————————————
Natalie pondered her choice of clothing for the...what was it? Another demo? A trial run? She was sure Will had given it some title on the schedule he kept for the dev team. They were going to load the box on a truck and take it to the airport again, then return it.
She hadn't asked him if the slaves were going to be in it again, but it made sense that they would be. Of course that was a liability if something went wrong, but the real risk would come when they loaded it onto an airplane sometime in the near future.
And if the slaves were there, would they see her? She wondered. She had been secured in her compartment when they had been led out and locked in next to her, but they had never heard her voice (save for muffled grunts into her gag) and only could have seen her for a minute or two when they were lined up before she was taken away. Would they recognize her? That would be awkward, very, very awkward. So, she decided to go full hard-core professional, wearing a pencil-skirt suit over a white camisole. She briefly considered wearing it over a blouse, and discarded the idea. Only women her mother's age would dress that conservatively for an ordinary day at the office. And nice, dressy open-toe heels with gold ankle straps...something a slave would long for, but never have a chance to wear.
She'd found Will to be an attractive man ever since she met him, tall, slim, with confident air, razor sharp wit, and icy blue eyes that could look right through you without being creepy. More than once she'd wondered what he would be like in bed, but pushed that thought from her mind to deal with the business at hand. Today, as they crossed the expanse between his office and the curtains at the far end of the building together, he seemed as masculine as ever, perhaps even more so. She thought it might be his scent, the warehouse was a little warmer today than it usually was. Or maybe she was at the point in her cycle when she just wanted to be bedded good and hard. That had only happened a couple of times since she finished grad school, both with someone from the big investment bank before she got spooked and left. There really hadn't been time since.
Rather than lead her through the maze of curtains, he took her to the far wall and made an opening there. She found herself confronted with a row of nude female bodies, all kneeling and facing away from her, hands clasped atop their heads. Six were together in a line with another off to the side.
That must be Sarah, or Sally, or Cindy...that was it, Cindy. The woman had blonde hair in a short pony tail.
A ginger man, even taller than Will, stood on the other side of the girls, facing them. Michael Williams, logistics expert and, Natalie had recently confirmed, licensed slave handler.
"Morning, Will, Natalie. Did you want to say something or should we just get started?"
"If you don't mind, I'd like to drive today. Would you fetch the restraints?"
"No problem." The gangly red head wandered over to a table beside a row of oversize wire dog cages, and gathered up a number of metal restraints and accessories.
Will moved in front of the line and faced his charges. "Stand," he commanded.
All stood, hands still on heads, heads bowed.
"Back hands."
To Natalie, it seemed as if they were all as well-drilled as soldiers, quickly crossing their wrists behind their backs, heads still bowed. She noticed they all wore wrist and ankle cuffs. Will and Mike went down the line, padlocking wrists together through loops attached to the cuffs.
Will spoke, gesturing to the lone blonde. "We should rotate her in."
Mike nodded. "Makes sense. Which one do you want to leave behind.?"
He pointed to another blonde. "This one."
Mike grasped her by the bicep. "You, kennel. Back in."
Natalie recognized the muscular blonde she had stood next to at Worldwide for a few moments. The woman meekly replied, "Yes, Master", and walked to one of the cages, faced away from it, knelt, and inched her way backwards on her knees, head bowed low to fit through the door. Mike followed and closed her door, which latched with a click and beeped.
The shorter blonde at the end was bid to join the others, and several women shuffled sideways to close ranks. Satisfied, Will passed in front of the group, inspecting them with a bit of swagger in his walk.
Natalie had worked her way to a spot a little to the right of the end of the line. She'd seen slaves given commands before: Go fetch that, clean that up, take my shoes off, but she'd never seen a group drilled like this.
Will started toying idly with one woman's nipple. She never moved, eyes on the floor, as he manipulated her sensitive nub.
"Today, Ms. Mortellero will be observing your performance."
Natalie wondered if they knew what she was to the project, or if it was just a name and a title to scare them.
Will released the girl's tit, and strolled to the end of the line. When he reached it, he turned and slapped the end woman's left buttock, allowing his hand to linger on the flesh as he began to grope it. "If you do well, there is dick and scoobie snacks for all of you. I've even convinced Marianne to bring her strap-on so you can serve her that way, although if you prefer the usual arrangement she might allow you to do that." He took a few more paces. "This is where I would ask if there are any questions, but you've all done this enough that I can't imagine that any of you cunts are stupid enough to screw it up. Ok, you three, follow me. Mike?"
"And you three, follow me."
Not knowing what to do, Natalie followed the last slave in Will's queue, unable to take her eyes from the sight of the bound wrists just above the woman's undulating buttocks. Although it was often suppressed in more public settings, she was confronted with just how inherently sexual modern servitude was. She's just a piece of meat, she thought. How unfortunate.
She followed them this way and that through curtained-off areas, until she arrived at the opening that contained the ULD. From the opening, one end of the device was directly before her, the other end obscured by the bulk of the thing. One of the other men unlatched and lowered the three doors on the near end, which fit together to form a ramp as broad as the ULD was deep. Will lined up the three women, had them turn to face away, then one by one backed them up the ramp into their compartment, closing the door behind them. She could hear someone doing the same thing with three more slaves at the far end.
The last door latched shut. It had only taken a few seconds.
"They're in! Hook 'em up!"
Someone pulled the stands holding the curtains at the far end apart, creating a wide opening to the cavernous space beyond and revealing that the curtain maze was a bit of a sham. One of the women on the team backed up a tugger to the ULD, and as Natalie followed Will to the far end, she saw that a long tongue connected the dolly to the machine.
"We'll have to walk fast to keep up," Will mentioned.
"All clear, let's go!"
The woman sped off, the tugger whining as it had when Natalie had ridden inside the ULD. Some of the men jogged behind it, it was going much faster than a walk. Natalie couldn't possibly keep up in her heels, but walked briskly beside Will.
"This probably seems like overkill when we only plan on bringing in a couple of dozen boxes a day, but you always have a situation where several planes land at once and you have to go like hell."
Natalie nodded. There were maybe 20 loading docks on each side of the building, but luckily the one they had installed the conveyor on was fairly close to curtained-off area.
Will continued as the tugger came to a halt and the ULD was unlatched from the dolly. "The top of the dolly has upside-down casters, so you can move the thing around in any direction. It only weighs about a ton fully loaded, so we can do that by hand." He frowned. "Maybe we should have gotten fatter girls, it would have been a better test of capacity."
Two men were easily able to rotate the big box 90 degrees so that it lined up with the conveyor. They pushed it on, and it began to move toward the opening under its own power.
"The conveyor is all rollers and wheels and casters, some powered, some not. There's a section right by the door that's almost all casters so we can line it up just so before we put it on the truck. The interior of the trailer is only about a centimeter wider on each side than the ULD, so it's a tight fit".
Natalie thought of something. "Will, what criteria did you use to pick the slaves? Did you just buy a lot or something?"
"Cheap, take direction well, and most importantly, they couldn't have a 'no foreign travel' clause."
Natalie thought that explained why a "Choice" was better looking than most of them. Extras cost money...
Things had come to a stop as the team carefully lined up the ULD with the trailer opening.
"We do it by laser. There's a little green dot from each corner, and the beam that makes it has to fit inside the trailer. Looks like they just got it lined up." The box started moving into the trailer. Will fiddled with a device on his wrist. "Two minutes ahead of the last test. So, it's a trainable task and our estimate on how long it takes was generous."
One of the men rolled down the door on the back of the trailer. Concern crossed Will's face as he eyed Natalie.
"Uh, usually I just jump down from the loading dock and walk to my car. I don't think you can manage that in that skirt."
"Oh. I'm not that heavy, could you and one of the other guys just, you know, help me down?"
"If you don't mind." As rude as he was to the slaves, Will was unfailingly polite to free women.
"I don't mind. So long as you don't take...undue liberties and ruin our dinner later tonight." She winked at him.
He wiggled his fingers suggestively at her. "Perish the thought."
Despite the height of the loading dock, Will was able to lower her all by himself, and without ruining her suit. She marveled at his strength, able to cradle her in his arms and lower her to the ground as if she were no heavier than a child. In her mind, she expected most men to have stronger arms than she could ever aspire to, but it was always a pleasure to encounter one who lived up to her expectations.
His car was a red two-seater, and as they climbed in she was surprised to see a manual steering wheel and several other controls she didn't recognize.
"Do you drive manually? Most people don't know how to do that."
"All the time. My cousin used to race, and he got me hooked on it."
"Isn't it dangerous?"
"No, I've been doing it for the last 15 years, and I've never gotten in an accident. Besides, the truck's in automatic so he'll be doing the limit. In manual, we can beat him there and I can get you situated before he arrives."
So he was actually planning to break the speed limit. Natalie couldn't remember the last time she'd been in a vehicle that had done that. "Aren't you afraid you'll get caught?"
Will snorted. "Hardly. Practically nobody drives manually any more, so unless you're going 20, 30 klicks over, they don't even bother." He pulled out of the parking lot and headed north toward the airport.
Natalie decided to broach a new subject. "So, I wanted to mention something. I went through some of those references you sent last night, they were really helpful."
"And I think I understand the ins and outs a lot better, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around a hypothetical."
"What's that?"
"Well, suppose I was riding along with the other women again. And I was naked and collared like I was the other day. So, legally, that would be acting like a slave, right?"
He nodded. "Yeah, most people would say that."
"So, would that put me at risk of enslavement, even if that's not what I wanted?"
"I would say that if you made a habit of it, it would probably be just a matter of time until you found yourself up on the auction block."
"Is there anything someone could do that would allow her to do that and still provide some protection against being sold against her will?"
Will's brow furrowed. "Hmm. Well, if she was already a slave...Oh, it's obvious. She could be in a feeno."
"A fee-no?"
"Free In Name Only contract. A FINO. It's a Texas thing, although some states are adopting something like it. It allows a woman to serve a personal services contract to her domestic partner without surrendering all her rights and possessions. It's almost always a married couple, although technically you don't have to be married. The slave gets to go to luncheon meetings and the kid's soccer games by day, and be naked, collared and leashed in public by night."
"Does the owner always have to be a natural person?"
"Yeah, well there always has to be at least two natural people in the contract. There's the owner, the slave, and a guardian who monitors the relationship to ensure it doesn't become abusive. See, with men being so scarce, a lot of guys were demanding that their paramours enter into a FINO as a condition of marriage. And once in it, they'd pressure their wife to become a concubine, a full slave. And when she agreed to that, boom! He'd sell her, and then start the process all over with a new victim. So, there would have to be two, but the owner...you mean like a legal person?"
"That's right. A corporate entity."
He laughed. "Oh, I luuuuv Tesla more than anything! I'll suck and fuck anyone who works for such a wonderful organization! From the C-suite to the factory floor!"
Put that way, it was hilarious. Natalie giggled as well. "Tesla is my master!"
Will shook his head. "Now, corporate slavery is a real thing. I mean, those pussies we just passed back there are owned by our company. Theoretically, you are part owner of them. But a corporate FINO? How do you even think up that kind of thing?"
She shrugged. "I don't know, it just came to me."
The highway had curved west, and he exited to go north again. She could see an airliner maybe a couple of kilometers away, coming in for a landing.
"You weren't kidding when you said we weren't far from the airport."
"I'd have gotten a spot next to the runway if it wasn't an arm and a leg. But I have a pretty good deal with Worldwide Air. If we can get a container to the dock by the time the plane touches down, they can have it loaded by the time that plane is ready to take off again. So, we'll need someone watching a flight tracker, maybe have an AI do that for us, and just-in-time our pussies out to the airport a little before it lands."
The entrance to the airport was a pleasant boulevard lined with artwork announcing the city's past accomplishments. Just before the terminal it passed under a pair of runways and ended at a big roundabout. Will skillfully merged with the traffic, and exited the circle in the opposite direction.
"So that's that big turn."
"What?"
"Oh, I could feel us going in a big turn to the left the other day, that must have been what that was. We're almost there?"
"Yeah." He motioned to the truck still going in the opposite direction and added, "They're right behind us."
He passed under the runways a second time, and took an exit to the right that led to a more industrial area. He turned down a cross street, ending up at a blue building with a row of numbered loading docks.
"We're at number seven today," he observed. "Tight fit with a big trailer, so I'll park out of the way."
They went in through a side door. Once inside, Natalie recognized the interior from when she'd been unloaded as cargo. Every other door had a conveyor. Apparently Worldwide accepted both containerized and loose freight.
"All we do is back the truck up, they do all the rest. Take it out, put it on one of their airport dollies, take it out to the plane, and load it. Today, we'll just have them pull the slaves out, inspect them to ensure that they weren't harmed in transit, and put them back in to ship back over to our place. That gives them loading practice, too."
The Worldwide workers opened up the loading dock door, and then the trailer door. The package was extracted, rolled onto a dolly, turned, and latched in place.
"How does it go in and out of the trailer?" Natalie asked.
"The trailer is outfitted with roller conveyors and latches, just like the cargo holds in the airplanes. Each of the four ULDs has a certain spot where it sits, and gets latched down there. So long as the truck has battery power and the trailer is hooked up, you can move ULDs in and out of it."
The Worldwide dolly had much bigger wheels and sat up higher than the Southwest Shipping dolly. Clearly, it was intended to go out on the tarmac. One of the Worldwide guys used a tugger to tow the ULD to the other end of the room, and unhitched.
Will was greeted by an older man who was introduced to Natalie as Earl McNair. The three of them watched as the slaves were unloaded and lined up side by side, hands still restrained behind their backs.
Will tapped some buttons on the device on his wrist. "Smooth," he decreed. "Four minutes and 18 seconds. That's so much better than we budgeted that we'll have to re-think the logistics plan."
Earl beamed. "I think that calls for a celebration, don't you?"
Will nodded. "I think your guys earned it. We just have us and the driver here, what do you need, 20 minutes? I'll call my guys and tell them to keep the champagne on ice."
While Will extracted his phone, Earl approached his crew. "Gentlemen, new record. The customer thinks we're ready for the next phase, and is providing the entertainment for your amusement. Break time, 20 minutes!"
Natalie recognized the lead wrangler as Tablet Man from the other day. He seemed quite pleased with the turn of events, and called, "Down!" Then as the others gathered, he stood before one of the women, unzipped his fly, and extracted his penis.
"Open!"
And just like that, he was getting a blowjob on the warehouse floor. The woman hadn't hesitated a bit, but just began fellating him as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Soon, four of the women were occupied. Earl took a couple of steps as if to take his turn, then stopped.
"Ms. Mortellaro, please excuse my lack of manners. Would you care to indulge? We can provide a private room if you do not wish to expose yourself, so to speak."
Natalie stared. He was offering her a slave...for sex. Of course she knew such things happened, she could have easily "partaken" years ago had she schmoozed up to the right people at John Pierpont. But this was the first time that the opportunity had literally stared her in the face.
"Oh, no thank you Mr. McNair, I couldn't."
"Are you sure? We wouldn't want to be rude. We'll be doing a lot of business together, we should get to know each other. And you can call me Earl."
A thought occurred to her. She was curious, and she could scratch that itch even if she didn't "partake".
"On second thought, a private room would be nice." She spotted Will giving her a sideways glance.
"Right away, Miss. Uh, which one would you like?" He gestured to the two unoccupied women.
She wanted to ask Will's advice, then decided that she wanted to appear in charge of her own decisions. "I'll take the one on the left, please." The woman was the most petite in the lineup; Natalie hoped that meant she might be the most pliable.
Earl consulted with Tablet Man, who merely handed Earl his tablet as he was distracted by the slave working on his tool. Earl glanced at it, and called for 42 ten to stand and heel, and then led her in the direction of the offices where Natalie had dressed. Indeed, when she followed the pair, they led her to the very same spare office where she'd been handed over to Will. As she walked across the warehouse floor, Natalie had the presence of mind to set an alarm for 18 minutes.
Earl made the slave kneel on the carpet before the desk ("Down!"), said he would knock politely when it was time for the return shipment, and bade her to enjoy herself. Then he closed the door behind him.
Natalie stood beside the girl, inspecting her. She was short, she could see from following her, that she was maybe five foot one in her bare feet. She seemed young, young enough to be an undergrad, if she had ever gone to college. "Look at me," she commanded.
The slight brunette turned to her expectantly, silent.
"Why are you here?"
"This slave is present to serve her Mistress." Her voice was expressionless.
So she had been promoted to Mistress, just like that.
"If I took off my skirt and panties, and told you to lick my crotch, what would you do?"
"This slave would give my Mistress pleasure. Is that my Mistress's wish?"
Natalie walked over to the desk, leaned her hips against it, and faced the slave.
"No. I want to ask you a few questions."
The girl lowered her face.
"No, look at me. Keep looking at me while I speak."
"Yes, Mistress."
Natalie searched for emotion in the other woman's appearance, and was frustrated to find none.
"What is your name?"
"This slave is known as 42 ten, Mistress."
"Not your number, what name do the other slaves call you by?"
The girl blushed. So she's human after all, thought Natalie.
"Mistress, my sister slaves sometimes call this slave Andrea."
"Andrea." She began to walk around the slave in a circle, who tried to crane her neck to follow her. "I will call you Andrea today." She leaned up against the desk to Andrea's right. "Andrea, today you were brought here in a metal enclosure. Have you ever been transported in that enclosure before, and if so, when was the last time before today?"
"This slave has been transported that way before, Mistress. The day before yesterday was the last time."
"Andrea, you look familiar to me. Have we ever met before?" She tried to say it without looking like she was staring right through the little woman. Natalie didn't want to frighten the young woman the way she'd been frightened herself by the FBI agent at John Pierpont.
"This slave does not recall you, Mistress."
Was she trembling? It seemed so to Natalie. Another crack in the facade?
"Are you telling me the truth?"
A tear trickled from the brunette's eye. She fell prostrate at Natalie's feet, and kissed her toes through the openings in her shoes. "Please, Mistress. This slave's duty is obedience. This slave's memory is poor. This slave accepts her punishment if she has failed you, Mistress." She looked up at Natalie, her eyes pleading.
"That won't be necessary."
Without a word, Natalie unbuttoned her skirt, folded it, and placed it on the desk. She gazed into the other woman's eyes, and slid her panties down to the floor, stepping out of them, laying them atop the skirt.
Why am I doing this?, she thought. She hadn't been with another woman since her undergrad days, since she was about the age of the tearful woman kneeling before her. It wasn't that she was opposed to the idea, just that she liked men more. And she liked creating wealth through the creation of enterprise even more than that. Why was she doing this?
If I can't be a slave, I can have one. That was the strangest of the thoughts that had crossed her mind in the last two days. It seemed so right, so fitting, and yet so twisted and wrong at the same time. She opened her legs, feeling the cool air on them, and patted her mound.
Get to it, bitch.
Andrea didn't need words, what was expected of her was obvious. She rose to the task, the touch of her tongue on Natalie's slit electrifying. Natalie had enjoyed orgasms in her apartment, but her fingers were a poor substitute for this woman's mouth. She grasped Andrea's head with both hands, forcing her into her sex, her thighs gripping the slave by the shoulders. On and on and on went that wonderful tongue, driving her higher and higher and higher, until at last, she exploded in passion. She lost all sense of time, jamming the woman's face against her crotch until she realized that the poor slave was gasping for air. Released, the servant's chest heaved with life-giving breaths, until Natalie bent suddenly and kissed the woman full on the lips, tasting her tongue, licking her own juices from the other one's face.
She'd done it, something she thought she'd never do. She'd used another human being for sex. Not made love to her, not even fucked her, but used her, as casually as she might use one of the neglected vibrators in her dresser, lying there with batteries drained from disuse. Why had she done that? Had she become some sort of monster? She pulled the other woman to her feet and hugged her, feeling the other's hands cuffed behind her back, reaching down to grope her ass.
"Mistress is pleased with her slave."
"Thank you Mistress. This slave's duty is her service."
Natalie searched the other's eyes for any hint of deception. "Andrea, you must not speak of this next question to any slave. If you do, I will have you punished."
"Never, Mistress."
"What is the number of the slave known as Sasha?"
"81 75, Mistress." The alarm on Natalie's wrist began to vibrate.
She kissed Andrea deeply, as intimately as she could. "Thank you, slave. You have done well."
Southwest Shipping
Natalie glanced over the links and references Will had sent before diving into a round of calling potential investors. That afternoon, she drove out to...what should she call it, she wondered? Their warehouse, their development facility, their headquarters? Well, if things worked out, it would be their home office and main store, selling everything from transshipment to training to collars and accessories.
And slaves. Will had been an auctioneer at HCI, their biggest competitor (both across town and worldwide). It seemed silly that they were taking on the industry leader with a massive network of stores across the country; it was like going head to head with Walmart or Tesla or McDonald's. But Will was right, nobody had a handle on the international market, it was an opportunity ripe for the plucking, possibly as big an opening as the one FedEx had exploited generations ago. Yes, they'd sell slaves, imports if nothing else.
Everyone on the team seemed protective of her, word must have gotten out of her distress the day before. She brushed them off; even if it had affected her, she had to give the impression that it was nothing for the sake of the team. It would never do for one of the head partners to appear as a shrinking flower, too timid to deal with the realities of the business they were trying to create. Truth be told, though, she was nearly recovered, and almost ready to try another foolish stunt if it would move the project along.
She asked if Will had time after the meeting, and when he did, she walked him back to his office, chatting along the way.
"So, that's how you moved us all around yesterday?"
"Yeah. That's an industrial tugger, pretty common in warehouses and factories these days. It usually tows a string of carts, but it's great for towing a string of ULD dollies, too."
"Oh, so you can have like a little train behind it?"
"Right. I want to be able to tow four carts at a time, that's a whole truckload. It can easily handle the weight, I just want to make sure we can make turns without taking up half the dock area."
They passed by a conveyor with a bed of upward facing castors instead of a belt. "Is that part of the project, too?"
"No, that's an industry standard conveyor. That one's used, I got it cheap. We've got way more loading docks than we need, but to get started I think we'll need to out fit two docks on this side and two on the other side with them. Shipping and receiving."
"I'll want to watch how it all works from the outside. I could hear what you guys were doing, but other than the fact that our asses wound up on a truck, I don't know how the magic happened."
"I'm pretty satisfied that we've got loading and unloading down. I guess I can schedule another practice run for you to watch tomorrow, or you can watch our first flight test. We need to get the certification done first; the airlines will ship their own ULDs uncertified, but most of them don't want anything to do with uncertified third-party containers. A common model is that they lease you their box, and it sits on your property while you load and unload it, and then you send it to them for shipping."
"You don't have to schedule another practice just for me, there's no sense creating busy work."
"Well, we're at a lull, and you know what they say. Amateurs practice until they get it right, professionals practice until they can't get it wrong. I'll set up another run for tomorrow. We might as well use the slaves for the reason we bought them, instead of just keeping the place clean and sucking off the team."
Satisfied, she changed the subject. "So, I wanted to talk to you about the legal stuff, slaving in general, not just our project. You sent me some links, I've only had time to scan them. But...well, can you tell me if my fears were grounded? Could I really have been kidnapped and enslaved against my will?"
Will snorted. "Not very likely. I'm not in a hurry to wear a collar myself, taking it up the ass or working in the oil fields and coming back with body parts missing. Or is that a more general question, related to diversion of product?"
She grinned. "You can call it theft. And yeah, they make consumable media about it, but you know, most of what you see in movies is bullshit. What's real? Does it really happen?"
"It happens, but it's not common. There are three basic ways someone can be enslaved." He counted them off on his fingers. "One, commit a crime and get sentenced. Unless you murder someone or something, usually you can plea down to a private contract instead of judicial slavery. Either way, you're wearing a collar. On paper, all felons are sentenced to life, but in practice most are manumitted after a few years." He grinned. "Time off for good behavior."
She grinned back. For most slaves, "good behavior" meant putting out with a smile on their face.
"Two, as part of some contractual obligation. So, you get halfway through college and the money runs out. You agree to fuck your professor for the next three years, and he foots the bill for your classes. Or you take out a business loan, put your own ass up for collateral, and if you default your bank sells you to the highest bidder. Terms of indenture in the loan agreement."
"Three, you self enslave. Maybe you just want money and are willing to fuck for it. Maybe you've fantasized about the lifestyle and want to try it out for a while. Maybe you do it to make a present of yourself to your husband. Either way, all three are considered to be voluntary acts. You choose to break the law, you sign that contract on the dotted line knowing you could be sold, you walk into a slave market butt naked and say, 'Collar me'. Either way, it's your choice to enter the life."
"So, how does someone get Shanghaied?"
"We prefer to call it 'illegal conversion'. People just snatching someone off the street, that's movie bullshit. There's a paper trail and computer records for every slave. Everyone has a sin, a Slave Identification Number, and if a slave doesn't have one of those tattooed on the inside of her lower lip, that's a big damn deal. So first, if you're going to steal someone, you have to have some way of laundering the paperwork. It's like stealing a car, you have to do something about that damned vin number or you're going to get caught."
"So, then how does it happen?"
"There's always a whiff of fraud about it. Probably the easiest way is to trick someone into it. Get them to sign something thinking that it's one thing, while the fine print says otherwise. Get someone into the system on a temporary basis, and then ship them out of country to someplace where there are no temporary enslavements and sell them to their forever owner. That's why a lot of indentures have a 'no foreign travel' clause. There's a lot of people who are behind on the rent or something, get a phone call to refinance their bills that requires getting regraded, and after they show up, get a collar, and are devoxed, an agent shows them the clause in their lease and they go straight from the grader to the auction block. One big thing is that once someone has been sold, so long as one of the three parties believes the sale was fair, it's almost impossible to contest. And there are little variations. Someone who is competent to serve but incompetent to manage their own affairs can be given a protective enslavement...that happens to a lot of people in guardianships. A close relative who holds the papers to someone often has the right to enslave while someone is being held, say for grading or something. And if someone is acting as a slave without papers, a court can rule that they've self-enslaved even if they contest it."
"What about yesterday? Was I 'acting like a slave'?"
"Yes, but there was nobody to seize you and present you to a magistrate. Who would your owner be? I suppose we could have abandoned you, and then Worldwide could have seized you and either used you or auctioned you off, but I doubt we would have abandoned one of our partners for 30 days. I suppose I could have taken custody of you, but your value as a partner raising venture capital exceeds anything I could have sold you for. Still, you should be very careful about running around naked with a collar. It at least gives a judge grounds to declare you enslaved, although there are other requirements. Do it often enough, though, and you'll find a SIN tattooed on your lip and a whip across your ass."
"But don't a lot of people have SINs who aren't slaves?"
"Sure. You have to get one to be graded, and a lot of financial instruments require that. You can't get a student loan without a grade, for example. And every former slave has one. But if a court can identify you and adjudicate you enslaved, it can force your owner to have you graded and tattooed. And as for someone who claims to own you, well, possession is nine tenths of the law."
"So, if you claimed to be my owner..."
"And you were naked, collared, and on my leash, you would likely need outside help to prove I was a thief. So, it happens. It's rare, and when it's found, it's heavily punished. For example, if you read the fine print on an HCI employment contract, it has a clause requiring ten years indenture for any employee who knowingly participates in an illegal enslavement. And before you ask, that's a civil matter with a lower standard of proof than a criminal conviction. So you can beat the federal rap and still find yourself sucking and fucking for whoever HCI sells you to."
"Do you recommend that we have a similar clause when we go full launch?"
"Of course. They have weaknesses and vulnerabilities, but that's one thing they do right."
"Thanks. That's given me a lot of food for thought."
Will grinned. "We'll make a slaver out of you, yet."
Natalie chuckled. "Only if I don't run off to my next startup."
"Still up for Mexican and chill? That place over by the ship channel is calling."
She frowned. "I could stand to get laid. But fucking a partner can cause...problems. I think I need to commit to more than just a few million before I can do that." Then she added, "How about you show me the ground ops when you rehearse with the team tomorrow, and we can do dinner later that day. Just dinner, though."
Will smiled. "The camel's nose..."
Natalie chased investors most of the rest of the day, and landed a potential interview the following week with some west coast money. She began to review their presentation, updating it with all she'd absorbed in the last few days. After a long day, she decided that she needed to relax, poured herself a drink, and curled up with her tablet and the links Will had sent. It was quite the rabbit hole, Natalie stayed up later than she'd planned learning many of the terms and tricks of the trade. Then she hit the personal narratives.
At first she thought they couldn't be real. But these were no slave romance fantasies, they mentioned names, dates, places, and there were even links to some of the court documents. Then she thought they were embellished, or that perhaps Will had cherry picked those particular examples out of many in order to misinform her.
Many of the accounts contained a common element: Sexual arousal at the realization that one's sexual autonomy had just been removed. For some women, it happened when the collar closed around their neck. For others, it was the realization that they weren't going home but to the auction block and some unknown destination.
Natalie opened her robe and slipped a hand to her sex. It seemed like such a natural thing to do while reading all the stories about wet pussies and forced cocksucking, of bodies being displayed for buyers and fondled like animals. She found the stories made for great real-life erotica, her nipples stiffening more with each tale. Then, as she read of one unfortunate woman who was forced to masturbate with the wooden handle of the hot iron that was about to brand her, Natalie buried two fingers deep within herself and was rewarded with the most intense orgasm she'd had in months.
———————————————————
Natalie pondered her choice of clothing for the...what was it? Another demo? A trial run? She was sure Will had given it some title on the schedule he kept for the dev team. They were going to load the box on a truck and take it to the airport again, then return it.
She hadn't asked him if the slaves were going to be in it again, but it made sense that they would be. Of course that was a liability if something went wrong, but the real risk would come when they loaded it onto an airplane sometime in the near future.
And if the slaves were there, would they see her? She wondered. She had been secured in her compartment when they had been led out and locked in next to her, but they had never heard her voice (save for muffled grunts into her gag) and only could have seen her for a minute or two when they were lined up before she was taken away. Would they recognize her? That would be awkward, very, very awkward. So, she decided to go full hard-core professional, wearing a pencil-skirt suit over a white camisole. She briefly considered wearing it over a blouse, and discarded the idea. Only women her mother's age would dress that conservatively for an ordinary day at the office. And nice, dressy open-toe heels with gold ankle straps...something a slave would long for, but never have a chance to wear.
She'd found Will to be an attractive man ever since she met him, tall, slim, with confident air, razor sharp wit, and icy blue eyes that could look right through you without being creepy. More than once she'd wondered what he would be like in bed, but pushed that thought from her mind to deal with the business at hand. Today, as they crossed the expanse between his office and the curtains at the far end of the building together, he seemed as masculine as ever, perhaps even more so. She thought it might be his scent, the warehouse was a little warmer today than it usually was. Or maybe she was at the point in her cycle when she just wanted to be bedded good and hard. That had only happened a couple of times since she finished grad school, both with someone from the big investment bank before she got spooked and left. There really hadn't been time since.
Rather than lead her through the maze of curtains, he took her to the far wall and made an opening there. She found herself confronted with a row of nude female bodies, all kneeling and facing away from her, hands clasped atop their heads. Six were together in a line with another off to the side.
That must be Sarah, or Sally, or Cindy...that was it, Cindy. The woman had blonde hair in a short pony tail.
A ginger man, even taller than Will, stood on the other side of the girls, facing them. Michael Williams, logistics expert and, Natalie had recently confirmed, licensed slave handler.
"Morning, Will, Natalie. Did you want to say something or should we just get started?"
"If you don't mind, I'd like to drive today. Would you fetch the restraints?"
"No problem." The gangly red head wandered over to a table beside a row of oversize wire dog cages, and gathered up a number of metal restraints and accessories.
Will moved in front of the line and faced his charges. "Stand," he commanded.
All stood, hands still on heads, heads bowed.
"Back hands."
To Natalie, it seemed as if they were all as well-drilled as soldiers, quickly crossing their wrists behind their backs, heads still bowed. She noticed they all wore wrist and ankle cuffs. Will and Mike went down the line, padlocking wrists together through loops attached to the cuffs.
Will spoke, gesturing to the lone blonde. "We should rotate her in."
Mike nodded. "Makes sense. Which one do you want to leave behind.?"
He pointed to another blonde. "This one."
Mike grasped her by the bicep. "You, kennel. Back in."
Natalie recognized the muscular blonde she had stood next to at Worldwide for a few moments. The woman meekly replied, "Yes, Master", and walked to one of the cages, faced away from it, knelt, and inched her way backwards on her knees, head bowed low to fit through the door. Mike followed and closed her door, which latched with a click and beeped.
The shorter blonde at the end was bid to join the others, and several women shuffled sideways to close ranks. Satisfied, Will passed in front of the group, inspecting them with a bit of swagger in his walk.
Natalie had worked her way to a spot a little to the right of the end of the line. She'd seen slaves given commands before: Go fetch that, clean that up, take my shoes off, but she'd never seen a group drilled like this.
Will started toying idly with one woman's nipple. She never moved, eyes on the floor, as he manipulated her sensitive nub.
"Today, Ms. Mortellero will be observing your performance."
Natalie wondered if they knew what she was to the project, or if it was just a name and a title to scare them.
Will released the girl's tit, and strolled to the end of the line. When he reached it, he turned and slapped the end woman's left buttock, allowing his hand to linger on the flesh as he began to grope it. "If you do well, there is dick and scoobie snacks for all of you. I've even convinced Marianne to bring her strap-on so you can serve her that way, although if you prefer the usual arrangement she might allow you to do that." He took a few more paces. "This is where I would ask if there are any questions, but you've all done this enough that I can't imagine that any of you cunts are stupid enough to screw it up. Ok, you three, follow me. Mike?"
"And you three, follow me."
Not knowing what to do, Natalie followed the last slave in Will's queue, unable to take her eyes from the sight of the bound wrists just above the woman's undulating buttocks. Although it was often suppressed in more public settings, she was confronted with just how inherently sexual modern servitude was. She's just a piece of meat, she thought. How unfortunate.
She followed them this way and that through curtained-off areas, until she arrived at the opening that contained the ULD. From the opening, one end of the device was directly before her, the other end obscured by the bulk of the thing. One of the other men unlatched and lowered the three doors on the near end, which fit together to form a ramp as broad as the ULD was deep. Will lined up the three women, had them turn to face away, then one by one backed them up the ramp into their compartment, closing the door behind them. She could hear someone doing the same thing with three more slaves at the far end.
The last door latched shut. It had only taken a few seconds.
"They're in! Hook 'em up!"
Someone pulled the stands holding the curtains at the far end apart, creating a wide opening to the cavernous space beyond and revealing that the curtain maze was a bit of a sham. One of the women on the team backed up a tugger to the ULD, and as Natalie followed Will to the far end, she saw that a long tongue connected the dolly to the machine.
"We'll have to walk fast to keep up," Will mentioned.
"All clear, let's go!"
The woman sped off, the tugger whining as it had when Natalie had ridden inside the ULD. Some of the men jogged behind it, it was going much faster than a walk. Natalie couldn't possibly keep up in her heels, but walked briskly beside Will.
"This probably seems like overkill when we only plan on bringing in a couple of dozen boxes a day, but you always have a situation where several planes land at once and you have to go like hell."
Natalie nodded. There were maybe 20 loading docks on each side of the building, but luckily the one they had installed the conveyor on was fairly close to curtained-off area.
Will continued as the tugger came to a halt and the ULD was unlatched from the dolly. "The top of the dolly has upside-down casters, so you can move the thing around in any direction. It only weighs about a ton fully loaded, so we can do that by hand." He frowned. "Maybe we should have gotten fatter girls, it would have been a better test of capacity."
Two men were easily able to rotate the big box 90 degrees so that it lined up with the conveyor. They pushed it on, and it began to move toward the opening under its own power.
"The conveyor is all rollers and wheels and casters, some powered, some not. There's a section right by the door that's almost all casters so we can line it up just so before we put it on the truck. The interior of the trailer is only about a centimeter wider on each side than the ULD, so it's a tight fit".
Natalie thought of something. "Will, what criteria did you use to pick the slaves? Did you just buy a lot or something?"
"Cheap, take direction well, and most importantly, they couldn't have a 'no foreign travel' clause."
Natalie thought that explained why a "Choice" was better looking than most of them. Extras cost money...
Things had come to a stop as the team carefully lined up the ULD with the trailer opening.
"We do it by laser. There's a little green dot from each corner, and the beam that makes it has to fit inside the trailer. Looks like they just got it lined up." The box started moving into the trailer. Will fiddled with a device on his wrist. "Two minutes ahead of the last test. So, it's a trainable task and our estimate on how long it takes was generous."
One of the men rolled down the door on the back of the trailer. Concern crossed Will's face as he eyed Natalie.
"Uh, usually I just jump down from the loading dock and walk to my car. I don't think you can manage that in that skirt."
"Oh. I'm not that heavy, could you and one of the other guys just, you know, help me down?"
"If you don't mind." As rude as he was to the slaves, Will was unfailingly polite to free women.
"I don't mind. So long as you don't take...undue liberties and ruin our dinner later tonight." She winked at him.
He wiggled his fingers suggestively at her. "Perish the thought."
Despite the height of the loading dock, Will was able to lower her all by himself, and without ruining her suit. She marveled at his strength, able to cradle her in his arms and lower her to the ground as if she were no heavier than a child. In her mind, she expected most men to have stronger arms than she could ever aspire to, but it was always a pleasure to encounter one who lived up to her expectations.
His car was a red two-seater, and as they climbed in she was surprised to see a manual steering wheel and several other controls she didn't recognize.
"Do you drive manually? Most people don't know how to do that."
"All the time. My cousin used to race, and he got me hooked on it."
"Isn't it dangerous?"
"No, I've been doing it for the last 15 years, and I've never gotten in an accident. Besides, the truck's in automatic so he'll be doing the limit. In manual, we can beat him there and I can get you situated before he arrives."
So he was actually planning to break the speed limit. Natalie couldn't remember the last time she'd been in a vehicle that had done that. "Aren't you afraid you'll get caught?"
Will snorted. "Hardly. Practically nobody drives manually any more, so unless you're going 20, 30 klicks over, they don't even bother." He pulled out of the parking lot and headed north toward the airport.
Natalie decided to broach a new subject. "So, I wanted to mention something. I went through some of those references you sent last night, they were really helpful."
"And I think I understand the ins and outs a lot better, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around a hypothetical."
"What's that?"
"Well, suppose I was riding along with the other women again. And I was naked and collared like I was the other day. So, legally, that would be acting like a slave, right?"
He nodded. "Yeah, most people would say that."
"So, would that put me at risk of enslavement, even if that's not what I wanted?"
"I would say that if you made a habit of it, it would probably be just a matter of time until you found yourself up on the auction block."
"Is there anything someone could do that would allow her to do that and still provide some protection against being sold against her will?"
Will's brow furrowed. "Hmm. Well, if she was already a slave...Oh, it's obvious. She could be in a feeno."
"A fee-no?"
"Free In Name Only contract. A FINO. It's a Texas thing, although some states are adopting something like it. It allows a woman to serve a personal services contract to her domestic partner without surrendering all her rights and possessions. It's almost always a married couple, although technically you don't have to be married. The slave gets to go to luncheon meetings and the kid's soccer games by day, and be naked, collared and leashed in public by night."
"Does the owner always have to be a natural person?"
"Yeah, well there always has to be at least two natural people in the contract. There's the owner, the slave, and a guardian who monitors the relationship to ensure it doesn't become abusive. See, with men being so scarce, a lot of guys were demanding that their paramours enter into a FINO as a condition of marriage. And once in it, they'd pressure their wife to become a concubine, a full slave. And when she agreed to that, boom! He'd sell her, and then start the process all over with a new victim. So, there would have to be two, but the owner...you mean like a legal person?"
"That's right. A corporate entity."
He laughed. "Oh, I luuuuv Tesla more than anything! I'll suck and fuck anyone who works for such a wonderful organization! From the C-suite to the factory floor!"
Put that way, it was hilarious. Natalie giggled as well. "Tesla is my master!"
Will shook his head. "Now, corporate slavery is a real thing. I mean, those pussies we just passed back there are owned by our company. Theoretically, you are part owner of them. But a corporate FINO? How do you even think up that kind of thing?"
She shrugged. "I don't know, it just came to me."
The highway had curved west, and he exited to go north again. She could see an airliner maybe a couple of kilometers away, coming in for a landing.
"You weren't kidding when you said we weren't far from the airport."
"I'd have gotten a spot next to the runway if it wasn't an arm and a leg. But I have a pretty good deal with Worldwide Air. If we can get a container to the dock by the time the plane touches down, they can have it loaded by the time that plane is ready to take off again. So, we'll need someone watching a flight tracker, maybe have an AI do that for us, and just-in-time our pussies out to the airport a little before it lands."
The entrance to the airport was a pleasant boulevard lined with artwork announcing the city's past accomplishments. Just before the terminal it passed under a pair of runways and ended at a big roundabout. Will skillfully merged with the traffic, and exited the circle in the opposite direction.
"So that's that big turn."
"What?"
"Oh, I could feel us going in a big turn to the left the other day, that must have been what that was. We're almost there?"
"Yeah." He motioned to the truck still going in the opposite direction and added, "They're right behind us."
He passed under the runways a second time, and took an exit to the right that led to a more industrial area. He turned down a cross street, ending up at a blue building with a row of numbered loading docks.
"We're at number seven today," he observed. "Tight fit with a big trailer, so I'll park out of the way."
They went in through a side door. Once inside, Natalie recognized the interior from when she'd been unloaded as cargo. Every other door had a conveyor. Apparently Worldwide accepted both containerized and loose freight.
"All we do is back the truck up, they do all the rest. Take it out, put it on one of their airport dollies, take it out to the plane, and load it. Today, we'll just have them pull the slaves out, inspect them to ensure that they weren't harmed in transit, and put them back in to ship back over to our place. That gives them loading practice, too."
The Worldwide workers opened up the loading dock door, and then the trailer door. The package was extracted, rolled onto a dolly, turned, and latched in place.
"How does it go in and out of the trailer?" Natalie asked.
"The trailer is outfitted with roller conveyors and latches, just like the cargo holds in the airplanes. Each of the four ULDs has a certain spot where it sits, and gets latched down there. So long as the truck has battery power and the trailer is hooked up, you can move ULDs in and out of it."
The Worldwide dolly had much bigger wheels and sat up higher than the Southwest Shipping dolly. Clearly, it was intended to go out on the tarmac. One of the Worldwide guys used a tugger to tow the ULD to the other end of the room, and unhitched.
Will was greeted by an older man who was introduced to Natalie as Earl McNair. The three of them watched as the slaves were unloaded and lined up side by side, hands still restrained behind their backs.
Will tapped some buttons on the device on his wrist. "Smooth," he decreed. "Four minutes and 18 seconds. That's so much better than we budgeted that we'll have to re-think the logistics plan."
Earl beamed. "I think that calls for a celebration, don't you?"
Will nodded. "I think your guys earned it. We just have us and the driver here, what do you need, 20 minutes? I'll call my guys and tell them to keep the champagne on ice."
While Will extracted his phone, Earl approached his crew. "Gentlemen, new record. The customer thinks we're ready for the next phase, and is providing the entertainment for your amusement. Break time, 20 minutes!"
Natalie recognized the lead wrangler as Tablet Man from the other day. He seemed quite pleased with the turn of events, and called, "Down!" Then as the others gathered, he stood before one of the women, unzipped his fly, and extracted his penis.
"Open!"
And just like that, he was getting a blowjob on the warehouse floor. The woman hadn't hesitated a bit, but just began fellating him as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Soon, four of the women were occupied. Earl took a couple of steps as if to take his turn, then stopped.
"Ms. Mortellaro, please excuse my lack of manners. Would you care to indulge? We can provide a private room if you do not wish to expose yourself, so to speak."
Natalie stared. He was offering her a slave...for sex. Of course she knew such things happened, she could have easily "partaken" years ago had she schmoozed up to the right people at John Pierpont. But this was the first time that the opportunity had literally stared her in the face.
"Oh, no thank you Mr. McNair, I couldn't."
"Are you sure? We wouldn't want to be rude. We'll be doing a lot of business together, we should get to know each other. And you can call me Earl."
A thought occurred to her. She was curious, and she could scratch that itch even if she didn't "partake".
"On second thought, a private room would be nice." She spotted Will giving her a sideways glance.
"Right away, Miss. Uh, which one would you like?" He gestured to the two unoccupied women.
She wanted to ask Will's advice, then decided that she wanted to appear in charge of her own decisions. "I'll take the one on the left, please." The woman was the most petite in the lineup; Natalie hoped that meant she might be the most pliable.
Earl consulted with Tablet Man, who merely handed Earl his tablet as he was distracted by the slave working on his tool. Earl glanced at it, and called for 42 ten to stand and heel, and then led her in the direction of the offices where Natalie had dressed. Indeed, when she followed the pair, they led her to the very same spare office where she'd been handed over to Will. As she walked across the warehouse floor, Natalie had the presence of mind to set an alarm for 18 minutes.
Earl made the slave kneel on the carpet before the desk ("Down!"), said he would knock politely when it was time for the return shipment, and bade her to enjoy herself. Then he closed the door behind him.
Natalie stood beside the girl, inspecting her. She was short, she could see from following her, that she was maybe five foot one in her bare feet. She seemed young, young enough to be an undergrad, if she had ever gone to college. "Look at me," she commanded.
The slight brunette turned to her expectantly, silent.
"Why are you here?"
"This slave is present to serve her Mistress." Her voice was expressionless.
So she had been promoted to Mistress, just like that.
"If I took off my skirt and panties, and told you to lick my crotch, what would you do?"
"This slave would give my Mistress pleasure. Is that my Mistress's wish?"
Natalie walked over to the desk, leaned her hips against it, and faced the slave.
"No. I want to ask you a few questions."
The girl lowered her face.
"No, look at me. Keep looking at me while I speak."
"Yes, Mistress."
Natalie searched for emotion in the other woman's appearance, and was frustrated to find none.
"What is your name?"
"This slave is known as 42 ten, Mistress."
"Not your number, what name do the other slaves call you by?"
The girl blushed. So she's human after all, thought Natalie.
"Mistress, my sister slaves sometimes call this slave Andrea."
"Andrea." She began to walk around the slave in a circle, who tried to crane her neck to follow her. "I will call you Andrea today." She leaned up against the desk to Andrea's right. "Andrea, today you were brought here in a metal enclosure. Have you ever been transported in that enclosure before, and if so, when was the last time before today?"
"This slave has been transported that way before, Mistress. The day before yesterday was the last time."
"Andrea, you look familiar to me. Have we ever met before?" She tried to say it without looking like she was staring right through the little woman. Natalie didn't want to frighten the young woman the way she'd been frightened herself by the FBI agent at John Pierpont.
"This slave does not recall you, Mistress."
Was she trembling? It seemed so to Natalie. Another crack in the facade?
"Are you telling me the truth?"
A tear trickled from the brunette's eye. She fell prostrate at Natalie's feet, and kissed her toes through the openings in her shoes. "Please, Mistress. This slave's duty is obedience. This slave's memory is poor. This slave accepts her punishment if she has failed you, Mistress." She looked up at Natalie, her eyes pleading.
"That won't be necessary."
Without a word, Natalie unbuttoned her skirt, folded it, and placed it on the desk. She gazed into the other woman's eyes, and slid her panties down to the floor, stepping out of them, laying them atop the skirt.
Why am I doing this?, she thought. She hadn't been with another woman since her undergrad days, since she was about the age of the tearful woman kneeling before her. It wasn't that she was opposed to the idea, just that she liked men more. And she liked creating wealth through the creation of enterprise even more than that. Why was she doing this?
If I can't be a slave, I can have one. That was the strangest of the thoughts that had crossed her mind in the last two days. It seemed so right, so fitting, and yet so twisted and wrong at the same time. She opened her legs, feeling the cool air on them, and patted her mound.
Get to it, bitch.
Andrea didn't need words, what was expected of her was obvious. She rose to the task, the touch of her tongue on Natalie's slit electrifying. Natalie had enjoyed orgasms in her apartment, but her fingers were a poor substitute for this woman's mouth. She grasped Andrea's head with both hands, forcing her into her sex, her thighs gripping the slave by the shoulders. On and on and on went that wonderful tongue, driving her higher and higher and higher, until at last, she exploded in passion. She lost all sense of time, jamming the woman's face against her crotch until she realized that the poor slave was gasping for air. Released, the servant's chest heaved with life-giving breaths, until Natalie bent suddenly and kissed the woman full on the lips, tasting her tongue, licking her own juices from the other one's face.
She'd done it, something she thought she'd never do. She'd used another human being for sex. Not made love to her, not even fucked her, but used her, as casually as she might use one of the neglected vibrators in her dresser, lying there with batteries drained from disuse. Why had she done that? Had she become some sort of monster? She pulled the other woman to her feet and hugged her, feeling the other's hands cuffed behind her back, reaching down to grope her ass.
"Mistress is pleased with her slave."
"Thank you Mistress. This slave's duty is her service."
Natalie searched the other's eyes for any hint of deception. "Andrea, you must not speak of this next question to any slave. If you do, I will have you punished."
"Never, Mistress."
"What is the number of the slave known as Sasha?"
"81 75, Mistress." The alarm on Natalie's wrist began to vibrate.
She kissed Andrea deeply, as intimately as she could. "Thank you, slave. You have done well."