How wonderful! How exciting! It was just like one of her favorite books. He would watch her being sold and remember that same feeling in himself, and experience an emotional flashback, something dangerous and thrilling and a little sad. And then he would go back to his life, training more slaves, and helping them on their journeys.
It’s so romantic. So melodramatic.
And it was so hard to believe that tomorrow evening, she would be a commodity, displayed and bid upon like all the artwork and antiques and collectibles she had handled in her years as a buyer and appraiser.
She leapt for the door when he arrived, and took his jacket. “It’s cold as hell out there,” he said, heading for the living room. “It will probably snow tomorrow.”
“Oh! Will that affect the sale?”
“No, not in the slightest. You’re still on. Make some tea and come look at your contract.”
The contract! He took the leather briefcase he had been carrying and opened it on the coffee table. Robin made the quickest cup of tea in her life and rushed to her accustomed place on the carpet.
“It’s a two-year contract,” Chris said, sipping gingerly. “I know you wanted three, but you can always renew in favorable conditions. I’ve included all of the standard clauses we’ve discussed. You must read it all, very carefully, and allow the weight of it to sink in. And then you will sign it, and date it today.”
Because it was her last day of freedom, she knew, taking the heavy sheets of paper into her hands. Tomorrow, I’ll be considered a slave, and slaves don’t sign contracts.
The pages rustled when her hands shook.
Well, it was all there. The language wasn’t as difficult as legalese could be, probably because it would never withstand a courtroom examination. But it was very similar to a personal service contract in many ways. She read over the paragraphs that Chris had discussed with her, and nodded several times.
And when she looked up and nodded to him, he passed her a gold pen, and she initialed and signed and dated where she had to, on three copies.
“This is it, Robin,” Chris said as he opened her file and slipped two copies into it. “You are now an official member of the Marketplace.”
“It’s hard to believe.”
“Believe it. Tomorrow, your body will be sold to another human being, in a manner that the greater outside world can barely comprehend. And in doing so, you will contribute to a society and culture, not to mention economy, that has existed purely to serve the needs of those of us who must see the world in dichotomies of master and slave.”
Robin nodded again. But his use of the word economy had triggered yet another nagging question that she hadn’t found a way to ask. He saw it flicker in her eyes and shrugged.
“You might as well ask. The worst thing that can happen is that I’ll be annoyed.”
“I wouldn’t want to annoy you on my last day here, sir.” But she smiled, and then gently bit her lip, considering how to ask. “It’s just that―well―I am curious about the money.”
“You should be. I was wondering why you hadn’t asked.”
“Oh! Well then, um, how much do you think I’ll go for? How much do slaves normally go for? Is there a market rating system for them? Is it objective?” She leaned forward eagerly.
“There are several rating systems; they apply to different kinds of property, and sometimes to different styles of markets. But I’m afraid that I’m going to disappoint you with my other answers. It is against regulations to discuss prices, especially particular prices, with slaves.” He laughed at the way her face fell. “And no, that doesn’t mean I would have answered you before you signed the contracts.”
“But what if I wanted to be sure that I would have enough money to get back on my feet when the contract ended?” Robin asked. “I mean, since the money is coming to me anyway, don’t I have the right to know?”
“The money isn’t all coming to you, my dear. Your spotter, your trainer, the auction house, and the regional office all have their cuts. Ken has effectively wagered that twenty percent of your purchase price will be large enough to cover my training fee plus her spotter’s fee. She may be right; twenty percent is often split between the spotter, trainer and the auction house, and sometimes even with a previous owner, although that doesn’t happen as often as it used to. But this much I can tell you. As a novice, you will not be worth much compared to slaves who have had more training or have been sold two or three times. Your price will most probably fall into a category equal to or slightly surpassing a comfortable living for someone of your education and age bracket, over a two-year period. If you were taller, and your breasts fuller and your mouth a little more sensual, you’d fetch more. Even as you are, you are an expensive little chit.”
“I don’t understand. How can I be cheap and expensive at the same time?” Robin frowned, but then realized the answer. “Oh, because of my upkeep. I’m like a painting that has to be kept in a specially designed box.”
Chris’s mouth turned up a little. “If you like. You may be purchased as a bargain, but you eat as much as any better trained or more beautiful woman, and you take up the same room, and need the same physical care. But I wouldn’t be worried about the size of the payment you’ll receive when your contract comes due. If you love this life, you will not see that money for many years to come.”
Robin flushed and swallowed hard. “Oh God. I hope so.”
“For your sake, I hope so as well. Now I need time to write my report on your training. I want you to take the exercise tape into the master bedroom and work out there. I want you to work yourself hard, stretch every muscle, make yourself sweat. It will add to your edge tomorrow.”
“Sir? Won’t I be stiff then? Won’t it make it harder for me to hold my positions?”
“Tsk. Still don’t trust me, do you? Do as I told you. Be glad that I need you well rested for tomorrow, or you’d be spending the night sleeping in an inch of water in the bathtub.”
Robin shut her mouth firmly, nodded, and ran.
* * * *
Saturday was a flurry of activity. Robin woke up, as stiff as she had predicted, and when Chris tossed some of her clothing to her, she blinked in confusion.
“We are going to make a try to push your price up a little,” he said with a smile. “Get moving!”
Mutely, she dressed and followed him out of the building. It was still cold, and there was that hint of something in the air that suggested snow. But Chris didn’t stop to examine the weather. He hailed a cab and the two of them rode downtown in silence.
When they got out on Hudson Street, Robin followed him to a private dwelling on one of those short, twisting little named streets that hide some of the most beautiful brownstones and courtyards in the city. They were let in by a young man in a short robe, who yawned and jerked one thumb at the stairs. “She’s waiting,” he said gruffly. “You staying or going?”
“I’ll be back in three hours or so. Robin, strip and go upstairs.” Chris gave her a pat on one shoulder and left just as she had managed to pull off her jacket.
He must love doing this, she mused. One mystery after another. The man in the robe pointed at a chair in the hallway and nodded when she started to pile her clothing there. Then, with another yawn, he went back to reading his paper.
Upstairs was a stern-looking, powerfully built, dark-skinned woman whose hair was shorn close to her scalp, except for a row of dreads that topped her skull like a rooster’s crown. She was dressed in dark Danskins, with an artfully ripped sweatshirt falling across her wide shoulders and hanging suspended over her taut stomach. The room she was in was almost bare, with a pale wooden floor that gleamed in the morning sun. On one wall was a huge dancer’s mirror and barre. On the other, two tables were lined up, and pushed out of the way. Several folding chairs were stacked near the door.
“Hello,” the woman said, folding her arms. “I’m Teralia. And you’re my latest victim.” And she grinned, and then threw her head back and laugh
ed. “Well, don’t just stand there, you little wimp! Come on in and shake yourself loose. Parker wants himself a little dynamo tonight, and he’s gonna get it!”
Oh dear, Robin thought. What has he done to me now?
Another workout, this one purposefully graceful and disciplining, with dancer movements and long pauses. Unfamiliar with some of the motions, Robin felt clumsy and awkward, but as she got used to them, they began to flow with more grace. Teralia spent a lot of time working on breathing and concentration, and then went back to working Robin with some basic aerobic repetitions until Robin’s sweat ran off of her body in rivulets.
“Now, we get some of that stiffness out,” Teralia explained, leading her victim into a tiny sauna. Inside, the physical trainer made Robin do more stomach crunches, and then more stretches. When the heat became too oppressive, she stopped, let Robin drink some cool water, and then began to massage her.
I like this part, Robin thought, fairly purring under the strong manipulations of the trainer.
Then a cool shower, and back to the sunny workout room, for more stretching, and more massage. And when Robin began to feel that her body just couldn’t take another second of being pummeled by this muscular woman, she was swept downstairs, wrapped in a white terry cloth robe, for the now wakeful young man to examine her hair and nails and sigh with exasperation.
“What do you use on this, baby shampoo?” he asked as he started selecting little colorful bottles from a window box.
“Uh, sometimes, sir,” Robin answered.
“Jeez. It’s disgustingly healthy. No color, no ragged ends, no chemical burns, nothing. What am I supposed to do with it?” He came back to examine her again and nodded. “Okay, here’s the plan. How’s about we go with a natural style. Kind of layered on the sides, but long in the back. You’re still young enough to stand it. And we’ll leave some nice wisps flowing down here... here...” He fingered the hair at the side of her face. “It’ll give you that debauched maiden look. Very romantic novel. Okay? Your nails are a disaster. We’ll just smooth them down and put a little clear polish on them and maybe you can hide your hands. OK? What am I saying, of course it’s OK, you don’t get to say anything about it. So close your eyes, sweetie, Glen is gonna make you beautiful.”
She did close her eyes, as he pulled her head into a sink basin and washed her hair and anointed it with-who-knew-what. And unlike a beautician’s, where she would stare at herself in the mirror while a stylist worked on her hair, he simply positioned her on a stool in some good light and worked away without another attempt at explaining what he was doing or how it would look.
He covered her hair with some kind of lotion after he cut it, and wrapped it all up in a towel. Then he worked on her short nails, doing exactly as he described. Robin had never paid a lot of attention to her nails; she just couldn’t justify the time spent on it. When she was with Troy, she would occasionally get one of those five-dollar nail jobs for the weekend, but he rarely noticed them or seemed to care much.
In minutes, Glen finished one hand and showed her the contrast between the finished one and the plain one. They looked like the hands of two different people.
“Now, if you can only get a job that doesn’t have you writing so much, you can get rid of these,” he said as he fingered the light calluses on the insides of her fingers and on the pad of her thumb. “Thank God you weren’t a secretary, though,” he continued, even as she gave him a look of amazement. “Secretaries get the worst calluses on the pads of their fingers, although now, with all these word processors, it’s not as bad as it used to be.” He looked up into her eyes and shrugged. “Hey, you think Sherlock Holmes is the only guy who can pick up clues? It’s all in the hands, sweetie. The stories I could tell you!” And he went back to work, chatting aimlessly.
He uncovered and rinsed out her hair, and styled it with his fingers. “I hate blow dryers, don’t you? They’re one of the three grooming aids that Amnesty International should be investigating. The others? Well, how about that little machine that catches your leg hairs up in a little silver coil and then rips them out by the root? Oh my God, it’s like being set on fire! And for bikini hair? I’d rather stick a porcupine up my ass.”
I don’t believe this, Robin giggled to herself. Here I am, about to become human chattel, enter the Marketplace and leave the real world behind, and I’m being entertained by a nelly hairdresser in the Village. There has to be some meaning to this. And one day, I’m going to have to find out how Chris knows these people.
When Glen finished, he dusted her shoulders off and led her to a mirror. She glanced into it with some trepidation, but when she saw what she looked like, she almost cried with relief. He was right. Glen had taken some of the weight of her last hairstyle away, and created almost a waterfall effect of hair that rose around her crown and flowed down her neck to lie in soft waves over her shoulders. The short sides seemed to make her face seem less full, and the wisps of hair that he left long did indeed act as an attractive frame. And what was more, one of his mysterious bottles had apparently added to or enhanced her natural highlights, which were little shots of tawniness among the darker tresses.
“I did everything I could but make you blonde,” Glen said with satisfaction.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Of course it is! Now go back upstairs, it’s time for more torture.”
More torture turned out to be another energetic massage, which made her moan and grunt until Teralia began to ease off. Then, soft soothing touches turned down the heat on her skin and got her purring again.
When Chris came to pick her up, she felt brand new. Even the faint twinges of pain from her beatings during the week seemed to feel good. And she was flexible, felt light on her feet, and any trace of stiffness had been banished. She almost blushed with shame for her outburst yesterday, but Chris didn’t bring it up. He just nodded with satisfaction, and shook Teralia’s hand, and without another word, took Robin back to the apartment.
* * * *
In the afternoon, she had a pasta lunch, eating with Leon in the kitchen. He seemed as proud of her as she felt, and complimented her on the new hair. It was hard sometimes, thinking of the Leon who had been so supportive and friendly and the Leon who had roughly fucked her from behind, smacking her ass cheeks and thighs and dragging her head back with the horse bit he had shoved into her mouth.
But, before he left to go back home, she hugged him warmly and accepted his best wishes with a smile.
Chris packed her belongings and her file copy into a special little case, even while she packed his things for him. She heard him on the phone, talking to Rachel, arranging to be picked up that evening at the house where the auction was taking place. They were leaving the borrowed apartment spotlessly clean, and Chris had two champagne bottles chilling in the refrigerator along with some nice delicacies he picked up while Robin was being “done.” Two bottles of twenty-five year old Scotch had already been tucked away in the liquor cabinet.
How odd that this strange apartment had become more familiar and harder to leave than her own. She felt mild regret that she had not met the owners.
“What are they like?” she asked Chris as she watched him seal up a note to them.
“They are good people,” he replied, tucking the note in between the bottles of champagne. “Friends of my employers.”
“Yours too,” Robin added. “It’s nice of them to loan you this place for so long.”
“Yes. But they’ll reap benefits. They’re in the market for a new slave, and they know that I will be available for training or touch-up work if needed.” He turned to her and his eyes looked a little less piercing than usual. “You’re terribly nervous, to ask such a social question and forget all of your training. Or are you doing this knowing that I won’t do anything so drastic as to muss your hair?”
“No, sir!” Robin protested. “But you’re right, I’m extremely nervous. I feel like I want to throw up or faint, or run away.”
“Don’t do any of those. Breathe, like you were taught. Take a nap if you like.” But he smiled at that thought, acknowledging the impossibility. He looked at her thoughtfully as she nodded and tried to take a long deep breath.
“Poor slave. Comfort yourself with the thought that in less than ten hours, it will be all over, and you’ll have a completely new set of fears and anxieties to deal with.”
Robin stared at him. “Thank you, sir. I feel much better now.”
“Oh, good. Now go finish packing and put all of my things in the front hallway.”
* * * *
The afternoon seemed to drag, and Robin found herself looking at a clock every ten minutes. Finally, Chris called her to sit beside him while he read over her file, examining it for the slightest errors. She sat on the floor and leaned her head against his leg and tried to concentrate. All of her remaining questions and insecurities struggled within her, and knowing that this would be the last chance to get them out only made it harder to mentally address them.
“It’s time to get ready,” Chris announced suddenly. She looked up in panic; had that much time passed? Yes, it had, thank God. She darted off to the master bedroom, where she had laid out a very nicely tailored dark suit. Chris went off to shower and shave, and came back into the bedroom already in his T-shirt and trousers.
Robin had never even seen his bare chest.
She helped him dress in silent valet fashion, but he put his tie on. Her traveling clothes were the same ones she wore to the party last weekend, and he watched her dress, smoking a cigarette with what seemed like great fascination. In his dark suit, with the steel-rimmed glasses and his short, almost stocky body, he now looked less like a terrorist and more like a gangster.
The Slave Page 23