“Get me a number three,” The Keeper said. “Let’s see what improvement we’ve had since the last time.”
Ashley couldn’t imagine any really purpose to these inspections except to humiliate her on a routine basis. Then again, that was the sum purpose of her being here at all. The Number Three was a medium sized cylinder and she took it into her anus with no trouble. The clamps would be next, on her nipples and labial lips. When they soaked her down with buckets of water first, as they did now, then there would be electricity. Fairly mild, but enough to drop her into an altered state of mind.
Ashley closed her eyes to concentrate. The Keeper would almost certainly require her to come on command at least once during her torture. Disobedience now, even where her subconscious reflexes were involved would mean punishment later. She inhaled as the clamps found her nipples, left and right. Both became instantly engorged at the Keeper’s latex touch, which was another requirement of Ashley’s slavery.
The Number Three was removed now and replaced with a four. Ashley felt the familiar full feeling. At the moment of deep insertion, the first of the charges was sent through her wet body. Hair hanging limply, head down, beaten, deprived for so long of every human liberty and freedom, Ashley yielded. She had discovered there was a way to take pain, such that it abutted dangerously close to pleasure.
“Number Five,” The Keeper called, sounding crisp and professional like a surgeon. The charges were in pulses, making it difficult to focus. She had to concentrate, though, because the Five was large, and if she were not sufficiently open she would not be able to accommodate its length and width.
The Five went halfway and then stopped. Ashley tensed.
“Catch pan.”
The Keeper was calling for the receptacle for between her legs. Oh, God, she would have to urinate on command as well. Just then, a surge, high on the voltage end. Eyes rolled momentarily in her head, and she began to merge with Tia. This was happening more frequently now and by and large it was positive, to the extent it made Ashley the model student, perfectly passive, sister-in-law’s mystically open to the ongoing degradations of life as a caged, abused girl.
“Now, Ashley.”
The stream had been ready, at the beck and call of the Keeper’s voice. Andrea had fought public urination in the beginning, as had Tia when she first learned that she must pee in plain view of her pirate captors. Watching their naked slave squat in the dirt, releasing her golden stream was a pleasure, however, they would not be denied. How she had wept that first morning, fresh from a night of untold abuses as her lord stood over, waiting impatiently.
When she had taken too long, he compelled her to drink water and then to stand, so that the stream poured humiliatingly down her leg. Afterwards, he pushed her down onto the moistened sand and entered her painfully violated sex. When he had finished with her, he left her there, not bothering even to tether her. Shaken, her mind in disbelief, she had lacked the will to run away.
In time, Tia came to accept that the men’s power over her bladder was merely one more aspect of her slavery. No longer did she dare to relieve herself, save her lord or some other had given his permission. Most of the men were indifferent, and would allow her to go, with perfunctory supervision. But her Lord would at times say no, and it would be up to her to appease him.
It was a cold morning for Tia today. She had been laid by her Lord, and is pissing for him. He has shown her little attention. The men are preparing the ship. They will take her to the nearby island, to be auctioned. She is told she may cost a few pieces of silver and that she may go as a sea wench, a tavern wench or a brothel girl. In this last case, she will be available for use for the smallest denomination coin, her body secured in steel upon a stinking straw mat.
“Orgasm.”
Ashley came now, for The Keeper. There was no one else more important, and in many ways she was being healed of old wounds. It was as if she had stepped outside herself, been given a purview such that Tom no longer mattered, not his faithlessness or his lies. And yes, he had lied to her. She’d known about the others, women who would tie him and do things to him, but she’d ignored it. When he’d flirted with Andrea, she was surprised how easily she was coming to accept his infidelity.
Another thing she’d known all along and never accepted was that she was different from other girls and that her mother was, too. As a child, shyly, with giggles she had gone to boy after boy to be tied. A few obliged, though she wanted more. She wanted what was in her mother’s eyes when they’d watch some silly story where a woman is tied to railroad tracks and where some strong man rescues her.
It’s funny what comes back to your memory, she thought as she heard The Keeper call for a Six—a number Ashley had never taken before. There’d been this time when she was a child, and they watched a movie where a medieval princess was captured and put in chains, her hands over her head. There was a dragon about to devour her, and then a prince came and cut away the chains. He kisses her and they ride off.
Ashley clapped, and said how good it was the princess was free. “He took the chains off, didn’t he, Mom?”
“Yes,” she agreed, turning off the movie. But under her breath, she distinctly heard her say, “Pity.”
The Six had no pity. It was like a darkness descending, a relentlessness. Ashley opened to it, knowing she could not look back. Just like when she met Simon and he first brought her onto the shore of the island. Tia’s island.
“Orgasm.”
Pleasure and pain, uniting, clarifying, opening past and present.
Tonight you will be sold.
The slave ship. Tia sees it, tries to flee, tries to get back to him, but the men hold fast her chains, and drag her forward. Kicking and screaming, she goes. She loves him, she always has. And she will have him in this life or the next.
“Seven,” Ashley hears the Keeper say, and then she faints.
Chapter Nine
The evening gown was lovely. Ashley felt like a high fashion model as she contemplated the runway before her. There were bright lights, along the floor and at her back. She knew there was a crowd, only she could not discern the faces at the tables, small and round, groups of twos and threes. She’d been told there were businessmen from many countries, Arab sheiks, high officials of certain governments, where civil rights were not of paramount concern.
This was an elite sale of women stolen from three continents. She was hardly as lovely or dazzling as some of the others she’d seen in the dressing room, but in the program she was listed as an heiress, and of course a virgin. She might fetch half a million or more according to the Keeper. She’d arrived naked, in the back of a paneled van, her cage transported for the occasion. They had taken her through the service entrance, into a garage and from there to the dressing rooms.
The perfumed bath was an inordinate luxury compared to the hose and when she was allowed to immerse herself in the foamy bubbles she thought there was some mistake. Prostrating herself on the floor, she refused to move. The Handler who had brought her explained the dilemma to the auction house staff, namely that Ashley’s training had been very exacting. He allowed her to open his pants and suck him deep, for she could not physically allow herself even a tiny joy till she had pleased a man.
They scrubbed her thoroughly and she lost herself in the soft wetness, protected and safe in the tiny, well-lighted room. After this, leading her naked through the hall, they took her to be clothed. The gown was of red velvet, cut low in the bodice but hemmed almost to her ankle. It had a classic Victorian look. There were no undergarments, but they did provide her stockings and garters and an exquisite pair of silver shoes, open toed.
She’d been waiting now for several minutes. A sweet, young, red head, billed as a saucy coed was on stage at the moment. She was in a cheerleader’s costume. Ashley knew her from the Center, where she’d occupied a cage three places from hers. Often the girl, who was shapely and sweet breasted, would cry into the night, compelling the men to come and silen
ce her. It was not the whips, but their cocks that worked the magic. Unlike Ashley, she was no virgin and it was her sexual heat which they used against her, smashing her defenses night after night till she crawled to them and begged for more.
The auctioneer referred to the program, in which there were specifications, as to her capture, along with her sexual qualities. She was rated to a six in anal access, which was quite good. They had her parade in the costume to whet the bidders’ appetites and then she was stripped nude for better assessment. In the dressing room the girls had been taught some basic moves, bending over, spreading and so on. There were murmurs of approval as she bent over to grasp her ankles while being paddled. The Handlers had trained her to come this way and Ashley was sure it would increase her value.
In the end, she went for two fifty, a quarter of a million dollars to an agent of an emir. Ashley could see the headdress he wore as he stood and bowed. The applause, she’d been told was a house tradition, a way of complementing the buyer on an excellent purchase.
“Are you ready?” said the auctioneer’s man, a large fellow with a bald head and a tuxedo over his large frame.
Ashley nodded yes, wincing as he squeezed her breasts in his hands.
“I hope so, slut. It’s slow tonight, and my commissions are down.”
She moaned, feeling the surge of a mini orgasm in her perfumed cunt. It was this way often now, her body betraying her, yielding intimate surrenders to even the most idle and careless of male touches. The lights were hotter than Ashley had expected. The sweat was already beading on her forehead as she reached the end of the runway. The auctioneer’s voice seemed to boom as her privates were revealed. She was described as a rare gem, a natural slave, craving abuse upon her tender flesh. She was listed as private Rice stock, itself an excellent selling point. When they announced her as Prime, meaning virginity intact there was a hush of approval.
She tried to display herself, and she knew she must be pleasing. If her price was too low, she would suffer at the hands of the auction house, which would have her for a few hours prior to transfer of sale. Her legs were shaky. So many eyes, the shadows of men, even some women all of whom had the right—if they could afford the price—to buy her, to take possession of her body forever. To fuck, to beat, to enslave, to mold, and to control for the rest of her days.
“Strip!” the auctioneer’s man sneered as he grasped her arm. Ashley had not expected this. She imagined men taking her clothes, leaving her no choice. But to bare herself, in this place, this was too much.
“Strip!” he roared, raising a backhand to her.
Ashley cringed and began to fumble at the fastenings of her clothes. When the dress was at her feet in a puddle, the audience reacted once again. The bids were coming. Fifty thousand. One hundred thousand. It would go higher, much higher. Ashley kept her hands at her sides as the man mauled her breasts, trying to coax sexual reaction. She closed her eyes, feeling herself transported.
Tia, too, was under auction, upon a wooden platform, moving to display herself adequately under the sting of the bare-chested auctioneer’s whip. She was aching and sore. Under a palm tree, for the last three hours, her neck tethered to the stump, she’d been available for test use. The Pirate Captain had complained this would reduce her value, since no man pays for what he has already enjoyed free, but the auctioneer had assured him the opposite was true.
Tia’s sale was also under dark, though there were torches here, and she could see nothing save the shirtless man who was commanding her. Eyes attentive, alert, body primed, Tia sought to bring her Lord a good price. When the man put her on all fours to insert the handle of the snakelike whip, she took it well, fore and aft, shuddering with orgasm each time.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Ashley’s auctioneer, “what I am about to tell you will astound you. This virgin, this unplucked flower is not a five, or even a six, but a seven.”
There were cries of disbelief, and a shout that they should prove it. And that is precisely what they did. Ashley had been on a sawhorse before, to be beaten, but never for anal penetration. To take a seven, and in front of an audience, this was more than she could bear.
“Let’s go, slave,” the tuxedoed assistant snarled. “The boss says we’re going to an Eight after this.”
Ashley’s price was at two million five, when they’d fully inserted the Seven. It was already a record, but they wanted more. She felt as if she might explode. Her world, herself, imploded, so there was nothing, nothing left to fear, nothing left to hope. She was free, in the strangest, simplest way. Free from hurt and pain from her very history. And if the Eight should split her open, destroy her entirely, then she would die in peace, having achieved something no one had before in her family. Complete surrender to her sexuality, complete acceptance of her need to submit.
“Ten million!” shouted a voice. “I bid ten million.”
“We have a bid of ten million dollars!” the auctioneer cried in triumph. “Do I have another bid? Going once, going twice?”
There were no more bids. A moment later he shouted, “Sold,” and the people were on their feet, the applause thundering.
“Someone wanted to save you,” the man told her, removing the number Seven. “But don’t worry, we get you over night still.”
“No,” she heard a voice say, the same one who had shouted the astronomical bid. “You don’t. My client wishes to take possession immediately.”
“Of course,” the man said, disappointment clear. “The customer is always right.”
Ashley felt herself being unfastened and removed from the sawhorse. Her heart was fluttering, in spite of the pain. This was the biggest night of her life. She had just been sold.
***
Andrea found her mother waiting in the coffee shop, sitting in a corner booth. She hadn’t wanted to meet her, but Libby had been insistent.
“I can’t be alone right now. Not while I know we could be so close to bringing Ashley home.”
Andrea didn’t want to be alone either and despite her anger she resisted the temptation to ask Libby why she wasn’t with her father, playing cowboy and pony. Malcolm had made no attempt to contact her whatsoever, though each time the cell phone rang, secretly she hoped it was him. Falcon, on the other hand, called so many times she was ready to toss the phone after all.
Libby smiled warmly. She was wearing a turtleneck and jeans. She had her hair in a kerchief. “I’m glad you came, honey.”
Andrea accepted her mother’s embrace, wondering if the outfit was to hide the scars of her little romp in the barn. Really, it was an embarrassment. Her mother was simply too old.
“I’m drinking coffee,” Libby said. “How about you?”
“Water. Thank you.”
“Your sister and I take hot chocolate,” Libby smiled, her hands caressing the mug, “when we need to work through a crisis.”
“How nice for you.”
Libby sighed, her eyes still focused on the light brown liquid. “Andrea, I know none of this has been easy for you, and I want, first of all to say thank you. Thank you for coming into our lives.”
Andrea laughed. “Yes. I’ve been a real boon to your lives, haven’t I?”
“No,” she put her hand over her daughter’s, “don’t say it like that. You have been a blessing to us truly.”
Andrea tried to pull her hand back, but her mother clenched it tightly. “Listen to me, please, darling. Ashley didn’t run off because of you. It was my fault, for all the things I didn’t tell her, about my past, and the way you both came into this world. It is we, your father and I who owe you both an apology.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore now though, does it?” Andrea challenged, raising an eyebrow fiercely.
Libby released Andrea’s hand. “I don’t know anymore,” she smiled sadly. “I just don’t know. The only thing I can tell you, and it’s something I couldn’t tell your sister, is that I am tired of being a mother. In some ways, it was a role I was never cut out
for. Honestly, I am not sure it suited your father any better.”
She shot a hateful glance. “You don’t know my daddy like I do. He is a wonderful father.”
“I don’t doubt that, sweetie. But is he happy now, just being your father? And answer honestly, at least for yourself. Is the world he occupies one of joy and pleasure for him?”
Andrea thought now of her father that night, sneaking in time with prostitutes, hiding his own nature from his flesh and blood. “No,” she admitted after a long silence, “he isn’t.”
“Andrea, look at me. I need you to know how much I love your father. I don’t expect you to understand why we did what we did, but you have to know I never stopped loving him. Nor has he stopped loving me. When we reconnected today—as bizarre as it all may seem—nothing ever felt so right or so natural. He’s asked me to marry him, Andrea, and I’ve accepted. It will be a legal marriage, but the relationship will be defined in our own way. I have agreed to be subject to him and to serve him as his slave all my days.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because I don’t want you to waste so many years of your life being proud and stubborn the way we did. I want you to live now. You, Andrea, I love you and I want what is best for you, regardless of what happens to Ashley. And your father wants that, too. He can’t put these things in words, as you know, but he loves you with all his heart and he is so proud of you.”
Libby’s soft words opened up the floodgates. “Oh, Mom, I’m so sorry,” Andrea cried. “I didn’t mean to hurt her, I swear. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Libby grabbed her forearm. “Sweetie, here’s something else I couldn’t tell your sister. Tom Winters was a skunk, and he was going to hurt her bad. If you hadn’t exposed him so well, she’d have married him and then what? Andrea, I think you’re the strong one—you’ve got more of your father in you. And that means you have to fight for what you want. Now answer me this. What about you and this detective, John Falcon?”
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