Marketplace

by Laura Antoniou

  He heard the sound of people approaching and looked up in surprise. It was amazing how more than one set of shod feet had become such an alien sound. And the kind of casual chatting and laughter that accompanied the approach was also foreign. He shuddered. He was getting further and further away from the real world.

  “So where are the horses? Are they still out?”

  “Looks like it.”

  The first voice was strange, a man. The second was Alexandra. Brian felt oddly panicked.

  “Oh, but you do have something interesting in the stable,” the man said with a laugh.

  “It’s just another of their new toys,” said a woman’s voice behind his.

  Alexandra led the two strangers into the pathway between the stalls and looked casually over at Brian, who stood up straight and then bowed his shoulders respectfully. He was getting better and better at such moves; they all were.

  “No, that’s not a toy,” Alexandra said. “That’s Brian, one of our applicants. Would you like to see him?”

  “Sure,” the man said. He was tall and slender, and dressed in tight jeans and cowboy boots. His hair, a light chestnut, spilled over his ears and a little down his back, and his eyes were hidden by mirrored sunglasses. Brian could easily imagine him at a country western dance, doing a two step, his thumbs loose in his belt, the boots flashing as they twisted and turned to the music.

  “Brian, come out here and show yourself,” Alexandra ordered, pointing. Brian leaned the pitchfork against the wall, and listened to the sound of his heart pounding against his eardrums. “Show yourself,” Chris had said, “is one of the common commands in the Marketplace. It means, generally, to divest yourself of any clothing or covering, and then perform three moves...”

  Brian dropped the coverall to his ankles (very easy to do, it was as loose as a blanket), and stepped out of the stall, hoping that the cock cage didn’t count as “covering.” He walked carefully into the middle of the aisle and lifted his arms and locked them behind his neck, pulling his body up straight and spreading his legs in a wide stance. He waited several seconds while a droplet of sweat rolled down from his forehead to the side of his nose, and blinked it away from his eyelid. Flies buzzed around him.

  The man nodded. Next to him, a woman with piercing eyes and a pert, fashionable haircut, sniffed. “You’ve had better,” she said to Alexandra.

  “Much better,” Alexandra agreed. “Turn.”

  Brian executed the turn with a smooth movement that satisfied him, and resumed the same position. And when Alexandra said, “Over,” he bent forward and braced his hands on his knees. Finally, after an interminably long silence, she said, “Down!” and he turned back to face them and dropped to his widespread knees, placing his hands behind his back, bowing his head, and keeping his back straight.

  “He does the moves very well,” the man commented. “What is he?”

  “Common male slave. No specialty, which is good. Jack says he’s slightly more than adequate in cocksucking, but he’s not as dedicated in anything else. And he’s got a very poor grasp on the concept of controlling his own body. Thus,” Alexandra waved a hand at the belt, “the cage.”

  “Don’t you ever get anyone who’s good at women?” the other woman asked. Brian tried not to look up at her; did she look lesbian? Her clothing had been brightly colored and well suited to her body, he remembered the flowing burgundy of her skirt, and matching stones in the sparkling choker she wore. Was she standing close to the man in the cowboy boots? Were they together? And what was Alexandra doing, outlining all his faults to them? Weren’t they buyers? More sweat dripped down his face, and trickled down his back.

  “In this bunch, anyone else would be more acceptable to you than this one. I’ll take you around to see them, if you want, and after lunch, you can take your pick. But you wanted to see the horses, right? They’re probably out back.”

  “Alexandra, wait a minute. Why don’t you take Nancy to find the others. I’ll try this one out right here, he’s ripe for it.” The man hitched a thumb into his belt. “And we’ll see the horses later. I’d just as soon wait for Gren and go for a ride together anyway.”

  “Your choice,” Alexandra said lightly.

  “OK, I’ll see you in a little while, honey,” the woman—Nancy—said. And she and Alexandra left the stable, heading for the house. Brian found that his posture and the amount of sweat on his body was beginning to make him tingle all over. When he heard the sound of a zipper coming down, he almost cried with relief.

  Ten minutes later, his face and mouth battered to bruising, he cried tears of frustration and pain, bent over in a crouch by the side of a stall. The sounds that came from his assaulted throat were harsh and ugly, and when Jack found him, the stableman just nodded and walked away.

  * * * *

  That was the start of yet another new phase in their training. As the house servants were leaving at the end of the week, Alexandra and Grendel would have regular visits from various friends, of varied tastes and proclivities. These friends would be offered the use of any slave not being punished, and their opinions taken down for possible inclusion in the slaves’ folders.

  “We shouldn’t be bored when the maids leave town,” Brian said sarcastically one night. It would hardly make a difference, in his opinion, except that Rachel would be one less demand on his time. The woman was absolutely insatiable, he often thought. But since she started playing with Claudia, she had apparently taken a special liking for her and came after him less and less. Good riddance.

  But Shaw, although he was quick to anger and would take a swat at you with his huge open hand if you didn’t move fast enough or dig deep enough or pull up enough weeds, didn’t use any of them sexually. Rachel had a part-time woman who took the dry-cleaning and handled special errands and did some heavy cleaning when there wasn’t a handy slave to do it. There was also a mysterious handyman who came in a few times a week to make small repairs and maintain the various machinery on the property, but so far only Sharon had ever seen him, and he only used her once. There was an alternate driver, who got a blowjob from Brian while waiting for Alexandra’s guests to leave one afternoon, but he too was rarely seen. So what was the big deal? It certainly wouldn’t take a lot of people to replace the steady use they got from the servants who were taking vacations. And very early on, it seemed clear that the visitors had very strong preferences for what kind of a slave they wanted to try out. They almost all wanted a piece of Sharon.

  On that first day, Sharon found herself serving the desires of the woman named Nancy not once, but four times before the day was over. The first was just as Nancy’s lover, Lawrence, was busy abusing Brian in the stable. Nancy took one look at Sharon’s body and immediately pointed at her and nodded. Alexandra commanded Sharon through the same set of moves that Brian did, and Sharon performed them perfectly, and ended up on her knees, her face buried under Nancy’s flowing skirt until Nancy sighed and purred with pleasure.

  Sharon also found herself in similar positions at lunchtime, and after the four people took an afternoon ride, and again after Alexandra and Nancy had enjoyed a dip in the big jacuzzi.

  By the end of the day, Sharon looked like she had been the biggest grosser at the county fair kissing booth. And she felt like she had run her mouth over about thirty acres of carpeting. She had never met a woman with sexual appetites that matched her own. She fell asleep soundly and instantly that night and woke up with her hand in her crotch. It took all of her willpower not to continue what the dream had started.

  * * * *

  I can’t believe this, Sharon thought, getting up one more time to stretch. How can people remember all this shit? I mean, English is English, and no one’s ever had any problem understanding me!

  “It’s just not proper to use the word ‘totally’ to indicate that something is exaggerated,” Robert explained. “Totally great means the same thing as great.”

  “No it doesn’t,” Sharon shot back, exasperated.”Total
ly great is better than just great. Like these lessons are totally stupid, OK?”

  “And don’t end your sentences or declarations with OK?, OK?” Robert moaned and rubbed his temple. “Oh God, now I’m doing it.”

  “Jeeze, I don’t know what the fuss is about,” Sharon said. “It’s only words. No one is going to care how I talk.”

  “How you speak. And they will care if they want a pleasure slave they can take to Europe,” Robert replied. “Don’t you want to be able to go to Paris, or Geneva? Europeans hate Americans with accents and speech patterns like yours. They think that people who speak like that are rubes.”

  “Huh?” Oh shit, here comes another lecture. Sharon twirled a finger through her hair as Robert the Sissy explained what a stupid rube was. Like, who cared? She felt the softness of the hair with satisfaction. Since she had shown those two guys such a good time yesterday, Chris had actually sent her a little bottle of some very nice creme rinse.

  I’m not doing too bad, she thought, nodding her head so that Robert would keep talking. I thought I was in deep shit because the head honchos weren’t fucking me, but they’re letting all their friends at me. And I know what they’re saying, too. That I’m the hottest babe they’ve ever had. Sooner or later, one of them, Alexandra or Grendel and I don‘t care which, is going to have to give in and take a roll with me, and that will end all this bullshit once and for all.

  “So you do want to change the way you speak, so it will improve your value,” Robert finished. “You also want to do it because you’ve been ordered to, and we’ll both be punished if you don’t!”

  “No, we won’t,” Sharon’s napped, her eyes narrowing. “I’ll be punished. You’ll get some more sweet talk from your pal Chris. C’mon, sissy, what’s the deal there? You giving him blowjobs on the side or something?”

  Robert blushed. He was trying his best to control that reaction, but Sharon seemed to be very capable of bringing it out in him.

  “I mean,” she continued, “you can’t keep it up even when I suck you off, so you must be queer. Worse than pretty-boy Brian, even. He can give me a good workout, if they ever let him. But you? Like, you’re all steak and no sizzle!”

  He winced. “Actually,” he said, his voice beginning to waver, “the phrase is ‘all sizzle and no—’”

  “I don’t give a fuck!” Sharon reached over and pushed all of Robert’s books and folders and papers to the floor. “I don’t care what anything means! I don’t care how you say anything! This is all stupid! Totally fucking stupid!”

  “Sharon!” Robert hurriedly put a finger to his lips, and then dived for the floor to pick up the books. “Shh!” He gathered up one binder and moaned when he saw that it had opened, and papers were strewn all over the floor. “Don’t shout, you’ll—”

  “Well, I don’t care.” Sharon looked toward the closed library door, and lowered her voice. Her tone shifted from angry to petulant, but she didn’t yell. She watched Robert picking up the things she had dumped to the floor, and it didn’t occur to her to help him.

  Stupid asshole, she thought. It’s his own damn fault. Who does he think he is, trying to pretend he’s my teacher or something? Everyone’s got some reason to think they’re better than me. Even Good-Girl Claudia. Ever since she and that hyper-bitch Rachel have been running off together, she thinks she’s Miss High and Mighty! Just look at her, walking around with a clipboard, taking notes, and even talking about how to make up our schedules! I mean, the servants are only going away on vacation, it’s not like she’s going to have a real job or something. And besides, Rachel’s not that hot, and she’s only a freaking maid. With biker tattoos! So I don’t know why little Claudia thinks she’s the way to a better life around here.

  And I can’t stand the way she flaunts it when Alexandra takes her after dinner. I mean, it’s not like she was spending the night or anything! And besides, Alexandra and Claudia’s mistress are old buddies. Alexandra is probably just being nice.

  Throwing herself back down on the couch, she examined her nails and sighed. Chris had hinted that manicures might start after she had reached the final stage of training, whatever that was. No one told them anything around here, even with the magic three questions and shit. Huh. That was cute. They give you three questions, but they don’t guarantee a good answer. And if you ask the question wrong, bang, you’re outta there! What a racket.

  She glanced at Robert, busily putting his papers back in order. I don’t get you, sissy, she thought. You’ve got a dick that could choke a horse or something, but you can’t keep it going. You’re pretty educated and everything, but you open your mouth and stupid stuff comes out. And now, you’re just dipped in gold around here. And we get your punishments. Hey, maybe I’ll ask about that next week. How would I say it? How come we get punished whenever Robert screws up? That’s clear, isn’t it?

  “D-do you want to continue?” Robert asked, smoothing out a crinkle on a page. “We were going on to how to keep yourself from using unnecessary words.”

  “I’m tired,” Sharon said with a yawn to demonstrate. “Let’s quit for the night, OK?”

  “We can’t.” Robert looked up at the clock. “We have another hour to go.”

  Sharon scowled. “I hate this shit!”

  Robert sighed and agreed with all his heart.

  * * * *

  Robert was genuinely confused at the change in the way he was treated. Chris seemed to be much more like the cold but kindly man that Robert met the first day he was here, and almost no one beat him any more. Instead, they made him watch while they beat everyone else, which in a way was much worse. And the harder he cried for them, or the louder he wailed, the harder they were beaten.

  Oh, he got his share of beatings at the evening line-up, for small infractions and such, but his body didn’t bear the constant bands of pink and the series of light bruising that everyone else lived with every day. And the more he got out, to drive the cars or to mow the lawn with the small tractor, or even to carry the grocery boxes in from the delivery van, the more he was aware of the amount of time he spent clothed. If you didn‘t count the coverall that Jack gave his stable workers, no one else ever got clothing. Of course, Robert was very careful to strip as soon as possible after doing whatever needed to be done while covered.

  What are they doing with me? he often wondered. When Alexandra or Grendel brought their friends around to look at the four slaves, they spent less time with him than any of the others. And the guests almost never chose him to play with or use. Only once had someone decided to try him out, and he got a very light spanking from a woman who looked like she was doing it for the first time. Compared to Sharon, he was a virgin. Clearly, no one wanted him, which was just as well. Because his sessions with Mistress Alexandra weren’t exactly going the way she wanted them to.

  Oh, I’m getting very good at massage, he reminded himself. A wiry man with iron gray hair and a densely muscled body had started to come by every other day to teach him how to do a professional massage. He had learned quite a bit, actually, about anatomy and different styles of massage like shiatsu and reflexology. He was even studying acupuncture, to know that particular map of the body. And according to Alexandra, who fairly purred and sang when he practiced on her, he was adding something priceless to his folder, a skill that many people wanted in a house slave.

  Unfortunately, that’s about the only thing I do well, he thought. Every time she touches me, I get all hard and then I go limp again, and she doesn’t like that, not one bit. She wants me to be able to get hard and stay hard, but I don’t know how to manage that! And every time she mentions Grendel, I just get scared, and I can’t perform well. And that’s not fair, because he might be a very nice man. But I am scared, of him and of other men. I just can’t help it.

  Poor Brian. Other men use him all the time now, and he’s got his nast—I mean, his cock in that little steel cage. It’s almost as bad as the one I used to have to wear. And he goes to see Grendel and always comes
back early. Well, I’m not the only one who’s scared of Grendel. So is Claudia, although she doesn’t say why. I think it’s because she’s gay, and maybe she doesn’t like men at all.

  I’m worried about what’s going to happen when the servants go away. It’s clear that Claudia will replace Rachel (who, thank God, has never shown the slightest interest in me!), and I think that I’ll be driving and doing some of the kitchen work. But that leaves a lot of cleaning and washing and folding and, oh, all sorts of stuff. It’s going to be hard to do all those things and our other chores and try to be good slaves at the same time.

  Oh, he remembered. And I have to start my recitals tomorrow. He felt a familiar sensation in the pit of his stomach. I know I’m going to mess up, he thought miserably. How am I supposed to deliver it? In front of whom? Will the other slaves be there? Oh, they’ll all laugh, and I won’t be able to keep my cool, and I’ll cry, and then something terrible will happen.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he said out loud, shaking Sharon from her own thoughts. “Why don’t you go to bed? I have some studying to do anyway.”

  * * * *

  Claudia sponged some more of the floral scented bubbles over Alex’s back, and then rinsed them away. Her movements were becoming more assured every day, and not a drop of water spilled over the side of the high tub. Alex hit the drain and stood, allowing Claudia to rinse her body off with the flexible shower head Claudia put it back in the ring with ease and hurried to fetch a large, fluffy, warmed towel, which she wrapped around Alex’s body.

  Serving in the bath was a little like serving tea, she thought, suppressing a smile. You have to be well balanced, know what ingredients have to be offered first, know how to pour, and pick things up and put them down again. But afterwards, you have a pretty naked woman instead of a table of dirty dishes and cups. She widened her eyes at her disrespectful thought, and tried to concentrate on drying Alex’s body. But a little smile played across her lips all the same.