"Myself."

"You are going to be lost to your husband."

"If he wants me, he can buy me."

A man near the front shouted, "Only if he outbids me!"

Another man shouted, "And me!"

The auctioneer glanced at the men and licked his lips. The commission on this sale would be substantial. "You're a fine lady. You don't look like a slave."

"I will when I'm naked and chained on the block." She turned to one of the handlers. "Bring a chain and handcuffs."

The handler looked at the auctioneer.

The auctioneer shrugged and nodded. The handler climbed off the stage.

"You are walking through a one-way door. There's no going back. Once you're sold, you'll be a slave for the rest of your life." The auctioneer shook his head. "You'll never be a lady again."

"I know."

"A slave's life is as hard as a lady's is soft. You're making a bad bargain." As much as he wanted the commission, he didn't dare risk the accusation that he had rushed to sell an unwilling woman. He had to give her every opportunity to change her mind. Until she was sold and her choices no longer mattered.

"I know better than you what bargain I'm making. A lady's life is no life at all. That is a fact."

The handler returned with a chain and cuffs.

Irene's heart was pounding with fear, but she wasn't going to back down. She looked out into the audience and saw James standing with his latest purchase standing naked at his side.

He was staring at her with an intensity that she had never seen before. His face was red and his jaw set.

She had her husband's full attention at last.

"This is your last chance," the auctioneer said. "I'm warning you for your own good. Don't do this."

"Sell me!"

"Take your clothes off, then. I don't sell pigs in pokes. The men have to see what they're buying."

Both handlers were standing behind her. She turned to them and said, "Strip me."

One of the handlers stepped up and unfastened her top b.u.t.ton.

"No," she said. "Just tear it off. I'll never wear these clothes again. I'll never wear any lady's clothes again."

The handler grabbed her bodice at the neck and pulled. b.u.t.tons flew; fabric tore.

The top half of her dress gaped apart. Irene's full b.r.e.a.s.t.s and erect nipples tented the thin silk camisole underneath.

The other handler ripped the cuff apart at her left wrist and then tore the sleeve open all the way up her arm and across her shoulder.

The left half of her bodice fell away.

While the first handler gave the same treatment to her right sleeve and shoulder, the second stepped behind and split the entire back of the dress from neck to ankle.

In a moment, the fine blue satin dress with white trim was nothing but a pile of rags at Irene's feet. Only a filmy camisole protected her modesty. It didn't do much of a job.

Each handler grabbed one side of the camisole at the neckline, front and back, and pulled. It split like tissue. A cold breeze drifted across her delicate white skin.

Irene's b.r.e.a.s.t.s were hanging free for a hundred men to ogle.

All those eyes horrified her. She crossed her arms over her chest, covering them.

The handlers didn't care about that. They grabbed her panties at the waist and pulled them apart, revealing her thatch of brown curls.

This might be the first time in centuries that an unshaved crotch had been revealed on this stage.

She pressed her legs together and dropped her right hand to cover her s.e.x.

Talking bravely about being naked on stage was an entirely different matter from standing here, suffering the stares of a hundred strangers, every one of them imagining themselves slaking their l.u.s.t with her body.

She whimpered as the handlers grabbed her stockings and pulled them down her legs.

She didn't resist when the handlers raised one leg to pull her shoe and stocking off; and then did the same with the other. She would have felt foolish standing naked but for stockings pooled around her shoes. There was more dignity in complete nudity.

As soon as she was naked, the auctioneer raised his hand and the handlers released her.

"Let your hair down," he said to her.

She turned her back to the audience, reached up, and pulled the pins from her hair. She each pin fall on the stage. Slaves did not wear their hair up. She would never need hairpins again.

The hall was so quiet that she could hear each pin drop.

When the last was pulled, her long, brown hair fell in a cascade down her back.

The handlers grabbed her wrists, forced her hands behind her back and cuffed them together. She could no longer cover herself when they turned her to face the audience again.

Her shoulders were forced back, thrusting her b.r.e.a.s.t.s boldly forward, and her s.e.x was presented to the men at their eye level. She had never before been so indecently exposed, not even in her husband's bedroom.

She had never before felt so vulnerable.

She didn't just feel vulnerable; in all truth, she was. Before the day was over, one of the men in this room would own her. Would be doing whatever he wished to her. Would be using her s.e.x. Would be beating her. Would be giving her to other men. Whatever. And there would be nothing in the world that she could do to change her fate now.

A handler clipped a chain about her neck. It was cold and heavy.

Before he led her across the stage, the auctioneer said, "Wait. What is your name?"

"Irene."

"No. That's a lady's name. You need a slave name."

She shrugged. "I don't have one."

"Then your slave name will be Flame."

"Flame?"

"Unless your owner gives you another. You might be named Pig or b.i.t.c.h something even worse before you leave this room. I've lost track of the number of owners who call their slaves c.u.n.t. It's such a boring cliche."

She hoped that her owner would have more cla.s.s than that. Unless James bought her. She would like James to call her his c.u.n.t.

"What's your age?"

"Twenty-eight."

"Healthy?"

She nodded uncertainly.

"I mean, have you have any s.e.xual diseases yet?"

"No."

"You're sure? I don't have time for a physical examination."

"I'm sure. I barely have s.e.x. I haven't had enough opportunities to catch a disease."

He nodded to the handlers. "Display her."

They jerked the chain about her neck and she had to step toward them to avoid falling on her face. They began parading her across the stage.

"Gentlemen," the auctioneer said, "I offer Flame. Twenty-eight years old and healthy. Until now, a lady of fine breeding and upbringing. She has voluntarily offered herself into slavery. In all my years, I have never seen such a thing. I can only a.s.sume that she has a perverted need for base and cruel treatment. Her new owner can expect to have a lot of fun with her."

At the far corner of the stage, the handlers turned Flame around slowly so that the men could appreciate her pale, unmarked body from all angles.

She wondered if her hips bulged. Did her b.u.t.tocks sag? Were her b.r.e.a.s.t.s firm enough in profile? Would she sell for a few thousand plaqs or go for a record price?

How much would it cost James to buy her back?

Maybe n.o.body would want her at all. Maybe she had too little experience in pleasing men for her advanced age. Maybe she would be returned to James, unsold.

"Do I hear an offer of ten-thousand plaquettes sterling for this most unusual slave?"

A dozen hands sprang into the air.

Flame would be sold today. Irene would never again draw a free breath.

She looked at James.

He was no longer her husband. Slaves could not be married. Irene had given him the simplest divorce possible.

Now, if he wanted her, he could buy her. And use her in ways that he would never use the lady that he'd married.

His hand was not one of those raised, but she had seen that his habit was to wait until the dilettantes had dropped out of the compet.i.tion and only serious bidders remained.

She could only hope that he still loved her. He had always told her that he did.

Bidding was brisk. It had already surpa.s.sed forty-thousand plaqs by the time the handlers had forced her up onto the block.

She was worth a substantial amount. She was worth more as a slave than she had been worth as a lady.

"Spread your legs," a handler said quietly. "Show the men what's hiding underneath that mess of moss. They deserve to see what they're buying."

Flame obeyed. That's what slaves did. They obeyed men.

Her skin burned red under the stare of a hundred pairs of hungry eyes focused on the slit now visible between her legs.

It had been years since she had felt so alive.

She watched James. Focused only on him. He stared back impa.s.sively. The bid was up to fifty-five thousand and he hadn't moved yet.

Lord Snow was trying to buy her, though. Matching three other men, bid for bid.

At eight-five thousand, James broke eye contact with her and looked over at Lord Snow.

Flame couldn't hear what he said but Snow lowered his hand and didn't bid again.

She hoped that he was asking his friend to drop out of the compet.i.tion before he began bidding.

But James didn't bid. He turned his face to Feather, the beautiful, naked slave standing next to him, put his hand behind her neck, and pulled her into a long, deep kiss.

His meaning was clear. With this gesture, he was telling Irene that he wanted only his new slave. He didn't want his old wife, not even as a slave in his kennel.

He broke his clinch and led Feather through the crowd and out of the building.

She was abandoned by the man who, for the last five years, had claimed to love her. The man who had brought her from Calam Shire to his manor by the Western Sea.

Tears flooded her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

Lord Snow followed his friend out the door.

She was to be sold to a stranger and neither James nor Snow cared enough to wait and see who bought her.

She was lost.

She feared that she was going to collapse on the block. But she didn't. A lady could swoon but a slave had to be strong. Slaves endured. She was no longer a lady, she was a slave, so she would endure.

"Ninety-three thousand."