Bidding was slowing. The auctioneer was offering thousand plaq increments in the hope of encouraging her price up to a hundred thousand.

Flame began watching the bidders with morbid intensity.

A familiar face took the ninety-three thousand bid. It was the owner of the brothel by the docks.

Flame was horrified. Why would a brothel owner want to buy a hundred-thousand plaq slave? If she was a hundred-thousand plaq investment, how many sailors' c.o.c.ks would she have to suck, how many c.o.c.ks would she have to f.u.c.k, to turn a profit? Thousands of c.o.c.ks? More like tens of thousands before the brothel could hope even to recoup its money and break even. Unless she was forced to offer some service that would earn far more profit than sucking and f.u.c.king. Her mind wasn't perverted enough to imagine such an act but her heart froze at the thought that some men could.

"I have ninety-three thousand. Who will offer ninety-four for this most unusual slave? Ninety-four?"

A pudgy hand on a fat arm was raised. "Ninety-four thousand!" It was the fifty-year old with bad hygiene. Compared to what the brothel owner would have her do, getting f.u.c.ked by fat, smelly armpits would be a blessing.

"Oh, h.e.l.l, I'll make it an even hundred thousand."

Flame didn't recognize the face. The man was about forty, thin with dark hair and a neatly-trimmed beard. His clothes were of good quality but not extravagant. If he could afford a hundred-thousand plaq slave, he should be able to afford better clothes.

She feared that he might be a businessman who had a commercial use for her. A use that would justify such a large investment. Maybe something worse than a brothel.

"Will anyone give me a hundred and five? Anybody? A hundred and one thousand, then. Who will bid a hundred and one thousand plaqs for this unique item? Anyone? Going once. Going twice. Sold for one hundred thousand plaqs to the man with the goatee."

The sound of his clapper was drowned by the applause in the hall.

A handler tugged on Flame's leash and she turned around to climb off the block. Her head was spinning. She was sold. An impregnable door had slammed closed.

She was enslaved forever.

What had she done to herself?

Her owner didn't speak to her, just took the end of her leash from the handler and led her from the room in silence.

The other men, the disappointed ones who were leaving empty-handed, stood aside to let the new owners exit first.

In the vestibule, a large man wearing the uniform of a private security guard politely directed each new owner to a side door instead of letting him walk through to the street.

In that room, three cashiers waited to settle accounts. It was a simple process. Every potential buyer had to be registered with the auction firm and his credit freshly verified before each auction. Settling his account involved only confirming that he had in his possession the slave that he had bought and signing a bank draft.

Flame was appalled by the unseemly haste of the process.

She was about to learn a lot more about enslavement.

By tradition, ladies wore their hair up. She had never seen a lady wear her hair down in polite company. Even the lowest ranked commoner wore her hair up.

Only slaves wore their long hair loose, floating down their backs.

Flame thought that style was intended only to make the slaves more appealing to men. Long hair was more sensual. It aroused a man's l.u.s.t.

But, for the first time, she learned that the slaves' long hair had a utilitarian purpose.

To verify the ident.i.ty of each slave, the cashier parted her hair to reveal a twelve-digit number tattooed on the nape of her neck three rows of four digits.

The cashier copied the number to the receipt and then checked it against a ledger. The purchaser's name was copied into the ledger before the slave was released to him.

Flame's heart sank. The implication of the placement of that tattoo was obvious. No slave could ever wear her hair up without publicly exposing her ident.i.ty tattoo.

When free women wore their hair up, everybody could see that they were not slaves. Flame suspected that very few ladies were ever told about slave tattoos. They didn't know why it was traditional for them to pin their hair up off the back of their neck. But she was sure that every man who used a slave would know about it. That was why a husband would never let his wife leave the house before she had fixed her hair properly.

It was the first of many cruel truths that Flame would learn about slavery.

The final step in the transaction was for the cashier to give the new owner the key to his slave's handcuffs.

Some owners uncuffed their new slaves immediately; other owners dropped the key into their pocket and led their slaves from the room with their hands still bound behind their backs.

Flame suspected that it depended on how the new owner wanted to f.u.c.k his slave for the first time. Some wanted their slave to remain restrained in bondage, helpless and submissive; others wanted her to be an active partic.i.p.ant and demonstrate her skill.

Which would her owner choose? It would tell her much about his predilections and expectations.

She didn't know which she would prefer. She had made herself a slave. She felt a certain perverse attraction to being treated like a slave. She had her fill of being treated like a wife. Besides, she was insecure about her love-making skills. She had only ever made love to one man, James, and she knew nothing about what another man might want. Bondage would relieve her of the obligation to demonstrate skills that she did not have.

Conversely, though, she feared that she might have to spend her life in physical chains if that were her owner's preference. The handcuffs were uncomfortable the edges pressed into her wrists and her shoulders were held at an unnatural angle. She had been handcuffed for less than a quarter hour and she regretted every minute that she was unable to cover her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and crotch, scratch an itch, or put a hand out to steady her balance.

When she was brought before the cashier's counter, he addressed her owner. "Mr. Dodge, Flame is a special case because we couldn't process her before the auction. We regret the inconvenience, but it will take some time to comply with the law. The Bureau of Slavery audits us all the time. If you would like to come back for her today, we can have her ready by five o'clock. Or if you would prefer, you can pick her up any time tomorrow afternoon."

Mister was not a t.i.tle. Her new master was not a lord or even a knight. He was not an officer in the military. She had been bought by a tradesperson. A shopkeeper or a factory owner or a farmer, maybe. Someone who was successful enough to afford a hundred-thousand plaq slave but who had no status in society.

She had degraded herself more than she had thought possible. She was the s.e.x toy of a n.o.body. A money-grubber whom she could never respect would now be plowing her at his whim.

She felt sick to the pit of her stomach. But, somewhere lower than that, she felt a throb of antic.i.p.ation. It had been far too long time since any man had plowed her pink furrow, member of society or commoner.

"I'll be back at five," he said.

He couldn't wait until tomorrow to claim his property and plant his seed.

One of the handlers from the auction took the end of her leash and led her though another door into the working bowels of the slavery.

The corridor was lined with the same rough-hewn planks as the other public areas of the auction house, but when she was taken into one of the rooms off the corridor, it was appointed in a modern clinical style: antiseptic stainless steel, white tiles, and white porcelain.

The handler removed the chain from about her neck but left her hands cuffed behind her back. He had her lie face-down on a padded table and then strapped her body and head firmly into place so that she couldn't move.

The handler left her alone.

A few minutes later, a man in a white coat came into the room. He was carrying a clipboard.

He didn't speak to her. She was nothing but a piece of merchandise to him. He would no more converse with her than a shopkeeper would talk to a turnip as he dumped it into a bin.

She had never felt so small and unimportant.

He parted her hair so that the nape of her neck was bare and swabbed it with an antiseptic.

He consulted the clipboard to ensure that each digit was correct as he tattooed it on her neck.

She wept copiously. Not because of the physical pain.

The man didn't care why she was weeping. This was the first stop for a young woman who had been pressed or adjudicated into slavery. He had wiped an ocean of tears from his table, along with a bucket of blood. It was part of the job.

When he was finished, the numbers were precise, neat, and clear. A professional did careful work on a piece of property that was worth a hundred-thousand plaqs. A blunder would cost him his job.

He taped gauze over the tattoo.

He drew two vials of blood and gave her three injections in her b.u.t.tock before he left the room.

He did not release her from the table. That was not his job.

When the handler returned and released the straps, Flame couldn't wipe the tears from her face because her hands remained cuffed behind her back.

The next room was equally antiseptic but contained a chair, a sink, and cosmetic implements.

She was not strapped down this time. The handler left her standing in the middle of the room.

She didn't bother trying the door. She had heard the lock click shut.

The woman who entered a few minutes later was in her fifties. She wore a white jacket over a nice skirt and blouse but her long, graying hair was loose down her back. She was a slave, too.

"What's this?" she asked in a mother-hen voice. "Tears all over your face. Eyes like dirty red pits. Your owner doesn't want to see you like this. Not until he's given you cause to cry. And he will. They all do."

That was another cruel secret of the slave's life. This one, not a surprise.

She unlocked the cuffs from Flame's wrists. "We'll have to put those back on later, but there's no need for them now."

Flame's shoulders were sore from being held back for so long. She ma.s.saged them for a minute.

"Okay," the woman said. "Let's get into that chair. We've got a lot of work to do."

She pushed a b.u.t.ton and the chair tilted backwards, then she wiped Flame's face with a cold wet cloth. "Keep your eyes open wide. We've got to get that red out." She let a few drops fall from a dropper into each of Flame's eyes. "That will wear off in a few hours, but, by that time, I'm sure that you'll have a good excuse to have red eyes."

She put her hands on Flame's knees and spread them wide apart.

"Now, let's do something about that ugly bush. If ladies took as much care of their nether hair as they do with the hair on their heads, their husbands would be a lot more interested in them."

Another slave secret? No. An obvious truism. Gentlemen loved slaves. If ladies acted like slaves, their husbands would love them more. And treat them like slaves. Wasn't that exactly what Irene had tried to do today? Act like the ultimate slave? And James had treated her like a slave. He didn't want her so he had abandoned her. A man owed a slave no consideration whatsoever. Especially if he had not had to pay dearly for her. Which is why wise ladies never acted like slaves.

Foolish Irene was becoming wise Flame too late.

The woman shaved Flame's pubic patch, armpits, legs, and arms. Then she rubbed a cream over every place that she had shaved. "That removes the stubble. Use that every few days and you'll never have to shave again. The kennel service will keep it stocked for you. If your owner wants to pay for permanent hair removal, it'll save you a lot of effort. You can suggest that to him. If you think he might be open to a suggestion from a slave. That can be a tricky call."

Flame spoke for the first time since she had told the handlers to tear her clothes off. Her first words as a slave. "Kennel service?"

The woman laughed. "You don't think that rich men clean their kennels themselves, do you? They hire a service to clean their kennels, keep them stocked, and tend to the slaves."

Flame blushed. James must hire a service to maintain his kennels. She had no idea. She'd never thought about the mechanics of keeping slaves and ladies never went anywhere near the kennels.

The woman looked at her. "The service cleans the kennels, stocks the supplies that you need, and may prepare some meals if your owner doesn't feel like hand-feeding you and if he hasn't put you on a starvation diet. They also dress wounds and monitor your general health. It's up to you to prepare yourself for your owner. The service doesn't do hair and makeup. You better learn quick what your owner likes and give it to him. One more thing. Be good to the kennel service and they'll be good to you. They won't abuse you without your owner's permission but slaves have been known to give occasional b.l.o.w.j.o.bs to keep the service happy. You don't have to, but it's worth considering. Just make sure that your owner never finds out that you're servicing the service. The kennelman won't talk but other slaves might not be so discrete."

Flame had never before sucked a man's c.o.c.k. She wondered how many different c.o.c.ks she was going to have to suck now. A lot, she guessed. She was going to learn to do it very well, indeed.

She couldn't complain about that. She had volunteered for the job.

"Do you have any questions?"

She did. "In the other room, I was injected with something. Do you know what it was?"

"One of the shots was a contraceptive. Unless told otherwise, we presume that your owner doesn't want you pregnant. You'll get one shot every month from your kennelman. Unless your owner decides to have your ovaries removed."

Flame felt queasy. She hadn't considered that her owner could sterilize her any time he felt like it. Or modify her in any way he chose. She had noticed that none of the slaves who were sold today were flat chested. In fact, all were well endowed. She wondered how many had been surgically improved by their owners. Her natural b.r.e.a.s.t.s were already a good size, but maybe her new owner liked t.i.ts the size of watermelons. If so, he would have implants installed.

She could only pray that she would never be owned by a man with a fetish for amputees. Or someone who liked his slaves mute.

The woman didn't notice Flame's sudden disquiet. Or didn't care. She just kept talking. "Some owners prefer a sterile slave, others want to keep the possibility of breeding open. The other shots were vaccinations. We have them for most s.e.xually-transmitted diseases. All the common ones. It'll take a couple of weeks for you to build an immunity but most gentlemen are clean so you'll probably be okay until then. Your owner might not pa.s.s you around if he wants to enjoy you exclusively for a while first. On the other hand, he might start throwing a lot of parties to show you off right away. You never can tell. "

Flame hung her head at the thought of being pa.s.sed around. She had imagined James buying her and keeping her to himself.

Irene had been so foolish. But Flame was going to handle whatever came. This was her new life.

"Get yourself made up," the woman said. "I'll be back in a while to inspect you." Her voice lost its mother-hen tone. "Do a good job or you'll regret it. If you don't pa.s.s inspection, I know how to discipline a slave so that it doesn't leave a mark but makes her suffer for days."

As soon as the woman left, Flame set to work with all the skill that she had developed during her life as a lady.

When the woman returned, she examined Flame's face critically. "You'll do for now. That's lady makeup but you're a fallen lady so it's appropriate today. Your owner will wipe that off your face with his c.o.c.k. Next time, though, take a close look at other slaves. Slave makeup is bolder. More sensual. Red lips. Dark eyes. Don't keep trying to look like a lady or your owner will lose interest and go back to his wife. Slaves suffer enough when they're revered. A slave who's not wanted any more suffers h.e.l.l on earth until she's sold."

She picked up the handcuffs. "Now get out of that chair and turn around."

When Flame's wrists were cuffed again, the woman parted her hair and ripped the gauze from the back of her neck. "Bleeding's stopped and you've been registered. You're good to go."

Flame's heart thudded beneath her breast. Good to go meant good to be taken.

The woman opened the door and the handler stepped into the room. He was carrying the chain to clip about her neck and lead her back to her owner.

It was already five o'clock.

Gentlemen left the auction house by the main entrance if they were empty-handed but, if they had purchased a slave, they left by the side entrance.

By tradition, the slave was taken from the building nude.

A portico allowed loading out of the weather but provided no privacy. Any time a car entered the portico, men on the street were sure to stop and wait to see the newly-purchased slave be led from the building into the vehicle.

Gawkers were allowed only a brief glimpse from a distance but it was always t.i.tillating for a man who would never be able to afford his own slave to see a beautiful nude young specimen being led to her impending violation by her new owner.