Westbound Pt. 01

"That was the hardest part for me," added Janet, "Walking in as a businesswoman and a valued customer but walking out a, an, an object."

"Because I was last in line, I got the most people grabbing my breasts and slapping my butt," said Rhonda, a brown-haired woman with truly heroic boobs and a large posterior — I remember thinking there were other, more obvious reasons you got the most grabbing, Rhonda — and she grimaced at the memory. "Then the slaver had us stand out on the sidewalk in front of the bank — in public! — completely naked and shackled, while he straps gags in our mouths and "waits" for his van to show up. Meanwhile, everyone is yelling and touching us and getting their phones out, and he's handing out business cards with the name of the auction house on it, complete with our lot number! It was the most humiliating thing that's ever happened to me in my entire life."

"Wait," I said, "Didn't you say there were four of you?"

"Dee went to auction with us, but she was the only one who was sold," Tracy replied. "Mister Edwards, our loan officer, bought her for himself. I sometimes wonder if that was his plan all along."

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I already knew some of red-haired Mary's story from seeing her file. She spoke quietly with a thick Oklahoma trailer-park accent, had a cute upturned nose, and sat with her arms wrapped around her knees.

"I knew he was gonna rob the place, we needed the money for," — she exhaled — "you know, our stuff. But I swear I didn't know there was a guard. I just drove the car. Anyway, the judge said I could choose to be a slave and the money from my sale would be the victim's restitution, which sounded a damn sight better than being a felon out in the oil fields or somethin'. I spent some time in a lockdown detox clinic, and some in a slave boot camp, and then I wound up here."

She was silent for a moment. "Honestly, I kinda hate it right this minute. But since I'm not strung out all the time I can see how it might be okay. I mean, whatever I wind up doing, I won't have to worry about food or a place to stay or gettin' laid off," — she suddenly let out a harsh laugh — "or gettin' laid neither, I reckon. Boot camp was the first thing I done well in, like, I don't know how long. Maybe my whole life."

"Really?" I said. "What was that like?"

"At first I was real mad, and I didn't want to do nothin' they told me. I expected them to beat hell out of me, but they didn't, they got me into detox and I talked to a doctor and got some medication and boom, I started feeling better — I didn't hate myself all the time. And once I felt better I could do the things they asked me, and to tell th' truth, it was kinda fun... and hot."

"Hot?" I asked.

"Yeah, hot. Don't get me wrong, I ain't got nothin' 'gainst lezzies, I just ain't one. But spending day after day with naked women, talkin' about sex and learnin' about sex and practicing sex and how to act sexy, talk sexy, walk sexy, after a while it's kind of a turn-on. And I found out I'm really good at givin' head, like I can suck the chrome off a trailer hitch, and I actually kinda like doing it. The trainers were real pleased with me, I even got a diamond for best in class," and she showed me the small brand on her left butt cheek.

"That's it, kiddo," silver-hair said from the far end of the cages. "Keep up that attitude, show off that diamond, make them want you some kinda bad, and you'll do well at auction."

"Think so?" Mary asked. "My first time up I didn't even make reserve."

Silver-hair shook her head. "Big houses like HCI are a crapshoot, especially if you don't look like a Prime. But smaller ones like we're probably headed for? More intimate, more chance for buyers to get to know the goods. Believe me, for every guy who likes 'em scared and shaking, there are a hundred guys who prefer 'em willing and enthusiastic. Show them you can't wait to prove how good you are, and there'll be a bidding war for you, I guarantee it. And the higher the bids, the more likely you'll avoid a brothel and wind up in a decent man's bed."

Mary chuckled to herself, and I saw her hide a smile. "Thanks, Ma," she said.

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The last two were the very young blonde girls, Brooke and Kenzie. They had been listening to everyone else with wide eyes and held each other's hands through the bars.

"We were on school break in South Padre Island," started Kenzie, the bustier of the two. "And we got arrested."

"What were you arrested for?" Silver-hair asked from the far end of the opposite cage row. "MIP? Public Intoxication?"

"Narcotics," replied Brooke, the one with the heartbreakingly angelic face. "A boy on the beach had given us some X to hold so we could party together later. That night the cops busted in to our hotel room and found it. They threatened to call our parents and throw us in jail and give us criminal records, but if we signed an acknowledgment of surrender we could leave with a fine."

Silver-hair sighed. "An acknowledgement is effectively the same as a confession. What happened next?"

"Yeah, the cops totally lied to us, because they brought us to the jail and in front of a judge," Kenzie said. "The judge offered us a choice: being prison slaves or being indentured servants for a short period of time. So we took the indentures."

"Who's monitoring your indenture?" Silver-hair asked.

Brooke and Kenzie glanced at each other. "What does that mean?"

"Did you have a lawyer present?"

"Nnnno?" Kenzie said.

"It all happened so fast," Brooke said. "We were still in our bathing suits from the beach when they arrested us, and we're standing in front of somebody's grandpa who looks really disappointed, and we were tired and buzzed from partying all day, and we just wanted to go home."

"Did the judge do anything else?" Silver-hair asked, sounding a bit exasperated.

Kenzie looked at Brooke, and mouthed the words Tell her. Brooks swallowed hard, then replied: "Well, the judge wanted to make sure we weren't hiding anything else, so he had his bailiffs take off our bikinis and do searches, then we had to squat and cough with our hands behind our heads, and then turn around and bend over and spread our butt cheeks to the judge to show we weren't lying."

"We haven't worn clothes ever since," mumbled Kenzie.

"How long are your indentures?" I asked.

"Eighteen months," Brooke said.

"With time off for good behavior," Kenzie said.

"Oh my God," Silver-hair said; now she sounded amused. "Out of curiosity, where were you two graded?"

"In South Padre, at Señor Pancho's Slave Emporium," Kenzie said. "We each got Select, which I think is BS."

Silver-hair laughed. "Jeezus, they aren't even trying to hide it."

"I don't understand," I said. "What do you think these two are trying to hide?"

"Not those two," Silver-hair replied to me, then turned her attention back to the girls. "Let me guess, you were staying on the north end of the island, the Willacy County part?"

"Maybe?" Brooke said. "We're not from there, we're from Massachusetts."

"Both Willacy and Cameron counties are crooked as corkscrews, but Cameron is much more sophisticated about it. Willacy cops behave like the ones in those little speed trap towns in West Texas." Silver-hair explained. "One last question for you two: the boy who gave you the drugs. Was he maybe a little older than the others? In good shape with a really short haircut, and maybe talked like he learned the words on TV? Drove a super expensive car with out-of-state plates?"

Brooke and Kenzie looked at each other, then looked away.

"So what happened to our Wonder Twins here, Miss Reporter, was pretty much the oldest trick in the book," Silver-hair said. "Their drug connection was an undercover cop, probably part of some state anti-drug task force so he wasn't local, driving a car seized in another case. He spies two hot but not-too-sharp young women from out of town, and plants drugs on them. His buddies arrest them and bully them into signing a piece of paper. The judge knows perfectly well that it's all BS, as the kids said, but he gets a cut of their sale price along with the arresting officers, with a little strip show as a bonus. Meanwhile these two are deliberately under-graded by a shady auction house, meaning they can be shipped to another market, re-graded as Primes, and sold for a lot more money while also making them more difficult to trace."

She shook her head ruefully. "I can't believe they still do that stuff — if the Rangers find out they'll come down on those idiots like a ton of bricks," she said, giving me a significant look, which I responded to with a slight nod; the Rangers would indeed find out about this, CNS would make sure of that, "— but I guess they still do it because, more often than not, it still works."

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We felt the truck slow and begin to rumble in its lowest gear before coming to a halt. A few minutes later Nicolaides opened the rear door, the lights changed to bright white, and he said: "Ladies, this is a rest stop."

Nicolaides opened the cages one at a time, latched a leash to the woman's collar, and led them out of the back. I followed after the first two; Chuy stood on a concrete sidewalk, holding a length of chain and Nicolaides was connecting each woman to the chain by her collar — a coffle, it's called.

We were at a highway rest stop, over on the side portion where the trucks park, and when all eight women were coffled Chuy led them to a large grassy area surrounded by a chain-link fence. It was like an open-top cage the size of a horse corral. Nicolaides stood by the gate, closing it after the women were inside and Chuy had come out.

"What's going on?" I asked Nicolaides.

"Mandatory rest stop. They can stretch their legs, get some fresh air, and take care of any bodily needs for about," — he checked his phone — "Twenty-five minutes before we put them back in and continue on."

"No bathrooms?" I asked. "No water fountains?"

"No water fountains until we get to the meal stop, I don't need them pissing in their cages," he said. "As for bathrooms, they're in one already. See?"

Ruzanna had pulled as far away from the group as her chain allowed, and was squatting on the grass while the rest of the women turned their backs to her. I could just make out the sound of streaming urine.

I looked at Nicolaides, and he must have thought the look on my face was funny because he snorted a laugh. "I know what you're thinking," he said. "It was strange to me the first time I saw it, too. But think about it: putting each one in a private stall is very time and labor intensive, not to mention opening up the possibility of self-harm, slavenapping, escape, and who knows what else. Besides, slaves have no expectation of privacy, much less a right to it."

I heard some loud voices to one side. A small group of male truck drivers were gathered at a picnic table near the fence, laughing to each other and calling out to the women. The women's reactions were interesting: Brooke and Kenzie huddled close to Silver-hair, sneaking worried looks at the men; the three older ladies talked quietly among themselves, looking at their surroundings more than anything; Silver-hair ignored the men completely, lying in the grass and basking in the morning sun; Ruzanna ostentatiously stretched her finely-muscled athletic body in yoga-like ways that were both practical and at the same time highly suggestive, much to the approval of the men based on their hoots; and Mary was dividing her attention between watching Ruzanna and openly flirting with the truckers — one of the men kept shouting "HEY RED" until she turned and swung her legs open in his direction; the men cheered and slapped him on the back.

Chuy returned from the vending area with three containers of coffee.

"Chuy," I said, "You are now officially the hero of this story." Chuy grinned and both men chuckled.

We sipped our coffee quietly and watched until Nicolaides' phone alarm went off, then we gulped down the remainder. I offered to dispose of the empties while they returned the women to the truck, and they both thanked me cheerfully.

I stopped by the trash can next to the trucker's picnic table. The little group was beginning to break up now that the show was over. I caught the attention of the young man who shouted at Mary.

"Is this normal?" I asked. "Seeing slaves at the rest stop?"

"I dunno if I'd call it exactly normal," he said, "But I see it from time to time, at least on this route. That's the twice-weekly 6am from Houston, so if I can time my outbound rest stop right I get a show. If I time it right on the way back..." he shrugged and smiled.

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"So tell me about yourself. Who are you, and what brings you here?"

"My name is currently 515904," Silver-hair said. "Before that it was Linda, maybe it will be again. I'm here because my master died, and his estate was liquidated. His children didn't want an old slave."

Over the course of the conversation, she told me she had started off as a pleasure slave to an oil baron in Oklahoma, part of his stable that he used both personally and to entertain at large and infamous parties. Periodically he would "refresh" his collection, meaning he would sell off the older ones to make way for younger ones. Linda was purchased by the baron's personal lawyer as a housekeeper, and she spent years as his maid, personal servant, companion, and sex object.

I couldn't help thinking that the kids were idiots: despite her sags and silver hair, Linda was an attractive woman, hourglass-shaped with large breasts, wide hips, and a round bottom, but no extraneous fat at all, and she had years of professional-level sexual experience. And that didn't even touch on her obviously sharp brain.

I looked at her naked body, wrinkles and all, and wondered how many men she's had sex with. And how.

"How do you feel about being an older slave, back on the market?" I asked, "Uncertainty, worry, fear, anger?"

Linda laughed. "I'm a slave, I don't get to be angry. Not about anything. Uncertainty is my lot in life, being handed from owner to owner. I learned a long time ago to not worry about things outside my control, and so I don't fear, at least not about things that may or may not happen. I take them as they come."

"Excuse me for saying so, but you seem highly intelligent, very knowledgeable," I said. "And you have some leadership ability — even women close to your own age defer to you. Why is that?"

"Think about it, Miss Reporter," she replied. "Slavery hasn't been legal all that long, so I can't have been a slave when I was eighteen. I had a life before I became a slave."

"Please," I said, "Call me Frankie, everybody does. What did you do?"

The short answer is that she was an educated and successful woman who had moved into the world of government and then business. She had an MPA (Master of Public Administration) as well as a BBA (Batchelor of Business Administration), and had worked as a regulator in the oil and gas industry. When slavery was legalized, she started encountering more and more slaves, both professionally and socially. After a painful divorce, she was lured to the private sector and worked for an oil company, becoming friendly with the founder, and started getting invited to his private "parties" where his collection of Prime slave girls entertained the guests.

"Those parties were crazy, the sort only a very rich man with a very creative mind can throw. My sex life with my ex had been pretty bad, so after the first one I attended every one I could. I had my first encounter with a girl there, my first three-way with two guys, and my first real orgy." Linda sighed. "Those were some of the best days of my life. After a while, I realized that I liked to do many of the things the slave girls were doing; I was a corporate executive by day, naked willing sex toy by night. On "Buffet" nights, for example, I would be sure to get there early, disrobe, and join the line of slave girls waiting on their knees for the guests to arrive. I was a Prime+ when I was younger, so I could get away with it."

"You still look Prime to me," I said, then suddenly blushed.

"Thank you, Frankie, you're a dear to say so. Of course the sex was great, but the part that was really lighting my fuse was the uncertainty: what would happen? Would I get picked by my Purchasing manager, a subordinate whom I bossed around during the day and sometimes had to reprimand, but now find myself kneeling in front of him with his cock in my mouth? Would I be handcuffed and led away by his jealous wife, who was wearing a strap-on dildo? Would I find myself in a group of women licking the shriveled assholes and wrinkled sacks of a roomful of very old but very wealthy men? It was all so incredibly hot, I couldn't even begin to count the orgasms I had each time I went."

"Finally Russell — the founder, my boss — approached me about what I was doing, and I asked him formally if I could be part of the entertainment rather than part of the audience, and he agreed. Before long I was on the regular menu of girls, and I started down the slippery slope."

By that she means that she entered into a submissive relationship with her boss, who was amused at having a smart and successful free woman as a personal sex toy, and he moved her ever-so-gradually into becoming a FINO, which is a term I was unaware of: "Free In Name Only," meaning a free woman who chooses to live life as a slave without being formally, legally enslaved. The other men and free women found it amusing too, so she was quite popular, especially among her daytime subordinates.

"If you had told me when I was still married, that men would verbally and sexually humiliate me and that I would grow to love it, I would have had security toss you out on your ear because you were clearly mentally disturbed. But there I was: the frat boy who got his do-nothing job because Russell owed his daddy a favor, a kid I had to ride herd over because he couldn't even do that job competently, was now calling me a slut, spanking my ass, and making me beg for his cock — which I did, and it made me cum, over and over and over."

Before long her boss and dominant lover had her wear a slave collar (first leather, then later metal), spend more time at his house completely nude, call everyone "sir" or "ma'am" at work and "master" or "mistress" at his home, and otherwise maneuver her into adopting the attitudes and mindset of a slave. Eventually he convinced her to sign voluntary enslavement papers, making her his slave. They celebrated with an enormous party-slash-gangbang, with herself as the star attraction.

But the very next week she was laid off from her job, had most of her possessions (apartment, car, etc.) liquidated, and was moved in to a kennel in the basement of her ex-boss' mansion. Shortly afterward he informed her that he was going to sell her, and in fact the auction happened the following weekend at his estate.

"I had seen auctions before, when Russell wanted to rotate some of his slave stock, but he always took them to one of the markets in Dallas or Houston. He had never held one at his house before, and this one reminded me of a wedding: out on the manicured lawn, a big stage with an awning, lots of booze and well-dressed people sitting in folding chairs, but they were there to see me get sold."

"How did you feel?" I interrupted.

"Betrayed! Terrified! I had no idea what had happened or why. Had I upset him? Had I done something wrong? I was so worried about what was going to happen to me, which was my first real experience of what it truly means to be a slave."

"In one respect it was unusual, because everyone who bid at the auction was someone I knew personally, some very well, some were even close friends. Hell, Russell even invited some of my old colleagues from the Railroad Commission whom I hadn't seen in years, and knew nothing about what I was up to or anything! What was usual, though, was the shame and humiliation of walking out on an auction block, slave naked (Ed. note: completely naked except for a collar), in front of all those people, looking at me like a piece of meat, appraising me, wondering how I might be in bed, how tight my pussy is, how good I am at eating pussy, oh so that's what her tits look like when she's not wearing a suit, all kinds of stuff; and then the bidding started."