Marketplace (30 page)

Except that there’s no
happiness for me without my place at my Mistress’ feet. And I will
fight as hard as anyone to get back there and make her proud of me.
Because I love her, more than life itself. So I’m here to learn how
to get back home.

Chapter Fifteen

The worst thing about being
a slave, Brian reflected, as he tossed more dirty straw into the
wheelbarrow, is not the pain of the punishments, the degradation of
the usage, or the sheer hard labor that they can demand of you.
It’s not being sexually deprived, or sexually used, and it’s not
even being tortured for the sheer pleasure of it. It’s the enforced
ignorance.

He leaned on the pitchfork,
admiring the phrase. Yes, that’s it, enforced ignorance. No one
knows why things are happening, at all.

Take for example, Sharon.
The body of a model, the face of an angel, and the brains of a
fruit fly. Do they fuck her brains out and make her prance around
in lacy nothings? No, they make her memorize pages of rules and
recite them, and then stick her in private tutoring sessions with a
sissy salesman. Learning grammar, for crying out loud!

And Claudia. She arrives
already perfect. So what do they do? They give her things to do
that she doesn’t have the slightest knowledge about, like some kind
of accounting or record-keeping or something like that, and treat
her like she was the world’s biggest clumsy idiot. Cute as a button
and eager to serve, and she spends a lot of time crying her little
eyes out.

And then there’s Robert.
Bad slave material to begin with, right? But Chris practically
dotes on him, giving him private advice, encouragement, and light
duties so he has more time to study. And what is the salesman
studying? Speeches and poems. Very strange.

Of course, Brian mused,
scanning the stall for left over bits, there’s little old me. Prime
slave material, good-looking, neat and fit, knows how to speak to a
master, knows how to suck a golf ball through a garden hose, and
can lick a mean boot. And what do we do with this lad? We put him
out with the dumb horses, picking up their horse balls and cleaning
up their messes and getting screwed by the one man on the estate
who did seem to like to fuck.

Which wouldn’t be too bad,
if they hadn’t made sure that no “accidents” happened like the one
that happened the first time he came out here. He looked glumly
down the front of the loose coverall, to a glint of steel between
his legs. A little metal cage was closed around his soft cock,
bending it and pressing it against his balls. The whole thing was
attached to a belt that went around him like a jock strap. The
contraption didn’t have a lock, and it was dutifully taken off when
he had to take a piss, and the leather and steel was dutifully
cleaned by him every night.

They hadn’t given him this
new adornment until the second time he came without permission,
again while under Jack’s tender care. He had thought he could
control it. Hadn’t he had two mornings of nice orgasms when Sharon
asked him sweetly if he would like one and he said yes right away?
And oh, how that bitch could work a dick! He had joyfully spurted
out two wonderful, thrilling, and extraordinarily satisfying comes,
one right against her beautiful tits, the other into her hair. (She
wasn’t speaking to him at all any more. It was a wonderful
bonus.)

But when Jack mounted him
from behind, like a stallion, Brian just lost control. It was
terrible and wonderful all at once. And definitely not worth the
two days of extra chores and extra beatings and early bedtimes. And
then came the cock cage.

Which was another oddity.
Ever since that first day, when a huge gag was strapped into his
mouth for speaking out of turn, he hadn’t seen a single piece of
fetish gear. Everything from peach switches to real riding crops to
sweat scrapers, rulers, and whatever was at hand, had been used at
one time or another on the slaves. But the only piece of leather
was Chris’s well worn strap. And now this piece. And Claudia
whispered one night after lights out that Alexandra had used a
leather blindfold on her during one of their increasingly intimate
encounters, and how it felt like she was going home. The other
slaves had all shivered in empathic agreement. Slowly, some toys
were coming out. But from where? No one had seen, in their visits
to the master bedrooms, any cases of equipment, any racks in
closets or behind doors. They speculated about Grendel’s workshop,
a place he retreated to for a little while every day. Was that
actually a dungeon?

Brian smoothed the straw
out and went onto the next stall, brushing flies away as he walked,
and pondering the mysteries of his life. Regardless of his distaste
for her personally, he had to feel sorry for Sharon. The woman was
sexually used like she was a box of tissues, take one and pass the
box on. Jack used her, Rachel had taken to dragging her off every
once in a while, and even the visiting masseur, Jose, or Julio or
whatever, dipped into her when he was in. She had to go through the
motions of asking her fellow slaves if they wanted to get some, and
whenever no one said yes, Chris had taken to just assigning someone
at random to receive her attentions. Brian just automatically said
yes the next time Sharon asked, and that was fine until Grendel
decided that Brian should not be allowed even that pleasure, and
now Sharon alternated between Robert and Claudia. And every time
Sharon failed to please, not only was she punished in the regular
way, with beatings and deprivations, but Chris would take something
out of her bathing kit, like her hairbrush, or her shampoo, or even
her soap. Brian wasn’t quite sure if he understood how Sharon must
feel about having to appear looking messy or dirty, or even
smelling of sex and sweat, but it must be pretty awful. He knew he
would hate it.

The only people who hadn’t
used her were Grendel and Alexandra. In fact, she still hadn‘t even
been invited to see them after dinner. She was the only one. And
she didn’t like that one bit. When the week turned and she had a
chance to ask her questions again, she demanded to know why she
hadn’t been chosen to serve the owners in their
bedrooms.

“Because you’re not good
enough,” was Chris’s quick, dispassionate response.

“Well, what do I have to do
to get good enough?” she had immediately asked.

“You’ll have to ask Ms.
Selador or Mr. Elliot about that, Sharon.”

Brian didn’t know what her
answers had been when she did, but it was two days after the
questions had been asked, and she still hadn’t been called out of
the evening line up to freshen up and see either mistress or
master.

And what was going on with
Robert? Not only was Chris treating him so nicely, but his
punishments were down to practically nothing! Instead, every time
Robert messed up and lapsed into his little girl behavior or
whimpered when he should have moaned, or cried when there wasn’t a
reason, Chris grabbed whoever else was nearby and beat the hell out
of them! And there was no avoiding this; everyone had to pass
someone while they did their work. And many of these proxy
punishments happened during one of their line ups, when everyone
was there, ready to be chosen, seemingly at random. Brian had
already caught two strappings for Robert’s bad behavior. And no one
could think of anything to do about it but learn to hate poor
Robert, who was clueless over the whole thing.

We are all being messed
with, he finally decided. There’s a huge scam going, and Alexandra
and Grendel are just playing these big games with our minds. He
remembered a cartoon he had seen once. A hand was spreading
toothpaste on a figure of a smiling man. The caption read, “God
brushes his teeth with our minds twice a day.” Somehow, that
applied here.

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.