On the Auction Block (19 page)

Flame saw three heads nodding
emphatically.

“The entertainment tonight is different from
anything that you have experienced. But it is simple so none of you
will have any excuse for failing to perform. Do you
understand?”

All heads nodded.

“Okay. To begin with, let me introduce
Flame.” She gestured to the slave standing beside her. “Flame’s
unique history provides the motivation for the entertainment
tonight. You need to be familiar with it so that you will not be
surprised in front of the gentlemen.” Thorn explained how Flame had
been the wife of a lord and had submitted herself to slavery.

The other slaves looked at her with a
combination of puzzlement and disgust.

“One of the most important aspects of Flame’s
history is that she will be acquainted with many of the gentlemen
that we are entertaining tonight. There are twelve of you and
thirty-two gentlemen. That works out to fewer than three gentlemen
per slave–”

This elicited happy murmurs from the
slaves.

“Be quiet or I’ll start putting you in
restraints right now!”

The slaves shut up.

“I was saying that there are not a lot of
gentlemen for the number of slaves but you can expect that all of
the gentlemen will be paying particularly close attention to each
one of you.”

She proceeded to explain the nature of the
evening’s entertainment in detail.

The more Flame heard, the worse she felt.

There was no way that this was going to turn
out well for her.

If Lady Linda had a hand in this, she had
really screwed her ex-friend.

* * *

When the slaves were ready to leave the
kennels, a black leather hood covered each slave’s hair and most of
her face. There were no eyeholes; the masks served as effective
blindfolds.

Wide collars wrapped around their necks to
cover their tattoos. The zippers that closed the hoods were
securely covered by these collars and the buckles on the collars
were locked by a small padlock.

Thorn had the key to the locks. The slaves’
heads would not be free until she unlocked them.

The only part of the head that was left
uncovered was the slaves’ mouths and nostrils. Even the space
between the upper lip and the nose was covered by a band of black
leather, as were the lower jaws.

Before being blinded by the hood, Flame had
seen that each hood had a different brass letter on the forehead.
Though the slaves had different bodies – some shorter, some taller,
some with fuller breasts, some more boyish, and so forth – unless
someone was intimately familiar with every slave’s body, he would
be able to identify them only by these letters.

Apart from the hoods, the slaves were
naked.

When Thorn led the blind slaves into the
Hoffman billiard room, each had to keep her right hand on the
shoulder of the slave in front of her to guide her.

Flame, second from the last, shuffled along
between two slaves that she didn’t know.

When the slave in front of her stopped, she
stopped, and the slave behind her stopped.

The hood muffled her hearing but didn’t
deafen her. The room was filled with low-pitched chatter from the
guests.

“Gentlemen,” Thorn said loudly, “may I
introduce your entertainment for this evening. Your host has
arranged a very special and unique treat for you. A game that has
never been played before and will likely never be played again.

“You see before you, thirteen blind, mute
slaves. In a few minutes, you will be invited to acquaint
yourselves with them. Touch them, give them orders, use them how
you wish, within the usual parameters of an entertainment. But do
not expect them to speak to you. They have been ordered to remain
mute. They will not say a single word, under penalty of severe
punishment.

“One of these slaves is special. You may have
heard of the highborn lady, the wife of a lord, who voluntarily
sold herself into slavery three months ago. I believe that many of
you knew this lady personally – invited her to dinners, danced with
her at balls, engaged in stimulating conversation. Maybe you even
played card games with her and her husband.

“Your challenge is to examine these slaves
and try to identify the only one in the room who was a titled lady
before she sold herself into slavery.

“These slaves are masked and have been
ordered to remain mute for the evening so that you may not see
their faces nor hear their voices. If you ask them questions, they
will not answer. But they are not deaf. You may give them orders
and they will obey.

“If you believe that you have identified the
highborn slave, we ask that you write your name on the slave’s
stomach with the permanent markers that have been distributed. By
the end of the evening, every one of you should have marked your
name on one and only one of the slaves.

“In three hours, we will reveal the identity
of the highborn slave. Every man whose name is inscribed on her
stomach will be given a prize.

“These slaves have a strong incentive to act
like perfect slaves and not like privileged ladies. The slave who
has the most gentlemen’s names written on her stomach will
considered to have behaved inadequately and will be punished
publicly in this room. We have devised an ingenious and amusing
punishment for the unsatisfactory slave.

“If the slave who gathers the most names
happens to be the one who was the highborn lady, then her owner has
approved a second, additional punishment that has been designed
especially for her. She doesn’t know what it is, but I have advised
her to work as hard as she can to blend in with all the other
slaves so that she will not have to endure that additional cruel
treatment.

“Does anyone have any questions?”

Someone asked, “Can we order the slaves to
nod if they were highborn?”

“Of course. And the highborn one will shake
her head that she was not, just like all the others. In this game,
there is no penalty for a slave lying to you. And she certainly
isn’t going to volunteer for the punishment that awaits the loser
by telling the truth.”

Someone else asked, “Do the slaves know how
they will be punished if they lose the game?”

“No. They will be as surprised as you. Though
I think the loser will be far less amused than you will be.” There
was a round of approving guffaws.

Another man had a question. “Sometimes titled
ladies are adjudicated into slavery. There might be more than one
highborn slave here.”

“No, there aren’t. To be fair to you, I
personally checked the records of every slave in the room. All the
others were born to slavery or were adjudicated into slavery more
than five years ago. The highborn lady enslaved herself only three
months ago. Not only did she come from different stock, but she is
also the least experienced slave in the room by far.”

“Any more questions?” Another pause. “No?
Then let the game begin. Gentlemen, enjoy your slaves.”

Flame stood for a minute with her hands at
her sides, listening to the gentlemen shuffling around and chatting
quietly to each other. She didn’t know if men were already standing
around her, looking at her, or if they had started with the slaves
that entered first. All she could know is that she hadn’t been
touched yet.

That changed when a hand suddenly thrust
itself into her crotch.

She spread her legs apart and squatted
slightly to give the gentleman unrestricted access to her cunt.

A voice laughed. “See! That’s the automatic
reflex of a slave born to the life. A highborn lady would have
closed her thighs like a vice to keep me out. My fingers might well
have been crushed flat.” The fingers continued to manipulate her
lips, working their way inside her.

She had no idea what the gentleman hoped to
find in there, but as nearly as she knew, a highborn vagina wasn’t
anatomically different from a commoner’s.

One of the other nearby slaves squealed
loudly. Flame had no idea what had been done to her, but it must
have been something more surprising than having a hand thrust into
her crotch. She was a little confused, though. She thought that
there was only one slave following her into the room but the squeal
that came from that direction was a little further away, not right
next to her.

“I want to give this one a test run.” The
voice was near her ear on the other side, but the gentleman wasn’t
referring to her because she heard the slave who had been standing
beside her shuffle away.

Another nearby voice said, “I bet the lady’s
asshole isn’t as loose as the other slaves’.”

“I don’t know about that,” someone countered.
“She sold herself three months ago. She’s probably been buggered
plenty in the last twelve weeks.” He laughed. “If she were mine,
I’d have buggered her at least twice a day, every day, just to see
the funny look on her face.”

“Pity that we can’t see the funny look
tonight. These damn masks hide more than just the slave’s identity.
One of these slaves might be crying her eyes out for all we
know.”

“You’ll know when the snot starts flowing out
of her nose.”

Flame felt a heavy hand on her neck. “Bend
over, slave. And stick that ass out.”

She bent at the waist and then bent her knees
to thrust her ass out.

Fingers invaded her asshole, stretching her
to the point of pain.

“Three fingers,” the voice said. “This
asshole is plenty loose.”

“Let’s try the next one on for size.”

The fingers withdrew and the voices moved
away.

Flame stayed where she was, bent with her ass
sticking out, because she hadn’t been given an order to stop
holding the position. The perfect slave obeyed orders perfectly;
and she was determined to be the perfect slave.

She had no idea what “special punishment”
would be administered to her if she were identified, but it had to
be something severe if it required her owner’s permission.

It might be something that caused permanent
damage.

After a couple of minutes, she put her hands
on her knees to take some of the strain off her back. That fell
within the general order to “bend over and stick your ass out.”

“Why are you standing like that?” The voice
was intimately close to her ear.

She almost said,
because I was ordered
to
, before she remembered that she would be punished if she
failed to remain mute. Not that the punishment would matter. She
recognized the voice as belonging to Lord Snow. If she said one
word, he would recognize her voice immediately and the game would
be over. She would have earned two punishments.

Instead, she turned her head to face him so
that he could see her lips pressed tightly shut.

“You look ridiculous,” he said. “Stand up and
stick your tits out. … There you go. That looks a lot better. … Are
you Irene?”

She shook her head.

“If you were, that’s exactly what you’d say.
God, I wish I’d seen Lady Irene naked. I’d win a prize for sure. I
should have seduced her when I had a chance.”

Flame wanted to tell him that he never had a
chance. Lady Irene would never have slept with her husband’s best
friend. But she couldn’t tell him that. And she would certainly
sleep with him now, if ordered. Maybe that was his strategy. To
talk to every slave about things that Irene would take personally
and see if he could get a reaction from one of them.

She couldn’t tell if he’d walked away or not,
but he’d given her a new worry. If Snow had been invited then maybe
her husband – ex-husband – James was here, too. As close friends,
James was often invited to the same events as Snow.

If James were here, then the jig was up.
James would surely recognize her body.

Or not. He hadn’t seen her naked since the
first year that they were married. And she’d changed since she’d
been enslaved. She was thinner now, and fitter. It had only been
twelve weeks but she didn’t have a lady’s body any more.

These men would have a chore identifying her
as highborn.

“Wow. This ass has been beat pretty good.”
The new voice was thin and nasal. It sounded like Earl Jones.

“It certainly has.” The deep gruff voice of
an old man could belong to Earl Blankov.

Jones and Blankov often attended events
together. Jones was at least seventy-five and Blankov had to be ten
years older than that. She wondered how slaves entertained men that
old.

“You think that anyone would dare take a cane
to the wife of a lord?” Jones asked. “Even if she is playing at
being a slave?”

“I don’t think she’s playing at it,” Blankov
replied. “As far as the law is concerned, she’s a slave for life,
just like any other slave. Her owner doesn’t owe her any
consideration. I bet she’d be more likely to earn a beating for
herself than a regular slave. Her owner would probably have to work
damn hard to make sure that she knew her place.”

“Damn shame,” Jones said. “Damn shame.”

Flame felt a light hand on her shoulder. “Get
on your knees, woman, and suck a little cock for me.” It was
Blankov’s voice.

His wrinkled penis felt small in her mouth,
and tasted like dribbled urine, but she licked and sucked it like
it was the rock-hard ramrod of a twenty-year-old stud. This was her
answer. This was how a slave could entertain an
eighty-five-year-old man.

Blankov moaned in pleasure. “This one’s got
the mouth of a slave. I tell you.”

“I’ll give the next one a try,” Jones
replied.

In a moment, he was moaning a duet with
Blankov.

After a few minutes, Blankov stroked Flame’s
face and said, “That’s enough, dear. You’re not going to get old
faithful to spout tonight.”

She rose back to her feet and waited for
further orders.

None came. Blankov had moved on.