new home. The door clanged shut with a ceremony of locks. The omnipotent Males departed. Unhappily, Corey gazed through the bars at her Master?s disappearing back.
Life within the Slave Cage was simple. The girls agreed they preferred the coffle but made the best of what they could not change. Their new confinement allowed them all to talk in an intimacy the coffle had never permitted. Two troughs against the bars provided food and water. They had to kneel to eat or to drink from the communal containers set a couple of feet above the sand for their convenience. Their bound hands were lost to them. Amrah blandly explained away the imposition.
'Hands tie so we know we slaves. No hands, no trouble. Is no use try untie.'
She was probably right. Certainly no amount of twisting and striving untied a knot. Back to back, questing fingers were still defeated. The hide had been wet and its knots doubly sutured. No doubt it was much cheaper than handcuffs and imposed a more personal discipline. After the first day the girls no longer bothered. Amrah was appointed to tend their needs. Her hands were untied but her feet were shackled. She clinked about her new duties with considerable elan. She saw it as a promotion. The chain joining her ankles bothered her not at all, for her it was a visible symbol of authority. 'You be polite or Amrah pinch your tits.' She warned amiably. 'You girls can?t do nothing the way you?s tied. But Amrah do what she like.' She kicked her leg irons to make them swirl. 'These here don?t bother me none.'
They were not alone. The far cage held four female captives, another imprisoned two. One single girl was chained to the stone wall by her collar. She sat in apathetic boredom, awaiting a fate on which Amrah was soon informed.
'She been sold. But owner busy. He pick up later.' She tittered. 'He be pay her room and board.'
Corey missed Burdett. His masculinity was a needed foil for the redundancy of breasts, pubic triangles and unruly hair. The cage reeked of female. Some of the captives paired and unashamedly made love. Their bound hands were a handicap they managed to overcome, they had plenty of time. Boredom engulfed them as did the cage. The three white girls discussed the feminine relief their tongues could bestow. But the case defeated them. It was worse than being in public. They were specimens in a zoo to be peered at between bars. Corey shrank from a vision of Seth Burdett walking in to find her with her face buried between Audrey?s thighs.
Ennui ended on the fourth day. They were shepherded through a narrow doorway into a second chamber much like the first. It held no cages, but the auction block stood, starkly obvious, facing a few rows of chains which were no doubt a modern concession to the wealth of those who would bid. In contrast to the place they had left they now were surrounded by luxury. The walls were draped with rugs, the block itself was shrouded in black velvet. Against the far wall stood a bar. Seth Burdett did the honours.
'This is where you?ll be sold.' His eye roved the line of breasts. The girls stood expectantly, their hands and arms still secured behind their backs. 'Now, just so?s there?s no fuck-ups on the Great Day. I?ll give you the drill.'
Amrah stood proudly forward. She had been briefed.
Chapter 4
'You?ll wear a strip of white, and we want it pretty on you.' He gave them his sardonic grin. 'Believe it or not, some men pay more for a cunt they can?t see than for one they can.'
It was like the stewardess on a airline demonstrating the oxygen mask. Amrah mounted the platform, her chains almost silent on the plush, and proceeded to work a feminine miracle upon her loveliness with a swathe of virgin white, potent against the black on which she stood. She was loving every moment.
'You won?t be tied. No way! Seth continued amiably. 'So you?ll have no trouble with that bit of cloth. Now watch! When the time comes…!'
Each girl watched breathlessly. Mentally, they stood as Amrah stood, but above a sea of male faces. They sighed in unison as the girl on the block deftly loosed a knot and stripped herself nude. Arms outstretched, she held the white drape for several moments, cascading from her fingers. Then let it fall. Corey envied her sang froid. Amrah was a showgirl, and in spite of her pragmatic speech and actions, displayed one of the most exquisite figures for which a man might yearn.
'You girls sell yourselves.' Burdett?s tone hardened. 'So get this straight. You fight. You sulk. You make yourself ugly, and we?ll pull you from that block so quick it will curl your hair. You?ll go back to the other room and by the time we?re finished with you you?ll wish you?d behaved.' He smiled cheerfully. 'Or maybe we?ll use you as the preliminary at the next auction. A bit of discipline, nicely presented, whets the boy?s appetites.'
They cringed. Each of them uncertain of her Thespian skill. Their eyes widened as Amrah was joined on the pedestal by a muscular male with the inevitable whip. It was a short whip for close range. He was grinning broadly at his proudly eager subject.
It was well done. The white girls exchanged glances of admiration as Amrah demonstrated what NOT to do when being auctioned. She pouted, she sulked. She drooped and sagged, she turned her back, or covered her breasts with shielding hands. She crossed her legs and held them tightly shut. In desperate panic, she fell to her knees and embraced the legs of the smiling auctioneer in a frantic but mute appeal. He thrashed her bowed shoulders with his whip in blow after viciously reprimanding blow until she sobbed in anguish and slowly resumed her required pose as a girl only too anxious to be sold. If the audience had possessed their hands they would have clapped. The whip was simulated. It?s scarlet lines were dye.
'It gives you an idea.' Burdett explained blandly. 'But I?ll give you a tip. There?s those chaps who?ll buy you just to have a girl around the whip. It?s them that buys the fighters and the sulks…!' For a moment he focused on the white slaves before continuing. 'You?ll find yourself looking down at a lot of fellers, most of?em ordinary decent chaps, and won?t they please help and call the cops…' He paused for effect. 'Don?t do it! It?s the one thing you just don?t do!!'
Soberly, they filed back to their cage.
It became a busy time for Amrah. She washed them, she did their hair, she laved them with heavy and cloying perfumes. She gave them good advice. 'You see a man you like, you smile at him special. Maybe he buy you.' For good measure she added a bit of bitter wisdom: 'Ain?t always the big guys have big cocks. Sometimes is little men. Is hard to tell…'
In the morning, in a final grooming, their lips were painted red, their hands were freed, they were given their single swathe of white. The first male face Corey saw on entering the auction room was that of Reid Hunter.
For a girl whose body is about to be sold from it, the auction Block can be the loneliest place in the world. On it, she stands between her vanished past and a frightening future. If slavery was not real to her before, it is real now!
Amrah was the first.
The three white girls stood, under guard, to one side as the auction got under way. Their free hands clutched their scrap of covering, their faces were discreetly veiled. Corey supposed they had been segregated for a purpose, probably to pique male interest. It had been tacitly understood between all nine girls that they constituted the piece de resistance of the coffle. It was a doubtful honour.
Amrah was knocked down to a nondescript character in a business suit for two hundred and forty thousand American dollars. She had worked hard for the partners and given of her best upon the block. When she stood to have her hands bound behind her back for safe delivery she smiled at Corey in glowing confidence of a bright future. The American girl wryly hoped her purchaser was well endowed.
The veiled girls exchanged startled glances. Amrah?s price seemed a lot of money. It made the whole operation in which they were helplessly enmeshed plausible. But it was frightening. Such huge sums paid for a girl meant she could surely kiss good-bye to any hope of freedom. For such a one it would be iron bars and shackled feet forever.
The other five dusky beauties went to the block and did what they must. Burdett?s instruction had been a practical guide. They sold for sums of money that spelt big business. Only two of them wept as they were bound and delivered. Josie came next.
The atmosphere changed. An electric current touched all present. White flesh on black velvet! It was potent. Amphala was robbed Josie of inhibitions, she flaunted her nakedness with skill, and was purchased by a desert
