Bought (3 page)

We had only one lead. Two years in a row, Alexander Hamilton had attended Madam Lorraine’s consensual slave auction. Twice he had bid on women and won. Twice he had failed to bid at all.

So I was in Bangkok. My appearance had been altered to resemble the two girls he had bid on in the hopes that I would better appeal to him. My red hair had been dyed a dark brown. I’d lost weight, a lot of it, so that I’d look more like the emaciated waifs he was drawn to.

Though my heart thudded in my chest like a trapped butterfly seeking desperately to fly free, I found myself agreeing to participate in a slave auction, exposing myself to leering gazes, hoping to be bid on by a man Dylan McAllister trusted.

One day, I will hold up a gun to Dylan McAllister’s face. One day, I will kill him. One day, I will have my revenge for every bit of cruelty and pain.

I would kill Dylan McAllister. But there was an order to things. First, I needed to pass this evaluation with Madam Lorraine. Second, I needed to be so beautiful and alluring that Alexander Hamilton would bid on me at the auction. Third, he needed to be so entranced with me that he took me on the trip that he made three times a year to that otherwise impenetrable fortress-like compound outside of Hanoi. He had never yet taken anyone on that trip.

There I would find my former Master, the man who had enslaved me when I was eighteen.

I would kill my former Master. Then and only then would I be fully free.

Ellie / Jenny:

My nerves were at a fever pitch when Madame Lorraine escorted me to the dungeon. Though Dylan hadn’t bothered with BDSM equipment very often, he sometimes found it arousing to tie me down for my beatings. Sometimes he would blindfold me so I couldn’t see where the pain was coming from.

What had I been thinking? Everything in this room was a giant trigger for me. I had no good memories of dungeons. All I remembered were waves and waves of blinding pain.

One day, I will hold up a gun to Dylan McAllister’s face. One day I will kill him. One day I will have my revenge for every bit of cruelty and pain.
 I used those words as a meditative chant, trying to soothe my emotions as best as I could.

“Stay here,” Madame Lorraine told me. She’d evidently noticed nothing amiss. No surprise there - I was adept at hiding my emotions. I had to be. I’d learned to control myself in the harshest way possible.

“Yes, Madame Lorraine,” I replied. I kept my eyes on the floor. My voice was soft and submissive. In this space, the lessons of the past were returning one by one. I existed only to serve my Master. I had no other purpose.

“My trainers will be here presently,” she said. “Please get naked and wait on your knees for them.”

I nodded silently. “Yes, Madame Lorraine,” I repeated. My Master had liked his instructions acknowledged verbally. Several strokes of the cane had punctuated his desire the first time. Another lesson I‘d never forgotten again.

She smiled at me and left the room. I waited for her trainers in silence.

***

Whenever I read a book about a woman falling in love with her captor, it made me scream out aloud in anger and disbelief.
It’s just a book,
one part of me would insist. But I’d been imprisoned for two years. I’d lived through my captor’s mood swings. When I least expected it, I would be rewarded with a pretty dress, with a piece of chocolate or best of all, with a new book. But the flip side was also true. When I least expected it I would be punished. Beaten. Caned. Given to his guards so I could be gang raped.

All of it was to instill one belief into me. Everything depended on Dylan. My life and my death. My happiness and my sorrow. Everything was his to control, and if I wanted to survive, I needed to learn to please him as well as I could.

Waiting in Madame Lorraine’s dungeon, my skin felt cold and clammy. I was on the verge of a panic attack. I’d had these, off and on, a few times in the last six years. I’d had one the first time I’d killed a man. I’d woken up with nightmares of being trapped in my cell in Abeokuta, waiting to be summoned by Dylan. I’d been startled awake, time after time, screaming for the guards to please stop hurting me.

Lucien had looked at me eight weeks ago when this plan had been hatched, my panic attacks on his mind. He had asked me if I was going to be okay.

Lucien was driven by his thirst for revenge, the same way I was driven by mine. There was no room for anything else. It wasn’t concern for me that had prompted his question, just a worry that our plan wouldn’t work if I’d broken down at an
inappropriate
spot.

“I’ll be fine,” I had replied, shutting the conversation down before it could start. Now Madame Lorraine’s trainers were almost here and I was running out of time.

Obedience was simple. I was practised at obeying.  But what I had to do was something far more difficult. I had to genuinely experience pleasure and arousal when I followed their directions. I had to crave the bondage and the submission. I had to welcome each stroke of the flogger. I had to believe that pleasure and pain were two sides of the same coin and I had to convince myself that when I renounced control, I would fly.

I had to act and I would have to be
believed
. This was more important than any role I’d ever played in Dylan’s Nigerian stronghold.

Two years ago, had I been asked if I could do this, I would have shaken my head. I thirsted for revenge but I didn’t lack self-awareness. My body had reacted to defend itself against Dylan’s thrusts, lubricating to minimize the pain. When my former Master had strummed on my clitoris, I had climaxed. But these were the automatic responses of my body. My mind hadn’t felt pleasure. I wouldn’t have been able to fake something I’d never experienced.

But that night after I’d killed Ivan, I’d run into a bar and I’d met a man.
Marc.
As I waited for Madame Lorraine’s trainers, I wrapped the memory of our night together around me as if it were a blanket that could insulate me from the cold in my soul.

***

There were two of them. A man and a woman. Or, to use the proper lingo, a Dom and a Domme.

Both of them were dressed in black. The man was bare-chested, his muscles tight and sinewy. The woman wore a tight leather corset that showcased every inch of her body and she looked absolutely amazing. They both moved towards me.

“Look at me,” the woman commanded. I met her eyes.

They both smiled. “Come,” the man said. He held his hand out to me, and helped me rise from my kneeling position. “Let’s discuss safety before we start, okay? Jenny, right?”

I nodded. Ellie Samuelson was gone. She’d disappeared into the dusk. She’d last been seen in the parking lot of a Cleveland mall eight years ago. No one was looking for her anymore. But Jenny Fullerton had a sister, Alicia, who was dying of leukemia. “Yes Master.”

The man shook his head. “I’m not your Master, Jenny,” he said. “My name is William. If you like, you can call me Sir.”

I nodded. “Yes Sir.”

The two of them led me to a couch that I hadn’t noticed in the corner of the dungeon. Lucien would have flayed me alive for not being observant enough and he would have been right. We never knew what little detail could help keep us alive, or help us find Dylan.

“Sit,” the woman ordered again. She smiled at me warmly, her gentle expression at odds with her firm tone. “My name is Karen.” She winked at me. “Please don’t call me Mistress, it makes me feel old.”

I laughed, surprised that joking was permitted in this space, and they both glanced at each other.
Why?

“Jenny.” This was William. “You seem very nervous. I’d tell you to relax but in my experience, telling someone to relax usually has the opposite effect.” He looked at me. “Why don’t we talk for a little bit first?”

“Talk about what, Sir?” What did they expect from me? I’d researched consensual BDSM encounters extensively in preparation for this auction. I’d read books. I’d watched videos on the Internet and some of them had even turned me on. But the videos were made for people to jack off to. They weren’t made to educate a novice.

“Whatever you like,” Karen interjected. “Let’s get acquainted before we jump into your evaluation.”

My evaluation. Of course.
I couldn’t afford to forget that if I didn’t measure up, I wouldn’t be allowed to participate in the auction.

“First time in Bangkok?” William asked me.

“Yes Sir.”

“And what do you think? You’ve never been left the States before, right?”

“Yes Sir.” Another lie. I’d circled the globe more times than I cared to count in the last six years. “It’s more crowded than I’m used to.”

Karen laughed. “Aren’t you staying on Khao San Road? I stayed there for a couple of months when I first moved to Bangkok. The vendors still hawking pretty much every single thing in the world on the streets?”

On my way to Madame Lorraine, I’d had to weave my way through a street packed with ramshackle stalls, selling everything from souvenir t-shirts to digital camera memory cards. But I liked the insane bustle of Khao San. It reminded me that world over, everyone did what they could do to survive. Most of the time I felt like I was on the outside looking in. But the teeming humanity on Khao San Road reminded me that I wasn’t that different from everyone else. We all endured as best as we could. “I bought a t-shirt,” I told her. “
My sister went to Bangkok, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.
” I was proud of that bit of ad-libbing. It would remind Karen and William that my sister was dying of leukemia and I was putting myself on the slave block to raise money for her treatment.

We talked about safety. They both shook their heads when they saw how short my list of hard and soft limits were. They took the time to tell me what they were going to do with me. They would flog me to test my pain responses. I would take a dildo in my mouth, and my gag reflex would be assessed. They would touch my body, my nipples, pussy and wherever else they desired, and my reaction would be observed. And finally my ability to control my orgasms would be tested.

“Let’s get started.” William and Karen stood. I rose as well and followed them.

***

I’ve been told by Marc that I need to ask for permission before I climax. It has sent a small shiver of anxiety through me, but when I look at him, my desire overwhelms my fear. I agree to his condition and he buries his head between my legs.

His attack is skilled. No one has ever done this to me before and I fist my hands in the sheets as I surrender to the waves of pleasure that wrack my body. I’m getting close to my orgasm; I can feel it. I whimper, a mute sound of helpless desire. He looks up at the noise and he meets my gaze. “Do you want to come for me, baby?” he asks.

There’s pleading desperation in the look I give him. I’ve never felt this urgency in my body. This ache, this certainty that I will shatter if he doesn’t let me orgasm. “Please,” I beg, and he laughs gently. “Come for me, bright star,” he whispers, his mouth once again descending onto my flesh. Just like that, I fall apart on his command.

***

William and Karen assigned me safe words.
Red
to stop the scene immediately, until I gave them permission to continue again.
Yellow
to pause, to give them an indication that I was reaching my limits. Finally,
green
to indicate that I was enjoying what they were doing.

Karen looked at me intently. “If you are afraid, even for a minute and want to stop, I want you to use them,” she said. “Please don’t think that you will fail our evaluation if you use your safe words. That isn’t true.”

William nodded. “Today’s purpose, Jenny, is to determine only one thing. Anyone can submit, but not everyone experiences pleasure in submitting. Our goal is to determine if it will arouse you to bend to our will.”

Such a simple test. Yet allowing myself to feel arousal was going to be the tallest hurdle of them all.

William approached me with a collar in his hands. It was wide and made of black leather. There was a steel ring dangling from the front and a thick, heavy-looking buckle in the back. It looked intimidating. This was neither pretty nor delicate. This was a collar for masters who meant
business.
“This will help with your posture,” he explained. “It will keep your head erect.”

“Yes Sir,” I said meekly. Karen held my hair out of the way and I stayed still as the collar was buckled around my throat. My hair was quickly braided so it wouldn’t get in the way of what they were planning on doing with me.

I was led to a spot in the room and positioned under a large metal rod hanging parallel to the ceiling. “We are going to tie your hands up,” she told me, gesturing to the bar. Her voice was level and her calmness was reassuring.

Dylan had never been calm in the dungeon. His lust was always too close to the surface. When it took over, he was like a wild animal and I was his trapped prey. His trapped,
terrified
prey.

I extended my arms out mutely in front of me, keeping my eyes lowered. That was the behaviour that would be expected of me and I was happy to comply, happy to keep the anguish of my past shielded from their too-keen gazes.

Each of them took one of my hands in theirs, wrapping black nylon rope around my wrists in ornamental coils. I took a moment to admire the strange, surreal sensuality of what they were doing, though at the same time, I felt my pulse beat wildly at my wrists.

I was a butterfly trapped in a web of stunning beauty. Somehow that wasn’t reassuring.
Calm down,
I warned myself, before I grew too anxious. From somewhere deep inside of me, I had to find pleasure in this.

Marc
. His voice at my ear telling me he was going to make me climax. His deep tone, promising shocking lust and arousal. His touch, causing each and every nerve ending in my body to explode in desire. I clutched at the memories as if they were a talisman that would keep me safe in this space.

“You like that, don’t you?” Karen’s voice spoke. She ran her hands over my nipples which had hardened in remembered appreciation of Marc’s touch from two years ago. Her fingers stroked the inside of my thighs and I heard the purr in her voice as she spoke. “She’s so wet, William. Her pussy is radiating heat.”

William laughed but it was a warm sound without any trace of mockery. “Do you like this, Jenny?”

“Yes Sir,” I answered. I did like it, but only if I could pretend that it was Marc examining me, not these two strangers, kind though they were. It was only the timbre of his voice that my body responded to.