On the Auction Block (3 page)

Irene could stand it no more. She fled from
her husband’s side.

But she did not flee back through the crowd
toward the door to exit the auction house. She pushed through to
the front where the auction was coming to a close.

If James wanted to see her humiliated, then
she would give him the ultimate humiliation. If he would rather rut
with slaves than make love to his own wife, then she would give him
a slave to rut.

She would not spend another day of her life
as a stuffed prop in his mausoleum.

* * *

Irene didn’t wait for the handlers to clear
the last sale from the stage. The instant that the auctioneer
clapped his boards and pronounced the slave sold, she bounced up
the steps and walked across to confront him.

A few men in the audience were already
leaving, but most noticed that a lovely young lady in a full satin
skirt and bodice, her hair pinned on top of her head in an
elaborate style, was approaching the auctioneer. They stopped to
see what was happening.

She had been one of only three ladies at the
auction so all the men had been casting curious glances at her
throughout the event. Most knew her only as the wife of the man who
had bought the most prized slave of the day.

But a few knew her as Lady Irene, Lord James’
wife, because they had attended the same social events.

They expected that some minor drama was about
to unfold. Probably that she had a complaint about the slave that
her husband had purchased and wanted a refund.

Too bad. In a slave auction all sales are
final.

The auctioneer’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Is there something wrong, mi’lady?”

“Tell them that the sale is not over. There
is one more slave to be sold today.”

He shook his head. “No, mi’lady. Your husband
bought Feather. The sale is final. If you want to sell her again,
then you’ll have to bring her back next month.” There were rules
against flipping a slave in the same auction. Besides, he already
knew that no one in the room would pay as much for Feather as her
husband had.

“I don’t want to sell Feather. I want to sell
myself.”

His brows furled in confusion. “Mi’lady?”

“Yes. Me. I am offering myself for sale.”

“But you’re not a slave.”

“I will be as soon as I am sold.”

“You can’t offer yourself for sale. You have
to be born into slavery, be pressed by indebtedness, or be
adjudicated by a criminal court. Surely you are high born.”

“My father is High Sheriff of Calam Shire.
That’s equivalent to a knight in this county.”

“You aren’t bankrupt, are you?”

“No. My husband has plenty of money. As you
just saw.”

“And you haven’t committed a crime?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Then no one has made you a slave. You are a
free women. A lady, in fact.”

“I’m making myself a slave.” Her heart
pounded and her face burned when she spoke the words.

The auctioneer stared at her for a long
moment.

The men in the front were close enough to
hear her words. They turned to pass the news to the men behind
them. From the stage, the auctioneer could see the story pass
through the audience like a gust of wind across a field of wheat.
The noise level fell in the room as everyone turned to watch the
stage and strained to hear what was being said.

The auctioneer was keenly interested in
Irene’s offer now. There was money to be made. But proceeding would
be a delicate matter.

“What does your husband say?”

“I don’t give a damn what he says. He didn’t
ask me what I thought about him buying a slave. I’m not asking him
what he thinks about me selling one.”

“Yourself.”

“Myself.”

“You are going to be lost to your
husband.”

“If he wants me, he can buy me.”

A man near the front shouted, “Only if he
outbids me!”

Another man shouted, “And me!”

The auctioneer glanced at the men and licked
his lips. The commission on this sale would be substantial. “You’re
a fine lady. You don’t look like a slave.”

“I will when I’m naked and chained on the
block.” She turned to one of the handlers. “Bring a chain and
handcuffs.”

The handler looked at the auctioneer.

The auctioneer shrugged and nodded. The
handler climbed off the stage.

“You are walking through a one-way door.
There’s no going back. Once you’re sold, you’ll be a slave for the
rest of your life.” The auctioneer shook his head. “You’ll never be
a lady again.”

“I know.”

“A slave’s life is as hard as a lady’s is
soft. You’re making a bad bargain.” As much as he wanted the
commission, he didn’t dare risk the accusation that he had rushed
to sell an unwilling woman. He had to give her every opportunity to
change her mind. Until she was sold and her choices no longer
mattered.

“I know better than you what bargain I’m
making. A lady’s life is no life at all. That is a fact.”

The handler returned with a chain and
cuffs.

Irene’s heart was pounding with fear, but she
wasn’t going to back down. She looked out into the audience and saw
James standing with his latest purchase standing naked at his
side.

He was staring at her with an intensity that
she had never seen before. His face was red and his jaw set.

She had her husband’s full attention at
last.

“This is your last chance,” the auctioneer
said. “I’m warning you for your own good. Don’t do this.”

“Sell me!”

“Take your clothes off, then. I don’t sell
pigs in pokes. The men have to see what they’re buying.”

Both handlers were standing behind her. She
turned to them and said, “Strip me.”

One of the handlers stepped up and unfastened
her top button.

“No,” she said. “Just tear it off. I’ll never
wear these clothes again. I’ll never wear any lady’s clothes
again.”

The handler grabbed her bodice at the neck
and pulled. Buttons flew; fabric tore.

The top half of her dress gaped apart.
Irene’s full breasts and erect nipples tented the thin silk
camisole underneath.

The other handler ripped the cuff apart at
her left wrist and then tore the sleeve open all the way up her arm
and across her shoulder.

The left half of her bodice fell away.

While the first handler gave the same
treatment to her right sleeve and shoulder, the second stepped
behind and split the entire back of the dress from neck to
ankle.

In a moment, the fine blue satin dress with
white trim was nothing but a pile of rags at Irene’s feet. Only a
filmy camisole protected her modesty. It didn’t do much of a
job.

Each handler grabbed one side of the camisole
at the neckline, front and back, and pulled. It split like tissue.
A cold breeze drifted across her delicate white skin.

Irene’s breasts were hanging free for a
hundred men to ogle.

All those eyes horrified her. She crossed her
arms over her chest, covering them.

The handlers didn’t care about that. They
grabbed her panties at the waist and pulled them apart, revealing
her thatch of brown curls.

This might be the first time in centuries
that an unshaved crotch had been revealed on this stage.

She pressed her legs together and dropped her
right hand to cover her sex.

Talking bravely about being naked on stage
was an entirely different matter from standing here, suffering the
stares of a hundred strangers, every one of them imagining
themselves slaking their lust with her body.

She whimpered as the handlers grabbed her
stockings and pulled them down her legs.

She didn’t resist when the handlers raised
one leg to pull her shoe and stocking off; and then did the same
with the other. She would have felt foolish standing naked but for
stockings pooled around her shoes. There was more dignity in
complete nudity.

As soon as she was naked, the auctioneer
raised his hand and the handlers released her.

“Let your hair down,” he said to her.

She turned her back to the audience, reached
up, and pulled the pins from her hair. She each pin fall on the
stage. Slaves did not wear their hair up. She would never need
hairpins again.

The hall was so quiet that she could hear
each pin drop.

When the last was pulled, her long, brown
hair fell in a cascade down her back.

The handlers grabbed her wrists, forced her
hands behind her back and cuffed them together. She could no longer
cover herself when they turned her to face the audience again.

Her shoulders were forced back, thrusting her
breasts boldly forward, and her sex was presented to the men at
their eye level. She had never before been so indecently exposed,
not even in her husband’s bedroom.

She had never before felt so vulnerable.

She didn’t just feel vulnerable; in all
truth, she was. Before the day was over, one of the men in this
room would own her. Would be doing whatever he wished to her. Would
be using her sex. Would be beating her. Would be giving her to
other men. Whatever. And there would be nothing in the world that
she could do to change her fate now.

A handler clipped a chain about her neck. It
was cold and heavy.

Before he led her across the stage, the
auctioneer said, “Wait. What is your name?”

“Irene.”

“No. That’s a lady’s name. You need a slave
name.”

She shrugged. “I don’t have one.”

“Then your slave name will be Flame.”

“Flame?”

“Unless your owner gives you another. You
might be named Pig or Bitch something even worse before you leave
this room. I’ve lost track of the number of owners who call their
slaves Cunt. It’s such a boring cliché.”

She hoped that her owner would have more
class than that. Unless James bought her. She would like James to
call her his Cunt.

“What’s your age?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“Healthy?”

She nodded uncertainly.

“I mean, have you have any sexual diseases
yet?”

“No.”

“You’re sure? I don’t have time for a
physical examination.”

“I’m sure. I barely have sex. I haven’t had
enough opportunities to catch a disease.”

He nodded to the handlers. “Display her.”

They jerked the chain about her neck and she
had to step toward them to avoid falling on her face. They began
parading her across the stage.

“Gentlemen,” the auctioneer said, “I offer
Flame. Twenty-eight years old and healthy. Until now, a lady of
fine breeding and upbringing. She has voluntarily offered herself
into slavery. In all my years, I have never seen such a thing. I
can only assume that she has a perverted need for base and cruel
treatment. Her new owner can expect to have a lot of fun with
her.”

At the far corner of the stage, the handlers
turned Flame around slowly so that the men could appreciate her
pale, unmarked body from all angles.

She wondered if her hips bulged. Did her
buttocks sag? Were her breasts firm enough in profile? Would she
sell for a few thousand plaqs or go for a record price?

How much would it cost James to buy her
back?

Maybe nobody would want her at all. Maybe she
had too little experience in pleasing men for her advanced age.
Maybe she would be returned to James, unsold.

“Do I hear an offer of ten-thousand
plaquettes sterling for this most unusual slave?”

A dozen hands sprang into the air.

Flame would be sold today. Irene would never
again draw a free breath.

She looked at James.

He was no longer her husband. Slaves could
not be married. Irene had given him the simplest divorce
possible.

Now, if he wanted her, he could buy her. And
use her in ways that he would never use the lady that he’d
married.

His hand was not one of those raised, but she
had seen that his habit was to wait until the dilettantes had
dropped out of the competition and only serious bidders
remained.

She could only hope that he still loved her.
He had always told her that he did.

Bidding was brisk. It had already surpassed
forty-thousand plaqs by the time the handlers had forced her up
onto the block.

She was worth a substantial amount. She was
worth more as a slave than she had been worth as a lady.

“Spread your legs,” a handler said quietly.
“Show the men what’s hiding underneath that mess of moss. They
deserve to see what they’re buying.”

Flame obeyed. That’s what slaves did. They
obeyed men.

Her skin burned red under the stare of a
hundred pairs of hungry eyes focused on the slit now visible
between her legs.

It had been years since she had felt so
alive.

She watched James. Focused only on him. He
stared back impassively. The bid was up to fifty-five thousand and
he hadn’t moved yet.

Lord Snow was trying to buy her, though.
Matching three other men, bid for bid.

At eight-five thousand, James broke eye
contact with her and looked over at Lord Snow.

Flame couldn’t hear what he said but Snow
lowered his hand and didn’t bid again.

She hoped that he was asking his friend to
drop out of the competition before he began bidding.

But James didn’t bid. He turned his face to
Feather, the beautiful, naked slave standing next to him, put his
hand behind her neck, and pulled her into a long, deep kiss.

His meaning was clear. With this gesture, he
was telling Irene that he wanted only his new slave. He didn’t want
his old wife, not even as a slave in his kennel.

He broke his clinch and led Feather through
the crowd and out of the building.

She was abandoned by the man who, for the
last five years, had claimed to love her. The man who had brought
her from Calam Shire to his manor by the Western Sea.