Sold!..To The Highest Bidder Read online

  “Yes,” she agreed, her breath quickening under the man’s touch. “But I threw it all away because of alcohol; you were what saved me from certain ruin and doom.”

  “I only help those who help themselves.” He retracted his hand now, leaving her at the brink of orgasm. “Jasmine is a real self starter in that regard.”

  Rainier held his hand upright. Instantly, without being told, Jasmine bent at the waist and took the fingers in her mouth, licking them clean of her glistening juices.

  “Have a look at the menu,” Rainier urged me now, his free hand tweaking the waitress’s agitated and erect nipples. “You may order anything you like.”

  I tried to focus on the printed menu, shutting out the sounds of the moaning, sucking mouth of Jasmine as she fellated the fingers, thrusting them in and out.

  “That’s enough,” Rainier snapped, cracking his hand hard on her arse. “We’d like to order.”

  She obeyed instantly, back straight as a board as she pulled the tiny pad from a pocket on her belt. “May I take your order, miss?”

  I was unable to speak.

  “Miss?”

  Rainier cleared his throat. “Perhaps you would like me to order for you?”

  I lowered my head, my face red with shame. “Yes, thank you.”

  “Two of your filet antinors, Jasmine. Cooked medium, with rice pilaf and braised mushrooms. How are the oysters tonight?”

  “Excellent, sir.” Her voice was thick with sexual need. I could see the nipples plainly under the torn, tented tank top. Very subtly, almost invisibly, she began to rub her legs together.

  He handed her the menu. “We’ll have them as an appetizer. And a bottle of Letanier ’51.”

  “Anything else?” she asked huskily, “sir?”

  “Yes,” he nodded looking up at her. “You can have Charles or Maurice give you a sound paddling to help you get your mind back on your work; or is it the policy of this club now for girls to take orders standing?”

  Jasmine’s mouth dropped open in horror as she realized the oversight. “Forgive me, sir,” she begged, falling at once to her knees. “I forgot myself. It was all the excitement, sir. Please, sir, don’t punish me.”

  Rainier snapped his fingers, indicating the tip of his Italian loafer. Gratefully, the girl dropped down to all fours, administering gentle kisses to the material.

  “It is our custom,” Rainier explained to me, “for the girls to kneel while performing the actual service function. It is excellent practice for certain other activities and it also instills a sense of humility. “Jasmine, why don’t you get up now and show Emerald your mark.”

  Jasmine rose. “With pleasure, sir,” she cooed, lifting the micro mini skirt up high to reveal a pair of perfect ovals, tight as a drum.

  I was almost overcome by the barbarity of the thing, as well as its beauty. The tattoo was an exact replica of the Girly Girl logo, complete with a tiny trademark symbol. It had been inked in red, with exquisite attention to detail.

  “Jasmine is technically the property of this particular club,” Rainier explained with obvious pride at his business acumen. “Although she is available on loan to other divisions of the company. I believe she’s one of our calendar girls this year, in fact. Isn’t that right, Jasmine?”

  “Yes, sir,” she confirmed proudly, her head between her legs as she bent for inspection. “I am the Girly Girl for July.”

  “Tell Emerald what you won for that honor.”

  “I was taken to the mall,” she explained eagerly, “where I was allowed to pick out an ice cream cone all for myself.”

  Rainier’s eyes were on me now, gauging my reaction to the girl’s obvious debasement. “And what flavor did you pick?”

  “Vanilla,” she vouchsafed. “Sir.”

  “Did you enjoy it?”

  “Yes, sir. Very much. The other girls were quite jealous.”

  “Tell me, Jasmine, what is your greatest ambition?”

  “To please men,” she replied without hesitation.

  Gustav’s finger traced the tattoo, very lightly. “How far would you go to please a man?”

  “I would do whatever a man wanted of me, so long as he is properly authorized by the club.”

  “What if a man were to beat or whip you?”

  “So long as he were a properly authorized person, that would be his right. My body is the property of this club.”

  “Are you a slave, Jasmine?”

  “Sir, I am the property of this club,” she repeated, falling back on what was obviously rote learning. “I bear the mark of this club and I am available for the exclusive use of club guests, investors, customers and certain designated male employees. If I fail to be pleasing in any manner, either sexual or otherwise, I may be punished according to standards posted in the club, up to and including the use of certain whips and other devices of corporal punishment. I further understand that while every attempt will be made to keep me here, I may at any point be moved to other divisions of the company.”

  I shivered at her final sentence. No doubt this was a reference to the shadowy cartel and the ‘relocation service,’ Rainier had alluded to earlier.

  “That will be all, Jasmine. Run and find someone to administer the paddle now. Twenty strokes, hard. Be sure to deliver our order to the kitchen first, though.”

  Jasmine disappeared without a word. I’d noted a slight shake in her shoulders when her sentence was announced, but I couldn’t imagine this was much of a punishment in a place like this.

  I turned my concentration back to the stage, not wanting to have my mind flooded with images of the tall, graceful Jasmine over the knee of some muscle man, her reddened cheeks twitching and thrashing under the assault of whatever paddle he was employing. The chained redhead was gone by now, replaced with a small, sweet bodied blonde. The girl was squatting, naked except for a belly chain and a pair of silver heels, three inches tall. Her hips moved gently in time to the pre-recorded music as she frigged herself, her pussy lips in plain, gushing view.

  I was quite sure this was not legal in the city. Nor was the act that one of the other waitresses, a short-haired, bare-breasted black girl with nipple rings, was performing; namely kneeling on the floor, taking a male customer into her mouth.

  “The rules in our club are different from those elsewhere,” Rainier offered, noting my perplexity. “Whereas in most places the customer is penalized for touching or interacting sexually with a girl, here it is celebrated as a natural expression of masculinity. Likewise, for her part, a female who arouses men with her submissive display behaviors can be assured she will serve and please each and every one according to their exact specifications.”

  I clenched my fists to avoid touching myself. “This is immoral,” I protested, attempting to hide my burgeoning desire to be one of those girls. “And unethical.”

  Just then a man came onto the stage with a whip. The crouching blonde beheld him and adjusted her stance, moving her legs even further apart. Without ceasing her self-pleasuring, she fell forward, onto her breasts. A moment later she was on her belly, crawling towards him, her hands over her head.

  He put out his foot to stop her, compelling her to wait as she was, completely prostrate. You could see her lightly humping the floor, her breasts rubbing back and forth over the canvas. Her arse, too, I noted, bore the same mark as Jasmine. In addition, on her opposite cheek, she sported the word ‘slut,’ in gothic style letters.

  “One touch and she’d orgasm,” Rainier told me, by way of answer to my earlier protest. “The whip is a great aphrodisiac, Emerald. As perhaps one day you will learn.”

  “I don’t think so,” I scoffed, folding my arms across my tingling breasts.

  “That’s your choice,” he shrugged.

  My choice. Why did it have to be an option at all? Why couldn’t it remain an impossibility; something absurd from pre-civil war days? Why did slavery have to seem so damned normal—enticing even---in Rainier’s world?

  I de
cided it was time to turn the tables. “We have a term for people like you, you know,” I smiled icily.

  “Really?” He arched an eyebrow. “And what term would that be?”

  “A megalomaniac,” I offered boldly. “A man without clear ego parameters. It’s a disorder. Quite treatable, actually.”

  I tried to ignore the girl on stage who was busy licking the feet of the whip man. As she licked, he was sliding the leather crop up and down the crack of her arse, between the Girls Limited logo and the word ‘slut.’ Would he strike her with it, I wondered, or merely torture her with the possibility.

  “A disorder,” he nodded. “So tell me then, do you have like terms for the very same ‘disorders’ found in other species as well? The Jankaran leopard, for example, pounces on its mate and tears a piece of its ear before mating with it. Siberian wolves sink their claws and teeth, drawing blood from the female upon climax. Are these animals also treatable by your psychology, doctor?”

  “Those are beasts,” I countered. “We are a sentient species.”

  The crop slashed the girl’s back. At once she began to writhe and moan, rolling to her back, holding her arms up to her torturer, begging him to make love to her.

  Rainier noted the lethal combination of horror and fascination on my face. “Indeed,” he quipped.

  I swallowed. How could one argue that this girl was herself a sleek animal, in high-heeled shoes, begging for sexual conquest? And what was her handler if not a beast himself, a creature strong enough to take what it desired.

  “Your wine, sir.” It was Jasmine, her head lowered, her face flush.

  “Thank you,” said Rainier as she set the glasses on the table, filling his a quarter of the way. Wine tasting is a ritual I’d always found very sexy. It was the second time I’d seen the man perform it, and he only looked better each time.

  “It’s very good, Jasmine,” he nodded. “You may pour two glasses. Then you will kindly show us the results of your punishment.”

  Jasmine did as she was told, filling the goblets and then turning to reveal her buttocks, bright red. Rainier picked up immediately on the milky discharge, oozing down her crack. “You were used after your paddling,” he observed.

  She looked over her shoulder towards Rainier. “By Mr. Ace,” she confirmed.

  “How were you used?”

  “After he paddled me, he had me get down off his lap and onto all fours on the storeroom floor,” she explained without an ounce of shame or modesty. “He entered me that way and rode me till he climaxed.”

  “Did you climax as well?”

  “Three times. Once while being paddled, twice while he was inside me. Afterwards he made come right back out on the floor before I could clean myself up.”

  “I see.” He downed more of the wine, clearly enjoying himself immensely. “Let me ask you a question, Jasmine.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Turn around so we can see you. That’s better. Now tell me, do you believe that a man who is strong and dominant with a female is sick?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t understand the question.”

  “If a man enjoys whipping a woman, if he insists on forcing her to take her pleasure through her own degradation, if he requires her to crawl and beg for release, is that man mentally ill?”

  Jasmine laughed. “If so, sir, then every man I’ve ever met is mentally ill. And so are all us girls who live for it.”

  “I see.” He waved his hand dismissively. “That will be all, Jasmine. Oh, and one more thing; you will kindly remove your clothing for the rest of the evening.

  “Yes, sir,” the girl smiled wickedly as she pulled the sorry excuse for a shirt overhead. It was clear she wanted to be had by the club’s owner tonight, and if she were topless, that would surely increase the odds. “My pleasure.”

  I gulped my wine, ignoring the wiggling girl, divesting herself of the scrap-like skirt. “Your little games aren’t going to work on me, Rainier, just so you know.”

  Rainier dismissed Jasmine with a slap on her bare outthrust arse, then paused to observe the girl on stage enjoying her third consecutive orgasm. She was on her back now, cupping her tits, her legs spread frog-like as the man frigged her with the handle of the whip. I saw another tattoo now, one I’d missed before. It ran up and down her inner thigh, the head of it pointing towards her sex. By its shape and outline there was no mistaking it; someone had inked a penis onto her flesh, life size and permanent.

  “I don’t play games,” he said at last. “I gamble. There is a difference.”

  “I fail to see any,” I pouted.

  Rainier laughed. “Isn’t it obvious? Wagering is the lifeblood of ‘sentient creatures’ as you call us, doctor. It is what makes us interesting as a species. It keeps us fresh and vital. For example, how would it affect you if I offered you right now, a chance to take your little Kristine and walk out of this place, no strings attached?”

  I cocked my head. “What’s the catch?”

  He refilled my glass. “Not a catch, doctor. A wager. In this case, I wager you would be unable to perform one simple task.”

  “And that task is . . . ?”

  “To whip her, doctor. That is my wager. If you can whip Kristine, in front of all these people, I’ll let you both go free.”

  “And if I can’t?”

  “Then your freedom would be forfeited on the spot.”

  My eyes glazed. Once again he was overwhelming me with choice. Even more deeply, though, he was opening in me dark places I did not wish to see exposed. “As always, you hold all the cards, don’t you?” I laughed without humor,

  Blue eyes locked on mine, the man’s features intensifying even as he maintained the cat-like smile. “Why don’t you ask me the question that is really on your mind, Doctor Tallow?”

  “And what question is that?” I spit back. “Mister Rainier?”

  “You want to know what it would be like,” he replied, oblivious to my sarcasm. “You want to know how it would feel if your freedom were forfeited, tonight, on that very stage.”

  I frowned. “You could not be farther from the truth.”

  He leaned forward, easily seeing through my lie. “First your clothing would be removed, doctor. It would be ripped from your body, because you would never wear it again. From that moment on, you would wear what we chose. Halters, panties, rags, scraps, or nothing at all. A collar would be locked on your neck at once and a leash. If you showed the slightest resistance, or even if you didn’t, there’d be a beating. The first kiss, it’s often called, in which the girl learns that the whip is her new mediator, the go-between between her and her master’s will. At this point slavers differ in their philosophy. Some feel the woman should be penetrated at once by as many men as possible in order to clarify in her mind her new position as property. Others feel she should be teased but not fucked so as to build up her impending sense of submission. There are even ceremonies in this regard.

  “Personally, it makes no difference to me. Whether or not the girl is fucked right away, she has much to learn. I prefer to get to the training as quickly as possible. There are facilities, under this floor, in a lower level for just that purpose. We have other locations, too, in more remote places. To begin, we’d put you in a cell, nude, where you’d lay for several hours in the dark, in chains.

  “Most girls do their crying at this point. They have to let their old lives go and ready themselves to become something new. A creature of service, a pleasure object, a natural, fulfilled woman.”

  I was on my feet, my legs shaking like matchsticks. “You’re a sick mother fucker, Rainier, and I hope someday someone does to you what you so sadistically enjoy doing to others.”

  “Sit down, Emerald. You’re going to miss the show.”

  I blinked. “What show?”

  “The stage show,” he continued, in a carefully measured tone. “It’s something special I’ve arranged.”

  I looked about, confused, feeling like a rabbit, caught bet
ween a trap and a dangerous hunter. I hated this, hated how he made me weak and unsure. This wasn’t me! I was a doctor, a PhD, a trained professional.

  “Sit, Emerald.”

  For a split second I hesitated. Eyes seemed to bore into me from every direction, as if I was a bad girl and they all knew it. Any moment now and they would laugh or yell at me. My rear tucked itself back into the seat. I hated myself for obeying, but I couldn’t at that moment bear the anxiety of revolting.

  Rainier treated me to a smile. “Good girl.”

  I wanted to spit in his eye. Even more so for the warm glow of peace I’d just felt at pleasing the man.

  The show began innocently enough with a group of four girls squatting in a circle and playing jacks. They were full bodied and obviously over eighteen, though their pony tails, pigtails and plaid skirts with white blouses suggested they were schoolgirls. They are giggling and enjoying their game, when along comes a tall, top-hatted man with one of those old fashioned mustaches. He breaks up the game, bursting into their little circle.

  They shriek in surprise, and begin to cry. The man merely laughs and pulls a long whip from beneath his floor length, black coat. The girls feign horror now, but the man is not deterred. One by one he throws them down and tears off their shirts. Bare breasted, they lay at his feet. Brandishing the bullwhip, he begins to thrash at them. The whip lands noisily among them, but doesn’t actually hit them. They pretend, though, that it does, and soon their voluptuous bodies are rolling on the ground. They have nothing on now but short skirts, socks and patent leather school shoes.

  After making a great show of the whipping, the man backs away from them and folds his arms. One by one the terrified girls look up, wondering what has happened and why he has stopped. The audience enjoys the humor as we discover the girls are actually missing the abuse. One of them, a buxom blonde, dares to crawl up to him on her knees. She tugs at his coat and he looks down. She gives a sultry look, indicating with her eyes what she wants. He refuses. Again she tries and is refused. At last, she comes up with a new strategy. With great aplomb, and great sensuality, she removes the shoes, socks and skirt. When she is fully naked to the audience’s satisfaction, she puts her head to the oblivious fellow’s feet and pays obeisance.