Accidentally On-Purpose Pt. 03

"So there's no way for clients to match up potential candidates beforehand?" Michelle asked.

"Not really; we move inventory as soon as it comes in, so there's not really any time to, say, put it up on a website or contact buyers or anything" Kiara replied. "It's sort of luck-of-the-draw."

Michelle nodded, her brain furiously taking notes and making calculations.

One buyer in particular was hovering around 5525, inspecting her closely and speaking to her. He appeared to be an older Latino man, hair slicked back and sporting a glorious mustache and mini-goatee, dressed in a suit and a bolo tie and wearing gold-rimmed eyeglasses. Michelle nudged Kiara, who nodded and began tapping on her data pad. She pulled out a pair of earbuds, handed one to Michelle and put the other in her own ear; Michelle did likewise and suddenly she could hear the (one-sided) conversation he was having with 5525 (Directional microphone? she wondered).

"...in Matamoros, so we get both gringos from Brownsville and Mexicanos from all over Tamaulipas, all looking for a good time. We will teach you to dance on a stage, and to shake your big tits and your big ass to make money and attract clients to your booth — because you are older and a gringa you will be one of our no-holes-barred performers, so you will probably have some trouble sitting down for a while."

Michelle glanced at Kiara and raised an eyebrow; Kiara just set her mouth into a thin line and shook her head.

Now the man was running his hand across 5525's behind. "And if you don't make your quota," he said, "we will teach you another dance, but this one with a whip — " Michelle took the earpiece out and handed it to Kiara. "Isn't slavery illegal in Mexico?" she asked.

"Yes," Kiara replied, "but that doesn't stop the big brothel operators, they're in with the cartels and pay off the cops. There are slave brothels all along the border. Cal told me some stuff that would turn your stomach. It's an ugly business for sure."

Eventually the man left. A few other buyers inspected her dispassionately, and before long her hour was over. Kiara and Michelle released 5525 from the post and led her to a holding area near the auction block.

"There are lots of buyers here today, it'll be a lively auction for sure, 5525" Kiara said, "I think you're going to make us a nice profit for all the trouble you've caused." She motioned for Michelle to watch her while she updated some data on 5525. Michelle looked over at the woman, who didn't appear very reassured; I wouldn't be either, Michelle thought, if it was my ass going on the block.

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The auction wasn't scheduled to start right away, so Michelle and Kiara went to wait in one of the small Auction Operations rooms ("A-Ops" as Kiara called it — did everything in the Auction department have a nickname?) with surveillance monitors where they could have a soft drink in peace.

Kiara pointed out a few interesting things on the monitors but eventually ran out of things she thought worth mentioning and lapsed into silence.

"I talked to Sandy about last weekend, and what led up to it" Michelle said, apropos of nothing.

"I know" Kiara said, nodding her head. "She told me."

"Mind if I ask you a question? Strictly between us, of course."

"Sure," Kiara said, smiling. "Shoot."

"Really?" Michelle arched an eyebrow.

"Yeah. Sandy trusts you, and if she trusts you then I trust you" Kiara replied, still smiling.

"Okay, thanks." Michelle smiled back. "One thing I don't understand" she continued, "is how when Sandy went into the pens at night, you all managed to stay off the surveillance monitors. How did you do that?"

"I've worked here a while, and until Sandy came along I didn't really have any friends so I spent my free time studying the systems and figuring out how they work" Kiara said with a shrug. "It really wasn't hard to set the key cameras into static test mode, where they report all's well so that the night crew didn't think anything's wrong. I set them to run a short loop of the area that was taken before Sandy went in, and the night crew almost never makes rounds even though they're supposed to, so it all worked out great."

"Except for the time it didn't" Michelle said.

"Yeah, that was fucked up" Kiara agreed. "But it was just a question of switching the cameras back on, and adding some of the earlier video back into the feed in case they tried to rewind it and see what started the whole thing." Kiara suddenly froze with a bottle halfway to her lips before recovering a heartbeat later and continuing with the drink.

Michelle nodded, then asked, "Does Sandy know you're recording her nights in the pens and keeping copies?"

Kiara swiveled her chair around, facing Michelle. "No, she doesn't know. I think it might be better if she didn't." Michelle noticed that Kiara wasn't smiling any more.

"What are you doing with them?" Michelle asked in a calm voice.

"Nothing bad" Kiara said. "Certainly not putting them online or anything." She started fidgeting with her bottle cap.

"Why did you keep them?"

"Because they're hot. Really hot. I...just like watching them. From time to time" Kiara said, her voice trailing off.

Michelle rolled her chair closer to Kiara. "What, exactly, is your relationship with Sandy?"

Kiara looked at her for a long moment before answering. "We're friends. Just really good friends. I hate the term friends with benefits but with us it's... pretty accurate."

Michelle looked at her with a long-practiced neutral expression; what Kiara said lined up with what she had guessed, except for the friends with benefits part — Sandy clearly means more to Kiara than she wants to admit.

"The first time I saw Sandy in the locker room" Michelle said, "she had fresh whip marks on her back. I checked, and there was no punishment scheduled the previous weekend, or the weekend before that. Do you know how she got those?"

Kiara continued to roll her bottle cap between her fingers for a bit before speaking. "Sandy and me flirted a lot when we started working together, but nothing really happened until that first night in the pens. After that we got a lot closer, and before long we were sleeping together, on and off. I could tell that she leaned submissive, but I didn't know how much until she got whipped." Kiara exhaled deeply. "Before then we would fool around a bit with role playing, using a collar and leash, stuff like that. But afterwards? She would beg me to punish her, including whipping. That's probably what you saw, I think you started after we spent a whole weekend together out at my family's farm, with me playing 'Mistress' and her getting her skin peeled."

Michelle nodded. She had largely deduced this much too: Kiara tries to wear a sweet, harmless hippie-dippy personality, but barely below the surface...

"So if you were already whipping her, why did she feel the need to go on stage and risk injury from a professional sadist?" Michelle asked.

"Part of it is the pain" Kiara said. "Those guys hit her much harder than I ever could, or would want to. But what she likes the most is the danger and the humiliation. Being onstage, knowing that if the mask came off it would ruin her life and probably lead to her being a slave for real, in front of people she knows and works with and is friends with..." Kiara smiled for the first time since the start of the conversation. "Afterwards the sex is fantastic."

Michelle placed a hand on Kiara's thigh. "Don't worry, your secret is safe with me."

Kiara smiled and nodded at her; some tension seemed to go out of the air between them, and she placed her hand on top of Michelle's.

"Out of curiosity," Michelle asked, "Do you still help her go into the pens at night?"

"Sure," Kiara said, "Any time she wants to. I've got it down to a system at this point."

"Do you think" Michelle asked, "that you could put someone else in?"

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Today's auctioneer was T.J.: a tall, lanky, young white man with a large patch of premature white on his dark blonde hair, a prominent Adam's apple, and a face only a mother could love. To compensate, he developed a friendly and outgoing personality, and became something of a skilled performer.

So when 5525, the slave formerly known as Tamara, was brought out onto the auction block, he put her through as much of a show as he had the younger, thinner, and more attractive Prime slaves who came before.

Michelle watched from the wings as 5525 was put through her paces: kneeling, presenting, rolling onto her back and spreading her knees, walking back and forth across the stage, bending over and spreading her ass cheeks, arms over head and shaking her breasts, sticking her tongue out, swinging her hips like a hula hoop, standing with her back to the crowd and raising up on her toes with her hands clasped behind her head; there were a lot of things that she knew weren't part of the "standard" routine but were improvisations by T.J., including having her lay across his lap so he could lightly spank her large, round bottom for the audience, all accompanied by his running commentary. T.J. was so good at his job that he seldom needed the whip, and could get a good performance out of even an angry bitch like 5525.

Apparently it worked, because when the bidding started in earnest it was quite lively. Kiara leaned over to Michelle and said, "I sometimes think there's a growing market for mom-type slaves, MILFs, because I'm seeing more and more of them being moved with more and higher bids. In fact, that guy," she pointed into the audience toward a large, balding man in a double-breasted suit, "is the owner of a suck bar downtown — The Lucy Goosey, I think it's called — and he's been buying nothing but older slaves for the past few months. I wonder what he's up to?"

Why not go ask him? Michelle thought, making a mental note to do just that after the auction.

The auction ended, and Kiara went onto the block to fetch 5525 and take her to her new owner. She clipped a leash onto her collar and led her down to await her fate on the "right side" of the block (so-called because it was to the right of the audience, but also because if slaves went there instead of back down the left side as a no-sale then it was "right" for the auctioneer and for HCI). Michelle joined them, asking "What happens next?"

"If the buyer was remote, bidding online, then I'd have been pinged on my data pad to take her straight to shipping" Kiara explained. "But her buyer is present, so we wait for him or her to come up and tell us what they want to do next."

"Like what?" Michelle asked.

"They can take delivery on the spot, we'd just need to have them sign and thumbprint on the data pad. They could have her sent back to shipping. We could up-sell them on training, which is a whole entire thing on its own. They could have her put in a holding pen while they do more shopping. Any of a number of things, really." Kiara scanned the crowd, looking for anyone making their way to the front.

To the mild surprise of Michelle, the non-surprise of Kiara, and the horror of 5525, the person who showed up with the claim ticket, and was therefore 5525's new owner, was indeed the founder of The Lucy Goosey.

The man, whose name was Obregón, displayed the HCI app on his phone, with the scan square that served as his claim ticket. Kiara scanned it, glanced at the data pad, then turned it around for him to see. He looked it over quickly, then tapped his phone, and the data pad's screen turned green. "Thank you, sir" she said, then to Michelle: "Preferred accounts, like Mr. Obregón's, do not require a signature and thumbprint. It's a convenience for our regular customers."

"Miss Kiara," Obregón said, reading her name tag, "Would you please place my purchase backstage in one of the shipping crates and text me the number?"

"Of course, sir" she said. Obregón nodded, smiling at Kiara and Michelle in turn, and walked back to continue the auction.

"You know how sometimes a guy looks at you," Kiara whispered to Michelle, "and you can tell that all he's doing is sizing you up for a collar? That guy has it so strong it makes my skin crawl."

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The trio went backstage to the shipping area, the last stop for 5525. Kiara didn't stop at the shipping desk, but went straight to an empty wire shipping crate placed inside a red rectangle painted on the floor; "Crates in the red box are holds, awaiting destinations or whatever, so they don't go anywhere" she explained to Michelle. "Down" she commanded, and 5525 hesitated briefly before lowering herself to her knees. Kiara swung the crate door open and ordered "Back in," which 5525 managed after a great deal of fumbling: it's not easy to crawl backwards into a small door while your hands are cuffed behind your back.

Kiara unclipped the leash, pushed 5525's head the rest of the way inside the crate, and closed the door, locking it with a zip tie instead of a padlock ("Standard procedure" she explained, "locks go on when they're shipped."). She looked down at the woman, who didn't look quite so hateful now: Michelle thought that it's hard to look angry or menacing when you're naked, mute, handcuffed, and kneeling in a wire cage.

"Too bad you sold so quick" Kiara said to 5525, squatting down to look at her, "I would have enjoyed keeping you overnight. Oh well, if you end up going to The Katt's Pajamas you'll get plenty of pussy to eat, in every color of the rainbow. And if you go to The Lucy Goosey I hear they make you work your way up to sucking dicks by eating the men's hairy, sweaty assholes. Either way, that tongue of yours will finally be put to good use. Which reminds me, I owe you a souvenir of your time at HCI."

Kiara stood up, went behind a counter and returned with a smallish silver cylinder, like a really big rifle bullet with a keyring on one end Michelle thought. She dropped down on one knee behind the cage, and commanded "Put your ass up against the crate wall, shithead." 5525 leaned back so that her cheeks were touching the wire. Kiara examined the bullet, then spat on it. Smearing her saliva around the tip, she placed the tip against the opening to 5525's rectum, said "All aboard!" and gave it a shove. 5525 let out a muffled shriek of pain, which Kiara ignored while she tapped on her data pad.

To Michelle's surprise, the bullet emitted a beep, appeared to shift inside the woman (causing the ring sticking out of her to jingle, almost like it was wagging it's tail she thought; next time I'll video this for Lena), then began glowing a faint red out of the base; 5525 let out a series of low, pained moans.

Kiara stood up and slid her data pad into her thigh pocket. "The plug expands when activated, so that it seals off the rectum and becomes almost impossible to remove until it's deactivated. It's used to keep cargo from shitting themselves on long trips" she said.

Michelle looked down at 5525, who was flexing her gluteus muscles in an attempt to make the intruder slightly more bearable. "Is that standard procedure too?" she asked.

"No, but it's part of my procedure." Kiara replied. "Hey, you wanna get some food later? Sandy and I are going to Sushi Chef after work."

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The last auction had ended, and most of the buyers were milling around, preparing to leave, while the more experienced ones went straight to the shipping area to check on their purchases.

Mr. Obregón and his assistant walked straight to the red area and looked over the shipping crates arranged there, checking the tags against a list on the assistant's data pad. They were just finishing when Michelle walked up (during her well-timed break) and introduced herself, shaking both men's hands (the assistant was a short white guy with a lean, insanely muscled build that reminded Michelle of old photos of Bruce Lee - this guy probably doubles as a bodyguard she thought - named James).

"Mr. Obregón, I noticed that the four items you purchased today all have some attributes in common," Michelle said. "They are all over the age of 30, and while they were graded Prime in their youth they are now at best Choice, and their bodies are starting to show signs of aging. As I understand it (from researching you and your company for the past hour, she thought), your businesses exclusively utilize younger Primes, mostly in the 18-24 range. If you don't mind me asking, why are you purchasing these particular models?"

Obregón looked at her with slightly hooded, unblinking eyes (I see what Kiara means, Michelle thought) before replying "If you don't mind my asking, why do you want to know?"

"I'm researching business practices here at HCI," she began, "in particular ways that we can better serve our preferred clients such as yourself. My initial findings seem to indicate that if we could determine your requirements ahead of time, we could better meet your needs by, for example, retaining certain categories of stock and keeping them outside of the auction process so that we could give you first refusal."

Obregón exchanged looks with James, who raised his eyebrows, before turning back to Michelle; his eyes met hers, but then they ran all the way down her body and back up before he spoke again: "I don't understand what that has to do with your question" he said.

"Well, as one of the first steps I'm gathering data on whether our clients actually have any predetermined requirements, or if they prefer to just choose among whatever is available at any auction" she said. "But I don't mean to pry, if you would rather not say I will certainly stop bothering you."

Obregón regarded her for a moment longer than was really comfortable among humans, then replied: "I understand, and will answer. I am expanding into a sort of 'experimental' line of business: I have noticed that some men prefer older women, or women with certain body types or with certain physical features not commonly found among the young, or women who remind them of important females in their lives: wives, mothers, teachers, bosses, co-workers, and so forth. They find that they very much enjoy the experience of degrading and humiliating them. So far it has been a modest success, but I am preparing a large advertising campaign that I expect to bring in many new customers, and it follows that I should expand my inventory in anticipation. You have already listed my primary 'requirements' as you called them. Does that answer your question?"

"Yes sir, it does" Michelle said. It also partly answered why you seem so creepy, she thought, you have no accent at all, like you learned to speak English from a computer. She also disliked how he emphasized noticed; was he belittling her?

"Just one other question: if it were possible for you to review items of inventory that had been selected for your needs, and could do so prior to their being placed on public sale, would you be interested in doing so in exchange for a service fee in addition to a negotiated purchase price?"

"Yes, yes I would" Obregón agreed. "And now for a question of my own: what is a beautiful young woman such as yourself doing wearing an HCI shirt?" And not naked in one of my cages, Michelle thought, finishing his sentence for him.

"I am a summer intern here in the receiving department, and I am looking for a topic on which to write my internship thesis, which hopefully HCI will find useful," she lied.

"James," he said without turning his head, keeping his gaze fixed on Michelle like that of a cobra, "Please take this young woman's contact information, I wish to further discuss this with her at another time." James tapped his data pad, retrieving her information from her chip, nodding to Mr. Obregón; Michelle couldn't help feeling like that was a prelude to her ending up in a collar.