Gabriela's Enslavement

Gabriela soon found herself on a slave mat with her ankle chained to the floor. Her hands had been re-cuffed in front of her and she had a bottle of water. It wasn't an icy-cold bottle of fresh spring water like Otis always gave her. It was a lukewarm bottle of tap water, reflecting her new station in life. But, it was still water, for which she was grateful. She hadn't had anything to drink since before her trip to the smithy, and she was parched.

She knelt quietly among a number of other slaves who were also being shipped soon. Although she hadn't been ordered not to talk, she knew she didn't need to be told that. "Slaves will speak only when spoken to" was a default rule of slavery. But she hadn't been told not to look around, so she did that. It was a very different perspective of the shipping department than she remembered. Previously when she came down here, the long row of slave mats was something on the edges of her awareness. She only came over to this area if she needed to check on a particular inventory item. Other than that, she ignored the rows of kneeling slaves.

Now SHE was one of the kneeling slaves.

Activities that had once seemed banal took on a whole new meaning for her. "Clack!" a worker dropped wooden pallet and began assembling a folding wire "dog crate" on top of it. Most slaves being transported locally were shipped out via "poodle express", which meant in the back of a truck or van, crammed into a too-small wire crate. A standard shipping pallet was 48"x40" inches and could hold two crates, four if you stacked them to save space. That's usually how it was done. Often, the last that Gabriela saw of shipped slaves was a quartet of gagged faces looking out from behind the wire mesh of their cages as the truck doors were closed.

Now SHE was going to be one of those anguished faces.

"Ahhahah!"

Startled, she looked up. She needed to be more alert. Slaves always needed to pay attention to the free people in the room. A skinny slave wrangler with long blonde hair was standing over her. Working in a warehouse wasn't the cleanest of jobs, but his grungy work uniform made his coworkers look like corporate executives. Gabbie didn't know his name, but didn't think it would matter to her now. "Yes, Boss" and "No, Boss" were really the only things she would be allowed to say to him now.

"Lookit, lookit, lookit. Hey Mike, lookit here! It's Miss Pencil Skirt! Remember how she used to come down here and sashay all around like she owned the place? Heh, well now she found a place all right, on her knees. Hey, Miss Smarty-pants! Or should I say hello... he peered at the numbers stenciled on her chest... slave 5993. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. When's break time? I've got dibs!"

It was common practice for the loading dock workers to pull a few slaves from the queue on their breaks and reward themselves for being such great guys. Fortunately, that activity was normally confined to the break room. That's where Otis kept his stash of cold water bottles and she suspected that he brought them out to her so that she wouldn't have to see slaves being used by relaxing dockworkers. Gabriela looked around the room to see if Master was returning.

The man's arm lashed out like a striking snake and painfully grabbed her chin. Much like her previous assailant, Gus, he seemed to revel in his position of authority over her and wanted to enjoy seeing the fear in her eyes. "Ain't nobody comin' to help you, slave bitch. You stay right there until I'm ready for ya. I'm gonna fuck yer ass before I put ya in that crate!"

"C'mon Jack, help me get these crates up," said the other worker. He clearly didn't care about Jack's actions, he just wanted help setting up the cages.

In her previous role as a slavery professional "sashaying all around the place", she had seen such behavior before. She hadn't interfered either, reasoning that it was just the way things were. Which it was. None of the other workers bustling about paid any attention to the interaction. She had noticed long ago that everyone had a pretty hands-off attitude toward the mistreatment of slaves as long as the merchandise wasn't being damaged more than normal wear and tear. But now that she was the object potentially being worn and torn, she had a whole new perspective on things. After her humiliating public downfall, she knew that she could never work here again. But even if she WAS able to return, she wouldn't want to. Her brief career as a slaver was over. She would need to find a new role in life five years from now.

She could do nothing at all right now except wait. Oftentimes, slavery is boring. She watched with trepidation as the two men finished building and securing the 4-crate pallet and then crammed four of her fellow slaves inside. Jack kept looking up at her as the project approached completion. He was practically rubbing his hands with glee. She wished Master would return.

A forklift arrived and lifted the pallet up. The last she saw of it was four gagged faces staring back at her. Some things didn't change. Actually, she had changed. She now had far more empathy for the slave girls being shipped into the unknown. Before her downfall, she empathized intellectually. But now she empathized viscerally. They were shipping Gabbie off soon, and she had no idea where, other than that it had been described as a school. In the slavery industry, "school" could mean a lot of very different things. Some of those things were pretty frightening. She silently wished the four women good luck.

"Mr. Henry!"

Jake Henry and Joe Do crossed the shipping room floor, followed closely by slave 4513, formerly known as Bethany. Gabriela was pleased to see that she had stopped crying and now appeared composed and resigned to her fate. Gabbie had no doubt that the girl didn't think that her followers would let her down, but she had to have known that it was a possibility. Maybe that helped a little bit?

"Congrats on your purchase sir, nice one!"

"Thanks, guys," Master Do replied, obviously still in a very good mood. He handed the leash to one of the men as Jake issued a rapid-fire series of commands. Gabriela was impressed by Master Jake, as always. He reminded her so much of her own Master. "Put her over here with this other one. We're shipping them both out together. I want to see the new flat-packs in action, so set one up, just one layer for now. You and you, make sure these two slaves are fed and watered, I don't guess either of them has eaten since breakfast. Has anyone seen Otis?"

Some of the men began executing the boss's orders while he clapped his arm around Mr. Do and the two men headed off in the direction of Otis's office, trailing celebratory cigar smoke.

Gabbie didn't see Jack anywhere. Apparently, the appearance of Mr. Henry had scared him off... for now. Her cheek curled upward in a brief smile. There were benefits to being owned by a powerful man. Her original sales strategy was working and she had more protection than most of these other girls. She could have felt guilty about it, but with her ass literally on the line, she didn't. It was every girl for herself at the bottom of the social ladder. She was learning. If she could protect herself, she would.

"Dinner" was slave chow and water. The less said about that, the better. As they ate the flavorless crunchy bits, the two girls watched several workers set up a new pallet. This one appeared to be a more-or less flat box about two feet high with triangular-shaped styrofoam inserts.

Master, Jake, and Mr. Do returned just as the men finished the box. They walked around it, examining the set up.

Otis explained what they were looking at. "Okay, this is a new product. The idea is to pack more slaves into the same amount of space for longer distance shipping. Poodle cages have a lot of wasted space. So this configuration will ship six slaves in the same space as four regular crates. Also, it places less stress on the slaves because the girls are lying down. At least that's the theory. I have some reservations, though. Guys, pack 'em in so they can see it in action."

Gabriela and Bethany were unchained and helped into the crate. In order to fit into the cramped space, they were placed on their sides face to face with their legs bent at the knees and waist. The two girls' gagged faces were inches away from one another. Then they were strapped in with their arms bound behind their backs, ankles and knees bound together. Additional straps were used to ensure that they couldn't shift around during transport. Gabriela was grateful that the men were very careful not to disturb the fresh brands. Most Masters preferred that their slaves' brands heal without excessive scarring so that they were clear and easy to read. Others intentionally irritated the brands in various ways so that they formed prominent, discolored ridges. Gabriela was just glad that they weren't hurting her.

When they were done, another worker strapped an electronic device to each girl's upper arm.

Mr. Henry inspected the bindings, tugging here and there and grunting a bit. "Hmm... so then we stack two more on top of them?"

"Yessir, that's the design. Frankly, I don't like it. I mean, in theory, on paper, it looks fine. Also, there's the nice visual effect, which looked really good in the brochures."

"I hear a lot of reservations here. What don't you like about it?"

"Well sir, first of all, it doesn't really save us a lot of time. Shipping costs, yeah, so there's that. But what I really don't like about it is the lack of breathing room and ventilation. Also, it's hard to pack and unpack. You have to start packing from the bottom and unpacking from the top. That can be planned for, but it's just more headaches for us. There's better ways to do this. However, I really DO like these nifty health monitoring devices. So that's something."

"Hmm... all right, here's what we're going to do. We've already got these two packaged and we're sending them out tonight, so go ahead and do that. Then I want you to grab some more guys and try doing a full pallet with three stacked crates. Pick a few girls from the line up and package them, see how that works. I have one further concern, which is panic attacks. If you get a claustrophobic slave and she freaks out, you've got a real mess on your hands. It creates a medical emergency and there's no telling what might happen. If she's near the bottom, you gotta unstack the whole pallet to get her out. That's a mess if it happens here, what if it happens on the road and it's just the one driver with no helper? Anyway, ship these two and get started on the full stack. I want an assessment in the morning. Justin, Joe, how about that glass of scotch I promised you? I've got a new bottle in my office."

Gabriela tried to roll her eyes enough to watch Master go, but was unable to see him from her tightly bound position. Her heart sank as he left without saying a word to her.

Soon, she felt the pallet jacked up and could see the overhead lights rolling by as they were placed in the back of a van. Apparently, she and Bethany were being sent to the same place. Mr. Do had mentioned some sort of "school". She hoped it wasn't one of those sex training schools that took in women and churned out mindless sex dolls. Master wouldn't do that to her, he loved her. She had confidence in him!

Inches in front of her face, she saw Bethany give up trying to hold back her tears and watched them roll down her face as the van's doors were slammed and they headed off. Gabriela tried to smile reassuringly, but was overwhelmed by her own tears.

Speeding through the night, the two young women mourned their loss of freedom together.

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