The Consignment of Emily

Emily awoke with her wrists and ankles bound. Hands behind her back, she tried to roll herself upright.

"Stay down," called the old woman, but Emily was too confused to comply. The last thing she remembered was Lisa sharing a meal with her. She should have known better than to trust an act of kindness from the woman. She mistakenly thought that their dilemma might have created camaraderie. They were going to need one to escape this place. But it was obvious that Lisa had other plans.

"You should have done it when she was still unconscious," said the hag. "─So she wouldn't feel it as much."

"It would have waked her just the same," said Caroline.

"I want her awake when we do it," purred Lisa.

Do what?

A sharp pain accompanied by the slice of a switch cutting the air brought her attention to the hag. "I said stay down. You're bound tight. You can't get anywhere. You'll hurt plenty soon enough. No point in making it worse."

"What are you doing!" cried Emily grunting against her binds. Sobered by the switch, she took in her surroundings. It was early morning now. The Sun was just cresting the tree line. The camp fire was still smoldering, and there was something next to it on the ground, too thin and long to be firewood.

The hag unrolled a brown parchment. Emily couldn't see what was on it. The hag took a strange metal object and dipped in into black ink. She pressed it against the primitive stationary. Then she wrote on it with a quill and signed it.

The old woman took the object and fastened it to the rod next to the fire. Instead of putting it back on the ground she placed the object into the fire.

A brand?

Emily's thought echoed in her head. Why are they doing all of this? She wondered. The notion of being tied hand and foot panicked her especially now.

"In this region slavery is legal. It just isn't very common. You must have the proper paperwork if you're going to own one. That's the law here." The hag spoke as if it were nothing unusual-- slavery.

"What are you going to do?" asked Emily nearly pleading, her concern growing over the iron in the fire.

The old woman ignored her. She spoke only to Lisa. "The same press is used for the mark on the paperwork and on the slave brand. That's how you identify slave ownership without legal issues."

"She's going to be hard to hold," offered Caroline.

"Don't worry," answered Lisa. "I'll stake her out on the ground if I have to."

"Just look how important you are," said Lisa holding the brown paper in front of her sniffling face. "You've got your own mark." Lisa laughed.

Minutes later Emily lay on the ground, face down and stretched between four stakes, unable to move her limbs. Her pants were crumpled beside the fire and her backside burned unbearably from her new brand. Lisa's cruelty demonstrated no bounds.

The hag spoke. "I've only got two more outfits. What you two are wearing won't do. If the locals see you they'll burn you for witches."

"And her?" asked Caroline nodding toward Emily.

"A slave doesn't need clothes," said Lisa in a wicked voice.

"True," said the crone. "We'll have to stake her out naked anyway to make our money. She's a fat, but the local drunkards will pay a few pennies to ravish her." The old hag paused thoughtfully. Then she said, "After her brand and a few rapes she'll be much easier to handle."

Lisa and the hag lead the freshly branded Emily along the road like a pony. She was naked as promised. Her wrists bound behind her back and her ankles bound with just enough slack to walk. She sobbed quietly. Too loud and she got the switch. The memory of her own screams still echoed in her head.

It took an hour to reach the town. They stopped on the outskirts next to the road. The area was covered by soft grass, and what looked like a tavern was not far off.

It was clear that Emily's companions had been collaborating as they walked. In a rush all even the hag were on her, pinning her to the ground-- three bodies working against one limb at a time, never leaving a single appendage unbound for her to fight them with. It was over in moments. Emily was spread naked on the ground like a prize-- helpless.

"I'll be back in a moment," said the hag. "I've got to leave word in the tavern that we're open for business."

Four hours had passed, but to Emily if seemed like much more. She's lost count of how many drunken men had come out of the tavern to rape her. They came in pairs, in threes, sometimes a mob of them would be on her. They laughed as they despoiled her, then each one would thank the hag by tossing a coin into her wicker basket. Even a few passersby had a go at the helpless Emily.

"How much is that?" asked Lisa unfamiliar with the currency here.

"Enough for now," the crone said.

The words seemed far away to Emily. Another brute was finishing up on her. Her cunt was numb. She could barely feel the warm flow of seed leaking from her body. She heard his coins hit the pile as more semen bubbled from her body-- his and that of all the others. Her head lay to one side. She stared at nothing. She had no fight left. The hag was right about that much.