The Cost of My Dreams Ch. 02

"Eight Three Seven Five, you may eat," said the handler in the cell as he exited the cell and locked the cell door. Tentatively, Susan opened one of the wipes, cleaned her hands and started to nibble on the donut and fumbled with the lid of the coffee cup.

The handlers went to the other occupied cell and unlocked the door. All of the slaves, even One Nine Seven Five, had gone into the down position. He ordered "One One Eight Two, stand and front hands." The short curvy brunet rose unsteady and held her hands crossed before her. A handler entered the cell, secured her wrist bands in front of her, leashed her and led her from the cell. He gestured for her to kneel facing the cell bars and he secured her hands to a crosspiece in the bars, forcing her up off of her heals, kneeling with her belly and thighs against the bars. He bound her belly to the bars using a leather belt. Then he got his whip out of his belt and gave her the first blow on her buttocks.

She cried out and started to struggle. He gave her a second blow. She cried out again and started to cry. He said "One Nine Seven Five is not the only one who is not special. Neither is One One Eight Two. Is that clear One One Eight Two?"

"Yes master, One One Eight Two is not special."

That wasn't the full necessary response, so he struck her again. She yelped and he asked "Does One One Eight Two thank me for the instruction of the whip that she might better serve her masters?"

"Yes master, One One Eight Two thanks you for the instruction of the whip that she might better serve her masters."

The handler then freed her from the bars, unclipped her wrist bands and her leash, and shoved her into the cell, locking the door behind her. He went to our cell and told us "You'll be loaded for departure to The Sharks in about a half hour. Make sure you use the grates before departing." He looked at Susan and said "Eight Three Seven Five, make sure One Nine Seven Five knows to use the grates as well. She will be joining you at The Sharks.

That made no sense and it was all I could do to stifle my questions until after the handlers had departed. There seemed to be nothing special about the Japanese woman. Why wasn't she going to a standard obedience school or a seasoning house. Why The Sharks for her?

Most of us couldn't settle on a convincing reason but Erin knelt there with a smile on her face. We eventually got her to give an answer of sorts. "If the results don't make any sense, you need to question the assumptions that led you to expect different results," Erin said. "There is at least one set of assumptions under which sending her to The Sharks makes perfect sense. And no, they're not lying about the reversible auction." Erin would say no more.

Eventually, two handlers showed up to load us in the livestock truck. They removed One Nine Seven Five from her cell, locked a leash on her, and led her to our cell. Then they got Susan out of our cell, looked a leash on her, and locked the end of her leash to One Nine Seven Five's collar. Working one woman at a time, the eventually go us lined up with me at the front with my leash dangling, Erin leashed to me, Angela leashed to Erin, Cheryl to Angela, One Nine Seven Five to Angela, Susan to One Nine Seven Five, and Denise to Susan. Then came a final indignity.

We weren't a mixed shipment; we were all going from the same origin to the same destination. There was no real reason to mount transit tags to our ears but it was still a standard they could use for interstate transport between different organizations. Each tag had a Slave Identification Number, a picture of the slave, owner information, and our routing information. There were even bar codes on the thing, which is pretty of old school at this point but the tags are single use and why fix what ain't broke? They walked down the line and we each felt the pain and heard the snap as the tags were attached to our left ears.

With one handler leading me and one watching for discipline problems, we went out to the warehouse area for one final stop before boarding. We were each told to grab what looked like a kitty litter tray and fill it with two inches of slave litter. We carried that aboard the truck and with us into the kennels as we were loaded in fixed slave kennels, five foot long, three foot high and three foot deep, with a three-by-three slave pad inside. Each kennel had shipping paperwork mounted to it. They were stacked three high and I'm not quite sure how they would have loaded the top level, thought it did look like a deck, possibly intermittent, could be mounted between levels one and two. In our case, everyone except Denise was on the lowest level. We still had our leashes on in the Kennels. The handlers told us they would water us in a few hours, but that we'd be proceeding without significant stops from Jacksonville to The Sharks, about a fourteen-hour travel time. Then they joined the drivers in the part of the vehicle reserved for human beings and the truck started moving.

We'd been on the road for about a half hour before I figured it out, and boy did I feel stupid for not seeing it earlier. I motioned Erin closer to the mess between us and whispered, knowing the road noise would cover it "Erin, is it your theory that her husband was the winning bidder in the reversible auction?"

"Not directly," she whispered back. "Her paperwork lists an LLC as her owner. Her husband would have been smart to work thru a colleague with no paper trail between them. That way, the third-party sales rule applies. When she's thru training, he can buy her back and either keep her as a slave or free her, making himself the hero and gifting himself with a wife with no inhibitions and a slave's desire to please. Most likely he'll just keep her enslaved though, at least until he has to go back to Japan. She did mention he was assuming a position in the US."

"What a fucking snake."

"As compared to The Martian Exploration and Colony Company, who are models of honor and openness."

We both laughed and I asked "So he's sending her to The Sharks because they do great work but preserve their subject's minds and money is not an object?"

"One of several possible reasons. It could be that he wants her to truly appreciate his victory and what he has done to her, but I suspect he somehow wants to be both her master and her protector. It's a fucked up dynamic, but it would explain everything."

"Master and protector could explain why they whipped the brunet, whatever the hell her name was. I can't imagine they'd care that much about a non-violent dispute between slaves. Someone with clout thinks One Nine Seven Five is someone special."

"Hum, that didn't occur to me, but you're right. I doubt The Sharks will go along with that though. The market was just processing her, not training her. They did their job and the brunet was a bit much. Maybe she did need to learn she's not in charge of anyone anymore. Whether she's actually learned it, of course, is a separate issue the doesn't concern us as we'll never see her again."

We talked for a while longer until fatigue from the day's stress hit me. I curled up in my kennel and slept.