The Wild West and Sex Slavery Ch. 09

"Tom, I am in a pretty tough spot here. I might not make it out alive, but I do not intend to go quietly. I want to make sure that if I am going to bring down the temple on my head, I bury as many Philistines with me as I can.

"You have three packages from me now: the Betty Jo letter, the report I have written on what I have just learned out west and down south, and the envelope I gave you a couple weeks ago of materials regarding corruption in the European Union that you better have kept safely. If I am delayed by more than a day from getting back to the North, please release the Betty Jo letter along with a description of what you learned on your visits to the low-budget boat, with as much detail as you feel you can give without getting any of the women in trouble or ruining your love life. I am sure Kultur, Sex and Sport will publish the letter with your article immediately, but get some other mags to publish it too to put a little more distance between the letter and me. Cheers, you are going to be famous.

"If you hear I am dead, that I am not back in a month, or I do not get further instructions to you, please release the article I wrote on my trip to the Free States.

"If you do not have further instructions from me in eight months, release the documents on the EU. That will embarrass one scoundrel here and incriminate a scoundrel or two in Strasbourg.

"Keep very safe yourself, Tom, but remember, whatever happens, you are going to be famous and should capitalize the best you can. I think you already have my parent's address in Tübingen from my past adventures, but here it is again if you have lost it. Also, here is most of the money I have left that I brought on the trip and got later from my company. I will either be back soon as planned or, if I am not back soon, having a bundle of cash on me definitely will not help me."

"Lena, du bist übergeschnappt (you are crazy). Come with me, and we will get north to Louisville while we can. Your hosts will be disappointed, but you know you cannot trust them. You cannot change the world with a magazine article; at least you cannot change it enough to risk dying or ruining your life to print the article."

„Ich vermochte nur wenig. Aber die Herrschenden saßen ohne mich sicherer, das hoffte ich." (I could accomplish little but those in power sat less securely because of me, I hoped)

"Yes, Lena, but Berthold Brecht had the sense to get out of Germany when he could. He did not stay in Nazi Germany to write magazine articles about it."

"I do not believe that Brecht was in love when he fled," Lena answered. Lena started a letter to Killer and made plans to meet Neck the following day to go to Memphis.

Tom Schnupper took the Betty Jo letter and Lena's report with him back to the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Louisville tentacle of Social Democratic States of America (SDSA) territory that stretched into otherwise FASUG territory in what once was parts of the states of Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio. The money Lena gave him allowed him plenty to stay in a nice resort in northern Michigan for as long as he wanted.

Schnupper read the letter that Betty Jo had written as soon as he crossed the border into the SDSA.

BETTY JO'S STORY

The letter, written on the back of Big Nosed Kate waitress ordering sheets, said:

November 29, 2045

Dear Madeline,

It's been over a decade since we've seen each other. It will be a long time more before we get to meet again. I have not been in a good situation to write. I did not initially want to have to explain what had happened to me, not even to you.

Recently, though, I was encouraged by a boat customer to write, and I now feel guilty that I did not write earlier. They let us read the Bible and write family from here, and I really should have done that even if I am very busy with, well, you know what, most of the time.

Also, I am not sure I even know what words I can use or what things I can say anymore. As you know, I have been living in a very coarse environment for a while. I have grown used to people using all sorts of words and phrases that would be considered very improper coming from a lady in the Free States. Of course, I don't know what's improper now, and I'm not a lady anymore or even part of the Free States except as a resident servant because they took away my citizenship when I went onto the boat.

I know, though, that Detroit is not exactly a Sunday School, and I think the censors will take out anything that they think is obscene. So, I will try to just tell the truth.

First, I want to start by admitting that I realize that it is my fault that I am where I am now. I am a sinner born in original sin, and I made a lot of mistakes all through my life.

Where I am now is not so bad; I guess it's the best I deserve, but it's not where I wanted to be. I wanted to be an engineer like our father, although he wanted me to focus on being a Proverbs 31 wife, like mother. Most people would say I should have done what I was told.

As the fourth child in the family, I should have been more responsible with regard to my four younger siblings. I don't even know, though, if there are not more children in the family by now. I thought mom was done when she had little Marjorie, but maybe mom has had more children. I've been wrong when I thought she was done having children before. We Free States women are powerfully fertile.

You know, at the time of the so-called national divorce in 2031, I was 16. Under the terms of the national divorce, 21-year-old Joseph and 19-year-old Ruth could emigrate. Ruth, of course, fled to Milwaukee, and Joseph decided to stay in the Free American States under God. I guess he is still an accountant in Birmingham. You must be in contact with Ruth. Do you and Joe communicate at all? He quit speaking to me even before I got where I am now.

You, brave lass, at age seventeen, did the unthinkable. You were a year too young to move without parental permission under the national divorce agreement, but a few days before the electric tracking system was finished, you fled north like some sort of 2031 Harriet Tubman. At least, that's what I heard. Is it all true? If so, it was pretty smart on your part, I guess. I don't know. What they told us down here is that the SDSA was all full of perverts and cultural Marxists.

But you know all that. Now we come to what has happened to me.

You had other plans and probably didn't listen, but I had been begging our parents to take the whole family north or at least let me go north with Ruth. But father was firm that in his words, "no one was getting his permission to go north to live like a whore among all those homosexuals, transsexuals, hyper-sexuals, ultra-sexuals and other perverted sinners."

I was young, Madeline, but I knew that with all the people that father did not like going North, the laws at home would become still more slanted in favor of the Old Testament values that many favored in the FASUG. I don't know if you even follow what's going on down here, but they now only let married women vote, and they only let married women cast votes that have been approved by their husbands. The laws kept getting more that way, and now, being on a boat, I don't even know what's happening anymore. Sometimes I hear something from a customer, but most of them don't want to talk so much. My ears are not the parts of me of most interest to them.

Like other girls in the Free States, I was encouraged to find a man and get married at 17.

I did take the mandatory Proverbs 31 wife class, which included some information on sex. The ministers and other men of God who run the FASUG insist that they are not against sex and say that men and wives who obey their husbands should derive as much pleasure as they can while having proper sex. Naturally, that only includes sexual conduct that holds forth the possibility of conception, not sodomy or any other form of perversion.

Where I really went wrong was when I disobeyed father's direction to marry a nice young man, the son of our father's friend, Jim McSwaggert. Mom and Dad said I was full of sinful pride. I said that I wanted to go to college and did not want to be having children while I was trying to study engineering. Dad said I was irresponsible, and he would no longer support me until I got married to a respectable man and did my duties as a Free States woman.

You haven't really seen me for years, but I developed into an 18-year-old woman. I do not think anyone would say I was particularly beautiful, but I was not homely. My thighs were not like those of a fashion model. My mousy hair and strong arms probably went more with people's idea of a farm girl. My belly wasn't flat, but I wasn't real fat either. My large breasts turned out to be fateful.

I did well on college tests, although our parents didn't want me to take them. By then, though, I had moved out of the house to live with another friend in a mobile home who also wanted to go to college. Lizzi, though, had more money than me because her father had died, and her mother supported her getting an education.

Now, the FASUG is not Afghanistan, no matter what you've heard up North. We don't cover our faces, and women can lean to read and go to college, but it is not encouraged. All the college scholarships are for men. It was clear I was going to have to take out a large college loan, and I'd have no collateral other than my person.

You may have heard that the FASUG states decided that people have a natural God-given right to contract any way they want. If a person wants to enter into an unlimited indentured servitude agreement, they can do so.

The woman at the bank was honest. She said that many of these student loans failed, and the bank had to call in its collateral. She said that for this reason, they did not encourage people to take out these loans unless they knew they would have a good, stable job after they graduated that would allow them to make the loan payments. Engineering was a good degree, she said, but she also pointed out that there were "Breadwinners Preference" laws being proposed in the Congress of the Free American States to require employers to replace women workers with unemployed married men. Also, to get a loan, I would have to be appraised to make sure the bank had enough collateral that it would not be hurt if I could not make payments. They call this "grading." Further, I had to promise to take care of my weight and looks to make sure that the value of the collateral did not go down.

Some would say that at that point, I should have gone back to my parents and begged them to marry me to any man who would have me. At the time, though, I thought I'd be an engineer and, even on the remote chance I could not pay back the loan, I would be sold to some engineer who would have me do engineering work as a slave. If he also used my body, I'd not be much worse off than if I married whoever my father thought was good.

The grading was awful. The bank appraisal official had me strip naked and felt up my breasts like he was checking udders on a cow. His assistant felt me up from head to toe and even licked my nipples. I can't deny that, sinner that I am, I was getting mighty aroused.

The bank appraiser noted that maybe someone might want to buy me as an engineer but in his words, "it was more likely a buyer would be interested in my big but firm tits." Him telling me that I was a lot more "fuckworthy," that was his word than I thought I was, did not make me feel any better, although I think he was trying to be flattering.

After that, he put a vibrator on my naked pelvis and told me to try to have an orgasm.

Naturally, I was horribly embarrassed, but he just kept the vibrator there and told me to think about all the college football players I'd seen on TV and how good it felt between my legs. His assistant gently ran his finger over one of my nipples while using his tongue on the other. After I had an orgasm, the appraiser said I'd do fine as a "fuck toy," which meant I was worth more as collateral.

He inquired if I was a virgin, and I said I was. He said that would add about $75,000 to my sales price as the buyer could have a big event for my initial sexual experience. He volunteered that I was pretty hairy, but they had new equipment that could defoliate anyone permanently. He joked that that was one of the few elements of technological progress in the last twenty years, along with controlling VD and developing trackers that could trace anyone who tried to flee the country. He said that last thing as kind of a warning, I think.

A question on the loan application asked if I thought I could live for decades as an indentured servant on a ship for the purpose of providing sexual pleasure to men without having any form of birth control and having lots of babies that would be sent outside the Free States. I asked the woman at the bank what I should do with that question because I was not comfortable answering it. I said that if I somehow defaulted and the bank foreclosed on my body, it was unlikely a boat would want to buy me, given that I was not exactly Crimson Tide cheerleader quality.

The lady at the bank said that I was underrating myself as a sex object and that the boats were not just interested in skinny women. Some men, she said, would even find me more attractive than the women in the swimsuit magazines. Anyway, she said I could do what I wanted, but if I answered that there was no way I thought I could live as a pleasure object on a boat, that would greatly reduce my value as collateral, and the bank could not make a large loan. So, I checked the 'yes' box, figuring that the sex boats would not want me.

The bottom line is that I qualified for a big enough loan to get an engineering degree and pay for food and shelter while I studied. After I signed the paper in front of a notary, though, I'd agreed to turn over my mind, body and soul for twenty years if I did not pay back the loan.

I graduated in 2037, almost at the top of the Southern State Tech class. I got a pretty good job, and I was doing well until the crash of 2039. Everyone liked my work, and I was happy. You might say that I was living my dream, although mom and dad wouldn't talk to me.

I lost my job in 2040. A guy got the position I had because of the "Head of Family Protection Act" that had been passed by the Free States Congress in Little Rock while I was in school. It allowed any unemployed married man to claim a position held by a woman if he was qualified on paper. The guy who wanted my job had an engineering degree, and that was good enough for me to be out.

I had some savings, which, with some help from friends who were also having trouble, lasted about a year. Desperate, I went back to our parents, but Dad said he was saving their money for their good children.

In 2041, I gave away all of what little possessions I had left and turned myself into the bank. I did not want to have to go through the indignity of being re-possessed by some burly guys operating out of a van.

As it was, when I turned myself in at the bank, the nice lady at the bank, the same lady who'd warned me against taking out a loan six years before, was there. She said, "I'm really sorry Betty Jo that the loan worked out this way, especially since it looks like I may lose my job if the economy does not recover soon. I paid off my business school loan, but I don't know what I will do for food and rent if I lose this job."

I don't know what happened to the bank lady. I don't think she's on Big Nosed Kate, but there are a lot of other boats.

I did not tell the bank lady that I was no longer a virgin, just that I'd done a lot of sports in college. The nice lady winked and said that she understood. I think they'd heard that line before.

After doing a bunch of work on her computer, the bank lady waved to a couple bank guys in uniforms and said that the men would now drive me to the processing facility to be auctioned off. She said the bank would bid the amount of the remaining loan, but she expected I would go for a lot more than that. The look on her face did not suggest to me that she thought that would be a good thing. I think she was crying as I was led off to a van that had six women in it already.

When I got to the processing facility, the first thing they did was tell us to remove all our clothing. There did not seem to be any point in arguing. We all stripped. They had us stand still with our legs and arms stretched out while they removed pretty much all the hair below our necks with fancy new laser machines. After being showered and dried, we were marched into a little waiting room where there was a television with preachers giving sermons about following God's commands.

An hour later, we were taken to use the toilet. We were next marched out into a large room. Our legs were attached to handcuff-like things on the floor, and our arms were attached to chains hanging from the roof. Any silly desire to resist was killed instantly by one of the men hitting a woman with a taser who'd hesitated a second in taking the position where she could be chained on display.

The auction was ten times worse than I'd expected. I'm told they do it differently in different places and that they do some things differently now from how they did them when I was sold. Anyway, somehow, despite everything I should have learned about how the FASUG had developed, I expected that the bank would show on the FASUG closed internet system my engineering degree and a picture of me at work, and I'd hear about what engineering firm I'd be slaving for after the sale.

It seems pretty silly now that I ever thought that I'd be anything but a sex slave as they had told me about the sex boats as part of the class on how to be a Proverbs 31 wife that I took when I was 17. "If you don't get engaged at 17, you might well find yourself as a sex worker at 19," I remembered the teacher saying before she explained that when the economy got tight, the only jobs for women were wife and some sort of slave.

I would not say that any of us at the auction were particularly beautiful or homely. Three of us had college degrees. I wondered what the Art History and Gender Studies majors were thinking when they took out loans, but engineering did not work out any better, so who am I to talk. Three women had experience as domestic workers; one was a nurse, and one had driven a forklift before she lost her job to a guy who needed a job.

We were left on display for about an hour. Potential buyers inspected us all carefully. I could not believe the way my breasts were touched and squeezed like they were just toys. I won't discuss some of the other things that were touched. They made me have an orgasm in front of everyone, with the buyers snickering and making films of it. I'd never thought an orgasm could be so awful, and I only managed it because of what they said would happen if I didn't focus on what I was doing and enjoy the fancy new dildos they had. One guy told me my thinking days were over and I'd better focus on what my, well, you know what he was telling me.

I could hear us being discussed as potential domestic workers in their homes or offices. This was much worse mentally than the appraisal six years before because then I thought it was just a short appointment and I'd be on my way.

I could hear some guys saying that I looked very healthy and, with the big boobs, shapely ass, and compliant attitude, I'd fit in well on a sex boat. Another guy said I was a bit plump in the wrong places as well as the right places, but he was sure they could work me into being more than good enough for the low-end boats. All the other women were discussed in similar terms, except that a couple of the women seemed headed for domestic service, fast food restaurants or some sort of menial factory work that they haven't yet got a machine for.