Trying on a Collar Pt. 01

He takes an odd-looking object, a cross between a gun and a cordless electric drill, and touches her skin just above and between her breasts. She flinches as the device makes a small noise, implanting a tracking chip under the skin.

The handler unhooks the leash, orders "Follow, slut," and leads her to a nearby device where she again must kneel. He presses her neck gently backwards until a click indicates that a magnet is engaged, then turns to her sister, offering an electric shaver.

"Would you care to do the honors? She doesn't have to be clean-shaven, but we need to remove most of her pubic hair before the auction so that the merchants can assess her value."

Carmen's face is grim and hesitant, but she takes the shaver and mumbles, "You brought this on yourself, Sis."

The new slave suddenly erupts into an incoherent string of curses and pleading to his father, her bound body struggling vainly for freedom. Looking even more disgusted, Mr. Castillo asks the handler, "would you mind shutting her up, please?"

"No problem, sir." He shakes up an aerosol can and discharges it into her mouth, cutting off the stream of babble as if a switch had been thrown. Meanwhile, Carmen has managed to denude most of her sister's pubis despite her squirming.

"I think we've seen enough—come along my only daughter!" Mr. Castillo looks at the camera, or rather beside the camera, apparently speaking to the cameraman.

"I'm going to see the head manager and thank him again for your superb performance last night. It would have been easy for the market to just follow instructions, sell Carmen off, and make money, so I can't thank you enough for your strong sense of morality. To reimburse the Long Horn for its time and trouble, I'll make her ownership over to the manager for sale. Thanks again, Jessie." As he turns away, Carmen's face lifts close to the camera, obviously pecking the cameraman on the cheek. The two depart, leaving the new slave forlorn and crushed, still restrained on a kneeling rack while the slave handler looks at his tablet to see the next step in processing. (camera fades out.)

*****

Seeing the reality of a slave market was very different from the abstract version of slavery I had heard in high school. Although the thought of being so helpless horrified me, it also reinforced the tingle of submission I had felt practicing slave yoga. Of course, I said nothing about this to anyone, but I'm sure Pam could tell that the fantasy of submitting as a slave turned me on.

When I returned to college after Christmas, my roommate had found a weekend slave yoga session whose instructor, she proudly announced, was a real former slave handler. I agreed to go, but only on two conditions: that she would participate with me, and that I could wear full leotards and leg warmers rather than skimpy clothing. After all, I insisted, it was January in Massachusetts, and we would have to travel to and from Roxbury for the session. Nor did I want to attract unwanted attention prancing around in brief clothes.

I hate to admit it, but I really liked this slave yoga class. It was, indeed, good exercise. I also got a thrill out of being ordered around by a strong, no-nonsense guy—as Pam whispered to me, he definitely fell into the category of man, not boy. When he looked at me, it was totally impersonal, as if I weren't even a person, and yet he seemed to be seeing me naked, mentally discarding the clothes I wore.

I'm not an expert on Southern accents, but Pam insisted that the trainer, who introduced himself as Bill, must be from Texas. Being Pam, she tried to flirt with him after the second meeting of the group but didn't get much more than politeness in response. He even called her "Ma'am," although he was at least a decade older than us.

At the next week's session, Bill told the (exclusively female) students—didn't ask, told them—to chant specific come-ons while assuming each new position. He called them "slave mantras" and said they were part of the meditation. He'd even written the phrases out on butcher paper, and I blushed just reading them in my head. Pam had explained to me that these lewd phrases were intended to excite both the slave and the audience, but I was surprised at how easily I fell into the habit of announcing, loudly, such phrases as:

"I live to serve you, Master;" "Please buy me and use me for your pleasure;" "I long to feel your monster cock fucking me;" "Please ram my ass," "Let me suck your delicious shaft," and so on. Equally surprising was the fact that I could hear all the other student voices, including my assertive roommate, chanting even louder. Needless to say, the mild arousal I had experienced on earlier occasions now became full-blown [pun intended] lust, and I develop a submissive crush on the instructor.

Bill's commanding voice was almost too effective. It's a good thing that we only had the class once a week, since for days after each session I would jump reflexively at the sound of any commanding voice, especially a male voice. Pam thought it was funny to see me respond, automatically, whenever she called out an order in a fake deep voice. Her favorite command was "Collar," dropping me to my knees, holding up my hair like an animal waiting to be leashed. Pam was careful not to do this in front of other people, so I knew she wasn't trying to embarrass me, but it did tend to reinforce my submissiveness.

In retaliation, I tried the same trick on her several times, and she blushed when she realized the lewd positions she assumed all while begging to be screwed like a slave. I asked her why she was so enthusiastic about these drills since their submissive nature seemed so foreign to her nature. Pam replied, sheepishly,

"You're right, I could never stand to be a slave or submissive in reality. Up here in 'Yankee land,'" she said with an exaggerated Redneck accent, "I can indulge a few little fantasies. I'd never do this in public in Houston, for fear I might get carried away and wake up in a collar!"

*****

One late night before second semester finals, when neither of us could sleep, she told me the story of her own experience of slave grading. Having seen that video of Miranda, I could visualize most of what my roommate was describing. Although her family was so wealthy that Pam had no need to establish her value for a loan, she had gone along with two other cheerleaders (one of whom was Carmen) just because it was a rite of passage for young Southern women, especially pretty ones, to undergo grading and establish bragging rights as hot girls.

She told me it was a truly scary experience, and I found myself both frightened and aroused as she described it. Even though they remained free citizens, people seeking to be slave graded had to submit completely to the rules of the market. That meant arriving at the market already butt naked—what was called slave naked—without even a hair scrunchy or earing on your body. Anything else, even carrying a bag with your clothes in it, would get you marked down on the grading. Three older cheerleaders, who had already undergone the process themselves, acted as temporary "owners"/guardians for Pam, Carmen, and the third girl, Ginny. The "owners" had them strip, ordered "back hands, slaves," and then clamped handcuffs on each of the three. (Pam said that the women had been careful to set the cuffs so they didn't tighten too far, but I found myself imagining the feel of those fetters on my wrists.)

The three older women also sprayed devox down their throats, leaving them literally speechless for the next few hours. (Again, my vivid imagination kicked in, both terrified and thrilled about the idea of being naked, chained, and unable to even protest.) Then, the three owners led their temporary slaves on leashes into the slave market, checked them in and got claim checks for them, and turned them over to three slave handlers or wranglers like the ones in the video. All this time, Pam said, they were surrounded by clothed people who stared at their bodies but refused to speak to them, preferring to talk to their owners. They were un-people, bound animals.

Pam recounted how the handlers had warned the three cheerleaders to obey all instructions or suffer the consequences, using words very similar to what I had heard on the video when Miranda was restrained, except that the stated purpose was grading rather than auction. Even though we were safe in our beds, a thousand miles away from Texas, I could hear the catch in Pam's throat. When I called her on it, she acknowledged that it was the most extreme experience of her life—even now, a year later, she felt both petrified and turned on by the thought of her complete powerlessness. Her mind had flooded with all the urban legends about young women who thought they were being slave-graded, only to find that their friends or relatives had sold them into lifelong servitude. It made her tremble so hard she could barely stand. That was quite a confession for Pam, who was always brimming with self-confidence and optimism.

She described the processing techniques, during which the handlers separated the three women, making them even more nervous about their own security. But, she said, her handler was very professional. He began by tattooing her slave number inside her lip and taking fingerprints and DNA samples, but that was an almost painless process. Pam had already shaved her pubis and other areas the night before, so the handler next put her through her slave poses. Before he did that, he sprayed her throat with the antidote for devox and gave her a drink to help regain her voice. Then, she had to mount a low platform and practice her positions while announcing all those obscene propositions to entice a buyer. Her handler, Jim, kept telling her to repeat both positions and phrases until an observer would truly believe that she wanted him. "At that moment, he could have had any opening he wanted—you know how I get turned on by assertive men. And he was a hunk."

In fact, Jim limited himself to a few fondles and pinches, which just added to her desirability without satisfying her sexual urges. He also used every demeaning term one could imagine as he ordered her about and critiqued her performance—slut, bitch, cunt, whore, piece of ass, twat, slave meat, and so on. Once she was worked up and dripping (from sweat and other things), he made her pose for her slave photos.

"Have you ever seen official slave photographs? Probably not. Thank god the national registry works so hard at blocking hackers! I for one would die if those pictures ever appeared on the internet. The handler showed me them afterwards, and I looked like the horniest skank you could ever imagine, with a vacant stare, erect nipples, and dripping thighs." Jim had taken three poses: Standing in the Present mode, with full frontal nudity; kneeling with thighs apart while holding her labia open with one hand, the other hand behind her neck to keep her chest sticking out; and finally kneeling, forehead to the ground, looking back between her legs while holding her butt cheeks apart so that both of her openings were fully exposed to a rear view.

(My mind faltered for a second. Up to that point, I'd been imagining myself in her shoes—or should I say her bonds?—being ordered around by an assertive stud, whether our yoga trainer, Bill, or the unnamed handler who had in-processed Miranda in that video. For the life of me, though, I couldn't picture the self-confident Pamela in the poses she described. She promised that, when I came to visit her in Houston, she would ask her brother Jessie, who was a licensed slave merchant, to access the national registry data base and show me. "Just don't ask me to be there when my brother looks at those poses! And make damned sure he doesn't print any out.")

After a pause, she resumed her account of being graded. By this time, she said, she was no longer embarrassed by her nudity, a vulnerability that made it seem perfectly natural for Jim to control her.

Jim entered her data and uploaded her photos into the National Registry. Although she was half insane with desire, she still had the presence of mind to look carefully and ensure that he was entering her only for grading, not for servitude.

A half hour later, freshly devoxed again, Pam, Carmen, and Ginny found themselves being marched out for exhibit to the general public, a key but humiliating part of grading. At this slave market, exhibition was done in an inverted "Y"—hands Velcro-ed together and attached above her head to a pole behind her, with ankles spread about 30 inches apart and also secured by Velcro. In this position, anyone could touch any part of her body, although it would have been somewhat cramped to do much to her anus. For an hour, the three young women, along with another seven people of both genders, hung there while anyone over the age of 18 was free to examine them. Not only did their three older friends come by to tweak their nipples and clits (which actually increased arousal and therefore value), but the women had "accidentally" told several of their male acquaintances. These included several guys from the previous year's high school class who had always tried to get in Pam's pants. Now, there were no pants involved, and Pam found herself being pawed, teased, and finger-fucked, unable to even complain. One part of her was outraged, but another part was turned on, and several of the 18- and 19-year old guys commented that she was gushing like a fountain down there.

Fortunately, that was the last major hurdle of the experience. After being given the antidote and waiting in a cage for 45 minutes, the three temporary slaves were finally reunited with their temporary "owners." The handler continued to act as if Carmen, Ginny, and Pam were not real people, instead handing the grading documents and the girls' leashes to the three older women. Those women led them, still naked and bound, across the parking lot, back to the cars, with much giggling. At first, their friends threatened to take them home naked, cuffed, and collared, but eventually relented and let them scramble back into their clothes.

"So," Pam continued, "I can tell you're almost as turned on by the story as I was by the actual experience. Someday you should try being slave graded, but only if you let me be your owner." She smirked, using her fingers to put quotation marks around the final word. That thought didn't help me sleep.

The school year came to an end in a frantic rush of papers, exams, and packing. Pam demanded that I continue practicing slave yoga over the summer, and plan to visit her family at the next Christmas break. I promised, thinking that I would maybe practice a few times just before school started again so she wouldn't know that I'd taken a break all summer. But our practices and conversations lingered in my mind, perhaps because the summer was otherwise devoted to a boring temporary job that I needed to earn spending money for the next year. I often found myself daydreaming about what it would be like to be naked, collared, and controlled by some stud, often one with a southern accent. Whenever my parents were not at home, I felt a strong compulsion to find a slave yoga video on-line and practice the positions, quietly mumbling "I live to serve you, Master;" "Please buy me and fuck me;" and so on. By the end of July, I realized that the combination of the subject itself and Pam's gentle teasing had given me an obsession. I began to worry about it, but didn't stop practicing. . .

(to be continued)