'Lie down here. On your stomach.'
Kim was standing sheepishly naked in Audrey Sanderson's bedroom in a loft apartment in SoHo, the district of New York that took its initials from being SOuth of HOuston. The fact that she had shaved her glossy black pubes away made her feel even more exposed, her mons and her labia completely smooth. The skin tended to itch and she had smothered the region in moisturiser to soothe it, giving the whole area a lustrous, oiled appearance.
Audrey Sanderson had picked her up at twelve and driven her to the apartment. She had checked out the hotel and left her luggage in storage in its basement.
'I thought I was going to get dressed,' Kim said.
'You are. Trust me.'
Audrey had spread a pink towel on the bed. A little reluctantly, Kim lay on it.
'Now, keep very still,' Audrey said. She picked up an oval of thin black rubber and laid it on Kim's back. The oval covered the whole area from the top of her shoulder blades to halfway over her buttocks.
'What's that for?' Kim asked.
'Just got to tape it into position, then you'll see,' came the only reply.
Audrey picked up a reel of tape and began running it around the outside of the rubber, so it was secured to Kim's flesh.
'That's it,' the woman said when she was satisfied. 'Now get up very carefully and stand on that towel.' She had spread another large one on the floor in the middle of the room.
'What are you doing?' Kim wasn't too sure about what was going on.
'It's a new product - spray on latex. Here, I've just got to tape this over your pussy. Open your legs.'
Kim obeyed, spreading her legs a little shyly.
'Very nice,' Audrey said. 'Shaving definitely suits you.' She applied another triangular piece of rubber to Kim's newly shaven mons and taped that in place too. 'Right, here we go.'
She picked up a spray can and, beginning at Kim's throat, began to spray her body. The substance that squirted out of the can was a thick gooey black. As it spurted against her body Kim could feel it hardening, coating her with a thick layer of latex which dried instantly.
'How do I get it off?' she asked, somewhat alarmed.
'Don't worry, it just peels off.' Audrey smiled reassuringly.
It took nearly an hour to cover her completely. She left a neat circle around Kim's throat and at her wrists and ankles, leaving her feet and hands bare. At the top of her thighs she held a piece of card against Kim's labia so as not to spray her sex. Kim watched in a large cheval mirror positioned in front of her as the latex encased her flesh, giving the impression that she was wearing an extra-tight catsuit. As the latex dried it took on a glossy, smooth sheen.
'Now that really looks sexy,' Audrey purred as she tore away the rubber oval that left Kim's back exposed. 'Do you remember Goldfinger? They suffocated that girl by painting her with gold. That's why you've got to leave the back bare.'
Kim turned around and looked over her shoulder into the mirror. Her back was white, the fact that the upper half of her buttocks were bare while the lower half was covered in rubber making them appear even more pouted and voluptuous. She stroked a hand over them.
'Now take off the patch at the front,' Audrey said.
Kim tore the little triangle of rubber from her mons to reveal the first inches of her now hairless labia. They were neatly framed by the black rubber.
'Seriously sexy,' Audrey added quietly. 'Jake'll go mad for you.'
Kim stepped back into her high heels. 'It feels...' She shivered. The latex plucked at her flesh, particularly her breasts, sensitising them. Her nipples were as hard as stone, the black latex gripping them tightly. The fact that her sex was totally exposed made her acutely aware of it. 'Tight.'
'You better wear this until we get there,' Audrey said, taking a long black jacket out of her wardrobe.
'Did... did you speak to Jake?' Kim asked, trying to acclimatise to the new sensation.
'Yes, I did.'
'And?'
'Don't worry, he'll be looking out for you. Come on before I forget myself.' Audrey's eyes roamed Kim's body.
'Oh...' Kim blushed, 'are you into women?'
'Darling, I've been one of Jake's slaves, remember? Even if you're not into it before you go to the house, Jake has a way of making sure you're into it by the time you leave.'
'And which were you?' Kim probed.
'I'd never touched another woman before I found Jake. Never even imagined I would. He made me realise what I was missing.'
Kim saw Audrey shudder.
'Actually, it's not just women,' she went on. 'It's the whole sex thing. It's like I was trying to tell you on the plane. Once I started reading his books, all the things he wrote, the way he seemed to be able to see into a woman's mind... I guess I'd never even thought much about sex before that. I just used to lie there wondering what all the fuss was about.' She glanced at her watch. 'Come on, we'd better go. We don't want to be late, and it's a long drive.'
Metaphorically, Kim took a deep breath. There was more at stake now than a profile piece on one of America's most elusive writers. If what Audrey had told her yesterday was true, Kim could be on to a really big story. She could see the headlines now:
American Senators Involved with Sex Slaves.
But as much as she wanted to win success on that score, she could not help wondering whether the auction would be another opportunity to explore the extraordinary sexuality she had discovered since she'd arrived in New York. She hoped she could have her cake - and eat it too.
Once they had turned off the main highway that ran through the centre of Babylon and taken a right toward the ocean, they left the rather gaudy shops and bars of the main street, over-adorned with large neon signs, behind. The houses became larger and more secluded, big clapboard buildings surrounded by white wicket fences, and standing in their own grounds.
Audrey drove her Lincoln Continental along a road that became narrower and narrower as they approached the sea, finally turning into the driveway of a beach house, the ocean no more than a hundred yards away across an expanse of white sand. The car came to a halt in front of large wooden gates. It had taken three hours to drive to Babylon and the weather had changed for the worse, black clouds hurrying across the horizon, a gale force wind whipping the waves into the shore in plumes of spray.
There was a young man standing in front of the gates with a clipboard in his hand, the collar of his red anorak turned up against the wind. 'Good afternoon,' he said, bending towards the car.
'Audrey Sanderson,' Audrey said, letting her electric window down an inch.
'Yes, Ms Sanderson, you may go straight in,' the man said. He pressed a button on the posts that supported the large wooden gates and they began to grind open.
The driveway to the house was covered in drifts of sand, blown in from the beach. The house itself was large and gothic, reminding Kim of the house on the hill in Psycho, except that it was immaculately maintained and painted bright white. She saw that several cars were already parked to one side of the main house as they drove up to the front door. She was surprised they were not more luxurious models. 'Not very impressive cars,' she voiced her thoughts, before she realised it.
'They're the scouts remember, not the masters,' Audrey answered.
'Aren't the masters here too?'
Audrey smiled. 'You'll see.'
At the front door another young man ran forward ready to valet park their car. Kim felt a distinct pang of apprehension as she got out.
'Leave the jacket on the back seat,' Audrey told her.
Kim did as she was told, watching the car jockey's eyes falling on her latex covered breasts. She wondered what other sights he'd had to feast his eyes on already that afternoon.
The rubber coating that clung to her body was surprisingly warm, and she felt no chill as they waited for the front door to open.
'I'm not allowed to talk to you once we get inside,' Audrey informed her. 'And if you're selected, they'll take you off so I wouldn't see you again. Good luck.'
Kim looked at the woman. For a moment, for some strange reason, she found herself wondering what it would be like to kiss her. It was the first time she'd considered that.
'Audrey, how are you? Come in, almost everyone's here.'
A small chubby bald man had opened the door. He wore a pair of bright yellow golf trousers and a lime green shirt, the buttons of which were strained to the limit by his considerable paunch.
'Hi, Freddie.' Audrey kissed him on both cheeks.
They stepped into the hall. To the right Kim saw a gaggle of people in a large sitting room, sipping champagne. All were normally dressed, apart from a waitress who circulated with a tray of glasses. She was wearing a sheer black body made from the sort of nylon usually used for stockings. Kim could see her shaved mons and large breasts, her nipples poking through black metal rings that were somehow clamped tightly around them.
'Does she know the rules?' the man said. He hadn't even spared Kim a glance.
'No.'
'Go in there,' he snapped, as though he were talking to a dog that had misbehaved. He pointed to a door at the far end of the hall.
Audrey winked secretively at her and smiled. 'Do as he says,' she said.
'Come on, sweetie, let's get you a glass of champagne before the fun starts,' Freddie said, taking Audrey's hand and leading her into the sitting room.
Kim wasn't sure whether she should knock on the door first, and decided not to. She opened it and walked inside. A doll-like woman in a nurse's uniform sat at a desk.
'Name?' she demanded briskly.
'Kim.'
'Not your name - your handler's name,' the woman snapped.
'Oh, I'm sorry...' Kim blurted. 'Audrey Sanderson.'
The woman consulted a list, then made a tick against it.
'You will be required to have a full medical check up. Come this way please.'
The woman got up and led Kim across the room. Through the window she could see the large breakers smashing into the shore.
'Ladies and gentlemen, I think we're ready to start. Would you all take your seats.'
Freddie was standing in the middle of a large gymnasium that extended out from the back of the house. Chairs had been set up along one side of the room, and on the other side were eight circular rostrums about four feet in diameter and two feet high. Sticking up from the centre of each rostrum was a sturdy circular wooden post that came up to about waist height. Kim and five other girls stood in the middle of these rostrums, their arms bound behind their backs by metal handcuffs which were secured to a metal ring set into each post. Like her, all the girls were clad in obscene outfits, very much the sort of thing she had seen at the Velvet Tongue. In addition several of the girls were pierced; nipple rings and labia rings adorned with chains or decorative jewellery. Two males occupied the remaining two rostrums at the far end of the room, both completely naked.
The medical examinations had taken an hour, the blood and urine examples all processed in a special unit on the premises. No one got into the auction without a clean bill of health, the nurse told her, even though she'd had a similar examination only the day before yesterday.
In the ceiling above each rostrum was a video camera. There was a desk by the main entrance from which all the cameras were operated by remote control, a man sitting behind a bank of eight monitors. Clearly that was why there were no expensive cars; the masters were not here in person; the viewing of the slaves done from the comfort of their homes.
There were approximately twenty guests. They had already roamed the room, inspecting all the prospective slaves and commenting on their condition. Now they were sitting expectantly and the conversation reduced to a hushed whisper. Audrey sat right opposite Kim and mouthed the words, 'Good luck.'
'We'll start with number one.' Freddie walked to the girl on the rostrum at one end of the room and took a mobile phone out of this pocket. 'Any instructions for number one, sirs?' he said into the phone.
Apparently the response was negative. Freddie moved to the second rostrum in the line. The girl who stood on it was tall and skinny with very short brown hair. She wore a pair of red leather hot-pants with an open crotch, and thigh boots in the same material, but no bra. Her breasts were small but round and high, her nipples circled by the same black hoops Kim had seen on the waitress.
'Instructions for number two?' Freddie asked into the phone. He listened. 'Take the clamps off her nipples,' he said after a moment, turning to a small girl who had accompanied him since he'd started the auction. She was wearing a short black dress, black fishnet tights and high heels, and had a rather round face with long, probably false eyelashes, her black hair cut into a short bob. She mounted the rostrum. The clamps appeared to work on some sort of spring, and the girl gasped as each clamp was released.
'Anything else?' Freddie asked into the phone. 'Bend her over, Debbie,' he said, addressing his assistant.
Debbie unlocked one of the handcuffs, turned the girl around, then bent her over. Kim heard a whirling noise as the camera closed in.
'Right,' Freddie said, nodding to his assistant, who immediately clipped the girl back into the restraints. 'Number three.' He moved down the line, now only one girl away from Kim. 'Instructions gentlemen, ladies?' he said.
Kim wondered what that meant. Were there female masters too? She supposed she should not be surprised, since there were men on the rostrum too. The girl on the rostrum to her left was a blonde, her hair long and lustrous. She was wearing a tube dress in white rubber. It squeezed her breasts together and covered her pert but small bottom and the upper part of her thighs tightly, the rubber so shiny it reflected the bright lights that lit the room.
Freddie listened while instructions were relayed over the phone. 'I understand,' he said. This time he turned to the girl directly. 'The masters want to see you masturbate. Do you understand?'
'Yes, sir,' the blonde said quietly.
Kim felt her cheeks go hot and her pulse race. The thought that she might be required to do the same thing horrified her. She hadn't hesitated when it came to the outrageous and debauched things she'd been told to do at the club or with Candy, but she could never imagine performing her most private ritual while others watched. She could not do it. That's where she drew the line.
The blonde obviously felt differently, seemingly undaunted about performing such an intimate act before so many people.
'Debbie, get her a dildo,' Freddie said.
The petite girl crossed the room to a small cupboard and took out a two-pronged rubber dildo, the long shaft of the main phallus moulded to a smaller and broader shaft at its base. She walked back to the rostrum, unlocked the blonde's right wrist from the handcuffs then handed her the dildo.
The girl wriggled the tight dress up over her hips. Her pubes were thick. Turning around so she stood behind the post, with one hand still manacled in front of it, Kim saw her brush her sex with the tip of the larger of the two shafts. Fascinated, she watched as a sheen of moisture smeared the rubber shaft.
A little electric motor whirred on the camera above as the operator adjusted its position. The girl slid to the floor, the post between her outstretched legs, the chain on the handcuffs just long enough to allow her to do this with her left arm extended in front of her. She slipped the base of the dildo against the bottom of the post and jammed the tip into her vagina, pushing herself forward so the dildo was trapped between her sex and the wooden post. Kim saw it slide slowly all the way into her sex. As the second shaft came into play, its tip burrowing into her anus, the girl gasped loudly, bucking her hips to settle herself down on it more squarely. Then she pushed forward again until both shafts were completely buried. With her legs bent at the knee and her hands grasping the front of the post, she thrust forward, the base of the dildo crushed against the wood. She began to pump up and down so that she rubbed against the post, which in turn made the base of the dildo rub against her clitoris. She quickly pulled down the front of the rubber dress, exposing her breasts, which she also rubbed against the wood, twisting her body from side to side.
Kim could see her eyes were sparkling with excitement. They were looking around the room, taking in all the faces that were watching her, feeding on the lust she was generating among her audience, her whole body writhing, grinding her hips and rotating her shoulders at the same time, her breasts slapping against the wood.
'Oh yes... yes...' she cried, throwing her head back and thrusting her pelvis against the post one last time, forcing the dildo an extra millimetre deeper as her body locked, every muscle rigid, her fingers clawing at the post like talons.
'Anything else?' Freddie broke the electric silence, apparently unmoved by the spectacle. He nodded to Debbie, who pulled the girl to her feet, removed the dildo and chained her arm behind her back again.
Kim felt her heart miss a beat as Freddie walked up to her. If he asked her to do what the blonde had done she was going to have to refuse. She just couldn't bring herself to do it.
'Number four,' he said into the phone. He listened for what seemed to Kim to be an inordinately long time, then beckoned Debbie over to his side. He said something to her that Kim could not hear.
Debbie mounted the rostrum. Instead of unlocking one of the metal cuffs from Kim's wrist, as she had done with the other two girls, she actually unclipped them from the metal ring, leaving Kim's arms bound behind her back. She then left her standing there and collected one of the chairs from the other side of the room, bringing it back and placing it on the rostrum. Debbie then sat on the chair.
'Over my knee,' she said.
Kim felt a wave of relief. Whatever the masters had ordered, it was not masturbation.
With her arms bound behind her back it was difficult to balance, but Kim managed to drape herself over the smaller girl's lap, her stretched buttocks tightly coated in shiny latex, pointing up towards the girls face.
She felt the girl's hand spreading the cheeks of her bottom apart, the camera no doubt focussing on the view of her sex that this would provide. Kim was glad she had taken Audrey's advice and shaved. If Jake Ashley was watching the picture the video camera was relaying he would, she hoped, be pleased.
'All right,' Freddie said. 'Begin.'
Before Kim realised what was happening Debbie raised her hand and brought it down hard on her right buttock, the smack reverberating around the room. It took Kim by surprise and she couldn't suppress a yelp of pain.
Smack!
A second blow made Kim's left buttock quiver, the stinging pain making her gasp again. She strained to look across at Audrey sitting no more than ten feet away, and saw her raise a single finger to her lips to indicate that she should be silent.
Smack!
Smack!
Smack!
For such a slender girl Debbie was surprisingly powerful, and each blow stung Kim and made her whole body shudder. But the pain did not last long. Already she felt a familiar heat building in her bottom; a heat that radiated inwards to her sex, making it churn. All the sensations she'd felt at the club two days before began to awaken, her clitoris, trapped tightly between her labia, pulsing strongly.
Smack!
Smack!
Smack!
Debbie alternated the strokes, sharing them out fairly between each buttock. The area of Kim's bottom that was not coated in latex had turned a rosy red, and though the marks the whip had left had faded, they had not entirely disappeared, and it was these that not only prickled the most painfully but, at the other end of the spectrum, seemed to throb with the most intense pleasure too. She found herself trying to rub her mons against Debbie's thigh.
'Is that enough?' she heard Freddie say into the phone.
Apparently it was not.
Smack!
Smack!
Smack!
Then suddenly Debbie's hand was smoothing against the reddened, overheated flesh; caressing it, soothing it, testing the contrast in textures between the exposed flesh and the latex coated area. Kim moaned, wallowing in this new sensation. The girl's hand worked down between her thighs, her fingers slipping into the sticky wet trough of her sex. Kim wriggled her labia against them. She wondered if this was Jake Ashley's doing, whether it was he who had ordered her to be spanked and then caressed in this way. She found herself hoping earnestly that it was.
'Go on,' Freddie said, intruding on her thoughts, 'get on with it.'
Debbie pushed her fingers downward, until they were nudging against Kim's clitoris. Another gasp escaped Kim's lips before she could stop it.
Debbie reached one hand down by her knee and gripped Kim's left breast, kneading it, then pinching the nipple exactly at the moment she slid two fingers into Kim's slippery wet cunt.
Kim felt a surge of sensation. The girl's fingers twisted around inside her, trying to screw deeper, provoking a myriad of sensations in the process. The spanking had sensitised every nerve in her sex and they were responding with vigour. As Debbie pinched her nipple for a second time Kim felt her sex clench tightly, and another jolt of pleasure erupted. She was coming now, and there was no way she could stop herself.
All eyes were turned to her, their attention rapt. She tried to ease her legs apart, wanting the camera to see her sex as she came. Was Jake Ashley watching? She liked to think she had come here and allowed herself to be used like this for professional reasons. But she knew that was only a shadow of the truth. Jake Ashley was the real reason she was here, not for her story, but to explore the extraordinary gift he had given her, the gift of sexual self-awareness. She wanted her story - but she wanted this more.
Debbie's fingers were artful. The two inside her stroked the tight tube of her vagina while another seemed to be touching the most sensitive spot on her clitoris and rubbing almost imperceptibly against it. Kim wanted to push the girl back onto the floor and kiss her. She wanted to drive the double-shafted dildo into her body, to fuck her with it then push her mouth down to her sex, though she knew she dare not do any of these things. Her body quivered, her clit spasmed and her orgasm gushed over her. In the midst of it all, in the vortex of feelings that overtook her, she could see herself, as if from above, splayed out over the girl's lap, with the camera and twenty pairs of eyes trained on her latex-coated body, her back and her sex exposed. That image gave the final twist to the long spiral of pleasure.
'Next,' Freddie said casually.
Debbie pulled a limp Kim to her feet. Quickly she clipped the handcuffs back to the post. Kim was glad of its support, her orgasm leaving her faint and breathless. She glanced over at Audrey, who clapped her hands together, lightly miming her approval.
The girl to Kim's right, like the girl at the club, had her labia pierced, and a chain ran from the gold ring implanted there to her nose, where her left nostril was pierced with a small gold ring. The chain, which was as heavy as a dog leash, was not tight, with enough play in it to loop down between her legs. She was wearing a bright red PVC body, very like the one Candy had worn at the club. Like Candy's it was crotchless, but it also had large cut-outs for her buttocks and breasts, which poked through the material obscenely. She had the air of having done all this before.
Neither her or the next girl, who wore a white chiffon slip over a white satin, quarter cup bra, and white stockings clipped to a satin suspender belt, were required to do anything by the masters, and Freddie moved down the line.
'Now the men,' he said, his eyes staring at them with much more of a glint than he'd had with the girls. 'Any requests?' he said into the phone. Again he listened.
Kim was too far away to hear what he said to Debbie, but the girl climbed onto the rostrum of the first man and took his cock in her hand. As casually as if she were shelling peas she pulled his foreskin back and wanked him until he was erect. Then she took a coil of white ribbon from the pocket of her dress and quickly wound it around the base of his shaft and under his balls, pulling it tight and knotting it. She then wound the ribbon all the way up the shaft, circling it over and over again until only his glans was exposed. She tied the ribbon in a little blow just under the ridge at the base of his glans. She licked the palm of her hand, coating it with saliva, then smeared this over the man's helmet so it was glistening.
'Next one,' Freddie called out. He moved to the last rostrum, then a broad grin spread over his podgy face as he listened to the phone. This time he stepped onto the rostrum. 'Quite a pretty boy,' he said. He stroked the man's rather lean chest, then he cruelly pinched his left nipple, using his fingernails. The man winced. 'Sensitive little flower,' he said pensively.
His hand delved lowered. He picked up the man's flaccid cock and slapped it back against the man's naked thigh two or three times. The cock began to grow. Kim heard the whirr of the motors that controlled the cameras.
Freddie made a fist and slipped it around the man's cock. He wanked it, then slapped it spitefully. 'Anything else?' he said. There was an undoubted note of hope in his voice, and his face fell visibly when it was obvious that the masters' interest had peaked.
'Well, ladies and gentleman,' he announced to the watching audience, 'that concludes the entertainment for this evening. If you would all like to return to the sitting room the results will be known in the next fifteen minutes. Then we can serve dinner.'
The audience immediately began to file out. Freddie and Debbie followed. The man on the technical console for the cameras closed down his equipment and left the room too, leaving the eight prospective slaves still chained to the circular posts, unable to do anything but stand there and wait.
'Have you done this before?' the blonde to Kim's left whispered. Debbie had not replaced the white rubber tube dress and it was banded around her waist.
'Um, no,' Kim replied, her mind racing. 'Have you?'
'No, never. It's fantastic though, isn't it? I've never been so turned on. All those people looking at me. I don't think I've ever come like that.' She shook her shoulders dreamily, making her tits wobble. 'I can still feel it. If I could get my hands on my clit I could make myself come again.'
Kim did not reply, but what the girl said was true for her too. Her whole being was still vibrating to the strains of her orgasm.
'What about you?' the bubbly blonde said, nodding towards the girl to her left. 'Is this your first time?'
'We shouldn't be talking,' the girl replied.
'No one's listening.'
'I've been with one master. This is my second auction.'
'Hey, that's great. What was it like? Did he fuck you crazy all the time?'
'It was a woman.'
'Even better. I'm really into all that lesbian shit. I love it all, as a matter of fact.'
Kim could quite believe that.
'God!' the blonde went on, 'I wish they'd get a move on and make their minds up. I'm so turned on it's driving me up the wall.' She rubbed her buttocks against the post. 'So what's it like being a real slave?'
'Like nothing you've ever felt before.'
'Did you meet Ashley?'
'Yes. Once. He came to visit.'
'And?'
'Have you read his books?'
'Of course.'
'He was like that - like the master in the books. Exactly like the master in the books.'
'Must have been one hell of a turn on then,' the blonde suggested.
'Shut up, someone's coming.'
They all heard footsteps coming down the hall. The door of the gymnasium opened and Debbie walked in. She had changed her clothes and was wearing a tight red leather jump-suit, cinched around her waist with a wide black belt. A riding crop was tucked under one arm and she carried a small nylon holdall. Two men, one of them the man who had operated the cameras, trooped into the room behind her.
Without a word she stopped in front of the rostrum where the blonde was standing.
'Her,' she said to the men, her eyes fixed on the beauty in white rubber.
Kim's heart sunk, but then Debbie moved on. 'And her,' she said, pointing to Kim.
She stepped up onto the rostrum and pulled a rubber ball gag out of the bag. 'Open your mouth, sweetie,' she said.
Kim obediently did as she was told and the girl stuffed the rubber ball between her lips. She had never been gagged before and tried to protest, but the large sphere made it impossible to form even the simplest of words. Debbie moved behind her and quickly strapped the gag in place, forcing it even deeper into Kim's mouth.
Glancing to her left Kim saw that the blonde had received the same treatment from one of the men. Then he took a black velvet bag and pulled it down over her head, closing it beneath her chin with a drawstring. Just as Kim saw him doing this she realised Debbie was pulling an identical bag down over her head. She was plunged into darkness.
The experience was surprisingly familiar. The slaves in Jake Ashley's books were frequently gagged and blindfold. She'd read about the emotions they experienced in this situation avidly; what they felt; the way being deprived of one sense seemed to increase the sensitivity of all the others; the isolation; the inability to communicate even the simplest of words - all this had excited her. But the reality, the total blackness in which she was cocooned, the actual feeling of the tight strap that held the gag in place, and the black rubber ball that forced her lips so wide apart, was a hundred times more arousing.
She started as she felt hands pushing her forward. There was a clink of metal as the handcuffs were unclipped from the post. Something cold was wound around her ankles and tightened - a thick leather belt, she thought. Another wrapped around her legs just above her knees, then a third, around her waist and back trapping her arms against her spine, binding her into a tight package. She could not move an inch.
'All right, take her to the car.' Debbie's voice sounded muffled.
Kim felt a shoulder lean against her waist and she was suddenly hoisted into the air, her body bent in two, strong hands holding her legs. She felt a thump as the man stepped down from the rostrum. He carried her out of the room.
She estimated it was no more than a few yards before she heard a door creaking open and felt the wind on her body. The man lowered her onto her stomach on what felt like the floor of a car, the soft carpeting not disguising the cold hard metal underneath. The very distinct noise of a car door being slammed confirmed her impression.
She lay still, her heart racing. She could hear the wind blowing against the side of the vehicle, rocking it, and the noise of the breakers pounding against the shore.
She was so tightly bound she could hardly move, but she managed to wriggle onto her side, which was a little more comfortable than lying face down. The car seemed spacious, for though she could feel a seat at the back of her there seemed to be nothing immediately in front.
She wondered if the blonde was going to be coming with her. Or was she going to a different master?
And what about her? Audrey had said she'd spoken to Jake personally, but suppose he hadn't bid for her. What if she was being taken to someone else? What would she do then? If she were kept in this sort of bondage it might be a long time before she could escape.
Why hadn't she thought of that before? Audrey seemed to be so confident she would end up with Jake that she allowed herself to go along with it - but now she wasn't so sure.
Being tied up so tightly and gagged and blindfolded had excited her. From the moment she'd been handcuffed to the post in the gymnasium her whole body had been tingling with arousal. But the idea that she might not be on her way to Jake Ashley poured freezing cold water on that. She had let her desire to explore her sexual feelings overcome her common sense. She had been a fool.
She writhed against the leather straps and tried to cry out, but knew it was hopeless. It was too late to do anything now. She'd been reduced to a neat little package, ready for delivery to whoever had paid the price. After all, she had agreed to take part in the auction of her own free will, and had let herself be bound and gagged. She was just going to have to live with the consequences of that folly.
The car door opened. She heard the key being turned in the ignition and the engine springing to life.
Desperately she struggled to sit up, trying to tell the driver that she had changed her mind. But she could not pronounce a single word and as the car wheeled around in the driveway she was tossed back to the floor.
'Settle down,' a male voice said gruffly. 'We've got a long way to go.'