I was herded into a room with a lot of other women, who were nude, like I was. Some of them seemed upset and disorientated but others were clearly used to being pets. All of them had collars and leashes and tails, though no one else had a white tail, like I did. Also, none of them were human, so at least Shadrack hadn’t been using his new wormhole tunnel to get other women from Earth. Not yet, anyway, I thought sourly. Just give him time…
The other women were all alien species, though most were at least vaguely humanoid—or at any rate, they were all bipedal. I saw them glancing at me with suspicion and uncertainty. I guessed I must look pretty strange to them, especially if they’d never seen anyone from Earth before.
“Who the fuck are you?” a girl with deep blue skin and a spiral horn in the middle of her forehead demanded.
“This here’s a special pet all the way from another galaxy,” Shadrack said, speaking loudly. “None of you lot are going to lay a finger on her—she’s worth more than the rest of you put together so no touching or you’ll be sorry, right?”
There was some mumbling among the other women and I got some hostile glares which made me uncomfortable, but nobody seemed inclined to challenge the big Korrigon’s statement.
“I’m from Earth,” I offered uncertainly. “Er…nice to meet you all.”
This was greeted with a lot of blank stares. Great. I’d been thinking that maybe I could talk to the other women and organize some kind of revolt. But I could see right away that wasn’t going to happen.
“You get comfortable, girly,” Shadrack ordered as he shoved me into the crowded room. “It’s gonna be a while yet before the auction starts. Why don’t you spend some time gettin’ to know your fellow pets? You never can tell—sometimes a single Master will bid on five or ten of you at once, so you might be making a friend for life!”
Then he roared with laughter, as though this was somehow funny, and slammed and locked the door behind him.
I looked around the windowless room and then at the locked door and felt my heart sink. I was trapped here until the auction and after that, who knew where I would be going or who I would be going with?
I was in big trouble and, as far as I could see, there was no way out.