AUCTION, IN QUOTATION MARKS

LN Bey

Mike was mortified at being the only male slave in the auction. It made it even more humbling, more emasculating than if there were another. He stood naked on the stage but for his leather collar, two nude women to the right of him, one astonishingly beautiful brunette to his left, too proud to speak to the likes of him. Another woman was standing out in front of this line of naked people, in the bright lights. She was the second to be sold. The first was already gone.

Of course, this wasn’t a real slave auction. It was a social construct, an agreement made by everyone in the room to behave in a certain way. Mike could turn and leave at any moment.

But he didn’t.

He kept his place in the line, this wall of otherwise female flesh. Leaving would involve raising quite a commotion, drawing even more attention to himself. He had no idea where his clothes were, and the metal loops in his padlocked collar were attached by thin chains to the collars on either side of him, keeping everyone close together—so close he could smell their scents.

“Twenty-two thousand dollars,” said the auctioneer, a short man in a suit behind a podium. A tall brunette dolled up in stiletto boots and black dominatrix regalia walked up to the naked girl center stage, attached a leash to her collar, and led her away.

Mike wasn’t sure where the money from this event went, since they weren’t really property. He’d gathered this was some sort of charity event, possibly for a local animal shelter. He knew this wasn’t the wealthiest crowd in town, like the people who made up the owners/Masters in most erotic novels and stories—characters who could afford exclusive mansions, private islands, even castles, global networks of slave training and trading.

No, these were west-side suburban McMansioners, kinksters who could afford to have some fun, lease a downtown ballroom to rent out their play-slaves for the weekend, but not import the latest beauty by private jet for their harem or stable. They owned car dealerships, not hedge funds. They drove Lexuses and Audis, not Rolls Royces or Bugattis. He knew the type. His Mistress was one.

“Sold to number seventy-seven,” the man said. That many people were here? He felt even more nervous and ridiculous.

The dominatrix returned and unhooked the next girl, a petite redhead, from the end of the line, and led her up to the center of the stage. The dominatrix became a game-show showgirl, holding her arms toward the slave, palms up, as though she were a new car.

“Next up is Janella, if you’ll check your sale bill,” the auctioneer said. Sale bill? Really? “Yes, she is a natural redhead. Too bad they shaved her, eh? Bidding starts at five thousand dollars.”

Mike had never been on such display with anyone but his Mistress, except for one weekend when she’d had a friend in from out of town. He’d had to make them drinks, serve them food, be her guest’s footstool. It was thrilling. But this was different—public, impersonal.

The worst part of tonight had been the opening hour, when all the buyers were served drinks, and the six slaves had to hold perfectly still so the prospective bidders could look them over close up.

Not just look. They were lined up against one wall of the ballroom and told to stand with their hands behind their heads, elbows back, their legs spread as wide as possible. The buyers made the rounds, cocktails in their hands.

He was told to open his mouth wide for them, bend over as far as he could. He was pinched and prodded, his balls squeezed and slapped, his cock pulled and handled, brought to embarrassing erection more than once. At least he was never penetrated.

The most embarrassing thing was when people just talked to him, especially the men. He could see the amusement and confused derision on their faces, and they would ask him questions, getting increasingly intoxicated. “Look at her, next to you,” one man said, gray-haired and starting to slur. He pointed his glass at the gorgeous and splayed brunette beside him. “You should be fuckin’ her, not standing there naked yourself. What are ya, queer or somethin’?”

“No, Sir,” was all Mike could say. He had never been with another man, had never wanted to.

Why had his Mistress thought this would be fun? Did she think he needed more training, more experience? Which novel was that, where the Master sent the girl off to be trained and sold, expecting to get her back?

“We’re only going to do this once, but her Master wants you to hear it,” the auctioneer said. The dominatrix was holding a long rattan cane. She placed her hand gently on the redhead’s hip and whispered into her ear, and the girl raised her arms. With no hesitation or warning, the dominatrix swung the cane and struck the girl hard across the ass, causing her to cry out in the sweetest, saddest cry of pain and desire and—was that betrayal?—that Mike had ever heard. Had the girls before her been whipped? He just couldn’t concentrate.

“Nice, eh?” The auctioneer said. The dominatrix turned her around to show the audience the marking. Mike’s heart sped up and he felt a stirring in his cock as he saw her pained expression. “She has agreed to spend her entire two-week vacation with whoever buys her. Think of it—twenty-four hours a day, two weeks. You could grow that little red bush back, in that much time. Ownership reverts to her Master once she returns to her waitressing job.” Wow. Mike only had the weekend to spare. The thought of submitting, full time, to someone for two full weeks—it was something his Mistress had never asked of him. It was an intoxicating idea, an amazing fantasy.

The audience felt the same way. Mike could make out hands being raised, and the auctioneer was suddenly very busy counting. “Forty-eight thousand dollars,” he said, slamming his gavel. “Sold to number fifteen.” She was led by the leather-clad woman off the stage, and the dominatrix took the next woman off the line.

Mike’s Mistress wasn’t really his Mistress. Sandra was someone who had dominant sex with him, with varying levels of enthusiasm. He’d met her at the café where he worked. Dates during the week were just dates, with her wanting to blow off steam about work, followed by straight sex.

Saturdays were different. Saturdays approximated his fantasies. She was In Charge. He would show up Friday night, and was expected to strip at the door. He would serve her all the next day, a very one-sided pampering, both in bed and out. She had toys, little whips.

But some Saturdays, once he’d gotten her off (always orally, at first), she would loosen up, relax. Tell him to just lie on the bed and watch TV with her, sometimes naked and still frustrated, sometimes telling him to put a robe on.

“Go ahead and call me Sandra,” she’d say.

The game was usually over, at that point, the illusion shattered.

It was hard work, she’d tell him, always having to think of something for him to do. Sometimes, she said, she just didn’t want the responsibility.

He didn’t love her, but he was devoted to her.

He remembered a story he’d read about a male secretary who’d interviewed for an extremely demanding boss, who wanted him at her beck and call day and night—he totally gave himself to her. How thrilling that level of submission and demand would be.

So today, his Mistress had told him to strip, and she had shaved his entire body, except for a patch of pubic hair above his cock. She’d waxed between his legs—very painful. But she was loving, gentle, admiring of his body. He was in good shape. She gave him a little massage.

Then she said, “I’m going to auction you off. Get dressed.”

“What? When?” he’d asked.

“Right now.”

But this wasn’t at all what Mike had pictured. He’d imagined, once he’d realized she was serious, a half-dozen women in her living room, a sort of girls’ night in, drinks and laughs, with him serving as the entertainment. She had shared him, once. Sort of like having a stripper over, but there would be token cash and the winner would lead him by a leash into the guest room. Or, more in line with his longtime fantasies, he’d have to service each of the women, in front of the others on his hands and knees, kissing feet and licking cunts, being laughed at as he crawled his way around the room.

But that kind of thing just didn’t happen. Then again, neither did this.

It’s all about expectations, isn’t it? Reality never quite jibed with the fantasy. So often it’s a letdown, but sometimes it’s… this?

The dominatrix—the auctioneer had finally called her Mistress Anna—whispered into the girl’s ear. This woman, a blonde with fair skin and magnificent breasts, spread her feet wide, exposing herself to the audience, and cupped her hands under her boobs, lifting them, offering them.

Mistress Anna now held a riding crop, much shorter than the rattan cane, and after a smiling gesture along the girl’s body, struck her hard across her presented breasts. Behind her, Mike watched her bare back as she flinched and cried out.

“This is Sheila,” the auctioneer announced. Mistress Anna struck her chest again, and again she cried. “Sheila’s limits give the buyer a little more leeway in the pain department,” he said. “She likes the whip.”

Mike tried to think of something boring. This was going to be too much. He didn’t know any baseball statistics, the old cliché, so he tried to think of old Top 40 charts from his youth. It wasn’t working.

Mistress Anna struck Sheila’s breasts again, and again. Mike tried to think of the old hit songs, but he could only picture how red Sheila’s fabulous tits must be getting, with their fair skin and light pink nipples.

Sheila’s cries were beginning to meld into one nonstop moan. Mike could hear anxious murmurs behind the stage lights as Anna kept up her whipping.

What had been a slight thickening of Mike’s cock during Janella’s sale was now a raging hard-on, and his face was surely as red as Sheila’s tits up there in center stage. That’s another reason it was so embarrassing being the only man—he was the only one whose excitement was on full display.

“Sheila is available for a three-day weekend, before she has to return to work,” the auctioneer said over the sound of leather against flesh, and there was a collective groan of disappointment from the crowd. “Oh come on now,” he said. “Think of just how intense those three days could be!” More slaps, and Sheila’s moans got even louder.

“Shall we start the bidding at five thousand?” Sheila was whimpering now, and Mike’s cock was rock hard. Mike glanced at the brunette beside him, but in true ice-queen fashion she ignored him.

“Oh come on, now, look at her,” the auctioneer pleaded. “She’s beautiful. She craves the whip. A shorter stay, but oh, what a weekend it would be. Four thousand, anyone?” He nodded to Mistress Anna, and she stepped back from the panting blonde. “Gentlemen? Ladies?”

He nodded again, and Mistress Anna took a step forward, and, altering her swing, struck the leather flap of the crop squarely against Sheila’s shaved crotch, causing her to cry out anew, in a fresh, sharper sound.

She didn’t whip as hard, but the sound of the leather hitting between Sheila’s spread thighs sent chills through Mike’s body, his cock throbbing, his imagination soaring. Sheila stood still, her hands still offering her breasts, face up and now visibly sobbing.

Someone raised his hand. “Four thousand!” the auctioneer said, pointing into the darkness beyond the lights. “Do I hear forty-five? Forty-four?”

More slaps against poor Sheila’s cunt. “Forty-four! Do I hear forty-five. Listen to those screams, folks. That could be yours! Forty-five! Forty-six?”

Sheila’s body was quivering, shaking from her sobs, but she stayed put.

Mistress Anna stopped her whipping, looked out toward the audience. She reached to Sheila’s upheld breast and wiped her finger across it. She held it up to the crowd, wet from Sheila’s tears, and placed her finger in her own mouth, tasting it. She seductively drew the finger from her lips. She lowered her hand to Sheila’s crotch, and showed her finger to the crowd again. It was glistening wet. Now she licked it, tongue extended, not taking it into her mouth this time. She stepped behind Sheila, and whipped her across her ass, hard, harder than she’d whipped either her tits or cunt. Sheila cried out accordingly, a loud, open-mouthed moan, with her hands still supporting her breasts.

“It’s five or nothing, ladies and gentlemen,” the auctioneer said, and hands went up. “Five! Do I hear fifty-five hundred?”

“Oh, look,” a woman’s voice had said during the presale reception. He had been told to keep his eyes lowered, and never speak unless asked a question. His balls ached from the handling, and his cock was still swollen. The voice was familiar. “I know you,” she said.

“His name is Michael, the sale bill says,” a man’s voice said. Mike was looking down at their shoes—nice but not ridiculously expensive. As if he knew.

The woman’s hand reached under his chin and lifted. “You’re Mike, from the coffee shop,” she said. “You know Mike, dear. The barista who always makes the little hearts in the foam. Tries extra hard, to please.” She smiled.

“Oh, yeah. Hey, Mike.” Mike was blushing intensely. He’d really hoped he wouldn’t run into anyone he knew, here.

“Hello, Sir,” he said. He knew them. The Millers. They looked like the couples in the erectile dysfunction commercials—Carl was graying but in great shape, “robust”—Barbara younger, though older than Mike, and very attractive, no gray in her reddish brown hair. They were both always elegantly dressed, and friendly to him when he handed them their lattes.

Barbara looked Mike up and down. Jesus, how could he ever face them again at the café?

“He could be our…what was the name of that prince in those first novels we read? The trilogy, in the castle.”

“The French one was the first one I ever read,” Carl said. “You showed me that trilogy when we started dating.” Now he looked down at Mike’s naked body, at his cock still half-hard. “If I remember, that prince got it up the ass pretty often,” he said.

Mike closed his eyes tight, then remembered being told never to do that. He lowered his eyes, as he’d been told to do. But Barbara lifted his chin again, forcing him to look at them.

“How are things down at the coffee shop, Michael?” she asked.

He could barely speak. “Fine, Ma’am.”

“Mm-hm. Do you get medical there?”

“What?” He caught himself. “Ma’am?”

“Medical benefits?”

She must be joking. But he kept it simple:

“No, Ma’am.”

“Thirteen thousand,” the auctioneer said. “I’m very disappointed, people. She’s gorgeous, takes a licking, and this is for charity.” He waited. “Sold to number twenty-seven.” Apparently the buyers wanted longer commitments, something besides a play date. Mistress Anna led Sheila, pale and whipped red, off the stage.

Oh god, no. Mistress Anna walked up to Mike, hips swaying, faint smile on her lips. She unhooked his chain from the goddess next to him, the last slave in waiting. Mike understood, now—the level of abuse increased with each slave, and the staggeringly beautiful woman to his left was going to be the main attraction. He was the final warm-up act.

Mistress Anna didn’t leash him: she pulled downward, hard, forcing him onto his knees. “Crawl,” she said. Her voice was firm, authoritative, beautiful. He crawled.

Once he reached center stage, the wood flooring hard under his knees, she placed one shiny leather boot toward him. “Lick,” she told him. He licked, tongue fully extended, his face down, ass up in the air.

“This is Michael,” the auctioneer began, and Mistress Anna placed her other boot under his chin to lick. He licked.

“Michael is dissatisfied with his present Mistress,” the man said. What? “He feels she is only pretending at their relationship. And she feels it might be time to sell him to someone with more serious intentions.” Mike wanted to rise up to his knees and protest, explain that that wasn’t true, he was very devoted to his Mistress. But he kept licking the boot.

“Michael is loyal, devoted and obedient. Loves to give service. He has never sucked a cock, but has told his Mistress he gladly would if she ordered him to.”

Oh good god, she told them that? His face could turn no deeper red. He’d never wanted to be with a man, ever in his life. But the thought of being made to do it, for her, well…

Mistress Anna pulled up on his collar, and he rose to his knees, only to find a dildo being pushed into his mouth. There was laughter from the crowd. The dildo was huge, and he had to open his jaws wide to accommodate its sour taste of silicone.

She pulled on his collar and he stood naked in front of at least seventy-seven people, two cocks pointed at them. He could now see heads, people seated around tables, glasses tilting toward lips. Anna made game-show-prize gestures up and down his body, then turned him around.

She pulled him downward, bending him over. “Spread ’em,” she said, and he obeyed. He always obeyed.

She pushed his head to the floor and he stood bent over, legs fully spread, ass to the audience.

“Yes, it’s virgin, ladies and gentlemen,” the auctioneer said as Anna rubbed his smooth cheeks, stroked up and down between them. She patted the back of his balls. “Well, virgin to men. Toys, not so much. Shall we start at ten thousand dollars?”

I can always get up and leave, I can always get up and leave, he thought. This is just pretend. A social construct, an agreement. He looked out at the crowd with his head upside down. He couldn’t tell if the men or the women were more interested, or repulsed, by his bent-over male ass. What if a man bought him? He shut his eyes.

She turned him around, then pushed him down onto his hands and knees, facing his audience. He waited, until he felt a dab of wet lube against his asshole. No.

“This is real,” Mistress Anna whispered as she knelt down behind him and fastened a strap-on phallus around her waist. “Keep your head up, and don’t you dare close your eyes.” He nodded his head, the dildo bobbing with him.

Mike had no idea how much he’d been sold for, let alone who’d bought him. He could only recall a vague jabbering of numbers and a deep sense of shame as he’d held still and kept his eyes focused on the far wall of the ballroom—he’d also felt an equally strong desire not to displease the forceful woman behind him. He remembered immense relief at hearing the gavel slam and feeling both dildos removed. He remembered the click of the leash as Mistress Anna attached it to his collar.

He was now standing with the other sold slaves, all bound and gagged, locked in the coatroom. They were unable to watch the rest of the show; it was none of their business now. But they could certainly hear it. The goddess was still onstage, screaming, crying, even begging for mercy. Mike could hear the repeated crack of a whip—a long, single-tail whip, the real thing. He had never felt one of those.

For once, he couldn’t just walk out of this game. Was this even legal? Mike looked at the women, wondering where he’d be taken for the weekend, and they looked back at him, at his big hard dick.

Mike’s ass was sore, inside and out. He’d been spanked, hard. It had been quite a show. The organizers had played to every slave’s appeal—the pain slut thrashed, the only male emasculated, publicly buggered by a dominatrix. And the cool and collected homecoming queen out there, well, she wasn’t so collected anymore.

He heard applause, and the sound of chairs scooting. The door opened and the coat-check girl, wearing a black latex cocktail dress, leashed him and brought him out into the ballroom. “On your knees,” she said.

The crowd was ambling toward the doors, talking and laughing. He looked down, away from their faces. Two pairs of shoes stepped in front of him—familiar shoes. “Kiss your new Mistress’s feet,” the girl in latex said, and handed Mrs. Miller the leash as well as her coat and hat. He bent forward and touched his gag to her relatively expensive shoes, and then Mr. Miller’s, as well. Right in front of all these people leaving the ballroom.

“Stand up,” Barbara said. Mike stood. He felt his gag being unfastened, and then Carl placed a raincoat over his shoulders, his hands still cuffed behind his back.

Barbara—Mrs. Miller? Mistress?—brought the lapels of the coat together and tightened the belt around his waist. “Put on these loafers,” she said, and he slipped his feet into the pair of old leather shoes that Carl dropped onto the floor. “Let’s go.” She pulled on his leash.

It was dark and raining outside. Mike started to walk toward the limo waiting in the valet queue. He was finally going to be hauled off to a big mansion, to be used as he was in his fantasies, just like in all those novels.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Barbara said, tugging on his leash as the rain rolled off her elegant hat. “We’re walking. We live two blocks from here.”

In a downtown loft? Mike thought. “Yes, Ma’am.”

“You will call me ‘Mistress,’ and Carl ‘Master,’” she said. It felt absolutely surreal to be led down a fairly busy urban street, naked and bound under a raincoat, bare legged like some old-fashioned cartoon flasher.

“Yes, Mistress. I’m sorry, my Mistress taught me to call everyone but her ‘Ma’am.’”

Barbara stopped and turned, letting Mike stand in the rain as a fedora’d Carl walked on before stopping as well.

“You don’t understand, do you?”

Mike shook his head no; he truly didn’t.

“We bought you. In perpetuity. Your Mistress has sold you off. You’re ours.” She started walking, and he was compelled to follow.

If this were for real, Mike would say nothing, accept his fate and follow without question. But this was all a game, an agreement, for crying out loud.

“Mistress?”

“You’ll be punished for speaking out of turn.”

“Yes, Mistress, forgive me. But I’ve got to be at work in—”

“How much do you make a year, pouring coffee?”

“What? Oh, uh, twenty thousand?” This really wasn’t her business, but what the hell, after tonight.

“We paid three times that for you. Your Mistress sold you because she just doesn’t want the same things you do—or that we do. And because she found out she could make the commission, a little finder’s fee. Times are tough, you know.”

“Yes, Mistress. But I’m—”

“You really haven’t been trained very well, interrupting me twice. That’ll change.”

Mike shut his mouth.

“We found out where you live. Tiny apartment down on Tenth? Not exactly the high life. You’ll move in with us. You’ll quit your crappy job. You will obey our every command, both of us, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. You’ll never wear a stitch of clothing.”

Mike followed in the rain, barely able to process what he was being told. Of course he could still always walk away.

But he wouldn’t.

“We live in a big warehouse loft with brick walls and steel beams in the ceiling,” she said. “All the better to fasten you to, suspend you from. We throw parties. You’ll serve.”

Mike swallowed hard, and his stomach began to tighten with the thrill of possibility, of not knowing what was next.

“It’s not exactly a castle,” his new Mistress said, “but it’ll have to do.”