Human Commodity

HUMAN COMMODITY

by Candace Smith

Copyright 2010 Candace Smith

Published by Strict Publishing International

Prelude

Kayla sat at the dinner table, absently stirring her mashed potatoes and looking as though she were trying to read hidden signs in the gravy.
 
Her brother Billy was two years younger, and he was animatedly discussing his role in last weekend’s football game.
 
He had gotten lucky when Tyler Benson had managed to trip up two players just as Billy approached the five yard line, and the average-sized boy stepped over the crumpled forms into the end zone, giving the Smithville Bulldog’s the winning touchdown.

“Coach says spotters for state are going to start showing up in a couple of weeks.”
 
Billy looked at his parents with fevered excitement and dreams of scholarships and stardom in his eyes.
 
“I’m going to make a deal with Tyler to use the play again.
 
It makes us both look good.”

“Kayla, sweetheart, stop playing with your food,” her mom admonished.

Kayla sighed and scooped up a small portion of her green beans.
 
She had always done the right thing.
 
Her manners were impeccable.
 
She was in the top five of her senior class, she had avoided the advances of hormone riddled teenage boys, and she dressed in a preppy, conservative style that concealed a beautifully blossomed figure of a slender, though curvaceous, nubile teenage girl.
 
She was also eighteen as of three-twelve that afternoon, so it was quite possible that the extraordinary restraint she had managed against peer pressure was not going to save her.

Once more, the ‘ifs’ entered her mind, appearing as a red flagged list of her sentencing.
 
‘If’ her chemistry teacher had not given her a ‘B’ last semester, knocking her out of the five-way tie for top student and the scholarship, ‘if’ Billy was bigger, making his
own
football scholarship a feasible way to fund college, ‘if’ the financial collapse had not been quite so complete that it had caused her parents to overextend their credit right before her dad’s job cut back hours… ‘if’ the Preservation of Humanity Organization had managed to block legislation for Sanford Human Commodity Investments to legalize the rights of parents to contract daughters over eighteen to the commodity market six months ago… so many red lines on her ‘if’ list.

Kayla could sense no indication in her parents’ smiles or behavior as to whether or not they had been selected to receive an offer for her and had signed with SHCI.
 
She knew that they loved her, but even that might not be enough.
 
The world had not rebounded to the point that would necessitate a need to consider sending young women to college, and most considered it to be a luxury… one that her parents could not afford.
 
The brochures from SHCI began showing up in the mailbox six weeks ago, as an irritating reminder that there were no prospects for her after high school.
 
Kayla had read the one stating that the young women they traded ended up in wealthy circumstances of investors who could pay the exorbitant amounts for human commodities.
 
The picture showed a young girl in an opulent setting, smiling as she served tea to a man and his wife.

In contrast, the back cover showed a girl languishing on her parents’ worn couch while the mother placed a single bowl of stew on the table and the frazzled, overworked father and brother walked through the door with the grime from their long day at some unknown laborious chore.
 
It went on to say how the money the family would receive for providing their daughter promising circumstances would have saved her brother from a life of menial labor by giving them the funds to send him to college.
 
Kayla had no idea that an entire floor of SHCI was devoted to locating promising commodities and aligning their advertising to exploit the specific circumstances of the families with the girls they wished to acquire.

She did not dare ask her parents their decision, because after Patsy had begun to badger her folks and whine and plead, she had been pulled out of Kayla’s homeroom one morning and sent to finish the year… or presumably until she turned eighteen… at an SHCI private boarding school.
 
Her parents were furious, as they did not have the money to show the contract to a lawyer.
 
They had read the bold print on the first page, stating that the firm would accept the girl early and transfer her to the lavish SHCI boarding school to prepare her for her future until she reached age, if the parents found the contract commitment too upsetting to the family.
 
They missed the smaller print on page eleven, that indicated the cost of boarding and schooling the girl in these extravagant circumstances would be deducted from her contract price.

After that frightening display of Patsy’s departure, Kayla and most of her friends had decided to continue to attempt to endear themselves to their families.
 
Most of her friends had gotten the hint not to try to sway their parents, and they had hugged Kayla after last class and tried to smile when they told her that they hoped to see her tomorrow in homeroom.
 
That, in itself, was a mixed blessing, because girls that continued their senior year without being contracted were considered a pariah faction of undesirable young women, and the senior boys were ribbed mercilessly by their friends if they dated a discard.

Dinner was finally finished, and her mom brought a birthday cake in from the kitchen.
 
It was white with yellow roses, and Kayla hoped it was a good sign that they had decided to struggle through and hope that Billy grew over the next two years.
 
She did not know that the cake had been delivered by a man in a black SHCI van at two o’clock.
 
The drugged treat would work slowly, encouraging a deeper sleep once the family retired.

Kayla varied her evening routine when she took off her locket and class ring.
 
She unhooked her gold hoop earrings and laid all of the jewelry on her dresser.
 
If she did not wake in her room in the morning, she would rather her parents sell the jewelry than have it removed at the SHCI Training Compound.
 
Kayla glanced at her cell-phone, but she decided not to call her friends and keep them up with her worries.
 
They would be facing their own birthdays soon enough.
 
Instead, she wandered to her bathroom and she filled the tub with warm water, adding a capful of bubble bath.
 
It was a cheap concoction that she had made with slivers of leftover soap and one spray from the perfume she had received for her sixteenth birthday.

The residual foam from the lavender scented bubbles had traveled across the cool still water to form a quarter-inch sudsy foam ring around the fiberglass.
 
Kayla’s head rested on a towel and her eyes were closed, but she was not asleep.
 
Oh no… far from it.
 
Her mind was working through possible scenarios she had discussed with her friends, in the event she had been sold to SHCI.

She moved her hands under the water, squeezing one healthy breast and stroking down her belly with the other.
 
Her nipple was hard from the chill, and she pinched and rolled it between her thumb and finger.
 
The other hand rubbed her groomed curls and slowly dipped between the fat lips of her pussy.
 
Kayla was a senior in high school, and she had never been caressed by a boy.
 
She was one of the few who was ‘saving’ herself for the future… no matter what it entailed.

Now, Kayla pictured Mason Sanford, and she could practically feel his gray eyes piercing her with desire.
 
Her finger stroked along her soft crevice, dipping along the wrinkled folds.
 
A cramp tightened inside her, and she felt the slippery substance on her fingertip.
 
Up and down from her hole to her clit… a delightful little nub she had discovered two years ago… and she squeezed her nipple hard, digging with her nails as she imagined being spread across Mason’s desk and his deep voice ordering her to masturbate.

Is that what it would be like?
she wondered.
 
Her mind focused on the magazine cover with the picture of Mason flashing a smile, a shock of dark hair spilling onto his forehead, his… “Aaah,
 
oh, god,” Kayla gasped softly as her pussy tightened around her finger, and she pinched her nipple so hard that it throbbed.
 
Thinking of Mason Sanford could always make her cum, and she consoled herself about the increasing propensity to add a little pain into the mix by deciding that she was merely preparing herself for another scenario of what might lie in store for her at the SHCI Training Compound.

Kayla rose and dried herself, and then she put on pajamas and crawled under her comforter.
 
A lethargy she presumed to have been facilitated by the bath had her sleeping within minutes.
 
Her dreams flew to places in the past, and dark shadows that could be her future.
 
She felt cool air as her blanket was pulled down, and her dazed eyes opened slightly to look into the shadowed face of a large stranger reaching under her and lifting her out of her bed.
 
She was unsure if it was part of a dream as her head dropped onto his shoulder.
 
The soft feel of his dark sweater seemed too real, and tears filled her eyes in the nightmare.
 
“Hush, girl.
 
No need to wake anyone up and upset them,” a deep voice whispered.

By the time her eyes opened again, he was placing her on a cot in the back of a van.
 
His hand brushed gently down her throat, over her breast and over her ribcage.
 
It returned to her breast, and she trembled at his controlled strength as he squeezed and held the mound.
 
“Yes, I think you can be turned into a valuable commodity,” he whispered.
 
He inhaled her fear and innocence, already planning her training.

Kayla was woozy and she felt disassociated as she tried to follow his actions with her eyes.
 
He buckled a belt under her chest, pinning her arms to her sides.
 
Another strap crossed over her shins, and she watched him reach into a small pack on his hip.
 
Her eyes widened slightly at the syringe and she gave a slight gasp.

“Easy, girl.
 
This is just something to help you sleep until we get you to the compound.”
 
It slid easily into her arm, and the girl’s eyes closed within seconds.

In the morning, Thelma and Douglas Arnold found an envelope with the signed SHCI contract and twenty thousand dollars resting between their pillows.
 
Life would go on, as they convinced themselves they had done the best they could for their children.
 
Kayla should be ensconced in a lavish lifestyle she would never have been able to acquire otherwise, and Billy would be a football legend.

They would never learn the truth about their daughter’s service, and Billy would not grow much larger.
 
He would unsuccessfully battle through two years of college, and wind up smoothing cement for the city sidewalk renewal program that would finally receive funding from wise SHCI investments.

Kayla awoke in a small bedroom, with a bathroom off in one corner.
 
There was a breakfast sitting on a table, with a folded note beside it.
 
Her stomach was clenching in panic, and she sat and stared at a bowl of oatmeal and glass of juice.
 
She glanced in frightened panic at the SHCI logo on the ivory paper, and her hand reached out and picked up the note.
 
‘Finish all of your breakfast, place your clothes in the shoot in the bathroom, shower, brush your teeth and hair.
 
Put on whatever makeup you choose, the shift in the dresser, and wait on your bed until your escort arrives.’

Kayla scanned the corners for cameras and, detecting nothing, she considered flushing her breakfast.
 
She had become so attuned to complacently following orders that she picked up her spoon instead.
 
An hour later, she sat on the bed with her blonde hair brushed to a straight sheen, her usual light application of makeup, and wearing a nearly transparent short shift and pink thong panties.
 
There was no bra or shoes, and she felt extremely exposed and berated herself for not having the foresight to have checked before consigning her pajamas to the black hole in the wall of the bathroom.

The door handle rattled, and her nerves set in.
 
Her wide dark eyes stared up at a middle aged man dressed in jeans and a navy sweater with the SHCI logo, and Kayla felt even more self-conscious in the short dress.

“Good morning, Kayla.
 
Follow me to orientation.”
 
The man was pleased to see that the girl was not going to be demonstrative and require restraints, nor was she turning to sobs and pleading.
 
She slowly rose on shaky legs and continued to stare at him in fright.

Kayla wanted to ask questions, but there were so many that she had no idea where to begin.
 
As they walked through a dimly lit concrete passageway, she decided to remain silent.
 
She was led to a room that held another dozen nervous young women.
 
Those that looked to be Kayla’s age were dressed in shifts as she was.
 
Others, who appeared to be a little older, were in ‘street’ clothes of tailored dresses and such.

A woman in a designer skirt and jacket began to speak.
 
“Hi, I’m Bethany.
 
I’ve decided to contract myself to a position in Rome or Paris.
 
Things are rebounding a little faster there, because they got in on this female commodity thing a little sooner.
 
From what I’ve gathered, we are the first true commodities SHCI is training.
 
This should give us a much wider range of desired positions and locations of service.”