On the Auction Block

Slave of the Aristocracy, Book One:

On the Auction Block

by Ashley Zacharias

Copyright (c) 2014 Ashley Zacharias

All rights reserved, including the right of
reproduction, either in whole or in part, in any form. This book is
a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are
either products of the author’s imagination or are used
fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is
entirely coincidental.

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additional copy.

Lord James Fortson closed the door softly;
his tread was light on the tile.

Careful as he was, he could not return
quietly enough to slip past Lady Irene. She had brought her
embroidery into the laundry and had been listening intently as she
filled areas with satin stitches and accented them with French
knots.

When his silhouette passed the open door, she
said, “Hello, James.”

Her voice was demure but her clear
enunciation carried.

He stepped back to peer into the laundry.
“Lady Irene. What on earth are you doing in there?”

She hated it when her husband called her
Lady Irene
. It made her feel like a prop whose only purpose
was to support his position as Lord of Abeis Manor. “Embroidering a
pillow for the drawing room.” She held up the hoop. “It’s an ugly
duckling. I’m going to illustrate the fable of the ugly duckling on
two pillows. The other one will be the swan. I’m going to put one
on each end of the love seat.”

He stepped into the room. “No. I mean why are
you sewing in the laundry? Why aren’t you in the parlor? Or the
library, at least?”

“Embroidering, not sewing.” Did her husband
think her common that she would spend time mending clothes? “I like
the light here. The southern exposure gives me better light before
noon. When the sun passes the zenith, then I’ll move to the drawing
room.”

“The light?”

“I need a good light for such fine work,” she
said.

He looked doubtful. “You could use a lamp. We
have lots of lamps in the library.”

“Natural light is better. It’s a sunny day. I
want to enjoy the sun while I can.” There were too many overcast
days by the Western Sea. Sometimes she thought that she should have
stayed in Calam Shire. It was colder in the high desert, but had
more sunny days.

“Where is Sud? The one who does the
laundry?”

“I sent her back to her quarters. Didn’t you
see her out there?”

James had the decency to blush. “No.”

At least he didn’t deny that he’d been to the
slave kennels. And he might be telling to truth about not seeing
Sud. She was old, nearly forty, and likely to stay out of sight
when James was about. That would be easy because he wouldn’t go out
of his way to look for her; he was far more interested in the
younger slaves – Cinnamon and Velvet.

After spending most of the morning with those
two, he would have no interest in coming to Irene’s bed tonight. As
usual.

Irene sometimes wondered why she thought
about sex so much when she experienced it so little. Four years
ago, when James had proposed, she had imagined that she was about
to embark on a lifetime of sexual adventure. That she would spend
half her days entertaining her husband in their marital bed. She
had been so naïve.

The reality was the opposite of her youthful
fantasies. She was no longer the virgin that James had married but
she had been living a life of near chastity in her own house since
returning from their honeymoon.

She knew that men who owned slaves took
satisfaction from them – that was the way of the world – but she
never guessed that women who weren’t even human, just pieces of
property, could push a wife’s love aside so easily.

Cold marital beds weren’t something that
ladies discussed over coffee. Ladies didn’t talk openly about sex.
But she could tell from glances avoided and soft innuendo that her
experience was typical of wives in her social class.

“I’m going out,” James said. “I’ll be back
for dinner.”

“Are you going to the auction house?” she
asked.

James looked hard at her for a moment. He had
not expected such an indelicate question his wife. He decided to
tell the truth. “Yes.”

Irene wasn’t surprised. James assumed a
certain air for a few days before he was about to trade in a slave.
He didn’t keep a large kennel so he grew bored quickly and traded
one in every few months. If he didn’t go to the auction today, then
he’d have to wait until next month to upgrade his stable. “Velvet?”
she asked. Cinnamon was the newest and youngest by a couple of
years so he was less likely to be tired of her. And he wouldn’t
trade in Sud because she was the only one who knew how to cook and
do the laundry properly. He would find the manor less comfortable
without her.

But he wouldn’t keep her forever. Some day,
maybe soon, he would have her train a replacement and then he’d
sell her, too. No man kept a slave who was over forty.

“No,” he said. “I’m thinking about adding a
fourth to the kennel.”

“A fourth?”

“There’s enough cells and a man of stature
needs to be able to entertain properly. I don’t want Cinnamon and
Velvet to be overworked.”

He was trying to shock her; answer her
indelicate question with far more information than a lady should
have. He knew that Irene would understand what he was saying when
he referred to his slaves being
overworked
. He didn’t mean
cooking and cleaning. The slaves only served in the house when they
were not hosting guests. When guests were invited to the manor for
dinner, which was two or three times most weeks, temporary staff
were hired to clean, cook, and serve.

On those nights, the slaves were kept in the
kennel because they couldn’t be trusted to be presentable in polite
company.

At least, that was the fiction that was
maintained so that the wives could pretend that they didn’t know
about the slaves’ real duties – the services that they offered to
the gentlemen when they retired to the billiard room after
dinner.

Ladies weren’t supposed to know that the
machines – dishwashers, automatic vegetable choppers, roasters,
self-propelled floor cleaners, clothes washers and dryers –
performed so much of the daily household tasks that a single slave
could maintain an entire manor-house and still have time on her
hands.

The polite fiction was that a staff of slaves
– all young females – were necessary to assist the machines, even
on days when only the lord and lady were in residence.

Irene put her embroidery aside. “I want to
come.”

James cocked his head. “Come where?”

“To the auction house?”

“It’s no place for a lady.”

“Ladies aren’t banned. I know some ladies who
go and help their husbands choose slaves. Lady Annabell from
Fulford does. And I think Lady Fern goes sometimes as well.”
Annabell in particular liked to shock the other ladies by referring
obliquely to her trips to the auction house with her husband.

James pursed his lips. “Lady Annabell is old.
Sixty, at least. She wants… She wants the best for Lord Fulford.
He’s made some … unfortunate purchases in the past. She’s a good
judge of a slave’s temperament. And Lady Fern… Well, you know Fern.
She’s a little… odd. She…” He paused, trying to find the right
words.

Irene smiled. Fern was a sadistic lesbian who
chose her own companions. She needed slaves who were robust enough
to endure a considerable amount of torture. But James couldn’t say
that about a lady. Not explicitly. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m
not like Fern. I just want to see the process. See how you select
someone who will be best able to help around the house. I won’t
interfere. I won’t even offer advice. I’ll keep my eyes open and my
mouth shut.”

James looked like he wanted to object, but
couldn’t figure out how to do it. He couldn’t say that he was
looking for the sexiest bitch on the block for his kennel. That he
was looking for a slave who could service a half-dozen men in an
evening and look like she loved being used by every one of
them.

Irene walked over to her husband and took his
arm. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”

He had no choice but to take her with
him.

* * *

The walls were rough-hewn planks and the
floor, which was worn smooth by generations of slave buyers, was
littered with sawdust. The auction house had stood in the center of
town for generations, a crude reminder of a barbarous past that
stubbornly resisted the encroachment of the refined civilization
that slowly had blossomed around it.

It was a man’s place. Irene counted only
three women other than herself among the hundred men who were
standing under the muted house lights.

She did not include the slaves in her count,
of course. Slaves are property, not people.

The slaves were confined in small cages
arranged along the north wall. Only nineteen of the two dozen were
occupied. The slaves had to stand because the cages were too small
for them to sit or crouch. All were young; most were less than
thirty, the oldest maybe thirty-five. All were beautiful. Their
long hair was artfully teased fall in wild and passionate disarray
over their shoulders and down their backs. Their makeup was heavy
and obvious but applied expertly. And all were naked. Their bodies
were trim and fit, round where they should be round and firm where
they should be firm.

Irene had never seen a naked slave. When they
came to the house or ran errands on the street, they were clothed
in a standard simple housedress. James, on the other hand, probably
saw them naked far more often than clothed. Unless he had them wear
special clothes in the kennel. She didn’t know. A lady never went
inside a slave kennel. Ladies were supposed to pretend that they
barely knew that the kennels existed.

Irene stayed close to James when he inspected
the lots. She said nothing but she examined the slaves as avidly as
he did.

The cages were separated from each other and
placed away from the wall so that prospective buyers could walk
around and examine each slave from all angles.

James, like the other men, examined their
bodies minutely. Some had whip marks, though none was too severely
scarred. All had excellent posture. None had body hair.

James was not the only man to breathe heavily
as he viewed the wares.

Irene looked at the slaves’ faces. Demure or
defiant, it didn’t matter. Each face betrayed tiny, tell-tale signs
of fear. A tick here, a twitch there. A mouth drawn tight, a glance
avoided. A quiver of the hand. A trickle of sweat. A breath caught
when a gentleman’s stare was intense enough to indicate that he was
a likely bidder in the coming auction.

These slaves looked alive. Primal and
bestial. Keenly aware of every minute detail of their
situation.

Irene felt the sharp contrast between their
excitement about their dark, dangerous futures and the ennui of her
own mundane daily life. Seeing the intensity of the slaves’
emotions made her feel like she had been embalmed while still
alive. Her husband’s manor was her mausoleum.

She understood why James spent time in the
slave quarters every day. The slaves’ raging emotions were
contagious. Just standing near them made her feel energized. And
her husband did a lot more than just stand close to his slaves when
he visited his kennel. He went there to become one with them for a
few minutes. When he was inside them, he would share their
vitality.

She never had a moment in her day when she
felt as alive as she did when she was just standing here in the
presence of these slaves. Even when she and James entertained, her
delicate conversation with the other ladies was more eulogy than
celebration. No lady of significant rank dared ever expose her real
thoughts and feelings for fear that they would be used in a
whispering campaign behind her back. Ladies of rank devoted their
time and effort to improving their social status by climbing over
the wreckage of other ladies’ reputations. That was the duty that a
wife owed to her husband.

“Gentlemen, it is time for the first lot.
Take your places, please.” The amplified voice echoed off the
walls.

The auctioneer stood alone on the low stage,
a platform twenty feet wide and ten feet deep. A two-foot-high
block, three feet square, was mounted in the center of the
stage.

There was no microphone visible; his voice
was amplified by some means that had been hidden from sight.

Two large men herded the customers away from
the cages. They wore red tank tops that exposed bulging muscle and
had coiled whips hanging from their belts. They had the air of men
who were not to be crossed.