Chapter 3

The center of town consisted of a large plaza cluttered with wooden stands around its periphery and raised wooden platforms surrounding the only building so far preserved to any reasonable degree from my own time, a mess of sloped tiered roofs over a combination of first and second story spaces and a highly incongruous ... steeple? chimney? both? stapled toward the middle of it. Hundreds of people milled about, with hundreds more constantly coming and going. Vendors pushed every kind of good at the stalls, from produce to what looked like old wrecked electronics. Rough-looking, massive women in what might have passed for police uniforms (metal scale and leather armor dyed a splotchy blue) strutted ostentatiously about the plaza brandishing spears or batons and elbowing poorer women out of the way while nodding respectfully toward richer ones.

Some of the stages rang out with poetry or dramatic speeches to entertain the masses – but we weren’t getting dragged along to be entertained. We instead rattled our way through the crowd toward one of the other stages – and holy shit there were naked people on it! A dark-skinned matronly figure with heavy, drooping breasts stood center stage, hands clasped casually above her hairy public mound, not attempting to conceal it. Not a single stitch of clothing could be seen on her from head to toe. Three other women of different ages, skin color and body type stood patiently behind her, all similarly unadorned. Suddenly I understood why we’d only been given a single garment to wear on the way here. We wouldn’t be wearing it long. My companions mumbled, gasped, one of them rattling the rope as if almost bolting away before remembering we were anchored to each other, and whispered in shock:

“What ... the ... fuck...”

“Ohmygod”

“Nononono”

“Shit’s fucked up man”

A woman in a very fancy, tall fluted hat stood on the stage’s corner by a pole with a large brass bell, waving at the big-titted slave currently on display, in the middle of belting out a sales pitch:

“- farm work mostly, indoor and outdoor, very good with vegetables. What’s more she’s kept stock of the root cellar for the past five years, does not read or write but has good memory. No mine work, hauling or other heavy work besides farming –”

I lost track of the description as we were led out of sight behind the curtain at the back of the platform. The beat of my own pulse filled my ears. I felt short of breath. Slaves. I dry-heaved a few times then settled down. Slaves. It finally sank home. I was going to be a slave. I hadn’t had a single moment to gather my thoughts during the previous days, hadn’t fully realized the finality of this event. I was about to be marched up on that stage and sold as chattel. The whip marks on the back of my male attendant a few hours ago and on my fellow revenant flashed into my mind, along with the sensation of forced intrusion into my asshole and the rat at the foot of my bed and the words “do everything, absolutely everything you’re told” all mingling with the heavy, rough steel of the manacles on my wrists. Holy shit. Holy shit! This was real. This was happening.

Something shook the rope. The bell rang. I tangentially registered four women being unshackled, stripped of their robes and led up onto the stage by Dana. The previous lot stepped back through the curtain. Voices blabbed numbers somewhere in the front. My mind, finally kicked into gear after all the confusion, raced through possible avenues of escape. When they took the shackles off, could I duck behind the other slaves and make a run for it? Try to free the other slaves and bumrush our spear-wielding guards? Try to buy my freedom? With what? I lacked currency even from my own time, much less this one. The previous four women stepped back through the curtain, were given short rough robes to wear and led off, presumably to their buyers. My best plan was to wait until I was on stage then dive into the crowd and ... I finally noticed a guard on each side of the stage, partly out of sight, not with billy clubs or primitive spears but cradling hunting rifles.

The bell rang. The last of the women were stripped nude and led out, buttocks jiggling, tits swaying and nipples cutting the chill air, including the three from my century. One trembled slightly, another sobbed. The one who’d been whipped seemed altogether numb, shuffling along zombie-like. Of the four returning ones, one was re-shackled, having apparently failed to sell. The crowd’s murmurs heightened a bit at their appearance. Descriptions and bids piled up. I was out of ideas.

“Don’t go getting any ideas, boys.” A guard laid aside her spear and a mug of something brown and frothy she’d acquired at some point and fumbled with Dana’s key at our shackles. Rubbing my wrists, I risked a glance at my large companion from the trip. He stared back dumbly. We then both avoided each other’s gaze ashamed at our helplessness. The guard snapped her fingers at us. The third, a short balding middle-aged Asian guy, immediately unbelted and slipped his robe off his shoulders and nodded at us to do the same. My hands were soon hovering in front of my crotch, trying halfheartedly to cover myself up. With a cold sneer and a snort the guard slapped them away and eyed our pricks hungrily.

“Slaves when they’re up for sale, scared of who might buy ‘em, especially tube stiffs, they sometimes try to run. Don’t ask me where to. We always catch ‘em but it’s not pretty. Remember we still make some money off you even if we stick a few holes in you.”

At some point laughter erupted from the crowd. Finally the slave trader walked the last lot back and off to the side to meet their new fate. Well, three of them walked back carrying the whipped woman who had apparently fainted. Nevertheless her unconscious nude form was dragged to the side of the platform, slipped into a robe and left slumped against a wall for her buyer. The bell rang again. The trader glossed over the two of us new acquisitions and pointed to the third:

“You’re first up. You two watch and learn. Do. Not. Embarrass me.”

We shambled up the steps and through the folds of the curtain, to be pinned by a sea of leering eyes. At least fifty women were gathered around the stage, and the multitudes in line of sight of our nudity numbered an order of magnitude more. The large man and I backed up against the curtain shielding our crotches while the short guy walked to the front and stood in a relaxed pose with his feet apart, making no attempt to cover himself. Our vendor stood to one side reciting a rehearsed list of features of this particular model of slave now standing nude on the elevated platform in sight of hundreds of milling citizens. When asked, he turned slowly with his arms out, squared his shoulders and stretched, flexed, squatted and bent over, letting the audience gauge his musculature. My jaw dropped when he started masturbating himself gently. In public. In the town square in broad daylight in front of a rapt assemblage of townswomen. For a moment I thought he would bukkake the entire audience. Instead he stopped once he was hard and waited patiently displaying his prick bobbing in the breeze to prospective buyers.