There were tears in my eyes. I was glad that I was not wearing makeup. Had my tears ruined my makeup, I was sure I would have been beaten. Girls such as I, I had learned, could be beaten for far less. On the other hand, perhaps the men preferred their girls to ascend the block in such a state of obvious distress. Perhaps the buyers found such innocence appealing.

I did not know. I knew only that I had to obey.

I had been captured only two weeks earlier, in the fall of my home city, where I had been born and had spent my nineteen years of life. The assault had been sudden and unexpected, the enemy soldiers suddenly pouring through the streets and knocking down doors. I had been quickly collared, my hands bound roughly behind my back, and thrown onto a waiting wagon to be transported to my fate. In the back of the wagon were fifteen or so other girls and young women. I knew several of them from school or other settings. Some were married; most, including me, were not. All were highly attractive, or so I thought, at least. We had been found worthy of being abducted and taken away. I flushed with a moment of pride, only to feel a chill as I thought of the obvious reasons why we might have been chosen. Some of the women had had their clothing torn and, their hands tied as mine, were unable to conceal their bodies. Thankfully, I had not been so abused.

The block was a broad wooden platform, about six feet high. We were outside, in bright daylight, in one of the principal plazas of the capital city of our conquerors. I was kneeling with the other girls in the dirt behind the platform. There was nowhere I could go. A chain connected the collar around my neck to the collars of the girls on my left and right. The guards stood to either side of us, their whips hanging by their sides. We no longer gave them any reason to use them.

I did not know how many people were on the other side of the block, watching the proceedings with idleinterest or with commercial intentions. We had been told very little about our fate. We had only been told that if we obeyed, we would survive. I had already seen girls beaten within an inch of their lives for failing to obey a single command. I had no wish to feel the leather on my soft, unprotected back and thighs again.

The last two weeks had been easily the worst of my life. Torn away from my home and family, I had been given a crash course in the demands of my new existence. I had learned to obey without question the commands of my captors, to eat from a bowl on the floor, to beg to lick and kiss their feet, to remove my clothes at the slightest gesture. As captives from an enemy city, we knew we had no recourse, no court to which we could appeal. Even were the fortunes of war to be reversed and our home armies to triumph one day, we could not hope to be returned to our previous stations; the transition to our new condition was a one-way trip. Once a girl has been taught to kneel at the feet of men, there is no other future available to her.

The girl on my left was released from the holding chain and drawn up to a standing position. A chain leash was attached to her collar and used to lead her to the steps mounting the back of the wooden platform. She, too, had been crying. For the last two weeks, she had been one of our captors' "favorites." I had heard them pull her from her kennel at any hour and use her in the corridor, her soft back or belly pressed against the cold tile flooring. I had heard her cries of pain and humiliation as they exerted their dominance over her, using her unilaterally for their brutal pleasure. She had not been the only one to be so abused. I, luckily, had been spared such intimate attentions, but I was only too aware of why: as a virgin, I was being "saved" for my eventual owner. It was he who would claim rights to my soft flesh.

I heard the crack of the whip as the woman before me walked back and forth on the block, displaying herself brazenly for the crowd. I saw the auctioneer fondling her body possessively and heard his voice booming out, but I could not focus enough to understand his words. I knew a little of the language of this state, my schoolbook learning supplemented by the commands I had been taught over the last two weeks, but in my current state of distress my vocabulary failed me.

A guard unclipped my collar from the chain and attached a chain leash in its place. He pulled me to a standing position by the leash. I kept my eyes down as I had been trained.

All morning we had been displayed along one side of the plaza, our wrists chained above our heads to rings set high in a stone wall. There was enough slack in the chains for us to turn about and display our bodies fully for the potential buyers. Of course, they were not limited to the use of their eyes, but were also permitted to explore our bodies fully with their hands. I blushed, remembering the humiliating caresses and examinations I had suffered, and even more at the way some of them had made my body respond. Surely my friends would have been shocked to see my body squirm in the chains as it had that morning. But the men were merciless, and I had had nothing with which to protect myself.

The woman before me was now descending the stairs on the side of the platform, her head in her hands, sobbing. It was my turn. The guard led me up the stairs, where he handed the end of my leash to the auctioneer.

I was naked, alone, and afraid. I was about to be sold.

The auctioneer reached around my body and rudely fondled my right breast as he spoke. I did not understand many the words, but I guessed he was reading them my basic description: 19 years of age, five foot six, dark brown hair, brown eyes, illiterate. Virgin.

Before two weeks ago, I had never been naked before a man. Now it had become a regular part of my condition. While we were sometimes permitted clothes - thin and revealing as they might be - it went without saying that we would be auctioned off completely nude, save for our collars. Men would pay for the use of our naked bodies, so it was only fair that they should be able to see what they were buying.

I dared not lift my head, but by lifting my eyes slightly I guessed that there were two hundred people in the crowd. Most were men, though some were women or children. Most looked on dispassionately, even distractedly. Didn't they care? I was going to be sold! But, I knew, I was nothing to them, just another naked girl to be had for a pittance.

"Sex slave," I heard the auctioneer call out as he cracked the whip, indicating that I would soon have to perform for the audience. There were two words I knew. But I had never heard them applied to me with such momentous finality as they were now, my naked, collared body in full view of the hundreds of people who might own me just a few minutes from now. Of course, I had known that I was a slave, and had been able to guess that I was the sort of slave whose primary purpose was to give long, uninhibited, unconditional pleasures to men, the kind of girl whose place was on her back before a man, her legs spread invitingly, or on her belly, her hips raised high in the air, or her widely-spread knees, her lips open and her eyes closed. Apparently men had considered my face, and breasts, and belly, and thighs, and determined that I was the sort of girl worth having, at least for a few minutes' casual rape, or for longer, more elaborate pleasures I had not yet been trained to give. But it still came as a shock to hear those words so casually applied to me, here, on the block, so vulnerably exposed, so helpless. It was as if everything about me, my entire existence, could be summed up in those two words, "sex slave." But now, of course, it could. That was all I was, or could hope to be.

The whip cracked again, this time across my back. I realized I had missed a command. The auctioneer repeated it: "Kneel!" I swiftly knelt on the wooden platform, my knees spread, my breasts lifted prominently, my head lowered submissively. "Crawl!" he ordered. I lowered myself to my hands and knees and crawled from one side of the block to the other, my back arched and my hips high as I had been trained, my head still down. I could hear numbers being called out from the crowd, but in my confusion I could not make any sense of them. I hoped that I would bring a good price, if for no other reason than to provide some validation to my miserable existence.

I am not a slave!, I thought to myself as I rolled on my side on the block in response to a command. I do not want to be at the beck and call of a man, subject to his every whim and desire, forced to lend him the pleasure of my body at his least command, nothing more than a vessel for his sexual urges. My tears flowed faster as I wept at my cruel fate. Yet here I was, displaying myself naked before a square full of bidders, now pursing and licking my lips like the cheapest of whores. The auctioneer placed the handle of his whip before my mouth, and I sucked on it greedily, mimicking the service that I had never performed but would no doubt come to know only too well. I knew the penalty for failing to perform, and had no wish to suffer it. As the crowd laughed at my attempts to satisfy the inanimate object, the auctioneer made a comment I partially understood - something about my being "eager" to have "the real thing" in my mouth.

A voice from the front of the crowd asked a question. The auctioneer seemed to agree, and then positioned me on my knees with my head to the floor, my hands clasped behind my neck. I knew I could move from this position only at my own peril. He paused for dramatic effect, letting the crowd take in the sight of my naked body so wantonly presented to view. Then he began to touch me between the legs, and soon I was reduced to a quivering mass of flesh on the platform's surface, my knees pressed tightly together. I could not help it if my body behaved that way! But the audience had apparently like what it had seen. Amid the laughter I heard more bids being called. The auctioneer ordered me to kneel and lift my head, forcing me to look into the eyes of the people who had just witnessed my utter humiliation.

I knew now that I was a slave - just a trivial, vulnerable, available bundle of captive, naked flesh to be sold to and carried off by the highest bidder. I sobbed openly as the bidding came to a climax.

Then suddenly it was over and I was being led down the stairs on the right side of the block. I had no idea who had bought me, or what kind of slavery lay in wait for me. I shuddered. I was about to meet my first master as a slave always does, naked and on her knees. I found myself wondering how long I would remain a virgin, and how my master would choose to first make use of my body.

Waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs was a large, imposing man, a head and shoulders taller than I and with hands that no doubt could have snapped my neck. I felt terribly small, and vulnerable, and naked. I sank to my knees and spread them widely, hoping to satisfy this man who, I feared, was now my absolute master. A guard removed the steel collar that had encircled my neck for the past two weeks and, an instant later, the new man snapped a new collar in its place. I had just been transferred from one owner to the next as so much property.

I realized that a new girl had not yet ascended the block to suffer the treatment I had just endured. Then, once again leashed, I found myself being led back onto the stage I had just departed, this time by my new master. He pushed me to the front of the platform, again forcing me to display my body to the crowd. He was making some kind of announcement. It had something to do with that evening, and with me, and he was inviting everyone to take part. I had only the faintest inkling of what lay in store for me, but that was enough to make me shudder with dread. Then he pointed to his feet, and I threw myself to my belly on the wooden surface, licking and kissing at his boots. The crowd laughed, and he repeated his invitation. Then he grabbed me by my long brown hair and unceremoniously conducted me from the block. I heard the next girl beginning to climb the stairs behind the platform.

My new master marched me through the streets naked, allowing all the passers-by to enjoy the sight of my body. I had spent much of the past two weeks naked, but that had been in the relatively restricted confines of a training center; I was not yet used to the casual appraisals of any person who happened to pass me in the street. Luckily, it was only a few blocks before we arrived at my new home.

My heart sank. I could tell from the decorations on the front windows - which clearly depicted naked women in the process of satisfying the lusts of powerful men - what kind of establishment it was. It was a brothel but, more than that, one in which the women called upon to perform sexual services were all slaves and, as such, could be compelled to perform in any manner the clients chose to command. Here I would not be available and subject to a single master, which I had dreaded enough in itself; instead, I would be the common property of any men who might take a fancy to my body, providing them for a reasonable fee with intimate delights I could barely suspect at the time. I looked up at my master, tears in my eyes. He laughed and shoved me forcibly through the door.

Once inside, all eyes turned to look at me. There were several men, who were apparently employed by the establishment, as well as several girls, all collared and dressed in highly revealing garments that seemed only to accentuate their vulnerability and sexuality. I was highly conscious of my complete nudity. I hoped I would soon be permitted to wear clothing, no matter how scanty it might be.

A tall, muscular woman with a regal bearing appeared from the other side of the room and strode directly towards me. "On your knees, slut," she commanded me, in my native tongue. She spoke with the accent of the city in which I found myself a slave, but her command of the language was excellent. I sank to my knees in terror, hoping to be found pleasing. She kicked my knees even further apart, calling attention to my helpless openness. "Another cheap slut like the rest," she said, apparently for my benefit. She grasped me by the hair and pulled my head down to the floor, where I, unbidden, began to lick at her boots, offering her my submission in exchange for my life. Part of me rebelled at this rapid acquiescence in my situation, but my dominating motives were of fear. I knew that I was powerless to prevent anything that my owners might choose to inflict on me, and I hoped only that they might show me some tiny particle of mercy.

"That's enough, slut," she said after a minute or so. "Sarah! Melanie! Get the new slut ready for tonight!"

Two of the slave girls came over to me and, leading me by the leash still attached to my collar, took me through a door and into what were apparently the rooms for slave preparation. There they bathed me, shaved any hair from my body, and applied makeup and perfume to me. They were also from my home city, but had been captured several months earlier while traveling, before the current conflict had broken out. We whispered furtively in our native tongue, as they warned me of what my new life would be like. This was, indeed, a brothel, or a "pleasure club" as it was called, where any of the girls could be rented for a fee that depended on the length of usage and the services that would be demanded. In the large front room we would serve food and drinks to the clients and otherwise wait on them, doing our best to attract their attentions and stimulate their desires; then, when a client wished to make use of a girl, he would pay her fee at the bar and take her into a small, private room, there to subject her to whatever discipline and abuse he chose. As slaves, we, of course, could not object to any services that were demanded of us, but must exert all of our charm and skill to satisfy our masters of the hour, or face an unsatisfactory report and a consequent beating. I was only the eleventh girl at this club, which was one of the more popular in the city, which meant that on a busy night one girl might be used up to fifteen or twenty times. Sarah and Melanie quickly educated me on the things we must do to survive; one said, matter-of-factly, "you'll learn to satisfy as many of them as you can with your mouth; it's easier that way than taking all of them between the legs."

I was in utter shock and despair. I could hardly imagine surviving a single night of such utter degradation, let alone weeks or months. You learn to adapt, my new friends consoled me; pleasing men and avoiding punishment become your constant occupation and concern, they explained, and soon it seems completely natural, as if it were your sole and true purpose in life.

Never, I resolved to myself, would I let that happen to me. Whips and chains might make me a slave, but I would never willingly consent to be the helpless sexual plaything of any man who could afford the use of my body.

They also warned me of the particularly brutal humiliation I would suffer that evening as both a new girl in the club and a virgin. But nothing they said prepared me for the realities of what I would endure.

After I had been suitably prepared and cleaned - both inside and out, in ways I had never before experienced - I was given a light dinner and allowed to rest as the club's main room filled with expectant customers. There was a cover charge this evening, but in compensation each entrant was given a single ticket for a lottery that would be held shortly - a lottery in which I was the unfortunate and unwilling prize. These were men who had seen me perform on the auction block only a few hours before, or who had heard from their friends that there was a particularly tasty piece of slave flesh to be had this evening, and had come to see the festivities and try their luck. When the room was largely full, and the other slaves were busy delivering food and drinks to the tables, I was led out onto the floor, my hands chained behind my back, wearing something resembling the traditional folk costume of my home city, including an ornamented blouse and a long, flowing skirt. I had been made up to look like an innocent schoolgirl, which is what I had been only a few weeks before. The crowd cheered lustily. Though I could make out only some of the words they were saying, I understood their intentions only too well.

Holding me close to him by the chain leash attached to my collar, the club owner made a brief speech to his assembled guests. He said something along the lines of having found a young girl from my city who, having become convinced of the superiority of the one in which she now found myself, wanted nothing more than the opportunity to serve her citizens in some capacity, and humbly begged to be allowed a trial. At one point the audience bellowed out a hearty chorus of "Yes!," which I took as a sign that they were willing to accept my services.