Tria Read online

  Their display, however, only seemed to be the very beginning of their ordeal. Once everyone had had their turn, the ringleader asked those who wanted to examine the merchandise to form orderly lines at either end of the stage. Nearly every seat was drained of its occupant as the eager men queued up to get a closer look at the women they’d just been teased by.

  Some of the Principals would actually let the gawkers touch their women, and when the first man approached Abril, she tried to cringe away, but couldn’t. She didn’t know what her Principal was going to allow. The idea of being touched by hundreds of grabby, groping men made her feel faint.

  When the first male approached her – skirting everyone else and heading straight for her – Abril began to shake, the chains around her wrists rattling as if she was some sort of ghost. Her Principal put his hand on her shoulder to steady her and guide her down off her dais as he chatted up the prospect.

  “Abril Mardi Denzelle. A natural blonde, sweet tempered, completely untouched, and kept to the old ways of modesty and honor in a maid.”

  The man had seen at least fifty harvests, standing not nearly to Abril’s shoulder as he chomped down on a chambrez cigar and squinted up at her. Abril could smell his sharp aroma from where she stood, just behind the men, as befitted her position. He apparently subscribed to the current fad thinking; that bathing stripped a person of layers of both insulation and inoculation against germs.

  Rumor, innuendo, and snake oil merchants abounded since the Before Time. Modern medicine had been forgotten in favor of superstition and patent medicines.

  Her Principal turned to her and said in a quiet, firm voice, “You stand still, girl.”

  Abril did her best to do as she was told, especially when the man stood directly in front of her. Abril averted her eyes automatically, from years of training, trying to ignore those thick, stinky fingers as they descended on her face, pulling her eyelids up, then down, looking up her nose, and poking into her mouth, forcing her head back so that she had to show him that all of her teeth were healthy. She’d remembered being with her Principal when he’d bought a horse, and it was treated in much the same manner.

  When the man had finished exploring her head – running his fingers through her hair as if checking for bugs, looking in her ears – he took a step back and nodded to Abril’s handler, who proceeded to slip the bow ties at her shoulders and let the thin veil of fabric fall away from her breasts to hang from the thin rope at her waist. The old man almost lost his cigar as he stood staring dumbly at her, and Abril shifted restlessly as he kept staring, but then, as her breasts bounced with each jerky, nervous movement and the buyer nearly began to drool right in front of her, she stopped moving and stood stock still, desperately wishing she was anywhere else – even strapped to the bench and getting a whipping. Anything would be better than this.

  But the worst was yet to come. Not only was the smelly old man allowed to look at her breasts, he was allowed – even encouraged – to touch and play with the bounty that had just been revealed to him. At first his rough hands were almost reverent as he trailed the tips of them down the slope of each breast, but then he cupped them and squeezed hard enough to make her squeal, using his fingers and thumbs to pinch those ruby nipples that, for some reason, refused to shrink away from him as the rest of her was trying to do.

  “Stand still, girl!”

  Abril did her best to obey the sharp command, but once that awful male moved on to other helpless territory, another took his place, and another and another and another. Her nipples were so sore by the time everyone sat down again that she had disgraced herself and begun to cry as the last man came up to her, and she couldn’t stop herself from trying to twist away from him, even though he’d made no move to grab her as everyone else had this morning.

  She got even more agitated when she saw out of the corner of her eye that her Principal was reaching for his leather paddle.

  The man in front of her reached out to stay the Principal’s hand, though, and then he took the paddle into his own hand. It was as if it was happening to someone else as she saw her owner was complying with him entirely, deferring to him as if he was someone of great importance. She was forced to turn around as he yanked the veil up from where it had hung to the backs of her heels and rucked it up to her waist, where he held it in place by wrapping his arm around her, which also served to hold her tightly in place.

  Abril was mortified to realize that the whole theatre had come to a screeching halt to witness her punishment. No other sound could be heard other than heavy breathing. All eyes were on her and the tableau she presented, bright red bare bottom framed by the veil and awaiting a punishment delivered for the first time by a man other than her Principal.

  She had always thought that the discipline she’d received before was the worst, harshest possible, but the stranger revised her opinion, and she wasn’t quite sure what made it that way.

  Perhaps it was the fact that he’d moved her owner entirely out of the way in favor of wrapping his own bulky, muscular arm around her, reaching down a bit to grab a hold on one of her breasts almost as good measure, to ensure she was completely immobile. A massive volley of furious swats began to hit her rear end that were at once both short and sharp, as well as deeply painful – and he didn’t stop until he’d covered her entire bottom twice, then he moved on to the tender backs of her legs and set them aflame – drawing frantic, embarrassed sobs but absolutely no wiggles as he held her fast.

  The only thing that Abril could think about was getting him to stop – somehow, even though he was doing essentially the same thing as her Principal had, it was a thousand times worse from this man. Maybe it was the fact that this man was her potential owner, and could possibly breed with her, depending on how deep his pockets were. Something was different. Perhaps it was because he’d so boldly reached down and grabbed the plump breast hanging within his reach, as if he’d already bought and paid for her. No one had ever touched her there – until this morning. And certainly no male, with his big, broad callused palm and fingers over that defenseless, ultra sensitive palmful of flesh, holding it, squeezing it, controlling her and not allowing her to escape his correction of her.

  And most definitely feeling the way her burgeoning, obscenely red nipple popped out against his skin.

  She’d not had much thought about the outcome of these proceedings – of this ritual - lately. She’d actually spent the past few months dreading it, but as it had drawn closer and closer, Abril had become fatalistic about it. She didn’t want to leave the only home and family she’d known. She didn’t want to go through this embarrassing and humiliating process, even though she’d known her fate since she could conceive of the concepts. She didn’t want some total stranger to have the right of life or death over her, and, much worse than that as far as she was concerned, the right to touch and paw her as this man was.

  Her mind had been mostly blank since this morning – she’d been observing things from afar with a morbid sense of curiosity, as if they were happening to a body she recognized, but certainly not hers. After all, she had no control over who she ended up with by this afternoon. It could be literally any man – fat, slim, old, young. She had tried very carefully not to think what he might be like, knowing that the reality would never be the same as what she imagined, and would, with her luck, be much worse.

  But this man – this huge, oafish man’s powerful spanking and intimate hold - made her very sure of one thing: she did not want to go home with him. Under any circumstances.

  Having reduced her to gushing, hiccoughing sobs in a matter of just a minute or so, he let her go so suddenly that she nearly fell flat on her face. Her breast felt the want of the warmth of his hand, wanting for some strange reason, to nestle there again as she tried to collect herself as best she could. Her Principal bid her straighten up and she did so, blushing even further at the applause from their eager audience. She quickly found herself bound again, but at least he’d decided not to
continue to present her breasts to all and sundry.

  But that man had stood right there during the entire process, not moving a muscle. She’d expected him to leave and go on to the next female, and perhaps do the same thing to her. But he just stood there. When she was restrained again, he stood directly in front of her, towering over her. Her entire field of vision, as she stared carefully at the ground, was filled up by him and his buckskins. Abril swallowed hard, realizing that her breathing was coming hard, and it wasn’t just because she was trying to recover from the licking he’d just given her, either.

  “Look at me.”

  Those were three words she’d never heard from anyone, much less a male. She wasn’t supposed to look a male in the eye. It went against everything she was, everything she’d been taught so carefully.

  So she bit her lip and remained with her head down, noting how worn his boots were . . . and how thick those calves were. They were easily bigger around than her thighs.

  “I’m not going to say it again.”

  She was torn. She certainly didn’t want another spanking. But what he was asking was wrong. Just wrong.

  “Do as you’re told, girl,” her Principal prompted, and Abril couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This was the person who had drilled it into her personally that she was never to meet the eyes of any male, and here he was telling her to do so in front of an auditorium full of witnesses.

  Fearing any further hesitation, she began to raise her head, her eyes gliding naturally over his thick thighs and waist – although there wasn’t an ounce of fat on her that she could see, and his clothing was not meant to cover or hide, but rather to be utilitarian. His hand – the one that had groped her breast – sat impatiently against his hip as her eyes widened at the expanse of his chest, and her neck craned as she saw his face for the first time, and her heart nearly stopped dead within her ribcage.

  He was unbelievably beautiful. His thick, black hair was cut short in a manner that stated baldly that he didn’t much care how it looked, but nonetheless it only added to his appeal. His skin was deeply tanned, brows dark and heavy, both of which only served to accentuate the sharp, stark blue eyes. His nose was long and bold, sitting above full, sensual lips that didn’t look like they had done much smiling.

  Abril blanched. He was nearly three times her size, and despite how incredibly handsome he was – or maybe because of it - he looked utterly and completely ruthless, as if he wouldn’t think twice about snapping a girl like her clean in two at a moment’s notice.

  Her eyes settled on his mouth. There was a cruelty in it, even though there was no hint of expression whatsoever on his face. Abril swallowed hard, her eyes darting only occasionally to his before they began sinking to the floor again.

  He moved on without another word to give the next female the once over, and she was alarmed to realize that she felt somewhat bereft when he did.

  She endured another hour or so of inspections by various types of men, most of whom didn’t bother to conceal how they were drooling over her body, but her Principal never again let any other male actually see her breasts. Some of them asked, some didn’t. Some wanted to take her into a back room and verify her virginity themselves, but he wouldn’t allow it. His reputation and his word were enough, he said. Abril was never more grateful to hear him say anything.

  The bidding began then, and slowly, sometimes excruciatingly slowly, each of the females around her was led off by her proud new owner. The amounts that were being paid for each one – in merchandise and barter – were incredible. Entire years’ worth of food, barrels of propane and hundreds of generators and batteries. She was beginning to think that there wasn’t going to be much left for these men to bid on her, when they finally got around to it.

  But she was dead wrong.

  By the time they got to her, she was shaking where she stood. She was the last one. They shone a spotlight on her that put the audience, who had crowded the stage as soon as the last of the others had been guided off, into shadows.

  The opening bid for her was astronomical, and it skyrocketed from there to more goods and services than she had ever in her life heard of anyone owning. There were about ten men bidding for her seriously that eventually whittled away to two or three, then down to two. As the auctioneer repeated the top bid and reached for his gavel, glancing around for other bidders, but obviously extremely happy already with the outcome, another voice was heard from the back of the auditorium, preempting the usual “going once”.

  “I bid my own services for a year.”

  Abril had been looking for the stranger her Principal had deferred to, praying that he’d left already. She knew he hadn’t bought anyone else, but she hadn’t seen him since he’d fondled her.

  A shudder ran through Abril at his voice. It was dark and ominous, just like him, full of promises of things she didn’t want to know about herself – or him.

  It seemed that she wasn’t the only one who was uneasy around him – his bid caused gasps and starts from the audience and everyone turned to try to see where he was, but he hung back, having no interest in the spotlight.

  Somehow, whatever service he was offering seemed to trump everyone else. The other two bidders fell away quickly, almost falling over themselves in their hurry to do so. Abril wanted to scream at them – even though they were old men who were nowhere near as fair of face as the stranger was – that she’d do anything for them, anything at all, if they’d just rescue her from being bought by the hard man in buckskin who was leaning back against the wall of the hall, the smoke from his cigar curling around his head as if purposefully further shrouding him from view.

  Before she knew it, the gavel had banged down three times in rapid succession, as the auctioneer cried, “Going, going, gone!” and her life, as she had known it, ended.

  Chapter Three

  Just a few minutes later, she found herself standing outside in the street, next to a very well taken care of horse. Her new owner had wasted no time in bounding up to the stage and claiming her, exchanging whatever information was required with her Principal, who had let her go without so much as a backward glance. The stranger had produced a robe from somewhere, made of the same finely tanned skins as what he’d worn, and dropped it over her head, covering her from head to toe. It even had a hood, which he pulled up and secured around her face. If it hadn’t been him doing it, Abril might even have felt somewhat secure for the first time in a very long while.

  As it was, she did take some comfort from the protection the clothing he offered provided, but she certainly didn’t relax her guard. She had no idea what was going to become of her, or where she was going to end up.

  The only things she did know were that this man held some sort of power over even the richest of the rich within the community, and that, judging from the quick spanking he’d given her not long ago, she’d better do her best to obey him, not that she’d intended to rebel suddenly anyway.

  He swung up into the saddle with an ease that bespoke years of doing just that, and leaned down to her, offering her his help in getting onto the horse.

  Abril almost balked, automatically. Women did not ride horses. It was against the law, but more than that, it wasn’t proper, and it gave them ideas above their stations. The idea had been drilled into her for so long she was having a hard time obeying him, and he leaned down a ways, so that his mouth was somewhat close to her ear, and said gruffly, “You’ll pay for your hesitation. Don’t think, just obey.”

  Apparently, he wasn’t worried about the Greycoats. She put her trembling hand in his and let him lift her up in front of him. She’d been in his possession less than five minutes and she’d already earned another punishment. Sitting in the hard leather saddle in front of him reminded her of what she’d already received at his hands – the buckskin wasn’t any sort of protection except from prying eyes.

  He held her close to him as he guided the horse through town. Abril was surprised that – as powerful as he appar
ently was, he didn’t have a motorcar. All of the rich, important men in town had them. They’d been status symbols in the Before Time, and they were even more so now.

  Abril was not comfortable in the least, and began shifting around to try to find a better position, until he said two words in that commanding tone of his. “Be still.”

  She did exactly as she was told, holding herself starchly erect until her muscles would no longer tolerate it, and then yielding to the inevitable and leaning against him for support. Regardless, her butt was taking a beating without any help from him at all.

  They rode all day and night for two days, stopping only very occasionally for food and to relieve themselves, which she was entirely mortified to find she was required to do in front of him. Abril struggled to do as he bade, taking comfort in the fact that at least her robe covered most of her. All he could really see was that she was squatting.

  She didn’t watch him at all, and was incredibly thankful that he hadn’t forced her to do it. She could hear him, though, and that was quite bad enough.

  He gave her jerky to chew on, which she’d heard about but never tasted. Her Principal had been a meat and potatoes man – because he could afford to be – and there was rarely any meat by the time everyone else had fed before her. It was salty and surprisingly tender and flavorful. He gave her water out of the same container he’d used himself. That was amazing to her. Females and males in her realm of knowledge did not share drinking facilities of any sort, much less drink directly from the same containers.

  They didn’t stop until just before dusk, when he gave a series of short, sharp whistles and approached a small bridge that was surrounded by armed men. Several of them opened a big gate, calling out greetings to the man who was apparently their boss, who grunted and rode on through the woods a good ways, at which point he stopped again and reached for her robe, removing it to tuck into a saddlebag, leaving the shredded tatters of the veil on the forest floor.