Chapter 2 #9
I slide into the crowd, then I slip through it. I’m gone before they realize it. I make my way swiftly toward the auction. I don’t have a plan, but I plan to improvise something.
An alien male is up there. He’s an auctioneer, but he’s not a Sligtonian.
I don’t know what he is exactly. He looks like a cross between a praying mantis and an accountant.
He’s wearing what looks sort of like a suit.
Very neat. If only his eyes didn’t seem to see ten thousand things at once, and his voice wasn’t coming out a mandible mouth.
I think it’s probably wrong to judge a creature by its appearance, but given he’s an auctioneer of people, I feel pretty confident to judge him hard.
“Do I have a thousand credits for lot number one? Just kidding, the bidding starts at ten thousand credits. These are wild caught females. You won’t find these anywhere else in the galaxy.
Our first is the finest filly I’ve ever seen.
Look at those generous ass and thighs. Have them wrapped around you, or fried with a little garlic—an Earth plant that pairs perfectly with human flesh. ”
My stomach turns. They are being sold to be eaten. How can Boss not care about that? He knows what it’s like to fight for survival in the face of overwhelming opposition. I know one thing about him, and that’s it.
“Ten thousand!” someone shouts behind me. The auction is now in full swing and that means I’m no longer stopping it. I’m attending it. I might as well fucking bid on it.
Wait.
I might as well bid on it?
“One million dollars! I mean credits!” I shout.
There’s a ripple in the audience.
“We have one million credits!” the auctioneer shouts. “Do I have one million and one thousand credits?”
It turns out he does not. The lot is turned in. Another woman is brought to the front. She’s crying. Fuck. They’re so afraid, and this is so unfair.
I move through the crowd, and when the bidding starts on this woman, I shout again. She also goes for a million dollars, because I shout one million dollars in a funny voice from a different part of the crowd.
There are eight ladies in all, and crazily enough, they all go for one million credits. The crowd is unsettled, because nobody brought enough money. Scrubs. Apparently the going rate for humans is closer to eighty thousand credits.
“Don’t worry! We will be receiving a fresh shipment in just a few days!” the auctioneer says as the last woman is allegedly sold.
I’m going to have to have a lot more fake millions very soon.
But that’s a problem for a couple more days.
Right now, my problem is trying to work out how to pretend to pay eight million credits.
Maybe I can write some kind of alien check.
They might take it. I’ve got to learn how money works out here in the alien world.
The crowd continues to make generally unsettled noises. They really wanted humans. Also, they’re not entirely stupid. Turns out a few of them were watching me dart through the crowd.
Suddenly, a big, clawed hand grabs me by the back of the neck. An arm wraps around my waist. Someone picks me up and waves me like a flag.
“The auction was a sham! They were trying to drive the price up by having one of their human pets bid for them!”
“I’m not a pet! I’m a magnate of humans. I like to buy ladies!” I shout back. “I’m a legitimate human purchaser!”
Ever found yourself in the midst of a crowd of incredibly hostile beings, many of whom think you are mostly made of food? No? Well, it’s really not a very good feeling. I am sweating from fear, and very aware that I’ve fucked up seriously.
“Bring the human up here!” the auctioneer says. “Looks like we’re going to have nine lots today! Very exciting.”
I am passed through the crowd like a meat bundle, the aliens grabbing whatever part of me comes most easily to hand. I have never, ever, been treated this way before. I don’t feel like a human. I feel like a thing. They’re being just careful enough not to break me.
I am finally put onto the stage and pulled up by the auctioneer. He grips me by the arm and shakes me. “This is not one of our lots, and it is certainly not one of our pets,” he says. “This is a rogue human. Someone is going to need to tame this one.”
Where are my aliens? Where are the ones who protect me and look after me? Have they lost me? That’s so irresponsible. Don’t they know I’m a liability? Don’t they know I need to be watched constantly?
I start to protest loudly into the auctioneer’s mic.
“You can’t do this! It’s immoral! Women are sentient beings! They deserve the right to choose their fate! And we’re not good food! We’re kind of gristly. I’d get stuck in your teeth, I promise… ow!”
I feel a sudden sharp crack of electricity applied to my left buttock. The auctioneer has used a tool I’ve never seen before to smack the hell out of me.
He deploys it again, and again. I am twisting and screaming, and my voice is carrying across the entire market.
“Humans need to be handled roughly,” he says. “They don’t understand their place in the universe, or the food chain for that matter. Shall I take a limb off her now? Prove her tenderness?”
“Let me go!”
“I’ll sell you,” the auctioneer hisses. “Either as a total unit, or in parts. Is anybody interested in a pair of sweet human eyes? I’ll sell the pair for two thousand credits. This one seems like she’d be easier to handle blind.”
“Help!” I scream and I kick and it does nothing because when a truly evil powerful alien wants to pull your eyes out and sell them at a discount, there’s not fucking much you can do.
The crowd is laughing now, in much better spirits. What started as a simple transaction with what seemed to be a pretty hokey auctioneer has turned into a spectacle.
Boom!
There’s a loud flash of light, and a big cloud of smoke, and when it clears I am no longer on the stage, and the auctioneer no longer has his head.
As I am carried through the crowd in Boss’ arms, I see the auctioneer’s spindly big-eyed dome tumble from his shoulders.
Now there’s just a suit at the mic, and it has terrible diction.
I am so fucking relieved. I cling to Boss like I cling to life.
“What took you so long?” I snap the question once he has me out of range of the crowd.
There’s a general chaos going on back there as the spectacle of awful violence excites them.
I don’t know what they’re doing to each other, but I don’t think I helped the human women at all, and I hate that for them. Someone should have done something.
Boss puts me down. “What took me so long? You snuck away and the next thing we knew you were having your eyes plucked out,” he says, his tone deep and incredulous. “We didn’t know where you were. We had to split up. That was…”
I don’t find out what he thinks it was, because Sharp just caught up with us.
“Come. Here.” Sharp grabs me by the scruff of the neck, smacking my ass hard. I yowl, because it already hurts due to the auctioneer’s human prod. The tool was awful, and it hurt, but I think Sharp is about to make me hurt even more judging by his expression.
“We told you not to do that, didn’t we? And you ran off and did it anyway? Are you not familiar with the concept of consequences? Did you think nothing would happen?”
“I didn’t care what would happen. It was the right thing to do!”
That’s definitely not the response he wanted.
“You’re going to care. I am going to ensure you’re very much concerned with consequences in the future.”
“What are you going to do to me?”
“I’m going to make your ass incredibly sore,” he promises me. “I’m going to make sure you never, ever do anything as stupid as this ever again.”
“I don’t know how you’re going to do that,” I say. “I do things you’d consider to be stupid a lot.”
“You’re not taking this seriously,” he says. “You will, though.”
I am not sure what to do with myself. I feel like I can hear the auction starting up again, and that pisses me off. I didn’t achieve anything. I couldn’t stop it. It’s not fair.
“Pay attention,” he says, giving me a little shake. “I am speaking to you.”
“I have to get back there…”
He smacks my ass again. Hard.
Later, I’ll be able to reflect on the fact that he’s angry, but not in the way people are usually angry at me.
On Earth, the last time someone was angry at me, they were trying to kill me.
I don’t remember the last time someone was mad and didn’t want to actually harm me.
I appreciate none of this, because I am so used to death being the next thing that happens, and because the auctioneer was going to turn me into live sashimi for the entertainment of the crowd.
I don’t know how to react in the calm submissive way he expects.
I know how to get feral. And that’s what I do.
My body and mind are telling me I am in mortal danger, and I have to do something.
That’s why I grab at his waist and end up pulling a dagger that flicks open into one of those crazy sharp blades.
I don’t even know what I plan to do with it.
My brain just tells me that I need it, and that I won’t survive without it.
Sharp grabs my wrist hard enough to make me drop it instantly.
“No!” His exclamation is one of anger and fear as he sweeps it back up into the folds of his robe.
“That could have killed us both in an instant if you had pushed the wrong button,” he says, truly furious. “Do you have any concept of danger? Do you have any instinct toward self-preservation?”
“I don’t know!” I squeak.
He’s right, I realize. If that knife had touched either one of us it would have cut our limbs off or skewered into our guts or done something else really dramatic and probably incompatible with life.
Sharp drags me back to the ship, past Boss and Kronos, neither of whom lift a finger or say a word. Nobody is happy with me. Not one of this triad of aliens approves of the way I disregarded their orders and did what I wanted instead.
I am starting to calm down a little, because it’s clear that the hostile crowd isn’t coming after me.
Boss gave them what they wanted. Blood. They didn’t really need it to be mine.
They just needed someone to suffer and someone to pay.
Creatures of all kinds have the same vicious group instincts, it seems.
I wonder if the universe is really just a variation on a theme. Aliens seem to look different, seem to be made different, but intelligence seems to demand food and cruelty in various ways…
“Ow!”
That’s the noise I make as I am thrust face down on Sharp’s bed. That ‘ow’ turns out to be premature. I should have saved it, because there’s a lot more coming my way.
The thrashing Sharp gives me is nothing short of apocalyptic. He uses the end of his belt, which is a thick leathery material and a wide band of it. He pins me on a bed or couch or fuck knows what aliens call this piece of furniture, and proceeds to mercilessly lash me until I cry.
By the time he is finished with me, several long minutes later, my ass is welted, sore, swollen, and so fucking tight it feels as though my skin is like a drum.
Tears are drying on my cheeks as he pulls me up and makes me look him in his nebula green eyes.
“If you ever, and I do mean ever lay so much as an eye on my weapons again, I will repeat this,” he says. “And I will do worse. You belong to us, and you must obey us. You have poor instincts for survival…”
I want to argue that, because he doesn’t know what I have survived. But I know if I do he’ll just take it as me not listening to his criticism of my recent actions, one of which was kind of really stupid.
It’s not really fair.
Maybe it is fair.
I don’t know. All I really know is that I feel sore, and small, and I wish he hadn’t hurt me so badly with his whip.
He pulls me up against him and holds me close, his hands running down my back and down to my bare ass.
He grips my hot, punished flesh and his fingertips curl around my cheeks to find the slick, wet line of my sex.
“You’re soaked,” he says. “Did you like being punished? Do you love pain so much, pet? Is that why you behaved so recklessly?”
“No,” I whimper. “It’s unrelated. I don’t like being punished.”
But a little part of me did. I am shocked someone stopped me from doing what I wanted to do. Sharp and Boss, and probably Kronos too, they all stepped in to save me. I bet Kronos was running interference. I bet…
Sharp tips my face up toward his.
“You can’t save everyone,” he says. “Sometimes, all you can save is yourself. The sooner you understand that, the better.”
“He’s right,” Kronos says.
I realize he and Boss have been watching this the whole time. They stood by and observed me getting my ass absolutely beat. Now they come to me and one by one they slide their fingers through my wet pussy slit.
“I think it’s time to share this little pet again,” Kronos says. “Teach her what it really means to be owned.”