The Prince's Slave Page 5

  Belle wanted to tell him, too, that that lip gloss had been expensive. A far distant second thought was…others? What others? She tried to follow the thought to its natural conclusion but before she could, she was forced away from the table and through another door. This room was bright, impossibly bright. She squinted, her eyes almost closed against the glare. She appeared to be in some sort of…laboratory. No, that wasn’t right. Morgue. No…doctor’s office. But that—that wasn’t right. She’d gone out for the night with Charlotte, and those other people, how could she be in a doctor’s office?

  The door closed behind her with a bang. She stumbled forward into the room and this time, when she fell, no one caught her. She hit the industrial rolled linoleum with a bang.

  A few minutes—or hours—later, not ungentle hands helped her up into a sitting position. Her face hurt. A pinpoint light shone in her eyes, and someone cursed. A soft voice, this time. A woman’s voice. “Get up,” the voice said. “Here, I’ll help you.”

  Belle shook her head vaguely. She didn’t want to get up. She wanted to sleep.

  Right here on the floor was fine, she decided.

  “I need to examine you.” The voice was firm.

  Belle tried to ask, what? It came out pfft.

  “For diseases.”

  Belle blinked.

  “And,” the voice continued matter of factly, “for general health. Your new, ah, I suppose the correct term would be handlers have certain questions about you. As they do about all the girls. I’m here to answer those questions and to help them determine both placement and price.” Somehow, Belle found herself sitting on the edge of an examining table. “Your passport indicates that you’re twenty years old.” Now the voice was talking to herself. She knew that Belle was incapable of a meaningful response. “You look sixteen. Which is good for you.”

  Was she trying to be encouraging? Belle felt a stab of resentment, which she lost almost immediately. Try as she might, she couldn’t keep any one thought—or feeling—in her head for too long. She was just…numb. So she sat there, instead, listening to the voice talk.

  The voice grabbed a pair of shears from a stainless steel tray and cut Belle’s dress off. Belle tried to shriek, only succeeding in making another pfft noise. Cold air raised goose pimples on her exposed skin. She shivered. She felt her nipples harden in a grim parody of arousal. The voice began to examine her, cool hands, almost cadaverously cool, as cool as the air around them, running over Belle’s skin with practiced motions. She didn’t need to identify herself; her confidence gave her away. She was a doctor. And although Belle was mortified—or thought she was—her companion was impervious to Belle’s nudity.

  She grabbed Belle’s chin, forcing eye contact, and Belle saw her clearly for the first time: middle aged and thin with a short, no nonsense haircut and hard eyes. “You may never wear clothes again, depending on where you end up,” she said. “Get used to it.” And then, in a slightly different voice, “these things are easier if you accept them.”

  She placed one hand on Belle’s back and the other between her breasts. Using light but firm pressure, she forced Belle to lie back on the examining table. At which point Belle submitted to the most invasive experience of her life. She’d had pelvic exams before, but those had been her choice. This wasn’t. The part of her mind that still functioned was grateful for whatever had been injected into her system. She thought that this was what it must be like to be raped. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to care.

  Belle shut her eyes. Having them shut felt like having them open. And although the doctor’s hands were gentle, their insistent probing made her want to die.

  She felt like she’d entered some kind of horrible twilight zone. Just minutes ago, she’d been Belle Wainwright who was trying to decide whether she wanted to graduate from college in Cambridge or Dresden. Her biggest concern had been existential angst over her career choices, and annoyance with Charlotte. And now…it was like she’d been abducted by aliens. Even without the drugs, she didn’t think she could’ve wrapped her mind around the implications of this sudden reversal.

  The voice—the doctor—helped her to sit up. Belle had been on the table for what felt like a very long time. She might even have fallen asleep. Her mind was beginning to clear. Even if her limbs still felt leaden, and she couldn’t talk much. She stared hard at the other woman, willing herself to be understood. Her biggest question was why.

  Why had this happened? Why would another woman be willing to help in this—this—Belle didn’t know what it was. She couldn’t even begin to understand what was happening. What possible motive could these people have, and what on earth did they want with her?

  She stripped off her surgical gloves with a practiced motion, and tossed them in a biohazard disposal bucket. Then, grabbing a stool, she pulled it over to the examining table and sat down. She regarded Belle silently for a few minutes. Belle regarded her back. Where she chose not to talk, Belle couldn’t. And even if she could, she wasn’t sure what she’d say. If she had her full strength right now, would she run? And if she did run, where would she go? Back out into that other room, to be drugged again?

  A sort of inertia, secondary to that caused by the drug, settled over her: the inertia of hopelessness.

  “I’m Dr. Vose.” The woman smiled briefly, a quick quirking of the lips that held no trace of humor. She spoke to Belle in English, with a slight accent. “I don’t know what it is about you,” she mused, almost to herself. “I do hundreds of these examinations and I never talk to my patients. But you….”

  Somewhere, on the other side of the door, someone shouted.

  “You don’t know why you’re here, do you.” It was a rhetorical question; she was well aware that Belle had no idea, and that she might as well have been kidnapped by aliens for all she understood what was happening to her. The sheer horror of it was too much for her mind to comprehend. Her brain felt like a rat caught in a maze. She’d never…how could she have just been sitting at a table, reading about ancient Sumer? Thinking that things like what some stranger felt about the legitimacy of her career choice were relevant?

  But her mind…was still clouded. Like she’d had too much to drink, realizing too late that she’d gone beyond tipsy into that territory where she was aware of what she was saying and that it was a bad idea but couldn’t stop herself. Not in control.

  So she listened.

  “You’re here, because at some point you were selected by our group for retrieval and processing.” Retrieval and processing. She was making Belle sound like a piece of garbage. “I’m here,” Dr. Vose continued, “because I’m paid ten thousand dollars per girl. American dollars. I’d give you some sob story about my aging mother, or maybe a sick child, but I have neither. What I have, is expensive taste.

  “As do many people. Expensive, and unusual. Human trafficking—the buying and selling of people—is the most profitable business in the world. More profitable than drugs, or guns. And the criminal penalties are much lower. Movies and television have given most people, particularly Americans, the idea that human trafficking affects only women and that women are bought and sold only for sex. Neither is true. Men, as well as children of both sexes, are used: for forced labor, domestic servitude, child begging or the removal of organs. But sex, that happens too.

  “And why?” she continued. “Because there’s a demand. People demonize us, but we wouldn’t exist if people didn’t want us. Need us. If there were no profit.” Despite her claims to not care, to have somehow transcended the morality of what she was doing, a bitter tone had crept into her voice. Belle wondered, fleetingly, how Dr. Vose had gotten mixed up in this. What catastrophe, in her own life, had led her to sitting here?

  “You should be thankful that you’re here, instead of somewhere else. In about an hour, there will be an auction. You, along with ten or so other girls, will be sold one after the other to the highest bidder. Before sunrise tomorrow, you will be on you way to your new home. Where
ver that is. And there you will stay, until whoever bought you tires of you.”

  Thankful? Bell stared, unable to believe her ears. This woman was insane.

  As if reading her thoughts, the doctor continued. “The men we service are rich. Clean. No diseases. You won’t be made to work in grueling conditions on some farm in the middle of nowhere, or chained to a workbench while you stitch bridal couture.”

  Why are you telling me this? But the words came out “wh….” Her mind might be clearing, but the rest of her body definitely wasn’t cooperating. Which meant that she was trapped in her own special hell: able to understand everything, unable to do anything about it. Belle had come, she thought, as close as she ever had to wanting to die.

  “Because you’re special, Belle.” Dr. Vose again seemed to have intuited Belle’s question. She paused, considering her words. The room smelled strongly of antiseptic and, like the room outside, bleach. “It’s a job, like any other. He—or she, sometimes we have female clients, too—might treat you decently or he might not. Most men who come here, to our auctions, purchase women for their private harems. Some want slaves for their dungeons.”

  Seeing Belle’s eyes widen, she rephrased. “Dungeon in the sense of, for sadism. Masochism. Some owners do like to be on the receiving end of pain. And for whatever reason, an ideal partner can’t be found in the outside world. A truly willing submissive presents no challenge to them or…they can no longer rise to the occasion for someone who, however good she is at pretending otherwise, he knows has chosen to be there.

  “Or a woman who doesn’t hate him doesn’t inflict enough pain. Or he has…other desires, tastes, that can’t be sated that easily on the open market. Or at all.”

  Belle, a top student at a top university, a former prima ballerina from one of the most boring towns in America, had been kidnapped and was about to be sold for sex. To the highest bidder. Who could be anyone. Belle, who’d never done more with a boy than kiss. A fat tear rolled down her cheek, the only outward display she could manage. In that tear, though, was a wealth of emotion. It was raging so hard that she knocked a hole in the wall from flinging herself against it. It was screaming until her throat bled.

  She couldn’t…and what had the doctor said? That she might never wear clothes again? She’d seen the movies, moralizing against the evils of the sex trade. And she’d read the stories—the erotic ones, the ones you could only get online—in bed late at night. Some of them had been written during the Victorian era. Some were modern. All gave Belle the vague feeling that she was doing something wrong. She’d have been mortified if one of her friends had caught her with something like that.

  In the stories, this was something the women wanted. However much they tried to protest otherwise. But Belle…the sense of violation went bone deep. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to erase it, even if she took so many showers that all of her skin came off. She wanted to rip at herself anyway, to pull, to rid herself of this skin and of the fat and muscle and bone that lay underneath. She’d been probed and pulled. Prodded.

  And now she was for sale.

  Like a piece of meat, at the butcher’s.

  The door opened. It was the second man, from the hall. “So how used is she?” he asked casually. He didn’t glance at Belle at all, even though she was naked. She’d even lost her panties, a fact that no amount of hunching over could disguise. She might as well have been a piece of furniture, to him. He’d seen a thousand, a hundred thousand, girls just like her.

  “Not used at all. She’s a virgin.”

  “Everywhere?”

  “No signs of rectal trauma.”

  The exam felt like it’d gone on for hours. Belle, still unable to move more than a few feet unassisted, had closed her eyes and tried to imagine herself elsewhere. The drug had helped. But she’d…there was no part of her that hadn’t been explored. Tainted.

  “And she’s an American.”

  “Yes.”

  The second man showed his first real sign of enthusiasm. “Excellent. She’ll get a good price.”

  SEVEN

  He sat with the others in the semi-dark, one leg crossed over the other and a drink in his hand. Ash favored simple drinks; this was a glass of Chivas Regal Royal Salute, from one of only 255 bottles in the world. The vintage had been released several years ago, to celebrate the Queen’s jubilee. Ash was a British subject; he supposed he should be pleased for Elizabeth, but he was part of a betting pool on when she’d die.

  He shifted position slightly. Were his father here, he’d castigate him for what he referred to as conspicuous spending. He had little regard for his son, one of the youngest among a veritable army of progeny. All of whom had succeeded fabulously in some way, mostly not on merit. He’d often pondered whether he’d truly earned any of his own successes. Being…who they were opened doors. He’d never truly had the chance to struggle.

  And on this one score, at least, his father might be right.

  The scotch tasted like shit. He’d have better luck, flavor-wise, sucking on the vaunted 24-carat gold plaque that came with each bottle. Hand engraved! He grimaced slightly, a faint expression that was there and gone before anyone else had a chance to notice. If they were even looking at him. Which they weren’t. Their eyes, like his, were fixed on the small stage in front of them. The stage where a curvaceous red-headed girl had just been prodded out.

  She was young, probably barely out of her teens. And she, like all the girls, was naked. The better to view her charms; he wouldn’t buy a car that was hidden under a tarp. She had pale, almost translucent skin and under the spotlight trained on the stage he could see the faint network of her veins. The spotlight meant that they could see her, but she couldn’t see them. Or, at least, not much. Best for her, undoubtedly.

  Bidding began at ten thousand dollars. Ash didn’t bid; she wasn’t his type. None of the women were, not really, although he’d bought more than one for what one of his brothers referred to as his harem at home. He never kept them long; they bored him.

  Almost as much as the women in his so-called real life bored him. They were all the same: frightened and reluctant, or pretending to be. Or desperate to crawl into bed with him. To seduce him, to convince him that they and they alone were the great love of his life—and his wallet. Or too stoned to care. Ash liked sex, but he didn’t like people, much.

  A girl appeared at his elbow, asking in quiet tones if he wanted another drink. He threw back the remains of the Chivas and put the glass on her tray. She was on the small side, perhaps an inch or two over five feet, and her costume became her. She, like all the other girls who circulated through the room, catering to their guests’ needs, was encased in a corset so tight it appeared to have been painted on. Hers had been cut from some sort of brocade, a deep plum in color, and looked expensive. Her breasts, above the black velvet edging, were high and firm. Her surgeon had given her the, for lack of a better term, sex doll look popularized by adult film stars like Aletta Ocean. Or, as her parents knew her, Dora Varga. But no one wanted to watch Dora Varga, the poor little farm girl from Hungary, have sex with strangers. Personalizing them too much made it seem sad, and strange.

  She bent over, smiling. Her nipples jutted out, as unnaturally as her breasts themselves. Silicone injections, he thought, to give them the appearance of permanent arousal. It was a popular cosmetic procedure, now. He wondered if she was cold. The smile didn’t touch her face. “Can I bring you something else?” she asked.

  Another drink, perhaps. Or a small boy. He didn’t doubt that there was anything he could ask for, which would astonish her. And he’d seen stranger requests made, by others.

  “Macallan ’39,” he said, “neat.”

  “Very well….”

  “Sir will do.”

  “Very well, sir.”

  She moved on from him to the next customer, another of the dozen or so men who’d come here tonight. There were no women, this time. She bent down over him—the fat man—and as he spok
e to her, he reached up to caress her breast. Her fixed smile never wavered. He pinched her nipple. Beneath her corset, she wore only a pair of brief little shorts with a garter belt over them. And fishnets. Along with her shoes, it was an ensemble that catered to the lowest common denominator. Dim-witted and vulgar, the sheer availability of flesh compensating for eroticism.

  There was nothing real about this. Nothing real about his life. And Ash wanted real.

  This gathering, like others before it, reminded him of the porn parties they’d held when he’d been at school. He was the product of a top public school, sent there when he was eleven from an India that within his father’s walls might as well have still been run by the British. His schoolmates hadn’t teased him. He was aristocracy, like them, but that wasn’t the reason. He could be vicious, when he had to be. And he’d learned. His first sexual experience had been with an older boy who lived in his same house and not entirely voluntary. In truth, not voluntary at all.

  Eventually the attacks had stopped. After he threatened to castrate the other boy with a steak knife and left a scar on his bottom as a souvenir of the occasion. Looking back on it, he supposed that very few of his classmates were homosexual. They were just starved—for sex, certainly, but more so for affection.

  The fumblings between the sheets might have been about the love none of them were receiving at home, but the porn parties were all about sex. They’d gather together in their common room, he and his housemates, and watch some ghastly show that some poor slob had cadged from his older brother. Or butler.

  He wondered idly if his servitor had chosen those breasts for herself. And if not, who had. There were plenty of misguided women, willing to modify themselves to suit some man. Never realizing that the right man would want her just as she was. Even if he didn’t love her. Ash loved no one. He felt older than his years. One of the many women he’d had an affair with had had such breasts. They’d felt heavy and strange. Hard.