Wheldrake
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On The Block
A fantasy of slavery by Wheldrake
For some reason I had always assumed that I would be naked and in chains when I went to the block. I was surprised when the moment arrived and Baric, the chief handler, simply told me to get up and go with him. I was dressed as usual in trousers and a shirt, both of thin brown linen, and of course my light steel collar was in place around my neck. After three months in the House, I would almost have felt naked without it. I was not at all bothered by the fact that I was barefoot, and without so much as a loincloth underneath my outer clothing.
Baric took my arm, not too roughly, and led me from the spartan little room where I had been cooped up with the other slave men who were destined for the block that afternoon. One of the few female handlers in the house, a statuesque, dark-haired woman called Alin, had been watching over us through the heavy barred door. She gave me a tight smile and pushed the door closed behind me, much harder than was necessary. The crash echoed through the entire House, letting the crowd in the auction hall know that another slave was on his way.
Baric himself was in his auction night finery, stripped to the waist with iron bracelets around his wrists and his thighs sheathed in black leather leggings that stopped well above the knee. He towered over me, his face stern above his bristling black beard, and I had to admit he looked every inch the menacing authority figure he was. I suppose his appearance was probably intended both to impress the buyers and intimidate the human livestock, but I was on my best behaviour in any case. The thought of the block was terrifying, but still preferable to the possibility of being declared unfit at the last minute and hauled back to the dormitory for another month of training.
I had never actually seen the auction hall before. Baric led me down an unfamiliar corridor at his usual brisk pace, and then pushed me through a curtained doorway and into a vast, cavernous space. Suddenly I was walking on hardwood planks, and breathing air that was full of the smoke of torches. The room was huge, bigger than I had expected, and despite the smoke the torches were bright compared to the dimness of the corridor. I blinked, thoroughly disorientated, and took an involuntary step back when Baric finally released my arm.
“Leaving so soon?” laughed a genial feminine voice from somewhere off to my left. “We thought you might stay a little while!”
That was Viyana, the owner of the entire house and for that matter of myself and the other stock. I had not realised that she would be handling the auction personally, and of course I froze in place. Viyana was the last person I wanted to offend, especially now. She was a mountain of a woman with a mane of long dark curls, clad tonight in blood-red silk and glittering with golden rings and bracelets. She prowled the edge of the block like some enormous leopard, working the buyers with all of her considerable shrewdness. As I began to get my bearings I realised that the block was actually a wide wooden platform, level with the ground floor of the house. The buyers were standing in a pit perhaps a yard deep, looking up at Viyana and Baric and me.
There were dozens of them clustered in front of the block, and they seemed to my unsteady gaze to be mostly women. Caranto, an older man who had been auctioned twice before, had told me to expect that. The female slaves normally went to the block first, and most of the men in the audience and more than a few of the women could be expected to leave afterwards. Nevertheless, there were undoubtedly a few men in the crowd, and they were the ones that terrified me. It might have been different if I had gone to the block as a labourer or even an ordinary domestic servant, but Viyana prided herself on selling only pleasure slaves. The thought of being another man’s pleasure slave made my blood run cold. I wished Caranto could be there to reassure me, or simply steady me with his presence, but he would still be waiting in the spartan little room under the watchful eye of Alin.
“This one’s name is Areth,” Viyana announced. “The most innocent male lamb, I will say, to fall into my hands in many a year. He is no criminal, no prisoner of war. He sold himself to me of his own free will, and he did it not to pay a debt or feed a starving mother but because his heart was broken. Better yet, he asked that I give his slave price to the girl who broke it for him! She was pretty, but in my opinion not as pretty as the boy himself.” Viyana leered theatrically in my direction, her dark eyes glinting, and then turned back to her audience. “He’s twenty-four years old, my friends, and you can see his bright blue eyes and delectable mouth for yourselves. Who will give me fifteen crowns for Areth?”
I sighed and lowered my head, feeling more like livestock than ever. At least the price was a little higher than I had been expecting, since Caranto had opined in his wonderfully direct way that Viyana would probably start me off at ten or twelve. The thought engendered a tiny, ridiculous spurt of pride that nevertheless made the humiliation of being auctioned off like this just a little easier to endure. Unfortunately, no one seemed to be taking Viyana up on the price she had mentioned, and it seemed all too possible that I was not going to be sold today after all. I tried to prepare myself for the humiliation of being dragged back through the curtained doorway by Baric, followed by the tedium of having to wait a whole month for the next auction.
“Fifteen!” someone called. The voice was throaty and leather-lunged, but to my relief it was undoubtedly a woman’s.
“Sixteen!” someone else shouted, and then, “Eighteen!” That voice was male, and thick with drink and aggression. I took an involuntary step back, away from the edge of the platform and the menacing presence of the crowd, but Baric instantly pushed me forward again. A murmur of excitement rose from the assembled buyers, like the sound in an arena when a gladiator drew first blood, and I raised my head and really looked at the crowd for the first time. There were perhaps two dozen women and half a dozen men, nearly all decked out in gold, jewels and richly coloured silks. Everywhere I looked I saw eagerly parted lips and hard, predatory eyes. Discreetly positioned around the periphery of the hall were a number of burly figures, almost all male, with impassive expressions and unpretentious clothing of linen and leather. Their presence would have baffled me if not for Caranto, who had explained that most of the serious buyers would bring a handler to take charge of anyone they purchased.
“Twenty crowns!” cried a woman who was probably about my age, which made her one of the youngest people in the crowd. She was dark-haired and olive-skinned, like almost everyone in the city, and although she was beautiful enough she had a cold and haughty look about her. What would it be like to be owned by her, to obey her commands and to know that I could be made to suffer at her slightest whim? Suddenly I wished that I was back in my familiar bunk in the male dormitory, or better yet that I had never even considered selling myself into slavery. But I was on the block with twenty crowns on my head already, and trying to escape would have been unthinkable.
“Only twenty for this lovely piece of manflesh?” Viyana asked the crowd, when no one else spoke up immediately. She sauntered over to where I was standing and reached out casually to run her fingers through my blond curls and along the line of my jaw. “Where else in this city are you going to find such exquisite golden hair, such perfect pale skin? And you’ll find him as graceful and obedient as any owner of slaves could wish.” Suddenly all business, she snapped her fingers. “Give me your tunic, Areth.”
I might have guessed that she would want to show off the merchandise sooner or later. I unlaced the garment obediently, trying also to be graceful, and pulled it over my head with a sigh that I was fairly sure only Viyana was close enough to hear. She took it from me only to hand it to Baric, then stepped even closer to stroke my chest and knead my shoulders.
“Isn’t he a beauty? Just enough hair that you can be sure he isn’t a girl, but not enough that you start to wonder if he’s an ape.” Viyana laughed and applied a slight downward pressure to the nape of my neck, which was my signal to kneel as smoothly as I could. I suppressed a wince as my knees struck the hard planks of the platform. Now Viyana’s hands were guiding me, turning my back to the crowd and pushing me forwards so that my forehead touched the planks almost at Baric’s feet. I felt her fingers at the waist of my loose linen trousers, and then she pulled them down to bare my thighs and buttocks to the crowd. I bit my lip to suppress a moan of panic as I realised that I was naked on the block after all.
Viyana, for all her appearance of plump, languid dissipation, was surprisingly strong. She slapped my ass hard enough that I groaned despite my best efforts at self-control, and I knew from experience that the blow would leave a bright red handprint.
“Doesn’t he mark up beautifully?” she asked rhetorically, clearly thinking along the same lines. “Think how this delicate boy could be made to squirm for you, ladies and gentlemen. Now and again we all need an outlet for our baser impulses.” She pronounced the words as if savouring them, making the crowd into her fellow conspirators in sophisticated cruelty, but I knew it was mostly just a posture. To Viyana, slaves were nothing more and nothing less than livestock to be sold for handsome profits.
“Why don’t you beat him properly?” called the voice of the woman who had bid first.
“Why don’t you buy him and do it yourself?” Viyana retorted cheerfully, to an appreciative laugh from the crowd.
“All right, twenty-two crowns,” she replied instantly.
“Twenty-five!” the male bidder shouted, and I pressed my head into the floorboards in anxiety.
“Twenty-five,” Viyana repeated slowly. “Stand and turn, Areth.”
I was in for full frontal nudity in front of a hungry crowd, then. The only question was whether to obey on my own or be wrestled into position by Baric, which really was not much of a choice at all. I rose to my feet in one smooth motion and then pivoted to face the crowd, standing as I had been taught with my chin up and my hands at my sides. Whether it was the novelty of my blond pubic hair or simply excitement at finally seeing my cock and balls, the buyers seemed to press a little closer to the stage with renewed, feverish intensity. Viyana sidled up to me from behind and reached around to caress me, first touching my thighs and then brushing my scrotum with deft, teasing fingertips. One of her little auctioneer’s tricks had been to keep me and the other male slaves under the strict watch of the handlers for nearly a week, with orders that we were not to pleasure ourselves in any way, and my cock reliably swelled and stiffened under her ministrations.
“He seems to be quite the young stallion, doesn’t he?” Viyana remarked with a wink and a leer. “I can personally assure you, appearances do not deceive.” This was more bluff, considering that this was the first time she had showed any interest in my cock since the day of my initial inspection, but it seemed to have the desired effect. A flurry of bids came from three or four different women, and before I knew it my price was up to thirty-two crowns. Caranto had reckoned I would be doing well to get to twenty-five.
“Thirty-five,” said the male voice that had spoken previously, and this time of course I could actually see the man who was bidding. He was not especially tall, but heavily built, with thick, curling hair and a great square beard. He was staring fixedly at my naked body with an expression that struck me as closer to greed than lust, and I instinctively stepped back only to be pushed forward yet again by Baric.
“I do believe you’ve frightened the boy,” Viyana drawled. “Thirty-five crowns, then, for this delicious male morsel. Who will give me thirty-six?”
There was an agonisingly long silence, but then a woman called out “Thirty-six” from the margin of the crowd. I looked at her like a drowning man at a floating piece of shattered wreckage, and was relieved to see that she cut a far less intimidating figure even than some of the other female buyers. She was rather small and well-rounded, without quite being either plump or voluptuous, and she wore nothing more ostentatious than a plain, dark blue cloak. Her face was pretty, I suppose, but the wrinkles around her eyes and the grey streaks in her long, loose dark hair gave her a rather matronly appearance. I was surprised that a woman like that would even attend a slave auction, but at the same time I was sure she would not treat me too unkindly. I cast a long, pleading look in her direction, trying to communicate my desperation to escape the horrible bearded man.
“Thirty-six!” Viyana repeated excitedly, but immediately turned to the male bidder. “Sir, will you not give me thirty-seven? Turn around, Areth.” I dutifully turned my back on the buyers, facing Baric without any particular self-consciousness. All of the handlers knew what I looked like without clothes. I winced, however, when I felt Viyana’s hand squeeze my buttock, and to my astonishment Baric flashed me a brief, tiny smile that was partly amused but also partly sympathetic.
“His bottom would delight the gods themselves,” said Viyana solemnly. “He’s as tight back there as a holy Priestess’ cunt-hole – and just as virgin, on my slave trader’s honour.”
“Forty gold crowns,” the man said instantly, and Viyana put her hands on my shoulders to turn me firmly back to the crowd.
“Forty gold crowns! Who will give me forty-one?” Even I could tell that she was speaking without much hope. Caranto had told me that forty gold crowns was about as high as prices for male slaves ever got, unless of course there was someone either famous or astoundingly, unbelievably handsome on the block.
My instinct was to lower my head in despair, but instead I looked forlornly at the woman in the blue cloak. I am sure that my consternation was quite obvious to the crowd, and above all to her. Nevertheless, she remained silent.
“Will no one speak? In that case, I declare the male slave Areth sold –“
“Forty five crowns,” said the woman in a firm, clear voice. This time everyone turned to look at her, including the bearded man, and I was amazed to see him literally cringe and turn away. He seemed mortified to discover whom he had been bidding against, which made me wonder vaguely who she was – some widow of the aristocracy, probably, or perhaps a female merchant who had grown wealthy in her own right. At any rate, it seemed that people considered it safer not to cross her.
“Sold for forty-five gold crowns,” said Viyana smoothly, inclining her head slightly towards the woman who, it appeared, had just bought me. Viyana was clearly certain that there would be no further bids, and indeed the crowd was already dissolving into small knots of murmuring figures. My eyes were on my new owner, the small woman in the blue cloak. I looked on a little numbly as she motioned to one of the hard-looking figures positioned around the perimeter of the room, pointing him towards the platform. He was one of the shorter men among the handlers, but he was wiry and broad-shouldered and his movements were full of decisive energy. His head was shaved smooth, but he had a black bar of a moustache that I thought gave him a rather villainous appearance. He mounted the steps to the stage in two long strides, and came straight up to me.
“Get dressed, boy,” he said curtly.
Baric came up beside me and held out my bundled shirt and trousers. I took them from him slowly, a little surprised that I was apparently not going to be paraded nude through the streets after all.
“Quickly,” the bald handler commanded. “Trust me, you don’t want to keep her waiting.”
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, and pulled the clothes on as quickly as I could. Viyana came over to us in the meantime, holding the silver key that I knew would open the collar of any slave in the house. I sighed as the key turned in the lock and my collar fell away.
“Good luck,” Viyana said without a great deal of conviction, her mind probably already on the next auction. “Behave yourself.” Baric turned away to collect the next male slave from under Alin’s watchful eye, and the bald handler took my arm in a firm grip and led me down the stairs and off the platform.
We went first to a desk at the back of the auction hall, where my new owner was conferring with a tall, rail-thin woman called Eri. Rumour among the slaves had it that she was Viyana’s sister, or perhaps cousin, but at any rate she handled the financial affairs of the house with a scrupulous attention to detail. She was drawing up what I knew was a formal bond of ownership, and although I had difficulty reading the odd, cursive script that people used in this city I could make out my own name and that of the woman who had bought me. She was called Relkada Tiren, a name that made my brow furrow in vague recognition although I could not begin to place it.
“Perfect,” Relkada said at length in her low, resonant voice. She pulled a red silk pouch from a pocket of her cloak and began counting out little golden coins in tidy piles of ten, with a smaller pile at the end of the row. Eri watched carefully, and nodded when the last coin was in place.
“Thank you for your patronage, my lady.” Her eyes flicked across to me. “He’s a good boy, one of the best males we’ve had all year. I hope you find him to your liking.”
“I certainly look forward to finding out. Thank you, Eri, and please pass on my regards to your sister as well.” So the rumours were true, I thought numbly as Relkada turned and made her way out of the auction hall without a backward glance. I followed with a sense of trepidation, guided by the strong, implacable hand on my arm.
I had not been out on the street since the day nearly three months ago when I had walked, on something like a whim, into the House of Flesh and Steel to discuss the possibility of selling myself into slavery. After twenty minutes of perfectly civilised conversation with a big, oddly compelling woman called Viyana, I had found myself stripping naked for what she called a full inspection, and then dressing again only to put my crude mark to a document that Eri drew up on the spot in her elegant hand. That was when Viyana called for Baric, who had been hovering discreetly just outside the door. He burst in, seized my arms and had me on my knees in front of Viyana before I knew what was happening. She leaned forward and drew the silver key out of her bosom to lock a light steel collar around my neck, chuckling and shaking her head at the tears that were already welling up in my eyes. She had seen it all before, of course, probably more times than she cared to remember.
Now, even in the middle of what I knew to be a quiet, cloudy afternoon, the noise and bustle of the street seemed overwhelming compared to the ordered quietness of the House and its internal courtyards. There were a number of carriages drawn up outside the House, and we seemed to be heading for a large one in blue and silver livery. The driver was sitting at the ready and I thought Relkada would probably cliimb straight in, but as we came up to the carriage she turned and brushed the blond curls back from my forehead. My new owner had touched me for the very first time, and it had been so fast and unexpected that it had barely registered.
“Nice enough,” she remarked, looking me up and down. “Areth, isn’t it?” I nodded, and she continued, “I think you can let go of his arm, Crell. You’re not going to try to run away, are you?”
“I wouldn’t dare,” I admitted, looking down at the cobblestones. “Besides, please believe me when I say that I’m not unhappy to belong to you, my lady. I can’t tell you how relieved I am that-“
She laid her finger across my lips, and I immediately fell silent.
“Later, perhaps,” she told me. “I want to get you home, and then we can discuss my expectations for you. Hands behind your back, please.”
“Is that really necessary?” I asked. It was an insolent question that Baric would probably have rewarded with a hard slap, but I felt a little safer with this Relkada. Indeed, she only raised her eyebrows and made no move to chastise me.
“Whose place do you think it is to decide what is necessary, Areth?” she asked patiently. “Yours?” Her voice was soft and her tone was mild, but I thought I detected a steely undercurrent that hinted at grim possibilities if I argued further. If appearances were any guide, her idea of a grim possibility might be sending me to bed without supper, but even so I thought it might be better not to push things any further for the moment.
“I’m sorry,” I said simply, and put my hands behind me as she had instructed. She nodded briskly, reached into the carriage, and came out with a leather cord. I was sure she would hand it to her man Crell, but to my surprise and mild consternation she moved behind me herself and tied my wrists with a deft, confident touch. More unnerving still, she reached up afterwards to dig her fingers into my shoulders in a grip that was strong enough to be mildly painful, and I caught a heady whiff of sweet, spicy perfume as she leaned close to put her mouth next to my ear.
“Now you’re caught,” she announced in a low voice, and sank her teeth without further warning into the soft flesh of my earlobe. I cried out at the sudden, unexpected pain, drawing a curious glance from a pair of passing women who looked old enough to be my two grandmothers, and my heart was pounding as Crell opened the carriage door all the way and Relkada pushed me gently but firmly towards the vehicle. I tested my bonds, found them impervious, and climbed obediently into a roomy compartment with two thickly padded benches facing each other. Crell climbed in after me and shoved me fairly roughly onto one bench, then took a seat himself on my right side. Relkada took the seat opposite, smiling at both of us, and pulled the door closed to shut us all in.
I could not help worrying that I might have misjudged her, and that I could be in for a considerably rougher time than I had imagined back in the auction hall, but as the carriage lurched into motion I took a deep breath and tried to put my fears into perspective. Relkada Tiren was obviously a fair hand with rope, and my ear was still throbbing, but the fact that she could enjoy inflicting a little casual pain did not necessarily mean she was going to really hurt me. A nip on the ear was pretty minor compared to the punishments I had seen a few of the slaves take from Baric and Viyana, although I had always avoided getting into too much trouble myself. If nothing else, I was glad to have escaped the bearded man in the auction hall. A middle-aged female owner, even one with a penchant for using her teeth, seemed very unthreatening by comparison.
“Can I thank you, my lady?” I blurted suddenly, and she blinked in evident surprise.
“Thank me?” she repeated. “Whatever for?”
“For rescuing me in the auction hall,” I said earnestly. “I tried to meet your eyes and show you how desperate I was to avoid being sold to that man who was bidding, but I didn’t have much hope that you’d actually take pity and spend the money to save me from him. I want you know that I’m grateful, and I’ll work hard for you.”
Relkada laughed aloud. “Oh, Areth.” The carriage was gathering pace, heading uphill on a road that I seemed to remember led to the outskirts of the city. “If you really think I bought you out of pity, I promise that you couldn’t possibly be more wrong. I bought you because I thought you would be perfect for something I had in mind, pure and simple. If I had been in a – a pitying mood, shall we say, I would have let Morquin buy you.”
“What? Are you saying I would have been better off with him?”
“Unimaginably better, Areth, despite the danger he would pose to that pretty virgin bottom of yours. I know you don’t believe me now, but you will in time.”
“What are you going to do me, then?”
She smiled and raised her eyebrows. I slouched in my seat, half sullen and half unnerved, and tried to work out whether she was just having a little fun by trying to frighten me. Something was nagging at the back of my mind. I tried to piece it together, as the road steepened further and a light rain began to drum on the roof of the carriage, until finally something clicked into place and I remembered quite suddenly where I had heard the name of Relkada Tiren before. I think I gasped aloud and rose to my feet, as if I could jump headlong out the carriage door in spite of my bound hands, but Crell simply seized me and slammed me back down. Neither he nor Relkada seemed especially surprised by my outburst, and they met each other’s eyes and shared a long, slow smile. The carriage rattled on.
(To be continued, eventually, if people seem interested. Comments welcome, as are suggestions for what should happen next.)
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Femdom Fiction: "On The Block" - 
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