The Elusive Prey

Chapter Two-2

The woman in the cage stirred again. She sat up, glanced at the four of them, and then stood and stretched, yawning. She made no effort to cover herself, and couldn’t help staring. She was a tall woman, long-legged, full-breasted, pink-nippled and blonde all over. The trim, bikini-waxed silky thatch at the join of her thighs was exactly the same shade as her hair. Her eyebrows were just a shade or two darker. And she wasn’t completely naked; there was a thin cord around her slender neck. A tag hung from the cord, a simple ring of metal with a piece of paper or cardboard inserted into it. The number “8” had been written on it. stared at the tag until she realized that Eight was staring back at her. Eight had cool blue eyes above high cheekbones. She did not seem at all embarrassed about the situation…or at all amused, either. had to break the gaze first.

“This way, ladies,” Mr. Brown chuckled.

counted twelve of the smaller cages in all, six on each side of the building. Besides the one holding Eight, only three of them were occupied. One held an older woman, in her mid-thirties, guessed, who remained huddled on the blanket in her cage, looking up only once as they passed by. In another was a tiny Oriental girl, smaller even than Cat, with waist-length hair as black as a crow’s wing. She stood with her hands gripping one of the metal posts of her cage, watching them intently but saying nothing. When she happened to catch ’s eye, she smiled faintly. It was a peculiar smile, as if she and shared some secret between them. Finally there was another beach blonde, not as tall as Eight, and more slimly built. She was asleep, lying on her back with an arm across her eyes. Like Eight, all of them were naked except for the little tags around their necks.

“These…ah…women are going to be sold at the auction tonight?” asked Mr. Brown, waving her arm to take in the twelve cages.

“No.” Mr. Brown shook his head. “Not at all, Miss. These are holding cages only. The big cages over there are for the slaves who are to be sold.”

“Holding cages?” This had to be the most bizarre conversation she’d ever had, thought. Here we are talking calmly about cages and auctions, and the women in the cages can hear us. They also have to know how likely it is we’ll end up naked and caged just like them in a day or two…or three, if we’re lucky. She shivered at the thought, realizing that it actually sounded exciting to her! She could picture herself, naked and tagged, in one of those cages as some other group of women came through on another tour and paused to look at her and wonder.

“Yes. The smaller cages are used to hold women who already belong to someone. We board them here until their owner sends for them. Some times, their owners also request we train them. We do that also, for an additional fee.”

“Train them?” Cat sounded very interested. “Where do you do that?”

“Upstairs.” Mr. Brown pointed up at the plank flooring overhead.

“Can we see?”

“I’m afraid not, Miss. Not right now, anyway.” Mr. Brown chuckled, but there was a hard glint in his eye as he looked at Cat, as if sizing her up.

wondered just what “training” might entail, and decided not to ask. She was having enough trouble adjusting to this very peculiar town already.

“Here are the holding pens for tonight’s auction.” Mr. Brown went on as they approached one of the two large cages. “There aren’t many slaves in here right now because we have four of them being…ah…prepared upstairs.”

Cat hurried forward. and Barbara approached the cage more slowly. As with the smaller cages, the floor of this one was thickly strewn with fresh straw, but there were no blankets. Three young women were huddled together in the middle, all naked. Each wore a wide leather collar, each had her wrists handcuffed behind her. Short lengths of chain ran from their handcuffs up to O-rings set in the collars. Unlike the women in the holding cages, they looked tired and uncared for. Bits of straw were tangled in their uncombed hair, and their feet looked dirty. The women also looked a little scared, thought. She shivered again. All of this was arousing her. She could feel her n*****s starting to poke against the fabric of her sports bra.

“These were all brought in this morning,” Mr. Brown continued. “Before the auction, we’ll clean them up a bit, of course.”

focused on one of the captives, a slim redhead with pale, creamy skin. There was a red welt across her rump, and another, smaller, fainter welt on one round thigh. The chain attached to her handcuffs kept her hands well up and away from that rump. It looked uncomfortable and judging from the little contortions all three of the women were constantly making with their arms and shoulders, it felt uncomfortable as well. The collars must be thick enough and stiff enough to keep them from choking themselves. If they had been brought in this morning, when had they been captured? Last night? Yesterday? Days ago? How had they been captured, by some kind of woman-trap or by ambush as she had been last year? How had their captors used and abused them before bringing them in? She thought back to her own first night, the tight ropes and tent stakes holding her down, spread-eagled, helpless and shivered again. She noticed Barbara, next to her, also staring. What was she thinking?

“Over here…” Mr. Brown gestured. He began walking over to the other large cage. “I think you ladies might be interested in this.”

Even Cat seemed thoughtfully silent as they followed him. gave the redhead a last look. None of the women in the cage looked happy about their circumstances…but she could not work up much sympathy for them. They had signed up for this. If it was more intense than they had expected, well, so what? She had gone through it all herself last year and now here she was, back for another round.

“These two will be the main feature of the auction tonight. We’re expecting some lively bidding.” Mr. Brown rapped lightly against the chain link cage with one hand. “Stand up!” he ordered.

had to remember to breathe. There were two very young women in the cage. She guessed that they were nineteen or twenty years old. They were collared as the others were, but not handcuffed. They were average height, with full, round, ripe breasts, dark n*****s, smoothly flaring hips and long, shapely legs. Both had shoulder-length brown hair, one a bit darker than the other, and wide, high-cheeked Slavic faces. Unlike the women in the other cage, they looked clean, freshly-scrubbed…and shaved too, she noted. They stood side by side, the darker-haired one putting an arm around the other’s waist. They looked so much alike, or guessed that they were related…cousins, maybe…or sisters? She shivered again. She had a girl cousin a year younger than she was, and she just couldn’t imagine sharing something like this with Sammy. It was different with Barbara.

The women in the cage looked back at them impassively, and yet something in their eyes, something in their stances, suggested a smoldering sexuality to . Yes, no doubt there WOULD be lively bidding for this pair.

“Wow…” Cat murmured reverently as she looked over the two captives. “I’m sure glad I won’t be competing with those two.” At her words, the captives looked at each other and smiled faintly, as if sharing a secret. wondered how they had gotten here. They didn’t look the type to go in for being hunted down in the wilderness. They looked too…soft, too sensual for that. They reminded her, in a way, of indoor cats, only mildly interested in the outdoors, if at all. If that was true, it meant that they had come here to sell themselves as slaves. She would have to remember to ask Cat how that worked later.

“This concludes the tour, ladies,” Mr. Brown said. “I’m afraid you’ll all have to go on to the hotel now. If you like, I can arrange to have someone bring your packs over there for you.”

“COULD you?” Barbara’s thankfulness was a bit dramatic, but completely sincere. “I…” she looked quickly at her companions… “we… would just love that!”

“No problem at all, Miss.” Mr. Brown chuckled again, but his eyes strayed over each of them as if he was picturing what they would look like in one of the cages. It occurred to that Mr. Brown was perhaps not as kindly and harmless as he appeared, but she did not look away when his eyes met hers. He smiled at her when she did that and nodded. “This way please, ladies.”

After the hushed gloom of the barn, the noontime sunlight felt almost blinding. had to shade her eyes with her hand as they exited the building. Squinting and blinking, she almost walked right into a tall, rangy man leading a horse.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, jumping back. “Excuse me!”

“No problem, Ma’am.” He smiled, looking down at her. He doffed the stained old cowboy hat he was wearing with a flourish. “I expect you just didn’t see me coming.”

He looked to be in his late 30s or early 40s, with dark brown hair and a three days’ growth of beard. His boots, jeans and shirt were all dusty and grimy, as if he’d just returned to town after many days out on the range. He was squinting himself, now that he’d removed his hat, and she couldn’t tell what color his eyes were. He looked up and past her. “Ladies,” he nodded to Barbara and Cat, who were standing behind her. Behind him, his horse neighed and tossed its head. At the noise, she looked past him at his horse and gulped. There was a body lying across the saddle, covered with a blanket so that she could only see arms sticking out on the far side and legs on the near side. They were a woman’s arms and legs, the wrists and ankles bound with rope and connected to each other by more rope running under the horse. She tried to stifle a horrified gasp.

He looked back at her and laughed at her expression. “She’s okay, Miss,” he assured her. “She’s alive and full of fight. I just put the blanket over her to keep her from gettin’ sunburned. Here, let me show you.” He turned the horse to the side and pulled the blanket off. The woman under it was naked, and she began making muffled noises of complaint. He gripped her by her light brown hair and pulled her head up. saw that she was tightly gagged, with something packed into her mouth. Her eyes were furiously angry, glaring. Her face was reddened.

“Afternoon, Mr. Quinn,” Mr. Brown said as he ambled over towards them. “What have we here?”

“Something for auction,” Mr. Quinn replied, letting go of the woman’s hair. Her head dropped down so couldn’t see her face any more, but she kept snarling through the gag.

“Caught her two nights ago,” Mr. Quinn continued. “She’s still pretty wild, and I got better things to do with my time than tame her.” He reached over the horse to swat her upturned rear once, hard, prompting louder snarls and a furious writhing from the woman. took a step back, then another, and bumped into Barbara. They jumped apart, startled, exchanging glances. Cat giggled.

Mr. Brown turned at the noise. “Ladies,” he said, “I think you’d best get on to the hotel now. This business here is none of your concern. I’ll have your gear sent over directly.”

“Ah…okay…” nodded jerkily. “Sure…” she noticed that Mr. Quinn was regarding her with some interest, and she looked away quickly. “Come on, Barbara, Cat.”

“Thanks for the tour, Mr. Brown!” Cat said cheerfully as they left. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Quinn!”

did not look back. In fact, she looked straight ahead and still didn’t see much of anything. She just kept walking until Cat grabbed her by the arm and told her she was about to walk right past the hotel. She was so aroused by their short encounter with “Mr. Quinn” and his captive and her mind was so preoccupied with thoughts of what Mr. Quinn might have done with his prize before bringing her here, that she tingled where Cat had touched her until well after they had entered the air-conditioned hush of the Gordburg Hotel.