Life at the ranch for some slaves is not all they wanted it to be when they signed on. This does not mean that they cannot handle the brutality-no slave still on the ranch after his stint as a honeyboy would say the place was too brutal to tolerate. It means they actually seek something the ranch does not provide. They stay because it fills most of their desires, but the ranch is not structured in a way that fits all slaves' wishes
Demoted
(Any shift in a shack's roster leads to much sex and new contentment. This is true when one shack gets one newly promoted honeyboy, it is certainly the case when the whole system is shuffled. Buck looked at it as sort of a slave's holiday-a change being almost as good as a rest. The honeymoon period lasts for about three weeks before the sexual activity returns to the pre-shift levels. The shuffling was essentially random. The difficult thing was making sure there was enough distance between Pete and Aaron (who had to be placed in a shack together) and Ty and enough distance between Ty and Dax.)
Alex and Jake had no idea. They each thought that, since they had done three weeks as honeyboys when they entered the ranch, they could certainly do a third of that without much discomfort. At first glance, this logic is sound. But the problem with the logic was faulty memory. The mind forgets, vitiates, fabricates memories of any traumatic experience anyway, but add to that the fact that most of the honeyboy's time is spent in a fugue state (which doesn't really permit much in the way of memory to begin with), and their logical fallacy is obvious.
Because he had raised the alarm, Alex was not placed in the first position, the one closest to the toilets. But their ordinal position meant nothing for their first trial.
They watched as Kyle, the hand in charge of the honeyroom at this time, unchained the six honeyboys and ordered them out of their tiled trough. The two at the farthest end, the ones who were leaving, looked the most alert and alive of the bunch-having received news the night before of their promotion-they were actually smiling. Kyle then chained Jake in the prime spot and Alex next to him.
"Ok boys, for the next hour you get to act like the hands when they come in here. Shower, clean up, fuck if you want, but make sure you use these two honeyboys as you think they should be." Kyle said, and in a move that petrified the chained pair, he left the honeyroom. He knew the honeyboys didn't have the energy and certainly not the inclination to do permanent harm to the unfortunates. And he knew that his departure would send his expected message of severe opprobrium to the newly demoted.
Colloquy
Sam sat next to the pool, sharing a drink with Dr. Stephens-one of the ranch's veterinarians.
"Sam, I understand from Buck that you really don't have much contact with the slaves anymore. You getting tired of the little utopia you built?" Park Stephens was trying to corral the conversation. His tone was rarely subtle.
"I just don't use Buck as a middle-man any more, but he is right, I am no longer in daily contact with the slaves, Park. Not bored really, just not very horny."
"Jesus, if I lived here . . ."
"Park, if you lived here you would get bored by it eventually too. It is the nature of the human mind and spirit, or maybe just the American mind and spirit." Sam oozed the ennui that comes from being able to have anything you want, but have found yourself not really wanting anything.
"You thought about spicing it up?"
"Park, just about anything goes here man, what would you do to spice it up?"
"Well, I was talking with a couple of your other assistants and we thought the idea of an auction every now and again would be interesting."
Sam's gut reaction told him that an auction was off limits. Buck promises all slaves that they would only be thrown off of the ranch for health reasons or when they age to a point where Sam said it was time to find a replacement. Sam developed that policy and was one who kept his word. But Park had a point about making things exciting again. Sam was getting bored with the ranch and with west Texas-which if carried to the not too distant next level would spell the end of his experiment.
"Tell you what, I'll talk to Buck about it, see if he knows of enough slaves out there who would be interested."
"Why does their consent matter, Sam? I mean, they are just slaves."
"If you don't know by now, then the lengthy explanation I would give would mean nothing at all to you. But I will say that what you think works on a one-on-one level wouldn't necessarily work well, or even at all, on a scale so much more lopsided than that, Park."
Sam talked to Buck about it. Buck had the same gut reaction, but not so severe-it wasn't his policy after all, just one he had to follow. Off the cuff, he could remember a couple of conversations that indicated the perspective slaves wouldn't mind being sold.
"Sam, let me do some digging through my notes and see what how many I can come up with. You have a number in mind?"
"No, Buck, I haven't gotten that far, I just wanted to know if it was possible. You dig in your notes, and I'll see if I can get any interested buyers.'
Malcolm
Mal was a rarity even among the collection of rarities on the ranch. He had spent most of his life being sexually abused, but he didn't react in the typical way with fear, dread, anxiety. He reacted by wanting more. For him, keeping the secret shared between him and his 'abuser' wasn't something that kept his abuser protected, it protected the activity, allowing it to continue.
He was casting about, trying to find a master, when he found Odessa. He was 20 and had been through four masters since he became fully legal. His desires and abilities due to years of practice outstripped the talents of the masters he submitted to. He was in the process of trying to force himself to compromise on a long standing sticking point for him-old masters, especially old school masters. He didn't want to submit to one, but if they had the ability to stretch his experiences and truly tame him, then it would perhaps be worth the effort. Once he chatted with Buck, that compromise was no longer an issue. But another compromise, less immediately objectionable, but very niggling, became necessary when he left the honeyroom.
Mal wanted more time under a master's thumb than he was getting. The honeyroom was fine for him because he was a center of attention for usually more than one man at once several times a day. Buck explained that it wouldn't stay that way, but being a honeyboy was so exciting for him-he didn't go into the normal fugue state as most do-he thought the rest of the ranch would function similarly.
So he became a trouble-maker. He would purposely do whatever he thought would piss off anyone with a whip.
He had been out of the honeyroom for six months when Buck called him into his office.
Buck would not ask if Mal was happy with his life on the ranch. He knew from too much experience that the question would always appear as a trick question to a slave, so that the answer given could not be relied on for anything. So he said, "When we first chatted and I asked what you thought would be the most difficult thing for you to accept here, you said it was the fact that you wouldn't be under a single master's control. Have you adjusted? It isn't a trick question, you won't be tossed out if I don't like your answer."
"Sir, no, sir." Mal was a few inches taller than Buck, and broader too. He stood at attention with his brown eyes pointed towards the floor. He always found it difficult to stand at full attention when his master was shorter-he thought it was more fitting to have his head lower than his master's.
"Ok. There might be a solution to your adjustment problem. Because of the promise we make to you before you get here-the one that says we won't remove you from the ranch just because-I cannot order you. So I give you a choice. We are planning a slave auction and I'm looking for slaves willing to do it."
Mal was caught by so by surprise that he broke with years of training and looked Buck in the eyes. "Sir, I would be very willing, sir."
"You would have no say in who buys you. Once sold, the rules here no longer apply, only his. I know these are obvious, but I want to make sure you are aware of them before you fully commit."
"Sir, I am still willing, sir."
"A'right. Get back to the field kid. I'll come get you when it is all arranged."
"Sir, thank you, sir."
Malcolm walked back to his square of corn with a sense of joy that felt entirely new to him. It wasn't that he disliked life on the ranch. It was hard (he liked that); it was humiliating (he really liked that); it could be brutal, but because of the structure of the place, he could easily find ways to be lax and not suffer any consequence; this he did not like.
He prided himself on being a good slave, but a slave like Malcolm requires an energetic master. In short, Mal was a fairly high maintenance slave. He performed well under order and under supervision, but was prone to lassitude and back sliding if not well monitored. He thrived emotionally under such an arrangement. The ranch gave him much of what he needed, but lacked an integral part whose importance he was not wholly aware of.
The auction option gave him something whose impact he also didn't consider when he was casting about to find a master: choice. He would stand on a block, men would bid for him. One man would be the winner and he would take ownership of Malcolm entirely. Whether fat, ugly, old school, Malcolm would have to submit. If he were to choose a master like that, he would always suffer a feeling of regret that would eventually leech out whatever joy he could manufacture. By way of the auction, this anxiety would be removed and he would submit at the end of a lash to whoever held it.
Agreement in Principle
In three days, Buck found 15 slaves who were willing to be sold. He was a good enough judge of character that he guessed correctly based on his notes and recollections. The fifteen came from a pool of only 18. It was possible that there were some who now would entertain the notion of an auction who would never have considered it before, but that was not part of his task. If this worked, then the word of mouth would spread to that category of slave, and he would hear about it quickly.
It took Sam quite a bit longer to find his quarry. The auction he designed wasn't illegal, but the idea of a slave auction-while titillating to most in the fetish-scares the shit out of most people because of the implications. So long as the 'slaves' being 'sold' enter into the agreement freely, then it isn't in point of fact, an auction, so the various white slavery laws do not apply. However, the operation of Odessa would be repugnant to most lay people, and it is always possible for law enforcement to find some reason to shut the place down even if the activities that take place there are wholly voluntary. So he had to be as careful as those he approached.
The search reignited his passion for the place he built and set in motion. He grabbed several slaves during his search and played his old games with them; despite being tried and true, it was almost new to him again. Like with the cabin shuffle for the slaves, a change (even a minor one) can be as good as a rest.
In three weeks, he had an agreement in principle from two dozen potential buyers. He picked an arbitrary dollar figure of $5000 to weed out those who would only want to show up to watch the festivities, to look, but never to buy. So the bidding for each slave was to start at five thousand, and anyone appearing would have to show that much in cash before they would be allowed in. There would be no upper limit for the bids. A buyer could walk away with more than 1, but no more than 3 slaves. It isn't that Sam feared any other competition, he just didn't want to give someone with deep pockets a ready made stable-there is a work ethic, even among the well healed.
"You know this is going to fuck up my schedule and some of the harvesting, Sam." Buck said during their last meeting about the auction.
"I thought about that. We have a couple of choices. We can consolidate the slaves we have left and leave a couple of patches fallow a little longer. We can ramp up on recruitment."
"I already spend too goddamned much time online filtering as it is, I'm getting tired of it. If I need to replace 15 quickly, and to the consolidating . . . I would have to have at least one assistant." The idea of an assistant to Buck was repulsive. He was one who wanted to do everything himself-this trait was latent when he was on the other end of the lash, but once he had the taste for it, that level of self-sufficiency became very integral for him.
"I know how much that idea bothers you, Buck, but I like the direction this is going in now. If it works, you would need at least one assistant . . . .
"Shit, you're saying if the auction goes well, you're going to hold it regularly?"
"IF it does well, I am seriously considering it, but no need to get your denims in a wad over it yet. You have anyone in mind for the new position?" Sam knew that as soon as Buck concluded he would need help, he already had a short list in mind.
"I do. I have a couple actually."
Preparation
There was an older barn on the property that was pretty far away from the fields. The hands sometimes saw it, and sometimes used it in a heavy downpour when they were on that extreme end of the property. It was rickety, but would serve well once Sam could be sure it wouldn't collapse. He called on a structural engineer who was going to attend the auction to inspect it and show him what would have to be braced.
Brian, the engineer, was paid for his services by being allowed to oversee the slaves performing the maintenance on the barn. Six slaves who were not to be sold were assigned the task of preparing their stage.
He wielded the whip unmercifully, doling out the same sort of very heavy and frequent lashings for something as simple as a nail not being flush or something as hazardous as not securing the supporting posts properly. Brian was given three days to complete the task-he could have done it in half the time, but wanted to enjoy this extra, relatively free practice at being a master of half a dozen fit and very fuckable slaves. By the time of the final inspection, each of the six had felt no fewer than 70 lashes, and all still had some openly sore spots that need tending to before they could return to the fields.
The barn now contained the auction block (the raised platform on which the slave and the auctioneer stood), a toilet and glory-hole section (this would be staffed by slaves not being sold; since the event would make everyone horny, they needed a way to take care of that often, and fucking the slaves to be sold was absolutely out of bounds), and the inspection stations: a section where the slaves could be easily suspended by ankles or wrists or both, one with treadmills to test endurance, another with weights to see their limits there and how they respond to forced workouts; one with crosses (standard and St. Andrews) and stocks and various whips, crops, strops, paddles; and the section containing the cages that would hold each of the slaves.
Shall We Start the Bidding
Buck walked in after the event had begun. The noise was incredible. There was nothing but a hard dirt floor to absorb any of the sound being created. He knew the sound in the honeyroom was bad, but it was far louder here. Orders being screamed, slaves grunting or screaming as compliance was lashed into them. The place smelled of expensive liquor and horny men.
The six honeyboys were taken from their normal post and brought to the barn to perform only urinal duties for the buyers; there was a funnel attached to a plastic hose which was strapped to each slave's mouth-they were sitting in a trough however, so if a buyer just wanted to piss on the slave, there would be no problems. In addition, half a dozen field slaves were there; their duty was cocksucking. Three were chained behind a makeshift glory-hole wall, collar attached to the wall at a very short distance-for the buyers who preferred the slave suffer the humiliation of anonymity-the other three were positioned near the honeyboys. These three had ankles bound to wrists which meant that most had to stretch to very painful limits to reach the cocks of the taller men; it made them look like little dogs straining to get a doggie treat.
Buck sat on the auction platform and watched. The general format for the buyers seemed to be to find a slave they wanted to inspect, do whatever they wanted or could think of that didn't involve their own cocks, either finish the inspection or just stop it to go to the cocksucking slaves for release, and repeat. He did a little math. The inspection period was to last 3 hours, at the rate some of them were going, they would cum between 10 and twelve times before the auction started. He wondered if any of them would even be conscious when the auction started, let alone horny enough to fork over real cash for a slave.
Malcolm was not being shared as were many of his peers. The buyer inspecting him apparently wanted to know everything and to put him through the paces each of the stations offered. All Mal knew of the man was that he was half a head taller than himself, broader, stronger, thicker in a muscular way than himself. He was dark with dark hair and very dark eyes. This buyer did something to Mal that no one had done since the very beginning, he scared the slave to his core-the quivering and now very horny core (for him fear was THE aphrodisiac).
Noah, Mal's inspector, had been a Navy SEAL. He was given a medical discharge five years prior because he fell out of a helicopter in the Sudan and broke his back. His Special Forces disability benefits were enormous, far more than he would ever have thought when he signed up for the elite unit. But leaving a unit whose talents are covert and illegal for civilians, he found himself a strong and large nuisance in the general job market. On a lark, he took to selling most of his pain meds. He didn't use them-he had a practiced slave's threshold for pain-and it would be easy money. He saved most of that money and created a lucrative and temporary meth lab. Being goal oriented, he had a specific amount of money in mind, when he reached it, he would stop selling. It took 18 months for him to make the seventh digit. At one million, he walked away from the lab and let those who were making it for him, make it for themselves. He left southern California for the relative safety in sparseness of Wyoming.
Noah started by hanging Mal from his wrists and attaching a 30 pound weight to his ankles. He wanted to see the tone of his muscles under this kind of stress. He judged his focus by asking him questions while his muscles strained to keep their tendons and bones together and in their usual places.
"Can you take piss from a cock without choking boy?" He stood close and said this softly.
"Sir, yes, sir!" Mal grunted. The intimacy of the way Noah asked the question caught him far more off guard than a bullwhip across his straining back would have.
"They train you to eat shit bitch?"
"Sir, yes, sir!"
"Cannibalism is a great thing to watch; a piece of shit eating a pile of shit."
Noah went to piss and get another drink before coming to unhook Mal. Another buyer was inspecting Mal when Noah returned. Noah whispered into the smaller man's ear and he wandered off quickly, but with no apparent fear. Mal had been hanging for a little over 15 minutes when Noah took him down. Some tortures hurt as much when they are over as they did when they occurred, being hanged like that is one of them; the blood redistributed itself through his body and he yelped as a new and sharper pain spread from his shoulder blades to the tips of his fingers. His breathing became as labored for the few moments of coping with the return of feeling as it was while he was suspended. Noah attached the chain each of the buyers was given to the steel collar around Mal's neck and roughly led him to the treadmill.
The treadmills were old, manual. Noah took his crop and whipped Mal's ass to get him to run at a specific pace, quick but not much faster than a good jog. He continued to use the crop to keep time the way the drumbeaters did aboard slave driven galleys. He watched as the lithe slave's muscles worked through their motions. He watched the slave's heavy cock and balls bounce thickly. He also saw small trickles of blood mix with sweat drip from his neck, where the steel collar bounced against the skin, cutting it slightly. Mal didn't even notice the nagging pain as the collar bounced against where his shoulders met his neck, the burning in his thighs, the throbbing of his bare feet were far more pressing. The treadmill gave Noah confirmation that Mal's ass was the best he had seen in a very long time: firm on each bounce, responding well in action and in color to each stroke with the crop.
The weight area for Noah was more just to see the other muscles in action, to see their tone and gauge how much work would be needed in each area for Mal's body to be up to his standards. Other masters were pushing the limits of their potential property, whipping a protruding ass during a squat, for instance. Sam came quickly over.
"That's enough of that. Slave put the bar down and step back."
"Sir yes sir," the panting slave replied.
"The point is not to injure them so that they cannot perform any more for you or anyone else. If you want to break a slave, go to some fucking leather bar and see if they'll let you do it, you don't do it here."
Sam talked quietly to the slave he just released.
"You doing ok? Really?"
"Sir yes sir."
"You want to continue?"
"Sir YES sir."
Noah decided not to bother putting Mal through the last station. He had already decided that Mal would be his slave basically regardless of price, so whether or not he could take a lash here meant nothing. Add to that the caveat that the buyers could not draw blood there meant that Noah could not really judge that part of Mal's talents anyway.
Noah took him back to the cages. Before he forced Mal into a cage, he inserted two of his large fingers into Mal's asshole. Noah wanted to see how his rectal muscles responded to unexpected entrances. The anus offered almost no resistance and the remaining muscles encountered relaxed around the man's fingers quickly. Noah pulled his fingers out and put them in Mal's face. Noah wanted to see if the slave required instruction; he did not. Mal licked both Noah's fingers clean without prompting and without hesitation.
Noah spent the remainder of the open portion of the evening sitting near the slave cages. When a buyer made an overture to remove Mal from his cage, Noah made it very plain that it was a bad idea. A couple bowed up a little bit as if to say they didn't care, but Noah could bow up to a greater extent than any other man in the facility.
The first slave to be auctioned was a 26 year old from Kansas, Bill. Bill was in standard ranch shape with nothing particularly outstanding. Black hair, black eyes he appeared to have some Native American in his recent back ground. He set a sort of standard for the night. The slaves during the inspection period never sported a hard on, but when it came to the auction block, each slave cock was entirely rigid, almost glowing hot.
Bill was sold to a master from Colorado for ten thousand. The bidding was not as dynamic as Sam thought when he imagined how it would run. It didn't stay subdued for long however. By the third slave of 15, the bidding was going as it would at a cattle auction.
Noah was slave number 12, the number written in magic marker on his forehead. He stood on the block, arms by his side, standing at attention, which is how they were ordered to present. He panted a bit and sweated more than he did when he was in the middle of the treadmill treatment-the excitement and energy of watching 11 of his fellows sold off left him almost spent. His cock was oozing precum from its lightly hooded head.
The slaves were also ordered to look straight ahead only during the bidding. Who got them was of no concern to them, so watching the bidding would mean nothing to them. Knowing he wouldn't be punished during the bidding, Mal did not follow that edict; he kept his eyes locked on Noah; he wanted to be that man's slave as badly as that man wanted him.
After the fifth bid, Noah realized he might have made a tactical error. Mal started out at 5 thousand as all did, but by the fifth bid, he was up to sixty thousand. The buyers Noah had pissed off earlier were determined to keep him from his prize, or make it a very dear one indeed. Mal was getting worried too. The idea of that much money for a slave was impossible for him to imagine, and he had no idea how far Noah was willing to go.
By eighty thousand, the bidding came between Noah and the buyer who had tried to inspect Mal at the hanging station.
"85 gentlemen, any higher bids? No? Going, going . . . sold to Mr. Cutler for 85 thousand dollars."
Master and his new slave smiled.