The next morning, about 10:30, Gyong was kneeling at a 2’ high desk in a little room off the reception area. He was drinking a cup of coffee. On the desk was a small vase of brightly colored flowers, a small porcelain figurine of an ancient Korean warrior, an elegant coffee carafe and another matching cup and a creamer, a note pad, some pens in a holder, a small lamp and a telephone. Unlike most of the other phones in the building, this phone had an outside line. The desk, fashioned out of dark stained, parquet oak, had a small drawer to the left where he kept his cell phone. Cell phones were expressly forbidden in the house. All guests surrendered theirs at the door. Except he and Madam Jang. She kept hers in the office. There was no sense risking the chance that one might slip out of someone’s pocket and fall into the hands of one of the girls or one of the maids.

Kneeling to his left on the thick, light blue rug was Lotus No. 11. She was in attention position and was wearing one of the spongy gags used in the house. Her arms were locked behind her, her ankles connected by an 18” long chain, and a chain, long enough to give her the ability to stand or move slightly about, connected the back of her collar to the wall.

The walls of the room were white and decorated by various prints with Asian themes. A large barred window surrounded by cobalt blue drapes was off to his right and another behind him. There was an overhead light in the center of the room. Opposite the desk were several large pillows decorated with blue and green cloth.

Lotus No. 11 was trembling and doing her best, not very successfully, to remain silent. Little mewing sounds were emanating from behind her gag and her eyes were watery. She undoubtedly knew that this was her last day at the house and was frightened about what her future might bring. Most people preferred the devil they knew to the devil they didn’t, and the girls were no exception.

It was another example at how things got around between the slave girls. All of them knew when they saw him dressed in his gray sweat pants and t-shirt that there was a girl downstairs in training. He tried to avoid being seen by them that way, but it was impossible with all their comings and goings. All it took was for one of them to see him that way for skittishness to course through the whole crew. And there was only one reason for Lotus No. 11 to be removed from the usual Sunday activities and brought to this room, which the slave girls and maids never otherwise saw.

He was reading a Korean newspaper on his IPad. It seemed there were large demonstrations against the imperialist American presence in the country. It consisted mostly of college students and a hard core of radicals. They would fizzle out in a few days. The vast majority of South Koreans knew that it was only the presence of the American forces in the country which protected them from war with the North or from being swallowed up by the Chinese.

The phone buzzed. He picked up the receiver. The voice told him that Mr. Barnes had arrived. He instructed the voice to show him in.

A few moments later there was a knock on the door. No one but he and Madam Jang knew the code to the small conference room. He pressed a button on the desk and the lock opened. A second later Wook poked his head in and waved Mr. Barnes past him.

Mr. Barnes was a tall, muscular American. He was about 35 and wore his long dirty blond hair in a ponytail. There was a gold ring in his right ear. He had steely gray eyes, a well-trimmed blond beard and a handlebar mustache. He was wearing a yellow, long sleeved chamois shirt, crisp blue jeans and black boots. He had large, strong hands with what looked like a prison tattoo, a scrolled ‘R’, between his thumb and forefinger on his right hand. He was carrying a small dark blue duffle bag that carried the logo of the Tennessee Titans.

Gyong rose and shook the man’s hand. They gave each other slight nods of the head. Barnes knelt down at the front of the desk. Gyong resumed his former position.

“How was the trip?” Gyong asked him in English.

“Long but stress free. There was very little traffic.”

“I’m glad,” Gyong replied.

Barnes looked off to his right. “Is this the girl?” he asked.

“Yes,” Gyong replied. “She’s being replaced and needs to go. She’s been a very good worker and I give her my highest recommendation.”

“All your girls are excellent, Gyong-ssi. I have no problem moving them.”

“Coffee?” Gyong asked.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Barnes replied.

Gyong poured out coffee from the carafe on his desk. He picked up the small creamer. “Milk, no sugar, if I remember correctly,” he said.

Barnes nodded. Gyong poured a small dollop of milk in the cup and then handed it off to the other man. Barnes took a sip of it and released a sigh.

The girl’s eyes were darting between the two men and she was shivering with fear.

“I have a favor to ask you,” Barnes stated.

“If I can help….” Gyong replied.

“I want to hire away one of your guards, preferably one with considerable experience. I’ve been having trouble retaining reliable people and I need someone who really knows how to take care of the girls, keep them compliant and obedient, and also knows the importance of discretion.”

“I don’t know,” Gyong replied. “Good guards are hard to get for me too.”

“I’ll pay you a nice bonus,” Barnes stated. “And I’ll pay the guard a very nice salary. And as you know there are very good benefits.”

Gyong gave it some thought. He took a deep sip of his coffee. Barnes did the same. Barnes was his broker and it was good policy to keep him happy. And it was in his interests that Barnes’ operation ran smoothly so he could get a good price on the girls he sent him.

“I’ll check with Madam Jang,” he replied. “There’s usually someone from her relatives’ operations back in Korea who is looking to come here and work. It might take a few weeks to work things out though.”

“That’s fine with me,” Barnes replied. “It’s not an emergency. It’s more of a long term solution to a short term problem.”

“Fine, I’ll let you know in a couple of days.”

“And how is business?” Barnes asked.

“Very good,” Gyong replied. “No complaints. We have slow days like everybody else, but the busy days more than make up for it.”

“And Madam Jang is well? “

“Very well, thank you. And your wife?”

“Excellent,” Barnes stated. “She’s expecting again.”

“Congratulations!” Gyong exclaimed. “Your third?”

“Yes.”

“Boy or girl?”

“We don’t know yet. I think we’ll wait for when the baby’s born so it’ll be a surprise. We already have one boy and one girl so it doesn’t make a difference. It’s one of the reasons I’m looking for someone reliable to help run my operation. I want to be able to spend more time at home.”

“Good luck with that,” Gyong said.

Barnes took another deep drought of coffee. “Can I look at the girl?” he asked.

“My pleasure,” Gyong responded.

Barnes set his coffee down on the desk and rose to his feet. He unhooked the girl’s collar from the chain leading to the wall. He took hold of her collar and had her knee walk more towards the center of the room.

The girl was frantic. She had started crying. The men’s conversation had conveyed so much normalcy in such a bizarre situation. They clearly didn’t care how much she heard, which was ominous in itself. There was no question if she would be leaving with the blond haired man. Her future consisted of a dreadful darkness. Barnes knelt up close to her and took her in with his eyes. “Very nice tattoo,” he commented, running his hand over her belly. “The picture you sent me really didn’t do it justice.”

“Thank you,” Gyong replied. “I get a lot of compliments on it.”

“As a matter of fact,” Barnes said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you. A couple of my regular buyers wanted to know whether the artist who drew the flowers on the girls they bought might be willing to do some of their other girls.”

“I don’t know,” Gyong replied. “It would be a whole lot of trouble what with transporting them here and back again.”

“It’s mostly new girls who I sell through my site. I could have them brought here for a week or so and then come back and get them. I know they’d be willing to pay a premium.”

“I don’t know. I’m pretty busy as it is. On the other hand, limiting myself to flowers and stars has been confining. I’d like to be able to go all out like in the old days.”

“I remembered that you sent me some pictures. I showed them to my clients and they were really excited.”

“We’ll see,” Gyong replied.

Barnes turned back to the girl. He took hold of her breasts. He squeezed them gently, satisfying himself as to their ripeness. He pulled out her gag and looked closely at her face, turning it from side to side by her chin. He then pulled her over his knee and ran his hand down her back and over her lithe thighs, feeling for softness and looking for scars or birthmarks. Lotus No. 11 had a small birthmark on her left hip. Barnes looked at it closely and moved on. He ran his hands down her legs again. “Very nice, well-shaped and firm,” he commented. Gyong did not reply.

He released one end of the chain that bound her ankles and ordered her to spread her legs. His hand reached in between her widespread thighs and began to stroke her sex. The girl trembled and released a little whine. Barnes’ hand left her puss and he took hold of a thick clump of her long, thin brown hair, pulling her head up roughly.

“That’s enough of that shit!” he told her harshly. “I can make your life very miserable, or not. It all depends on you! Understand!”

The girl frantically nodded her head. Barnes pushed it back down. His hand went back to her center. He stroked and stroked and soon had the girl squirming and sighing. He diddled her clit rapidamente while his other hand held her head down. When the girl released a deep moan, He was satisfied.

“Nice and hot,” he said to Gyong. “How’s her mouth?”

“Very capable,” Gyong answered.

“Mind if I try her out?” Barnes asked.

“Go right ahead,” Gyong answered.

Barnes pulled the girl off of his lap and had her kneel in front of him. He lowered his fly and fished around for his tool. When he pulled it out it was already thick and rubbery. He knelt up and presented it to Lotus No. 11.

“I want your best blowjob,” he told the girl sternly. Lotus nodded ruefully.

The girl bent over and went to work. The man rested his hands on her head lightly. She was crying and making little slurping sounds, but she was not whining. She was sucking him energetically, slurping around the head of his cock on upwards strokes and pushing his pole to the back of her mouth with each downward one. It took her about three or four minutes to get the man to crisis. Barnes took hold of the back of her head and began to move her up and down at a frantic pace. Usually he liked his blowjobs long and slow, but this was just a test run and he wanted to get back on the road as soon as possible.

He began groaning and bent his torso over slightly. Then he shouted, “Argh! Argh! Argh! Argh! Argh!” He was pounding his hips at her face. Lotus was keeping her lips locked steadfastly on his pole. His climax quickly passed and he slowed the motions of Lotus’ head and of his hips. Lotus continued to suckle and slurp until he finally decided to remove his softening wand from her mouth.

He kneeled back down and turned to Gyong. “Very nice tongue action,” he stated. “Very enthusiastic.”

“Thank you,” Gyong replied.

The girl was kneeling back, her lips trembling, tears flowing down her face. Barnes put his cock away.

“Turn around,” he snapped at the girl.

She maneuvered herself so that her back was to him. He released her wrists from each other.

“Now lie down on your back, spread your knees and raise your bottom,” he told her.

The girl complied. Barnes scooted himself between her legs. He slipped his hands under her thighs and began to lift her legs. As her legs rose, he slid his hands down until they were at her ankles. He pressed her spread and folded legs to her chest. He took hold of the rings in her ankle bracelets with one hand. He looked down at her upraised cunt. His free hand stroked and squeezed it. Her pussy was still lubricated from its earlier manipulations and he was able to easily slide two fingers into her channel. “Give me a squeeze,” he ordered the girl curtly.

Lotus tensed and you could see she was engaging in an intense effort. “Very nice,” Barnes observed. “Nice and tight. I’d give her an A plus on that.”

He brought his face down and spread her pussy lips with his left hand. “Very nice and plump. The stars show off nicely.”

“Thank you,” Gyong replied.

Barnes leaned back and released the girl’s ankles. “Get back up on your knees,” he told her. She scrambled into attention position.

He slid back over to the small desk. “Overall first class, as usual,” he told Gyong as he took another long sip of his coffee. “I’d guess $35 or $40,000. Maybe more.”

“That sounds good,” Gyong replied.

“I’ll have her up on the net tomorrow morning and leave her there for a week. You’ll be able to follow the bids on my site.”

“Excellent,” Gyong stated.

Barnes ordered the girl to turn around again. He drew her hands behind her back and locked them together. He rehooked the free end of her ankle chain. He reached over to his duffle bag and zipped it open. He removed a large, slick, black, vinyl hood. He went up close behind the girl and spat out, “Open up!” There was a bulbous prong on the inside of the hood and he slipped it into her mouth. He pulled the hood on, making sure that the nose piece fell in the right place. The hood was an open shell and he pulled the two halves together behind her head. There were five small straps descending on the edge of the right half and matching buckles on the left. He buckled them together tightly. The girl released a muffled moan of unhappiness.

When all the straps were firmly in place, the man ordered her to turn around again. She maneuvered herself until she faced him. Her whole head was encapsulated. All that could be seen of her face was a glimpse of her eyes through the tiny holes. Barnes pumped at something in the center of her mouth and the girl’s eyes lit up as the bulbous prong in her mouth expanded. When the man was satisfied that her cavity was totally filled, he stopped. There were two flaps over the eyes held up by Velcro. He pulled them free and they descended over the eye outlets. Two narrow Velcro strips held them firmly in place.

The girl started howling. She bent over and shook her head fiercely. She moaned and shrieked. Barnes took hold of a tab on the top of the hood and pulled her head up. He placed fingers from his other hand over the air holes by her nostrils. The girl immediately stiffened and started to whine. She tried to twist her head back and forth to shake off the fingers, but Barnes held her fast. After about a minute, by which time the girl was heaving and sobbing, he leaned over to the little hole by her right ear.

“Are you going to be a good girl?” he asked her roughly.

The girl issued repeated excited yelps from inside her hood and tried to nod her head. Barnes removed his fingers from the nasal breathing holes. The girl took in a deep, desperate breath. It took her about 30 seconds to calm down. Barnes leaned over to her ear again.

“Any more shit from you and when we get to my place I’ll beat you senseless,” he told her sternly. “We’ll have to delay your sale for a week or so until the marks heal. And if you misbehave after that, we’ll just beat you again. And we have some other nice little ways of inflicting pain. So I don’t want to hear another peep out of you. Understand?”

The girl nodded her head vociferously.

“Kneel up,” he spat out at her. She rose to attention position.

Barnes turned back to Gyong. “More coffee?” Gyong proffered. “You can have an early lunch if you’d like as our guest.”

“No thanks, but if it’s not too much trouble, I’d like to get my coffee thermos filled and maybe a couple of sandwiches.”

“No problem,” Gyong replied.

Barnes hogtied the girl and chained her neck to the wall. Gyong led him to the kitchen where the cook made him two lush roast beef sandwiches and threw in a few of his homemade chocolate chip cookies. The cook filled his thermos and topped it off with a little milk. They returned to the little conference room, as they called it, and Barnes put the thermos and the bag with the sandwiches into the duffle bag, zipping it up. He released the girl’s hands and feet from each other and disconnected her collar from the chain. Gyong clapped his hands once and the girl struggled to her feet. You could tell she was sobbing, but she was doing a good job of keeping it quiet. Her slick, black clad, featureless head bobbed back And forth. Her knees went weak and she wobbled, but she managed to stay up. Gyong took hold of her arm to steady her.

Barnes had pulled a leash from his duffle and he applied it to the front of the girl’s shiny, silvery collar. He gave it a yank and he pulled her to the door. Gyong punched in the code to release the lock and the door ‘clacked’ open.

Proceeding slowly, stopping briefly at each security door, they made their way to the door that led to the large garage. There were no cars in it. There were a couple of sets of winter tires along one wall and Gyong reminded himself to get the cars outfitted with them. There was a small tractor that served as a lawn mower and plow in the winter. There were various other garden tools. In the summer, Madam Jang always kept a nice garden and sometimes let the girls enjoy it for an hour or so on a Sunday when the flowers were in full bloom, weather permitting. There was a large shed out in the back of the property containing a host of other tools and equipment.

While Barnes led the weeping girl by her leash, Gyong held on to her arm so that she would not fall. The large garage door rumbled up. She walked carefully in her bare feet over the stone driveway a short distance to Barnes’ shiny black Mercedes, which had been backed up to the door of the garage. There was a large PBA shield in the back window. Barnes was an honorary constable back in Taylor County, Kentucky and carried an actual, real, bona fide badge. It saved a lot of trouble during motor vehicle stops.

He used the zapper on the key fob to open the trunk. Gyong helped him to lift the girl in. They placed her on her belly. Barnes turned her head inwards and draped straps around her neck, waist and thighs, fastening her down tightly. He placed a small leather bag over each of her bound hands and drew them closed tightly around her wrists. Her hands were compressed into little fists. He connected her ankles together and brought then up to meet her hands, connecting them. Both men stood back.

The girl was wailing and howling again, struggling desperately against her bonds. Barnes just shrugged. Sometimes you just had to let them wail. In a second there would be no one to hear her since the trunk was heavily soundproofed. As soon as he started up the engine a flow of fresh air would be pumped in.

Barnes turned to Gyong and held out his hand. They shook. “See you again soon, I hope,” Barnes told him.

“I’ll let you know about the guard thing,” Gyong replied.

Barnes nodded his head. They both took a last look at the wailing, sobbing, naked and hooded, bound up girl. Barnes shut the lid. There was absolute silence.

Barnes got into the car, started the engine and drove away.