“You’re Number 34, Stenstrom, right?” a male voice asked, snapping her out of her reverie.  A man dressed in the uniform of a slave handler (black shirt, pants and boots) stood over the naked Karin looking at her with a neutral expression.  “I have to get you ready for the sale.  Stand up and turn around,” he ordered.  His tone was mild, but he held a control rod in his hand.  Although the rod had never been used on Karin, she had seen the effect of its electric shock on a few of the slaves who had trouble adjusting to their new status.  She had no desire to discover what it felt like in person.

Karin rose slowly in a half-crouch, trying to cover her breasts and pubic triangle with her hands.  This was the first time her naked body had been exposed to a man since she had been enslaved.  In point of fact, no male other than her doctor had seen her nude body since she was a little girl.  She had never allowed her boyfriends to see her unclothed.  Now, a total stranger was demanding that she display herself utterly naked, and she had no choice but to obey.  She felt hot blood rush to her face at the thought.

“No, no, stand up straight,” the handler said, shaking his head.  “Nobody’s going to bid on you if you’re all bent over like that.  And put your hands up on your head,” he continued as she reluctantly stood straighter.  He gestured with the black rod in his right hand to emphasize the latter command.  Karin let out a little involuntary squeak of fright and quickly complied, placing her hands atop the short blonde curls of her hair, exposing her pert breasts and her delicate nether lips.  She could feel the blush travel down her slender throat at this humiliating exposure.

The handler took his time looking her up and down carefully.  His examination seemed impersonal, somehow.  At least he did not appear to be aroused, or indeed to obtain any pleasure from viewing Karin’s delightful nude form.  She almost felt insulted by his apparent lack of interest at seeing what she had never let any of her boyfriends view.

“Your tits are a little on the small side…” he mused aloud.  Absurdly, Karin felt a twinge of anger at the slur.  Her breasts were small for her long, sinewy 5’8” frame, but they were perfectly shaped and firm.  She was rather proud of them.  How dare he say...?  “But not bad, not bad at all,” he finished, and she felt both pleased and a little foolish at the same time.  “Turn around, slowly,” he directed, and as she rotated in place he continued to comment to himself, her hands still on top of her head.  “Nice legs, great ass, good muscle tone, cute face.  You should bring a good price,” he told her when she was facing him again.

Karin asked, “Do you really think so?”  She was strangely pleased at the compliment.  She told herself that if she had to be a slave, it was better to be a valuable one than a cheap one.

“You had better hope I’m right, Miss,” the man told her.  “If you don’t meet the reserve price, they’ll hold you over to the next auction.”

“So what’s wrong with that?” Karin wanted to know.

“If you are held over for the next month’s auction, we use the time to train you how to show yourself so that you bring up the bids,” he explained.  “The training is painful, very painful, in order to guarantee that you aren’t held over for another auction.  Believe me, you wouldn’t like it at all.  None of them ever do.”

Karin shuddered as she thought about being “trained” with control rods, whips and who knew what else every day for a month.  She resolved to cooperate with the handler on the stage, and do everything she could to induce the buyers to bid freely for her.

“Please sir, what must I do?” she asked the man.

He handed her a simple white robe with a wide neck that closed with a drawstring.  “Put this on,” he said.  As she slipped the garment over her head, he continued, “When I take you out on the runway, keep your arms by your sides.  I’ll pull the string in front and the robe will slide down off you.  After that, you put your hands together up over your head, and turn nice and slow and sexy to let the bidders see what a hot piece of ass you are.  Let’s just practice it,” he said.

He reached over and pulled the bow in the neck string.  The white cloth drifted down over Karin’s creamy white shoulders and floated to the floor.  She reached her arms high overhead, placing her hands palm-to-palm straight up, and slowly began to rotate in place.  She took care to sway her hips with each little step she took.  She could feel the handler’s eyes on her, and she no longer thought that his gaze was impersonal.  When she completed the turn and looked at his face, she could see that he was staring at her hungrily, his fingers making tiny rubbing motions.

He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand as he regarded her.  “Yeah, not bad, not bad at all,” he breathed.

The handler had Karin put the white robe back on, then led her to an open doorway from which came bright lights and the booming amplified voice of the auctioneer.  “Fifteen thousand, fifteen, fifteen… sixteen thousand over there…”  From where she stood, Karin could see only the brightly lit runway and the dark abyss of the auction house beyond.  She idly wondered who was being sold at this moment.

She soon found out, for the bids died away at twenty-one thousand crowns, and the newly sold slave girl emerged, carrying her crumpled white robe in one hand, her handler close behind.  The girl turned to look at Karin and she gasped when their eyes met.  The girl who had just been sold was her former friend Natalie.  Karin wished the ground could swallow her up at that moment.  Nat looked back at Karin and managed a faint smile before she was led away.  Karin wondered what that meant.  Was it possible that Nat had forgiven her?

But there was no time to speculate about it now.  The slave handler had taken a light hold of Karin’s elbow as he took her closer to the bright doorway.  “Our turn,” he said.  “Just do it the way you practiced back there, and you’ll be just fine,” he reassured the trembling girl.

The loudspeaker boomed again.  “Item 34, Karin Stenstrom: 5 feet 8 inches tall, one hundred sixteen pounds, nineteen years old, judicial enslavement for debt.”  As the auctioneer spoke, Karin and the handler moved forward into the glare of the blinding overhead spotlights.  Karin fought an urge to raise her hand to shade her eyes from the harsh spotlights.  “Miss Stenstrom is a virgin,” the auctioneer continued, “and, as always, that comes with Celestial County Auction’s famous full warranty.”

Karin stood on a glass-enclosed runway that projected out into a huge room containing a crowd of what looked like hundreds of people.  “Keep your hands at your sides,” the handler hissed.  He pulled the drawstring in the front of Karin’s robe and it slithered over her shoulders to the runway, to lie in a little pile at her feet.  She stood utterly still, her hands close against her hips.  She could feel the pressure of hundreds of eyes examining her slender, white nudity.  She was overcome by shame; she wished she had the power to stop her heart from beating so that she could die and not have to endure this humiliation a second longer.

“Gentlemen, wouldn’t you like to be the first to possess this beautiful young creature?” the auctioneer asked.  “Picture her trained to your secret desires, to serve your most intimate needs.  Do I have to say anything more?”

At this, the handler muttered, “Hands overhead, and turn the way you did for me.”

Karin could feel the heat in her cheeks and forehead return.  She closed her eyes and gently swayed her hips as she revolved slowly in place to display herself to the audience.  She heard cheers and applause, and then felt a cold metal object under her breast.  The handler was using his control rod to raise her breast a few inches.  He pulled the rod away to demonstrate the firmness of her pink-capped mound.

With this, the bidding began.  Karin felt something wet drop on the upper slope of her breast and realized that she was weeping.  The auction seemed to go on forever, although in reality it was less than two minutes before she heard the loudspeaker announce, “Sold to buyer Number Fourteen for twenty-eight thousand crowns!”

The handler told Karin to pick up her robe, and he led her back out the way they had entered the stage.