Mrs. Roberts was having a late supper in the kitchen. Outside, thunder growled threateningly in the distance. The storm that had blown in two days ago had hung around, drizzling on and off intermittently. According to the latest weather forecasts, the clouds would hang around for the next few days.

Plying her knife and fork, the old woman cut off a piece of steak, spearing it on her fork. Mrs. Roberts turned and waved the juicy morsel underneath Tabitha's nose, letting her smell the delicious food.

Tabitha groaned softly into her gag. The young woman, completely naked save for her collar and her bonds, knelt on the floor to the left of her captor's chair. Her arms were tightly bound behind her back with rope at the wrists and elbows. Her legs were tied together at the ankles and above and below the knees.

The captive girl had been blindfolded with a band of cloth tied tightly over her eyes. A makeshift bit gag, fashioned from a wooden rod and two short lengths of rope, was clenched between her teeth. Drool flowed around the corners of the gag as Tabitha's stomach growled hungrily.

The poor slave hadn't been fed anything since her small bowl of gruel early that morning. By now, the smell of her kidnapper's dinner nearly drove the young woman crazy.

Chuckling to herself, Mrs. Roberts popped the piece of meat in her mouth. She chewed it, loudly, smacking her lips in enjoyment, savoring the hungry whimpers from her two captives. Cynthia knelt on the other side of the white slaver's chair, tied the same way as her fellow captive.

In the last two days, Mrs. Roberts' newest captive and soon-to-be-sold slave, Tabitha had quickly learned what it meant to be a slave. It had only taken a few strokes of the cane to teach her to obey properly when her mistress gave the world. Not that obedience guaranteed safety…

The old white slaver was enjoying having two captives to torment once again. The last time she had was that pair of sisters she'd picked up hitchhiking three years back, if she remembered correctly. Mrs. Roberts would put her two slaves to work on some task, threatening to punish the one who finished last.

To her surprise, Mrs. Roberts discovered, Cynthia would often work slowly on purpose, so the slaver would punish her instead of Tabitha. The cruel woman was more than happy to comply with her younger captive's wish. Glancing over at the tightly bound woman, she could see how Cynthia leaned forward, to keep from resting her butt against her heels. Her cheeks were stripped red and had welts from her last caning.

"I'll have to be more careful." Mrs. Roberts thought to herself. It wouldn't do to mark the young woman at this point. The buyers liked to see a few bruises on a slave, to know she'd been properly disciplined, but they didn't like to see their property damaged. Luckily Cynthia would have time to heal a bit before that was a problem.

Mrs. Roberts took a sip of wine from her glass. Tonight she was celebrating. She leaned over to Cynthia and whispered into the bound and gagged woman's ear. "Do you know what you're worth, my dear?"

Cynthia grunted into her gag, shaking her head.

Mrs. Roberts smiled. "You're worth $28,750.00" She told her newly sold slave. "The man who bought you is an old customer of mine. He runs a large, underground brothel down in South America, and he always needs news girls." The white slaver laughed, as Cynthia moaned in horror…


"Here you go, slave." Mrs. Roberts said, holding a small bowl of gruel.

"Thank you mistress." Cynthia said softly, reaching out and taking the bowel in both hands. It galled the young woman but Mrs. Roberts had made it plain, if she didn't submit to the degrading ritual, she didn't eat.

"And here's yours." The slaver continued, taking a second bowel from the wood tray.

"Thank you mistress." Tabitha whispered, taking hers. The two slaves dug into their meager supper as Mrs. Roberts left. They were back in the basement dungeon that had been there home, in Cynthia's case, for the last week or so. Heavy iron collars, padlocked around the women's necks, kept them chained to an iron bolt on the floor, their movements restricted to the length of their chains.

Tabitha finished her meal first, licking the bowel clean of anything that might help fill the aching hole in her belly. Whether accidentally or by intended cruelty, her bowel was smaller than Cynthia's portion. Ruefully, Cynthia forced herself to stop eating, leaving a mouthful or two of the tasteless slop in the bowel. She handed it to her fellow captive, who hungrily wolfed the gruel down.

Despite that, both women were still starving when Mrs. Roberts returned to collect their bowels. As she left, the slaver flipped the light switch, leaving the two prisoners in darkness. The two listened to the old woman moving around upstairs. The sounds faded as she went upstairs to go to bed.

Satisfied they wouldn't be heard by their kidnapper, Tabitha and Cynthia began talking in low voices. This was the time they looked forward to, through the day's toil and torture. Locked down here in the cellar for the night, save for the uncomfortable collars they were forced to wear the two slaves were given some respite from the near constant bondage Mrs. Roberts enjoyed inflicted on them.

Free of their gags, and with their mistress asleep upstairs, the two girls were free to talk to each other. Inevitably, the two talked about their old lives, before they'd wound up Mrs. Roberts prisoners. It was comforting for the captives to remind themselves that there was a world outside of this dungeon, with friends and family waiting for them, worrying about them, that they had once been part of, and that one day, they might return to.

Facing a lifetime of horrifying slavery, even a false hope brought some comfort…

In the short time Cynthia and Tabitha had been together, Cynthia had grown to care for her fellow captive. Tabitha was a quiet, shy girl, with a youthful innocence to her despite her age. Cynthia wanted nothing more than to do her best to try and protect the girl from Mrs. Roberts efforts to break her will, as little as Cynthia could do, given her own position.

"So, have you got a boyfriend?" Cynthia asked, sitting on the side of the bed beside Tabitha. The two women had to work to keep their chains from getting tangled up together. "Someone worrying about you back home?"

Tabitha shook her head. "No. I've never had one. None of the guys at school were interested in a shy little bookworm like me." She shrugged. "…never really been all that interested in them either, truth be told. What about you?"

"I had a boyfriend for a while during college." Cynthia replied. "We never really got that serious. Mostly I just started going out with him because my best friend was going out with his friend." She laughed softly. What she wouldn't give to be back with him, instead of here again."

Tabitha laughed too, for a moment, then, all of a sudden, tears welled up in her eyes and she started crying.

"What is it?" Cynthia asked. "What's wrong?" It occurred to the young woman that there was plenty of things wrong with their present circumstances, but there was little she could do about that at the moment.

"What's the point of it all?" Tabitha said, sniffling. "You've been so nice to me, and you're going to be taken away forever, and then I'll be alone again!" She wailed.

"Shhh…" Cynthia said, trying to comfort her friend. "I know. But there's nothing we can do." Despite the girls' best efforts, Mrs. Roberts had never let her guard down or given them even the faint hope of escape. "Just try to be brave and don't give up hope. Please. Somehow, I know you'll find a way out of this mess, I know it!"

Cynthia had long ago given up any hope she might have had of escaping herself. The young woman was keenly aware her time was limited. She placed her arms around the younger woman, though whether to comfort Tabitha or herself, Cynthia couldn't tell.

Tabitha nodded, mournfully, wiping the tears from her eyes. Without really knowing why, on some odd, unbidden urge, Cynthia leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. The young woman was stunned for a moment, then she smiled. She placed her arms around Cynthia's waste, leaning up against her, and returning the kiss.

They clung to each other long into the night…  


"Thwack!" Tabitha cried out into her gag as Mrs. Roberts brought the cane hard on her naked backside. Mrs. Roberts grinned savagely as she raised her weapon for another strike. Tears running down her face, the young woman squirmed in the ropes holding her captive, bent over the kitchen table. The uncomfortable, humiliating position, forced the girl to keep her butt thrust up into the air, a helpless target for her captor's wrath.

Fifteen minutes previously, while cleaning dishes after their mistress' lunch, with Cynthia, the poor slave had let a plate slip through her bound hands and chipped the dish. That was the reason for her present torture, though, truth be told, for Mrs. Roberts, it was less a reason, more an excuse. With her bank account enriched by nearly $300,000, the old slaver was in a good mood, and when she was in a good mood, her helpless captives suffered.

"Thwack!" As Tabitha screamed in pain again, the older woman heard Cynthia utter a short sharp cry into her own gag. The young woman knelt on the floor across the kitchen from Tabitha and her tormentor, tightly bound hand and foot, scrubbing the floor with a rag.

As she worked, Cynthia watched her friend's punishment with a mixture of anguish and rage. Helpless to do anything, the young woman could only stand by and listen as Tabitha screamed in pain with each stroke of the cane. Tears in her eyes, Cynthia glared at the evil woman responsible for her fellow captive's suffering.

Mrs. Roberts returned the slave's glare with one of her own. "Get back to work, lazy slut!" she ordered. "Unless you want to punished like Miss Brown here!" Her glare suddenly turned into a sadistic grin as a thought crossed her mind. "Wait! I've got a better idea…" she said, evilly. "I'll keep punishing little Tabitha here until you finish cleaning the kitchen floor! And you'd better make sure you do a good job, or she'll suffer for it."

Cynthia gave an anguished cry of horror. She quickly went to work, furiously scrubbing the floor as fast as she could. Mrs. Roberts laughed. 'I thought that might motivate you!" She chuckled. The cruel slaver lightly tapped the cane on her other prisoner's cheeks, savoring the terror coming from the girl. "Are you ready, my dear?" Tabitha sobbed into her gag, moaning. The young woman was dreading the pain to come, but was unable to do anything to prevent it.

"I want you to count off your strokes while Cynthia here works!" Mrs. Roberts told her. "Understand?" When Tabitha didn't answer quickly enough, the older woman flicked her wrist, bringing the cane smacking against her bare skin. Sobbing, Tabitha hurriedly nodded, crying out into her gag.

"That was one dear. Count it!" Mrs. Roberts said, sharply. She brought the cane down again, moving down to her victim's bare legs where she hadn't been hit yet. "That's two!"

Fresh tears ran down Tabitha's cheeks, soaking the cloth of her gag. "unnn…" she moaned . "oooh…" By now, her whole lower body was on fire from her punishment. Her whole body tensed, as Mrs. Roberts raised up for another strike, not knowing where on her helpless body the next blow would fall.

"Remember Cynthia!" Mrs. Roberts said, punctuating her words with more blows. "The longer you take, the more little Tabitha here will suffer."

Tears filled Cynthia's eyes as she was forced to listen to her friend's agony, desperate to end it, knowing every moment she took only made the young woman suffer more. Finally, at long last, she finished scrubbing the last tile. Cynthia grunted loudly into her gag to show she was done, then slumped to the ground, exhausted and drenched in sweat.

"Took you long enough." Mrs. Roberts said, tersely. "Thwack!"

"eee-eeeh-een…" Tabitha moaned, slumped across the table, to exhausted by her ordeal to even react as pain shot across her backside.

"Here that, Cynthia?" Mrs. Roberts teased as she set aside the cane...for the moment. "Poor Miss Brown here had to suffer through eleven more strokes, because you were a lazy slut! Now," she said, rubbing a hand lightly across Tabitha's crimson butt, drawing a sharp cry from the slave. She found a knot and began to untie her from the table. "you two are going to clean the living room, and you'd better work hard, otherwise we'll have to do this again!"


Later that evening, Mrs. Roberts absent mindedly chewed at her supper, leftovers from the night before, as she logged onto her computer. The first thing she did was check her e-mail. It was an ordinary e-mail account, a far cry from the heavily-encrypted service she used to run her online auctions, but she used it more often, communicating with her buyers, to arrange delivery of the newly purchased slaves.

An old lady, sending out a lot of highly encrypted messages was likely to attract the wrong sort of attention. Whereas, with any luck, one or two every few months would, hopefully go unnoticed. So long as Mrs. Roberts and her clients were careful when talking through e-mail and didn't outright say they were engaged in the buying and selling of young women, anyone reading an old lady's e-mail would have nothing to base his suspicions on.

As Mrs. Roberts worked on her computer, Cynthia and Tabitha knelt on the floor in the next room. The slaver had tied the women kneeling, back to back. Each girl had her hands wrapped around the other's torso and tightly bound at the wrist with rope. Cynthia's legs, were tied at the ankle to Tabitha's opposite legs.

A long stand of nylon rope was tied to the front of Cynthia's collar. It ran down the young woman's chest and disappeared between her legs. The rope reappeared out of the join of Tabitha's legs, rising up her chest, where it was tied off, tautly, to her own collar. Even the slightest movement on the part of the two captives was enough to cause the rope to saw back and forth, cutting into their most sensitive areas.

The two women moaned softly. Their mouths had been stuffed with cloth, silencing both ladies. A short coil of rope was bound, circling both girls' heads, holding the cloth in. The tight rope gag cut into the corners of the two captive's mouths quite painfully. Both girls had been blindfolded and had their ears plugged.

Mrs. Roberts, meanwhile, opened up her e-mail inbox. A smile crossed her face as she saw the first message:

"Everything is set. Will arrive tomorrow morning, if things go well. I've made plans to get home myself. –John."

Before the old woman could reply, the doorbell suddenly rang. The white slaver's eyes darted in the direction of the front door. She wasn't expecting anyone. Who could it be?

Quickly, Mrs. Roberts thought through what she needed to do. Cynthia and Tabitha were tied up in the next room. They obviously hadn't heard the doorbell ring, otherwise the captive girls would be screaming their heads off right now. All she needed to do was keep whoever was out there ringing the bell from finding them and she would be safe.

Hurriedly, the old woman crossed the room and glanced through the door. Sure enough, her two slaves knelt quietly on the floor, oblivious to anything save their own bondage. As she shut the door, the doorbell rang again. Whoever was out there wasn't going anywhere anytime soon…

Mrs. Roberts ran to the door. She opened it and saw a police officer standing on the front porch, taking cover from the light drizzle that continued to fall. Mrs. Roberts did her best to hide her initial surprise and nervousness. She forced herself to remain calm. "Can I help you, officer?" she asked, her voice calm and even.

"umm…good evening ma'am." The man replied. "Do you know a Miss Tabitha Brown by any chance?"

"I met her about a week ago." Mrs. Roberts answered. "One of the ladies I play bridge with introduced her to me." She knew it would be pointless to try and lie and say she's never met the girl. The officer wouldn't be here unless he knew she's talked to Tabitha. Lying would only arouse his suspicions.

"Were you aware that she's gone missing?" The officer continued. "No one's seen her in over two days. I was told she came by to see you."

"oh, no. No, she was supposed to see me, yes, but she never came by." Mrs. Roberts lied. "Oh my! I hope nothing's happened to her!" she tried to add a note of shocked fear to her voice, as if she had really only now found out about Tabitha's disappearance, as if she hadn't been the one behind it.

Despite all the troubles that came with it, old age had some advantages for the white slaver. The young women Mrs. Roberts captured and sold never suspected what the old woman had planned for them until it was too late for them and they found themselves trapped. And in the last ten years or so, no matter how many local girls "disappeared", the police officers never considered the kind old widow living out here by herself, so concerned over the missing women, might have actually been the one kidnapping them.

Mrs. Roberts' act held up once more. The policeman merely nodded, accepting her excuse. "Well then, I won't bother you any longer, ma'am. Good evening!" he turned and headed down the path back to his squad car.

"Good evening! And please let me know if you find anything about Miss Brown!" Mrs. Roberts called after the man, adding a tone of false concern to her voice. As she turned and closed the door, a savage grin spread across her face. She hurried across the house to where she'd left her two captives.

Cynthia and Tabitha were still in the same place as before, lost within the private horror of their bondage. They gave no sign that they'd even been aware someone had been by. Crouching down, the older woman removed the girls' earplugs.

"Miss Brown! I thought you would like to know, someone just came by, a policeman. He was looking for you. I told him I hadn't seen you and that I was very worried something awful had happened to you." Mrs. Roberts sneered, drinking in the horrified moans from the two younger women as they realized just how close they'd come to rescue, without even knowing it, only to have that chance slip away.

"Oh, Cynthia, my dear. You might be interested as well. I've received word from your new owner. He'll be here to pick you up tomorrow morning. Early tomorrow morning…"