On the other side of the door, Claudia found herself in a dimly lit hallway of rough bare concrete. As the coffle of nude, chained women shuffled in, the door behind them suddenly closed with a shriek of rusted hinges. Along with the rest of the women, Claudia whimpered in fear as they were suddenly plunged into darkness. Blindly, the captives shuffled forward through the gloom, as quickly as her shackled feet would allow, following the rough jerking of the chain at her neck.

Slowly, the young woman grew used to the claustrophobic darkness. She could make out other hallways branching off in other directions. The slavers herded their captives in one direction, then another, seemingly at random. How the slavers knew where they were going, Claudia had no idea. She’d already become hopelessly lost. In the dim light, every hall, every door looked the same. Briefly, the young woman wondered if that was their intention, to hinder any potential escapes. If it was, it was certainly working…

After what felt to her like hours, stumbling in the darkness, the slavers suddenly brought the coffle to a halt. Peering through the dim light, Claudia could make out a half dozen doors, spaced a few yards apart from one another. As she stood there, one of the slavers went down the line, unclipping the women from the coffle. Almost immediately, another slaver grabbed her arm. Roughly, he dragged her forward to one of the doors. Out of the corner of her eye, Claudia saw the other captives, being marched to the other doors.

The door in front of Claudia opened and she was shoved through. She blinked, momentarily, blinded by the sudden light on the other side. As her vision cleared, Claudia suddenly found herself in what appeared at first to be an examination room at the doctor’s office. Of course, most examination rooms didn’t have metal shackles attached to the furniture.

There was a second door, directly across from the one Claudia had just come through. As she stood, nervously, in the middle of the room, it opened and a woman wearing a doctor’s coat came in. She turned to Claudia. The woman was a few years older than Claudia, with dirty blonde hair. To Claudia’s surprise, the woman wore a collar, similar to the one she had around her own neck. She looked at Claudia with a kind, but sad face.

“Stay calm.” The woman said, crossing the room and placing a soft hand on Claudia’s shoulder. “I’m going to remove your gag. Don’t try to scream or runaway. We’re being watched.” She pointed to a camera, in one corner of the room, watching the women. “Anyway the doors locked.” The older woman reached behind Claudia’s head and unbuckled the gag. The rubber ball popped out of her mouth and with it a lot of drool that had been building up.

“Oh, let me get that…” the doctor turned and grabbed a box of tissues from a nearby table. Pulling one out, she wiped off Claudia’s face and chest.
There. That’s much better.”

“Who are you?” Claudia asked her voice quiet and wavering. “Are you a…a…”

“A slave?” The older woman replied. She nodded. “Yes, I’m a slave. As are you now, I’m afraid. My name is Holly Jordan. I was on vacation in the Caribbean, with some friend, when…these…people…grabbed us from our beach house. When they found out I was a doctor, they decided I might be useful to them, so they kept me around instead of selling me, like the others.” She sighed, shoulders slumping mournfully. “That was, I should think, about five years ago.”

“What are they going to do to me?” Claudia asked, on the verge of tears.

“You’ll be kept here, until they can find a buyer for you.” Holly replied, softly. “It could be a few days; it might take a few weeks. The pretty ones are usually sold off quickly. What happens to you next depends on who buys you, and I would imagine the sort of people who would pay thousands of dollars to own someone aren’t likely to be nice people.”

She sighed again. “Look, I’m sorry this had to happen to you, I really am. There’s nothing either of us can do about that now. Be brave and try to make the best of things, and who knows? Now,” she turned to the table and picked up a clipboard. “I’ve got some questions I need you to answer for me and then I need to…examine you.” She pulled a pair of reading glasses from her jacket pocket and put them on. She sat down in a chair, waving Claudia into a second across from it.

“Oh, your name is Claudia? That’s a lovely name.” Claudia looked confused. “They must have grabbed your purse and found your driver’s license or something. In that case, it looks like we can skip these first few questions…”

For the next few minutes, Claudia answered dozens of questions as Holly asked them. Many of the questions revolved around her job, previous jobs she’d had, her education, what she’d studied in college. Other questions were of a more “personal nature.” Had Claudia ever had sex? How many times? How many partners? Had she ever tried anything other than vanilla sex?

Claudia felt her cheeks heat up once more with the embarrassment of discussing such an intimate subject with a complete stranger. “Please answer the questions truthfully.” Holly said, “If they think you’ve lied, you’ll be punished.”

Reluctantly, Claudia complied. She’d lost her virginity senior year of high school to her home town sweetheart. After graduating, she’d been too preoccupied getting her degree and her career for much romance. She’d had a few boyfriends here and there, one or two of which she’d gone steady with long enough to go to bed with.

“Well…” Holly said, setting down the clipboard. “I’m afraid that was the easy part…” She stood up, helping Claudia up as well.” Up on the scale please…” Over the next ten minutes or so, Claudia endured the most intimate physical examination she’d ever gone through. Every part of her was measured and marked down. By the end of it, Claudia’s cheeks were bright red.

“Well that’s taken care of…” Holly said, marking down the last measurements on the clipboard. “Just one more thing.” She opened a drawer and pulled out a digital camera. “Stand there please…these pictures will be shown to potential buyers…look at the camera.” Claudia gave a soft groan, at the thought of dozens, maybe hundreds of men around the world, looking at pictures of her naked, hands cuffed behind her back, but as she was quickly learning, as a slave, her opinion no longer mattered. She fought back tears as the older woman snapped picture after picture, photographing the helpless woman from all angles.

“There…” Holly said, taking one last picture. “We’re all done now.” She plugged the camera into a desktop computer and began downloading the pictures she’d took. Claudia flinched as images of her, naked and chained, cringing before the camera, her nude body completely on display. Suddenly, the second door opened and two slavers came in. Holly turned, bowing her head respectfully as she handed the clipboard to one of the slavers. The second man grabbed the ballgag from where Holly had set it down.

“Open up, slave.” The man brusquely ordered, advancing on Claudia, gag in hand. Glumly, the young woman obeyed, knowing she didn’t have a choice. She gave a muffled whimper as he forced the rubber plug between her teeth and buckled it on tight.

The older man pulled a short leather leash from her belt and clipped it to Claudia’s collar. He tugged it sharply. Stumbling against the ankle fetters, Claudia hurried after him through the door. All of the examination rooms opened into another hallway, dimly lit, but brighter than the other one. As Claudia was led past the row of doors, one opened and another young woman was dragged out by a female slaver. One of the other women abducted along with Claudia and the others. She moaned miserably into her gag as she passed by Claudia.

“Why bother gagging us again?” Claudia thought to herself miserably. It wasn’t as if she could call for help down here. What was the point? Her jaws quickly began to ache from the strain of accommodating the large ball between her teeth. The thick leather straps cut painfully into the corners of the young woman’s mouth. Despite her efforts, Claudia found it impossible to avoid drooling. The only purpose of the gag she could see was to hurt and degrade the wearer. As if the cruel bastards needed any more reason…

The young women were half led, half dragged down the hallway by their guards. This hallway was much better lit then the previous one. Claudia could see doors, some hall opened. In one, a nude woman was strung up by her wrists, straining to stand on her toes, as a slaver worked her over with a leather crop, eliciting sharp cries of pain from his helpless victim. In another room, a young coed knelt before a leering man. Grinning, the slaver unzipped his pants. The leash at Claudia’s throat jerked taut, whisking her away before she saw any more…

At the end of the corridor, the hallway branched off in two directions. The two women were led separate ways. Claudia was brought to a long, narrow room, behind a sturdy iron door. Cages lined the room on either side. Through the cage doors, she could see each was occupied by a single, nude woman, chained and gagged. They whimpered mournfully as she was led past them.

Midway across the room, the slaver brought Claudia to a halt outside an empty cage. The slaver reached down to his belt and pulled out a large ring of keys. Unlocking it, the slaver unclipped Claudia’s leash. “Get in!” He growled, shoving the younger woman forward. Claudia groaned into her gag, bending over to crawl into the cage. As soon as she was in, the slaver slammed the door shut behind her. The captive woman flinched nervously as the cage locked with an audible click. She turned, watching as the guard turned and strode away.

Struggling against the cramped confines of her cell and the shackles on her hands and feet, Claudia twisted into a sitting position, leaning against the back wall. The cage was small enough, she couldn’t stand or even stretch out fully. Since her kidnapping, Claudia had been dragged here and there, yelled at, poked and prodded, questioned, photographed, without pause. Now, she finally had a chance to sit and think things over, for the first time since she’d found out the kidnappers were white slavers.

Claudia hung her head, tears welling up. It began dawning on the young woman that all of this was real, unreal though it seemed. She had been kidnapped and now, she would spend the rest of her life like this: a helpless, chained captive, at the mercy of her owner’s whims. She thought back to her friends…her family. She’d never see any of them again. They would never know what had happened to her, that she was still alive.

Her apartment…she’d never see that again. That club where she and her coworkers went sometimes, on Friday evenings, that was gone. She thought to the high school where she taught…used to teach. She’d never see any of her students again, never teach another high school class…Claudia gave a rue smile behind her gag, “I guess every cloud really does have a silver lining….” She thought to herself, mournfully…