Zach couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

He couldn’t believe what was happening either, but he’d had some time to come to terms with the abduction and eminent sale of him and his fellow captives. They were being auctioned off. Sold over the dark web.

They had a screen in the communal sleeping space displaying the feed. Letting the kidnapped people glimpse their futures. Two or three times a week (as best as Zach could tell), they would take one of the captives to the feed room to be tied up on camera by a dominatrix woman.

That dominatrix introduced herself to the camera each auction as Alexa. She was a mature black woman, always decked out in leather during these things. Usually red, both other colors worked their way in from time to time. Thigh high boots, elbow length gloves, a corset, the works. She was gorgeous. And the woman running the place, judging by how she barked orders at the goons around here.

She was the one who selected which slaves would be auctioned off. There were usually around seven or eight of them, mostly women with a couple of men at almost any given time. They would be trained until it was time to be sold, when they were put in a room with Alexa and the camera to tied up, tormented, and ultimately sold.

The one, single camera.

The only camera in the room.

Zach worked in television. Or at least he had, before he’d been jumped one night while on a date with one of his soon-to-be ex-coworkers. (Cindy was still around, she hadn’t been sold yet either). And half time he was sitting around, waiting to be sold, he was thinking about how much the video production of each auction sucked. Especially in comparison to how smoothly everything else was run.

So when Zach was finally chosen by Alexa to be sold, when she had him taken to be prepared and removed his gag to give him the chance to tell her how obedient he was going to be for her and for his buyer, he took his opportunity.

Zach’s hands were raised high above his head, chained to the ceiling. His feet locked into a spreader bar and shackled to the floor. He was adorned in tight, minimal amounts of latex clothing. Trunks that were barely more than a thong, a vest, a collar.

But at that moment, Alexa’s brow was raised high. Not in the amused way she did when one of her victims did something pointlessly defiant, but with genuine surprise. She didn’t stare, not quite, but she was taken aback. The sight of her confused face while decked out in purple leather made satisfaction surge through Zach.

“Excuse me?” Alexa asked.

Zach snarled. “I said your production sucks. You have one stationary camera that never moves. It’s a boring shot, even when you’re doing tons of interesting stuff in it. You convey all the information buyers want to know verbally, without using any graphics, which is easy to miss for people watching...”

He went on about how much better she could be doing things for at least another two minutes, growing more and more red-faced as he did. Alexa continued not-staring, eyes steadily narrowing with each passing second.  

“... I mean fuck, if you’re going to sell people, at least don’t be such a fucking amateur about the production. You’re not doing it in person, you’re using a goddamn camera, so use the fucking medium!” He stopped then, panting. “Mistress,” he added, almost as an afterthought, when he saw that she was now glaring at him.

A long moment passed.

Wordlessly, Alexa shoved the gag back into Zach’s mouth. He accepted it without a fight, now too spent to fight back. She turned to the camera.

“Get the other male ready, put him in room two and push the auction back an hour. I need to teach this slut a few lessons.”

Zach grimaced.

For the next hour, she gave him a serious thrashing. She brought out a cane, smacked him around with a paddle, and generally made his body turn bright red. She left for an hour, long enough for her auction, then came back to spend far longer than Zach cared to recall teasing his cock to the edge of orgasm without ever letting him finish.

This went on well into the night, and started up again the next day after Zach was allowed some sleep. The beating and the teasing. Alexa made her displeasure at his disrespect very, very clear.

When she was done, she had his hands and ankles chained to a belt around his waist and led him to a private room. An office, it looked like. There was a desk, a computer, shelves of folders, even some chairs Zach wasn’t allowed to use.

Alexa wasn’t wearing one of her auction outfits. Instead her clothes were more causal than Zach had ever seen her wear. Red pants, knee high black suede boots, and an ordinary leather jacket. She looked almost normal.

Zach had no idea what to think, and his confusion only increased when he was ungagged.

“Now,” Alexa said as she took a seat behind the desk, crossing her legs. “You may calmly, and respectfully, explain how the production of my auctions might be improved.”

Zach stared at her expectant face. Too confused, too tired, and too sore for anything else, he began to speak...

Three weeks later, Zach finished directing his first auction from the control room that had previously only housed the men running the website. Now it was set up with screens for Zach to direct the two cameras that had been added to the feed room.

Cindy was holding one of them, the other was operated by a new camerawoman Mistress Alexa had ordered taken two weeks ago. The main camera remained stationary, getting the shot it always while Cindy and Emily got close ups of the slave and what Alexa had been doing to her.

Both camera women were leashed to the walls of the room. They were still slaves, just in direct service to their kidnappers, and not to be sold on unless they messed up too much.

Zach himself was chained to the floor, his collar preventing him from scratching an itch. He was also locked in a chastity cage, still not allowed release after his disrespectful outburst weeks prior. He’d been told he would be allowed to come if his suggestions improved profits.

Another screen Zach had at his fingertips gave him control over the graphics that displayed information about the slave that had been for sale. Measurements, age, history, anything a buyer might want to know.

The slave had been a busty blonde. A nineteen year old ex-cheerleader. The Mistress wanted something classic for her first auction under the new production system. She’d even gotten a generic cheerleader uniform for the poor girl to be stripped out of over the course of the sale.

“Excellent work,” Alexa declared as she strolled into the control room, resplendent in her red leather dress. “I’ll be looking back at it later, but we sold the bitch for a record price.”

And Zach knew then that his career in producing online slave auctions would last for quite some time.