Kinktober 2025, Prompt #9 - Desperate/Public

Content Warnings: BDSM Fantasy, consensual, dubiously consensual, bondage slavery, legalized slavery, collar

When Stability returned it rapidly became clear that in some ways society had not only stagnated, but regressed. 

Arlene’s story started out like a lot of other slaves. She was desperate for cash and on the verge of homelessness with no family to support her. There was no debt, but that wouldn’t have lasted much longer at the rate she was going. Entering a “service contract” of ten years was the best of a set of bad options.

So she sold herself.

It was an option Arlene had always been aware of. She wasn’t drop dead gorgeous or anything, but she’d never had a serious issue finding dates either. Arlene was a short, cute, mildly curvy twenty-two year old woman with dirty blonde hair. Slave recruiters had been occasionally contacting her since about a month after her eighteenth birthday. If only she’d ever written down the numbers they gave her, finding a place to sell herself to might have been easier.

The first couple of training centers turned her down, saying that they were enough candidates for the season. The first one was real snobby about it, but that one had been a long shot anyway. The second place advised Arlene to come back in a few months, emphatically assuring her that their turning her down had nothing to do with her metabolic issues or other health concerns. Arlene only half-believed them, but it ended up being a moot point when she found a center that would take her. Not as reputable as she would have liked, but the training process worked out and she was eventually sold without issue.

She just hadn’t expected her owner to have her in such a public-facing role.

Arlene sighed as she strutted back and forth down her narrow glass “workspace.” She drew a few glances from passerby on the bustling city street, as she was meant to. A mother admonished her daughter for looking too long. A man, either starting or finishing his lunch break, looked Arlene up and down with appreciation. No gawkers at the moment, but she’d had her share of those for this shift and would doubtlessly have more before she was done.

Turning on her heel, Arlene locked eyes with her “coworker,” Judy. She was a Hispanic woman with lusciously thick long hair and a dark natural skin tone. Very thin, but she’d put on some weight since she’d entered training. Apparently she had a history with an eating disorder than first her trainers and now her manager didn’t tolerate. One of those neat little benefits that people trotted out to talk about how legalized slavery wasn’t so bad.

Both women were dressed in fashionable dresses. Judy’s more formal gown was a vivid pink color, sleek and long enough to reach down to her ankles. There was a sash, and she had on nice opera-length gloves too. It was a showcase of the upcoming ball season.

By contrast, Arlene’s classic little black dress was slinkier and more suited to clubbing. Her shoulders were bare and the hem ended at her mid-thigh. It was complimented with a nice pair of heels that were just now starting to really ache, when she had about an hour left of her shift to go through. Great. There was a stool and a little fainting couch she could rest on if she needed to (as long as she kept posing and looking sexy), but she was encouraged not to use them too often.

The only item of “clothing” Arlene and Judy had in common was the thin, unobtrusive black choker-like collar on their throats.

They were both owned by a business instead of a specific person. Cooper’s was a national retail chain that sold dresses and other women’s closing. Arlene had been shocked when she was assigned to work as a store model. She’d always been confidant in her looks, but not so much that she thought she would ever have a chance at modeling, even in this limited storefront version of it. She spent half the work day in some piece of the store’s inventory, sharing the duty with three other storefront model slaves besides Judy. Mandy and Sadie were working the floor at the moment, serving alongside the free employees who were not owned by the chain.

As far as possible fates went, Arlene had to admit that this one wasn’t so bad. Sure, she would have preferred to be the pampered pet of some wealthy tycoon who gave her plenty of free time, but not everyone could have that job. Cooper’s management did a pretty good job taking care of her, keeping her healthy and active, even if it made her feel a bit more like a cog in the machine that having one single owner might have. She even had an allowance and a day off every week.

That was what the fifth model, Taylor, was off doing today. There was a movie she really wanted to see. Arlene usually used her off days to go to the library and walk around the city. The little apartment they all shared above the store wasn’t a great place to hang out even when you had it to yourself.

They had most nights off too. They had to stay inside the building for most of them, but they were usually sent out once a week to hit the clubs and advertise the store too.

There wasn’t even that much kinky stuff. Or sex. Cooper’s had pretty strict policies on how their contracted slaves were treated. Employees couldn’t just take an owned worker off to the backroom (though there were rumors about some managers in other locations and what went on at corporate headquarters). The slaves could have sex if they wanted, usually when they were out promoting the club, but they weren’t pimped out to customers or anything like that.

There was a sister chain owned by the same corporation that sold kinky equipment and toys that models were used to show off, but Arlene hadn’t been assigned there. Sadie had. She actually said she missed it, that being tied up in a thousand different ways inside a cage was more fun that strutting around a glass box. Arlene had her doubts. Especially when she asked if she was ever naked in that cage and Sadie got all teasingly evasive.

A knock on the glass brought Arlene back into the moment. Surprise surprise, there was a trio of young man gawking at her. Smirking their little smirks and very much enjoying the sight of Arlene’s slinky little black dress. She made a show of ignoring them, just as she’d been taught. Young men weren’t the demographic she was meant to entice into the store, but she wasn’t supposed to scare them off either.

At that moment a woman in her mid-twenties wearing a business casual outfit, part of the demographic Arlene was supposed to attract, marched past the boys and into the store, glancing at both Arlene and Judy as she did.

From desperate slave candidate to public-facing storefront model… it wasn’t what Arlene wanted for herself. But all things considered, it was about as good a deal as she’d expected to get when she sold herself.