Hayley was walking down the road, a bounce in her step, feeling happy and at ease with herself. When the woman stopped her, it was a complete shock…

“Hello! Haven’t seen you for ages. I’m surprised you’ve been allowed out without your collar on, though.”

Hayley went white as a sheet…

Years ago, Hayley had made some wrong choices in life. Those choices had ended up with her pledging her service to a group, as an indentured slave. She had, at the time, been fitted with a heavy steel collar as a ‘badge of office’.

Colette was amazed, therefore, to see Hayley walking around without it, looking as if she hadn’t a care in the world…

Hayley had been working for a rich billionaire woman as a maid, and a ‘servant’. This had including giving sexual pleasures to her owner. It was during one of those sessions that her owner, getting on in life, had suffered a fatal heart attack…

Hayley had, to start with, been paralysed with shock. After all, she had been in bed with the woman when she died. She was bound to be blamed for her death.

As she had been a nurse in her ‘previous life’, she had done all she could to save the woman. Despite her owning her, she had been fair, looking after her, so she bore no malice towards her.

After seeing that the woman was definitely beyond help, she phoned the emergency services, left the phone of the hook, and ran…

She’d been running ever since. An old college friend of hers had managed to open the lock on her collar, which is why she was no longer wearing one. She had said she had got stuck in it as a practical joke gone wrong…

She had been living on the streets for two years.

Her previous life was gone. The slave agency had made it look like that she had died in a house fire; they’d even altered her face very slightly, to give it an Asian look. Only her close friends, and those with the slave directory, would recognise her.

Colette was one of the latter category. She also sort of considered herself in the former, as well, as she had been ‘involved’ with Hayley when she was working for her.

Now, she was eager to start that association again…

Hayley shivered as Colette pulled her toward her; anyone watching would have seen two long lost friends greeting each other. Collette then kissed her…

“I’ve missed you, you know”, she said. “Truly.”

Hayley didn’t reply; she was looking around for a way to escape, like a trapped animal. Collette stroked her head.

“Calm down, love, please! You know I couldn’t hurt you. I told you last time I loved you. I still do!”

“Only because you forced me to be with you”, said Hayley. “I only responded to your advances because you owned me at the time. Now, nobody owns me.”

“If that’s the way you feel, I can’t stop you running. But I warn you, you’ll be running the rest of your life. You were told the slave agency was a lifetime position…”

Collette went on to explain that nobody ever left the agency one they had become a member. She also pointed out that the collar, though impressive in its own right, was not the only thing that was done to a slave when she/he was ‘recruited’…

“There’s a chip that the collar implants in your neck”, she said. “It then migrates up, to the base of your skull, and sits in such a place that any attempt to remove it will kill or permanently paralyse you. That’s what controls you when you are a slave, not the collar. Here, let me prove it to you.”

Collette showed Hayley her mobile phone. On it, the running app was flashing an eight-digit number in green.

“The number is your slave number. Because it’s flashing green, that means you’re available for purchase or hire. If it was flashing red, you’d already belong to someone.”

“Anyone could have bought you at any time”, she said. “You’re just lucky you ran into someone that cares for you first.”

Hayley whimpered. “You mean anyone could still take control of me?”

“Yep. At any time. Just like I’m doing, now. I’d rather see you were cared for properly as opposed to being used as a sex slave, or worse…”

Collette pushed a few buttons. Hayley suddenly felt a familiar tingle down the back of her neck…

“There we go, all done. You’re mine, now. Also, I haven’t just hired you. I’ve just bought you.”

Hayley’s mouth dropped open. “You mean you now own me? How come I can still talk and move for myself?”

“I want you as you, not a mindless automaton. I told you I care a lot about you. At least come and sit with me and talk about it, over tea.”

“I’ll tell you what; if you don’t want to stay with me after we talk, as long as you stay living a believable distance from me, I’ll let you go. You can get on with your life, and the agency will think someone owns you.”

Hayley was shocked. No-one had made an offer like that to her before, in all the years she’d been a slave.

“Ok”, she said, “but I’ve made up my mind already. If you can make an offer like that to me, I’m not scared of you. I’m yours.”

Arm in arm, Hayley and Collette headed off to their new life together…