“Are you giving in?” What a pathetic, horrible question to ask someone like me. Of course I’m not ready to give in, but I failed to see the true point behind his words. By asking me, he had forced me to recall my commitment, and for that brief moment that I was mulling over it, my conviction faltered, and my spirit fell down another notch. I was sentenced to slavery for a crime I was framed for, I had prepared myself not to break in the life of prostitution only to have a man whose nature I cannot even discern purchase me, and he had pulled my life’s first kiss from my lips. Honestly, how much more can a girl take?

I feel his soft hand move the front strands of hair away from my face before focusing on my head once more. His fingers run along the shape of my face, and I’m constantly reminded of how much I can’t stand him, yet my face is beginning to flush a light red. I feel embarrassment, not because of what he is doing to me but because my body is loving the attention. I hear his order and I give a light sigh. “My parents died when I was fifteen. Ever since, I’ve made my own living – an honest living as a hunter, mind you – working for produced food. That was five years ago. I may be labeled as a thief today, but I know that my intent was honest, and I don’t regret my choice to do what I believed to be right.” She answered. It was only a life story, and since it was clear he wasn’t just going to release me anytime during my life span, why not just let it out and talk? She had nothing to lose from it, she figured.

I only wish I could have fought this man, this mental patient of a man who was apparently trying to relive the past, using me to take the role of an old slave of his. I can hear a weak moan coming out as my neck is suckled in this violent manner, but at this point I can’t tell anymore whether it came from me or not. The thing that creeps me out the most is that I could hear the pain in the moan, yet so much more pleasure. I was almost certain given his actions and words toward me that he was an obsessed sadist. Could it be possible? Has his pleasure of hurting me rubbed off, so that I get off from being tortured by this man? Does this make me… a masochist?

At last his mouth left my neck, as he fit the collar back into place. It wasn’t until much later that I realized that the scar was his own personal mark on me, his own brand. I tense up as he leans his head into me, so that his mouth is right by my ear. “What…” I barely manage to open my mouth and let out, before he is all over inside my mouth, invading it quickly and aggressively. I try to pull back, but I am prevented by his arm cradling the back of my head. At last, he breaks the kiss up, but the metallic aftertaste remains. I really want to wipe it off with something, but he quickly takes care of that minor irritation for me, brushing his thumb over my lips until they are once again dry. I look up into his eyes and immediately freeze. My eyes widen in fear, and my heartbeat begins to race. I imagined I must be giving off a strong fear scent, if he was acute enough to sense even that.

I can’t help myself. I look up at this man, confused and angry. “I don’t know who this Elizabeth woman is, but my name is Raidy.” I state boldly. He returns my gaze, and for the first time I truly notice and contemplate the man’s clashing heterochromia. I could feel two different vibes from either eye, and to be honest, it kind of creeped me out. “I found my inten… nnnff!” I cry out as I am pulled facefirst into his lap. “Lay like that.” I hear, as the hand runs down my long hair once or twice before flipping me over so I was face up. He slides his hand over my face, and distracted by my hostility and fear for being given away to such an eccentric man, I completely fail to realize the blush that had formed. My body was loving the attention for some reason, and I was currently too distracted to notice such a minor detail. “Because…?” I asked, straining to hear the next part. “You’re unforgiven too.” He replied.

My eyes widen with shock, and before I can react, my collar is pulled up to reveal a spot of skin near an artery. He bites down, and I may have screamed, but I couldn’t hear any sound. I could feel nothing but pain as his teeth pulled violently, until they drew blood. “What…” I whisper back, confused, as he begins to suction away at my neck.

These last three seconds were a horrible reality for me. They proved to me that I now belonged to a man with whom there was no reasoning, no mercy, and no predictability. They also proved how much biting away at the skin can hurt the human body.

So why was it that I found myself wanting to suffer more at this man’s hands?

I tried my damnedest to keep my composure as this man said the most awkward things. Suddenly, I was pulled forward yet again with a sharp tug. I tried to recover, but the chain binding my legs caught onto something, and I fell face first on the ground, just tilting my head to avoid the worst of the impact. Immediately my head was brought back up, pulled upward from the neck courtesy of the leash. I gave a light shudder as his other hand began to caress my face and back of my head lovingly, my eyes widening in response to his comment. In my peripheral vision I could see the butler leaving to ready the carriage, though my focus was just as quickly diverted back to the man, as he groped a handful of hair and pulled it down, forcing my head up to look at him. I’m only mildly angry at the fact that what he did would qualify as physical abuse, but the main focus of my hatred is what I had been deemed. I didn’t steal anything; I was supposedly freeing a boy from prison who had been wrongly punished! I acted out of kindness, not greed! Was Robin Hood a “common thief”?

Still, regardless of what I had done in the past, the fact remained that I was on the ground and had no leverage to stand up. My hands were still chained behind my back, and while I could have used my legs to try and right myself up, there were a few things that would have had to be taken care of. One was that my legs could move farther, the other was that I wasn’t still being dragged along the ground as I struggled to right myself. At last we reached the carriage, and I was finally able to stand myself up by climbing the front tire spoke with my fingertips. My blood began to simmer once again as he insulted and slandered my being. “Oh I’m sorry? What version of why I was placed on auction did you hear? ‘Cause the reason I belong to somebody right now is because I was set up by the slaver’s daughter!” I announced. I decided to keep my silence until he spoke. If he decided I was guilty, then there was nothing I could say to convince him. If he doubted my guilt, there was always a chance that I could get my named cleared with him – though it obviously wouldn’t mean anything to my current situation. I was still a slave, and I still belonged to him.

As I saw this near-insane man slowly loosen his grip on my cloth, my resolve suddenly wavered, and fear took over. My face flushing red, I winced, closed my eyes, tried to ball up my body as well as I could in shackles and chains, and prepared for the cold air to run across my body. “This is not the place, my lord.” A voice called out, and I could feel the cloth being pulled back over my chest, than tied in a Grecian style with the cloth over a single shoulder. I opened my eyes to see the bag of gold. I bare my teeth at him slightly. As a mineral, gold doesn’t really bode well with me simply because of how much value is placed in a single coin. As a color, it clashes horribly with scarlet, and makes me look flambouyant. Silver, on the other hand… Silver is a sublime color, perfect for when you just want to blend in, while radiating a cool shine. And I really just want to blend into something right about now, something that could assist my escape from this… demon.

There was a sudden noise, and the chains that held my arms up were dropped from the fake ceiling. Before I could react, the two men who were standing behind me as guards gripped either arm, jerked them together – I had to bite my tongue to prevent myself from surrendering a scream of pain as my arm was bent in a way the human body simply didn’t agree with – and wrapped them tight. I swear, if I have to lose an arm because of a pinched blood vessel, these guards are going to have hell to pay. Next, my legs, which had previously been weighted to the floor, were introduced to a short chain about a foot long, with holes at either end for the ankles. Only after I have been shackled are the weights removed. Finally, my leash falls into the hand of the merchant, who then hands it to the man. Without any hesitation I am pulled forward and almost trip, only managing to recover my balance before the leash is once again almost taut. Quickly I walk, until I am walking in line with the man who bought me out. “I won’t break…” I stated simply. I had meant to speak in my inner voice, but my body must have disagreed, because I was now vocalizing my thoughts. “…not for you, not for anyone.”

As Raidy listened to the price she was being sold for - pathetic, really, who would open a bid at 600 - there was a slight creaking sound from the back of the room. Despite the fact that a woman in her position really shouldn't be caring about who just came in since they likely didn't hear the opening bid, she found herself straining her eyes to look through the brightness of all the lights that were focused on her. Suddenly, the man who had just come in named a price that was completely irrational given what the current bid had been. The area around her stand fell silent, but Raidy could see in their mannerisms the longing desire to raise the bid. She hadn't been put up for a lot; there weren't a lot of people here who couldn't top 2000. So why weren't they...?

As Raidy located the man who had bid so highly, everything in her eyes seemed to slow down, and save the sound of the man's footsteps, which magnified to the point even she could hear it, Raidy became deaf due to her complete loss of focus for anything else. Whether it was his poise, his personality, or his money that turned her against him, her red eyes, normally peaceful and distant, as if focused on an abstract thought, were filled with fear and hostility. She gave a visible shudder as he caressed her cheek gently. "What the hell are you tal-nn!!" she began to ask of him, though her sentence was cut short by his sudden and unwarranted pull on the sundress-thin cloth that covered her body. "This is the first time I've met you..." she stated, almost angrily. She could feel him work on the knot between her shoulder blades that allowed the cloth to stay like this, until he had finally solved the knot and now held the barrier that preserved her modesty between his index finger and thumb. He wouldn't... she dared to imagine.