I was bored. Miserably, horribly, completely bored. When the fall semester began the drunken frat party that was Halloween on my college campus was the furthest thing from my mind.

I was 28, unmarried, and teaching was getting stale. I was involved with my church group; oddly enough our occasional missions to forsaken hellholes actually provided me with a bit of the excitement and adrenalin rush I craved.

The fall semester was a dreadful slog with a dull book and a horrific syllabus, and I felt rescued when the Department Chairman asked me to help him in an emergency and fill in for a special "Co-Ed Field Studies Trip" in Africa.

I wasn't totally naive. I knew the "Female Studies Trip" would consist most insufferable set of spoiled sorority brats to waste Daddy's money, with the University skimming a fat commission off the trip.

Nonetheless the trip offered me a chance trade the dungeon of a lecture hall for Africa. As a Classical Civilization Professor I had been to Africa although not to all the countries listed on the trip. Two of the countries were actually on the watch list and were not considered "safe" for Westerners but apparently that was part of the sales pitch as it allowed the girls to go somewhere most people never went and to brag to their friends back home about their exotic adventure.

We started out shorthanded and quickly became more so. Frank and Jim got dysentery in Zimbabwe and Lisa had to leave when her mother became ill and Lucy had left after the Congo which meant that at age 28 I was the sole adult guide for two dozen college age girls touring Africa. I begged my Department Chairman for reinforcements, but as we were in the last two weeks of the trip he was uninterested in taking any action that might reduce the school's fat profit margin.

Fortunately chaperoning was not an arduous job because by the time you're 19 you can do whatever the hell you want to do, plus the guides and the security teams ran the schedule. I had a particular spot of good luck in that our native guide for the final leg of the journey, Abdul, seemed unusually knowledgeable.

I liked Abdul. He had a way about him, a sort of oily street Arab charm that made his cheerful sexism and sly ways less offensive than they might otherwise have been. Like many of his ilk he was a natural salesman and a born negotiator. He excelled at keeping the girls in line, which freed me from babysitting duties and quelling the mob. Abdul was a born promoter, and had a clever way of making tomorrow (or the crappy beaded necklace he was trying to sell you) sound like the most amazing bargain. Of course I was still bored as I had see it all before but I amused myself by watching Abdul scam the girls.

Abdul was a street hustler and a great storyteller. Unlike the bimbos in my charge I knew a lot of it was bullshit, and that Alexander the Great and Napoleon hadn't been within 1,000 miles of where we were, but I let it go because his stories were entertaining.

As part of his hustle Abdul was constantly hitting on me, and failing miserably turned his attention to my students, until my rich collection of daddy's girls made it clear to him in their typically obnoxious way that they were way, WAY, out of his league. Like most men Abdul thought he was far more attractive than he was but their openly racist comments were far move offensive to me than his clumsy passes.

Abdul grew on me, and I was particularly glad he was our guide as I was unfamiliar with the backwater country on the final leg of the tour. To begin with, Abdul kept enough men with machine guns around to actually make me feel safe, plus Abdul seemed to know not only the country we were in but also everyone in the country. Everyone liked him and treated him with respect. Plus Abdul knew where all the best food and shopping were.

Of course I knew he was steering my students towards spending way more on the crappy glazed ceramics and jewelry then they should, but what of it? The girls on this tour had money to burn and as they would never think of tipping him it seemed only fair that he make his money via kickbacks on the trashy baubles he conned them into buying.

One of the more interesting girls on the tour was Julie, a 23-year-old graduate student from Denmark. Julie had originally been booked to take a trip to study psychology in Vienna but when the trip had been cancelled she had been dumped onto our trip so her University wouldn't have to give her a refund.

Julie was more studious than most of the other girls and was actually interested in learning. When it became obvious that the trip itself would not be providing her much in the way of psychological insights she made a subject of Abdul and his methods of manipulating the girls. Abdul didn't seem to mind her pointed questioning; indeed, he seemed amused.

When the subject of Halloween first came up Abdul seemed a bit baffled as I could tell that it was not a holiday he celebrated. But the girls quickly filled him in:

"Drinking"

"Costumes."

"Sexy Costumes!"

"Costume Parades and Costume Contests!"

"Candy Corn!"

"Candy Apples!"

"Scary stuff!"

"Scary pranks!"

"Trick-or-treat!"

"More Drinking!"

Of course in this country there wasn't much we could do to celebrate Halloween, other than get drunk, but still the girls speculated about what they might do for a Halloween party.

Julie's interest in Halloween was more psychological; she asked a lot of questions about the roles girls had assumed and wanted to know why a girl worth millions of dollars would dress up as a sexy pirate wench, Princess Leia slave girl, or a prostitute.

"So you, Jessica, Brittany, and Heather actually chained yourself together for Halloween?" Julie asked.

"Just at the ankles," Heather explained.

"Yeah, the guys thought it was really hot," Brittany said.

"It was really hot, until dumb-dumb Brittany lost the key and we had to sleep three in a row," Stephanie said. "You totally screwed my date with Steve."

"I don't remember you complaining when you were licking my nipples at 4AM," Brittany replied.

I could tell Julie was shocked as this wasn't how they celebrated Halloween in Denmark. However I could also tell that the roleplaying and power exchange aspects seemed to intrigue her and I wondered if there might be deeper waters behind her quiet façade. I also noticed that as Abdul was pretending to read his map he was eavesdropping intently.

Like Halloween, the topic of slave markets introduced itself gradually. Abdul mentioned it the day after Frank and Jim had left for the hospital. He brought it up again, mentioning that this area of the country was a major hub of the slave trade.

"Ew, filthy black people on filthy wooden boats!" Taylor said disdainfully.

"My family made our fortune running sugar plantations in New Orleans and the West Indies," Stephanie said proudly.

"A brutal business," Abdul said, shaking his head. "Much suffering. Much pain."

"Fuck that," Stephanie said, laughing. "My family made a lot of money." All the girls laughed, for if they didn't appreciate human suffering, they did appreciate money.

"Yeah, who cares about a bunch of filthy darkies, anyway? They got a free ride to America, and we gave them jobs, didn't we?" Taylor said.

I winced at their insensitivity but Abdul seemed unperturbed. "You reflect the opinions of your colonial ancestors well," he said, "however you should also know that not all of the slaves were black. Some of them were white. Some were even white women."

"Is that true, Professor? Did they really sell white women here?"

"Yeah, like the Arabian Knights?" Sophie said. "Or THOSE stories?"

I should explain at this point that I had developed something of a friendship with Sophie, based in part on our mutual love of racy romance novels. Sophie was Canadian and a truly sweet girl, kind and considerate, who liked swimming and shopping, and unlike the other girls had actually paid for the trip as she had no rich daddy to write the check.

Sophie was a bit shy, but she also had a deeply submissive side, as the abduction stories she shared with me were even more wonderful than the romance novels I enjoyed. She and her friend Patrice introduced me to an author named Joe Doe, and the adventures of a girl named Victoria in Africa, an absurd if entertaining tale that brought me numerous nights of reading pleasure.

Not wanting to spoil Abdul's tale I hedged. "The Barbary Pirates were quite active at the beginning of the 19th century," I explained, "although that was considerably North of where we are now."

"Your Professor speaks the truth," Abdul said, "and I humbly defer to her scholarship. However by your American Halloween I promise I will show you sights that will broaden your understanding of your 'peculiar institution.' I smiled at his typical "stay tuned" tease.

The next day Abdul again conflated the subject Halloween and the slave trade. "Speaking of scary things, I am sad to say that slavery is not entirely a thing of the past. There are places in this region where this barbaric custom is still practiced. However it is not a think to discuss with proper ladies such as yourself."

"Do they really sell women?" Sophie asked. "WHITE women?"

"Yeah, Brittany, you might actually be worth something," Taylor said.

"More than you, Brittany. Unless they pay by the pound."

Ouch.

"Halloween is coming soon," Stephanie said. "Maybe we should have an Arabian Nights costume contest."

It was a throwaway line but I could tell that Abdul liked the idea. "Yes, you ladies would look lovely indeed, in your traditional African slave garb," he offered. "To see you all together in your slave girl costumes would be a vision to behold."

"I'd wear red silk, to contrast my blonde hair," Taylor said.

"Yeah, fake red, since you're a bleached blonde," Brittany replied sarcastically.

The girls pressed him but Abdul refused to elaborate, promising only "further delights tomorrow."

When I saw him alone in the elevator that night I complimented him. "You're a wonderful storyteller, and particularly that bit about Halloween. I love the way you constantly bait the hook so they can hardly wait for tomorrow. I'm going to talk to the University about giving you a bonus."

"There is no need. I am actually worth quite a bit more money than most of your charges but a wise man does not flaunt his wealth, particularly in this country."

"Unlike my girls?"

"I would not presume," he said, demurring in that sly way of his.

Abdul's explanation of his common dress made sense but in truth it was hard to tell where the bullshit stopped with him. "If you're so wealthy why do you give tours?"

He smiled. "I saw at Breakfast you were reading one of your American romance novels. PLANTATION SLAVE GIRL, it is called?"

"Sorry, I didn't know anyone could see the cover," I said.

"You are blushing, which is most adorable. You are a beautiful woman, Suzanne, with beautiful red hair. Red is the color of passion."

"The girls in the tour are hotter than I am, Abdul. Try them."

"You have answered your own question, Professor. They are silly, foolish girls. You are a woman. Your accent... It is from the American South, is it not?"

"Mississippi," I said.

"Ah yes, a state famous for it's race relations. Your people used to buy and sell slaves, black slaves. Do you fantasize about those days? Do not be embarrassed; I know from your reading you are a woman with strong desires."

"I beg your pardon," I said, stepping back.

"Your novel is about slavery, is it not? A man makes a woman of a different color his pleasure slut? In this part of the world these are not Halloween stories to frighten children. Here, any woman may be bought and sold."

"Any woman?" I said, curious as to his meaning.

"Yes, any woman can be enslaved. However a truly great pleasure slave must be born, then carefully cultivated like an exquisite flower."

I laughed out loud. "I think you missed your boat, Captain."

"Or perhaps you have missed yours? Tell me, if I am wrong, why have you not pressed an elevator button yet?"

Abdul laughed as I felt myself blush again. I hastily pressed a button, the wrong button, actually. Trying to break the awkward silence I said. "You never answered my question. Why would a wealthy man give tours?"

"I answered your question, Professor" he replied, smiling, "but like most women you do not listen."

Puzzled I stared at him as the elevator doors closed. Feeling most uncomfortable I got off the elevator, walked down the stairs to the correct floor and returned to my room to enjoy PLANTATION SLAVE GIRL in the privacy of my bathtub, where I let my fingers do the walking.

The next morning started well. Abdul began. "Today we shall examine the local economy through something you Americans refer to as 'retail therapy.'" My group of fashionistas cheered.

Abdul continued "the tour" as we walked to the first open air market. "My country is poor, and we eat what we can hunt or grow. We extract petroleum products but that is pilfered by the government and not shared with the people. Then there are various underground markets, many of them quite unsavory."

"Slave markets?" Suki asked.

Abdul stopped, looked both ways, and with a great sense of drama pulled us into a deserted alley, with his machine gun toting guards all around us. After extracting a solemn promise from each of us he confided, "The slave markets of your Western romance novels are not a thing of the past."

I knew the "Western romance novels" crack was meant for me but as it sailed over the heads of my clueless charges I ignored it.

"There are many such slave markets in this area. But they are a place Westerners -- particularly Western women - cannot go," he said. "Not even the richest, or the smartest, or the most powerful. Of course, the great Abdul knows ways," he added cryptically. "It might make an exciting day trip, particularly on your American Halloween."

"You seem to know a lot about the subject," Julie observed. "Have you ever been to one of these slave markets?"

"A good tour guide must see everything," Abdul said.

"Have you ever owned a slave?" Julie said.

"Oh, don't be gross!" Taylor said. "Abdul's like, the help!"

"How many markets like this are there?" Julie asked. "Are they local, or international?"

"Maybe we can tag Brittany as an export," Stephanie sniped.

"More like a reject," Taylor added.

"Guys, Julie's asking good questions. Let's listen to Abdul," Sophie said. I was impressed as it was a rare moment of Sophie standing up to the "popular" girls.

Suki had Sophie's back. "Yes, tell us more, Abdul."

My spoiled students, used to getting everything they wanted instantly, DEMANDED that Abdul tell them more, but clearly enjoying the power his secret gave him he demurred.

Still, through the morning shopping his hints continued. "That scarf is like something from the harem of The Arabian nights. It could make an award winning Halloween costume. I could take you to such a place. Imagine the stories you could tell your friends! No, no. Abdul says too much. Let us get some pastries instead."

"Screw the cookies," Brittany said.

"Yeah, tell us about the slave market," Taylor insisted. "Are the girls hot?"

"They're way hotter than YOU, Taylor," Patrice sniped. "Otherwise no one would buy them."

"Indeed they are most beautiful," Abdul replied, suavely diffusing the catfight. "Some of the most beautiful women on the continent, or any continent, are sold there."

"Western women?" Sophie asked, clearly taken back by the idea.

"Indeed."

"Asian women?" Suki asked.

"Yes, of course," Abdul said. "They are beautiful and they are prized for their intelligence." Suki smiled at the compliment.

"Suki's our math geek."

"That means her tits are small."

"Yeah, like our little Danish over there," Brittany said, pointing to an embarrassed Julie. "Miss Bee-stings."

"She is a blonde," Abdul said, "and her skin is very fair. She would trade well on the markets." I smiled as Julie blushed.

"I'd get the most!" Taylor said. "I'm a blonde."

"But not a NATURAL blonde," Brittany corrected her. "I'd get more than you."

"Yeah, Taylor's an aviator blonde," Patrice teased. "Blonde on top, with a black box!"

There was some laughter at this but Abdul's attention soon focused on me. "Redheads also bring excellent prices," he said. "Especially girls with stunning, curly, auburn hair, and piercing green eyes."

"The Professor's blushing!" Patrice cackled, "He thinks she'd make a hot slave girl!"

I quickly turned the tables. "Abdul will sell anything, including stories, to any girl foolish enough to buy them."

"What do you think of the slave trade, Abdul?" Julie asked.

"It exists. It is like asking me what I think of Halloween."

Julie pressed on. "I mean, what do you think of it, morally? Would you bid on a naked girl?"

"A naked WHITE girl?" Sophie said, sharpening the question.

"I do not see the difference," Abdul said, "white or black, blonde or redhead, they are all slaves, are they not? You in America think too much of race."

"I'm from Denmark, and you're not standing on the moral high ground," Julie said. "You're a merchant. Do you buy and sell women?"

The directness of Julie's question surprised me. I knew Abdul was involved in the local markets but in truth until that moment it had never occurred to me that he might actually be a participant in the slave trade.

"If you go into a McDonalds, are you a butcher?" Abdul said. "Wednesday exists, and I exist in Wednesday, and that is the way of things. But your Professor is right, as always. Abdul tells too many stories. It is time for our jellab. I have no Halloween Candy Corn for you; the jellab will have to do."

The jellab was indeed delicious. Of course once again the subject of the slave markets came up, only to my surprise this time Abdul did not dissemble.

"I could get you into the slave market," he said, "a place no Western woman has seen, or at least, seen and returned to tell the tale. There is one way. But for another time."

"Tell us NOW," Patrice said.

"You said Westerners weren't allowed," Sophie said, confused. "How would we get in?"

Abdul nodded. "You are correct. You would not be going as Westerners. However on Halloween you are permitted to pretend to be something that you are not? To wear a costume?"

"Yes..." Patrice said tentatively, knowing where this was going.

"Excellent. On Halloween I could bring you in as slaves."

Peculiar as it may seem after the long buildup the suggestion seemed perfectly logical; indeed, most of the girls had thought of it themselves. Abdul's talk of white slave girls had triggered the girls to talk of each other as slaves and argue on who would fetch the better price. Once introduced, the outrageous became rational, its normality ingrained by daily repetition, like water wearing down a rock.

We wanted to get into the slave market. The only way Western women were allowed into the slave market was as slaves. Halloween was coming up: "the day of masquerades" as Abdul said. He had never explicitly connected the dots for us, but he didn't have to. Abdul had carefully led us inside a logical syllogism that could not be escaped.

Not everyone was equally impressed. "He's conditioning you guys," Julie said. "He's breaking down your resistance by gradually exposing you, a bit more each time."

"Yeah, his stories get hotter every time he tells them," Heather said.

"I'm serious. He's manipulating you, bit by bit. This is how they cure phobias."

"Thank you Dr. Julie," Brittany said. "Do mean phobias, like fear of your little tits?"

"All brains, no boobs," Taylor sniggered.

Julie, embarrassed by the alpha girls bullying, fell silent.
"You told us how we get INTO the slave market," Sophie said. "How will we get out?"

"If we get out," Suki said nervously.

"Don't be foolish. A slaver would make no money if he kept his inventory in the market forever. Come, let us continue our tour."

The girls insisted on going to the slave market immediately, but again Abdul demurred, taking us to watch a goat auction instead.

It might seem odd that he could enthrall a group of two-dozen spoiled, self-indulgent college girls by taking them to a goat auction, but somehow he pulled it off. It was the subtext of the auction, and his hushed tones, that held the group spellbound. Even Julie and Sophie were breathless.

"Halloween is a time of masquerades, when one person can pretend to be another, is it not? Let us pretend that the goods today have two hooves instead of four. It makes no difference; it is like any other chattel sale. Watch the men in the bleachers bidding as the goods are paraded before them. Notice how the animals are displayed on the raised auction block. The view is excellent from where we are seated. The men can see the animals better that way."

"See the pens they hold the animals in, and the way the men examine the merchandise before the sale? They check the eyes for clarity, the teeth for decay, the flanks and fitness, and yes, even the genitals. Every part of the animal must be examined, seen... and felt."

"I have a brain and I'm well educated," Julie objected. "I'm not an animal."

"Goats are bought for milk, or for breeding, or some specific purpose," Abdul replied, once again answering a question about female slavery with an analogy. "One does not buy a goat for witty conversation."

"Guys don't go out with Brittany for that, either," Stephanie sniped.

"They aren't going to buy you for your milk, Stephanie," she shot back.

Sophie considered the matter. "In this country would I be intelligent? I can't read or write their language. I don't know how to make bread or weave or do any of the things the local women can do."

Abdul smiled. "You have lovely blonde hair and a pretty mouth. There is a use for every goat, is there not?" Sophie blushed and looked away.

"As you see the sale of any particular animal does not take long. Notice the prods they use on the goods to move them back and forth across the stage, and the whips on their belts? They do not allow the animals to tarry for there are many animals to sell."

"Are slave girls sold this quickly?" Julie asked.

Abdul did not answer directly. "Remember in any market the auctioneer merely receives a commission, so there is more to be made by selling six goats than one, more to be made from twelve goats than six, and more to be made from twenty four than twelve."

As there were 24 girls in our group the significance of the number was not lost on anyone.

"Twenty four animals, of similar quality and stock, examined freely by the buyers beforehand, vended rapidly. Yes, the auctioneer would make good coin that day."

All of the girls listened closely. Suki was biting her lip and Sophie was breathing in short gasps. Clearly this discussion of "goats" was having its desired impact.

"The horses in those pens will be brought for work, and for pleasure, and sometimes for breeding. But the procedure is much the same, whether the animal being sold has two hooves or four. When the sale is over, the animal is owned body and soul, forever."

Everything Abdul said was outrageous, of course. But it was presented so gradually, and the information revealed so sparingly, that it never shocked. I saw Julie's point. Like a frog in a pan of cool water, he simply raised the temperature one degree at a time.

As luck would have it the next day "security concerns" that Abdul could never fully explained forced us to alter our plans so that we traveled by bus to Elmina, a charming if somewhat small costal city.

"We will visit it for Halloween," he explained.

"What does Elima have to do with Halloween?" I asked.

"Everything, Professor," he replied, throwing up his hands as if the answer was obvious. "Tell me, have you ever bungee jumped?"

"Yes," I replied. "Many times."

"And parachuted out of an airplane, I assume? And gone hot air ballooning?"

"Yes, but I don't see your point."

"Does Halloween thrill you? Does it frighten you?"

"Not since I was seven," I replied.

"You are bored. You want excitement, adventure. You crave the rush and thrill the women in those books you read feel, the excitement of being totally possessed. I will give you a Halloween that will thrill you, and scare you, and leave you breathless with excitement."

I was unimpressed. "I'm not buying a pot from you, Abdul."

"Of course not. In Elima it is not the pots that are for sale." It was a curious, elliptical sentence that seemed to mean nothing, but typical of the way he ended conversations designed to bait the girls.

"Perhaps we should make a wager," he suggested, "for Halloween."

"I'm listening," I replied.

"Your Mississippi ancestors traded Africans as slaves, and the wealth you enjoy now is due in part to their cruelty. But can Mississippi girls take what they dish out?"

"I can take anything you can dish out. You don't frighten me."

"Excellent. If you can take what I dish out without getting scared, you will win the wager. If I cannot frighten you, then you win."

I shook his hand to solemnize the bargain. A part of me longed for a genuine scare, and although I knew Abdul was more bark than bite I was anxious to see what tricks he might have up his sleeve.

Naturally the girls complained loudly that our accommodations in Elima were not The Four Seasons but as they whined about everything in Africa being "dirty" or "shoddy" or "cheap" or simply "negro" Abdul was not shocked.

What distressed the girls more than the subpar rooms was the lack of phones. All of our various phone models immediately bricked when we entered the city, and after using a rather sketchy landline to talk to our various carriers we discovered that unlocking the phones would be impossible as this area was a beehive of criminal activity and stolen merchandise and was not actively supported by Western carriers.

"Like, thanks for taking us to phone theft central, DUH!" Brittany whined.

"How am I going to update my Facebook page?" Taylor complained. "I mean, what's the point of going to some shithole filled with dirty black people if you can't brag about it?"

I noticed one of the new guards Abdul had hired actually move his finger onto the trigger of his semiautomatic when Taylor said her slur. He didn't speak English -- or so I thought. Perhaps it was just a hand tick.

"I've been texting a friend where I am," Julie said. "Where are we, anyway?"

"Somewhere safe," Abdul said. "If you wish, you can write your friend a letter, and I will add the coordinates of our location, and mail it for you." Julie said nothing.

Small as the city was it did have a special fascination for us as a section of it was walled off to Westerners. It was -- or so Abdul claimed -- "a beehive of slave traders." The town did seem a bit more outlaw and authentically native than the other towns we had visited and far less interested in catering to Western tourists. There were very few white people in the streets and I noticed that Abdul had increased our security detail to eight armed men with automatic weapons. Most of the guards did not speak English, or at least did not speak it to us, and spoke only to Abdul. I suspected some of them understood at least some of what we were saying from the way they glared at Brittany and Taylor whenever they referred to them as the "gorillas" or "machine-gun monkeys" or openly talked about which ones were the most buff.

Julie, Sophie, and Suki seemed pleased by the extra security, as the three of them didn't seem to travel inside the impregnable bubble of mental confidence that their more spoiled counterparts enjoyed. In the lobby one morning I was sunk deep into my chair reading the latest Joe Doe story Sophie had given me, an amusing tome about something called "Slave Yoga." The girls didn't know I was there, and listened in as Julie told Sophie that she had been texting a friend back in Denmark, telling her about Abdul's plan to take them to the slave market.

"I know," Sophie said. "I'm scared too. But it's also... kind of exciting, you know?"

"I know," Julie said. "I think it's the power dynamic, the idea of having everything taken away from you and being put on the auction block. In America you buy and sell everything, so it almost seems normal to you. In Europe, people are supposed to have human rights, but there is none of that here. In Denmark even dogs have more rights than a slave girl. I think that's why I find the psychology so exciting."

"Do you really think he'd do it? I mean... put us on the block... Naked?"

"I'm not sure. Ordinarily if a person knows you they feel empathy for you, but I don't get that sense from Abdul. I don't think he likes us much. As for the naked part, it's hard to even imagine how humiliating that would be. I mean to literally be standing naked in front of people bidding on your body. I think you'd have to experience it to understand it."

"So... you'd do it, then?" Sophie asked. "I mean, go to the slave market?"

"No. Yes. I don't know. Maybe, if I could go, you know for research. Yes, maybe I'd do it just to see it, for my paper."

There was a long pause as Julie thought things over.

"Do you think I'd fetch a good price?"

"I think you'd bring a fortune. Guys love Scandinavian women."

"My breasts are so small."

Sophie reassured her. "Just because you didn't buy your tits doesn't mean there not nice. Don't worry. If you get a rich master and he wants you to have big boobs, he'll give you big boobs."

"You mean they could... change me? I hadn't thought of that but you're right. They could do anything they wanted with us. It's so American, and SO creepy."

"Yeah, it's scary, but they OWN you. That's what makes it exciting, too. But we need to be careful."

Julie agreed. "He offered to mail my letter, like I'm an idiot. I gave a letter to the front desk clerk but I'm worried it went right back to Abdul. I don't trust any of these creeps; I think they all work for Abdul. I think the guys with the machine guns would mow us down if Abdul gave them the word. I don't trust Abdul, and the other girls are idiots."

"What about Suzanne?"

"Abdul has her twisted around his finger. She thinks she's in charge, but she's not. She totally believes his bullshit and he's running this show."

I bristled a bit when I heard this, as I considered myself very much in charge. Until this moment I had considered Suki, Sophie, Patrice, and Julie as allies, but now I knew that I'd have to keep my eye on all of them.

I liked Julie, but she was a graduate student and like all graduate students a bit of a smarty-pants. Suddenly the idea of seeing the little blonde Danish standing naked in the marketplace seemed quite amusing.

Our small, squat hotel made it impossible to see over the ancient stonewalls of the old city and into the "vast market" Abdul claimed was beyond. The girls and I remained skeptical, particularly when he told us that white slave girls were sold openly there, and that indeed there was 'a bustling market in them, with the right people being paid so everyone looks the other way.'

The thought of bribery and corruption in Africa was not shocking (the girls haughtily referred to the natives as "banana thieves" and "dirty, thieving maccacas") but the thought of white women being openly bartered for in an open market seemed to all of us -- Julie and Sophie included - to be quite fantastical, or as Abdul said, looking straight at me, "like something out of a lurid romance novel."

That night at the hotel bar the drunken girls passed the time with a pumpkin carving contest, amazing me with their skill. Some of the jack-o-lanterns were really quite wonderful, and for a moment I must confess that I truly felt the Halloween spirit.

I had thought that Abdul's Halloween stories about the slave market for white women were entertaining bullshit. However at the hotel bar we did receive a confirmation of sorts in the corpulent drunken form of Colonel James Augustus Whither.

Colonel Whither was a boastful old Englishman with a braggadocios manner who I suspected was the Colonel of nothing and not nearly as accomplished as he claimed to be. It was Julie who was the first to note that he was "heroically wounded" in the Iraq war several years before the war began.

Because of his bald dome, obesity, and enormous white mustache and muttonchops the girls immediately nicknamed him "The Fat Walrus", a name he did not like at all but which he tolerated because he enjoyed being in the presence of two dozen attractive coeds.

The Fat Walrus confirmed Abdul's outlandish story that the walled "fortress within the old city" was indeed a place "where slave girls of all sorts are bid on, and examined, and bought and sold, in an open market, the same way one might buy a scarf, or a goat, or a necklace of beads."

"It is an active wholesale market," he explained, "although wealthier retail buyers also favor it, for its position on the coast allows it to sell girls of all nationalities and races, and export them easily."

As he spoke of all nationalities and races his eyes turned to Julie, our Danish princess, Suki, our very smart and rather shy Japanese entry, and Maria, who was of Hispanic descent. Suki, as was her tendency when addressed in such a way, blushed and looked away.

The girls told The Old Walrus about Abdul's plan to take them to the market on Halloween in the guise of slaves, so that they could see the slave trade first hand. Indeed several of the girls had been altering their lingerie, and making veils, in their ever competitive attempt to be the most alluring slave girl at the market, and win their internal contest for "best bid" and "best Halloween costume." Naturally my clotheshorse troop pressed The Fat Walrus for details about the latest in slave girl fashions.

Colonel Whither laughed so hard at their questions snuff blew out of his nose and stained his white mustache. "Oh, the slave girl Halloween costumes are quite wonderful, and I would very much enjoy seeing you girls dressed in them. Indeed, I would be happy to judge your costume contests, if the bidders do not."

"What are they like?" Jessica said.

"Yes, what colors do they use?" Sophie asked.

At this the fat man laughed uproariously, and slapped his knee, much to the girl's frustration, for they wanted the details and didn't like being made sport of.

"The colors I see here!" he said, laughing. "Yellow," he said, pointing at Suki's face, "gold", he said, pointing at Brittany's blonde hair, and, pointing at me, "red."

The Colonel reached out and touched my auburn hair, curling it between his fingers. I literally stopped breathing as he ran his fingers through my red locks as if he had every right to do so.

"I've always liked redheads," he said, clearly enjoying the touch of my hair. "You have lovely auburn hair, and cute freckles, and a beautiful, sensual mouth," he said, licking his lips in a way that was truly disgusting.

The girls were not impressed by his flirtations.

"Tell us, you Fat Old Walrus!" Taylor insisted. "Tell us now!"

"We're not hear to see you get drunk, stroke Suzanne's hair and stuff your piggy face," Jessica added.

"Yes, what are our costumes like?"

"No, tell us which costumes are the prettiest?"

At this he nearly keeled over in spasms of laughter. When he was at last capable of speaking he said simply, "The costumes are quite beautiful. Indeed, they are as beautiful as you are. For you see, ladies, as slave girls you would each be brought to market in the costumes that God gave you."

"You mean, like, butt NAKED?" Sophie said, blushing. I knew it couldn't have been entirely a surprise that she might be auctioned naked, for she had discussed as much with Julie. However the confirmation, and the fact that they would travel to market absolutely naked, was still a shock.

"Not entirely naked," the Colonel allowed, in a tone that suggested he was discussing last night's cricket scores. "You would probably wear chains or cuffs or such, and be fettered in some way. Otherwise you would be quite naked, as natured intended beautiful young women such as yourself to be," he added with a leer.

"You are such a disgusting fat pig, Walrus," Patrice said.

"Oink, Oink!" Stephanie added.

"Would I get to wear high heels, at least?"

At this the Colonel laughed again, and downed another shot.

"No, my dears, no shoes. Slave girls go to market absolutely naked, and must walk the dirty streets barefoot. A slave girl on her way to market must feel helpless, and vulnerable, for that increases her beauty."

"It's psychological conditioning," Julie said. "Being barefoot makes the girl feel powerless and defenseless."

"Exactly," the Walrus agreed. "It is the way of things. The institution of slavery is most ancient, and it is important that the slave girl experience that sense of tradition. She must feel the dirt between her toes, and the little pebbles dig into her feet, and know that as unique as her shame and humiliation might seem to her she is treading the same weary path that countless slave girls have trod before her."

"I'm special!" Taylor huffed.

"You are indeed," the Walrus agreed. "Here, in this hotel, you are a sophisticated and wealthy young lady wearing the latest in Western in fashions. But chained in a slave coffle you'd simply be naked pussy on your way to market."

"Taylor's twat for sale! Taylor's twat for sale!" Stephanie said in a singsong voice.

Although Suki was clearly shocked at the idea of being exhibited naked in the slave market I must confess that I was not. Abdul had hinted for several days "the goods must be seen to be sold."

During our visit to the animal auction he dryly noted that, "Goats and sheep own nothing, and wear nothing." His meaning was both obscure and clear.

It wasn't shocking when he was talking about goats and after several days of such conversation it somehow didn't seem shocking when he talked about girls. As with everything Abdul said the idea was slowly introduced until it seemed quite natural.

Still, there was a difference here, a difference Julie was quick to note. "You said brought to market. That means we'd be naked not just on the auction block, but the whole time, when we were being led through the streets?"

"With all those filthy black beggars in the street WATCHING us?" Taylor said.

"Yes, everyone would enjoy your Halloween costumes, from the richest sheiks to the lowliest beggars," the Colonel replied.

"So our Halloween costumes would be nothing, then?" Brittany asked.

"Yes," the Walrus said, pausing for moment to reward himself by sticking his fat finger into his nose for another disgusting snort of snuff, "nothing but your bare skin. It is the tradition, and in the slave market, tradition is everything. Slave girls are paraded to market quite naked."

He paused for another hit of snuff. "Except, perhaps, for their master's mark."

"A mark? Taylor asked? You mean, like a tag?"

At this the Colonel laughed again, and I was once again treated to the disgusting site of the snuff spraying out toward me.

"Or a tattoo?" Stephanie asked.

The Colonel laughed harder at this, slapping his thigh in approval at the girl's amusing mistakes. "Sometimes, a tattoo" the Colonel allowed, "but it is believed that the legal, aesthetic, and psychological benefits of branding female slaves far outweigh the artistic advantages of tattoos. My, this is excellent brandy, particularly for this part of the world. Could you be a dear and pour me some more?"
Taylor did not like serving as a barmaid but the girls were so engrossed in the conversation that she immediately rendered the service requested.

"Did you actually say BRANDING?" Julie said, steering the conversation back on topic. "With a hot iron?"

"Is that even possible?" Stephanie said, clearly struggling with the idea. "I mean, a brand? On a girl?"

"It is quite possible," the Colonel replied. "Indeed, I have seen it done countless time. It's quite fun to watch, actually, although less so for the object of the iron's affections."

"Brands?" Brittany said. "You mean like Calvin Klein, or Versace? But I thought we'd be naked."

At this the Colonel, obviously amused by Brittany's blonde stupidity, laughed so hard he showered me with his disgusting snuff. "No, my dear. The brands I speak of would be permanent marks of ownership, burned into your skin. Of course, the brands might be a tad bigger than what you might use on a goat of course, more like one what might use on a horse or a cow."

"Moo-Moo" Taylor said, poking Brittany.

"What sort of brand?" Stephanie asked. "What does it look like?"

The Colonel examined his brandy in the light as he spoke. "Typically when the girls are sold at wholesale, the entire lot of them will be placed in a large branding rack and branded together, for efficiencies sake. Each girl will wear the mark of the house that traded her, as a record of her ownership, and proof of title. When dealing with a large inventory one naked slave girl looks very much like the other, and the brand makes it easy to trace the girl back to the flesh monger that originally enslaved her."

"Couldn't they just take their fingerprints?" Suki asked.

"Sometimes they do," the Colonel allowed, taking a sip of his brandy. "But branding is a part of the tradition, and this is a land of tradition. A red hot branding iron is the simplest and fastest way for a slave to understand that she is no longer a person but merely an animal, no different than a pig or cow."

"Moo-moo!" Taylor chimed in, nudging Brittany again.

"I think you'd need a particularly big brand, for Taylor's fat ass," Brittany replied.

The girls wanted to know more, but the Walrus, drunk on his brandy, staggered off to relieve himself. I am not sure if he retired to his room or fell asleep on the toilet, but he disappeared for the night.

Later that night I was awoken by a knock on the door. Slipping on a short robe and seeing it was the Colonel I concluded there might be some emergency involving one of the girls so I opened my hotel room door.

Much to my surprise the rather drunken Colonel tried to force his way into my room, grabbing my breast under my robe explaining that I was his choice since he "wanted to fuck something with a brain." I retreated into my room and he advanced, but as it was dark he did not see the pepper spray coming.

"You read-headed BITCH!" he screamed. "You'll pay for that!"

Fortunately he was blinded, which made it easy to kick his drunken ass out the door as I alternated between striking him in the face and in the balls. That was the last I saw of the Walrus, goo-goo-ga-joob.

The next morning I rose before breakfast to meet with Abdul and tell him about our meeting with The Fat Walrus. To my surprise he confirmed the details of the Colonel's tall tales, and then asked a question that surprised me.

"Did you find his tales exciting, in a Halloween sort of way?"

I told him I did not understand.

"The girls in your group are difficult to manage, spoiled and obnoxious. They are also quite racist, and treat my men badly. Surely you have noticed this?"

He was right. The girls were not merely difficult they were impossible, spoiled and whiny. Still, not entirely willing to concede, I said, "Sophie and Julie are nice," I countered.

"Yes, they are nice enough, but the rest are rude and disrespectful. Yet they are not unattractive. Does the thought of them being led naked to the streets to the slave market excite you?"

"I don't know what you mean by excite."

"I think you do. When you asked me about the branding, you had the trace of a smile on your lips. Many people have such fantasies. Taylor and Brittany can be quite unreasonable. Surely you have felt the desire to see them punished. Julie thinks she is smarter than you, and that I am leading you astray. Does the thought of them being whipped or sold or even branded please you? It is like the slave girl romance novels you read, is it not?"

"Those are fiction."

"So is Halloween. But what if it were not? Imagine for a moment that Halloween was real; that there was a day-of-the-devil, when evil ruled, and your fantasies could come true. Does such a thing excite you? You jump out of airplanes and bungee jump and simulate danger, in an attempt to feel alive. Imagine I could give you a Halloween where you were genuinely frightened, and truly scared. Would you flee or would you enjoy the rush?"

"I think you might be overestimating your abilities," I replied. "I'm a little old for trick-or-treating."

"Indeed you are. I ask only that you keep an open mind. When I did this tour last year your tour company did not give me the final half of my payment. I am a small African vendor and they figured it would be convenient not to pay me. The commission on even one of your girls would more than make up for it."

"More bullshit. White women for sale in Aisle 3?"

Abdul laughed out loud. "You dismiss what frightens you. That is your choice, but I warn you: Halloween is coming."

"Boo," I said dismissively.

At breakfast Taylor was all over Abdul about the brandings.

"Is that even... you know... a THING?" she asked.

Abdul was as laconic as ever.

"Do you put tags on your luggage?" Abdul asked.

"Yes," Taylor replied.

"Why?"

"Because I own my bags."

"Exactly. In America, do you brand your cows and horses?"

"Yes," Taylor said. "The horses at my daddy's ranch have brands."

"Ah, a young lady with experience!" Abdul said brightly. "So you branded your horses to show your ownership, did you not?"

"Yes, I guess so."

"Are slave girls owned?" Abdul asked, closing the trap.

"Yes... I suppose so," Taylor admitted reluctantly. "At least in this country."

"Then you have answered your own question," Abdul said. "I love this coffee. It has a delightful hint of cinnamon, does it not?"

"Uh, yeah, great coffee," Brittany said.

"So do they use like, a hot iron?" Julie asked, obviously hoping for some type of tattoo gun.

"A cold iron would have little effect," he said, chuckling.

Ignoring the diversion Stephanie took over. "So slave girls are branded with a red hot iron?"

"Some things are best hot," Abdul replied taking another sip of his coffee. "The coffee is excellent, is it not?"

"Where are they branded?" Sophie asked

"Typically at the slave market, or sometimes in their master's slave pen."

"No, I mean... Where on their bodies?" Sophie said, looking more than a little nervous.

"It varies. Sometimes on the shoulder, the thigh, the breast, or the bottom. Sometimes they are branded on their shaved pubis. A slave girl is branded wherever it pleases their master to leave his mark."

"I think your ass would look cute with a brand, Taylor," Brittany teased.

"My ass would look fine with anything," Taylor bragged. She had bravado about her, but I noticed her tensing a bit as Abdul smiled at her in that disturbing way of his. Although there was never an explicit threat there was something about his manner that made it seem like branding her ass was not all together out of the question.

On October 30th we toured one of the old slave forts on the coast, an experience the girls found quite fascinating given that Halloween was tomorrow. They pressed Abdul for details, and asked him if they still whipped slaves, and chained them together, and loaded them onto ships for transport.

"What's past is prologue," he said, walking over to Taylor. Looking at Taylor pointedly he said, "Your ancestor ran such a business, did they not. The slaves would be packed in tightly, with little light and air. The wenches would be taken onto the decks and used by the crew."

"What do I care?" Taylor said indifferently. "You said yourself that slaves are merchandise." Abdul smiled.

Julie and Sophie and Suki were more studious than the other girls and actually took the official tour of the slave fort while the other girls treated it as yet another goof, teasing one another as they played with the shackles and posed on the auction block in way that was most disrespectful to the history of the location.

I think we were on the verge of being thrown out, at least until Abdul whispered something to one of the guards. The guard smiled and nodded, and the girls were allowed to continue their horseplay, although I did notice that as the word of what Abdul said to the first guide spread across the staff the girls were all subjected to a plethora of whispers, suggestive smiles and leers.

Julie, Sophie, and Suki's were deeply unnerved. "This country is TERRIBLE!" Sophie exclaimed. "They treated the girls like animals."

"No ethics whatsoever," Julie added.

Abdul regarded them pleasantly. "Slaves are animals, chattel to be bought and sold. As for ethics, they are a product of your time and place, are they not?"

"No," Julie said. "I understand the concept of situational ethics, thank you very much, but some things are just wrong."

"How delightfully provincial of you. Spoken like a true EU member! You and Sophie are good friends. Have you ever slept with her?"

"No, of course not," Julie replied, as a blushing Sophie looked away. "I'm not into girls."

"So you've never kissed a girl?" Abdul asked.

"At a party," Julie admitted reluctantly, "but I was drinking and..."

"Exactly my point. The group you were in determined your ethics. If you were a slave girl in a place like this you and Sophie might be required to do far more than kiss, and I might very much enjoy watching."

Sophie and Julie eyed each other nervously, then clearly embarrassed looked away. Abdul, pleased to have thrown my two best students seriously off their footing, smiled broadly as he walked away in triumph.

On the morning of the 31st Abdul piled our group into a large bus. The outrageous become expected, and there were titters of nervous anticipation when he told us he was taking us to "a special Halloween parade, and then a special Halloween party." The girls all expected something was coming and we made the short trip to the walls of the old city in a nervous, anticipatory silence.

The bus stopped at an ancient and dusty courtyard outside the 50-foot high ancient walls of the old city. As the girls got off the bus Abdul handed them empty plastic bag Halloween bags decorated with pumpkins, grinning witches, ghosts, black cats, and jack-o-lanterns.

"Happy Halloween" he said as he handed out the bags, alternating it with a cheerful, "trick-or-treat".

"Why is my bag empty? Shouldn't we get candy and shit?" Jessica said.

"I hope you're not expecting us to garbage pick this dump," Taylor said, looking around disdainfully.

"No, ladies," Abdul explained. "I am keeping my promise to you, and I am taking you to the slave market. It is time for you to put on your costumes."

"You mean..." Suki's voice trailed off.

"Yes. The trick-or-treat bags are for your clothes."

The announcement was met with applause and cheers. "All right! Way to go Abdul!" Taylor said.

"See? I told you he could pull it off."

After the prolonged buildup the girls were eager to finally see the slave market firsthand. All of the girls began to undress, Sophie and Suki a bit more reluctantly than the rest.

Julie, arms folded, remained frozen in place. "Do you need help?" Abdul said. "What is the Danish word for naked?"

"Nøgen," she replied. "What's Arabic for fuck you?"

Abdul laughed. "There is no need to be shy, my little Danish. I have imagined you naked many, many times."

Julie squirmed a bit as Abdul, looking her up-and-down, laughed. "I'm not like these other bubble heads, Abdul. I'm a psychology major. I know what you're doing. I understand gradual conditioning and exposure therapy. Your tricks don't work on me."

"Really?" he said, still smiling. "Then why are you still here? And why is your little friend Sophie still stripping?

Sophie, who had taken off her shirt, immediately stopped as she awaited Julie's cue.

"We have been building to this point for several weeks, but still you did not leave, or attempt to escape. If the idea of being naked in a slave market does not intrigue you, why did you wait, until it came to this?"

"Take off your clothes, Julie," Brittany said.

"Yeah, quit acting like your Danish ass is so much smarter than everyone else's."

"Why isn't she stripping?" Julie said, pointing at me.

"She is the teacher. You are the student. You are here to learn."

I smiled at Julie triumphantly. She did not smile back. Power has its privileges.

"My men could simply undress you," Abdul said.

Julie said nothing. She simply stared him down, unfazed.

"However that will not be necessary. You are free to go."

The girls stopped stripping as everyone turned at this unexpected development.

"You mean... I can leave?"

"Me too?" Sophie said. Suki too stopped stripping.

"Yes, you are free to go. Of course my men will need to stay here, and guard the group, because this a very dangerous section of the city, controlled by warlords. A white woman walking alone would be an attractive target; two or three white women would be an even greater prize. If you are lucky you may beat us to the slave market, where you will be sold. I will be able to do nothing for you, for you will no longer be under my protection."

"Or perhaps you will simply be killed my brigands or killed by soldiers as you walk down the street. A waste of valuable merchandise, as I think you would fetch an excellent price. I will regret your death, but it will be unavoidable. I will tell you parents that you foolishly left the group."

Abdul turned and walked away, leaving Julie to her fate as if it were no great concern.

The other girls, Sophie included, continued stripping.

Julie looked at me, hoping for deliverance. "Don't you see?" she said. "This is what he wants. He's playing us off against one another."

I smiled and shrugged, relishing her predicament.

Eventually, Julie began unbuttoning her blouse. I grinned as she glared daggers at me.

"About time," Brittany sneered.

"Yeah, hurray for the Great Dane!" Taylor said, wiggling out of her cutoff shorts.

As the girls stripped Abdul walked the line, urging them on.

"That's it, my fine ladies. Everything off! You can bring nothing to the slave market. No purses. No smart phones. No watches, rings, or jewelry. No hairbands. That's it... panties too! Do not be shy. You must look the part. You must be as naked as a goat, or horse, or any other animal that can be bought and sold."

"Do the guards have to watch us?" Sophie asked, pointed to the masked, machine gun toting black men.

"Their presence is for your own safety. Do not fear. These men are my most trusted assistants."

"What's with the whips?" Brittany asked, pointing at one of the coiled leather whips on the security guard's belts.

"It's part of their costumes, STUPID," Taylor shot back.

"Yeah, duh, like... It's HALLOWEEN!" Brittany said.

Abdul smiled and nodded. "Yes, quite right. There costumes are quite authentic!"

I noted the gun toting men in the black robes did indeed have coiled whips on their belts, which certainly added to their sinister appearance.

Abdul, smiling, continued walking the line. "That is right... absolutely naked. Put everything in the Halloween bags! Trick-or-Treat! Yes, your sandals, too. Slave girls must go to market barefoot. Hurry. There is no need to be bashful."

I stood next to Abdul, arms crossed, smiling smugly as my girls stripped. I have to admit that I was a bit surprised at how much I was enjoying the pre-game show. The girls were a handful and it wasn't exactly unpleasant watching them being ordered about.

Brittany, Stephanie, and the other girls seemed quite cavalier about it (or at least they tried to act that way) but I could see that Taylor didn't like stripping in front of the black men, and Julie, Suki and Sophie were clearly embarrassed. They were the nicest of the bunch, and I suppose I might have felt sorry for them, but as they were still part of this group it was right they pay the penalty.

"Earrings too," Abdul commanded. "Anything that can be snagged during transport and which can be removed must go in your bag."

I felt a strange sense of power being the one fully clothed woman in front of a line of nearly naked young women. "Come on, girls, it's Halloween," I called out, joining in on the fun. "Let's get those costumes on," I said, laughing.

Abdul and his men laughed too. As the girls stripped, I allowed my eyes to leisurely run up-and-down the line, admiring breasts, legs, and pussies. Some of the girls were shaved and some were trimmed. Sophie and Suki had their natural bushes. All were young and attractive.

I felt a distinct sense of satisfaction as I watched the overpriced Abercrombie & Fitch shorts and stylish Gucci sandals and diamond pendants and bracelets and expensive silk lingerie disappear into the childish trick-or-treat bags.

"That's right, girls, put on your birthday suits!" I teased. "The men at the slave market will want to see you in the costumes God gave you. Time to dress up like Eve... or Lady Godiva!" I chortled.

There was a bit of a delay with Jessica, as she wanted to keep her earrings.

"DUH!" Brittany said, tweaking Jessica's earlobe with her finger. "Uh, like slave girls shop at Tiffany's!"

"More like she got them on E-bay!" Taylor said, laughing as she slid her lacy red panties down her long legs and used one foot to playfully dangle them over the pumpkin candy bag at her feet before dropping them in with the rest of her clothes.

"Way to spread your legs, Taylor," Brittany said sarcastically. "Like, you just gave black guy behind you a total beaver shot."

"Oooh, don't be gross," Taylor said. "He's not a GUY. He's like... the Halloween-bag-guy."

I had been a bit surprised that Taylor had actually stripped in front of the black men, but her dismissive attitude made her motivations clear. The robed, masked men around us were not, in her mind, men at all, but servants. It was no different than sunbathing in front of the pool boy.

I watched as Patrice wiggled her underpants over her shapely bottom, bending over to pull them off her feet one at a time. The man behind her tapped the whip in his palm impatiently, lovingly running his fingers over the whip as he eyed her curvaceous bare cheeks. The keffiyeh over his mouth covered most of the smile on his face, but the way his fingers teased the wicked black lash spoke volumes.

"Everything off, Ladies," Abdul said, in a voice both encouraging and insistent. "The day is only getting hotter, and we don't want to burn your alabaster white skin."

One of the men led a donkey pulling a rickety, empty cart into the courtyard. The cart looked positively stone aged and was far to small for twenty girls to ride in, let alone all the men.

"Oh, he's cute!" Amanda said, petting the donkey.

"I think he likes you Brittany," Taylor said.

After the initial delay Julie stripped quickly, obviously anxious to get it over with. She was the fairest of the group, quite pale, and indeed had small breasts. Embarrassed, she stood in the line with her hands folded over her chest, staring at her naked feet.

Perhaps to delay the proceedings Sophie went over to pet the donkey but as she was the slowest of the strippers one of the men blocked her way and pushed her back into line. This was not a petting zoo. The donkey watched impassively as the girls stripped off the rest of their clothes.
At this sage warning Stephanie and several of the other girls who still had their purses pulled out tubes of sunscreen which they slathered all over their naked bodies before handing the cream to the girls whose purses were already bagged. Julie used it liberally; as the fairest of the girls she would need it!

"Passports and cellphones too, ladies," Abdul said, eying Suki, who still clutching her useless brick cellphone and passport as she nervously bit her lip. "Into the candy bags!" he said cheerfully.

"Why can't we keep our passports?" Suki asked.

"Slave girls require no passports," Abdul replied. "If you did cross the border you would not travel as a person but rather as an export. Do not worry, my beautiful Japanese cherry blossom. I have already prepared your titles."

"Titles?" Sophie said, confused. "You mean, like royalty?"

"That's cool!" Brittany said, overhearing me. "I'll be a Princess!"

"Princess Pea-brain," Taylor shot back.

"What sort of titles?" I asked, confused.

Abdul stopped his walk up-and-down the line and walked over to answer my question in private. "The girls need to have some sort of legal identification before we bring them into the marketplace, as a prudent precaution in case there is an ownership dispute. After all, it's not like a naked slave girl can pull out her driver's license."

Like everything else Abdul said the fact, when presented by itself, made perfect sense. "So it's a document that keeps them safe?" I said, assuring myself with his explanation.

"Precisely. Their basic information has already been entered into the manifest and is on the bill of lading in my pocket. Of course the formal title will require fingerprints and photographs so the girl can be clearly identified."

"Photographs?" I said. "But they're naked!"

"Not to worry. These photographs will be printed on the legal forms we will use to bring them to market, not their Facebook pages. They would only be used in the event of a conveyance."

"A conveyance?"

"Yes, a transfer of title," he said, using the same casual tone of voice he used when bargaining for coffee in the marketplace.

My pulse quickened and I felt a strange tingle of excitement between my legs as I realized what the word "title" meant. Slowly I let my eyes run down the line of naked girls, their clothes, wallets, and passports stuffed into the cheap Halloween bags at their feet.

There was a brief dispute as Jennifer asked if she could keep the cheap plastic beads she had bought at the market that morning from one of Abdul's friends, arguing that they were local. To my surprise, Abdul agreed, saying they shiny multicolored bead string "was the sort of cheap trinket a foolish slave girl might prize."

"I paid $75 for these!" Jennifer protested. "They're authentic African slave beads," without a trace of irony.

"75 American dollars, or the wipe-my-ass-money the locals use?" Taylor sneered. Taylor's arms were folded and her head was cocked. I was amazed; even totally naked she looked disdainful.

"They're not worth 75 cents," Suki replied, looking quite nervous as one of the men walked down the line and dumped the bag containing their possessions onto the donkey cart. The donkey brayed as the bags landed.

"Be careful, idiot," Taylor said. "My phone is worth more than your village." The man seemed to understand the insult, but ignored it. I had the strange sense that under his covered face he was smiling.

Jennifer was smiling broadly, fingering her colorful beads. "They beads are worthless, Jennifer," Julie explained. "That's why he's letting you keep them. Worthless beads for a foolish little slave girl."

I watched as Alice, unabashed by her nakedness, casually explained the dry stonewall technique used to form the ancient barriers that formed the ancient courtyard. Seeing her standing stark naked against the old stonewall you'd never imagine she was a wealthy heiress worth millions of dollars. Somehow, her standing stark naked in the African courtyard seemed natural and correct.

When all the girls were naked Abdul turned to me. "I almost forgot," he said casually. "Here is your bag, Professor," Abdul said, casually handing me a plastic bag.

I looked at the bag. It was orange with a picture of a skeleton holding a pumpkin and the words HAPPY HALLOWEEN emblazoned across the front.

"Place all of your possessions in here," Abdul said simply. "Purse and passport too."

"Place MY possessions?" I said, not understanding as I looked into the orange pit of my empty Halloween bag.

Abdul smiled. "Of course. Surely you did not wish to abandon your students?" he asked, feigning confusion.

"Of course not," I said. "I'd never do that."

"Precisely. We agreed that those who wanted to visit our slave market would have to do so in the guise of slaves, did we not?"

"Yes," I replied. Abdul was smiling, toying with me like a fat cat toying with a cornered mouse. In retrospect I'm not sure why I was surprised; it made sense that I would need to go to market naked as well. However in our conversations we had always spoken of "the girls" and I had always excluded myself from their ranks. It was obvious now that Abdul saw no such distinction.

We both knew where this was going, but he took his time, savoring the growing tension as he ever so slowly tightened the noose around my neck. "As their chaperone you are duty bound to keep a close watch on them, are you not?" he said.

"Yes, of course," I agreed, not liking one bit where this logic was taking me, but helpless to deny the facts as he presented them.

"So to fulfill your duty you must assume -- temporarily, at least - the guise of a slave," he said. "If you wish to keep them safe."

"I don't want to abandon anyone, but..."

"You are not wearing a costume. It is Halloween, is it not?"

"Yes."

"And on Halloween you Westerners like to wear costumes, do you not?"

"Yes, but..."

"You are a clever fox!" Abdul said, reaching forward to playfully tweak my nose. "But sometimes even the cleverest fox can get caught in her own trap. It is time for you to put on your costume, like the other girls," he said, indicating the naked girls behind him.

"Of course if you're scared, and want to simply call it off, you are welcome to leave."

"With a guard?"

"Actually, all of them. I will have the girls dress, and we all go back to the hotel and have the girls exchange spooky stories at the bar all night. Halloween will be over and you will all be quite safe."

"Don't you dare!" Taylor said. "I didn't take off all my clothes for nothing!"

A few minutes ago I had been teasing them and watching smugly as they all stripped. Now I was the one who was blushing. Seeing the chance for payback, the other girls piled on.

"Come on, PROFESSOR!" Brittany said, "Time to put on your costume!"

"Yeah, we want to see you all dressed up!" Stephanie said, laughing.

"Time to put on your birthday suit!"

"We should all go back," Julie said. "This is our chance! Don't you see? He's playing us off against each other. Divide and conquer."

Now that I was on the receiving end I realized that Julie was right all along, as I recalled all of the subtle tricks that Abdul had used to undermine the trust between us. But it was too late now, and soon even Sophie and Suki joined in for the calls for me to strip.

I was quickly surrounded by twenty-four naked girls unzipping, unbuttoning, and undressing me. It was then that I realized Abdul's genius. If he had ordered me to strip with the other girls I might have called the entire thing off. By stripping the other girls first he had created a momentum that was truly irresistible.

"Let's get those panties off!" Brittany said.

"Yeah," Stephanie said. "Let's see the rest of her costume!"

I gasped in humiliation as my panties were unceremoniously yanked down to my knees by a half dozen pair of hands.

"Her rug's even redder," Taylor said.

"Yeah, a real fire crotch!" Brittany said, laughing. I blushed as the locker room nickname that had been used to torment me in High School found me once again.

I tried to cover myself with my hands the best I could as the girls stepped back so that Abdul could take a look at me.

"Can I at least have shoes?" I asked, hopping from foot-to-foot. "These stones are hot!"

"Yes, the pavement is heating," Abdul agreed, "which is why we must hurry, and get you to market."

"Yeah, let's get into the truck and get out of here," Stephanie said.

"Don't forget our clothes!" Sophie said pleadingly.

"One thing remains. Even naked, slave girls in the marketplace are never allowed to wander about freely. You must be restrained."

"Restrained?" Patrice asked suspiciously, "What do you mean by restrained?"

At that moment the question was answered as several of the guards began unloaded some very old and very worn looking black boards. They looked a little like cutting boards, but were larger, and had three holes in them. I didn't realize what the boards were until one of the guards opened it at the hinge, and fitted it around Brittany's neck. After pulling her long blonde hair free he quickly brought her wrists up and fitted them through the two wrist holes next to the hole for her neck.

After closing the stock down over her neck and wrists he slid a black iron barrel bolt to join the stock, locking the two pieces of wood together. As a final step he turned the knob on the barrel down, pushing it into a precut groove on the board, tucking the unlocking mechanism neatly inside the stock itself.

The yokes were thick but not long: "petite" or "midget stocks" as one of the girls called them, and they held Brittany's hands close enough to her head that she could scratch her ears. The ever-foolish Brittany didn't seem to realize she was locked into place until she tried to move her hands away from the side of her head. Her hands were almost touching her ears but they were quite immobile.

"How do I get this off?" she said stupidly.

"Do not worry. You are quite secure," Abdul explained. "The yoke will not come off after it is locked unless you have the exact tool," he said, holding up the wrench in his hand. It was black, and looked very old, like an Allen wrench designed by the Flintstones.

"Wow, this is totally steam-punk!" Brittany said, fingering the wooden collar around her neck. "It's like, a zillion years old."

"Yes, it has brought countless girls to market over the centuries," Abdul said, "and it is a genuine antique. I had one tested, and this one dates back to the time of Alexander the Great. Who knows? Alexander himself might have locked this around the neck of one of the daughters of King Darius, before he enslaved and fucked her."

"Wow!" Brittany said. "Do you hear that, Taylor?" Brittany said proudly. "I'm wearing the slave costume of King Dairy's daughter! This is the coolest costume ever."

"Indeed, Abdul said, looking the clueless blonde's body up and down from tip-to-toe as he made his appraisal. Your costume is exquisite."

"Geez, you really can't get this thing off," Taylor said, shaking her head and straining at the yoke. "It's wood, but it's like metal."

Abdul laughed. "Yes, despite it's age I think you will discover it is still quite functional and perfectly suited to its intended purpose."

"It's not very comfortable," Stephanie noted. "The hands are too close to my head."

"Alas it is designed for convenience, not for comfort. A larger yoke would allow you to maintain a more natural position, but this yoke is lighter and thus better suited to running, and traveling through crowded spaces."

"Uh, yeah, but I can't get it off. My fingers can't reach the little key hole thing-y."

"Indeed," Abdul said, smiling at Brittany's blondness, even as the men fitted the other girls into their yokes. "In that sense your costume is quite authentic."

I was so busy laughing at Brittany dancing around in a circle trying to get her yoke off that I didn't notice when the two men lifted my arms and the third fitted the wooden yoke around my neck.

The edges of my yoke were worn but the dark, black wood was thick and heavy and in an instant my wrists were soon bolted in place on either side of my face.

Most of what Abdul said was bullshit, and although I had no way of verifying the wood through carbon dating it did indeed seem to be quite old. I wondered how many other slave girls had worn this before me, before catching myself. After all, I wasn't a slave. This was simply a costume and nothing more.

With my hands out of the way it was impossible for me to cover myself as the smiling Abdul drank in the sight of my pink nipples and bright red bush.

"HEY!"

I turned in time to see Brittany stumble forward as the man attached a heavy orange chain to her collar and yanked her toward Stephanie. In a few seconds the chain was led through a bolt on Stephanie's yoke, and so on, until each of us were separated only by a dozen links of a heavy, orange chain that looked better suited to chaining an anchor to a ship than one naked girl to another naked girl.

"Black yokes and an orange chain," Abdul explained happily. The Halloween colors, are they not?"

Straining my pinky finger I searched for the recessed slide bolt that held my yoke together. I felt I could almost reach it, and turned, but soon I found myself turning in a circle like a dog chasing it's tail, or worse, idiot Brittany.

Sophie put her foot on the orange chain, and was trying to pull it apart or perhaps break it from her yoke by yanking her head away, but as the chain and yoke were both quite thick I knew her slender neck would snap long before her bonds would.

Seeing our struggles Abdul called out to the group. "Ladies, please do not tire yourself with foolish attempts at escape. The yokes have been holding slave girls for thousands of years, and I've used that orange chain to pull semis out of the mud. Save your energy for your trip to the marketplace. I assure you that you will need it."

As the man threaded the chain through Suki's yoke she cried out: "Please, don't chain me. I don't want to be in the coffle."

"What's a coffle?" Brittany asked.

"I think it's one of the drinks around here," Taylor replied.

"Is there a Starbucks nearby?" Stephanie asked hopefully.

"It's very uncomfortable," I said, trying to divert Abdul's attention from my bare breasts and crotch. "Why not just collar us?"

Abdul smiled. "The yokes leave the merchandise completely exposed, and enforces your sense of helplessness. Some vendors leave the girls in the yoke and chained to the coffle when they put them up on the auction block, so the buyers can see who is next. Keeping the livestock yoked and chained together can lead to highly efficient sales, particularly when there is a large quantity of inventory to be disposed of. There is enough slack so the girl being sold can still jump-up-and-down and jiggle, and squat and spread her legs, and bend over and spread her butt cheeks wide. A skilled auctioneer can sell an item in less than 30 seconds."

Abdul's choice of nouns chilled me to the bone: "merchandise", "stock", "inventory", and "items". His refusal to acknowledge us as anything other than goods to be sold was particularly unnerving since I was chained naked to a slave coffle.

I remembered the goat auction a few days before. The rapid pace of the bidding had excited us all. I tried to imagine the bashful Suki and the proud Patrice standing naked on the block as the bids poured in and they were sold in 30 second flat. Would the auctioneer take longer with me, to extoll the beauty of my lovely red hair? Or would it simply make me sell all the faster?

Reading my worried expression Abdul allowed his eyes to roam freely over my naked body. "You are prime stock, Professor, Grade A, and the buyers will be anxious to get their fingers into you. Your lot will be sold on Block 37 at 1PM, but we will get to market early, to give the buyers a chance to feel the merchandise before the sale."

I leaned forward and whispered into his ear. "We can call this off whenever I wish?"

"Of course," he replied, "If you don't mind losing our wager."

Our wager! No, no, no. I was not going to lose our Halloween wager! My smile of defiance ended as I was jerked back by the slave monger fitting my orange chain to the long, long coffle.

The smiling Abdul ogled my naked body as I was chained to the coffle. "It is said that a girl doesn't really understand what it's means to be a slave until she's feels the sand of the auction block under her bare feet, and hears the auctioneer's whip crack, and listens to the men bid on her naked body."

"Wait," Julie said. "We're going to see the market, right? You're not going to SELL us?"

"Of course not, my little Danish," Abdul said, stroking Julie's cheek gently as he talked to her in the most patronizing and sexist tone imaginable. "Unless, of course, that is what you wish."

Abdul looked her up and down as Julie futility jerked her hands against her yoke to try and hide her nakedness. "Your chest is like a boy's," he said, brushing the nipples on her small breasts, "But you are beautiful and there are men who like that. Perhaps they will dress you in a school uniform and turn you over their knee, or dress you as a cabin boy, and enjoy the tightness of your bottom hole."

Julie tensed as Abdul ran his hand over her stomach and slowly let it drift down to her crotch. She tried to pull away as Abdul wormed a finger between her legs and gave her a good rub. "Ah, your golden honeypot is wet with your nectar," he laughed, fingering her as she squirmed helplessly in his grasp. "Your intelligence and protests of modesty will make owning you all the more delicious. You will doubtlessly attract a master who will enjoy breaking in a smart, strong willed girl."

"Leave her alone," Sophie said.

Abdul stopped, smiled, and walked toward Sophie. "I am simply examining the merchandise," he said innocently. "This is what the men will do at the market. Tell me, my little Canadian beauty, if I examined your freshly shaved twat, would I find your Canadian maple syrup dripping from your hot pussy?"

Sophie, shamed and frightened, stared at her naked feet. For a moment I thought he was going to finger of her, but satisfied at shaming Julie he turned his attention back to the business at hand.

Abdul picked up the Halloween bag with my clothes and carelessly tossed it onto the back of the old wooden cart. The little donkey brayed an appreciative response.

Abdul's men led some camels into the courtyard and Abdul and some of the guards mounted up. I, and the other girls jumped at something that sounded like a pistol.

It was the whip cracking in the air.

"Let's us begin, ladies," Abdul said. "Your lovely Professor has put us behind schedule. The buyers are waiting. You will make up the time, or your naked bottoms will pay the price."

"We're walking?" Taylor said, echoing everyone's surprise that we would not be taking the bus.

"Is the slave market close?" Stephanie asked.

Abdul smiled. "Do not be concerned for me. I will not tire since I will be riding a camel. As for you, closeness does not matter; you are slave girls and you will be driven to market in the traditional way, naked and barefoot through the streets, so the merchandise can be seen. You will walk as long as you need to walk."

Taylor was not pleased. "I am not parading through the streets naked in front of a bunch of dirty, grubby Africans!"

Taylor's rebellion was cut short as from behind her one of the guards approached her with one of the jack-o-lanterns that had been carved at the hotel bar. The bottom of the pumpkin had been cut out, and two bolts attached to the side, making it easy to slide over her head and fasten to her yoke. By luck, perhaps, or perhaps because they were ready for this moment, Taylor was wearing the pumpkin she had carved: triangle eyes and a wicked, scary, saw tooth smile.
"Take it off!" she yelled, turning in a circle like a dog wearing the cone of shame. The men laughed, and added to her indignity by slapping her naked bottom as she did her pumpkin head dance.

"Taylor's right, Brittany said, uttering a phrase I never thought I would hear her utter. "These stones are hot. If we are going to run give us our sneakers and—"

The men responded by fitting a second pumpkin head onto Brittany and bolted it to her yoke. Brittany's pumpkin head was even more ridiculous, with round eyes and a round nose her own little nose poked through. The mouth was composed of a wide, idiotic grin with monstrous buckteeth.

Like Taylor, Brittany turned in a circle trying to shake her clownish pumpkin head off, shouting about how hot it was and the stink as the laughing men took turns slapping her bottom

The last girl to be fitted with her pumpkin was Julie. The pumpkin she had carved was a simple one, with a broad smile that conveyed happiness rather than fear. It had enormous round eyes, which made it easier for her to see, a convenience that I doubted she was thinking of when she carved it.

Abdul and the men laughed out loud at the sight of the three pumpkin headed, naked girls dancing in circles as their bottoms were slapped. The girls were SO ridiculous that I joined the girls in hooting and jeering at them.

"Pumpkin heads! Pumpkin heads!"

"Love your pumpkin head, Taylor. It's so chic!"

"I think Brittany looks less stupid with the pumpkin head ON!"

Abdul used a red magic marker to write "Halloween" above Brittany's breasts, and "Parade" across her belly. Turning her around he wrote "Défilé d'Halloween" in blue pen across her back.

Brittany strained to see what he was writing on her body, but it did not matter. She was not the audience for the writing; she was only a slave girl.

"Our lead parade float is labeled," he said, patting Brittany on the belly. An orange chain, black yokes, and three pumpkin heads for our Halloween street parade," Abdul called out grandly. "Since all of the ladies have their costumes on, we shall proceed!"

Abdul had often addressed the girls as "ladies" when they were being particularly disagreeable, but now, naked, yoked, and chained to a slave coffle, he troweled the title on with an extra dose of irony. As if "ladies" would be paraded naked and chained through the streets. With a pumpkin headed Brittany as our Grand Marshall, our "Halloween Parade" began.

Leaving the courtyard we rounded a corner and found ourselves at the gates of the city.

"Maybe the police will help us," Sophie said hopefully, noticing the numerous uniformed patrolmen at the gates.

The police at the gate to this section did not attempt to help us; indeed, they smiled and touched their caps and laughed with Abdul as he stopped to give them the "gratuity" common for minor services in this part of the world. I wondered if the cash he handed them contained the same bills I had given him that morning when I had ordered him out to fetch coffees. It did not matter, of course. It was not my money any longer. Slave girls did not have money.

Although the old city was sealed to Westerners we had no problem passing through the gates in our "Halloween costumes". Indeed, the laughing policemen acted like they were expecting us. I didn't understand what they were saying, but they seemed to be in good spirits, and one grabbed my ass and gave it a good squeeze as I trotted past.

I would have punched him, if it hadn't been for my lovely, antique, black, faux "Alexander-the-Great" yoke. Truly the "yoke" was on me.

It took some practice to get the rhythm but soon the lot of us were jogging naked down the street, with the man on the camel in front of us using his camel stick to clear the people out of our way. The girls had laughed at the women in their burqas, but now it was their turn for the modestly clad women to point and laugh at the naked white slave girls running barefoot to market.

Much to my surprise most of the girls adapted to the situation quickly, as if running down the street naked, yoked, barefoot, and chained was no big deal.

"Hey Professor, do we, like, get extra credit for this?" Brittany asked, her voice echoing inside her goofy pumpkin head.

"Yes, we're doing extra, we should get extra credit, right?" Alice added hopefully. "Like a lab credit, or something."

"Can I get my cellphone back when I get there?" Stephanie said. "I want to try to update my Facebook status as a slave girl!"

Even as we ran the girls continued chattering about their "cool adventure" and the bragging rights it would give them.

The men in the streets hooted at us and appraised our naked bodies freely. I was mortified, but took some comfort in the fact that at least no one knew me. I suddenly felt light headed as I imagined what my church group might think of seeing me jogging naked down the street! Many would be horrified, no doubt, but how many of my male friends would enjoy the site? How many of the old biddies would think that I got what I deserved?

Despite my horror at being catcalled as I trotted naked down the street I felt quite proud of the attention my red hair and "fire crotch" drew from my male admirers. When I had first stripped I had been worried that I wouldn't fit in with my students, since they were so much younger. But my fear was unfounded. Running down the street stark naked, collared and chained to my coffle, I was simply another piece of ass on her way to market -- and a choice and tasty piece of ass at that.

As we rounded the corner and ran into the center of the busy marketplace my humiliation -- and excitement - crashed over me in waves. I had never felt so exposed in my life. In the courtyard other naked girls surrounded me, but now, I was in a sea of fully clothed African villagers, shouting and pointing at my naked breasts and red bush.

I felt the blood rush to my face. Although in truth I was only one of two dozen girls I felt like every set of black eyes I saw was on ME, laughing, scowling, appraising, and reveling in my nudity and embarrassment. My hands formed tiny fists of frustration as I instinctively jerked against my yoke in a vain attempt to reach down to cover my breasts or crotch or bottom as we jogged past the jeering locals.

"This is a Halloween Parade, Ladies!" Abdul said merrily, putting an extra ironic emphasis on the term ladies. "Show them your treats! Let the marketplace judge which costume is the best!"

Terrible as it was, my nipples were hard and my pussy felt like it was on fire. It wasn't easy or pleasant to run naked and barefoot down the street; in fact, it was awful. However the worse it got the more excited I became.

Trotting down the street in our slave coffle, chained together by the heavy orange chain, we formed a single line of blushing humiliation. I only caught an occasionally glimpse of Brittany and Taylor's and Julie's foolish pumpkin heads and the other girlish bare bottoms bouncing in front of me, and I saw nothing of the girls behind me.

The people on the street certainly saw us and called out all manner of obscenity at us as we bounded by. Thankfully some of it was in Arabic or French or other local gibberish I did not understand, but the phrases I understood only increased my shame.

"Block girls, block girls!" one woman in a hijab called out, clapping her hands merrily with her similarly clad friends in time with the rhythm of our forced run. "Run along to the auction block!"

"Slave whores, market meat!" another old woman joined in.

"Halloween Parade! Ha! Ha! Parade them on the block. Let everyone see them naked."

"Slave pussy!"

"White pooo-sy!" one man jeered.

"Flaming bush!" one man called out to his friend, pointing at my red pubes. I squeezed my thighs together as best as I could as I ran, reveling in my pleasure even as I blushed beet red from the humiliation.

The section of the city we were running through looked truly ancient and reminded me of the back lot from an old Hollywood movie set. The streets were wide the buildings were mud brick. The wooden stalls were filled with wicker baskets filled with fresh fruits and colorful rugs and glazed pots. We had visited markets like it for the last month, and as I ran past I imagined myself laughing and giggling as I haggled with the cart peddlers over the price of the merchandise. Now I was the merchandise.

It was still early but the dirty, ancient stone felt unpleasantly hot on my bare feet, as if I were running over a rapidly heating pizza stone. With every step my bare soles discovered a sharp pebble, discarded pop-top, or a fresh animal dropping. Running over dirt and stone and the occasional deep mud puddle soon transformed our dainty white feet and carefully manicured and colorfully painted toenails into mud-encrusted boots.

As the pebbles dug into my feet I longingly eyed the cheap sandals for sale in the stalls on either side of the street. But slave girls did not wear sandals. As Abdul had slave girls must be put to market barefoot. The psychology made sense: if my bare feet made me feel more naked then so much the better.

My breast and bottom bouncing in time with my sisters I squeezed my thighs together, reveling in my helplessness, humiliation, shame, and lust.

Sometimes observers would point at Julie's, Taylor and Brittany's pumpkin heads and laugh. "Halloween! Halloween!" Abdul's men would call out by way of explanation, lifting our orange chain for emphasis. "Do you like their costumes?"

The spectators would laugh, complimenting us on our white skin and pumpkin heads. Everyone, it seemed was enjoying our parade, except for us of course.

I wondered what time it was. We had left the hotel at 7AM, and had spent perhaps an hour in the courtyard. My "block time" was 1PM. Times in this part of the world were seldom accurate, but at the sale of two to three girls per minute I imagined that I might be standing on the auction block very soon. I tried to move my head in the yoke to glance at my Apple watch, and laughed. My watch was in my "candy" bag, along with my passport and all my other possessions.

We were in good shape but the long run over the jagged stone caused our pace to flag. Seizing the moment the man with the whip moved along the coffle on his camel until he located Patrice's ripe round bottom, the same bottom he had been eyeing earlier when she had undressed. Patrice didn't see him raise the whip high over his head...

CRACK!

The whip cut through the air at supersonic speed, creating a terrifying sound that reminded me of a pistol shot mixed with a thunderclap. In an amazing act of marksmanship the man cut Patrice directly across her nicely rounded bottom without touching the girl behind her.

Patrice screamed like a banshee: a long, loud shriek that pierced the air as loudly as the whip crack that caused it. Patrice reached back to rub her bottom, her hands jerking against the stocks. As the man with the whip fell behind us we all instinctively tightened our bottoms and strained to look over our shoulders to discover who was next.

"Eyes front!" Abdul barked sharply. "If you wish to avoid the whip, run faster, you lazy sluts!"

One of the older women we were running past picked up on the taunts. "Yes, run little white slave girls, run!"

"Knees up! Make those titties bounce!"

"You can't always earn your gruel wrapping your legs around your master," another woman called out. "Today you sweat. Ha-ha!"

Conscious of the whip I worked hard, lifting my knees higher as I picked up the pace.

CRACK! I heard muffled pumpkin head Taylor scream, followed by Brittany's muffled pumpkin head voice.

"Taylor's pissing herself!" Brittany cried out merrily through her own pumpkin head.

"Shut up and keep running, idiot, or your ass is next," Jessica warned her.

The sight of the proud and disdainful Taylor pissing like a racehorse as she ran naked down the street was simply too priceless to miss and I strained to look ahead of me. Sure enough, I caught a quick glimpse of Taylor's pumpkin head, the enormous red whip welt across her bottom, and waterfall of urine scattering out of her like a broken garden sprinkler as she ran.

Our pace quickened and there were no more whip cracks behind me. The example made of Patrice and Taylor had been more than enough.

"Slave girls are stupid," one of the men riding next to me remarked. "But they learn the whip soon enough." It was true.

Trying to take my mind off the jeers and the rude squeezes and hand spanks from the crowd I focused on the red stripe on Patrice's bottom thickened and grew into a very painful looking red wheal. The whip master had caught her squarely and dead center, across both cheeks of her ripe round bottom. It was strangely beautiful, and I couldn't help but admire the craftsmanship of his work, even as my own naked bottom cheeks clenched and unclenched in nervous anticipation at the knowledge that the whip master was somewhere behind me, ogling my naked bottom as he selected his next target.

The pizza stones beneath my feet grew hotter as I wondered how Julie's alabaster skin was faring in the sun. Would the auction block be stone or wood? Would it be too hot to stand on? No doubt it would be strewn with sand, as all such blocks were, even at the goat market. "For easy cleanup," Abdul explained, if Taylor or one of us released our bladder during our sale.

The girls had giggled when he said it, but they had been clothed then, enjoying their sweetened coffee in the air-conditioned café. Soon they would be on the auction block, displaying their naked bodies for the crowd as the auctioneer cracked his whip in the air. I wondered how many of them might piss themselves at the sound of the whip. I worried that I might.

I envisioned myself naked on the block, looking down at a sea of lustful men, squatting and spreading my legs wide, bending over and spreading my butt cheeks to show my most intimate parts to the buyers. I was older but would my red pussy bring a premium price? I had no doubt Abdul would be watching from a front row seat.

As we ran down the street we passed a livestock market that was selling goats and chickens. Several goats, apparently freshly vended, were being branded. They bleated lustily as their owners mark was burned into their hides.

I noticed my sisters wincing in sympathy as our four legged brethren were subject to the iron. "Brethren" might seem a strong word, as they were only goats, but we were only slaves. We were naked and being taken to market, and titles for each of us had been prepared. In a slave market an animal is an animal.

"Look at the perky titties on that one," one of the men said, referring to Abigail.

"I like the red-headed snatch running behind her. Her pokies are sharp as sticks."

I glanced down and saw my nipples were indeed erect, a side effect of running naked and my overall excitement. Worse, the buzz between my legs was growing worse.

"Whore!" an old woman wearing a chador spat at us as we ran past. "Shameless slave whores! You all should be whipped!"

Her friend, also wearing a chador, agreed. "Peel the skin off their naked asses! Give me a whip and I will do it myself!"

I noticed it was the women in traditional garb that seemed to despise us the most. It made sense. As Western women we reveled in our freedoms and regarded them as little better than slaves. In return many of them regarded us as sluts and whores. Popular culture held us up as the standard of perfection and beauty, a standard they would never obtain. Seeing us brought low and being reduced to merchandise to be sold in an open-air market was particularly delicious revenge for them and pleased them enormously. Their reaction of the women did not surprise me; I knew that if some of the jealous old biddies in my church group would have gladly joined in if they had seen me running naked down the street.

The sun came out from behind the clouds and I began sweating profusely. The rivulets pouring down my face and back provided some relief, but embarrassment too, as I could smell my own stink overwhelming both my perfume and my deodorant. My hair began stringing together in clumps and matting to my head and I could feel the sweat pouring out from beneath my arms and into my eyes.

Worse, I became conscious of another smell, the smell of my own arousal. Running naked past jeering locals, my sweat, and the constant presence of goats and cows and camels many of whom, like us, were collared or tethered, constantly reminded me that I was now a naked animal being stampeded to market. It was a thought as humiliating as it was exciting.

The wonderful wet tingle between my legs had provided me with relief at first, but as my excitement grew I felt frustrated, as I desperately longed to reach my hand between my legs and finish the job. I wondered if the people I passed could smell my arousal.

The flies certainly could. Big black, disgusting African flies descended on us to lick up the salty stink pouring off our bodies. Abigail tried to shake her ass to rid herself some particularly noxious insects that had crawled between her bouncing butt cheeks. I jumped and nearly fell as the whip flashed between us, leaving a wicked stripe across her ass.

"Keep running, bitch!" the slave monger shouted. "Lift your knees high. Make your ass and titties bounce!" Even as she screamed Abigail did just that.

We soldiered on. The flies had their way with us, crawling over our faces and into our bottom cracks and between our legs, feasting on our musty juices. The tears coming out of my eyes only added to their feast.

The tirade of humiliating comments about my "pink nipples" and "hot red pussy" mixed in with the other catcalls about pumpkin headed Taylor's piss and the "Halloween Parade" banner written on Brittany's naked body and the stripes across Stephanie's ass and how Julie's stupid pumpkin smiled meant "she enjoyed it".

The barrage of humiliation made it impossible to judge which "costume" was best, as if that were even the point. The girls were millennials: everyone would run naked and everyone would get a trophy. We were being run through the streets because stripping us of our clothing was not enough. Abdul wanted to strip us of our dignity.

I was relieved when we stopped for water, although even that respite was not without its humiliation. The men drank from water bottles and soda cans, while we were directed to a rusty old cast iron pig trough about 15 feet long, which was, alas, currently in use by pigs being brought to market.

The yokes made it impossible for us to use our hands, which were still bolted to the sides of our heads in their wooden prison.

"On your knees, my little piggies," Abdul directed. "Don't dirty the delicious water we have prepared for you with your filthy hooves. Stick your snouts in, and start lapping!"

And so it was that the entire coffle, necks changed together, jostled with the pigs for the chance to stick our faces directly into the brackish water. The stench of the pigs and the putrid water and the other girls was nearly unbearable, but it did not matter. I was desperate for water and drank eagerly.

The trough was low, so the lot of us had to raise our naked asses high in the air as we jostled with the squealing and grunting pigs to stick our snouts in the trough.

My legs were tired, and it was a relief not to be running, but sticking my ass in the air brought a fresh wave of humiliation as a crowd began to gather around us to comment on our charms. A lot of the comments were French or African gibberish, thankfully, for the comments I did understand were dreadful.

"Look at the nice long legs on that blonde."

"Yes, she's quite the colt, isn't she?"

"Love to take her for a ride. All night long!"
"Like the fortune nookie in the middle."

"Sweet ass on her friend."

"I'd fuck her up the ass."

"You'd fuck her anywhere."

I was not exempt from their assessment and my face burned with humiliation as they admired my long red hair and "cherry crotch."

"Red heads are hot. They're all sluts."

"All American girls are whores."

"Yes, but red heads are the biggest whores of all. They have snappy hot ovens between their legs, and their pussies sizzle when you fuck them."

I had thought I could not be more mortified, but I was wrong. My pulse quickened as I heard a familiar and most unwelcome British accent behind me.

"Well done, Abdul; 25 hot pussies, ripe and ready for sale!"

I picked my face out of the water and looked up. The Colonel, aka "The Fat Walrus" spotted me instantly. Instinctively my hands jerked down to cover my breasts, only to instantly scrape against the wooden yoke holding my hands next to my face.

"Ah, Professor!" he chuckled. "You are looking well today. I love your Halloween costume!" he sniggered, clearly relishing my embarrassment as he ogled my naked body.

The Walrus grabbed me by the hair, lifting me up to my feet. The chain separating me from the other girls was short enough that it forced them to stand to, and the girls next to them to crouch. Such is life in the coffle, where we all moved as one.

"Yes, a most excellent costume," he purred, ogling my naked body up-and-down and running his fingers through my long red hair as my hands balled into tiny fists of helpless frustration by my head.

"You're dressed precisely like a helpless little slave girl on her way to market. You wear your costume well."

Reveling in my humiliation he used the cane to jab the side of my breast. "Excellent. Nice hooters, not particularly large, but more than a handful is a waste."

He grabbed my breasts with both hands and massaged them as if he had every right to do so. "Your pink nipples are warm and sensitive, soft and sweet." I felt sick and he lowered his head and gave my right breast a playful suck. "Delicious. This is even better than the feel you gave me the other night, you randy, redheaded slut."

"Did you enjoy the pepper spray too?" I shot back. "Look Colonel, games over. Fuck off and get your hands off me or when we get back to the hotel I'll call the police and throw your ass in jail."

The Colonel laughed at my threat. "What an imagination you have. The whip will cure you your pretensions. As for the police, there is one over there. Would you like me to call him over? Perhaps he'd like to give your melons a feel as well."

The Colonel squeezed my breasts harder as I tried to twist away. "We agree the game is over. Now head down and spread your thighs, so I can have a better look at that snappy red pepper patch between your legs."

Placing his walking stick on the back of my neck he forced me to my knees. Naturally I squeezed my thighs together tightly in a desperate bid to protect my girlish modesty. This foolish resistance was quickly overcome by the simplest of methods. Looking over my shoulder I watched in bewilderment as the Old Walrus lifted his cane up and let it slide down his hand so the little brass tip on the bottom of the cane was facing him.

The cane had a rubber tip on the end, with which a few turns he unscrewed and pulled off to reveal a wicked little steel spike which effectively converted the cane to a walking stick for rugged terrain or, if need be, a weapon.

Pocketing the rubber tip, he twirled the cane so the tip was once again pointing down and let the elegant wooden shaft slide down his hand.

"Legs apart, slut!" he commanded, jabbing me in the thigh with the knife like point. "We'll have no modesty from a juicy piece of slave tail like you."

"Abdul!" I called. "Help!"

Abdul nodded to one of his men, who immediately moved into assist. Much to my surprise the masked man did not lay a finger on the fat old man assaulting me, but instead grabbed the yoke and bent me over farther, raising my bare ass high in the air. I tried to rise, but the brute put his foot on my yoke, forcing my face into the mud around the pig trough.

The Walrus, walking behind me, again jabbed my thigh with the steel sharp knife of the tip of his cane.

"Spread!" he commanded. "Show us all your slave flower."

Our confrontation made me the center of attention in the crowded animal trough center of the market place, and I could feel dozens of eyes on me. With the crowd watching last thing I wanted to do was bend over, stick my ass in the air, and spread my legs. However I didn't so much obey as react: to escape the sharp blade pressing into my thigh I move my left knee to my left. Chuckling, the Fat Walrus jabbed my other thigh, causing a similar impulsive reaction, before once again jabbing my legs still wider apart.

The next jab into my right thigh was harder, and I winced. Against my will with each jab I spread my legs more. The sharp jabs continued until my knees were spread as far as they could spread, past my shoulders, to maximum extension. Only when he jabbed me and saw that I could indeed present no more to him did the pain stop.

"Now that's Grade A Prime slave pussy!" The Colonel said, chuckling as he ogled my naked sex. "A juicy, furry red twat! That's it, head down, girl," he said, tapping my wooden yoke three times loudly with his stick, "Eyes in the dirt! Show your masters the parts of you they care about. Let's see your assets!" he chortled. I winced as he slapped me hard across the naked bottom.

I gasped as I felt the wicked spike slowly run down my sex, not piercing the skin but rather gently scratching a place that very much had a terrible itch. How much that itch needed to be scratched became apparent as I heard the fat old letch snickering above me.

"My, she is wet down there, isn't she? I can smell the stench of her and I don't think that's sweat dripping out of that furry red gash between her legs."

"Indeed," Abdul says. "Colonel, you have placed this little slut in the perfect position to celebrate an American Halloween tradition. Brittany, did you not say that in America you eat candied corn on Halloween?"

The thug lifted his boot off my neck, allowing me to raise my head up slightly to watch the proceedings. Brittany, still imprisoned, lifted her absurd pumpkin head out of the water, the stupid expression carved on her pumpkin face making her look all the more ridiculous.

Brittany said nothing, at least until one of the men lightly kicked her in the side with his boot. "Answer, slave slut," he said, in thickly accented English.

"Yes," Brittany replied, her voice echoing inside her pumpkin. "We eat candy corn at Halloween, Master."

The word "Master", tacked onto the end surprised me, but conscious as she was of the stripe across Taylor's naked bottom she no doubt thought it to be a prudent addition. I heartily agreed.

"I brought a bag of corn for our Halloween today, Abdul said. Abdul snapped his fingers impatiently as one of his men instantly presented him with an extremely colorful ear of African maize. The ear had a smaller diameter than a typical ear of sweet corn, and the kernels were a colorful assortment of orange, red, white, yellow, and black.

"Orange and black," he said, holding the colorful vegetable up for the crowd to see. "The colors they use to celebrate your American Halloween, is it not? It has been cooked, and all that remains now is to reheat it, and to apply the special Halloween candy sauce."

I gasped as he cupped my exposed sex in his hand. "Ah, a red hot cooking pot, wet and oozing candy juices. The corn will be even tastier heated and soaked in candied marinade. On Halloween Americans like to eat candied corn, and candied apples. It is only right that we allow Africans to enjoy both."

"Put it in her oven!" a man called out, laughing.

"Yes, let's taste her delicious spicy marinade!" another man said, as the crowd laughed along.

I still had no idea what he meant to do, for the indignity he was suggesting was beyond my comprehension. It wasn't until he rubbed it the corn up and down against my pussy that I realized what was about to happen.

"The fruit is dry, so it will absorb her hot, spicy marinade easily," he said, causing me to gasp as he rolled the cob over my exposed sex, treating my pussy like it was a mixing bowl. "They key is to roll it smoothly, with a firm but even pressure, and give it a good rub, so her sticky, tangy juices have a chance to soak in."

Unfortunately for my dignity but fortunately for my pleasure "Giving it a good rub!" meant positioning the ear of nubby corn directly over my clitoris and rubbing vigorously. I am embarrassed to say it was a kitchen technique that quickly got my "candy juices" flowing!

I groaned with equal parts shame and pleasure as he openly masturbated me for the crowd's pleasure. I pushed back and rubbed myself against the colorful ear of maize, trying to orgasm even as he continued his humiliating cooking show commentary.

"Some people prefer a vegetarian kabob, but I prefer meat on the of my stick. Of course a good compromise is to simply use a meat marinade, which allows you to enjoy the full flavor of the meat without actually offending any vegans at your table."

"The taste of the marinade will depend greatly on the livestock chosen. I find chicken rather flavorless, and prefer a pork or beef preparation. I suspect this little piggy in particular will be quite tasty, and will produce a wonderfully tangy smoked bacon flavor, particularly after we cook it in her tight little oven."

What oven he meant became quite obvious as he stopped rubbing meant pressed the end of ear against my gapingly exposed sex.

"No, please!" I gasped, groaning with shame and humiliation as he ever so slowly pushed the corn against the lips of my sex. "Don't do to this to me. Please!"

"Now let's put it in the oven," he said, ignoring my protests as he pressed it forward. We'll get the corn all hot and toasty, and bake those juices right in, to make an irresistible Halloween treat."

My sex was wet and ready and he didn't have to push hard to get the long, slender ear deep inside of me. I gasped with shame and humiliation as he rolled the kabob around inside of me, "baking it" and "soaking up the candy juices."

Abdul turned my little red toaster oven over to the Walrus as he handed out the corn and apples. The apples had been cut in half, and as they were passed out the men skewered them onto short wooden sticks so they could be "cooked" and "candied" inside the slave girls more easily.

The corn and apples were distributed and soon each of the slave girls around the trough was giving up her heated marinade in the name of feeding the hungry Africans. The other girls moaned and groaned in shame and humiliation, but my attention was focused on my own predicament as the Walrus cheerfully fucked me from behind with the colorful corn. "That's right, you red headed whore! Candy my corn. Bake it in the oven. Kick me, will you? Call me a dirty old man? I am going to enjoy seeing you on the auction block, squatting for the buyers with your legs spread wide!"

Horrified as I was by the moans from the other girls, the fat old man's incessant rubbing of my clit and the sensation of being porked with the corn had me humping along.

"That's it, you randy little whore. Make your pussy twitch and spasm around my supper. Work your juices in! Show me what a little pig slut you are."

I did, grunting and squealing like a pig as my orgasm rolled over me, even as the tears of humiliation poured down my cheeks. At last the corn was removed, cut into three pieces, and handed out to the crowd.

"Hot and juicy!" the Colonel said, sampling my "candied" corn. "You are truly a delicious slut, Suzanne, and your master will enjoy that hot red twat of yours. Prissy, stuck up bitches like you make the finest slave sluts: hot, wet, and eager to please."

"I wish I could fuck you right now, but there are hungry villagers to feed. Let's try some baked candied apples in that red hot toaster oven of yours, shall we?"

I groaned in shame and pleasure as a thick apple slice slid into my wet slot. For the next twenty minutes the girls and I served as toaster ovens for the hungry crowd. The Walrus turned me over to some locals, who chatted happily as they Shish kebabed me with a wide assortment of corn, apples, chicken, dates and pears. They seemed particularly fascinated with my red hair and I felt scared and disgusted as a crowd of laughing African women ran their fingers through both the long tresses on my head and my very wet "fire crotch".

There was a festive, party mood, as laughing villagers crowded in to eat the food and watch as we were systematically masturbated and milked for our juices. When the crowd began to press in too tightly the police moved in, not to save us, but to set up a few sawhorses and some orange ribbon to form a barrier between the spectators/diners and the "chefs" who were fucking us with the candied apples and corn.

And so the Halloween party continued. Humiliated as I was misery loves company and I was relieved that the other girls were as wet as I was. Apparently running naked through the streets with pie-eyed Africans commenting on our bodies had left all of our pussies hot, wet, and oven-ready.

Abdul led a spirited discussion of our various "marinades" commenting on the hotness of my "Mississippi Delta BBQ sauce" the "ginger" in Suki's "Oriental Soy Sauce" and the "rich aloofness" in pumpkin headed Taylors "Tangy Kentucky bourbon". Julie's "Danish rémoulade" was deemed "fishy, like her country", much to her embarrassment.

An ad-hoc contest was held, and much to her shame Sophie won first place, for her "Canadian Maple syrup". Abdul had come prepared, and after she won a "First Place" a Halloween ribbon, orange with black trim, was literally stapled to Sophie's ear, like she was a prize sow at the county fair.

As he stood Sophie before the laughing, jeering, applauding crowd tears streamed down Sophie's face. I wasn't sure if the tears were caused by the pain from the electric staple gun piercing her ear or the shame of hundred of villagers laughing as the men masturbated her like a farm animal to extract more of her sweet pussy juice.

The bashful Suki "won" second place and Stephanie third, and so they too were given the "prize" of having a 2nd and 3rd place ribbon stapled to their ear and a long moment of shame in front of the jeering crowd. Suki, ever modest, took it especially hard.

If you think we might have been allowed the chance to rest after our shameful ordeal you have precious little understanding of what it means to be a slave. Although we were all dirty, sweaty, exhausted, and stinking with our own juices, the slave mongers charged with driving us to market were rested and well hydrated after having enjoyed time in the shade and numerous bottled drinks, not to mention the "candied" fruits that had been marinated in our hot, wet pussies. So it was that the Abdul mounted his camel while we, on "Halloween parade" were once again driven naked through the streets, cattle on our way to market.

The flies found us in force, attracted by our sweat and the musky juices of our pussies. We were too exhausted by our orgasms to fight them off.

The pace quickened on this final leg of the journey. Certainly the morning sun was hotter, and the men, impatient with our sluggish jog, were much freer with the whip. The first stroke across my naked ass was like being touched with a blazing hot electric wire. I was so focused on the pain and the crack of the whip that I didn't hear myself scream, although I'm sure I did, for girls under the whip always scream and I could feel the strain on my vocal cords as my senses gradually returned. The searing pain or my humiliation at being whipped like an animal did not matter, of course: my pace quickened, and the lesson was learned. My obedience was all that mattered.

Laughing, Abdul came up behind me, admiring the tramline across my ass that I, locked in my yoke, could not see. "You have a luscious bottom," he said, looking down with obvious pleasure at my bouncing globes as I trotted in front of him. "Do not worry that I will not get a fit price for you; most buyers find a whip mark across a girl's naked bottom amusing, and you will perform better on the block when you know the meaning of the whip."

The reference to my "fit price" reminded me that the slave market was growing ever closer. As much as I hated my run I was scared for it to end.

Although I had been naked all morning I have to say that I was no more comfortable running naked down the street now than I had been when I had first undressed in the courtyard that morning.

It was a curious sensation to be a naked woman -- and a naked white woman at that -- in a sea of colorfully dressed Africans. There colorful robes and dresses made me all the more conscious of my nudity, as did the sensation of my bare feet running along the now blazing hot pavement, so hot that I actually looked forward to running through the occasional muddy trough. The leers and the lewd comments and laughter -- from both the men and the women -- were an endless source of shame, as were the jokes about my "burning bush" and "hot red pussy."

Fearful of what might happen I felt little relief as we ran through the slave market. We ran past an auction block where several native women were being sold. I watched them with a curious detachment, as if they were the goats being vended, but I did not have long to linger on their fate. Our coffle led into a backstage area where to our relief we were freed from the orange coffle chain that held us together.

One-after-another we were forced to stand in metal wash tubs while a group of toothless, laughing native old women used coarse bristle brushes and freezing cold hoses to scrub the dirt off of us with the same care one might use to scrub out a filthy trash can. I particularly did not appreciate having my face, mouth, and the red welt on my butt scoured with stiff bristles, but as my head and hands were still locked into the stocks there was nothing I could do but sob as Abdul and his men laughed along with the cruel old crones.

My scrubbing was a bit quicker than the others as I was separated from the group and taken to see Abdul in his private tent. He sat in his chair sipping his sweet tea and freely ogling my naked body as I stood before him.

"You can take this yoke off now," I said.

Abdul smiled. "Have I kept my word to you, Professor? Are you scared?"

I was having none of it. "No. I'm exhausted, and disgusted, and more humiliated than I ever thought possible, but I am not scared."

"Nonetheless, I have given you a taste of what it is like to be a slave. You should thank me."

"What did you have in mind?" I said flatly.

"Your slave kiss would be appropriate," he replied, pointing at his crotch.

"I'd rather bite it off."

"You could. Of course then you would have to be punished. A rope around your neck would be a just penalty for such an offense. I wouldn't even have to take off your yoke; I could just haul you up and watch you kick. I think we'd both be better off if you simply pleasured me with your slave kiss, for hanging you would be a waste of your life and far worse, my money."

"You don't scare me," I said.

Abdul laughed. "Perhaps not, but you haven't won our wager yet. I have given you the opportunity to see how slave girls are treated, but you have not yet demonstrated that you are up to the challenge. You can absorb punishment without breaking, but can you then crawl back, with a whip in your teeth, and offer yourself for your master's pleasure?"

"Fuck you," I said, "or more appropriately, go fuck yourself."
"Fine. I win."

There was a long pause as he smiled at me and I glared murder at him. Oh, how I hated that smug, self-satisfied smile. If my hands were free I would have scratched it off his face!

Instead I dropped to my knees in front of him. He smiled and fished his member out from underneath his robe, feeding it into my mouth.

His fat, uncircumcised black sausage was dirty and disgusting, but eager to win our bet I sucked on it eagerly even as he taunted me, using my tongue to gradually roll the foreskin back so I could pleasure the smelly head of his dick directly.

Abdul took out his cellphone and recorded a video of my sucking him off as he taunted me.

"That's it, Suzanne, my little red headed slave girl. Show me what a perfect little whore you are. Suck my shaft and pleasure me with your hot American tongue. No need for your uppity ways or your feminine chatter. Yes, that's it! This is why you have a mouth, slave girl: for giving your master pleasure."

"Do you like the taste? It is the taste of your submission. Now get ready for my seed. Don't swallow, but swish it around so I can feel it in your mouth. Slow down. Not so quickly, my little slave slut. I know you are eager for me to spurt my hot seed into your hot mouth, but I want the exquisite pleasure of your tongue to last."

I did not slow down; eager to end his taunting I quickened the pace and a few seconds later suffered the indignity of taking an enormous load of his copious spunk in my mouth. I tried to swallow, but his bopping member went off like a fire hose, covering the roof and sides of my mouth with his disgusting spunk.

Laughing, he pulled out. As a slave girl I knew I was not permitted to spit, so I used my tongue to clean the sides of my mouth, an exercise that only emphasized the foul taste.

"I win," I said softly. "I went through with it. All of it, and I'm not scared."

"And that saddens you, does it not?"

I paused to consider my answer. "Yes," I said finally. "I want to be scared for Halloween. I want to be really, truly scared."

"Then follow me." Curious, I accompanied Abdul back to rejoin the group.

In the presales area the black women were drying the girl with rough, coarse towels and none to gently combing out their tangled hair.

"Welcome to the Mako Market, ladies, a local market renown for it's fair prices and quality merchandise. I think you will find your treatment here to be highly professional."

"We have reached a moment of decision. If you choose, you will be released, and taken back to the hotel by my guards with no further ado. However you may also continue, and be put in the pens for inspection by the buyers, prior to your sale on the auction block."

"You mean a mock sale?" Suki asked.

"No, your sale will be quite final, and you will be sold to an unknown buyer. Which of you has the best costume? You are rich and American, so we shall let the free market decide."

"No one will take that offer," Sophie said. "No girl wants to be a slave forever."

"Perhaps, but that is not the offer. I am an honest merchant, and after you sale I will remit 90% of your sale price to your fathers, with information on your ultimate disposition, and the opportunity to repurchase you through one of my brokerage subsidiaries."

"What if our price goes up, or they can't afford the extra 10%?" Julie asked.

"It's possible, of course, but remember what you are being purchased for. Men are fickle creatures and as often as not a girl's price drops after their masters tire of their newness and wish to trade them in for fresh pussy."

"Ha-ha!" Taylor shouted. "Brittany will be a trade in."

Abdul laughed with her. "Yes, and no doubt quite the bargain. Indeed, your parents might actually make a tidy profit on the deal, assuming that they decide to buy you back."

"What if they don't?" I said.

"I'm sure that won't be an issue for all of these young ladies are so charming and sweet and pleasant that I'm sure their wealthy fathers will buy them back, no matter what their price. In the case of Julie and Sophie, who are of more modest means, I pledge that I will pay any market differential that makes their repurchase difficult."

"Ha-ha," Brittany said, laughing. "Sell them back with a coupon."

"Precisely," Abdul said, "there is no way for them to lose."

"If our fathers buy us. What happens to the money if our parent's don't buy us?"

"As per the custom, your fathers may use the proceeds from your sale as they wish, for that is the way of free markets. Is that not fair, given that they bore the cost of raising you?"

"No, that's bullshit" Stephanie said flatly. "That's not fucking fair at all."

"Not to worry, for I am sure in your case, given how perfectly delightful and ladylike you are, your daddy will happily pay to get you back, particularly after I tell him who you were sold to, and what you are being used for."

"My parents and family are dead, and I'm not married," I said. "Who would you give my sale money too, and who would repurchase me?"

"Your church group would buy you back," Abdul said. "Indeed, I already have their address." Clearly he had thought of everything.

Abigail, Gwyneth, Suki and Sophie chose to leave. After being unyoked they dressed quickly. Sophie checked the contents of her purse as Abdul watched. "Nothing has been taken," he said. "As I said, I am an honest merchant, and a wealthy man, and there is nothing in your purse that interests me."

Looking at the line of naked women he smiled. "It is only the purses between your legs that interest me. That is where the real money is."

Sophie talked directly to the naked Julie. "Why are you doing this? It's crazy to trust him."

"He hasn't lied to us yet. Not exactly. Besides, when am I going to get a chance to experience this again? It's exciting, isn't it?"

"She's right," Brittany said. "It's going to be a great adventure.

"I bet I get a better price than Brittany," Taylor said.

"Yeah," Stephanie said. "I guess that's how we'll know who won the costume contest."

"Yes, let the buyers decide," Brittany agreed.

Abdul turned to me. "Are you going to back out, Professor? Are you afraid?

I was afraid: afraid that I would never be so excited again.

The next 20 minutes were indeed quite thrilling. Our two blondes, Brittany and Julie, were placed on a large table and ordered to pleasure each other. Julie refused, but a quick crack of the whip reminded her of the price of disobedience.

Julie lied flat on her back and spread her legs as Brittany climbed on top of her and began to lick her twat. Returning the favor Julie raised her head and managed to grab onto Brittany's spread thighs in spite of her yoke. They went at it 69 style, pleasuring each other as the buyers egged them on.

"Shameless whores!" one of the native women hissed. "Show the men how hot you are."

"Yes, show us your golden twats."

"And your little butt holes too."

"Lick, lick, lick! I think they are in love!"

"All Western girls are lesbians," one of the men said. "It is part of their depravity.

"Yes, that is why they need a strong black master, with a big black cock, to show them their natural place."

"That is why they need the whip."

I must confess that I was enjoying the show as well, although my enjoyment came to an end when the Walrus ordered me to my knees to pleasure him. Taking his withered old tool, totally surrounded by white hair, was nauseating enough, but as I sucked him I also had to listen to his repulsive commentary.

"That's its, that's a good little cocksucker. Did you enjoy kicking me down in the hotel that night? Did it make you feel powerful? You don't look powerful now, with my cock in your mouth. That's it, suck it like a good little slave girl. Show your master how much you love him.

Meanwhile on the table Julie squirmed in both pleasure and humiliation as the audience catcalled her, but Brittany's tongue was relentless, and much to her shame she soon experience her first lesbian orgasm, with hundreds of people watching.

"Look at her little hole quiver. All pink and golden and juicy."

"I would pay a fortune to fuck that."

"Get your purse ready, my friend. You will have your chance soon."

I had assumed the show was over when Brittany and Julie were removed from the table, but to my horror the fat old Walrus told Abdul he wanted to "breed me properly" and so to my horror I was placed on all fours on the table with my legs spread wide.

"No, please," I begged as the Walrus rubbed his cock against my slit. "I'm...I'm not seeing anyone right now. I'm not using any birth control."

One of Abdul's men tossed the Walrus a condom. When he saw me looking over my shoulder at him hopefully, he smiled at me as he rubbed his cock against my juicy slit.

"Would you like me to put this rubber on?" he asked, obviously relishing his power over me.

"Yes. Yes, please!" I said.

"Say, 'Yes, Master,'" he ordered.

With his penis against my sex I didn't hesitate. "Yes, Master," I repeated.

He laughed as he tossed the condom to the dirt in front of me. "No, my little slave girl. The rubber might interfere with my pleasure, and remember you exist only to please me. The bastard child in your belly will not be my problem for you only a slave. Indeed, if I plant a white slave child in your belly that will be to the benefit of your master, for it will be another asset he can sell."

"Fuck you!" I snarled at him.

"No, fuck you," he said pushing himself deep inside me. He fucked me with full deep strokes, and a man with a bass drum beat alone with each thrust, as the crowd clapped along with his rhythm.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

"Please, don't come inside me," I pleaded as I looked down at the condom in the dirt. "I'm totally unprotected. Don't make me pregnant. Pull out!"

"Nonsense. I have six children already that I know of, now I will have a seventh. I am going to give you something to remember me by, slave girl, long after I have forgotten about you."

Boom! Boom! Boom!

"I am actually doing you a favor, Professor, teaching you a lesson you need to learn," he said pedantically. "By giving you a proper rutting out in the open I'm disabusing you of any fanciful notions you might have had of being impregnated by a loving husband on your wedding night. Goats and sheep and sows are bread out in the open with everyone laughing at them and so shall it be with you. That's why I'm taking you from behind, like a bitch in heat, ready to be bred, because that is what you are."

Despite myself the very perversity of it was getting to me, and I moaned and gasped as he picked up the pace and the drumbeat grew faster to match.

"That it's, squeal my little piggy. Bark like the bitch in heat that you are. Put you head down. I don't need to see your face, just your pussy. I want my spunk to have a straight shot and spurt right down into you. I'm going to splash an enormous load of my baby batter all over your unprotected eggs and the only thing you can do is say "Thank you, Master."

"You are hot, and tight, and fertile," he said, "I can feel a big load coming. I am going to enjoy planting my seed in your belly. Maybe I will buy you, so I can sell your bastard child myself. Or maybe I will simply ask your new master to send me a picture of you, naked and fat with my baby in your belly."

"You're going to be well seeded, Professor. I was blonde in my younger days, and the little slave bitch you pop out of the oven will be blonde or redheaded or maybe strawberry blonde. Oh, it's such a big load, and I feel it aching in my balls! Maybe I'll give you twins! Two of my daughter's are twins, you know. Twenty years from now there will be imagine two twin Suzanne's, with beautiful red hair, naked on the auction block. Two pretty slave twins up for sale, never knowing their father, cursing their mother for being a slave whore and condemning them to a life of servicing men's basest needs. What a fine price they'll bring!"

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

The crowd watching us applauded uproariously as he pumped his enormous load of seed into me.

"Thank you, Master!" I cried out as my orgasm rolled over me. "Thank you for letting me bear your child!"

The other girls were herded into the slave pens where they awaited the buyer's inspection. I, on the other hand, was hung upside-down in the pen like a side of beef, so the fat walruses spunk would have a chance to take root.

Taylor's black bush had been shaved off, as it provided an unwelcome contrast with the blonde curls on her head. "No black pussies on Halloween" Abdul joked.

In the inspection pens the natives were free to "feel the goods". We were quickly swarmed. The locals were particularly fascinated with the red hair on my head and between my legs, which was exceptionally accessible since I was hanging by my ankles with my leg spread. Of course with my hands locked into the yoke I couldn't even see the hands of the people who chose to assault me from behind, let alone defend myself.

Abdul had told us that for choice merchandise the slave pens were limited to serious buyers, but the guards didn't seem to stop anyone. My breasts were squeezed and my freshly fucked pussy fingered by toothless beggars as well as experienced flesh peddlers. They did limit the number of people in the pens at any given time, to keep us from getting crushed, but once inside the "customers" were always right, and given free reign to explore us freely.

Some of the well-dressed gentlemen were quite brisk and business like in their appraisals, and not particularly rough -- they felt what they needed to, made their notes, and graded our flesh quickly. There were no smiles, or lingering, playful squeezes and I could tell their interest was totally professional. In some ways they scared me the most for I feared they represented some sinister force, such as a ruthless billionaire who might buy my body for some unspeakable purpose.

I was less alarmed by the sleazy locals who laughed as they squeezed my tits and fingered my pussy. Their motives were easy to understand, and were best summed up by Abdul's "accidental" slip of the tongue.

"Step right up, gentlemen! Free feel... I mean, feel free... to examine the merchandise."

Ha-ha.

Free feel they did. Of course some of the locals were more sadistic than horny, and seemed to take pleasure in causing us humiliation and pain. One toothless old crone stuffed several fingers into my bottom hole, and would have stuck her entire fist up to her arm if one of the flesh peddlers hadn't pushed her away. She still managed to call me an "American whore" and spit down into my face.

A woman in traditional dress licked her finger and pressed it against her bottom, making a sizzling sound, as she told us "how pretty your white asses will look after they are branded." She seemed delighted by the thought.

The buyers examined me freely, and many of the men who had been forced to watch as I candied their fruit were now able to put their fingers inside my mouth, anus, and wet twat.

I was finally cut down when it was time to sell me off the block. The enormous auction block was stone, and the sand felt hot between my toes. As in the goat market the bleachers afforded the buyers and excellent view of my naked body.

My time on the block was brief, but unforgettable. Yoked and aware of the auctioneer's whip I obeyed each of his humiliating commands.

I skipped around in a little circle, jiggling my breasts and bottom for the laughing buyer's appraisal.

At the auctioneer's command I smiled. I pouted. I squatted, spreading my legs. I turned around, spread my legs wide, and bent over, exposing myself for everyone to see.

Abdul did not bid; the Walrus, in the front row, bid on me but could not afford my hot, red slave pussy. The winning bid came from a man in the back. He was well dressed, and looked like a merchant or a broker. I wondered if he worked for a sheik, or a brothel, or larger market that would resell me again. I wondered when I would be available for re-sale.

After my sale I was led off the block, fingerprinted, and photographed, front, sides, back, and once with my legs spread wide. I was ordered to smile. Humiliating, yes, but necessary for a "conveyance" and for my title to change hands.

Abdul promised to send the pictures to my church group, "so they can see what they are buying." I blushed as I imagined my friends passing my pictures around.

Taylor and Brittany did not seem pleased that their fathers would soon be examining pictures of them bent over with their legs spread wide, or their smiling faces and wet pussies, surrounded by a sea of black men. Perhaps they were worried their doting daddies might not buy them back?

Abdul dismissed their objections. "Do not worry. If you find you are hot for your collars, and discover that you are natural slave meat, I will arrange for your buyers to send films of you debauching yourselves for your master's pleasure. I am sure that will discourage your fathers."

I blushed as I imagined my church group looking at pictures of me with my legs spread wide and an idiot grin on my face with black hands stroking my wet pussy. My church friends were fine people, but I knew some of the old biddies were jealous of my youth and beauty. If my price appreciated would they be willing to raise money to buy me back? Even if my price dropped, would the spiteful old crones argue that in selling myself I had gotten what I deserved, and the funds from my sale might better be used for some other worthy cause? The church needed a new roof. Despite my fear -- or perhaps because of it- my pussy tingled at the thought.

Taylor, Stephanie, and I were led to the back and bolted into place with a dozen other girls from my coffle to await our brandings.

"You don't have to do this," I said to Abdul as they fitted the straps and yokes over me to leave me immobile. "You have my fingerprints."

Abdul's response was terrifying in its cold indifference. "Indeed we do not. It is simply the tradition."

In my yoke it was easy enough for them to force a stick into my mouth, a precaution to keep me from biting my tongue off.

Abdul knelt next to Taylor. "Your ancestors made a fortune in the slave trade, did they not? Soon you will learn the ways of your family business from the bottom up. You are to be packed tightly into the hold of an old wooden ship with hundreds of other girls, shoulder to shoulder, with only the rats to keep you company. It will be a long journey, but it will seem like forever."

Abdul, holding my trick-or-treat bag, knelt down next to me. With the stick pressing down on my tongue I couldn't speak, so he did all the talking as he playfully stroked my red hair.

"Do not worry, my little fox. I will take special care of you. I will send your church group a picture of your branded ass, and a video of you eagerly sucking my cock, and licking your lips as you licked up all my cream like the little slave slut that you are. Naturally I will have to inform them of your conversion to Islam as well."

I tried to object but with the stick in my mouth it came out as a hopeless garble. Abdul laughed. "Don't be shocked. Your church group comes to Africa to convert Africans, does it not? It is natural for slaves to assume the religion of their masters. Otherwise how will you be able to continue to serve him in paradise? I just hope your church group in Mississippi is open minded." I knew they were not.

Kneeling with my ass raised high for the iron, I watched Abdul added the bag containing my passport, clothing, and identification to the enormous fire being used to heat the irons that would be used to brand our bottoms.

"It's a Halloween bonfire," Abdul said, laughing as he watched my precious possessions burn. "It is a Halloween tradition, is it not? We will heat the iron to a bright Halloween orange, and use it to brand your round slave bottoms."
I did not know who bought me or to what use I would be put, but I knew that in a few seconds I was going to feel the most incredible pain in my life. As my bottom cheeks clenched and unclenched in nervous anticipation I felt a surge of panic and a wave of pleasure rush through my pussy.

Had the Walrus impregnated me? What would my new owner do with me? Would my church buy me back? Would the branding iron hurt as much as I feared?

Abdul had kept his promise. I was afraid... and I loved it.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!