Alice: Slave at the Marketplace by Aphrodite Hunt Page B

rest of the farm animals – the rabbits,
the hens, the horses, the goodness knows what else – are also
similarly being herded into them.
    I guess we are all going to the market, the
entire farm of us.
    I wonder what awaits us there.
     
    *
     
    The ‘market’ is a little distance away, and
it takes the buses about forty-five minutes to get there. It is in
a little enclave which is also guarded by sentry posts. I peer out
of the darkened windows together with the rest of the girls in my
bus.
    “No talking,” Mistress Karen rasps. She is
sitting up front with the driver, a surly looking Hispanic man.
Although here, he is likely to be from one of the Mediterranean
countries.
    “What’s this all about?” I whisper to
Kinko.
    She shakes her head and puts a finger to her
lips. Sssssh . Or you will be poked by a cattle prod which
might just happen to be electrified.
    We pass wooden buildings and more open areas
until we finally come to a large parking lot. Several of the other
buses are already there.
    “All right, cows, all line up now and get
out,” Mistress Karen commands.
    She is wearing white today for a change. A
white tight leather cat suit, although she is so fat that her
bulges are more pronounced than ever. She should just give up
trying to look sexy. It’s a lost cause.
    We all troop out of the bus. Our feet are
bare, but the ground is soft beneath our soles. Outside, the sun is
shining brightly in the blue bowl of the sky. I squint in the
brightness and shade my eyes. The air is filled with the scent of
grass and dandelions, together with a freshness that I have scant
encountered in America.
    “Walk along now,” Mistress Karen says.
    We follow her around a grassy hillock, shaded
by trees. The cow bells around our necks make silvery tinkling
sounds. It’s almost like Christmas.
    The whole place is fringed by a profusion of
trees. A bustle of activity greets us around the bend. I almost
stop in wonder.
    Kinko bumps into me from behind.
    “Walk,” she whispers.
    “Right.”
    I walk, taking it all in. The marketplace is
filled with tents – gaudy, billowing circus-like tents which flap
in the breeze. There are all sorts of tables and stalls outside
these tents, as well as an unusual number of apparatuses – all
which are made out of wood. People are setting up all sorts of
things on the stalls – cakes and pies and vegetables and produce.
The aroma of freshly baked bread and roasting meat fills the air
and makes my mouth water.
    My fellow sex slaves from the farmhouses are
here. They are being assigned to each tent by their masters and
mistresses. I spy Mistress Sasha again – she of the Nordic beauty –
ordering the ‘rabbits’ to enter one of the tents. She raises her
sharp blue eyes to me as I pass.
    “Here.” Mistress Karen halts us.
    We stop at a blue-and-white striped tent
which is held down to the grassy ground by pegs. Outside, long
wooden tables have been laid. These are filled with all sorts of
cakes and cookies and tarts, as well as a good number of cheeses in
wedges and other cuts. Bottles of milk are kept in a
mini-refrigerator with a glass front.
    All the products have prices on little
placards before them. I almost step back in shock as I register the
prices.
    A hundred British pounds for a chocolate
fudge cake decorated with purple macarons. Three pounds each for an
éclair. Either inflation has set into England, or they are charging
really steep prices here.
    A large sign in curvy old English writing
proclaims:
     
    YE OLDE DAIRY.
     
    And in smaller letters beneath it:
     
    ‘ALL PRODUCTS ARE MADE FROM HUMAN BREAST
MILK’.
     
    Okayyyyy. I think I know where our milk went
to.
    I stare at the cakes and pastries with new
insight. I take in the delicious looking creams enveloping the
cakes, and wonder if my very own milk went into whipping them. I
don’t relish cakes or anything filled with carbohydrates and fat
myself, but I have a sudden urge to taste these. I wonder if