The Auction by Kitty Thomas Page A

happen. Her boyfriend had been loaned money, and he would be buying her today.
    He’d tease her for the next twenty or thirty years about how he owned her. But he wouldn’t really, not if her father had anything to say about it. In her case, it was merely ceremonial.
    The whole affair is surprisingly civilized. We aren’t beaten, or thrown down naked, or prodded like cattle. There is hardly an air of sexuality to the proceedings at all, as if it escapes these people’s minds that if you really own someone’s body, you’ll probably use it for more than just keeping house. But no one talks about that because it’s not polite and clean and civil. And we all want to be polite and clean and civil. It’s necessary to survive here.
    When someone is bought by a stranger and becomes a true slave, everyone looks the other way and talks about the punch and pie they’ll be consuming after the ceremony with those who were only fake bought . We know to close our eyes as the girl is led away to whatever part of the city he lives in, and we will pretend she never existed in the first place. At least publicly. Should one of us later pass her on the street, we’ll avert our eyes.
    I looked back to the center block upon which Lizbeth stood. Fast phrases tumbled from the auctioneer’s mouth as he drove the price higher and higher. I could almost see his eyes lighting with greed over what the city could buy when the next transport ship landed. The city officials had had their eyes on computerized books forever.
    Lizbeth’s father was becoming irritated by how much money he was losing as others kept driving the price up. Finally, all bidders but the boyfriend dropped off, and that was that. On the source planet they used to have these ceremonies called weddings. Just like the debutante balls, they would wear white gowns. In older times there was something called a dowry for weddings. Money always exchanging hands for women. And yet nobody ever questioned it or thought it odd.
    So I guessed Lizbeth was married now. Because I knew she wasn’t enslaved. Just looking at her radiant face staring down from the platform with a kind of imperial majesty, I knew which one of them was the real boot licker. And from the little jeers in the crowd and friends elbowing the boyfriend in the ribs, everybody else knew it, too.
    That was when my name was called: “Annabelle Walker.”
    I grimaced at the recitation of my full name. Really? They had to go there. Call me Anna or call me Belle, but never tread the dark and unholy path of blending them together. I stepped out from the line and went to stand on the center block.
    The man running the auction smiled at me. Smiled.
    Was I the only sane person here who found this all disturbing and wrong? Perhaps what was disturbing and wrong were the secret fantasies I’d entertained of being bought. Not by Stephen, but by someone else. Someone I didn’t know. He would stare at me and I would look back at him, and in that gaze, his purpose for me would be obscenely revealed as the wetness dripped down my thighs.
    Looking out at the sea of people overwhelmed me, and I felt light-headed for a moment. The auctioneer grabbed my elbow to steady me. There were no women among the bidders. Auctions weren’t an appropriate place for women, except for that one time in your life when they were.
    I let out a breath when I saw Stephen positioned toward the front. The shrewd look in his eyes and the smirk that played about his lips caused me to suck that breath back in. That was the moment I knew he had every intention of paying for me, but none of letting me go. I looked away from his face, my eyes traveling down to his riding boots, gleaming in the sun.
    I’m sure I looked submissive and demure with my eyes cast down like that, but nobody was fooled. I’d made too big of a show of being a complete undesirable. Then the bidding started, or it was supposed to start. There was a long stretch of silence, and I looked up