Chapter 21

When we got in the van and started moving after our farewell performance at Ray's, the girls seemed to be in heavy conversation. Tara was distracted, and she was navigating, so I finally just got the address and fed it into the GPS. But I asked the AI to relay the conversation, and it was eye-opening. There was an AI interface kit under the passenger seat; I had Oliver get it out. "You need to hear this," I told him. Once he was rigged up with a headset, I had the AI relay the conversation from the beginning, speeding things up just a hair so we could get to real time eventually.

Oliver sat in his seat like a statue, absorbing his sometime wife and first concubine's tale. I didn't blame him; he'd been duped and lied to for a VERY long time. On the other hand, by the time the tale was over, I know I felt sorry for Vera and had some understanding of what she'd been up against and why she was how she was.

When they wound down, Oliver turned to me and asked, "How do I deal with this?"

"The secrets? I don't know," I told him. "If you're asking how to deal with it from a physical standpoint, I'd say there are several options. If you want to keep her to yourself, have yourself augmented to the point that you can carry her through several orgasms every time you fuck -- and maybe bump up your recharge rate. If you don't mind sharing, find a couple of guys to do it with. Or lead her to the Marine transient barracks every few days. Or all of the above..." I eyed him. "Can you keep it under control for now? I've orbited the same four block area four times so she could finish..." Oliver nodded distractedly and stared out the windshield as I turned the last corner and headed up the street to turn into the parking lot for Tara's apartment complex.

Tara leaned up and whispered, "Master, I'm not in trouble, am I?"

"No, why?"

"I know you've been driving around..."

"We were waiting for Vera," I told her. "It seemed important."

"It was, Master," Tara assured me. Frankly, I couldn't have agreed more.

"All out!" I announced, but Oliver pressed me back in the seat. I turned to Tara. "Start preparing the kids and get Keisha under control; I don't want us scaring her. Send Frieda back when you have things under control and Keisha is ready for me."

"Yes, Master." Tara headed out the slider, and the others emptied the back seats behind her.

I turned to Oliver, "Yes?"

"Did I do wrong? At Ray's? You know, when I told the Major to sex Vera, my main focus was on Beth; Vera was just an annoyance. Then we let those other men..."

"We didn't know," I said, shrugging. "I started it, looking at it as a way to fix her bad habits. Little did we know how important they were to her. I know you're feeling a certain amount of guilt for a momentary lapse -- but Vera has withheld this from you and manipulated you for decades, so I'd say she's owed a bit."

"On the other hand, we were happy," Oliver mused.

I shrugged. "You can deal with this however you wish. You can tell her you know -- or you can pretend you don't. You can punish her. You can forgive her. You can do both. You can take her behavior into account, or you can expose her to large quantities of sex and see if she goes wild. You can put her on the street. You can do ANYTHING! But you don't have to decide tonight. Let's go inside."

Oliver gathered himself and nodded, and we got out of the van.

Vera was in deep shit -- that was pretty clear. I don't think anyone else knew, but when we started circling the block I realized that something was up. Oliver had a headset on and this look on his face -- and his expressions changed with Vera's words, so it didn't take much for me to realize that the private conversation Vera THOUGHT she was having with us wasn't private. But nobody exploded or anything... We pulled up and Master Jack told me to get the kids moving and give Keisha a heads up, then send Frieda back to tell him everything was under control. So I led the girls out of the van and went inside and up the first floor hall of our apartment block with my keys in my hand, wearing high heels and black lingerie, leading three other women dressed the same way. The security guard's eyes nearly bugged out! I don't live in what you'd call a fancy place -- or even mediocre; the guard was there to keep the windows and doors in one piece and spray paint graffiti off the walls -- and he wasn't up to strong arming drug dealers or pimps -- but he knew I wasn't a hooker and he DAMNED sure had never seen me dressed like that and he DAMNED sure had NEVER seen three white women dressed like that...

I popped open the door and walked in and Keisha bounded up off the couch like it was spring-loaded. "Tara! You're..." About that time, what I was wearing registered and her eyes popped -- then popped again at the arrival of Frieda, Beth, and Vera, in that order. "Early..." bled out of her as she took everything in.

"Yeah, Sorry, Hon. Change of plan. I quit at Ray's," I offered by way of explanation.

"Who...?" Keisha eyed the girls.

That stopped me for a second. "My new family, I guess," I said, finally. "Honey, we need to get Abe and Elise and Shawna into some traveling clothes."

"B--but why?"

"Because I'm leaving, Hon," I explained. "Come on, I'll try to explain while we get the kids packed." I turned my head, "Frieda?"

"I'm gone!"

"Can I help?" It was Beth.

"Sure, Honey. Follow me." I waved her forward as I followed Keisha into Abe's bedroom.

Abe is five; he sat right up in bed, awakened by the uproar, his eyes fearful. "Momma?"

"Hush, Baby -- it's all right. Be a big boy and help Keisha get you into some clothes -- we're going on a trip!" I told him.

"Wh--who...?"

"That's Beth, Baby -- she's going to live with us when we get to where we're going. She's a nice lady!" I assured him.

"But, Momma! She's a white lady!"

"Yes she is, Baby..." Sometimes you just have to stop and work through things with a child.

"What about Keisha?"

"That's up to Keisha, Baby."

"What?" Keisha entered into the conversation.

Stymied, I stopped looking for Abe's travel bag. "Beth, the girls' room is down on the right. They'll be, well, less trouble. I need to make a lot of explanations here..." Beth nodded and looked behind her; Vera was there, following. They headed down the hall; Keisha eyed them as they passed the doorway.

"What's goin' on?" Keisha asked. Abe subsided when the white women went out of sight and began cooperating with Keisha as she put his legs into some jeans.

"I've been picked up, Keisha," I explained. "I'm collecting the kids and I'm gone, off to some Confederacy place."

"Tonight?"

"Tonight."

"And the white women?"

"They belong to my new master."

Keisha nodded to herself as she put on one of Abe's shoes. "So y'all are gone. Damn. I'm gonna miss y'all."

"You don't have to, Keisha," I told her, getting her attention and holding her eyes. "Right about now, there's probably two white men standing in the living room. One of them is my new master. We talked about you, Honey. I don't know what you think about all this, but if you go out there and you say and do the right things, you can go with us."

"What do I got to say?" Keisha asked, her face solemn. "What do I got to do?"

It was no time for bullshitting around. I looked her in the eye and said, "I got no idea what he's gonna ask you or what you might want to answer -- all I can tell you is that I think he's a good man. As to what you gotta do -- that's pretty simple -- whatever he wants. And not tonight, maybe, but real soon, you gotta fuck him -- because your job is gonna be havin' his kids and raising them and mine and Beth's."

With that look on her face, I knew Tara was dead serious -- but it was a lot to take in, you know? The shocks I'd got in the past five minutes, if it wasn't all tucked up under a bandana, my hair would be stickin' straight out from my head! Shit was just comin' down, "Bang! Bang! Bang!" Tara bustin' in the door with a shitload of white women, them outfits, all this pickup stuff -- and now THIS! "So, if I go see him..."

Tara rubbed her face. "Honey, you don't have to do anything. You can just go on home to your family if you want. But I'm offering -- HE's offering -- to take you with us. Thing is, if you go, there are rules, you know? You got to pay the fare."

"What 'bout my folks?" I asked. "What 'bout my family?"

Tara shrugged. "It's not up to me. I don't know what he can do. You can ask him -- but I wouldn't get my hopes up."

"An' if he says no?"

"Then it's no, Honey," Tara said, shrugging helplessly. "If they could take everybody, they would, you know?"

Yeah, I knew. They went over it at school. There was only so much time and only so many ships and colonies took time to build. If the aliens had their way nobody in my family woulda had ANY shot -- we all had shit scores... But Tara was handing me a ticket!

Abe started tugging my arm. "Keisha! You gotta come! Pleeeze! Pleeeeze!"

"I dunno..."

Tara sighed. "Finish dressing Abe. Take him out to the living room. Talk to the man. You've got til we're packed..." I nodded; the girls were starting to make noise up the hall and needed their momma to tell 'em it was all right. I started helping Abe with his other shoe.

I finished dressing Abe on automatic while I sorted shit out. At first, there's a lot of 'What if?' shit goin' on in my head; then I looked up at my reflection in the mirror on the wall, and shit kinda came crashing down... 'Keisha! There you stand in an old yellow cotton print nightgown that's just about see-through, it's been washed so many times, and looks like a circus tent, a pair of pink granny panties that probly got holes in 'em, and flip-flops, with your hair all pinned up under a red bandana -- an' you're gonna go in there an' make some ol' white dude pant after your hot body so bad he'll lose alla his common sense an' promise to take your ol' fat mama an' three juvenile delinquent brothers, too? Good fuckin' luck!' Shit, I looked like a hippo in one'a them ballerina costumes... Dude was gonna laugh his ass off! I wasn't goin' nowhere... I helped Abe down off his bed and took his hand and we headed out to the living room to get it the fuck over with...

They was two of 'em in the living room -- and old guy with one of those queer beards and a young dude in a brush cut, maybe eight, ten years older than me. Shit. Tara said nice things about the dude, but let's face it, she was thirty something... I hoped the old dude didn't have a really nasty, wrinkled, scrawny-looking dick -- that would suck... So I say to the old guy, "Tara says..."

"That would be me," the younger dude busts in. I stop and take another look at him and I wonder, 'Is this better? The old guy might have been desperate... Shit, now I'm REALLY fucked!' And then I realize that I'm standing there looking stupid, scratching between my tits -- could shit get any worse?

"Fuck." I look away. "This is Abe."

"Hey, Abe." Abe don't say shit, of course. There is a pause, then the guy says, "Tara tells me Abe prefers to have you around."

"Abe don't know no better." I can't even look at the guy, I'm so embarrassed.

"I'm sure he has his reasons," the guy says.

I force myself to look at him. "Look, Mister -- this ain't my Sunday best -- but then..." I shrugged.

"...This isn't Sunday?" the guy finished. "I'm a purist -- my women generally wear less."

"Like what? A brown paper bag?" Was he nuts? "Y'all are probably waitin' to see if I moo!" I've got udders, ya know? The size of fuckin' cantaloupes! And I'm fifteen! Can you IMAGINE how big they're gonna get the first time I get pregnant? I don't HAVE to -- I've seen Mama's...

Dude looks at me and says, "You produce milk?"

"Well, not yet..." I couldn't make heads or tails of that.

"So show me."

"Why bother? Ain't you seen enough?"

"I don't know yet. Besides, I'm not really looking at that. Anyway, I got my beauty queens in the first round."

"Huh?" I was totally lost. Tara said I was gonna have to fuck this guy and make babies. Looks didn't count?

"Look," he says, "you're here on Tara's recommendation, not because I saw a photo spread on you. Did any of the other women you saw look like beauty pageant contestants?"

"Well..." I hadn't really gotten a good look, but come to think of it... "Tara isn't bad," I defended her.

"Granted," he agreed. "Look, do you want to go? You've got a CAP card, right? Let's see it."

"In my purse. I'll be right back." I shuffled off to where I usually threw my junk in the corner. I generally slept on the couch; Tara's folded out, and it was better than my bed at home.

Abe stayed with me. "What does he want?" he asked as I dug in my purse.

"He wants to know if I want to go with you where you're going, Honey."

"You do, don't you?"

"Yes, Honey, but it isn't that simple."

"It isn't?" Abe looked up at me innocently. I couldn't answer. I collected the card and took his hand and led him back to the man and handed it to him, wordlessly.

The interview with Keisha hadn't gone well, to date -- and it wasn't really clear to me why. Apparently, she thought she needed to be hot-looking. Frankly, I didn't see anything that objectionable; oh, she was roly-poly and she DID have enormous tits. She was clearly overweight, but the nightgown molded to her in ways that said there weren't big, flabby rolls.

Young Abe looked up at me from beside her and I took her CAP card. "What's not simple? Why can't Keisha go?"

"Son, I'm having a hard time with that one myself," I told him. "Keisha seems to think there is a problem. I'm not sure what it is."

"I'm not your son!" Abe flared.

I eyed him for a moment. "Actually, you'd be surprised. Legally, you are. I didn't put you in your momma, but I'm responsible for you, as of a couple of hours ago."

"What?" Abe was too young for all that.

"Let's see how things go, okay?" I told him. "It might help Keisha make a decision if we got along."

"Okay." Clearly, I was going to have to work on fatherhood -- I was still expecting too much of him. He was going to erupt in 'Why?' at some point, but with Keisha's situation in the balance, it probably wouldn't be instantly.

Keisha's CAP card said a lot of good things. The AI helped me dismantle her scores and look at the pieces while pulling those of her immediate family out of the data net. Keisha had genetic issues that made controlling her weight difficult; her mother weighed 350. She had a couple of brothers who were arguably smarter -- but all that seemed to do for them was keep them out of jail, as they were borderline sociopaths. Keisha had a baseline four point four with excellent nurturing skills and a healthy sex drive -- and the good sense to control herself and not let it get her into trouble. The AI's assessment was that when she finally let down her guard there would be a period of near nymphomania that would certainly end in pregnancy, because her drive to motherhood would short-circuit good sense and she would 'forget' birth control. This pattern was apparent in her mother. Well, THAT wouldn't matter where she was going...

Of course, collecting this information meant that I stood there apparently reading the card for a good forty-five seconds while I communed with the AI. "They're not THAT bad..." Keisha complained.

"No, they're not," I agreed. "They're excellent, for my purposes, actually."

That got a frown. "What are them purposes? Tara said..."

"I want you to help raise my kids," I told her. "That would be Tara's kids, and your kids and the kids of my other four concubines. I have two of you pretty much locked into child raising and a third on backup while the others take care of other stuff."

"I ain't got no kids..."

"... Yet." I finished for her. "That brings us to sex." Her CAP card might not be up to date...

"What about it?" We were still sparring; she didn't trust me. Well, why should she? But it was slowing things down...

"Had any?" I asked.

"Not yet."

"That won't last."

I watched her think about it. "Okay." The response was provisional, I could tell.

It was time to get down to brass tacks. Fortunately, Tara came in with a little girl on her hip. Beth was behind her, similarly burdened. "Tara, has young Abe been exposed to much nudity?"

"No."

"Sex?"

"Not unless he came through the bedroom door and we were too busy to catch him."

"That will likely change -- he'll get used to seeing both -- but there is no need to traumatize him tonight. Why don't you take him and the girls somewhere -- maybe out to the van. This isn't the place or time to be doing anything, but I need to see the merchandise; Keisha and I are still negotiating."

Tara frowned. "Why, Master?"

"Why are we still negotiating? Keisha doesn't trust me, apparently -- and she's more concerned than I am over her looks. I like her scores, though."

Tara turned to the girl, "Keisha, Honey, don't be stupid. This is serious."

"Well, that's why I'm worried," Keisha replied.

"Don't be. Master Jack is a nice man."

I saw an opportunity. "Beth, step over here, would you? Frieda?" They did so; the little girl on Beth's hip gazed at me with big eyes. "Girls, don't be offended... Keisha, these two are my concubines. Does it look to you as though I'm overly concerned with looks?"

Keisha took them in for a moment. "Um, no... No offense."

"None taken," Frieda snorted and replied. Beth just blushed. I suspected that Keisha's breasts, although bigger, were better presented without a pushup bustier to support them. I got the impression that the nightgown was mashing them somewhat.

Keisha looked at Tara. "What about..." she flicked a glance at Abe, "it."

"It?" Tara followed a significant flick of the eyes to my crotch. "Oh, 'it'! It's nice, Honey -- VERY nice! Get him to show you. I've, um, taste-tested it..."

"Oh..." It was too much information, I think, Keisha's milk chocolate complexion darkened considerably while taking on some pink highlights.

Tara looked at Beth. "Let's go organize the car seats in the van. Abe? Come along, Baby." Abe took her hand as she swept toward the door. Beth followed.

"We'll be going, too..." Oliver waved at Vera and turned for the door.

"No, stay. I might need a second opinion. Besides, you should get used to looking -- and enjoying it." I flicked a glance at Vera.

"Perhaps." Cued to exercise some control, Oliver beckoned Vera. "Come over here beside me -- and kneel." Frieda, who had not been dismissed, stood by, grinning.

I returned my attention to Keisha. "Okay, now, let's see what's so awful. Please remove your clothes."

So it all came down to this. The guy -- I still didn't have a name, Tara kept calling him Master -- SAID he didn't care a lot about looks -- but I was gonna have to get naked, anyway. And I was gonna have to do it in front of the old guy and the old woman who looked sorta like Beth and that really young chick with the old eyes -- Frieda. THAT bothered me... "Um, how old are you?" I asked her. I mean, the legal age for concubines is fourteen, but what did it say about this guy if he was into really young stuff?

"What? Oh! Don't let looks fool you, Sweetie -- I'm older than you by several years," Frieda replied. "I'm a case of arrested development. And if you're wondering what that means as far as Jack's tastes in women go, don't. I was a package deal with Beth -- sort of like YOU'RE a package deal with Tara!"

"Oh." Damn. I really didn't want the guy -- Jack? -- to get that... Well, it was time I did something. Tara SWORE he was okay -- and she hadn't ever steered me wrong yet... I bit my lip, eyed the crowd, and grabbed the hem of my nightie and dragged it over my head.

Jack didn't say anything -- he just stood there with his head cocked, looking thoughtful. After a minute, he said, "And the panties?"

"Oh. Yeah." I felt kinda stupid. I bent and pushed them down to my knees and stepped out of them. "The flip-flops?"

"No, I can see your feet." He stepped forward, still not giving anything away as far as the look on his face. Eyeing my pussy, he asked, "Do you shave?"

"No, I, uh, just don't grow a lot there." I had a few sparse hairs, but it was mostly puffy pussy...

"Oliver?" He didn't look at the old guy -- he just cocked his head. The old guy came up beside him. Once he was there -- and he'd positioned the woman kneeling beside him so she could see things, Jack reached out toward my left jug and said, "May I? If this goes well, we're going to be a LOT more familiar..."

"Uh, okay..." My heart rate musta been two hundred and my belly fluttered -- and my left nipple crinkled up and stuck out three-quarters of an inch before his hand ever got there to palm my tit. He hefted it and squeezed it gently, then ran a finger down my belly to my mound, and I broke out in goosebumps...

"Spread your legs a bit?" I stood there for a second with my mouth open, then I went ahead and did it -- and he slid a finger alongside my clit and right into my honeypot! My knees got weak and I got wet -- BANG! -- just like that! He didn't poke his finger in, just slid one along my slot, but... I can't describe it! Part of me was like, "What is this? A slave auction?" and part of me was like, "Can we fuck now?"

Then he moved a bit to the side -- with his fingers still between my legs -- and nodded at the old guy, Oliver, who stepped up on my right and felt up THAT tit... And he paws me for a few seconds while Jack rubs me here and there and he's got this funny look on his face.

"Could you bend over please?" Jack pulls his hand out of my crotch and takes a step back. I give him a look, but I do as he asks. "Could you spread your legs a bit more?" Okay... The slave auction side of me is REALLY starting to get worked up when I take a glance at Frieda, and she makes a couple of little motions with her hands and a flick to her right with her eyes. I looked to my right at the woman kneeling there and suddenly I realized that this isn't about me! Well, it is and it isn't; Jack runs a hand down my back and over my ass, grabbing a handful and feeling this and that -- and the old guy, Oliver, does a lot of the same things on the other side, but his attention isn't really on me -- he's trying to watch the kneeling woman out of the corner of his eye! And she's kneeling there, rocking back and forth and looking nervous...

Jack slides a finger down the crack of my ass and I jump a little and my eyes pop, but I don't go anywhere; he's not pressing or anything. Actually, it was kind of pleasant; I didn't realize how sensitive I was there. And Jack's looking me over like livestock and he says "What do you think?"

Oliver palms one of my hanging jugs and says, "Very nice." -- and the woman cringes and I kinda nod to myself, because while they might be fuckin' with my body, they're fuckin' with her head...

Jack steps back and says, "Okay, that's fine. I've been all over it now -- what's so bad?"

Keisha looked at me like I had two heads -- but it really wasn't all that horrible. The girl was fat -- stipulated. She was around five feet five inches and probably weighed a hundred-eighty or two hundred pounds. But twenty of that was in those huge round orbs hanging off her chest; she had stretch marks on the tops and they were down a bit -- but NOTHING that big points straight out naturally! Those globes were DD probably, with nipples as big around and as long as the first joint of my pinky and areolas the size of the bottom of a soda can -- and the sag wasn't serious, by any means. The rest her was thick and padded, but smooth and rounded -- no jiggly rolls -- and she had this shape thing going... You know how little garden gnomes kind of have this thing where everything kind of turns up? Their little clog shoes and the nose -- things like that. The gnomes usually have beards that do it, too -- and it turns up in a kind of curvature in the thicker body shapes. It is difficult to explain, but it turns up in some people -- and Keisha had it. The tips of her toes turned up probably twenty degrees above the horizontal and the tip of her nose did it (and, yeah, it made her a little hog-nosed)-- even her fingers had it a bit, and her nipples sat above the midline of her breasts and pointed up, too. Frankly, I thought it was cute! In ten years or less, without Confederacy medical support she was going to be her mother -- but with it, she could stay like this for decades and multiple pregnancies. All in all, it just wasn't an issue; arguably, she was better looking -- if bigger -- than Beth!

Keisha eyed me sidelong. "You don't see nothin' wrong?"

"You're overweight -- but you carry it well," I told her. "It'll be fine. Now, the clock is about to run out, here -- the kids should be settled in the van and we need to be gone soon. When does your mother expect to see you?"

"Probly tomorrow, when she gets home," Keisha replied. "I usually stay overnight then go on to school on nights Tara works until closing."

"Okay, I promise that if you come with us, you can call her tomorrow evening so she doesn't worry," I told her. "But you need to make up your mind; are you going, or are you staying?"

"Well, can I ask a question first?"

"Shoot."

"When...?"

I was going to say 'When what?' but Frieda filled in the blank. "When are you gonna take her cherry?"

"Oh. That." I rubbed my chin. "Not tonight -- too much is going on. Maybe not tomorrow night, for the same reason. I think this kind of thing ought to be accomplished with due ceremony -- and that being the case, I'll want to set aside an evening to do it right. Soon, though -- the sooner the better."

"Are you sure you wanna?" Keisha asked.

"Oh, yeah! I'd do you here and now, but I think you deserve better!" I replied. "Don't tempt me, though..." I cupped the side of her neck and pulled her to me and pressed a kiss onto her lips -- and waited until hers opened and I could tangle my tongue with hers. I made sure my erection pressed into her hip before I backed off, too. "See? Believe me, I'll have no problem taking you to bed..."

She came up panting a bit. "Okay. I'm goin'."

"Put on the nightgown, then, and head for the van," I directed.

"No panties?"

"No panties," I confirmed. "Unless you're menstruating, I like to have access. None of the others is wearing panties."

"Okay, but..." I could tell by the look that she gave me that she was aware that my patience was wearing thin. "Shouldn't we get more clothes for the kids? Tara was talking about packin' bags..."

Okay, she had me, there. "Get what you think might be necessary for the next couple of days at least. Bottles and stuff, too. Good thinking. Frieda, help her. I'm going out to the van and I'll send Tara in if it won't disrupt things." I headed out.

Behind me, I heard Oliver say, "Let's go, Vera."