Sold Away 1

I can see my reflection in the unbreakable, sliding glass over my pen. My hair is short and shags over my ears in amber colored waves. I look up from my cramped, light blue cell as the two men approach. I could hear their voices and footsteps, but when the glass panel slid back I can barely see their faces in the dim light from the factory bulbs. My eyes are weak from years of poor lighting. One of them I recognize as the foreman. I know his voice because he came around sometimes to check us out. I'm sure he won't know me from any of my brothers and sisters though. Especially not me. I was in the last part of the mill, the Epsilon section. I'd been too sick or ugly or something to be raised for sale at 16, so I was kept for something else. He usually doesn't pay much attention to section Epsilon, unless someone was producing obviously unhealthy fetuses. Those girls disappeared pretty quick. But this time he is stopping by my cell. He and the other man slide open the glass panel top and peer in at me.

"Don't be afraid." He said as he reached in. I flinch as his hands grope over me. "It's a girl." He says, relieved. "I told you I'd find you one, Caden. Take her, she's yours. Free of charge. Probably the last one in the place."

"No." The other man says coldly. He is taller than the foreman, younger and leaner. When he rests his hands against the glass I see long, golden-brown fingers and cleanly trimmed nails. He has an expensive watch on his wrist, and a thin, snake-like dragon circles his other arm. His hair also is golden brown and frames an austere, handsome face. His eyes are pale in his dusky complexion and bluish...I think.

"I told you I was only here to oversee the closing of dad's mill. I don't want any of your pitiful, abandoned products."

"Aw come on now, don't talk like that." The foreman wheedled in a friendly tone. "Look at her, she's cute, small and won't give you any trouble. You'll like her."

"All I see is a skinny, half starved creature almost too young to sell and barely covered in that sack you call a gown, with hair growing back from being shaved. Probably because of lice." That was actually exactly why I'd been shaved. "Sell her to one of those hunger campaign orgs, with those huge eyes they'll make a fortune."

"Classic blue ones just like our company was famous for. The hair, it'll grow back. She's old enough."

"In this light you can't tell WHAT color they are. I said I don't want her."

There was a moment of silence. The foreman sighed. "And I didn't want to do this." He said. "It's such a waste." I saw him withdraw a syringe from his satchel, stick it in a clear tube and draw the liquid out.

"What are you doing?" The younger man asked sharply.

"You don't want her, we don't want her and she's the last one left. A few legalities make it so we can't sell her, of course we'd have to put her down." I fixed my eyes on the blurred faces above me, realizing they were the last things I'd ever see in my short, rotten life. 'Goodbye concrete world.' I thought. 'I wish I could say I'd miss you.' The foreman's meaty hand reached down and grabbed my arm, wrapping his fingers all the way around it.

"No, wait." The young man said quickly. "I changed my mind. I'll take her."

The syringe withdrew from my cell and the foreman chuckled. "Sure. There's some paperwork you'll have to fill out but it'll just take a second. I'll have Damien deliver her to your address." I watched as he put the syringe back in his black bag and clapped a hand on my new owner's shoulder. "You'll like her," he repeated, "She's not inbred, not like some of those other ones."
***
His house was beautiful and spacious. Polished wood reflected sunlight from vast windows and I looked around in wonder at the luxuriously furnished rooms. I would have felt overexposed and self-conscious if I'd given myself time to think about it, but it there was so much to see! The furniture was all mod and artistic, just like I'd seen watching makeover shows on the cramped screen in the mill's entertainment room. I couldn't believe I was here. I'd never been in a place like this. Light blue concrete, flashing lights and two-way glass had been my life up to this point. There was so much sunlight! I could actually see the features of his face as he stood in the middle of the room and appraised me coolly.

He was richer than the average customer, with his tasteful black and silver clothes and leather sandals. He didn't wear flashing earrings like so many of the pimps who came to buy us, and he didn't have any tattoos on his face like some of the middle class men who wandered in, looking for a discount wife. His eyes were summer blue on the verge of green and they showed up clearly on his warm brown skin. He had high cheekbones and a straight nose, strongly marked brown eyebrows, a defined chin and a mouth that seemed stern and decisive. He looked intelligent and strong, and I felt shy under his cool gaze.

He nodded, as if he liked what he saw. I stood in front of the butler whom he had sent me with to take a shower, wearing the white dress he'd gotten in the short time between the transaction and my arrival. My skin glowed from the cleanser and for once there was no dirt under my nails. The cool floor felt good under my bare feet. The butler hadn't actually done anything because I'd gripped his wrist when he began to remove my factory gown and told him I would do it myself. I'd known too many perverted handlers not to know that sometimes you needed a strong look and sharp tone. Sometimes a stronger personality was enough to get them to back off.

He seemed surprised to hear me speak, and especially at the sharp, clear quality of my voice. He'd shrugged, programmed the shower and told me I had two minutes to undress and toss the clothes in the hamper droid before the water came on. Then he'd left. After the little white automated box disappeared into the wall I'd stood there, bare, and gloried in the shower. I'd never taken a shower alone before, usually I was crowded in with kids of both genders being sprayed and scrubbed by rusty machinery with their graying shower bristles. The feeling of showering alone was indescribable. After I'd been scrubbed and shampooed, rinsed, dried and lotioned by automated hands I found the dress lying in the empty outer dressing room. The undergarments were alien to me, but I'd seen enough Victoria Secret commercials to guess and dressed myself. As I slipped on the dress, miraculously my size, I glanced up and caught my three reflections in a triple-angled mirror, watching.

I saw large eyes, more gray-brown than blue, staring back at me in a peaked, white face more used to an ultraviolet lamp than the sun. The eyes trailed down a slender neck, bare shoulders, a thin body, long arms and legs and rested on translucent skin. I had never seen myself before, except the dingy reflections in glass or stainless steel doors. Fascinated, I advanced and the apparition advanced as well. I placed cautious fingertips against the glass and stared at her face. Faint freckles spattered across a straight, thin nose, flecked the pale pink lips and spread over the soft, fleshy cheeks of an early adolescent. As I looked at this girl with the close cropped hair wearing the only piece of clothing she'd ever owned that fit, I whispered; "We're going to be friends."

She blinked. She didn't seem to believe me.

"Of all the people who have ever let you down." I said, my breath ghosting onto the glass and misting it, "I never will." I promised. I marveled to hear my sharp, clear voice coming from her lips. It didn't seem to fit her. There was a polite tap and I turned to see the butler enter the dressing room.

"Master Caden wishes to see you." He had led me out for my new master's inspection.

Caden's lips twitched, quirking one side of his mouth up into something between a smirk and a grin. "You look good." He told me. "Now let's see what my father thinks." He nodded to the butler who slid around me and went to a richly polished door. He opened it and I glimpsed the sitting room beyond.

"Sir, your son wishes to see you and inform you he has purchased a wife."

"WHAT?!"

Wife. The word rang in my ears. I'd heard some of the other girls talk about what it meant to be someone's wife. Things your owners could do to you once your papers were put in their hands. I forced my brain to push these thoughts aside as a man entered the room and I looked up into his bitterly disappointed face.

"When you said you'd acquired a wife I didn't expect a twelve-year-old boy." He said; his deep voice rife with discouragement. Tall and broad shouldered like his son, Caden's father had the same blue eyes, a hard face etched with lines he hadn't opted to remove and gray streaks he hadn't dyed. His hair was black, unlike Caden's. Like his son he surveyed me with those cold eyes, and found me wanting. "What is this, Caden? What are you doing, fooling around with this creature?" He spoke with the authoritative impatience of a man used to getting his way.

Caden crossed the floor to my side and laid a hand on my shoulder. "How can you say that about your new-daughter-in-law?" He asked with a hint of mockery. "You always encouraged me to buy a wife.....telling me that was the way to go in terms of breeding. Especially since girls have been scarce for the last sixty years." He stood a full foot taller than I, and my head didn't even come up to his shoulder. Then again, at my yearly checkup the doctor had said due to my mother's height, I might grow another few inches. My mother. A familiar pain washed over me, inside me, and I again shoved it aside to focus on what was going on.

"I meant..."

"I know what you meant." The hint of mockery was gone, replaced by something else. Old, deep seated anger. "You meant one of those sleek, blonde women from a more established warehouse, with a pedigree and accomplishments pouring out of her ass and you're wondering what I'm doing with this scrawny brat."

"There was a reason that mill was shut down, son. Anything from that factory has had no training or education whatsoever, or at least a very poor one. You know they dumped the girls they didn't want from the other facilities there, right? She'll embarrass you in front of your friends, make you a laughingstock in social circles and be an amusement to your business colleagues." He stepped forward, encouraging him to throw me away. "Caden," he pleaded, "she's not the mate for you. You're certainly not going to have an enjoyable homelife or healthy offspring with that one."

"Aw dad, have more faith." He placed a finger under my chin and turned my head to face him. "We'll make good ones, won't we?" He asked. I shivered. "Besides. Even the best looking couple can't always have perfect children, can they dad?" He asked, his tone turning from mock playful to bitter.

"I've never regretted you, son." His dad said quietly. "What do you see in her? She isn't beautiful, she probably isn't genetically engineered to be good at math or science like you were so you can't put her to work, and the factory she came from didn't even engineer their women to be good at social and domestic needs, they were just raised for basic pleasure! What are you going to do with that pathetic waif?"

Caden's mouth twitched again. "I'll think of something."

His father gave an impatient sigh. "Have you even named her yet?" Alarm shot through me, making all my nerves tingle like an electric shock. I would have to speak now, to tell them. I felt my heart pumping with adrenaline.

"Her docket says section Epsilon group #5." Caden said sarcastically, "...but..."

"Carlita." I said, my voice ringing clearly across the room. "My name is Carlita."
***
I was supposed to be too young to remember her when they separated me from my mother, but I did remember. Soft hands touching my face and a vibrant, husky voice, "Te amo, Carlita." I would not allow them to take that memory away. I would not be renamed. Like the butler, they both looked startled to hear my strong, sure voice carrying across the room. I thought of the girl in the dressing room and was glad I spoke up for her. That voice wasn't her. That voice was me.

"Carlita? What a quaint and ancient name. I don't think I've ever heard it except in books." I watched warily as surprise was replaced by amusement on the father's face. "Caden, you just might have gotten more than you bargained for on that one. For once." He spoke to me directly now, as if my voice had turned me from furniture to human. "My son is a very direct and calculating individual. He knows what he wants and he gets it. Though, I don't think he's ever wanted something like you before."

The fact that he was beginning to see me as a person and not a thing emboldened me. "He knows a good thing when he sees it." I lied.

The guy chuckled. "I may have been wrong about you. You might be good for him, Carlita. My name is Elan."

I ate dinner with them and to my mortification found I didn't know how to use any of the utensils. They had raised me to be bred again and not bothered to teach me any of the things the other girls were taught. I ate tentatively with my fingers. I heard Elan chuckle and the butler snort.

"You've got a lot of things to teach her." Elan said. "How to use silverware."

"Among other things." Caden said, his blue-green eyes meeting mine. I looked away. After dinner I sat and listened as he and his dad talked about news, politics, business, all things I didn't understand. Then, after his dad left Caden drew me upstairs. I'd heard Elan talk to him in low tones before leaving, glancing occasionally at me. "Maybe you should... probably not used to...just be gentle okay?..." My palms began to sweat the way they did when the older girls would tell me I had one year left. They told me a lot of things about when you turn sixteen.

'It doesn't matter.' I thought desperately. 'No matter what he does to me at least it's just one person and he's not whoring me out!' But then he showed his father out, shut the door, locked the house down and turned to me and I was afraid.

"He liked you. Come on honey," He said with that smug look on his face again, "Time to go to bed." He walked away, knowing I would rather follow him than be left alone in the darkening house. He held the elevator door open and said, "Master bedroom." The doors closed and I found myself staring at the girl again, a wan and frightened reflection next to a sturdy, strong-looking Caden. I licked my lips and she did too. How was I going to stand up for her with a man like Caden for an owner? But I'd promised. The elevator went up four floors and then shifted to the right before opening to a huge bedroom.

We stepped out and I took in my surroundings. Directly in front was a sprawling bed with an ornate headboard and dials on the side, far finer than anything I'd ever seen. There was an open walk-in closet, a razor thin computer screen and a glass wall that looked out into the city's upper level. Another slanted glass pane served as the ceiling of Caden's room, but unlike the one over my cage this one allowed you to see out...to the stars. A mechanical whirring sound brought me back and I saw curtains sliding over to cover the glass wall. As soon as it was shut Caden started to undress with his eyes on me and his mouth curved up into a knowing smile. Tawny fingers undid buttons to reveal a lithe torso, warm brown skin and ripped abs. His arms looked taut and muscular, and the danger in his smile made my heart beat faster and my face flush. When he was down to his boxers he gestured to silky pink pajamas folded neatly on one of his elaborate chairs.

"I had Greeley bring up some pajamas if you want to undress." I looked from them to the sumptuous bed. I wanted so badly to crawl in. I was exhausted and after years of a simple pallet that fit regulations and nothing else, I was dying to know how a real bed felt. But, as much as I hated to admit it, I was afraid of what he would do to me once I crawled in with him. Caden was a large man, capable of much crushing and hurt.

I shook my head. "I don't want to sleep with you." There, girl-in-the-mirror. I spoke up for you.

"It's either the bed with me or the floor, Carly." He said. The floor was cool and hard under my feet, and I didn't want to sleep on it with that bed there, taunting me. I sighed walked over to the pajamas, laid them on the floor to use as a pillow. Caden sat down on the edge of the bed and coaxed.

"Come on Carly, you don't want to sleep down there."

"It's Carlita, not Carly. That's my name. Don't dress it up or try to make it sound cuter." I said, and was surprised at how harshly my voice came out.

"I didn't expect such an authoritative voice from such a little girl. It kind of turns me on." He said. I flushed. I didn't like being teased.

"That's why they decided to make me a breeder." I told him. "Besides not being pretty enough to sell, I was too loud and they said I sounded too arrogant for people to want me." In section Epsilon no one would hear me. They didn't have to worry about potential buyers being scared off by the bruises I got when they disciplined me. "I learned to be very, very quiet, but never to be meek like they wanted." As I was telling him this I realized I didn't feel as shy of him anymore. I still didn't want to crawl in bed with him, but the uncomfortable feeling coupled with the awkwardness of my situation had disappeared somewhere along the way.

"Well whatever sleep on the floor then." He flipped his long legs up onto the bed, covered himself in those soft blankets and sighed contentedly. I saw a long, tan arm slide over the side of the bed to a knob. He twisted it slowly as I stretched out on the floor. The room began to cool. As it grew colder I stubbornly shivered, teeth gritted as goose bumps rose on my flesh. I didn't have a blanket, but then I hadn't had one in the facility I'd come from either. They used heat lamps that only sometimes worked. To distract my mind from the dropping temperature, I rolled onto my back. The black, star-studded sky reached over me, a little dim from light pollution, but there nonetheless. Caden's house was on the upper level of the city, the middle and lower levels had lights but the rich people's houses were above it all. I had never seen the stars before, except on shows, and I was fascinated. Still, the glass sheet between them and I disturbed me. After the thrill of being out was gone, would I just find myself in a larger cage? With a new handler? I realized I still wasn't free.

I watched Caden's hand still, his arm go lax and his eyes close in sleep. His breathing evened and deepened. When I was sure he was asleep, I crawled over to the bed and touched the knob to turn the heat up. A strong hand came down like a vice on my arm and I was yanked up onto the bed. I landed on a warm, naked body and he rolled over on top of me. I squealed as the full weight of his body came down on top of mine.

"I'm not going to hurt you." He whispered. He rolled over again so I was on top and kissed me. It was my first kiss and surprisingly, I liked it. His mouth was warm, soft, wet and somehow urgent. The girls hadn't told me this was how it would be; maybe they'd never been kissed like this. His mouth moved from mine over my soft, peppered cheeks and down my jaw. But when he began parting my dress I stiffened. Caden paused and his lips touched my face gently before he plunked me down beside him, between him and the wall.

"I took you out of pity." He told me as he stared up at the night sky. "I usually don't ever make whimsical decisions like this and I didn't really want you, but I couldn't help it. When you stared up at us with those huge hunted eyes and I knew you knew death was coming, I just couldn't bring myself to leave you there, to be killed and thrown out like trash. Your eyes would have haunted me in my sleep." He turned on his side so that his body was aligned with mine. He was so close, so near. A tight, constricted feeling grew in my chest and I found myself fighting for breath. "You may throw a wrench in my plans, but that's okay." He said softly. "I'll work around that." His hands began again to roam. Though I'd adopted an attitude in the mill to discourage wandering hands, I had known that when my time would come I wouldn't have a choice. That was what I was there for. Yet now I did have one, even though I was with a man more powerful than any of my handlers. Somehow I knew he would listen to me, if I asked right.

"Caden?" I breathed.

"Mmh?" He continued to explore my body's terrain. I had to ask now.

"I-I need some time. Can we do this tomorrow?" He paused and I waited breathlessly for an answer. Would he be disappointed, mad? Would he ignore me because he could?

He laughed, told me I was cute. "It's a good thing you didn't undress in front of me earlier, or else I wouldn't be able to wait." He informed me. Then he sighed, withdrew his hands and propped himself up on an elbow. "I didn't want you for a wife when I accepted the spousal papers. I thought I'd keep you as a pet anyway, but somehow I don't want that anymore either." His hands reached up to enclose my face and I shut my eyes, feeling their warmth as he kissed me again. "So when you come to me, it'll be when you want to. When you decide to."

"Thanks." I murmured, relieved and exhausted. As I dozed off I had another thought. If Caden hadn't chanced to see me in that mill, the foreman would have shut my eyes forever with that syringe. I would have died, and Caden would still be sleeping here in this bed just as peacefully as if nothing had happened.