Read Owned And Owner for Free Online

Those eyes looked electric, in a motionless face, lightning behind basalt cliffs. His face was almost at the same level as mine, despite the height of the platform. Once our eyes touched he seemed to pull me into him. I was caught and snared by the male energy he focused on me. In spite of the bonds stretching me so tightly, I almost felt I would be pulled across the platform to him. His eyes held me as he signaled his bids.
    Suddenly I felt the chain slacken and I was pulled away. The bidding had ended. He was gone, I couldn’t see him. Had he bought me? Who had bought me, was it him? I felt frantic, helpless, an animal owned but unsure of its owner.
     
    Home
     
    Garid’s hands moved automatically on the controls of his aircar . He was traveling northwest over the ocean, the two huge islands that were his home region just beyond the horizon. The sun was glittering on the waves below, the afternoon sky its most perfect turquoise. But Garid was oblivious. It was a good thing the autopilot did most of the work of avoiding other vehicles…
    His mind moved through the last few hours. He had been early for the auction, and for a while had talked to the other men who were there for the same purpose. There were a few friends among them, met through a network that was pleasant and supportive, except at times like these. He’d known that the competition would be intense, but knew he could handle it. His last few projects had put him beyond the fear of running out of money.
    His friend Therin had greeted him with a wry look, which Garid understood very well. They had known they would be in contention, though of course this wouldn’t interfere with their bids.
    ‘I haven’t seen you on the net,’ Therin had said.
    ‘Busy realizing my assets.’
    ‘Bugger.’ Therin, a wiry young man with a mop of brown curls and a wicked eye, had sat next to Garid and flicked him a glance, both friendly and sardonic.
    Garid looked away with a half smile. ‘There’s Donshod .’
    ‘Do you think he’d share her if he got her? Unlike you?’ In their intense, sometimes obsessive conversations, Garid had expressed some ambivalence about letting anyone else use his hypothetical possession.
    ‘I think he’d show a new vid of her nightly so he could lecture us on how to use women.’
    Therin snickered. ‘Do you ever wonder why he left Algomet 7 if he had so many women there?’ Naturally the group was more off-world aware than most of Henth’s population.
    ‘Maybe we could find out. Then we could blackmail him into going back.’
    ‘At least back to Algomet 8.’ This was a mining planet they had heard of for male convicts; both the men snorted at the vision of elegant Donshod in a prison uniform.
    ‘To be fair, didn’t he find that binder that makes them so small in the waist? He’s not bad at that kind of research.’
    ‘What, corsets? No, one of the owners has been using them on his woman for years. Donshod just wanted us to think he’d discovered it.’
    They had discussed where to have such equipment made, talking as if both of them would be woman owners by the end of the day. But Garid was restless, and had gotten up to see if he could have a look at the real woman, not just the catalogue holo . Although the vendors knew of the special interest in the woman pet, they tended to be casual about displaying their actual merchandise. A few animals had been visible through the doorway into the back area, but she had not been among them. Garid paced. The beauty of the holo had been enough to convince him, had convincing been necessary. He forced himself to stand quietly while the dogs, vraags and agexts were auctioned. He could not make himself sit down.
    At last the woman had been brought into view. The auctioneer was surprisingly salacious in his handling of her; he knew his audience, the sly bugger. She had been a small fleshy jewel of excitement up on that platform. As he piloted his aircar , Garid could see the rounded naked