Taquork Market: A Gift for the General
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B. Chase
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23
Chapter 1
Book 1: A Gift for the General
AVA
As I slowly wake up, I fight off the last vestiges of my most common stress dream: planning my parents’ funeral. In the dream, the planning never ends, with decision after decision to be made. In reality, it’s been done and over for two years.
There is a curious bite of cold in the air. Did my heater break? Wait…isn’t it June?
My hands feel like they weigh a hundred pounds each as I fumble to pull my covers up. My seeking fingers find nothing but my bare skin and a concrete floor underneath me where my bed should be.
Not only that, but my whole body is stiff and sore. The movements of my muscles are slow and stilted, and I can’t force my eyes to open.
A dull ache throbs in my head, and there’s a bitter medicinal taste on my tongue. I panic, but my body is sluggish to respond as fear runs rampant through my mind.
I’m naked except for a pair of small shorts. My back is prickling with goosebumps where it presses against the floor, and my loose hair tickles my breasts where it drapes over my shoulders.
What the fuck?
I struggle to remember last night, but my thoughts are foggy.
Suddenly, whatever is giving me the worst sleep paralysis wears off all at once. My eyes snap open.
Lying on my back, I see bars above me. The light in the room is dim. I let out a small shriek, realizing I’m in a cage.
“Shhh!” a voice beside me whispers. “They want us quiet at night.”
Oh god, was I trafficked by the cartel? Am I in a warehouse in a foreign country?
I roll over onto my side and crouch, clutching one arm against my bare chest. In a cage, inches to my right, crouches another woman.
But she’s a fucking cat.
I muffle another shriek under my free hand.
Decidedly feminine, she’s covered from head to toe in a layer of very light-gray fur. She watches me carefully, almost protectively, her tail swishing behind her.
She places one finger over her lips. Her sharp teeth barely peek out from under her darker gray lips. “Shhh. You will stay quiet, yes?” she whispers and drops her finger.
I nod frantically, dropping my hands. Fuck showing my tits, there are clearly more pressing issues at hand.
“You are in the flesh market of Taquork and will be sold,” she tells me bluntly, her strange, yellow eyes meeting mine with a flash of sympathy. “You were stolen from your planet. You and four other humans arrived two days ago.”
I frantically look around the room, my mind reeling at seeing nothing but cages. A sleeping body is huddled in almost every one. The few bodies I can see look like animals in the darkness with additional tails, like my neighbor, and even some fins.
I hyperventilate and fight to get my breathing under control.
“Breathe,” she whispers. “What is your name?”
“Ava Mathews.” I gasp, fighting to breathe evenly. “I’m not on Earth anymore? You aren’t human? How are you speaking English!?” I whisper-ask her stupidly.
My obviously not-human cage neighbor gives me a wide and amused smile, which only emphasizes her sharp fangs. “No, I’m Plurian. My name is Kiri.”
She raises a slightly clawed finger and taps behind one of her furry ears. I copy her motion and find a tender spot at my hairline.
“Translator chip,” she explains. Watching her speak, the movement of her mouth doesn’t quite match her words. “Standard issue for all slaves.”
“Slaves? I’m a slave? In space?” More stupid questions, Ava, I chide myself. I plop backward onto my butt, crossing my legs and folding my torso over my knees. I bury my hands in my hair. “Oh god, this is so bad.”
“Do not worry,” Kiri assures me softly. “Humans are hard to come by and very prized. You will not be destined to serve in a pleasure house like most here.”
I manage a strangled sound, but I still haven’t moved past the initial shock of “about to be sold in an alien slave market.”
“It will be morning soon,” Kiri whispers.
Suddenly, blinding overhead lights turn on paired with a blaring alarm that echoes around us. Across the room, the biggest, most high-tech pocket door I’ve ever seen opens and what are clearly guards move single file into the room before the door closes behind them.
My knees shake. There is absolutely no question these creatures are aliens. Their bodies are round and squat; their skin is bumpy shades of mottled green and brown. I can only call them “toads.”
They wear identical gray uniforms with large, silver bracelets up one forearm. An overlarge, downturned, and lipless mouth takes up the majority of the creatures’ features. When one lets out a yawn, strands of gloopy mucus stretch across the gape.
In the light, I can easily make out the other cages in the room. The toads have positioned themselves so one is in front of each row of captives. Kiri’s cage is actually in front of me. And while the cages are close together from front to back, there is a wide aisle in between each row.
There are so many cages my heart aches. All the female aliens are dressed only in a pair of black shorts. Just like me.
The toad guards open the first cage in each of their respective rows, pulling out the women inside. The guard at the front of my row removes the first big bracelet from his wrist.
As he fastens the metal piece around the alien woman’s neck, my face flushes with heat at the realization that they are collars.
When he reaches my cage, I swiftly exit before he can grab me. The toad clasps the collar around my throat before moving to the next occupied cage farther down my row. The metal is surprisingly warm against my skin, and there’s a barely perceptible buzzing…like a shock collar.
A few rows over, another human catches my eye, giving me a wide grin and a small wave. Her skin is dark and rich, her body just curves on curves, and as she bounces on her toes, her enormous breasts jiggle.
I barely give a tentative smile back before the door slides open again and our lines move. As she walks away, the cheeks of her rear peek out from the bottom of her shorts. My own pair don’t flatter me nearly as much as they do her.
I follow my line out, careful to stay behind Kiri, but I lose her as soon as we enter the wide hallway. The neat lines dissolve, and bodies push together into one giant clump.
Panic grips me, and I jump when a hand lands on my shoulder. But it’s the human girl who waved at me moments ago.
“Hey,” she breathes out, linking her arm through mine like we’re new best friends. “Glad you’re awake today. They just left you passed out in your cage,” she continues, as we shuffle forward in the crowd.
“I’m Gabby,” she says.
“Ava,” I reply. Ahead, two toad guards hand something out to the front of the group, and then the women disappear around a bend farther down the hall.
We get in line for the most disgusting protein bar I’ve ever seen in my life. It jiggles in the guard’s tongs. The color of rust, it squishes like a mix between a rubber band and dessert gelatin.
I hold my breath and take a tiny bite of one corner. The texture really, really sucks. I quickly chew the mouthful, but really the flavor isn’t so bad. I manage to finish the whole bar before the end of the hall and wipe the residue on my shorts.
“Follow my lead,” Gabby murmurs as our group is ushered into what looks like the largest group shower I’ve ever seen. Drains are spaced evenly in the floor with a shower head above each.
Gabby strips out of her shorts, and I quickly do the same. We add the garments to a growing pile on the floor near us.
It feels weird to just stand here naked. I clasp my hands in front of me, hiding the small triangle of hair between my legs. Then we’re drenched in a rush of lukewarm water that plasters my hair over my eyes. I sputter and swipe it out of my face as water continues to pour over us.
After about thirty seconds, the water shuts off, and I barely catch my breath before a tornado of wind fills the room.
I squawk in astonishment. It’s like I’m standing in a giant hand dryer. My hair batters my face, but it’s quickly drying. As the wind finally dies down, my hair flutters around my shoulders in gentle, dark-brown curls.
“Huh,” is all I can manage.
The toad men enter. Some hand out clean pairs of the small, black shorts, while others gather the scattered piles of dirty ones we left behind.
I dutifully take my pair and pull them on easily. Gabby, however, struggles to pull hers over her wide hips, and her large breasts bounce and jiggle as she shimmies them into place.
One of the toad men next to us makes an obscene gesture, and he mutters something insulting to the guard next to him.
“Then give me a shirt, you Kermit-faced fucker!” Gabby barks at him.
The beady eyes on his amphibian-like face narrow in anger. He gestures at Gabby with a flick of his wrist, and her collar beeps and buzzes with electricity.
I stare at Gabby in horror, waiting for her to cry out in pain.
But she merely gives a small shudder, fastens her shorts, and mutters, “Huh, good to know.”
The toad guard turns away from us, moving toward the open door at the other end of the showers.
“Are you fucking crazy?” I hiss at Gabby as soon as the guard is far enough away.
“Sorry.” She shoots me a small, chagrined smile. “I guess my neighbor was right, they don’t want to damage us.” She shrugs.
“I’m not sure how you managed to hide those enormous balls in those tiny, tiny shorts, but kudos, you’re much braver than I am.”
Gabby just laughs in response, grabbing my shoulders and spinning me toward the open door.
We silently shuffle down another long hall, and I can see light at the end. The air smells different, and I suspect they’re taking us outdoors.
We exit the tunnel into something like a football stadium that’s open to the sky. A tall wall circles us, almost like being in a colosseum pit, and rows of seating rise higher still. Instead of grass, there’s hard-packed, clay-like soil under our bare feet.
My heart stops at the dark patches staining the dirt, and my collar is warm under my fingers.
Right, slaves…
“I think it’s the tits,” says Gabby, steering me toward the far end of the open space.
I glance down at her bouncing chest and frown. They look fine to me.
“What about them?” I ask, looking back up to her face.
“Why we’re so valuable,” she explains. “We’re the only ones who have them.”
My frown deepens as I look at the figures around me, walking slowly or huddled in small groups, and…she’s right.
Some of the aliens around us have small swells, but they look more muscular than fatty, and most sport completely flat chests.
I’ve never considered myself curvy. I’m taller than all of my friends at five-foot-seven, and my barely-C cups look like less on my narrow frame. I’m athletic, which has given me a nice muscular ass that I’ve always thought looked great in jeans. But my hips don’t swell out like Gabby’s.
But as I take in the other prisoners in our group, I realize, compared to them, I look like Marilyn Monroe.
“Well, shit,” I tell Gabby. “If boobs are rare, then they’re not going to know what to do with you.”
“Here’s hoping whoever buys me is so entranced with my tits I can smother them to death in my cleavage before they know what hit them,” Gabby replies, an angry heat behind her words.
I choke out a desperate laugh. This situation is just so ludicrous. I should be more frightened, but I haven’t fully processed what’s happening. I don’t even feel a hint of a nervous breakdown.
The other three humans weave through the groups of women and make their way over to us. They take turns stepping forward to greet me with brief hugs and tight smiles, telling me how worried they were when I wasn’t with them outside yesterday.
I’m touched. It’s like club bathroom comradery on steroids.
Over what seems to be our allotted exercise time, the five of us meander around the arena and get to know each other.
We’re able to talk freely. Only two of our toad guards are patrolling on the stands high above us, and they ignore the din of voices. I guess they only demand silence at night.
In addition to Gabby, who I learn is from New York and works in fashion, there is Jia, a pretty Asian girl from London who had just started a position at a financial firm there.
Luciana is from Colombia and gives Gabby a run for her money in the curves department.
Steph is the most striking of us, in my opinion. She is elf-like in stature, tiny and thin. She has bright-red hair framing her face and vivid green eyes. A dusting of freckles dances over every inch of her fair skin, along with a mottled ring of almost faded purple-and-yellow bruises around her neck.
I try not to stare, but the sight is sobering. She notices, and mumbles that, unlike the rest of us, she was awake on the transport ship. The slavers were terrible. Clearly, not all the aliens treat humans carefully.
They all already compared abduction notes yesterday. My mind now clear, I give them a brief rundown of my own version. I tell them of my apartment back in Seattle that’s close to my college campus, how I was walking home alone after work, saw a bright light, then nothing.
Jia and Luciana nod sadly, while Steph crosses her arms over her chest and hugs them against herself. Gabby wraps a comforting arm around her.
After what feels like only a couple of hours, we’re ordered to line up at the closed entrance to a different tunnel than the one we took from the showers. As I get in line, I quickly bend down and grab a small chunk of the reddish-orange rock from the ground, fisting it in my clenched palm.
“What happens now?” I whisper to Gabby in front of me in line.
“Now it’s time for the aliens to check out the merchandise.”
We are led back through a different set of tunnels and hallways to the cage room. I squeeze hands with each girl briefly as we break off to our designated aisles and wait my turn for the toad guard to remove my collar and lock me in my cage.
The last cage lock clicks closed, and a guard leads in a pair of aliens. The two aliens are much taller than the guard, but slender, their skin a deep shade of green. They are hairless, with huge eyes and small mouths, and no nose that I can see from across the room.
They walk up and down the aisles of cages, occasionally stopping to leer at the prisoner inside and consulting an electronic tablet in their hands. Hands that have only three impossibly long fingers.
When they reach my cage, they stop. They seem male, and their spooky, huge eyes rove over my bare skin. I cover my breasts with my hands.
“Let them see you,” barks the toad guard, rattling the side of my cage with a sharp kick.
