Bella remained silent the rest of the trip home. When they got back to their house, Bella went straight to her room. She had held her poise and emotions in the whole trip home and didn't even show them to Agnes and Muriel, not that they would have had any sympathy at all, anyway. Hilda told her to go change into her regular clothes as there was wood to split and bring in for the fireplace.

As soon as Bella got out to the woodpile out of sight where no one inside the house could see her, Bella sat down on the chopping stump and cried her eyes out. She couldn't believe what her own aunt - her father's sister - had made her do. And what she apparently was going to be doing from here on out! Aunt Hilda was making her a whore! She would have to suck and fuck strange men for money and then give it to Mr. Johnson who would split it with Hilda. How would she ever be able to do what they wanted?

The rest of the week went by faster than Bella would have liked. Hilda was just as vile and spiteful as ever and her two daughters were mirror images of her. The three took great pleasure in making her life as miserable as possible, making her do all the work around the house, giving her only enough food to keep her from starving, and treating her worse than you would treat a garbage-raiding raccoon.

But the worst part of the day was the evening after everyone went to bed and Bella laid there on her worn little mattress, realizing that she was one day closer to becoming Mr. Johnson's new whore. Bella cried herself to sleep every night knowing what the future held for her.

Saturday morning came and bright and early Hilda woke Bella. "Get up you lazy tramp! Today's the day you start earning your keep! But before I take you to see Mr. Johnson, you have some work here to do!" she said. Bella rose slowly - her old mattress was hard on her and she always woke stiff and sore until she got moving around.

Bella got dressed in her shabby clothes and got to work making breakfast for the four of them. After they ate, she washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen. She had to clean the bathroom and do the laundry before she went to see Mr. Johnson.

Staying busy all day made the day go by and before she realized it, it was time to get ready to go. "Have you done all your chores here?" Hilda asked her.

"Yes, Aunt Hilda. The kitchen is clean and the laundry is done. I also cleaned the bathroom a little, too," she said.

"Then go in and get ready to go see Mr. Johnson. I put the clothes in the bathroom that you are to wear. Make sure you look presentable - if that is possible for you - because you will probably start working tonight," Hilda said.

Sadly, Bella went into the bathroom to see what she would be wearing and get ready to go. Under other circumstances, she might be excited to see the new clothes she had gotten, but this was not a happy occasion for her. As she entered the bathroom and shut the door, she saw her new outfit. Hanging on a hanger behind the door was a shimmering red mini-dress.

It was made of metallic-look stretch fabric, and it had a scoop neckline that came down low enough to show the tops of her breasts and was cut down to where her back flared out to become her ass. The hemline was so high that it barely covered her pussy at all and the most important, and for Bella most embarrassing feature, was the full-length front zipper! The dress unzipped completely in front! Easy to get out of, but for a shy, bashful girl like Bella it was far too racy and slutty!

Accompanying the mini-dress was a pair of red, strappy, open-toe sandals with six-inch spike heels. Bella noticed that there was no underwear laid out and at first she thought that maybe Aunt Hilda forgot about that, but then realized that with what she was going to be doing, underwear wouldn't be needed and would just be in the way.

The idea brought a tear to her eye, but she quickly wiped it away. Tears were for children and after today, she could no longer think of herself as a little girl anymore. It wasn't the way her mother had described it, but she was going to enter womanhood today one way or another.

Hilda drove Bella over to Mr. Johnson's house and as she did, she instructed Bella on how to behave. "Now Bella I don't know exactly what Mr. Johnson has in store for you, but you had better be respectful, cooperative, and do your best, whatever it is. This is your future young lady - oops - I mean whore. So you'd better become good at it. I want to see some money coming in from you. That damn Eric is taking most of what you will make, so you will just have to work even harder.

"You make damn sure that you make the men happy, whatever it is they want. And make sure you are careful too, I don't need any 'accidents'. I have enough mouths to feed around here as things are. I am trying to get my two beautiful, but spoiled, daughters married off and out of the house, I don't want to have to worry about any new mongrel kids," she said.

"Yes, Aunt Hilda," Bella said softly, looking down at her trembling hands. Despite the way Hilda and the girls treated her, Bella always remained respectful. That was her mother's upbringing - about the only thing of hers Bella had left.

When they arrived at Mr. Johnson's house Hilda let her out of the car and then sped away, headed back home. Bella looked at the house and heaved a heavy sigh. Might as well get this over with. she thought to herself and trudged up the sidewalk to his front door.

"Oh hello, Bella! Mr. Johnson said you would be coming over tonight. He requested that you go in through the back door, though. Please follow me," the girl said. She led Bella around the side of the house. As they walked she introduced herself. By the way, my name is Dorothy. I guess you are going to be the new girl of Mr. Johnson?" she said.

"Yeah," Bella said quietly.

"Well, Bella, don't worry - it really isn't as bad as all that. Mr. Johnson does make sure we are safe and that we are taken care of. He isn't like some of the other "managers" who just use their girls up and toss them out like so much trash when they are of no use anymore. Mr. Johnson takes care of his girls. How long do you think I have been working for him?" Dorothy said.

Bella looked at her. She didn't look much older than her actually. "I don't know… three years?" she guessed.

"Try doubling that and adding one," Dorothy said, "I have been with Mr. Johnson now almost eight years, actually. Eight years come this November."

"Wow," Bella said. "So why are we going around back? I thought I was supposed to go to work tonight."

"Well, Mr. Johnson is throwing a little dinner party. You will be the entertainment. He plans on having an auction with you as the item up for bid. He wants to get the most he can from your virginity and this way he can take bids and let his guests try to outbid each other and drive up the price," Dorothy said.

"All this fuss and bother and it will all be over in a matter of minutes," Bella said, incredulously.

"Yes, but in the meantime, Mr. Johnson will make a bundle of money from it all," Dorothy said.

"How much money am I worth?" Bella asked, just for curiosity's sake.

"Well. I don't know, but some of the people at the party are very rich. They have deep pockets and aren't afraid to throw cash around," she said.

Dorothy led Bella to a bedroom in the back part of the house. "You wait here until I come and get you. Do you want something to drink or something?" Dorothy asked.

"A glass of water would be nice. I am really nervous… and scared," Bella said.

Dorothy left and came back in a couple minutes with a glass of water. "Would you like me to stay with you until you are called?" Dorothy asked.

"Please?" Bella asked. The two girls sat and chatted while they waited for Bella's debut.

After about an hour, Mr. Johnson came into the bedroom where the girls were. "Dorothy, please bring Bella, we are almost ready to begin," he said.

Dorothy…" Bella said scared. She looked at Dorothy with wide, frightened eyes.

"It will be all right, Bella. Remember, Mr. Johnson won't let anything happen to you," she said, patting the young girl's thigh.

Bella walked out timidly into the main room. There she saw several people, men, and women, sitting in a semi-circle, all with costume masks on. The men wore plain black eye masks and the ladies wore feathered pink eye masks.

Bella was placed in front of the semi-circle of bidders and Mr. Johnson began the auction. 

"Ladies and Gentlemen, before you stands a young girl, recently turned seventeen years old, and a virgin. She has not known a man nor a woman. She is ripe for the picking and whoever wins today's auction will have a very special treat indeed. She may be shy and bashful on the outside, but I can assure you, under that facade lies the heart and spirit of a real slut! She will make a wonderful whore and one of you gets to be her very first customer!" Mr. Johnson said.

He turned to Bella, "Remove your clothes and show our guests just what they are bidding on," he said. Bella unzipped her dress slowly until the zipper came apart and the slinky dress fell to the floor behind her. There was a murmur that went through the crowd and Mr. Johnson beamed.

"Now who will start the bidding on this delectable beauty?" he asked.

"Five thousand dollars!" one bidder called out to start the bidding.

"Seven thousand!" another bidder called out.

"Ten thousand!" a woman cried out. The room went quiet for a moment.

"Ten thousand dollars is the bid, do I hear any higher bids for this tender young beauty?" Mr. Johnson asked.

There was some whispering and stirring in the crowd but no one called out any more bids. "Ten thousand dollars going once… then thousand dollars going twice…" Mr. Johnson said. He raised the gavel and then someone called out.

"Hold up one moment!" A man came forward through the audience. He walked forward and up to Bella. She stood there trembling, looking down, not wanting to look at the man studying her. He walked around her eyeing her up and down.

Then he turned to Mr. Johnson. "I will give you one hundred thousand dollars for her, but I own her outright after that. Do I have a deal?" he said.

The crowd erupted in chatter at this. No one had ever bought a person at these auctions - they only paid for the privilege of having sex with them. This was something completely new.

"Let me understand this. You wish to purchase the girl. Not rent her for sex, you want to take her home and own her totally? You are actually buying her?" Mr. Johnson said.

"That is correct. I want to purchase her. To own her completely. Do we have a deal or not?" the man in the mask said.

"This is highly irregular. I will have to make a phone call…" Mr. Johnson said. "Dorothy, can you take her back into the bedroom for a few minutes while I call on this?"

Dorothy took Bella back in the bedroom. "What is going on?" Bella asked.

"I'm not sure. No one has ever bought anyone at these auctions. I don't know what to think!" Dorothy said.

Mr. Johnson called Hilda, "Hilda, we have a situation here. I have a client that has offered one hundred thousand dollars for Bella, but he wants to buy her. Not just take her cherry like we had planned - he wants to own her completely. This is completely out of the ordinary, and I had to call you about it.

"I was thinking that she would probably go for somewhere around five thousand to ten thousand dollars. That is a customary price for a virgin whore. That would give you between fifteen hundred and three thousand for your cut. But if he bought her, you would get thirty thousand for your cut. So I wanted to see what you wanted to do. If you sell her, you will just have to tell people that she is away at your sister's house or something to make up an excuse for her being gone," he said.

"I would get thirty thousand dollars for her… in cash?" Hilda said.

"That's what we agreed on - thirty percent," Mr. Johnson said.

"Sell her! Sell her before this guy changes his mind!" Hilda said without hesitation. "If he is willing to buy her, then I won't have to feed her or clothe her or anything. She won't be any more trouble for me! He is her problem now!" 

Mr. Johnson hung up his cell phone and went back into the bedroom. "Bella, come with me," he said. Bella looked at Dorothy and then followed Mr. Johnson quietly, her head down. Her heart was in her throat… what would happen next? Would she be going with this man, never to see her home again? Was he really going to buy her? What would happen to her? She felt sick to her stomach. Her knees were shaking so hard she could barely stand upright.

"I have just been on the phone with her current caretakers and they have approved the arrangement you have offered. So I guess she is yours," Mr. Johnson said. The crowd stood and gave him a rousing standing ovation at this remarkable event. Bella wasn't so enthusiastic. She cowered and tried to pull away from Mr. Johnson.

"Please Mr. Johnson! Please let me go home! Please!" but it was too late. The money changed hands and Bella was led away by her new owner who put her in the car and drove off, leaving the party early.

Bella's new owner drove for about two hours as Bella sat there pressed as far into the door away from him as she could get. He had locked it from his side, more to keep her from falling out that to keep her from escaping, considering they were driving down the freeway at sixty miles an hour (ninety-six kilometers per hour).

After a couple hours on the freeway, he turned off onto a small two-lane road and drove another thirty minutes until the got to a large house near a small lake. It would have been a very pretty setting had it been under other conditions. But Bella couldn't see anything beautiful about the location she had now become a prisoner of.

The man got out of the car and went around to Bella's side. He opened the car door and pulled her out of the car, taking her by the arm into the house. Once he shut the door, he took her over to the sofa and sat her down. He pulled up a chair and then he removed his mask.

"My name is Mark McConnell, but from now on you will call me Master or Sir. I want to start off by telling you that I do not intend to hurt you in any way. I am not going to beat you or mistreat you here. Something tells me you have had more than your fair share of that already. You are safe with me. Do you understand? I don't expect you to believe me just because I tell you this - I know I will have to prove it to you, and I fully intend to do that.

"Now since we are going to be together I will need to know your name. I am sure you have been called all sorts of things in the past, and not in a nice way. But I want to show you I am not like them so we will start with your name and move from there, okay?" he said.

"M-my name is… Bella," she said.

"Bella… that is a pretty name. Okay then, Bella, let me explain a little bit what has happened to you tonight. The man whose house you were at is a ‘social engineer' - he runs an escort service that puts young women together with men and women willing to pay for their attention. Do you understand? They are sometimes called pimps but that term has such negative connotations that I don't use the term.

"You were the central figure in an auction to sell your virginity to one of the buyers there tonight. We all meet at his house every few months and we bid on some new girl or one of his regulars to see who will get to be with them. I don't attend every one of these auctions, but I happened to come tonight to this one.

"We all come to the house wearing masks we got when we first joined the group. Our names are never spoken and we don't get together outside of the auctions. That way no one knows who is there - all we know is that they are male or female. The only one who knows who has attended is Mr. Johnson, our host.

"Tonight, when I saw you standing up there scared half to death and so… vulnerable… well, I just couldn't allow one of the others to just use you to satisfy their own twisted and lusty desires. So I offered to buy you outright instead of just renting you and having my way with you just to turn you back to that bunch of perverts," he said.

"B-but why? Why would you do that? Spend so much money to buy me?" Bella asked. Mark got up and walked over to the mantle of his fireplace. He brought back a picture of a young woman. She appeared to be around the same age as Bella and very beautiful.

"This is my daughter Jennifer. She was about the same age as you when this picture was taken a few years ago. We lived in Chicago at the time. She got mixed up with a guy - her so-called boyfriend - and he got her hooked on drugs. There were parties and she began sleeping with anyone who could give her her next high. Well, she got hold of some bad stuff and she died. My wife didn't take it to well. She killed herself a couple months later.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Bella said.

"Thank you. Anyway, I just couldn't see you going down the same path. Not with the drugs necessarily, but sleeping around - or being forced to sleep around in your case. I saw my daughter in you tonight and… well, I just think she would want me to help you."
Bella was beginning to feel a little more comfortable with this man, but she still didn't know his plans for her. If he didn't want to put her to work for him, what DID he want from her?

"So… what happens now?" Bella asked.

"Well to be absolutely honest with you Bella, I'm not quite sure. I guess I really didn't think it through that far. I can tell you that I could use some help around the house. I work all day and when I come home I'm often too tired to mess with housework. My place gets the better of me quite often and then I spend my weekend trying to catch up on laundry and cleaning house," he said.

"So I'm to be your housekeeper? Because if so, that's fine - I did all the chores back home as well and even though my aunt didn't think I did them well enough, the house was always clean," Bella said.

"No, that's only part of it. I actually want a… partner, I guess - a companion. Someone to come home to someone to share meals and spend time with. Yes, you will be responsible for household duties while I'm gone at work but after that, I am just looking for someone who I can talk to, watch TV with and, yes, have sex with. A "housekeeper with benefits" kind of thing," he said.

Bella listened to him talk. She wasn't expecting things to be this nice. She wasn't expecting HIM to be so nice. When she first realized she was to be sold, it terrified her. She envisioned some sort of monster taking her kicking and screaming away to do all manner of unspeakably horrible things to her, making her just a sex slave and beating her for every little thing.

But Mark seemed to be a good man. He may have gone about things in a rather unorthodox way, but he seemed to be a genuine man and Bella found herself letting her guard down just a bit.

"Now this will be different than an ordinary relationship because you and I aren't ordinary boyfriend and girlfriend. I am your Master and you are my submissive. Notice I didn't say my slave - slaves are slaves because they have no choice. They have no rights and they have no decisions in what happens to them.

"You, on the other hand, do. Even though I bought you today, I still want you to know you have rights and you can make decisions about what happens to you. I will want your opinions on matters that pertain to us both and I will take those opinions into consideration. As Master, I will have the final word on the matter, but I do want your input," he said.

"Thank you. That's more than I had in my own home. My aunt made all the decisions and I didn't have any choices," Bella said.

"Well, Bella, I want you to be happy here. I believe that when a person is happy with their circumstances, they tend to work harder and are more productive. I use that philosophy in my business as well as my personal life. And I don't see why it wouldn't work in this situation as well.

"I am not a hard, cruel man - I don't believe that beating a person down to get what you want does either party any good. It promotes resentment in the employee which causes them to fight against the supervisor.

"There may come a time when for whatever reason, I need to correct your behavior, but you will always know what you did wrong and why it was wrong before I have to punish you. And my punishments will be graduated things. The first offense will be a talking to, the second might be a little harder, the third harder still - I will never start off with a harsh punishment for a first offense," he said.

"I will try not to misbehave so you don't have to punish me. You just have to tell me what you want. What do you want from me?" she asked.

"Well, I went to the auction tonight to bid on a virgin. I won the bid, so I may as well start by collecting my winnings. Go upstairs and at the top of the stairs, turn right. Down the hallway past the bathroom is the master bedroom. Wait for me there. I will be up in a minute," he said.

Bella looked at him for a moment as if unsure what to do. Should she say something? What should she do?

"Go on, Bella. Go upstairs and get ready. It'll be okay," he repeated his order. Bella turned and went upstairs without thinking, just doing what he told her. She didn't really know what to think anyway. This whole business of being sold like she was property, then being told she was to be his submissive… she wasn't sure what to make of it all. What the heck was a submissive anyway? She'd never heard the term before. All she knew was that she was being told to go upstairs and get ready to have sex with a man she'd only met a couple hours ago.

Bella found the bedroom and went inside. It was a very spacious room taken up mostly by the huge king-sized four-poster bed. There was also a cedar chest under the big window, nightstands on each side of the bed, a dresser and a chest of drawers. There was a lounge chair in one corner of the room as well.

Bella crossed the large room and stood beside the bed. She ran her hand over the thick down comforter and looked at the soft silky sheets. This was a far cry from the old worn mattress that she had been sleeping on for so long. Bella looked at the bed, biting the tip of her index finger coquettishly. The bed looked so comfortable…

"You still aren't in bed?" his voice came from behind her, startling her. Bella whirled around and saw him standing in the doorway.

"Oh! You startled me!" Bella said.

"We are going to have to work on you, young lady. It is ‘You startled me, Master', understand?" he said.

"Yes… Master. I'm sorry," she said. Master… the word felt funny in her mouth, but she would have to get used to saying it.

"Now get out of that dress and into the bed. I will be right back," Mark said.

"Yes, Master," she said and as he left the room, Bella started getting undressed. Mark didn't seem to be too bad so far. He smiled a lot and that made Bella feel better. He spoke in a soft, but firm tone instead of the screeching and yelling that she had left at home.
Bella got into the bed and sank down into the soft mattress.

It felt so wonderful! She lay there almost melting into the bed stroking the soft blankets and enjoying the luxurious feeling of pure sweet comfort. Her old mattress had never felt this good, even after a hard day of housework. She was so enraptured about being in this amazing bed that she had forgotten why she was in the bed - that is until Mark came back into the room.

"Enjoying the bed are we?" he asked with a big grin.

"Oh yes, Master… it's so much nicer than my old mattress," Bella said.

"That's good, I want you to be comfortable when you sleep at night," he said.

"You mean…. I will be sleeping here? With you?" Bella said.

"Of course you will, where did you expect to be sleeping?" he asked.

"Well, at home… I had a mattress on the floor by the fireplace. My aunt sold all my other furniture and things. She said I just slept there so I didn't need anything but the mattress, and she sold my things to support me," Bella said.

"I am so sorry you have had it so hard Bella. But I can promise you that things will be different here. I will expect things from you, yes, but you will never be mistreated under my roof. I will take good care of you, Bella, do you understand? You are my submissive, not my slave," he said.

"Thank you, Master," Bella said, managing a small smile.

"Now just to prove that you are safe and that you have some say in what happens to you we are going to establish a safeword for you," he said.

"A safeword, Master? What's that?" Bella asked.

"A safeword is a word that you keep in reserve whenever we are together like this. If things get too intense for you or you are scared or hurting, you can say your safeword and whatever we are doing at that moment comes to an immediate stop. Then we talk about what was going on and why you felt you had to use your safeword so we can adjust things going forward. Do you understand?" he asked.

"So if you are doing something that hurts me or scares me I just say this safeword and you will stop?" she asked.

"Yes, absolutely. And I won't think bad of you for doing it either. This word is for your protection Bella. I can't feel what you are feeling so I use this safeword to let me know it's getting to be too much for you," he explained.

"Thank you, Master."

"However, Bella, I am trusting you not to use your safeword unless you absolutely have to. I don't want you to use it to get out of doing something I ask of you or to avoid a punishment. Should I learn that you have been calling it unnecessarily, you will be punished in such a way you don't have to worry about your safeword - understand?" he warned.

Bella looked at his stern face. "I promise, Master!" she said.

"Good. Now did you have a cat or dog back home?" he asked.

"No, Master. We couldn't afford to have a pet. It was hard enough just feeding my parents and me," she said.

"I see. Well what was your mother's name?" he asked.

"Eleanor, Master."

"Eleanor, it is then. That will be your safeword. A word you won't normally call out accidentally. That will work fine. So what is your safeword?" he asked.

"Eleanor, Master."

"Good. I will be asking you that often until I know you have it memorized and it's second nature to you," he said. "Now that we have that out of the way…"

Mark crawled up into bed next to Bella. Bella lay there on the bed, frozen except for her trembling, she didn't want to move a muscle. She lay there naked, as Mark's strong hands roamed up and down her body. His hand stroked her thigh and then moved along her side and up over her taunt, quivering belly and up towards her heaving breasts.

So this was to be her first time? Her mother had told her to wait for her special man, but that dream had long since faded away. She was property now, and her owner was about to use her for the first time.