"Glad you could make it," said Crompton, through his oiliest smile.

"Gives you a chance to see downtown Littleton, though like I said, I would have been happy to deliver her to you - I know you have a busy schedule. Shame you can't stay longer, I could have given you the grand tour - I've lived here all my life, know it like the back of my hand. And I reckon I must own about a third of town by now," he added with just a hint of boastfulness.

He ushered the sharply-dressed man into the shop, closing the door behind him, before bolting it and pulling down the 'Closed' blind.

"I don't make a big thing of it. Most folk know I run the pawn shop, clearly, but I've done well with my Daddy's inheritance and they'd be surprised to know most of the real estate along Main Street is mine too. Best to keep a low profile, don't you think?"

The visitor smiled indulgently, folding his Raybans and tucking them into the breast pocket of his $400 linen jacket.

Crompton was fawning embarrassingly, but the stranger could put up with the odious, obese, little man a while longer. He was looking forward to collecting his latest purchase and the anticipation was teasingly arousing in its own right. He could bear the man's drivel, for now at least.

He sat on the proffered chair and accepted the can of chilled soda. Outside was a steamy evening. The girl would sure sweat in the heat of the trunk.

"I know we've discussed the transaction at length on the phone, but I'm curious, Mr Crompton," drawled the older man, "how you are in a position to offer her for sale. As a collector, I am always interested in the provenance of any new item."

This guy is pure class, thought Crompton: it gave his ego a boost to think he was now in business with such a man. So much better than grubbing around with the folk round here, trying to make a buck here and there.

"Well, Sir, it's a long story but I'll cut it short, because I know you have a long drive ahead of you and you'll be wanting to be on your way soon."

The visitor nodded graciously.

He was already thinking that he would almost certainly have to take a detour on the way, to play with her. He knew a place that would do just fine, not too far off the Interstate; somewhere remote and quiet where the sound of a thirteen-year-old girl experiencing her first decent whipping would not be overheard. He sipped his drink, warming to the idea of making her first chastisement al fresco, by moonlight. She deserved it after all: keeping him waiting like this. He had sent the kit by FedEx last week, and it was typically amateurish that neither she nor Crompton had had the nous to try it out first. So here he was, sitting in the middle of this grubby backwaters pawn shop, listening to this awful man, whilst presumably out back or upstairs, the little cunt was struggling to put it all on as per his careful written instructions.

So be it. She would simply have to suffer more later.

He focussed on Crompton, who was waiting for his visitor's full attention before he resumed speaking.

"Her mother pawned her," said Crompton, pleased to see the man's eyebrow raise.

"I've known the woman for years; we went to the same school. Trailer trash through and through. Married and divorced twice, had a daughter each time, couple o' months after the wedding, if you get my drift. Well, even her latest guy walked out on her a year or so back and she's been struggling to make ends meet ever since. Lived in a cramped apartment above the hardware store two blocks down.

"She was a drinker. And a gambler. I know all this because I have majority share in both bars in town and I, er, have been know to run a discreet book."

The out-of-towner gave the expected grin of admiration at Crompton's widespread commercial activities.

"The book and the pawnshop are complementary businesses," smirked Crompton. "One way or another I take the suckers to the cleaners. Actually not strictly true - I also own the laundry two doors down!"

Both men laughed.

The visitor almost felt sorry for the fat, old man - it was all very well being king of the heap in a nothing place like this, but he doubted Crompton's property empire would be worth even the cheapest condo in his own development.

"Well, a year or so back, the girl's mother came to me saying she couldn't meet her rent payment. She gave me all the crap about her old man not sending alimony and after some haggling I let her, er, pay me in kind."

Crompton leered and his visitor felt pity for the unknown woman, having to pay off her debt with such a creep.

"Least I could do - she's still the right side of thirty and has kept her figure. And very obliging...

"Anyhow, that became kind of a regular thing but then she hit the bottle again and she's only got some lousy job stacking shelves and she was into me for over a grand. So she comes in here one day, kids in tow, clutching all kinds of shit, hoping to pawn it and pay off some of the money. I take her out back and she's giving me a quick blowjob while I think about it and I look through the one-way mirror from the office and I see her older daughter and I think she's a foxy little kid. Like her mother but without the years of booze and stress and stretch marks."

That's certainly true, thought the man, recalling his first impression of the girl: tight little ass, long legs, streaky blonde curls and lips that would look great around a cock. He was so looking forward to seeing her in the flesh.

Crompton was still talking. Both men seemed to be thinking the same evil thoughts.

"I filled the bitch's mouth but all the time I was watching the girl and thinking how much better her's would be.

"So I let the mother off a few hundred but it got me thinking and so when she came back the next month, bleating about how her landlord (guess who?) had hiked her rent and how she was desperate and couldn't pay me squat, I listened and then I suggested right there and then, that she pawned the girl. OK so she took some persuading but you can't raise two kids on three bucks an hour and a few foodstamps, not when you can't leave the sauce alone, can ya?"

The visitor tried to picture the scene.

"So what happened? Did she leave the girl with you?" It seemed implausible.

"Nah. I mean that would take some explaining, in a town like this. No, what I did was agree to let the kid work here in the store after class, sweeping up or whatever and then after I closed up, I'd take her upstairs and let her pose for a few photos. I'd taken in a fancy new digital camera and it seemed like everything was fitting together. Afterwards, I'd drop her off at Mom's on my way home."

"And the kid went along with this?"

"Not at first. Her mother had to plead with the bitch, but frankly if it's a choice between being thrown out on the street or taking your top off for half an hour, there ain't much to discuss. I let Mom sit there the first time and I just did some shots in her underwear and a few topless to end off. Next time I got her posing properly. The results of which you know of course!"

The man from the city nodded in agreement. By circuitous means, he had come into possession of some of Crompton's pictures and made some enquiries and then after he obtained a home video of the girl, he knew he wanted to have her. That was all a few weeks back and after some cautious and protracted haggling, he had made Crompton an offer he couldn't refuse.

The visitor asked another question.

"She looks nervous in the movies. What else did you do to her?"

"Nothing much," declared Crompton, holding his arms out to express his honesty. "I won't say it didn't cross my mind to, but I never fucked her or anything. Just got her to pull my dick or give me a suck. She's not that good, to be honest, compared to Mom anyway."

"I'm sure she just needs some concentrated training. I'll enjoy that," grinned the younger man.

The floorboards above their heads creaked.

Crompton said, "Sounds like she's on her way. I took at look at that stuff you sent - I hope it fits."

"Well it was designed around the measurements you took off her. Doesn't matter if it's a little tight. Changing the subject for a moment, I'm still a bit unclear about her Mom?"

"Ah, that's easy. I called in a favour or two to get them sorted but the legal papers are in order. When Mom got sentenced to two years upstate, she appointed me legal guardian. So if I chose to let her come stay with you, it's my call. I'll tell her the girl ran away."

The visitor was still not entirely convinced although he was confident enough to accept the majority of the story - he had checked through contacts that the woman was now indeed serving time for a range of petty offences; as to whether she was genuinely guilty or had been cruelly set up, he did not wish to speculate. In the backwoods, justice was easily manipulated by the powerful, even second-raters like this guy.

Maybe sensing scepticism, Crompton felt the need to expand.

"Since we made our deal, Sir, the kid's just lived in the room over the shop. And school thinks she's gone to live with relatives in Michigan.

"And as for Mom," he added, lowering his voice conspiratorially, "last I heard some bull dyke had got her started on smack. I wouldn't be surprised if she'll gets so fucked up in jail that she won't even remember her own kids."

The bead curtain behind the counter rattled and parted and at last, the visitor could see his 'mail order' purchase. He sat back in the hard chair and crossed his leg over his knee, studying the girl. Crompton stepped behind her and ushered her into the middle of the shop, to stand in front of the man, taking from her a small cardboard box and placing it next to the till.

She was holding her hands coyly in front of her chest and he seized her arms and pulled them down to her sides.

"Stand up straight for the gentleman," he muttered in her ear.

The girl was everything he had hoped for. Sixty inches tall, skinny as a rake, with spindly limbs and pale, melancholy complexion. Her long light hair was down, but needed a good brush, giving her the look of a waif. Her eyes, which only briefly flicked up to meet his, were sad and clear, greenish-blue, and would look great when filled with fresh tears, he thought. She wore the dress he had sent: a plain white cotton one, slightly waisted over her narrow hips, the buttoned front barely troubled by her almost non-existent bust. The hem reached demurely to her knees, and the collar, trimmed with a simple edging of white lace, was tall, reaching almost up to her proud, firm chin. Her arms were bare, and he noted the faintest blonde down on her skin. Her fingers were so delicate, despite the bitten nails. She was altogether so superbly small and frail and sexy.

His guts were tight and his cock hard.

"Mr Crompton?" prompted the man from the city, tilting his head, his eyes indicating the front of the shop.

"Oh yeah, sorry," he replied and hurried outside, where he lowered the metal shutter over the window. When he returned, bolting the door behind him, the other man had finished unbuttoning the front of the dress, down to her waist. He pulled her closer and opened it, examining her chest and stomach. He smiled: so far, she had made a good job of wearing the gear he had supplied.

He reached up, peeling the shoulders away and letting them fall down her arms. His eyes roved over her breasts and he unconsciously licked his lower lip. Then he took hold of the bunched material and helped it over her hips and down her thighs, letting it pool about her feet. She wore the short white bob socks and patent shoes he had included in the parcel.

The man sat back again, to take in the full effect.

She had been surprised then shocked by the outfit, yet more so when she read his detailed instructions and had peered inside the small box and handled the other items that had come in the package. It had appalled her to have to put it on, adding to the dread and fear she already had, since Crompton had explained he was sending her away for a while, 'to stay with a friend'. The only thing that had made it better had been that Crompton wasn't there to watch her do it. Greasy old man Crompton, with his cameras and sweaty fingers and disgusting dick that she had to wank and put her mouth around. At least he wasn't there when she stepped into the leather and tried to figure out how it fastened up.

Or when she prepared the other things. She could not believe what she was doing.

Both men were ogling her.

Though she had scrubbed herself in the tub, as she had been told, she felt hot and dirty, to be standing there like that, having some strange man taking off her clothes. He hadn't even said hello.

The supple leather accentuated her slimness, and against the backdrop of her smooth white skin, its sharply defined, rich and polished brown lustre proclaimed so starkly its domination of her little body. The custom-made ensemble comprised two main components, respectively shaped approximately like a strapless bra and a sculpted waistbelt, and joined by two thin straps running vertically down her sides. The top part left her shoulders bare, and instead of two cups, there were rings of leather, with apertures approximately five inches in diameter, through which the shallow, fleshy mounds of her immature young breasts protruded. The perimeter of the apertures were laced although her tits were still too small and flat for the increased constriction to have much effect: on a bustier girl, they would have thrust the breasts out and forward.

She had made an attempt to attach the nipple clamps: intricate silver representations of book presses with pair of screw threads linking the two tiny beams, but one was crooked and the other had slipped off altogether and was hanging from beneath her breast on the small silver chain attached to the leather strapping.

Around her tiniest of waists was the arched belt, shaped very much like a traditional suspender belt, with straps hanging vertically down front and back, though instead of supporting stockings, these were clipped to a pair of one-inch wide loops of leather buckled around the very tops of her thin yet muscular thighs, buckle outwards. Her crotch was therefore exposed, and the visitor from the state capital lingered, enjoying for the first time the beauty of her pubic mound, lightly dusted at the sides and top with the finest blonde wisps, and blushing with the faintest pink. Her crack was so crisply defined, the inner labia neatly concealed and the slender roll of her clitoral hood sat magnificently between the fleshy outer lips.

He frowned at her and she looked up sharply as he spoke to her, those big green eyes pained and fearful.

"You omitted the labial clips and your nipple clamps are a disgrace. Are you just stupid or naturally disobedient?"

The girl's lower lip quivered. Beyond it, he glimpsed the whiteness of her even adult teeth, almost too big for her mouth. His cock was aching inside his pants.

She tried to reply but he cut her off before she had uttered a syllable.

"Come here!" he ordered and she stepped closer. He reached up and stroked her bare nipple. Warm, soft and thick - large in relation to her tiny tits, with a cone of dusky aureole puffing proud of the firm breast. He lifted the dangling clamp and applied it, turning the thumbscrews expertly, his eyes boring into hers, pausing only when they narrowed in pain and she gasped. He straightened and tightened the other, until she again winced. The sound of her discomfort was music, sheer music.

"Next time, do it properly."

He looked down to her groin, framed so excitingly by the strapping, so that it seemed as if she were pushing out her girlish pubis at him in temptation.

"Move your legs apart," he instructed, quietly and firmly, but the authority in his voice had a cold undertone that made her give a shudder.

"Why did you leave these off?" he asked, holding one of the thin straps between his fingers. Attached at right-angles to each of the front 'suspenders' were two thin, quarter-inch straps, adjustable, on the end of each was a rubber-coated pair of sprung jaws, somewhat like clothes pegs, but in miniature. When passed across the front of her body, they lined up with her cunny.

"I er, they would hurt..." she spluttered in her thin, breathy voice.

"What?" boomed the man. "Of course they would fucking hurt, you dumb little cunt! They're supposed to hurt. Everything I'm going to do to you is supposed to hurt! From now on, your whole stupid little life will be one long hurt, except when you're asleep or I'm fucking your cute little ass!"

The girl stumbled slightly, surprised by the outburst, stunned by what the words meant. What was happening? Who was this man and why was he saying this? Mom had said that though Crompton was a sleazeball, he would at least look after her. She had said Crompton was trying to get her out of the state prison and into an open farm, where the other women, the bad ones, wouldn't be able to beat her up. So she had been nice to Crompton, for Mom's sake, like Mom had asked her. She had done what he said, done those dirty things and even put on this awful costume like he had told her.

So what was going on? Why were they doing this and why was the new man so horrible?

He was very different. Younger, sharper, educated. From the city. But he was so cold, the way he looked at her. And the things he was now saying? Surely she didn't really have to go away with him? And he said he was going to hurt her and... Please, Crompton? Mom?

"Stand still!" barked the man, and she tried to, was too frightened not to, though she could feel herself shaking.

She chewed her lip at the touch of the man's fingers down below, brushing her most private and sensitive parts, but she willed herself to remain rigid, put up with his roughness, for she quite correctly sensed that he was not a man to cross. She had no doubt that he really would hurt her if she disobeyed him. But despite herself, she gave a squeak of pain when the first clip sank over the delicate edge of her outer labia. And another three times, she fought to suppress a cry.

Yet she could not hold back the tears that formed hotly and ran silently over her sculpted cheeks and dripped from her jaw.

Tears that underlined her hopelessness. Mom wasn't here any more. There was no-one to look after her. Nobody to stop nasty men in silk shirts putting clips on her pussy and sliding the straps tight until her lips gaped and splayed and her glossy pink insides were revealed.

She did not dare move, frightened that the clips would pull, even tear, if she shifted her legs.

Helpless, alone. She was terrified.

She glanced around at Crompton. He was standing there, the fat slob, sweating and staring at her pussy. He caught her looking at him and scuttled off, embarrassed, behind the shop counter. He leaned hard against it and supporting his head in his hands, resumed his pervy eyeballing.

"Step over the dress and walk around," ordered the man, indicating a vague circle with his finger.

Lips quivering but still not daring to question him, she obeyed, gingerly lifting her foot and very carefully, unsteadily, and keeping her feet together, she began to walk around the shop, about the man's chair. He watched her every move, slyly chuckling at her nervousness. The clips flexed and tugged at her labia as she walked.

"Stop!" he cried, when she was facing away from him. He merely wanted to enjoy her great little butt, hard and deeply dimpled to the sides. It would be so great to spank it later, maybe as a prelude to using one of the whips he had in the car.

"Legs apart! Now bend over at the waist. More... OK hold it there!"

Silhouetted between her legs, her cunt looked fantastic - her inner lips had yet to grow and he liked the childish form she still had down there. He could see the wrinkled aperture of her anus. Such pleasures he looked forward to when he got her back to his place. The playroom over the garage was ready and waiting.

"Stand up. Arms above your head - reach up and touch the ceiling. Come on, you lazy cunt, up on your tippy toes!"

Even across the room, he could hear her wince as the clips strained and bit into her soft labia. He made her maintain the pose for a full three minutes, until her body was so taut and shaking and her whimpers so pathetic that he thought he might not be able to resist having her there and then. Crompton sprawled over the counter, almost drooling, grinding his hips against it.

The girl's new master bade her complete a couple more circuits and then told her to stand before him again.

"Fetch the box," he commanded. She brought it from the counter. Crompton licked his lips as he watched her; droplets of sweat had broken out on his forehead.

She handed the visitor the box. As he opened the lid, he tapped the inside of her ankles with his crocodile skin boot.

"Wider."

The extra strap was an inch wide and about eighteen inches long, narrowing into a thin thong for the length that would sit between the cheeks of her ass. One end had a spring clip, which attached to a loop in the centre rear of her belt. Then, once the strap was pulled up between her legs, the other end had a buckle so that it could be pulled tight when passed through the corresponding loop in the belt, beneath her belly button. But it was much more than a simple crotch strap. Along its length, on the side which was to make contact with her body, were small press studs.

These in themselves would prove irritating and uncomfortable, chafing the tender flesh of her intimate regions, but their principal purpose was to allow the attachment of small accessories, that were now revealed in the mans lap, arranged in a cloth roll like sockets for a wrench.

He was a patriot and would have preferred US-made goods, but sadly these devious little devices were only available to order from the Far East.

He struggled to maintain his air of sophisticated cool. No way did he want the country hick Crompton to see how nervous he was. He was the dude, the sharp operator from the city, humoring the slimeball only until he had taken delivery. No way would he let on quite how amazing this moment was. This girl wasn't the first and he doubted she'd be his last, but she was the only one he could call his own, who would be his live-in toy and his slave and satisfy his every craving; the first underage girl he would fuck, who wasn't being charged out by the hour or shared with some sleazy uncle and who had to be handed back afterwards.

This one truly belonged to him.

He willed his fingers to behave. Crompton was still bent over the counter, red in the face, presumably incredulous at what he was witnessing. The visitor blessed him with a patronising smirk and removed the first item from the tool roll. Bet this old fart from the ass-end of nowhere had never seen anything like this, he thought to himself - let's give him a show.

The process was very much trial and error.

He had to stand up to do it and once he had attached the strap behind the girl, he made her put her foot up on the chair, so that he could pass it beneath her and test the length, then memorise the appropriate studs.

The ones that corresponded to her clit and her vagina and her anus: the ones to which the little toys had to be attached.

Touching her, being so close to her like this, after so long lusting over her electronic image - it was incredible.

Shit, he had looked forward so much to this moment, as he studied again and again the girl's pictures and Crompton's home movies of her, and he counted down the time when he could drive down to this nowhere town and hand over the envelope of bills and take her away.

He really had hit the jackpot, finding this kid. And this guy was more than happy to part with her, for a relatively modest payment. In fact by the standards of his lifestyle as a successful investment consultant, the sum was inconsequential. Seemed almost a pity to take advantage of these unimaginative country folk!

He applied a small coating of KY to the first accessory he had snapped on to the strap - a little cock-shaped butt plug, no more than and inch long and half across - just enough to let her know it was there. For her cunt, he had a small ball, like a marble, mounted on a very short, flexible, nylon stalk rising from the male half of the press stud. Again, it would sit just inside her without any problem, even if (as he hoped and expected, from Crompton's claim), that she was still virgo intacto. For her clitoris, there was a strange Y-shaped rubber sucker, which was affixed in the inverted position beneath the flap of her clitoral hood. It was intended to amplify and pass on every movement of the strap, as it pressed against her: subtle yet over time, quite infuriating to the wearer, the advertising shit said in broken Japlish.

Bending close, and smelling her intimate warmth, he eased the plug and ball into her unwilling holes and kept the pressure on the strap as he fingered the lubricated sucker into place astride her clitoral hood and passed the end of the strap up through the second loop.

The young girl was so tense, he thought she might snap. She winced and sucked and grimaced throughout his ministrations. Better get fucking used to it, he thought.

But finally, there it all was: even better than he had dared hope. One trussed little fucker, standing uneasily in front of him, cunt and ass and tits all suitably under his control. Awesome! An hour or two sweating in the trunk of the Lexus, bouncing around with that shit in and on her, and she would almost be begging him to take her out and whip her. And then when he got her home...

"Go and show Mr Crompton," he told the girl, spinning her around by her hips and patting her tight young buttock as she wobbled over to the counter. She walked so stiffly, trying to keep her thighs pressed together and her back straight, so as not to tension the tight strap between her labia and buttocks, nor put any more pressure on the hideous things he had slid inside her. Inside her! How much worse was this ever going to get, she thought. As she approached Crompton, he looked up at her, heavy-lidded and red faced. His hand was beneath the counter and she was sure he shuddered and sighed as he looked her up and down. He was playing with himself under there, he concluded. He was a disgusting pig, but she wasn't scared of him. Not like this new man.

He was different. She could not read him like she could the fat man who was friends with Mom. The shopkeeper was not a nice man but did give her a place to stay, and fed her, which was OK, if you ignored the dirty stuff she had to do sometimes.

She was even contemplating begging Crompton not to let the man do anything more, to plead with him not to let the man from the city take her away. But the fat man's eyes seemed glazed and distracted and he quickly looked away and then the stranger summoned her back.

"Put your dress on, pick up that bundle and wait by the door. We shall be leaving shortly."

He wiped his brow with a silk handkerchief. There was no sign that Crompton was going to come out from behind the counter to see him off. Dumb country oaf! The greaseball seemed to get off watching though - maybe he'd send him a picture or two later: show him how it was done when you had a bit of class.

Putting on the dress was a nightmare. She tried to step into it, but the thing in her ass hurt when she bent down, so she tried to lift it up over her head and she immediately doubled up when it felt like her pussy was being ripped apart by the clips and that ball thing inside her. Whatever she did, her body seemed to be invaded and tugged and squeezed.

The man was watching, scowling. With a massive effort, she stretched and managed to haul the dress over her head and around her neck, but the pinches and throbbing in her privates kept on and on, all the time she was finding the arm holes, and even when she was only reaching up to fasten the buttons. And when the dress closed over her chest, the clamps bit around her already swollen nipples. Nothing would stop the pain all over her body.

She had so many questions. And worries. And she hurt. Already she really hurt, and he had hardly touched her.

Too late. Mom, what should she do? She was so frightened, even more so now that the man had made her wear that terrible thing under her dress and put these things in her private parts. She began to cry, silently, watching the man who was about to take her away and...? She did not know what would happen then, but she felt very, very sick.

He put the chair to one side and walked over to Crompton, as it was obvious that the ignorant bumpkin wasn't going to come round and see him to the door. Good job he did not treat his own clients so discourteously after concluding business in his city office. Still - he had done the deal, paid the balance and was ready to take away the goods. And if he had gotten a bargain, that was his own good fortune and the man from Hicksville's loss.

He proffered his hand and the pawnbroker seemed to wipe his own beneath the counter before shaking it.

"Pleasure doing business with you, Mr Crompton," he grinned.

The older man smiled back, wiping the away a bead of sweat from his temple with the back of his hand.

The visitor was about to leave when he paused and turned back towards the counter.

"One more thing I meant to ask. What happened to the other daughter?"

Crompton's porky face broke into a wide, sweaty grin.

"Come around," he said, lifting the flap of the counter.

His visitor indulged him again. He was anxious to take off with the girl, but another minute wouldn't matter and he had asked the question after all. He was not prepared for what he found, on the far side of the counter. Or rather, beneath it.

He made a double take as Crompton stood aside, beaming at his guest's amazement.

It took a moment to understand what he was seeing. In the dim void beneath the counter itself, he identified a pair of round, bright yet red-rimmed, eyes, which stared up curiously at him. They were set in a small, open face, pale-skinned, and when he looked close, he could see the telltale drool of cum still running down her chin from the corner of her small, open mouth. Strands of semen clung to her tongue and front teeth. She was panting. Her cheeks were bright and shiny, her forehead, part-covered by a mass of blonde curls, was wet with perspiration.

The visitor ducked down.

The little girl, no more than nine or ten, was naked. Her arms were fastened to a horizontal bar a foot beneath the counter top, by old leather belts tied around her upper and lower arms. This kept her head forward but a tall leather collar, perhaps four inches wide and set with ornamental studs, prevented her from lowering her chin. With her arms held out away from her body, it meant she was kept in a squatting position and to assist her, a length of wood had been pushed down between her thighs, to keep them wide apart.

When he stooped further, taking in the simple beauty of her pretty young snatch, he saw the brush. He frowned, then traced along the metal bar attached to it, ending with the old sewing machine treadle directly beneath the till. Examining the scrubbing brush further, he discerned how the upturned bristles had been carefully cut to shape, and with growing admiration, he realised why, for the small child's labia and crotch were sizzling pink, pock-marked with dozens of tiny red indentations, where she had been multiply impaled. Crompton placed his foot lightly on the pedal and the bar moved about its fulcrum. The brush lifted and nestled over her spread groin, dozens of stiff spikes pressing up against the tenderest parts of her body.

Her eyes watered as the man watched, her mouth fell open and she shivered and her eyes screwed tight shut, but she refused to let herself cry out. Training? Fear? The man from the city could not tell.

But now he had not just the answer to his question but an explanation of the pawnbroker's curious behaviour behind the counter.

He was fascinated. Kneeling, he put his hand on the girl, cupping her flat little tits and when Crompton released the treadle and the bristles lowered, he felt compelled to lay his fingers over her burning, moist little pussy. Like her big sister, the little girl cried silently, her face torn between pain and despair.

The girl's vagina was sticky with mucus, though he decided not to explore his finger inside without Crompton's permission. Though he smeared it between her labia, his expression now one of amused excitement at the girl's hopeless submission to his touch.

He offered his fingers to her and without bidding; she licked and sucked her own juice from them.

"Jeez, Mr Crompton, let me apologise," said the man from the city, standing up and drying his hand on his silk handkerchief. "I misjudged you, sir."

The overweight man beamed, though his triumph was undermined when he realised his zipper was still down and he hastily fumbled to rectify it.

"We may not be too fancy or sophisticated out here," he replied, "but we know a bit about cultivation and this little chickadee is ripening just fine. I'm not getting any younger but she'll serve me well right up until the time when even the little blue pills can't work their magic.

"She fits under there just fine and when custom is slow, she's just what I need. A little pressure on the gas pedal and she runs as sweet as my Dodge."

Crompton put his fingers in the sides of his mouth and gave a shrill whistle.

Almost immediately there was the sound of pattering feet on the stairs behind the shop and when the bead curtain rattled open, two small girls appeared, one leading the other on a dog leash.

They were both around the same age as the girl tied beneath the counter - around ten - and like her, almost entirely naked. They scuttled to Crompton's side, each kneeling and putting their arm protectively around his leg, like a pair of well-trained hunting dogs coming to heel. They stared curiosity at the stranger, glancing up occasionally at the fat pawnbroker, as if to seek his approval.

The girl wearing the collar and leash was thin as a beanpole, her ribs prominent and her stomach hard and toned. Her long black hair was unkempt and her lively dark eyes sparkled with mischief. A small, sparse fan of pubic hair already topped her prominent pussy mound. The other was shorter, black, with a short-cropped mass of curls. She was in the midst of a puppy fat stage, her breasts already fleshing out though still lacking definition, and before she knelt beside Crompton, the visitor just noticed the telltale dull red stripes of a recent beating across her dusky, fleshy little ass. The girls exchanged glances and giggled.

Crompton laid a proprietorial hand on each young head. The black girl looked up as if to ask something. She tugged the cuff of his shirtsleeve and he nodded in reply.

"It's incredible what people will pawn if they're desperate enough. And out here it's real easy for some little folk to drop right off the radar."

He stroked his fingers through the little girls' hair.

Staring with incredulity, his guest was transfixed when the cute latino leaned across Crompton's legs and placed a gentle, quite tender kiss on her companion's eager lips. The girls' mouths softened and pressed together, tongues flicking. The girls paused for breath, beaming adoringly at each other, and resumed, oblivious to their audience.

"A little investment for my future - as you can see, I have my own modest portfolio, but it meets my needs. This time next year, I'll be comfortably settled in to my retirement place down South, with these little beauties to keep me amused. Thanks to you, Sir, my mortgage on it is now history!"

The visitor pulled his lips into a tight grin of admiration. He shook his head.

"Mr Crompton - you are one Hell of a dealer! The very best of luck to you, sir."

He was still shaking his head when he led his new purchase by the hand, out to the waiting Lexus.